Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (30 page)

“Will you be gone long?”

“I'll try to come back every fourth night unless things get worse. If that happens, I'll send word to you.”

Living with Melampus in this way, tending the garden, roaming hill and field and wood, Palaemona grew happier and happier. And happiness began to make her beautiful. She had always been quick; now she was honed to a marvelous grace. She ran over the meadow without bending the grass. Her hair glimmered like cobwebs in the moonlight, her eyes were two pools of molten gold. Best of all was her laughter. It burbled everywhere, full of joyous rills and trills, nourishing itself upon its own glee. For when she heard herself laughing, this child who had so rarely smiled thrilled to a pleasure of self-awareness, and laughed more joyously than ever.

But nothing attracts trouble like happiness. And now, in the midst of Palaemona's blossoming joy, something happened that was to bear the most terrible consequences.

6

Transformation

The earth split near the foot of Mount Pelion. Six black horses charged out of the chasm, drawing a black chariot behind them. In the chariot towered a black-caped figure. It was Hades traveling from Tartarus to Olympus for a council of the gods. As the horses galloped up a slope of sky, he chanced to notice Palaemona frolicking in the field, riding a goat, the dog chasing her. She was laughing and the dog was barking.

Now it must be understood that Hades, somber King of the Land Beyond Death, preferred tiny unripe maidens. It was thus, upon a legendary springtide, that he saw Persephone, only daughter of the harvest queen, playing with her wild paint pots among the flowers, and was smitten by a reckless passion, and abducted her, starting a feud that was to rock Olympus. But that had been centuries before. The April child was now Matron of the Dark Kingdom, each year becoming more and more like her mother, Demeter, whom Hades loathed more than any creature on earth, above it, or beneath it. So he was ripe for another unripe maiden.

His melancholy heart was pierced by Palaemona's laughter. Her tininess intoxicated him. When he returned to Tartarus he sent for his chief adviser, the Harpy queen, Hecate. He described Palaemona to her, and how he felt.

“Well, my lord, if you want her, take her. It's simple enough.”

“Not so simple,” said Hades. “I could abduct her, of course. But I don't want to do it that way. I've taken a real fancy to her. I don't want her so stupefied by fear that she can't learn to love me. I want her fully alive, fully responsive. I want to hear that joyous laughter and know that I'm the cause of it.”

“You are right; not so simple,” said Hecate.

“How can I make her love me?”

“I'll send someone up there to observe her ways, and report to you as soon as I have learned anything.”

Some days later Hecate came to him and said: “I regret to tell you, Majesty, it will be very difficult to persuade that child to love you. She worships someone else.”

“Who?” roared Hades.

“Melampus.”

“Melampus! Melampus the healer?”

“The same.”

“Is there to be no end to his trespass? Did I not give orders that he be taken? I haven't heard any complaints about him lately, so I thought he must be down here somewhere.”

“He's alive. He dwells in Thessaly, in a cave near where you saw the girl.”

“Then go get him.”

“The Great Charter permits us to take only the dead,” said Hecate.

“Well, kill him and he'll be dead. Bring him down and spit him over our slowest fire to roast through eternity.”

“Forgive me for contradicting you, O my master, but for your purposes that would be the worst possible course. Palaemona is not a woman grown. She has not learned to compromise with life and death. She is a pure-hearted child, may the breed be cursed. This is her first love, uncarnal still. She worships his personality, the idea of him. If he is suddenly taken from her, it will cripple her for love, and you will have no pleasure from her.”

“What can I do then? Does my dread authority confer on me no real power?”

“There is much you can do, O Lord of Reprisals. If she herself stops loving Melampus, then she will be ready for another to take his place.”

“How can I make her stop loving him?”

“By changing him beyond her recognition.”

“How do I do that?”

“There I cannot advise you,” said Hecate. “If he were one of those who could be changed by pain, I would know exactly how to proceed. But he is much too strong for that. His spare frame absorbs incredible punishment. I know. I have sent my fiends against him for years at your behest. But he is a kind of hero. He draws inspiration from ordeal. ‘No' makes him go.”

“Very well,” said Hades. “I shall take the matter under advisement. Thank you.”

Hades pondered the words of Hecate. “Change him, eh, so that she no longer loves him. Yes, but how? I shall have to consult an expert.”

Thereupon he sent a messenger to summon Thalia, Muse of Comedy, Lady of Masks, Mistress of Transformations. Now, one would have thought that this lovely laughing goddess would have loathed the sullen Hades. In fact, she owed him a favor. Some time before, she had amused herself with one of her own performers, a young tumbler—who was so excited by the smiles of the Muse that he tried to do what had never been done before, turn five somersaults in the air—but did only four and a half, and broke his neck. Thalia rushed to Hades and pleaded with him to restore the lad to her. Now, it was notorious that Hades never gave up anyone he had claimed, but he was touched to indulgence by her winsome grace. He yielded his claim on the young man and had Hermes conduct him back over the river Styx, up through the cleft of Avernus, to the grove of the Muses atop Parnassus. Later, the reprieved tumbler tried to rekindle Thalia's waning affections by trying the five-somersault trick again. This time, grown rusty, he achieved only four and broke his back—was taken to Tartarus and languished there, unredeemed. For Thalia now favored a juggler.

Still, when she received the summons, Thalia was very much aware that she owed Hades a debt, and he was not the kind of creditor she wanted dunning her. So she went swiftly to the place of rendezvous, a grove near the shores of the bottomless lake, Avernus. She found the towering, black-caped figure waiting for her, his face harrowed as if he were basting in one of his own ovens. She knelt and kissed his huge knotted hand, and kept it between her own, fondling it, listening very intently to what he had to say.

When he had finished, she said: “That hell hag of yours gave you good counsel. Transformation is clearly indicated.”

“Then, can I leave the matter in your hands, O my Lady of the Masks?”

“I'll do my best, of course. But it's a difficult task. Not at all a matter of simple physical transformation.”

“I should think not,” said Hades. “He's a miserable specimen—old, starved-looking, lame. I should think any change in appearance would improve him.”

“But she wouldn't think so,” said Thalia. “She loves him the way he is.”

“Granted! Granted! Then change the way he is. I don't care how it's done, but do it.”

“I met him once, you know. My elder sister, Terpsichore, dismayed by the approach of a certain birthday and trying to prove herself as young as ever, danced so wildly with Silenus that she fractured both legs. Melampus was sent for. He came to Mount Helicon and set her legs so skillfully that in a day she was dancing on her splints. A remarkable man.”

“Yes,” said Hades. “And remarkable shall be his torments when I can claim his shade. Tell me plainly: Despite the difficulties, can you change him so that she no longer loves him?”

“What we shall have to do is coarsen him beyond her recognition. Work a total change in him inwardly—which means of course that he will change outwardly as well. Such a transformation lies beyond my own powers. But so great is my regard for you, my dear lord, that I shall implore my mother, Mnemosyne, to help me. I shall ask her to wipe out his memories and replace them with a new set. Then we shall be able to fabricate a new personality for him. Deprive him of his genius and his occupation. Dedicate him to trivia. Diminish him until she knows him no longer.”

“I shall be very grateful to you,” said Hades. “And, as you know, my gratitude can take useful forms.”

“My reward lies in serving you, O Sovereign of the Dread Realm.”

She kissed his hand again and whirled away, singing.

When Palaemona came home from the woods that summer evening she found her garden paved over and a sentry walking his post. Behind him, half visible in the twilight, glimmered a tall brass gate. Up the slope where the cave had been stood a stone castle.

“What happened?” she cried to the sentry. “Where's Melampus?”

“Are you the princess?”

“I am Palaemona.”

“His lordship awaits you.”

Behind the gates lay a courtyard. A flagged path wound uphill to the castle. Other sentries, holding huge, spike-collared wolfhounds, guarded the portals. She spoke her name, and they gave way before her.

She felt her garment changing upon her. Her old, torn, berry-stained shift became a silken gown, dusk blue, shot with lilac. Bracelets clasped her wrists. She felt a delicate chain about her neck and the cold touch of a jewel upon her breastbone.

She found him sprawled in a chair in a rude banquet hall. Dogs gnawed bones. Three unhelmeted men at arms cast dice in a corner. The place reeked of meat and wine. Melampus was swigging from a golden cup. He beckoned her. She walked slowly toward him. He kissed her and sat half-embracing her as she stood at his chair. He looked younger. His face was bloated and red, his breath heavy with wine. Through all the changes, though, she still saw Melampus. She stood there in the circle of his arm, basking in the heat of his body. She did not question him. He had always told her what she had to know, and his information had always been utterly new. She expected the unexpected. Love had so altered her that she took lesser transformations without surprise. So she accepted the change in his appearance, the change from cave to castle. She wondered about her garden.

“Melampus,” she murmured.

“Call me Father.”

“Why?”

“You're my daughter, are you not?”

So that had changed too. She didn't care. She wanted to be whatever he wanted.

“Go fill my cup like a good girl.”

“Yes, Father.”

Palaemona dwelt in the castle. She was bewildered but acceptant. She planted another garden in a sunny corner of the courtyard beyond the flagstones. Her goats had been given into the care of a goatherd who grazed them in the field where she was no longer allowed to go. But her sheepdog was with her unchanged. She saw more of Melampus than she had before. He was no longer a healer. What he did she did not know; he seemed to be some sort of petty chieftain. He was usually half drunk. He told her no more stories, but was more affectionate—holding her on his lap, stroking her face, and kissing her hair. He was her father and she was his daughter. And she was happy. The stream of her laughter ran its music through the castle, and if she harbored a doubt or a grief, no one knew it.

Now, Melampus had forbidden her to go beyond the walls without an escort of armed men, for the countryside had grown dangerous. Bandits roamed. And there was a tale of one, more terrible, who did not roam. He was known as the Bullman. He was huge, bristle haired, red eyed—an ugly brute who plowed his field with two enormous bulls. He seized passersby and stripped them of their purses. Then he would unhitch his bulls and bind the victim's arms to the back of one beast and his legs to the back of the other—and then whip the bulls so that they ran in opposite directions. Bones cracked, flesh tore; each bull dragged half a body behind it. And blood watered the furrows. Sometimes, when the wind was right, Palaemona heard a thin screaming.

A restlessness grew in her. She longed to wander the wood as she once had done, accompanied by no one but her dog. But she did not wish to disobey Melampus, and curbed her longing.

Then one day he left the castle with a troop of horsemen and rode up into the hills. He was gone for three days. On the fourth day, Palaemona, watching from the wall, saw a veil of dust and horsemen riding. One of them led Melampus's horse. Her breath caught in her throat. A riderless horse meant a fallen rider. Then she saw him astride the shoulders of a towering young woman. He leaned back, laughing and shouting, clutching the braids of her long hair as if they were reins. Behind them trotted two other huge girls, tossing a wine barrel from one to the other, drinking as they ran.

So the mountain nymphs came to the castle. They lived in the stable, and Melampus rode them every day in turn. Palaemona saw less of him, and her restlessness grew.

One day when no one was looking she slipped through the gate and sped downhill into the woods. All day she wandered, picking wildflowers. In the heat of the day she went to the river. She cast off her clothes and dived deep, holding her breath and circling, feeling her fevers cool in the greenish dusk of the waters. It was late afternoon when she left the river. She was not ready to return to the castle and wandered back by a roundabout way. She was at the edge of the forest, near a field. She heard someone scream. She crept slowly from tree to tree and peered into the clearing.

It was a man screaming. He lay on the ground. A much larger man knelt on his chest, pummeling his face. Two enormous bulls stood nearby, wooden halters about their necks, reins trailing. They cropped grass near an iron plow. The huge man arose, lifting the smaller one bodily, hurling him to the ground again between the bulls. He pushed the bulls tail to tail and tied the smaller man's feet to the reins of one bull, his wrists to the reins of the other. Then he lifted a cudgel in each hand and struck the rumps of the bulls—who galloped off in opposite directions.