Jason and the Argonauts (3 page)

He changed back into his own form and followed Ares into the woods. He could hear the war god ahead of him, trampling through the brush, shouting. Hermes broke into a smooth run, picking his way among the trees. He came so close that he heard Ares, no longer shouting, but speaking in a conversational way.

“I know you’re near. I can smell you. I can always smell an enemy, especially a putrid cur like you. Stay there, lover boy. Stand and fight.”

Then Hermes heard another sound, the sibilant whisper of arrow flight … heard Ares’ voice raised again in an anguished bellow … heard the clanging of metal. He raced through a fringe of trees on the edge of a clearing and stopped short at the sight.

Ares stood in the clearing, brandishing his ax, bellowing, in the midst of an arrow swarm. It was as if the arrows were alive and were flying at him like giant wasps. The archer was invisible. Each arrow hit its mark—never touching Ares’ flesh, never even scratching him, but finding the buckle point of each piece of armor and shearing it off him as neatly as a groom unharnessing a horse.

His breastplate dropped off, then his shin greaves. An arrow knocked his helmet askew, denting it. He tore it off his head with a wild bellow. Now he stood there, hulking and hairy as a bear, but bigger than any bear. A last arrow sang out of the thicket and hit his crotch guard, making it ring like a bell. Ares doubled up in pain.

Hermes saw Jason step out into the clearing. He had been expecting this, but the actual appearance of the boy struck him like a fist under the heart. Jason was naked, unarmed except for a hunting knife. He was slender as a peeled wand, his eyes like pieces of ice under his dark brows.

Ares held his battle-ax. Its haft was a young tree, its head larger than Jason’s body and honed to a razor edge. Others had tried to use this ax—gods, demigods, titans, giants—but Ares was the only one strong enough. He not only used it to strike with, but hurled it like a hatchet. Hermes had seen him behead a giant at fifty paces. If he missed a throw, the ax would circle back to his hand, and he would be ready to throw again.

All this flashed through Hermes’ mind in the wink of an eye. The silvery messenger god stood, in a trance, watching the lad glide across the clearing, as if courage by some foul twist had been converted into fatal trust, making the beautiful boy offer his throat to the butcher’s blade. Slowly Ares raised his ax.

Hermes changed himself into a woodpecker—but a giant one, bigger than an eagle, with an iron beak. He flew to a tree at the edge of the clearing, a towering pine, clutched himself to the trunk, and drove his iron beak into the bole. He pulled it out and struck again, and again and again, his head moving faster than a hummingbird’s. He moved around the trunk, driving his beak in again and again, working so fast that, before Ares had finished poising his ax, he was hit by the falling tree. He was smashed to earth and buried among the branches.

Jason stood there, bewildered. Hermes returned to his own form. He came up behind the boy and touched him with his herald staff, casting him into a deep sleep. He caught the boy in his arms and flew away, climbing swiftly past the treetops. He bore him to the other side of the island and laid him in the shade of a tree, still asleep.

He knelt there, staring at the sleeper, then he lightly kissed his face and flew back to where Ares lay, but did not linger. Already the pine branches were threshing as the fallen god strove to rise.

Hermes flew eastward. He saw something that made him swoop. The witch rode the raft. She was gurgling and jigging and gnawing a pork bone. The fire was out. The turnspit demon was asleep. From time to time the hag wiped her hands on his curly pate. Hermes hovered, watching—but the witch, who noticed everything, was so busy eating that she did not see the god shining above her head. The sleeper snored. She screamed and frothed, epileptic with pleasure.

Hermes climbed again and flew away from the great burning ball of the setting sun.

E
KION

I
WAS WATCHING THE
sky for my father. He had sent no word, but I knew he was coming. I saw a splinter of light, then a streak of fire. He landed among us, pot-shaped hat pulled over his eyes, twirling his staff until the twined snakes seemed alive. And I thought my heart would burst with pride when he unwound Daphnis’ arm from around his neck and motioned to me.

“I need your help.”

I couldn’t say anything. I just looked at him. He smiled.

“I’m sending you away.”

“Far?”

“You’ll be seeing more of me than ever.”

“Oh, Father …”

“You will go to the court of Iolcus and take employment with King Pelius.”

“As herald?”

“His herald, my spy.”

“What’s he like?”

“A tyrant, a glutton, a murderer. Not too different from most kings, but a bit more so.”

I nodded, imitating composure.

“He may not sound like an ideal employer, but you’ll be all right. Heralds are protected by sacred law. You will attend his councils, learn his plans, and tell me what he intends.”

“I would know your own purpose, sire. Not from curiosity, but that I may serve you with more intelligence.”

“Hearken, then. Pelius is a usurper. Some years ago he killed his stepbrother, who was the rightful king, and since then has been hunting his brother’s son. That son, who is called Jason, is hidden on the island of Cythera. I have just visited this island. I went there at the request of Aphrodite, who has developed a passionate interest in the lad and fears for his safety.”

“Surely a goddess can protect her paramour?”

“To contend against Ares you need allies. He will permit no rival and has a way of erasing her lovers before she can enjoy them. Indeed, I happened to arrive at the island just as he landed there.”

“Did he kill the boy?” I asked, hoping he had.

“It was wonderful,” he said. “Jason defied the war god and fought so gallantly, so skillfully, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. He moves like light over water. He filled the air with arrows. Each found its mark and sheared off a piece of Ares’ armor until he stood naked as a flayed steer.”

“Vanquished Ares, did he?”

“Well, not quite. Ares is Ares, after all. But I was able to intervene, and it ended in a draw, more or less.”

Each of his words were like one of those arrows piercing me. “So you left the brave young prince on his island?”

“I did.”

“You didn’t speak with him?”

“No.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“You must understand, son, that Diomedes III, now called Jason, has incurred the wrath of two expert architects of doom, namely, Hades and Ares. You should also be aware that, under the law of Zeus, gods can no longer kill mortals with their old freedom. But the Lord of Tartarus and the Lord of Battles have many resources. They can employ mortals to do their killing for them. Or monsters. Their next move may well involve Pelius, who is Jason’s natural enemy and has an army and a battle fleet at his disposal. This is where I want your help. You shall keep me informed about what Pelius means to do—and, of course, hold yourself ready to help Jason in any way you can.”

“Yes,” I murmured, trying not to hiss. “I look forward to making Jason’s acquaintance.”

“To know him is to love him,” said Hermes. “And to serve him is to please me.”

“And to please you, Father, is my dearest wish.”

E
KION

P
ELIUS SPRAWLED ON HIS
throne, sucking at his teeth. He did this when he was hungry, and he was always hungry. He’d grown so fat he couldn’t see his feet; it made him wheeze and pant just to climb the three steps to his throne. For the past few days he had been in an ugly mood. An oracle had told him that an enemy was coming. I tried to explain to him that all kings always had an enemy somewhere preparing to attack, and that oracles made a living out of such foolproof prophecies. But he didn’t believe me. He chose to believe that someone was preparing an assault, and that this someone was Jason.

So we at court were having a difficult time. When the king was unhappy, he liked to share his pain, and for the past days he had signed so many death warrants that he had sprained his wrist and had to shift to his left hand. Every time I turned around suddenly, I saw him glaring at me, thinking how much better I’d look without a head.

His baleful glare was becoming unbearable to me, and the muffled terror of the courtiers had become thick as a stench in the gloomy throne room. I melted into the deepest shadow and slid out the great brass door without anyone noticing.

I went looking for a lad I knew, an apprentice smith named Rufus because of his red hair and fiery eyebrows. There was a Hephaestus cult in the country. The metal workers of Iolcus worshipped the smith-god and were considered priests. So the apprentice, Rufus, was not a slave but a novice and worked harder than a slave. He was a blunt, simple-hearted lad, the closest thing to a friend I had.

I scouted around the courtyard of the sacred smithy, but he didn’t come out and I couldn’t linger. So I set off alone. I missed my brothers more than I’d ever thought I would. I missed my mother, whichever sister she was, and my beautiful aunts. And Hermes hadn’t come to see me.

But it was so good getting off among the trees and gliding through the fretted sunlight that I forgot about being lonesome and being prudent. I raced through a glade, leaping logs. I shouted and sang. I found a hollow tree and searched it for honeycombs, half hoping a bear would come and try to catch me as I fled. It was the kind of day on which your life changes forever and you can feel the change coming.

I reached a clearing. It was cut by a little stream, swollen now because the rains had been heavy these past weeks. The damp pine needles were steaming faintly, casting a maddening fragrance. My staff twitched in my hand. The snake that entwined it raised its carved head and spoke. Its voice was a silky whisper.

“Take leaves from that laurel tree. Cast them upon flame and breathe the smoke.”

“Why?”

“It is your father’s wish. You must enter trance and await his instructions,”

I am not submissive by nature, but neither was I prepared to challenge anything a wooden snake said. A laurel tree stood at the edge of the clearing. I plucked a handful of its leaves, built a fire, and cast the leaves upon it. I knelt to the flame, inhaling its smoke. Darkness swarmed.

I stood at an oak stump, which was full of rainwater. A small wind blew, riffling the water. It was a miniature sea holding a ship as small as a walnut shell, its sail spread on a splinter of mast as it slid toward an oak-chip island.

Two huge rocks appeared. They stood apart from each other; the steersman put his bow exactly between them. But with an odd rushing, gurgling sound the boulders began to hurtle through the water toward each other. The ship slowed. I saw oars bend as the men tried to backwater—too slowly. The rocks were going with terrific speed now. They sluiced through the water and came together, crushing the tiny ship to splinters. I heard a frightful thin screaming, and the water grew red as I watched. The rocks sank, sucking the wreckage under. The stump sea was clear again.

It became a dish of molten silver in the hot sun. Pictures formed in its depths, floated up, and re-formed into something else: a bloody discus flying; a pair of hands cut off at the wrists, crawling like crabs; a pair of brass bulls breathing flame; a giant serpent with a man in its jaws.

I had left the stump. I sat near the fire, gazing into its heart. It was the sky burning. Under it lay scorched fields. Men and women lay there with blackened faces. Cattle that were racks of bone stood shakily, trying to snuffle something out of a dry riverbed. They lowed piteously and sank to earth. The sky burned. But now there was a golden core to the flame. It became a golden throne standing in the scorched field. On the throne sat a youth. He wore a gold crown. About his shoulders hung a great fleece, as if the pelt of a golden ram had been cut into a king’s robe.

The young king raised his arms to the sky, and it darkened. The red flame became black smoke; the smoke whorled into storm clouds, and it all turned to rain. Water fell on the king and on his throne and on the parched earth. The riverbeds filled, and the earth was green again. Then it all faded.

I spoke to the wooden snake. “What does my father wish?”

“Go fetch Jason. It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“For him to learn what you have learned.”

“Will he believe me?”

“Instruct him through vision. Harrow his sleep. Sow a dream.”

The snake stiffened and twined woodenly about my staff. I was sitting over the ashes of the fire, and the day was hot and damp and still. I wanted to go to sleep, but it was time to be about my father’s business.

E
KION

T
HE AIM OF
dream-tinkering is to frighten or flatter or otherwise persuade someone to do something by sowing certain visions in his sleeping head. There are two steps: first you cast the person into a swoon; then, when the eyes close and shallow breathing signifies deep trance, you begin to plant your dream.

Now I went about gathering the things I would need: a handful of laurel leaves; flower of poppy and mandragora and other slumberous herbs; some sprigs of withered barley; some shavings of ram’s horn; and six boarlike bristles from the beard of Pelius.

I loaded my pouch with this potent rubbish and headed for the edge of the forest where it ran down to the sea.

Two days later, I was in Cythera. I stood at the foot of a cliff, looking up, up, trying to see who was standing on the edge. Whoever it was, he couldn’t dive from that height; nobody could. Suddenly he dropped off.

I watched him fall. The sun caught him, body arched, arms spread. Did he realize he was plunging toward a sea full of rocks? They stood thickly in the tide, the water boiling among them. He flashed down, his arms forward now, hair whipping backward in the wind of his going. He entered the water cleanly, splitting a tiny space between two rocks.