The Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy Read online

  “Why should she be jealous? I’m terribly fond of her.”

  “Still, you treat her like an animal. Did you know that dolphins have a literature, passed down by word of beak? ‘Hide it if you must, deep as the deepest trireme crusted with coral, but beauty will burn into light.’ Atthis can quote such lines for hours.”

  “Find her and bring her back!”

  “I don’t know where she is.” He sighed. “She’s probably gone up the coast. Forgive me for saying this, Bear. But people grow terribly fond of you—you’re sleepy and warm and lovable—but sometimes you seem to look right through them. You are always searching for things or going somewhere—if you aren’t asleep. What I’m saying is, you won’t stand still to be loved.”

  “But that’s because of my faith,” I protested. “Etruscans, you see, have a terrible fear of death. Most of us go, we believe, to a region of fire and demons. That’s why we hurry so much—one man gives banquets, another races a chariot, another wanders. We want to forget the demons.”

  “Forget the demons,” he said, “but not Atthis.”

  I looked at the river and the sea. Somewhere a woman waited for me to find her, a sorceress and a queen. Was she worth the dream and the long wandering, the loss of Atthis? Perhaps. But now I was with my friends, the best of whom I had hurt by hurting Atthis. I lifted him onto the bulwark and, with my arm, shielded him against the gathering twilight and the darkness in my own heart.

  * * * *

  We sailed southward along a coast of forest steppes, where spiny trees, a little like the olive, sparsely strewed the sand. In the small protection of trees, antelopes sought concealment from lions with tangled manes and rawboned bodies. Luck, or at least high spirits, had left us. We sailed slowly, fearful of hidden shoals; we counted dolphins, frolicking in the water, and wished for Atthis. Once, at a great distance, I saw a whiteness on the horizon. Atthis? No, I was seeing what I wished to see. It was foam or a trick of light. No one mentioned her name, but Astyanax looked wistful and Aruns stared at the waves, and I knew what was in their hearts. We had lost our friend.

  At night we heard drums and wondered if the natives, who never showed themselves, were signaling our approach to Circe. Or perhaps they beat us a warning: strangers, beware. In desperation we questioned the will of the gods. Aruns, like many Etruscans, knew the arts of augury: reading the liver of a sheep and interpreting the flight of birds or the color, shape, and direction of lightning. In a fringed robe and pointed cap, with a curved stick in his hand, he faced the south and looked for a sign. We had no sheep to yield us its liver; we had seen no birds for several days; but the gods, if indeed they had not forsaken us, might speak through lightning. We waited. The drip of our water clock measured the passage of time. Seconds. Minutes. An hour.

  Aruns shook his head. “The gods are sil—“

  Blood-red lightning flashed to the right, three times in quick succession.

  “Ah,” he groaned. “The triple lightning of Tinia. Danger awaits us.”

  * * * *

  The forest steppes became desert, humping into the sea like the yellow Nile at flood time. We lived on cheese and a few bony fish, for even the waters were barren. The parties we sent ashore saw nothing but horned vipers and scorpions. There was no rain; we drank our wine unmixed. The sand, blowing from shore, covered our deck with dry coarse grains and scratched our eyes until they reddened and watered. Heat drained us like fever. In the shade we stripped to the skin; in the sun we covered our heads and bodies to prevent exposure.

  One morning a vessel barred our path: a dugout canoe with a square sail set on sprits. Twenty paddles flashed in rapid unison and the captain, hurling commands, stood in the bow. The rowers were black and very short—three feet or less, I judged—with enormous heads and Negroid features.

  I thought of the pygmies in Homer, the little black men who warred with the iron-billed cranes. But these were women, even the captain, bare of breast, long of hair, with blue paint on their faces. I raised my hand in the universal salutation of good will.

  But the pygmies called no greeting. At their sides they wore wooden tubes which looked like blowguns, and they never looked up from their oars.

  “Change course,” I shouted to Aruns. “Head for the deep!”

  We jibbed and ran with the wind. The dugout changed its course. The pygmies strained at their oars and began a savage chant, and their captain lashed them with shrill, hissing commands. Balder and Frey seized sweeps and used them for oars, but the dugout, with sail and twenty rowers, rapidly overtook us. Like large black spiders, the pygmies could scale our hull and kill us with darts before we could use our swords. Then I saw Atthis between our ships. I thought with horror, It is she who has led them to us.

  Thank Nethuns I was wrong. The sea around her erupted with dolphins. They rose behind us with a great thrashing and thrust their beaks against our stern. Scores of them, sleek and glistening, spouting through airholes as if to shout encouragement. The stern rose high in the water, we poised and the timbers shuddered; the mast, like a pine in a storm, creaked and swayed. Then we moved. Swifter than pirate penteconters driven by Boreas, swifter by far than dugouts with pygmy rowers. We clung to the bulwarks to keep our balance. We sucked in air and laughed it out of our lungs. Astyanax held to Tages and caught the spray in his face.

  And the dolphins! They were saving our lives but also playing a game. They squealed like children, they plunged and whirled and somersaulted, and one leaped over the vessel, showering foam in his wake. They tried to take turns at pushing but some grew impatient and nosed their friends out of place. And Atthis led them. I wanted to hug her.

  The captain of the dugout, waving a blowgun, shouted a final threat. It was strange to hear Greek spat from the lips of a pygmy.

  “Seek her at your peril.”

  “Tell her to wait for us!” I called.

  She crossed her arms and glared at us balefully as the dugout altered course and returned to hug the coast.

  Except for Atthis, the dolphins followed the pygmies, no doubt to make sure that they did not change their minds and return to give us chase. Gray-backed gods, the dolphins seemed, swift, powerful, and lordly. We lined the deck and cheered them as they went.

  Atthis remained. Astyanax swam to meet her and threw his arms around her neck. “Atthis, you’ve come back to us!” I wanted to go to her myself, but my going must not, like my parting, seem thoughtless and crude. I must go to her partly as suppliant and partly as a friend, indebted but not obsequious; grateful and gracious, with love and a gift which betokened love. I searched my mind for something which, even though belated, should not seem too late. I remembered the gown she had fondled in the sunken galley. I had no gowns or woman’s cloaks, I had no jewels, no bracelets of amber stars nor necklaces of hammered gold. But I owned one object more precious to women than pearls: a bronze mirror with a handle like the neck of a swan.

  Mirror in hand, I called to Atthis from the deck. She did not move; she waited on the surface, watchful, poised for flight—and also, no doubt, appraising the mirror. Guessing my intention, Astyanax left her and returned to the ship. I swam to her side.

  Treading water, I held the mirror in front of her. She looked at the bronze and, seeing her image, recoiled; she returned, and this time lingered. She tilted her head, she opened her beak, she rolled on her side with an artless and touching vanity. Then, having shown her delight, she spoke her gratitude—and her forgiveness—with a simple and eloquent gesture: she rested her beak on my shoulder.

  At last she took the mirror from my hand and dove below the surface—to a sea-cave, no doubt, to hide her treasure. I returned to the ship and waited for her. Hardly had I settled on deck when she reappeared. My crew welcomed her, Balder and Frey with tears. Astyanax offered her a yellow cheese which she took from his hands and swallowed in one large gulp. Aruns was grave, courtly, and yet affectionate. He recited a verse well known to sailors, “Follow the dolphin, fly the shark,” and comme
nded her people for having inspired such a tribute. For me, it was not enough to call to her from the deck. I entered the water and, like Astyanax, threw my arms around her neck.

  “Atthis,” I said. “I am often unworthy of my friends. I have been unworthy of you. But you have forgiven me. Dear friend, do you know that I love you?”

  I felt the throbbing of her noble heart.

  * * * *

  We came at dusk to a bay which enclosed a small island. Around the bay stretched yellow arms of the desert, but the island lay green and living, with grassy rocks tumbled along its beaches, with tamarisk trees and oleanders and date palms clustering fruit. Giant cranes, trailing their legs, looped above the trees or plunged after fish in the water. Though we badly needed supplies, we dared not land till morning for fear of the pygmies, whose deadly darts we had glimpsed if not felt. Atthis and two of her friends kept watch around the ship. If a dugout tried to surprise us, the pygmies would find themselves capsized and possibly drowned. We dined meagerly on cheese and wine, but happily, because Atthis had returned to us.

  After we had eaten, I made a little speech. I thanked my friends for their loyalty and counted the dangers we had faced: Harpies, pygmies with blowguns, thirst, and near starvation.

  “Shall we end our search?” I asked. “Circe, it seems, doesn’t want us.” Of course, I could guess their answer.

  “We never expected an invitation,” said Aruns. “Which is the sweetest apple on the tree? The one on the topmost branch, defended by angry bees. As Sappho put it:

  At the end of the bough—its uttermost end,

  Missed by the harvesters, ripens the apple,

  Nay, not overlooked, but far out of their reach,

  So with all best things.

  It’s the difference between a wife and courtesan. The wife is there; the courtesan, a good one anyway, has to be fetched.”

  Frey and Balder looked scandalized at this talk of courtesans. Their Scandian heritage had not prepared them for the realities of Etruscan and Greek society. But Astyanax, without hesitation, agreed with Aruns: “The apple at the end of the end of the bough.”

  Then we heard the singing, blown to us from the island, soft, intimate, intimating. Women or goddesses singing in an unknown tongue which somehow spoke to us. To me, they sang of Circe. A powerful enchantress, she climbed the path to her palace. Her robes were like woven sunlight, and malachite moons twinkled above her breasts. A large, sleepy-eyed bear prowled at her heels. To the others, who can say? Of onyx and lapis lazuli; of sandarac heaped on altars; of wings and wind and star giants tall in the sky. What each of them wanted most, a place he had been, a place he was going, a person he loved or wished to love. For a long time we listened in silence. When the voices stopped we had no wish to speak. With nodded goodnights we went to our quarters—Aruns to sleep on deck with Balder and Frey. Astyanax took a swim and afterward stretched at my feet. I pressed his hand; it was chill—from his swim, I thought. I fell asleep.

  I awoke to singing. I felt as if wild honey were trickling into my ears. By the light of the owl-shaped lamp above my couch, I saw that Astyanax had gone. Had the music called him? I hurried on deck and circled the ship, scanning the moon-bleached waters. Atthis and two of her friends dozed fitfully on the surface. I roused Aruns. No, he had not seen Astyanax. The singing grew loud and almost fierce; it surged instead of oozed. I thought, He has gone ashore to find the singers. I lowered myself from the gunwale and swam to Atthis.

  “Astyanax is gone,” I said. “Will you take me to the island?” Her heart beat wildly; she sensed my fear and throbbed it back to me. With desperate speed we broke the moon’s white mirror.

  At last I trailed through the soft sand of the beach, skirted a pool like the rounded pad of a water lily, and climbed over rocks which greened me with their moss. I found the singers. They sat beside an arm of the sea, their long tails coiled in the moonlight like silver cornucopias. Hair—or was it seaweed?—entangled their white shoulders, a forest spilling on marble. One of them held Astyanax in her arms and sang as if to her child. But something trembled behind the coaxing tones: the hint of a scream. I thought of the Cretan arena and athletes gored as they spun above the bulls; of women shrieking with terror and ecstasy.

  “Astyanax,” I called. He did not answer. The singers looked at me without expression and then, in a wash of moonlight, I saw their faces. It is true that they were beautiful, with foreheads of perfect alabaster and lips like cinnabar. But their eyes revealed them, a fish’s eyes, cold and lidless. They might have been sharks staring at me through smoky depths; as alien and as evil.

  The one with Astyanax raised an object above his head. At first I took it for ivory; no, it was bone, and sharpened into a blade. I lunged and struck her hand. I caught Astyanax in my arms and hurled him, with rough desperation, out of her reach. Her tail, like a coiling asp, entangled my legs and brought me to the ground. Her shark’s eyes held me motionless; her breath smelled of scales and sea-slime, flesh decayed and corrupted. She was strong but clumsy; the sea, not the shore, was her element. I wrenched myself from her paralyzing eyes. I flailed with my arms, and my fingers fell on an object, hard and cold. I grasped it and beat at her face. She gasped, like a fish sucking air, and released me. The object, a human skull, rolled between us. Her sisters tore at my legs but I kicked them viciously—their scales cut my feet—and reached Astyanax. He crouched full-length on the ground, still dazed by the roughness of my thrust. I caught him in my arms and, stumbling over the rocks, reeled toward the beach.

  Breathless and spent, we fell onto sand which stretched like a cool moist coverlet. They had not followed us. Beside their pool, they laughed and then they sang. Their song was red like blood.

  Astyanax shook in my arms. I held him until he could speak.

  “I went for a swim and heard them singing. One of them called my name. ‘Astyanax, my son,’ she said. I swam ashore and wriggled over the rocks. She took me in her arms. I thought she was my mother.”

  “They are Sirens,” I said. “A different race from yours. Fish with human faces. She didn’t call your name; she bewitched you to think she had.” I rose to my feet. “Now we must swim to the ship.”

  The pygmies leveled their blowguns.

  V: CIRCE

  I awoke to darkness. Pains knifed me like poison darts. I heard, far away—or close but muffled—the howl of animals—the high, feminine wail of a cat, the baying of dogs, the deep-throated roar of a lion. I groped in the dark for Astyanax. The emptiness seemed a palpable enemy.

  “What have you done with my friend?” I shouted. The darkness had no answer. The cold possessed me with damp, enfolding wings…I slept or fainted.

  I opened my eyes in a sun-dappled arbor, where trellises rose into jungles of swelling grapes. The scent of the fruit, wounded by insects and oozing purple juices, cloyed my nostrils. I lay on a mat of rushes, and when I sat, the grapes seemed to fly at my face like swarms of hornets. My head cleared slowly; I did not yet trust my feet. Beyond the arbor a three-story house, with a portico of crimson columns, climbed in lavender walls and oblong windows. Rows of brick-colored moons divided the floors, and a date palm leaned like a lintel across the doorway.

  At last I struggled to my feet and grasped a trellis. Grape juice moistened my fingers and bees assaulted the stains. Gently I flicked them away—they are valiant creatures and bringers of luck—and steadied my swaying body. Last night I had swum ashore nude; this morning, it seemed, I wore a loincloth, with a large metal ring like a belt which squeezed my waist and cramped my lungs.

  Cranes with tufted heads wheeled and slanted above me. Then, with raucous cries, they dropped toward the grass and lowered their long stilt legs. I saw what had drawn them: she came toward me from the house, a girl with a lavender tunic falling above her knees and held at the waist by a girdle of antelope leather. Her hair was like tumbling hyacinths, and yellow crocuses mingled with the flower-like folds. Persephone, I thought. The Greeks call her Maiden,
the corn girl, who walks the fields, invisible, and touches the barley into bending gold.

  She approached me with the familiarity of long friendship. Her fingers, like the feelers of a snail, whispered over my cheeks.

  “Dear guest,” she said, “dear Arnth, are you well? I fear my pygmies were rough. When you charged them like a bear, what could they do but defend themselves?” She spoke the same tongue as the Harpies and pygmies—archaic Greek. Perhaps Odysseus had taught her, and she had taught her friends.

  Her face and manner said, “I am your host and equal.” But a great enchantress, however smiling, might blast me with thunderbolts if I failed in respect. I fell to my knees.

  “Circe,” I said, “queen and enchantress. What have you done with my friend?”

  She touched my shoulders. “He is well and happy,” she said, smiling. “And you mustn’t kneel. If anything, I should kneel to you, who have come so far to find me.” She sat on the grass and, sweet with spikenard, drew me down beside her. “I think you are surprised. You expected—another kind of Circe?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “A temptress with beasts at her side. A woman like the sun who glittered when she walked and burned your eyes. You expected a queen and found—“

  “A girl in a lavender tunic with hair like hyacinths.”

  “And you are justly disappointed. Your dream is broken. Like an eagle fallen from the sky.”

  “No, I am happy. The temptress I could have worshiped. The girl I can love.”

  “Love,” she sighed. “Love is a banquet, no? Thrushes and tongues of flamingoes, wine dipped from silver kraters and roses to garland the head. I am not such a banquet, Arnth.”

  “Love is also a picnic, where the hills run down to the sea like racing deer. Grape juice in place of wine, grass for a couch, and yellow gagea to garland our brows.”

  “Bear,” she said, caressing the word with her lips, “I talked with Astyanax while he ate his breakfast—do you never feed him? He ate like a colt! He told me your secret name. Prowling, sleepy-eyed Bear. Perhaps you will fall asleep in my arms. I should like that, I think. It would mean you trusted me. Do you trust me, Bear?”