Hero for Hire (11 page)

“What is he?” I asked, nodding toward the silent one.

“My brother,” Eurytos said. “He died when he was but a boy of seventeen, a chattering, singing lad who was my dearest friend. My lady let me bring him back to life, though he doesn’t have so much to say now.”

Suddenly, the lingering aroma from the burnt arrow didn’t smell so bad. I definitely didn’t want him to take his hat off or do anything besides stand there.

“So what’s the message?”

“What?” Eurytos looked up, his hand hesitating above the last symbol.

“You said there was a message?”

“Yes, there is. Listen well for She will not ask you again.”

Behind him, his dead brother opened his mouth and there emerged a voice that seemed to come rumbling from the ground like an earthquake. “This land was opened to her will by her servant, Nausicaa, and is promised to her servant, Eurytos. Leave and hide yourself away in some small corner of the earth. We will not seek you further. Or stay and serve her as we all serve her. She offers you wide dominion, leadership over her deathless armies and eternal life."

The dead jaws creaked shut. They had not moved except to open, forming no words.

Eurytos smiled at me, his own cheerful identity reasserting itself. “Take the advice of an old campaigner like yourself, Eno. Accept this offer. The Dark Lady will keep faith with you, if you keep faith with her. Think of it. General over an army that can never be killed, never be beaten. Look at me. I started out as a sailor, now I will be a king.”

“Why does everyone want to be a king?” I asked. “It’s nothing but kissing smelly babies, smacking the backs of sheep and hogs, and endless paperwork. Sign here, seal there, count this, go to war, make peace, and die at the hand of a son, a wife or a friend. It’s not much of a life to my way of thinking. Better to live and die a shepherd.”

“You lack ambition. I do not. She has given me much power and will give me more. If you refuse her, she will turn to me. I shall not be king of only this island for long. Soon with her will, I unite all of these lands into one force, one power. From Leros, under her midnight standard, I will lead an army of the living and the dead. No one will stand against me. Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and the wild lands of Africa will all be mine.”

You run into people like this from time to time in my line of work.

"Take your share of this power," Eurytos offered. "Do you desire the northern lands? Thrace could be the heart of your empire and onward until the world ends where the pine forests go on forever. No army could withstand yours. Every man you kill is a new recruit when the Dark Lady rules."

"Who is this Dark Lady?" I asked.

"Join us and you will know."

For a moment, I was indeed tempted. Every man thinks in his heart that he could out-general Theseus given half a chance or half an army. I have been witness to enough bad military decisions to know how an army should be run.

For a moment, a vision rose up before my eyes, as real and sharp as a sword. I rode at the head of a vast force, greater than all the soldiers and ships now besieging Troy. Every face, dead-eyed and obedient, turned to me, awaiting my orders. With a sweep of my arm, they drove down upon the white walled cities of the Inner Sea, forcing the weeping hordes to the water's edge. I heard the cries for mercy and laughed with a brutal delight. I could taste the metal of blood on my lips...

I squeezed my eyes tight shut, forcing the image from my mind. Eurytos, in thrall to his bitter Goddess, waited my answer when he could have slain me then and there. I had to cough and spit before I could speak again.

“We both know my part in your plans would last right up until the moment you decided you can’t trust me. Tomorrow? Next week? I don’t like the long-term prospects because there are no long-term prospects. I’m staying independent.”

“You are probably right. You have a nasty moral streak that would undoubtedly cause me nothing but headaches.” He drew one last curved line in the sand. “My Lady said you would not accept so she granted me a new power to show you. Look on and marvel as you die!”

The sand around us began to bubble and to seethe like cursed porridge. Two areas remained calm, the other side of the fire where Eurytos and his silent brother stood, and farther back, where the hyena and boar waited by their fallen comrade. There wasn’t much calmness where I stood but I didn’t dare give up those arrows.

The bubbling subsided for a moment, only to grow more localized. Half a dozen or more mounds rose from the sand, cracking open to spill out colonies of confused ants. They scurried about in black streams, seeking for the danger that had roused them from their endless industry.

Within a few heartbeats, they changed from standard ant size to the size of small dogs, with saw-like and formidable jaws. They made a high-pitched chittering sound, bunching up together, rubbing their antennae. They began to range themselves in serried ranks, as neatly as though they’d trained for years, while Eurytos chuckled.

“My new army!” he declared. “There are thousands upon thousands, Eno. Die without hope, brash fool!”

The power-crazed people I meet in my line of work often say things like that. It’s like a secret code or something. As if you couldn't join the villainy league or be an all-around pain-in-the-butt without the magic words.

The ants were still growing, some already as large as the hyena. I hadn’t planned on fighting an army today, let alone an army that came equipped with natural shining black armor and scimitar-like jaws that could snap a man in two.

Rank by rank, their elongated heads, and each eye as large as a pumpkin, turned toward me. I didn’t have to worry about the ranks in the back. I’d be chopped up into ant-food long before they’d have a chance to reach me.

With a shake of my head for the strangeness of it all, I snatched up three arrows, thrust them into the fire and put them to the string at the same time.

“It’s useless yet see how he fights on! Brave, doomed, absurd Eno!”

“Great, now you’re a bard,” I said, and fired. Not at the approaching ants but over the top of the tunnel. Then I gathered up another three arrows and fired above the curtain of rocks to the left and once more to the right. I only prayed I’d chosen timbers dry enough to burn swiftly all my hope lay in speed.

I turned and ran toward the sea. The giant ants, now as big as the late lion, raced after me, their multiple legs coping with the sand far better than I could. Even above their screeching noises, I could still hear Eurytos’ laughter, echoed by the hyena’s.

I also heard Eurytos when he shouted, “What is that?” as I dove headlong for the sea.

He’d noticed that my hands were scraped and bleeding but hadn’t asked me why. I’d spent the time between killing the snake and arriving in the camp chopping down timbers with my sword, dragging them into interwoven piles and adding stones on top. Stones is perhaps too small a word...most of them were boulders. Finding the liquid fire had been lucky. Otherwise I would have had to shoot out the wedges that held my careful constructions together and I really hadn’t had time for fancy marksmanship once Eurytos had conjured up his latest horror.

The intense fire burned away the dry wood, releasing the boulders. By the time they poured down into the natural fortress of stone, they had collected enough other stones and dirt to be avalanches. Nothing could escape.

I turned over onto my back in the cool water to observe. The few ants that had been close enough to follow me into the water had drowned already. They would have floated if they’d been their natural size but their armor had proved too heavy when scaled up to lion-size.

The rim of rocks above the tunnel had collapsed inward just about where the hyena and boar had been. I felt sorriest for them. They had been beasts, free and without conscience, until Eurytos had turned them into something far worse.

I headed out toward the deeper water to swim around the island until I could reach some place to drag myself out for a rest. I was tired as I thought I could never be. Mostly, though, I was hungry. It had been a long time since my last meal and I’d been busy.

Something brushed my leg under the water. A rogue wave broke over me, sweeping me under. The water was clear, the beautiful blue-green of chrysoprase. Clear enough to show me the giant crab propelling itself toward me, nine sets of pincers at the ready, and one human hand.

Weaponless, literally out of my element, losing my breath from second to second, I broke the surface, gasping. The salt burned my eyes and filled my mouth with brine. The waves slapped at me, like a trainer in the gymnasium trying to rouse a battered boxer. They were not high or fierce but they were relentless.

I had only seconds to realize the hopelessness of my situation. How could I fight a crab, a thing perfectly at home in the water?  Even if Eurytos in this form needed air, which I couldn’t be sure of, I couldn’t out-swim him. Fleeing, therefore, was out.

I inhaled deeply and threw myself back underwater. Diving deep, I evaded his first grab at my arms. With a hard kick, I took my legs out of range and swam under him and up. His hard shell was slick with seaweed but I clutched onto a couple of projections where his shoulders would have been.

A vast fore-claw, bulging with barnacles, snapped a few inches from my face. I threw myself back to the furthest extend of my arms. After a moment, I realized that his crab-arms couldn’t reach his own back.

He realized it too. Turning turtle, he started to dive. I couldn’t hang on, didn’t dare leave the air behind. I kicked for the surface, knowing Eurytos would follow the instant he figured out I was no longer clinging to him.

I had found out one weakness of his, but my own were even more obvious.

I glanced around, pawing the water from my eyes, seeing nothing but waves and sky. There was no way to orient myself. I had no idea where I’d entered the water or even whether I was swimming toward the land or out to sea.

Peering down, I could see my own pale body and, underneath it, a rising darkness. Eurytos had come back.

I dove again. It was a little calmer under the surface, where the waves did not break. In that greenish world, the white parts of Eurytos’ shell gleamed yellow and the hand that was all remaining of his human side looked as dead as his doubly-late brother.

He tried to catch me with it. I dodged, only to be grasped by one of the smaller pincers. He clenched hard, bruising but not cutting, trying to bring up the big claw to dispatch me. All the others flexed and reached, rippling in the water.

The one that held me was the kind you don’t even bother to get the meat from, the reward not being worth the effort. How I wished I had some boiling water now. Even a little melted butter would be a big help.

Using my free hand, I twisted off the small claw, and kicked off against his inner shell. A large claw came up and though it missed its catch, the rough inner side scraped my foot. My red blood bloomed like a flower in the water.

I was so cold, I hardly felt it.

The problem was simple. If I had time and plenty of breath, I could twist off all his claws, rendering him harmless. But, as the fisher folk know, the limbs of crabs grow back. I didn’t want to neutralize him; I wanted to kill him. Nothing else would protect the people of Leros...or me.

My chest was on fire. Even on rising into the air, I couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. Opening my mouth to help my lungs just earned me mouthful of water, making me cough and spit.

He caught me by the ankle. Pulling me down, he began to swim deep. He didn’t want to snip me limb from limb. He wanted to drown me, or drag me off to be another slave to whatever dark force he served.

This was it. I could pound in the general area of his sunken head but I had no force with the weight of the water chaining my limbs. Half-panicked, I clutched at the small scabbard at my side, forgetting that I’d buried my last weapon in the side of the lion, remembering only that once I’d kept a weapon there.

Yet, there was something held in the leather. Small, harder to grasp than a stylus, it pricked my fingers as I drew it out. The fire in my chest was all-consuming now, spreading throughout my body. I could hardly focus on the thing I held between my thumb and fingers.

The harpy feather gleamed like lost mermaid gold in the green light of the underwater world. It had not gone spiky or bedraggled as most feathers will when wet. The form was as crisp as when I’d found it that morning.

And as sharp.

It took what seemed forever for this observation to travel the short frozen distance between my eyes and my mind. Meanwhile, Eurytos was taking me ever deeper.

Almost lazily, I drew the feather across the joint of the claw that held me. It separated from the arm as though they had been but lightly joined together. The claw remain clasped around my ankle.

I began to fight my way back to the surface, battling not only the cold and the weight but my own desire to stop the struggle, to let the fire in my chest rage until I was ashes, to rest.

The sun shone down, making a brilliant cross above my head, showing me the way out. With renewed strength in my heart, it was as if I were climbing up a ladder, not swimming at all.

The painless breath I drew then was the sweetest I had known since my very first.

Unfortunately, it was my last. No sooner had I drawn it into lungs no longer burning, than a great force yanked me down under the water again.

The little bit of damage I’d inflicted hadn’t fazed him. He still had plenty of claws to catch me with and water was still his element. He needed air but not the way I did.

All I had was the feather and desperation. My fingers were numb, wrinkled into insensibility. I couldn’t even be sure I still held the feather.

But I wanted another of those painless breaths. I wanted it so much I attacked madly, without thought or plan. I did not fight now for Leros or the king or my own anger. I fought for breath and breath alone.

I slashed at the chitinous underbelly, slicing through that thin but tough membrane as if it were silk. Even through the water, I could hear Eurytos scream. I dug my hands into the opening and wrenched it wide, splitting him in half with a jerk that seemed to tear my own muscles from my body.

The water clouded with his fluids. I broke the shell with a snap. Without a second glance at my destroyed enemy, I pushed one last time for the air above.

I exploded upwards half my own length. Gasping, choking, strangling, I fell back, floating upon the surface of the waves like flotsam from a wrecked ship. I let the sea have its way with me, washing me wherever it would. I had no thoughts and hardly any sensation left.

Even when the long gray shapes swam so near that they brushed against me, I could not rouse my thoughts. Even the triangular fin on the back could not awaken me to a sense of danger.

* * *

Sand gritted between my teeth and I found myself spitting it out before I was even aware I was awake. A dream-echo lingered in my mind. Someone had been laughing. I looked around for the crone. I thought it had been her in my dream, thought the laughter had been that of a young girl.

There were gulls crying and wheeling overhead. Perhaps I’d heard them and the sound had carried over into my dreams.

I sat up, feeling the back of my head. It was hot from the sun, but otherwise as hard as ever. My hands, though, were cramped. The cuts were white bands of stickiness, soon to be more scars.

I found myself below the tidemark on a beach where the white sand lay in a sweep as pure and unmarked as a length of new linen. The sea danced with a swirl of foam a dozen yards away but I was not tempted to dive in to rinse off the sand crusting on my body.

The breeze blowing in from the sea felt clean on my nakedness. My clothes must have either come off in the fight or while I’d been tumbling around in the surf. I was glad not to remember landing here, though, judging by my relatively unscratched skin, it had been an easy landing.

Beyond the shallows, a large object broke through the surface, landing with a splash. I jumped up, tensing, unsure for the moment whether Eurytos’ defeat had been part of my dream or real. Or had he been reborn yet again by the will of his dread mistress?

The dark grey dolphin powered up again, did a flip, followed by half a dozen others, shadowing his every move. Their seeming joy in the very act of being, their playfulness, reassured me that nothing vile was about to emerge from the water. They clicked and sang, performing for me or for themselves alone.

Had they brought me to shore?  The Minoans have lots of legends about swimmers saved by dolphins. Down at the docks in Knossos, they sell souvenirs of one god or another riding around on their backs. They can’t keep the ones of Aphrodite in stock. Not only does she protect sailors from shipwreck, she’s depicted in the moment of her birth, fully-grown and naked, being brought to shore by two dolphins.

I wished I could recall if they had saved me. It would be something to tell my grandchildren about, now that it looked as if I might actually live long enough to have some. For a few moments there, grappling with the giant crab, I hadn’t been sure.

I drew in several deep, fully conscious breaths. I was alive.

“Of course you are, you silly man.”

Spinning around, instinctively crouching, I scanned the beach as far as the trees. I was alone. The light, lilting female voice must have been in my head. Yet it had sounded close. It had sounded like the laughter that had awakened me.

Suddenly this quiet sunlit stretch of beach seemed less pleasant. It was too open. I wanted to get out of the eye of the sun before it baked my head any more.

It was a long walk in bare feet to the small village near the summit of the island, made all the longer by my searching high and low for the harpy. Why had she done so much and then left me to face Eurytos? She’d carried the snake’s head for me, dropped it off at the most distracting moment, and then she’d gone. I had not heard her since.

I looked at the tops of the trees, even whistling and making other enticing noises as if I were trying to call a dog. All I found were lizards and some birds who startled me far more than I scared them.

The sun was setting, turning the sky to flame, before I’d reached the village. The sight of the yellow lights in the windows was like a vision of home.

I knocked on the first door I saw. In the back of my mind, I’d been hoping to see Omphale again though I knew it was foolish to think I’d pick her house out of the seven or eight that made up the little community.

A quavering voice called out. “Who’s there?”

“My name’s Eno. I work for the king.”

“Eno?”

There came the sound of a wooden latch squeaking open. A shadow fell toward me as I stood in the thin strip of light shed through the tiny width that he’d opened the door. “Hmmmm....”

The door opened wider. An old man stood there, bent down with years or the weight of a truly remarkable beard. Thick and white, it flowed from his chin to his wide belt like the tail of a horse. He peered at me. “You did say Eno? Eno the Thracian?”

“Yes, venerable sir.”

He pursed his lips and frowned at me as if trying to bring me into focus. For a moment, he looked like a petulant baby and I was reminded of the boy Pacci.

“I never expected to see you. You were given up for lost,” he said. “No one knew what had become of you.”

My heart faltered. I didn’t want to believe the wild idea that occurred to me. How long had I been washing around in the sea? Strange stories of lost men, returning after what seemed minutes only to find that they’d been gone for years. Could this be Pacci after the passage of forty or even fifty years? Would Omphale walk in, twisted with age, with nothing of me in her mind but half-memory, half-tale?

I suppose my combination of hunger and exhaustion made this bizarre idea seem not only true but inevitable.

I collapsed across the threshold. Wisely, the old man didn’t even try to catch me. I would have flattened him.

My second waking was more pleasant than the first. I lay before the fire, wrapped in a sheepskin rug. A red and black jug of oinomel, that delicious mixture of honey and wine, stood beside me, the clay inscribed with wishes for a long life. The drink soothed my throat but could have been water for all the flavor it had.

At the far end of the single room, a woman turned from the roughly cobbled table. “You’re awake? Good. Eat this.”

“Omphale?”

“Don’t talk; eat. Oh, I forgot the bread.”

Eggs and lamb’s kidneys mixed with herbs could have been the rocks fed to Kronos for all the notice I took of their flavor. Savoring food seemed to belong to another Eno.

She brought me bread, and stood gaping at the empty skillet. “That was quick. More?”

“That old man...who was he?” Even now, looking at her in the firelight, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that this was Omphale’s granddaughter, not Omphale herself. The hair, the eyes, the mouth were the same but something had changed. Her spine drooped where the girl I’d known had held herself with pride and determination.

“He is my grandfather. He came to find me when you fainted. Everyone else is celebrating my brother’s return as if from death.”

“Not you?”

Her mouth firmed. “I have someone to mourn, if you remember.”

My fears of having been gone for years faded back into the realm of nightmare. I smiled at her for the first time.

“I remember that I didn’t thank you for a well-timed and placed rock. If you hadn’t done that, I’d be dead too.”