The Arrows of Hercules
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Arrows of Hercules». Краткое содержание книги:
“Exciting and quite believable adventures.”—Classical World
“Rousing piece of fiction...pace is rapid and unrelenting.” —The Arizona Republic
The party broke up. The Phoenician, the Karian, and the Celt went one way; Zopyros and Glaukos the other. Glaukos said:
"Don't tell my father you're so chummy with Phoenicians. He hates them as bitterly as that man in the doorway."
"From what your sister tells me, he didn't used to."
"No; but that experience changed his mind. Not that I criticize you. I understand how you, in plying your trade, have to mix with all sorts of barbarians. But Father is of the older generation. He will never understand us progressive-minded moderns."
Zopyros found himself with a day to kill before the next ship left for Taras. If he had been able to spend the time with Korinna, he would have been happy to prolong his stay. But, with the girl shut up in the women's rooms at the back of the house, he was impatient to get away, to start negotiations between his father and Xanthos. Patient waiting was not his style. Watching him pace and fidget, Glaukos said:
"Aren't you the restless one, though? Most people are glad of a day off from work and care. Let's take the dog for a walk around the city wall."
The wall of Messana measured a mere fifteen cubits high and four cubits thick. Moreover, it was badly crumbled in places, so that strollers had to watch their step for fear of a dangerous fall. Zopyros said:
"A determined foe could overrun this wall with scaling ladders alone, without these new siege engines we hear about. Why doesn't your Council hire competent engineers—like my father's firm, for instance—to build them a proper one? If there's another big Carthaginian war ..."
Glaukos shrugged. "Long ago some oracle—I forget if it was that of Delphoi, or Cumae, or what—told us:
In this city shall men of Carthage he hearers of water.
So you see that, if the Carthaginians attack, we shall overcome and enslave them."
"Hm. People have gotten into trouble before this, by trusting in oracles instead of in strength. Croesus of Lydia, for instance."
"True." The young man looked troubled. "I'm not so keen on omens and oracles myself, though I have to be careful what I say at home."
"Your father must be a man of some influence in the city. Why don't you put him up to agitating for a new wall?"
Glaukos held up his hands. "He's the biggest omen-monger of the lot! He never does anything without consulting the priests of several temples. A saying like the one I quoted to you might have been given him by the Far-Shooter in person. I admit the oracles seem to work for him, since his business enterprises have prospered."
"If General Nikias hadn't taken omens so seriously, his Athenians would never have been trapped and destroyed at Syracuse."
Glaukos shrugged. "No doubt, but such arguments would get nowhere with Father. How about a cockfight this evening?"
Next morning Zopyros and Korinna, surrounded by the latter's family, stood on the wharf at Messana. They faced each other, not touching, with tears slowly running down their faces.
"Come, come," wheezed Xanthos. "It's not so tragic as all that. It is not as if I had said you might never marry."
"Oh, let him kiss her, Xanthos," said Eirene. "It can't do any harm, and the lad may never get back to Messana."
"Who can foresee what the gods have in store for us?" said Xanthos. "Go ahead, Zopyros."
Zopyros embraced the girl, strained her to him for a long instant. Then he picked up his gear, slung it over his back, and climbed over the rail of the Atalanta of Syracuse. As the ship drew away from the wharf, he remained at the rail, waving with his palm turned inward, until the figures on shore grew too small to distinguish.
The Atalanta wallowed across the Tarentine Gulf under fair spring skies. Zopyros, wrapped in his cloak, dozed on the deck and dreamt. He dreamt that he stood on the forested lower slopes of Aetna. As he watched, the mountain spat fire and smoke and presently turned into a naked, hairy giant with a single red-glowing eye in the middle of his forehead. The clouds formed a wreath around his shaggy head. Then a deep voice behind Zopyros said:
"I need your help, little man."
Zopyros turned and saw the demigod Herakles, complete with lion skin. Although twice as tall as a mortal man, Herakles was still but a pygmy compared to the Kyklops. Herakles continued:
"The gods have laid another labor upon me, to slay the giant Polyphemos. For that task my regular bow, which Apollon gave me to use against the Stymphalian birds, were too small. I have made an arrow of suitable size"—he held up an arrow as long as himself, like a ship's yard with feathers—"but I have no way to shoot it. It would need a bow twenty or thirty cubits long, and that were too large even for one of my stature. But Apollon tells me that you are a clever lad, as mortals go, and can devise a means to launch this arrow. Quick, now; the Kyklops approaches!"
And indeed the giant was coming on, treading down trees with his huge horny feet and swinging a club made from a tree trunk.
"Hasten!" growled Herakles. "The world will be lost if you use not that wit wherewith the Averter of Evil credits you!"
Zopyros tried desperately to think, while the Kyklops drew closer. Then something snapped. He cried:
"Cut the branches from one of these pines, O Herakles, but leave a cubit or two on a pair near the top. Then cut off the trunk just above this pair of stubs, so that the tree shall have the form of a fork. Hook the head of your arrow into that fork, pull it back until the tree trunk is bent into a curve, and let it go!"
Herakles began lopping branches with his ax, climbing as he cut. In a few heartbeats the tree was bare save for the pair of stubs near the top.
"I cannot reach the top from the ground, even with my stature!" said Herakles, dropping back to earth with an impact that shook the ground. "How shall we bend the tree?"
The Kyklops came closer, his fiery eye shooting gleams through the forest. Trees crashed down before his tread.
"A rope!" cried Zopyros. "Use the tail of your lion's skin!"
Herakles swung the tail—which seemed to have grown to the needed length—and whipped the end around the top of the polled tree. Then his mighty muscles creaked as he hauled in the improvised rope. The tree trunk bent like a bow, quivering with stress.
When it was pulled back to within easy reach from the ground, Herakles tied the loose end of the lion's tail around another tree trunk. He placed the head of his huge arrow in the fork of the polled tree.
"Now," he said, "stand you by with the ax, and when I say, 'Now,' cut the rope. Are you ready?"
"Ready," said Zopyros. He no longer dared to look at the Kyklops, so close the monster loomed.
"Now!" roared Herakles.
Zopyros brought down the ax. The rope parted; the tree whipped up with a swish. Away soared the monstrous arrow ...
And Zopyros found himself sprawled on the deck in a tangle of cloak. A roll of the ship, more severe than most, had tumbled him over.
The Atalanta threaded her way along the channel between a pair of rocks—the Choirades—and Cape Phalanthos. The low, flat Messapian plain spread out before her. Instead of the frowning fence of the Apennines that faced the sea off most of the coasts of Italy, here but a few low ranges of hills were to be seen, far inland. Ahead lay Taras, a streak of color against the olive brown of the coast. The afternoon sun shone brilliantly on the red of roof tiles, the white of marble and whitewashed walls, the buff of mud brick.
Straight ahead, the rocky hill of the acropolis rose from the isle where stood the old city. This island plugged the entrance to the Little Sea behind. A wall of brick ran around the island a few cubits above the water level. To the right, on a hump of land, the huge temple of Poseidon, with massive Doric columns, loomed above the wall. Smaller temples marched up the main hill to its summit.