The Arms Of Hercules Read online

  The Arms Of Hercules

  The Third Book Of The Gods

  Fred Saberhagen

  TOR®

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  Copyright © 2000 by Fred Saberhagen

  ISBN 0-312-86774-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 0-312-87776-5 (paper)

  First Edition: November 2000

  CONTENT

  Chapter One A Blind Man Witnesses

  Chapter Two Lessons Gone Awry

  Chapter Three A Real Lion

  Chapter Four A Visitor

  Chapter Five A Dirty Joke in the Stable

  Chapter Six Swamp Games

  Chapter Seven Saurus

  Chapter Eight Centaurs

  Chapter Nine Delivering a Boar

  Chapter Ten Argonauts

  Chapter Eleven A More Pleasant Swim

  Chapter Twelve Visiting a Queen

  Chapter Thirteen Talking to the Minotaur

  Chapter Fourteen A Place Called Ilium

  Chapter Fifteen Antaeus

  Chapter Sixteen Megan

  Chapter Seventeen Apollo

  Chapter Eighteen The Man on the Rock

  Chapter Nineteen Downed

  Chapter Twenty Amazons

  Chapter Twenty-One Thanatos

  Chapter Twenty-Two A Brawl with Death

  Chapter Twenty-Three Tartarus

  Chapter Twenty-Four The Harrowing

  Chapter Twenty-Five Wrestling

  Chapter Twenty-Six Vulcan's Workshop

  Chapter Twenty-Seven Battle

  Chapter Twenty-Eight We Go A-Hunting

  Chapter Twenty-Nine The Last Word

  Chapter One

  A Blind Man Witnesses

  I do not sing this story, for I have neither the patience nor the voice to hold an audience. Rather I will write it down, so I will have the time to choose my words and amend them as I go along. Those who wish to read may do so. Those who do not will be under no compulsion to appear polite.

  I have, among other things, this in common with all other members of the human race: that the seed of my life was planted, the roots began to grow, before I could be there to witness any part of the process. Therefore I can tell the first chapter of my story only in the form in which others who were there have told it to me.

  Years ago, in the kingdom of Cadmia, there came a certain summer night on which the prophet Tiresias, in vivid dreams, beheld the descent of the mightiest of living gods. A few hours later, when Tiresias awakened to the first birdsongs of the bright spring morning, he climbed from his bed and called unhurriedly for his servants and his guards, sending his young companion to seek them out. The blind seer was an old man then, and he had been an old man for a long time, but the joints of his limbs still moved freely enough, all the vital parts of his body functioned, and he still craved young girls. As a member of the king's household, in a high position, he had the power to indulge his craving. His companion on that morning was a girl, and very young.

  The prophet enjoyed the sound of young girls' voices, and the touch of their smooth skins, but whether or not they were beautiful in the world's eyes was a matter of total indifference to him.

  When he could be bothered to explain his preferences to anyone, he put it this way: "In the first place, the dear little creatures are more grateful for the attention; and in the second place, very few of them deserve to be called ugly. You are handicapped in your vision by having eyes, and I can see the girls much better than you can."

  The prophet himself, on the other hand, was ugly by almost any standard. He had been eyeless since birth. His face had eyebrows, but under them there were no lids to break the smooth expanse of skin, and the skull had no accommodating sockets.

  Preparing for their master for that unexpected morning foray out into the world took the servants a little time. For this purpose they arrayed him in his own and his servants' idea of barbaric splendor, garments of bright colors and fine cloth, golden rings around his arms and in his earlobes. Tiresias bore all these procedures patiently, for he wanted to be sure not to arrive too soon at his destination. It was two hours after sunrise when he left his apartment in one wing of the king's palace, and set out on the road.

  When he left the palace on that morning of birdsongs and sunlight, he went singing, in a cracked voice, some ancient song that no one else who was still alive in the kingdom of Cadmia had ever heard before. He mounted for his ride with his arm around the bored-looking young girl who had shared his bed. As far as anyone knew, there was no tie of blood between them, though the girl was certainly ugly enough to be his descendant. She might possibly have been a daughter or great-granddaughter, carried to almost any number of iterations that you care to name.

  When the ill-matched couple had climbed aboard the mastodrom, it started walking, and the bodies of both passengers lurched with the motion of the howdah that rode just forward of the great beast's single hump. The huge, phlegmatic mastodrom had been brought at great expense from somewhere south of the Great Sea. A wizened little driver, a male of indeterminate age, sat straddling the animal's neck, guiding its motion with slight pressures of his callused feet, just behind its huge fanlike ears.

  "Where are we going?" the girl asked, doubtless hoping that the day would bring some break in her routine.

  "There is a house that has been visited by a god," the old man said to her. "And the man of the house does not know about it yet. I want to be the first to tell him."

  "And the woman of the house?" the girl asked, when the mastodrom had carried them on a few more rocking paces.

  The blind man laughed. "Ah, she knows already that she has had a visitor. She knows that in much more detail than I do. But who the visitor was—that will be a big surprise, I think!" And his laughter boomed out, as loudly as if he were still young and healthy.

  Accompanying Tiresias, besides his youthful concubine, was an escort permanently assigned to him by King Eurystheus, a squad of half a dozen armed men on their own smaller and more agile mounts. The seer did not really want them, or believe he needed their protection, but the old king insisted that they always go with him; and this morning Tiresias had made sure they were alerted for his foray.

  The morning's journey was only a few miles. Less than an hour after it began, the chief of the armed escort reined in his own much smaller mount, an ordinary cameloid, and turned closer to the mastodrom to tell its passengers that they had reached their destination. The estate on which I was conceived and born was a large and important one. The manor house was only a few miles outside the seven-gated city wall of Cadmia, whose massive stones were just visible in the distance from our own front gate.

  The blind old man seemed somehow to know exactly where he was as well as anyone. Even before the soldier began to speak, the prophet turned from the public road to face the great ornamental gates of the estate, lifted his chin, and called out loudly: "Open, Alcmene, lady of the manor! I bring you marvelous news!" Eyewitnesses of the event confirm that the seer did not call for Amphitryon: thus even at that time he knew that the lord of the manor was not at home.

  Amphitryon, who for many years was called my father, was a nephew of the late king Electryon of Megara, and he had been banished to Cadmia as a result of one of the intrigues afflicting that royal family, like so many others. (According to family tradition, Zeus was his great-great-grandfather; and a similar tradition in my mother's family gave her the same god as male ancestor eight generations even further back; in truth almost every family aspiring to high social status claimed divine blood.)

  There was a pause while the gatekeeper inside sent some junior servant running for instructions, up the long hill to where the big house stood amid its ornamental
plantings.

  Meanwhile, out on the road in the sunlight of the summer morning, Tiresias waited patiently, singing. There were moments, even epochs, in which Tiresias seemed but little aware of what was going on in the world around him. The special seats with which his howdah was equipped were shaded by a canopy, which insured that the waiting would be comfortable. His armed escorts, taking their cue from him, were patient also. But what they thought of the quality of his song could be seen from the expressions on their faces.

  Tiresias was by far the most famous prophet in Cadmia, or for many and many a mile around. Some said he was a child of Zeus, one of the Thunderer's uncountable bastards who were scattered all around the world, and that this explained both his deformity and his occult powers. Whatever the truth of that theory, I do not remember that Tiresias ever denied it.

  The seer did not seem to object to being kept waiting in this way. Every minute or so the mastodrom swayed restlessly, treating its passengers to a soporific rocking. Meanwhile the tuskless creature groped about with its trunk, which was shorter than an elephant's but bifurcated for half its length, and therefore almost as handy. When the time came, the mastodrom would use its flexible trunk to help its passengers dismount.

  On that summer morning, Alcmene, she who was to be my mother, awoke stretching on rare and expensive silken sheets, her body luxuriously sated by a night of tempestuous lovemaking, the like of which she could not recall. Somewhat to her surprise and disappointment, she found her bed partner gone when she turned in the direction of the empty pillow beside her own.

  Her dreams, when at last her husband's importunities had allowed her to fall asleep, had been vaguely disturbing.

  At the time of which I write, my mother was still considered a remarkable beauty, though the first years of her youth were past.

  Pulling on a robe, a thin wrap designed to display her superb figure, she went out into the hall. The first servant she encountered was actually on his way to tell her of the unexpected caller at the gate, but she brushed aside this news and demanded: "Where is the master this morning"?

  The question earned her a blank look. "Where should he be, mistress? Still a great many miles from home, I fear."

  My mother's protests died on her lips even as she heard the news of the distinguished visitor; already a fearful suspicion had been aroused in her heart. There might be something seriously wrong. But what could it be? She knew, unquestioningly, that her husband had come home quite unexpectedly about midnight and had been with her through the remainder of the night, joined to her very closely most of the time. But now his familiar presence had vanished, completely and unaccountably.

  Alcmene looked into room after room, but there was no sign of Amphitryon anywhere, nor of his weapons, nor of the clothing and the armor that he must have been wearing when he came home from the wars, must have discarded before coming in to her. She could clearly remember hearing his weapons and his breastplate clang together when they were thrown down on the floor.

  Another servant, hurriedly dispatched to reconnoiter, came swiftly back to report that the cameloid Amphitryon always rode was not in the stable.

  Now the lady Alcmene had to put her uneasiness momentarily aside to greet her illustrious caller, as Tiresias, the king's adviser, was being conducted to the house and offered refreshment.

  When she entered the room where he was waiting, the eyeless man turned his pale face toward her. If he was aware of what effect his appearance could have, at close range, to one who was not accustomed to it, he made no allowance for it.

  He said: "I wish to speak to your husband, my dear, as soon as he comes home. That should be soon."

  Despite the servants' evidence, Alcmene was on the point of correcting her visitor, telling him that her husband had been home for many hours. But she remained silent, remembering how the servants had already started to react to that claim, absolutely refusing (though silently and subserviently, of course) to believe her.

  She never even considered the possibility that the events of the night just past might have been a dream. Whatever else might have happened to her, it was not that. Dreams did not leave the dreamer's body pleasurably sore, and bedsheets stained.

  * * *

  While servants spread through the household in a futile, half-hearted search for a master they knew could not possibly be there, old Tiresias began to explain to my mother the reason for his visit.

  "Young lady, last night I saw the great god, all-powerful Zeus himself, descending on this house. I saw the Thunderer enter your bedchamber, and what transpired there, between the two of you."

  "Merciful gods!" the lady murmured, low-voiced. Her first thought was that the man who stood before her now was mad.

  His voice, though, was horrifyingly reasonable. "But even from me"—he thumped his chest—"from me, Tiresias, the why of the matter is still concealed."

  The lady drew a deep breath. Her second thoughts were even more frightening than her first.

  "If," she began, "if, as I say, my lord Tiresias, anything of the kind had happened . . ."

  But the lady was spared any effort at deception. The seer had turned his blind head and was listening to sounds from another direction.

  A moment later, the unexpected return of Alcmene's husband was announced, by a servant who at least pretended to be joyful as he proclaimed the news.

  The fact was, of course, that until the night when my true father first visited my mother, Alcmene had enjoyed a justly deserved reputation for chastity. The great god Zeus knew this, of course, and so for the duration of his visit, which lasted only a few hours, he had assumed the likeness of her husband. If you know anything of the history of Zeus, in legend and in fact, you will not be surprised.

  The legends will tell you also that to make sure Alcmene was thoroughly deceived, Zeus gave her a gift of a golden cup, which Amphitryon could have captured from his chief opponent in the war, and also told her of many thing that had happened on the battlefield. Later, when Amphitryon tried to tell her of his adventures, she amazed him by filling in some details he had forgotten. But on the truth of these particular stories I make no judgment.

  Usually Alcmene was genuinely glad to welcome her husband home. But this time it was with a heavy, sinking feeling that she first saw Amphitryon, as he came riding in with two or three companions, all of them dismounting from their cameloids with weary groans. She felt nothing at all of the lightening of spirit with which she usually witnessed his arrival.

  The general was really of no more than ordinary size, but so strongly built, with powerful hands and arms, that he seemed larger. He was about forty then, somewhat older than his wife. Much of his long hair had already turned gray, which secretly annoyed him, though it gave him more credibility as a leader. His eyes were gray, too, and they could turn very cold and hard.

  "Hello, wife. We've ridden all night." Amphitryon had arrived wearing helmet and breastplate, just as his surrogate had on the preceding night, and his round shield hung from the horn of his war-drom's saddle. The returning general was in good health but looked somewhat dirty, tired, and worn, after a journey of several days.

  He came to his wife and kissed her hungrily, locking her in an embrace. If the general had not been entirely without women for the past several months (and he certainly had not), he had endured that time without the one woman he preferred above all others.

  Iphicles, my half-brother-to-be, then a mere beardless fourteen years of age (not very large but strongly built; a younger edition of his father), awakened by the stirring in the house around him, came running to welcome his father home, demanding at once to hear tales of glorious battles.

  Answering Iphicles, Amphitryon said: "Well enough, I suppose. I suppose we win more than we lose, if we count up all the scores. Well, this is not the first year that this war has taken up our time, and I don't suppose it'll be the last. But enough about battles. I've come home for a rest."

  When the tired general finally took n
otice of Tiresias and his squad of escorting soldiers, he was surprised.

  "To what do we owe this honor, soothsayer? Has the king sent you?" Amphitryon tried to keep out of his voice the disgust he felt in looking at the eyeless face.

  "I am here by reason of a greater power than King Eurystheus." Tiresias smiled faintly, as if he could still hear the general's loathing in his guarded speech. "Amphitryon, I bring you news of your extraordinary misfortune."

  The general's shoulders slumped, and for a long moment he stared in silence at the prophet. Then he looked around him, making sure that the members of his immediate family were all well. But Amphitryon, who did not know yet that he was to be my foster father, was too well acquainted with the seer, or at least with his reputation, not to take him seriously. "If you bring bad news, let me hear it in private."

  Giving the prophet his arm, he guided him to an inner room and shut the door.

  When the two men were alone, and Tiresias settled in a comfortable chair, he raised his blind face toward the warmth of the cloud-filtered sunlight coming in a window. Then, at the sudden passing of the cloud from in front of the sun, he tilted his head away from the light, as if its new brightness hurt him in some way.

  The general half-sat on the edge of a table, folding his arms and swinging one leg. "Well, sir?"

  "Last night your house was visited by a god," the prophet told Amphitryon bluntly.

  "Indeed." It took the general a little while to come to grips with this announcement. Like the great majority of people anywhere, even those of high rank, he had never in his life seen any god. Had anyone else told him the same thing, he would have laughed. But this was Tiresias.

  "Which god?" Amphitryon demanded at last. "And for what purpose?"

  "It was the Thunderer himself. As for his immediate purpose, it was the same that generally brings Zeus to the bed of a lovely mortal." The blind man raised a cautionary hand. "You ought not to blame your wife, for the god appeared in a perfect semblance of yourself. Any mortal would have been deceived."