Wings
The small mountain rose, dark and jagged ahead of me, a splintered tooth of rock threatening the lowering clouds, the stormy spring sky.
The maps this hillock Kerames that rose out of the even, green farms around it. The locals called it death.
Even from the base of it, I could smell the horse manure and rotted flesh on top. Even from the base of it, I could hear the eerie cries of the creatures that sounded less like horse whinnies and more like the shrieks of damned souls attempting to break down the doors of Hades. And I could see, darker against the dark sky, the shadows of overspreading wings.
Short of breath, dizzy with fever and tiredness, I stopped at the foot of the mountain and looked up at the jagged rocks, climbing end on end, scarp on scarp.
My bare feet hurt, as did my wrists, where my hands had been severed. To even attempt to climb this mountain without hands was insanity. I would fall and dash my brains against one of the many rocks.
But that, of course, was what I sought. Of course. Either death by breaking my head, or death at the winged horses' maws. What did it matter?
Only it mattered and, standing there, looking up at the desolate, manure-flecked rocks, I knew it mattered. If I fell and broke what remained of my body but didn't die, I could last many days there, in a barren crevice, in a cruel wasteland with no one to listen to my cries, no one to rescue me.
For a moment I hesitated and shivered in the wind that had picked up force. A warm wind, it must be, this being the end of spring and edging on into summer, but it felt frigid to my fevered skin.
I pulled my cloak around myself clumsily, lacking the fingers that would have adjusted the rough wool mantel in place, or refastened the fibula that held it together. Beneath it I wore only a linen exomis, the simple, sleeveless tunic that left half the chest and the right arm unencumbered -- just like the exomis that Hephaestus and Daedalus wore in the statues in their temples.
A working garment, for artisans who needed the free use of their arm.
And yet I'd never be working again, and my truncated, useless arm served me no more.
Six months ago, I'd been a wealthy young man, with a prosperous future ahead of me, an asset and credit to my hometown, the city-state of Karyae. My sculptures -- everyone has seen them -- in temples and palaces and great market towns: I gave new breath to holy Aphrodite. In clay and finely veined marble and that harder grey granite, I made her form rise, divine and lovely as it once rose from the softly foaming sea. That sea I sculpted too, crested and heaving, beneath Poseidon's flung trident.
To me came the great ones who wished for their loves to be immortalized at the peak of youth, the joy of loveliness. To me came parents who, by my art, sought to have their lost children live again in funerary sculptures. To me came the athletes wishing their victory commemorated in deathless stone.
To me came the town of Brindisia. They begged me to erect a statue in their market place. Zeus, they said. It should be my best work, they said.
The sum they offered was a fortune, enough to keep me in style the rest of my days, even if I never sculpted again.
Even then -- I will not pretend otherwise -- wiser heads than mine warned me. Those lands of the North, they said, had their own peculiar customs and rarely laid out money for an artist's work. Almost barbarians they were, untouched by civilization and harsh in their ways. Who knew what they might not do to me if I failed their expectations?
Some of them even warned me of this mountain, Keramis, so close to Brindisia, where it was said ferocious winged horses lived, who ate the unwary traveler.
In my arrogance, I'd laughed it all off. I was but twenty and had been a master of sculpture for four years, and knew nothing at which I had failed.
I would fulfill the greatest hopes of Brindisia.
Now at the foot of the desolate mountain that rose in defiance against the sky, I shook my head at the arrogance of that other Kimon, those six months -- was it only six months? -- past.
The wind ruffled my imperfectly closed cloak and caressed my body with its cold fingers.
I set my bare foot against the rock, balanced with my other foot on the relatively flat surface further up, and leaned with my whole body against the irregular, jagged rock, feeling its hard, cold texture
The wind carried the smell of fresh grass and growing fruit from fields and orchards around.
But the ripening and growing of things no longer mattered to me.
I'd made my decision. I'd reside in Hades before I lived on Earth like a new Daedalus, forever aware of the object of my thirst, forever unable to attain relief.
For the inhabitants of Brindisia had drugged me with herb-laced wine on the night I had completed my work. To ensure that this would be indeed my masterpiece, and that I would never exceed it, with later years and growing skill, they'd severed both my hands.
Oh, they'd had them tended by a surgeon, and I had enough money to buy a farm back home, and take a pretty wife and live in some state.
But what did it matter if I could no longer feel the vein of marble, no longer wield the chisel and shape life out of inanimate rock?
They might as well have severed my soul from my body.
I leaned against the rock and climbed, my arms hugging the incline, my feet finding now this resting place, now that.
The jagged rock cut at the soles of my feet but didn't matter.
The wind picked up speed and whistled around me, a mournful cry like souls from the underworld swearing vengeance upon the living. It didn't matter.
Cold leached warmth from my body and made my teeth chatter with shock, and yet I sweated with fever. My vision trembled with that fever, as if fever were a veil held in front of my aching eyes, a fluttering veil that made rocks and crags and jagged stretches of mountain look like a mirage undulating in the heat of a summer day.
Up and up and up I climbed, driven by nothing except the need not to be, the need to rest.
Like a child after a long day, like a bride after long courtship, I longed for that eternal, dusty bed that would be my grave.
The sound of the wings from above, the smell of manure and rotting flesh called to me like a meal to a starving man, like a cure to a man mortally ill.
I'd get to the top and -- local legends being true, as the smell seemed to proclaim them -- I'd find there death and rest everlasting.
The locals said no man escaped unscathed from that mountain that the winged horses, once the mount of muses, had become renegade and fed on the flesh of any man who came near.
I looked up at the sky, I looked at the dark outstretched wings against the thunder-pregnant clouds, and I knew in my heart it was true, and I longed for teeth that would rend my flesh, that would rend what remained of my life, that would let me die, as my art had died on the day they'd severed my hands.
I climbed and climbed, like a man possessed, my heart thundering near my mouth, my breath stinging my lungs when I took it in.
When I was halfway up the mountain, the bolt of Zeus split the thunderclouds with bright zigzagging light. For a moment the mountain ceased being black and revealed itself shades of brown, intercut by tufts of scraggly grass.
And above me.... I drew in breath and almost lost my footing in shock.
Above me, a creature of dream, of poetry, of magical freedom and amazing beauty took wing. It was a horse, sure, such a horse as no man would disdain keeping, strong of body, elegant of leg, white as the first snows, winged like mind's wishes.
It screamed as it flew and in that moment, by the light of Zeus' bolt that lasted no more than a heartbeat, I thought what it would look like sculpted in creamy marble, lifting its head in that scream.
Then darkness closed in again. Sheets of cold rain washed over me, lashing my body like a cruel whip.
I leaned against the cold, wet rock of the mountain and felt tears streak down my cheeks.
I would not be sculpting anything. Never again.
Driven by new frenzy, I started up the mountain once more.
Above, more horses cried.
Perhaps my presence disturbed them.
The whole herd of them took wing. I saw them, now and then, in the glimmer of the bolts.
Beautiful as dreams, cruel as nightmares, they flew and cried, and circled their mountain, like sparrows whose nest has been disrupted and who circle it and circle it in confusion.
I climbed. Madly, I climbed.
My feet bled where I had cut them in a hundred crags, scraped them raw in a thousand rocks. The blood made it slippery, but I climbed, nonetheless, and climbed, and climbed, even when I encountered the first piles of dung, the first reeking scraps of this and that -- a this and that with teeth and fragments of hair, that might be part of a human being, or else a hare, or some other animal scavenged from the countryside.
In the darkness it was hard to tell, nor did I care. I, Kimon, was in no state to help the dying or bury the dead.
I, Kimon, was but a man walking in the land of the living by mistake, an animated corpse that moved still, that moved, invariably, towards his certain end.
My climbing stopped. I'd reached the top of the mountain, a roughly circular, irregular top, flat and barren and rocky, littered with many bundles, some shapeless and some looking suspiciously human.
It looked -- by the light of the blinding, sudden flash of Zeus's wrath -- barely large enough to fit two people such as me lying down end to end, but on the far end the dark maw of a cave yawned, a cave that no doubt led deeper into the Earth, a cave from which rank smells of death issued.
From the cave, winged horses emerged, one by one, and, with frightful screams, joined the swarm of their brothers circling the mountain.
Then one, and then the other, came down and pushed with their noses at one of the bundles on the ground.
I screamed, "Come to me. Kill me."
They ignored me. Again and again one of the beautiful creatures would dive down from the circle circling the mountain. Again and again, it would push at the bundle on the ground, drawing it, ever so slowly, closer to the edge of the mountain, closer to the jagged edges below.
I wondered if this was their last victim, if they were thus cleaning the mountain top of his corpse, and I wondered what that meant.
I'd been told they ate travelers.
"Devour me," I screamed, sounding like a drunkard in a tavern, my voice high and shrill.
The horses all screamed but none came towards me; they pushed at the bundle on the ground.
A flash of thunder, and I saw that the bundle -- an unmistakably human shape, the size of a boy at the edge of manhood -- had hands and feet that protruded from beneath a tattered, grey cloak. And the hands and feet dug at the rock and prevented each push of the horses' noses from pushing him right over the edge of the mountain, now no more than two hand spans away.
Before the light faded, my supposed corpse lifted his head and let out a single, despairing scream. He didn't turn towards me; as though he as well as the horses, were unaware of my presence.
But I knew he was there, I knew he was alive, and this -- this of all things -- roused me from the stupor I'd lived in since I'd lost my hands.
In the darkness, I saw the shadow of the next horse as it dove, saw it push with its nose at the screaming bundle and, all unthinking, dove forward, dove forward and -- unthinking -- pushed the stump of my arm towards the boy's grasping hand.
His hand found it and closed on it with force that made me scream as loudly as the horses, a scream of agony.
But I controlled myself, and pulled back, back, back, dragging the bundle with me away from the edge.
My foot stepped on something soft and springy. A human body, I thought, but it did not move, and it felt cold beneath my bleeding sole. I stepped on it, and then again, and then was over it, walking backwards.
A horse's nose touched me on the shoulder, pushed hard against me, and I pushed back against it.
All the horses converged on us, now, as the bundle -- the boy -- stepped over the edge of the abyss and stumbled forward on his two feet, balancing himself against me.
I put both arms around him, and leaned, feeling his warmth, his human, vital warmth, and determining that he would not be allowed to die. I'd come to seek death, I. But one so young...one so young could not wish to die.
He keened something into the baying wind, the lashing rain.
I couldn't understand him, could make out no words, except for the feeling of fear and pain.
I pulled him backwards with me, towards the other edge of the rock, looking for a crevice, for some place we could hide where the horses could not get at us.
They flew around and I felt now the graze of a hoof, now the touch of teeth upon my shoulder. They nipped my arms. Playing, I thought. Playing with me like a cat with a mouse. Just as they had played with this boy.
My feet faltered, the sky brightened with Zeus' wrath, and I saw beneath my feet just what I'd been looking for -- a cleft between the rocks, just large enough for the boy and me to hide, for us to crouch and recover our breath. For me to send him back down the mountain.
I pulled him down with me into the crevice, and pushed with my arms until he laid low between the rocks.
There I took a deep breath and tried to think of a way of explaining to him that he must go down the mountain on his own, that he must let me die. Instead, I heard myself say, "What are you doing on this mountain, boy?"
Another high keening sound answered me, a scream of anguish. For a moment I thought the boy was either mute or mad, and could make no sounds more human than these screams.
But on the heels of the scream came a whisper, a low murmur, hoarse and uncertain as from vocal chords shaped by uncertain manhood. "I wanted to die," he said, and shuddered, and took a deep breath and screamed again. "I wanted to die."
He wanted to die. I remembered his hands digging into the rock, to resist the push of the horses, and I had trouble believing him.
But he whispered, "Why did you rescue me? I wanted to die."
I remembered his grip upon my stump. No. "Why would you want to die?"
Just then the thunder echoed, and he turned and looked at me. He had dark curls, just shy of shoulder length, and pale skin and would have been beautiful, except that the eyes he turned to me were bloody and inflamed wounds -- as ill-treated as the end of my stumps.
"My master was teaching me his trade as a painter," he said. "But he thought I was better than he, and didn't wish me to surpass him.” He spoke very softly. "What good is life if I can no longer see?"
Which was nonsense. What good was life, indeed? He could enjoy the taste of wine, the softness of the ground beneath his feet and someday, maybe, the love of a woman. And he would throw all that away?
"You have so much to live for," I said. "You've hardly tasted life yet. Are you destitute?” I thought of the money the town had paid me, the golden coins left behind at my lodgings. I could give them to him and ensure he lived a full life with all he needed, while I sought the oblivion of death.
He shook his head, then shrugged. "My master said he'd support me, and I could still do chores around the house. But I can't paint.” He made soft sounds, like crying.
Above us the horses screamed and hooves hit the rock on either side of us, as their fury sought us out.
"We must go back down," I said, wondering how I'd manage this, with no hands and leading a blind boy. It was a miracle in itself that I'd made it up. "We must go or the horses will surely kill us."
He made a stifled little sound, but no protest that he wished to die. I remembered his hands, clawing for salvation, while his feet dangled over the abyss.
Would I too have found that little courage to die, had it come to it?
"Why didn't you seek a cleaner death?" I asked, as much to him as to myself.
"Without my eyes.... I couldn't see how to contrive it," he said.
Just as I would have answered that I needed hands to seek death by other means. And yet, couldn't either of us have fallen on our daggers as easily as we could climb a mountain?
I shook my head. No. We'd sought something else on this mountaintop. Something, but not death.
The boy shivered again. The light of a thunderbolt showed him in his soaked, dirty linen cloak, his black hair plastered to his face by rain.
"We must climb down," I said, and essayed to guide him with my stumps.
His hand felt for my arm, and held onto it, and hesitantly reached for where there should be a hand that wasn't there.
He drew in breath, sharply. "You're the sculptor," he said. "I heard.... My master told me...."
"I am Kimon," I said. I felt his hand hold on tight, and I guided his other hand to take hold of the ledge.
"And you came looking for death," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"And yet you want to leave."
"Yes," I said. I couldn't explain it any better than that, even to myself.
Guiding him, trying to steer clear of the flying horses, trying to stay within vertical crevices, where rocks on each side protected us from the hooves and teeth of the creatures, I climbed down slowly, helping the boy down.
His hands held onto ledges where I couldn't hold the rock. My eyes showed me where he should hold, and I instructed him.
"You have gold," he said, halfway down, while the wind lashed at us. "And you're free. Why would you wish to die?"
I shrugged, forgetting he couldn't see it. "I can't feel the marble, or hold the chisel."
He laughed, a strangled laughter in his throat, while he steadied me with his free hand, and held onto the rock with the other, until both our feet found flat resting space. "And I can no longer see colors. And yet, why do we fear death?"
"Hades," I said, short of breath, climbing down yet more. "Think of eternity like this. Or worse."
"You believe in Hades?" he asked.
"I don't know.” But I believed in lost opportunities, in throwing away the sweetness of life. Rain fell like a cold caress upon my brow. It was only the fever that had made me think of death, I told myself.
And the boy's eyes.... The flesh around them looked burned red. He must have been blinded by hot coals. I must get a priest of Aesculapius to look at them. "I'll take care of you," I said. "I'll buy you from your master. I have enough money to buy a farm back home. You can live there. I'll adopt you. You'll be my son. My heir. You'll not need your eyes. You'll learn to taste the joy of life through your fingers, to see the forms of things through your fingerprints, to enjoy the ripening fruits of the Earth with your tongue, to know the seasons with your nose."
He made that sound, not quite laughter again. "Why?"
"Because I found you at the place of death, and brought you forth as much as father brings a son, into life."
We'd reached the flat ground, and I steadied him, and turned him towards the fields we'd have to cross with our bare, bleeding feet.
Above us, the winged horses still beat the sky.
"I think that would be well," he said. And then in a low, hesitating tone, "My name is Elpis."
"Then, Elpis, let's go home to my lodgings. I'll buy you from your master in the morning and then we'll set out, back to my hometown."
The fields were muddy beneath our feet; the rain lashed about us; the wind carried the scents of harvest and ripening.
The winged horses had disappeared, presumably back into their cave.
A sliver of pink tinged the horizon.
I thought of the winged horses and the statue I'd like to sculpt, and gurgled in laughter to myself, sounding much like Elpis had on the mountain. Laughter of relief, of comprehension.
I could teach Elpis to wield the chisels, and my eyes could guide him as he sculpted. When we got back home, I'd start teaching him.
Perhaps the winged horses still carried the muses upon their backs and inspiration upon their flesh-eating muzzles.