Son of Zeus
by Eric Feka
The Legend of Herakles, Episode 1
Copyright Eric Feka 2014
Cover image by Aidan Kelly
Published by Reluctant Geek
When it comes to Herakles, Hollywood has it all wrong. In Hellenic mythology, where his legend was born, the most famous son of Zeus was anything but a squeaky clean, square-jawed hero. Herakles's true nature emerged in his teens when he beat his music teacher to death with the man's own lyre - a fitting prelude to the years of violence that were to come.
Herakles was big. He was angry. He was pathologically violent. In short, he was the world's first anti-hero. Named Alkides at birth, this is the story of how the most famous son of Zeus came to take the name Herakles, and the horrific crime that changed the course of his life.
Table of Contents
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(vii)
(viii)
(ix)
(x)
(xi)
(i)
The beast pricked its ears and a growl rumbled deep in its throat. The unmistakable stench of men had penetrated the fetid atmosphere of its den and disturbed its slumber. The monster had been born a lion, and such it was despite being twice the size of the greatest of its brothers. Its vast bulk and strength marked it as a throwback to ancient times before men had come, when lions without manes had roamed throughout the lands bringing terror and death to all other beasts.
Men had driven its ancestors deep into the hills where they had dwindled and become less ferocious, so it was justice, of a sort, that saw this beast, whom men named the Lion of Kithairon, drive them away from their homes and feed upon their livestock.
Despite its size, the beast was young in years and its strength had lent it an arrogance rarely seen in the animal world. Its eyes had never fallen upon a foe it could not defeat, nor upon prey that it could not slaughter.
When it was a newborn cub, its mother had tried to teach it the danger of men, that they had long claws and hard skins. She tried to teach the beast to avoid men, but it could not understand. Running was simply not in its nature. In its eyes, men were meat with which it could briefly sate its ever-present hunger.
And so the lion did not turn away when it met men. Against the teachings of its mother, it killed and devoured all it encountered as if they were ordinary animals. And the more it killed, the more they came, because men cannot let a threat lie. Some had managed to stay alive long enough to scar its hide, but they were few and far between. Its great paws batted away sword and spear, its claws sliced through bronze armor as if it were flesh, and its great jaws snapped bone and tore muscle.
With the grace of all things feline, the terrible beast rose and padded silently out of its cave and into the cool morning air. It made its way to a crevice in the rocky hills from where it could pounce upon any who approached. It had ambushed many men here in the past, in the narrow space between the rocks that restricted sword and spear and ensured that only one man could face it at a time. From its perch above the crevice, it would drop down and push its victim off his feet before tearing at legs and torso with claw and fang.
It tested the air again and settled down to wait. There was only one, which was curious. Men usually came in numbers.
(ii)
'I am Alkides, son of Zeus,' the young man bellowed into the air. King Thespios had counseled him to approach the lair silently and with caution, but Alkides was not in the habit of creeping about. 'I come to avenge my people and bring glory to Zeus!' he shouted, then drew his sword and stepped forward, shield held above his head.
The few who had survived the lion's den told how the beast had dropped upon them from the cliffs above the chasm leading to its lair, and Alkides was not one to ignore such knowledge. The gorge was long and narrow and he had barely covered half its length before the lion pounced. It sprung down onto his shield, expecting to knock him to the ground as it had so many others, but Alkides was no ordinary man. His strength was legend, even so early in his life, and he stood head and shoulders above all other men in Thebes.
Alkides did not crumble at the lion's first assault, as all the others had before him, but held his feet and twisted his shield to throw the lion to the ground. It fell heavily, and scattered the debris of its many kills in all directions. Bent shields, broken swords and gnawed bones covered the ground of the chasm - a legacy of the many that it had already devoured - but it sprung up again instantly. For a frozen moment, man and beast faced one another, both crouched and poised for battle.
Again, the lion pounced and again Alkides fended it off with his shield, but this time it brought a huge paw around as it fell back. The beast's razor sharp claws sheared the shield in two and the force of the blow knocked the sword from the man's grasp.
Weaponless but unable to restrain his battle lust, Alkides bounded after the beast as it tumbled back and struck it in the head with what was left of his shield. With amazing strength, he lifted the stunned animal off the ground and drove it, head first, into the cliff wall.
Thinking it unconscious, Alkides bent to pick up the sword and finish the job, but dispatching such a beast would not be so easy. It regained its senses as the son of Zeus turned for the sword and charged with its huge maw open.
Alkides sensed the lion's movement and dove forward as he picked up his blade. With an uncanny agility that such a big man could not possibly possess, he twisted back up onto one knee to face the threat and thrust the sword up and out towards the lion as it charged.
The momentum of the beast's assault pushed the sword through the roof of its mouth and out through its right ear. Two of its fangs pierced the skin of Alkides's forearm, but it was dead before it could close its jaws.
His opponent vanquished, Alkides used a scrap of cloth from the debris at his feet to stem the flow of blood from his arm. He did not worry about the wound festering - the blood of Olympians flowed through his veins and it did not easily taint.
(iii)
Back at his camp, near a crossroad on the road to Thebes, Alkides was skinning the lion when he heard a soft noise behind him.
'Son of Zeus, why do you labor so?' a feminine voice said.
The startled young man scrambled to his feet, drew his sword, and turned to face the voice. He saw two women sitting on stones a few yards from the fire, identical in face and body. One was dressed in a severe white robe and with her hair hidden by a scarf, while the other wore a dress so revealing she may as well have been wearing nothing at all.
'Who are you to ask such questions?' he said, putting away the sword and returning to his work. While he was surprised, he could see no threat from these two.
'I am Virtue and this is my sister Pleasure,' said the woman with the scarf. 'We have come to offer you your destiny.'
'You offer me my destiny? I don't want to offend either of you,' Alkides said, 'but how can you offer me something which is my own to forge? Nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening to anyone else.'
'The fate of one such as you is uncertain,' Virtue said, 'the child of one Olympian and the enemy of another.'
Pleasure said nothing, but sat and stared at the young man with naked lust in her eyes.
Alkides looked up sharply. 'If it is Hera to whom you refer, then you are wrong. She is not my enemy, nor am I her's.'
'She is your enemy even if you deny it. You are the product of her husband's infidelity and that makes her blood boil,' Virtue said. 'She sent serpents to kill you when you were just a babe in the cradle, and she plots your demise still.'
Alkides snorted his derision and returned to his work.
'Now that you have killed the L
ion of Kithairon, do you think yourself redeemed for the murder of Linos?' Virtue asked.
'I did not murder Linos. He struck me first and I had the right to defend myself.'
'A teacher should be able to strike a wayward student,' Virtue said. 'How else can he teach his reluctant charges? Poor Linos, he was probably the first teacher to be bludgeoned to death with his own lyre.'
'Who are you to question the judgment of Thebes?'
'Yes, sister, do you to question the law of Thebes?' Pleasure said, and got to her feet. 'Linos was a fool to strike one as virile and as volatile as this son of Zeus.'
Alkides stopped working and turned back to look at the two women. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but thought better of it and returned to his task.
'If it wasn't murder,' Virtue said, 'then why did Amphitryon send you away from your lessons? Surely, tending cows is not glamorous enough a vocation for one such as yourself.'
Alkides kept working.
'He was not banished, sister, just given a moment to reflect upon who he is,' Pleasure said. 'Amphitryon, the man who raised him as his own son, always knew the worth of this young man, which is why he sent him to slay the Lion where so many others had failed. You have done your job, Alkides,' she took a step forward and shed what little clothing she wore. 'Come with me now and claim your reward.'
Alkides looked at the startlingly beautiful woman and temptation beckoned. He paused a moment and reflected upon where he was and who it was