PLAYTHING OF THE GODS
He was Perseus, son of Zeus
and Danae, born in disgrace,
exiled to perish at sea,
fated to survive at heavenly
caprice—until he met his love,
defied the Gods and dared
to fight them or die.
She was Andromeda, enslaved by
her own beauty which beggared
the heavens and brought a
curse upon her city, her home,
her heart . . . until Perseus
accepted the Devil's own challenge,
answered the deadly riddle
and rode forth on his winged
horse Pegasus to claim his
love and to face the last of
the Titans, armed only with a
bloody hand, a witches' curse
and a severed head . . .
Books by
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
Alien
Clash of the Titans
Outland
Krull
Spellsinger
Published by
WARNER BOOKS
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1981 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co.
All rights reserved.
TM Indicates Trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co.
Warner Books, Inc.,
75 Rockerfeller Plaza,
New York, N.Y. 10019
A Warner Communications Company
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing; June, 1981
ISBN 0-446-96675-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Books
Title
Copyright
Dedication
CLASH OF THE TITANS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
For my nephew David,
One to grow with . . .
It doesn't matter who sees it, or when.
It doesn't matter who hears it, or when.
It doesn't matter who touches it, or when.
The ocean is forever a constant
To gods as well as men.
—Old Greek Fisherman's Song
I
It is said among tellers of tales from Macedonia to Mesopotamia, from Crete to Carthage, that when the gods invented turquoise they set the finest of it down in Persia and dissolved the rest in the sea men call the Aegean.
Turquoise can be darkened by aging and by acids. That unfortunate morning it seemed the Aegean itself had been darkened by anger. Boreas and his daughters had stirred the seas into a rare tempest. Normally placid waters twisted with fury and foam assaulted the land as water warred in an endless battle with the shoreline for topographic supremacy.
Oblivious to the mighty conflicts of nature, tiny red crabs scuttled in and out of waves large enough to crush whole ships, searching for food. To them the eternal conflict involving ocean and cliff was as vague as the fogs which often caressed this particularly rugged coast. To them a towering wave was no more than a convenient servant, delivering a fresh coating of tiny food-things with each new mighty roar.
While they did not fear the power of the waves, they hurried to scuttle aside the moment a more lethal force made its presence known. Racing sideways, they scrambled for favorite hiding places in the crevices and water-filled depressions eroded in the rocks.
One not quick enough was crushed to death. It was an idle execution performed solely to amuse the perpetrator. Purpose, then, was the difference between man and wave.
The crab's death was an omen of sorts, but no oracle was needed to predict the intentions of that grim-faced line of armored figures making its way up the damp slope leading to the cliffs. They were bent upon murder more monstrous. Wind slapped at their eyes. Rain trickled down inside helmets and breastplates, warm and clammy.
A few of the figures sported beards. The curly hair was usually cut close to the cheeks and to a point at the chin. Cloak did their best to keep rain from bodies. The enveloping material also served another purpose, for there were some among the line of marchers who felt misgivings about their task and were grateful for the concealment the cloaks provided.
Yet why should I worry, thought one of the dedicated soldiers? I only obey the orders of my king and priests. Was not this punishment we are carrying out decreed by them and approved by an offering to the gods? Did not the population of Argos cheer the decision, even hurling stones at the condemned along with the most vile insults? Why then, with such unanimity of support, should I be worried?
He stood a little taller, this soldier. His stride became more purposeful as he marched confident in the knowledge that the gods were with him and that he was Acting In The Sight.
Besides, he was only a common soldier, and even if he disagreed with the decision of the priests, what could a mere soldier do against his king?
The column continued to snake its way toward the crest of the cliffs overlooking the turbulent sea. Its significance was marked by two things that were carried.
One was a large wooden chest much like an oversized coffin. The intended function, if not the design, was similar. Six soldiers balanced it on their shoulders.
The other was a small wailing bundle carried gently by a young woman. Occasionally her haggard face would dart to right or left, seeking freedom but finding only armor and sword. The infant in her arms moaned soft and steady, his complaints lost in the throatier wail of the wind.
Once the woman broke to her right and tried to flee down the damp rocks. Two soldiers caught her easily before she'd traveled but a few steps. She could not run very fast, burdened as she was by the child and sore, blistered feet.
No comment was made concerning the pitiful aborted escape; not by the woman, not by the warriors guarding her. But they stayed closer to her now. The woman's face was wet and if was impossible to tell which tears fell from the sky which from her eyes.
The soldiers backed off slightly as they reached the edge of the precipice. The woman cuddled the infant tightly in her arms, trying to shield it from the elements. Below the granite overhang lay the roiling Aegean. Spume flecked the rocks. A curious gull cried insultingly from above, fighting the wind to retain its seat in the sky.
A soldier who was more than a king but perhaps less than a man stepped to the edge of the drop He had no fear of falling. Tyrants are sometimes as ignorant of fear as they are of everything else. Acrisius of Argos was such a tyrant.
He turned back to the column, satisfied that no daring fishing boat waited beyond the rocks to haul in more than mackerel. The sea was clean of man.
He was a tall man, was Acrisius. Sharp of features and turbid of thought. His Corinthian-style helmet left only his eyes and beard visible. Its horsehair crest rustled in the wind.
"Get it over with." muttered one of the waiting soldiers, but so softly so one else heard. His was the only remaining uncertainty within the troop. They had not been selected because of any tendency to question, any more than they had for squeamishness.
Acrisius made a gesture. The two soldiers who flanked the woman grabbed her arms. They started to drag her toward the large wooden chest.
Until now fear and defiance had combined to hold the woman silent. When the soldiers finally took hold of her, what remained of her nerves finally gave way. She began screaming and trying to break free. It would have been impossible even if she had not been holding the child.
"Father, no! By all the gods, spare me, or at least spare the boy. He
is blameless. Your own flesh and blood, Father!"
Acrisius's reply was low and thick with indignation. It cut through the howl of the wind.
"I am Acrisius of Argos, of the royal line of Argos. Among that line I acknowledge no bastards, nor the mother of one. I will not break with tradition to do that now." His gaze rose, traveled past her.
"I see here no flesh and blood of mine. Once I had a daughter. That is gone from me now. Did you not hear the verdict of the people? You have shamed the entire city. No easy task for one woman."
"Is love so great a crime that it must be wiped out with death?" she pleaded. The soldiers were lifting her still struggling form into the wooden chest.
He spat toward her, the spittle landing on the hem of her gown and mixing quickly with the rain. "Lust is not love."
"Would you know the difference well enough Father, to be the judge?"
He shook his head once, violent and signifying nothing. Again he made a sign to the soldiers. The cover on the wooden chest was carefully lowered into position and then bolted down. From within came the muffled, now terrified screams of the child. They did not carry as far as Acrisius's heart.
He turned, raised his arms and declaimed to the storm.
"Bear witness, Great Zeus, and all you gods of High Olympus! I commit my daughter Danae and her bastard son Perseus to the sea. Her guilt and sin have brought shame to Argos. The people demand their justice, and I do my duty as their king. I, Acrisius the King, now purge her crime and restore my honor and the honor of the royal family.
"Her blood is not on my hands. It springs from her own actions and from the vileness that resided in her loins. From that moment she ceased to be Danae of Argos. From this moment she is no longer anything."
Lowering his arms, he stood silent for a moment, regarding the raging sea. Then he turned and signaled to the waiting soldiers.
"Now."
Six of them bent and lifted the heavy chest. They moved to the edge of the cliff. The chest had become unnervingly quiet, and the men were anxious to be rid of it. Swinging the container in gradually increasing arcs they finally launched it forward. It rose and hung for a moment in midair, a floating cradle of death.
Then it plunged downward to land with a violent splash in the foam. It bobbed to the surface where the waves began to toy with it. Soon it would smash to splinters on one of the jagged, spume-swept rocks below or be drawn beneath the surface.
Acrisius let out an indifferent grunt, glad to be rid of the distasteful business. As he turned to depart, one of his two officers put out a hand to stay him.
"My lord, should we not remain here a moment or two longer?"
"What for, Apulion? I have much work to do. There are tax rolls to inspect and appointments to be kept, and we have a new war to plan."
"I know that, my lord. But would it not be best to remain at least until we can be certain of the harlot's death?"
Acrisius looked back over his shoulder. A gust of wind shoved arrogantly at him, nearly making him lose his footing.
"That is as certain as the anger of the sea, and no death is more certain than that, Apulion." He grinned humorlessly. "If the chest does not sink or smash to bits on the rocks, then it will float out to sea. There, starvation will provide a slower and perhaps more deserved kind of death." He looked back across rocky slopes and distant fields toward cloud-masked Argos.
"I have spent long enough on this. I am only here because the priests suggested it would be a wise thing. Let us be back to the palace."
Apulion shrugged. "As my lord wishes."
Slowly the soldiers began the steady descent. Down slopes strewn with boulders, across cultivated lands, past clusters of farmers' huts and groves of olive trees. Beyond lay Argos the city: magnificent, rich, and decadent as the king who'd heaped wealth upon it through the conquest of others.
Swinging helplessly atop the waves, the chest bobbed and spun with each shift of the current. Lightning illuminated an unseen sky and accompanying thunder set both occupants of the wooden grave to sobbing. There was none to hear them save the single gull that hovered overhead still battling the wind.
It was not unnatural for the gull to follow the path of the chest. Gulls soon learn that much of mankind's detritus holds edibles disdained and discarded by him, but quite suitable for the satisfaction of a gull.
This particular gull, however, was not interested in garbage. It continued to track the path of the chest as it skimmed the surface.
Or was it possibly the other way round?
The chest rode past the last granite tooth protruding through the surf. It slid out into the open sea. on a course that might carry it to Phoenicia or Aegypt or even lands more distant. The chest might survive such a journey. Its prisoners could not.
Soaring higher, the gull rose on unstable winds. Its wingbeats strengthened as it turned toward the islands that dotted the sea to the north.
Soon it had crossed the islands and was winging its way over other land. Northwest of fabled Corinth it flew, then high over Mount Parnassus. Untiringly it sped past Lamia and Dhomokos. It ascended to heights gulls usually avoid, and once it outraced a very astonished hawk.
A fisherman of special sensitivity looked up from his boat on the river Pinios as the gull passed overhead; he muttered a prayer to his favorite god. Shepherds near Elasson reacted not at all. They were familiar with such things because they lived in the very shadow of the mountain which reached from the Earth to the Heavens.
The gull's wings expanded as it charged straight for the center of the rumbling black nimbus which encircled the summit of the mountain. It flew straight on, ignoring the lightning that crackled all around and the thunder which sent tremors through the solid stone of the peak and the hearts of men dwelling far, far below.
Palaces and temples constructed of pure white imagination began to materialize beyond the clouds. "Ghost marble" it was called by those who sometimes rashly tried to ascend the sacred mountain. Soaring structures resting firmly on foundations of deep belief and anchored in the subconscious of all men, these edifices were built partly on Earth, but mostly in the mind, where nothing is what it seems.
Nor was the gull. As it braked toward the most magnificent and sublime of all the palaces, the one which rode the uppermost crag of the mountain, its wings solidified and its body lengthened. When it finally touched down upon the dream marble, it was with feet set in thongs that pulsed a faint blue green.
They were the color of the sea and smelled faintly of its depths. So did their owner. Here above the friendly waves he was uncomfortable. This was not his dominion, but his presence was required.
The stocky, hirsute figure brushed angrily at his faintly glowing robes as the transformation concluded. He strode up familiar steps toward the Chamber of Assembly, frowning as he went. It is never easy to be the bearer of bad news, even if one is a god.
Thunder receded behind him as he entered the spacious room, its boundaries indiscernible. Mist that was composed not of water, but of the fog of eternity, drifted through the chamber. It obscured distance as this very place obscured time.
The not-fog reminded him pleasantly of favorite places within his own realm, and he relaxed a little as he strode the last few steps to the throne.
Flanking him within the room were figures that seemed motionless. They were not. It was just that they moved through an existence without boundaries or restrictions. As such, they were contemptuous of time.
There was Hera, he noted; always present when her husband sat on his throne. Aphrodite stood close by Athene, whose ever-present owl rode confidently on the goddess of wisdom's shoulder. Poseidon never cared much for owls. They sometimes preyed on the seabirds in his charge.
He shifted his path away from her and toward Thetis. The secondary sea goddess was currently whispering to Hephaestus. Poseidon did not begrudge her the intimacy. The god of fire and forge was the homeliest of all the gods and lame besides, not to mention the hardest working (if it can
be said that a god may work hard). Poor Hephaestus was the least blessed of them all, his enormous strength notwithstanding.
Despite that, he always had a good word for everyone, god or mortal, and a better sense of humor than most. It would be wrong to call the lame god of fire human, yet it was true that of all the gods he was the most like the mortals who inhabited the Earth.
The throne was quite near now. Poseidon could see his brother, brooding as usual atop the white dais. One hand tapped an arm of his seat while his chin rested on another hand, the great rippling beard meshing with the folds of his robe.
Zeus was the sea god's brother and though he ruled supreme, Poseidon alone among the assembled immortals did not fear him. Nor did he envy Zeus his responsibilities as ruler of Earth and Sky and ultimate arbiter of the gods' disputes and bickerings. No, Poseidon was quite content to be left alone in his watery kingdom. Excursions such as this one into the upper world made him nervous. The gods often created god-sized problems and troubles, and he preferred to remain amiably divorced from them.
But when Zeus called, even grumbling brothers were compelled to obey. That was part of the bargain they'd struck when under Zeus's leadership they'd overthrown Cronus and the Titans, and that was the agreement Poseidon now hewed to. So he'd gone where bidden, and watched, and returned now to damnably dry Olympus to make his report.
Zeus's stare turned from far horizons down (to his approaching brother. Poseidon was struck by the other's haggard appearance. He did not look any older and could not, being immortal. But he could look tired.
"What news, my brother?"
The sea god executed a respectful half-bow. "It is done. As we feared might happen, King Acrisius of Argos has abandoned his daughter and her child to the sea."
"And what of the people of the city and its priests?" Zeus asked, dangerously soft-spoken.
"They concurred fully in the decision. They would have gleefully stoned Danae to death and the infant with her, if Acrisius had not given them his own brand of justice, to keep blood from his hands and the streets of the city."