It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
There was no moment of transition. One second there was a fight in the Oriental Institute, between polished glass cases and under modern track lighting. In the next moment there was searing sunlight. And the group tumbled onto the deck of a wooden ship, which was sliding down the front of the swell. The sea was wine-dark and laced with champagne bubbles, as the ram sliced through the wave.
Jerry had a fine view of the water. He'd nearly fallen over the front of the gunwale in landing, before pulling himself back from the drink. Then he almost wished that he hadn't.
The villainous-looking crewmen were rowing the wooden ship with frantic energy. Well, about forty of them were. The other ten or so were bearing down on the newcomers—armed either with bronze swords or with long spears in hand. There was something about the way they moved on the bucketing deck that, even to a landlubber like Jerry, said old seamen. The only thing that said it more was the stench. Jerry wasn't giving any odds that they were unfamiliar with the swords or spears either.
He glanced sideways. They were close to land. Worth swimming for . . . except that it was a sheer cliff that they were skimming next to. The gray wall looked almost polished. He looked the other way hastily, as the sailors advanced. What he saw made him swallow and wonder if he should grab an oar. The dark water was trailed with racing foam. No wonder the rowers were pulling frantically! Even from here he could hear the grumble of the white-lipped whirlpool. The air above it was hazed with a smoking mist. One way or another, this was going to be one mother of a wild, wild ride.
One of the advancing sword-swinging sailors shouted a recognizable word . . . "Odesoos."
Jerry Lukacs was, in many ways, the epitome of the absent-minded professor. And he was possibly the most frightened person on the ship. But camouflaged by the perpetually vague expression on his face was an acute mind. Quick, too. It took him barely seconds to work out where they were. Somehow they were between Scylla and Charybdis, on board Odysseus' vessel. One of the famous black ships.
The unknown holds terrors for the imaginative person. But knowing all about the terror that really is coming gives the imagination a focus. Jerry thought he knew exactly what came next—even if having read about it wasn't at all the same as actually being there.
Therefore he was the only one who was not giving his full attention to the advancing sailors. Instead he was looking ahead.
There, in the middle of the sheer, cloud-capped expanse of gray cliff, was a dark stain—the maw of Scylla's cave. And, if he understood the odd-sounding Greek correctly, then Odysseus was being wily again. The leader of the Achaean sailors was shouting: "Herd them into the bow! The monster will take them!"
It happened with such speed and casual brutality. Private Hooper was the closest to the advancing men. One of the scruffy-looking sailors stepped up to him and started yelling at him. Hooper was a big guy. He didn't take too kindly to being pushed and yelled at by someone at his armpit level. Not even on a strange boat with the pushee bellowing in some goddamn foreign language, with a pigsticker in his hand. So he pushed back.
Sergeant Anibal Cruz saw the sword blade come right through Hooper's back—in a fountain of blood. And then, abruptly, Hooper disappeared.
Cruz had grown up in a tough neighborhood. There'd always been some gang trouble, and Anibal had been familiar with violence since he was a kid. But that seaman took "natural-born killer" to a whole new level. That guy had stabbed Hooper just like a man might kick a stray dog.
But Cruz kept his cool. A few M16 rounds would change the bastards' cocksure attitude.
Lieutenant Salinas wasn't keeping his cool. "Shoot 'em!" he shouted, his voice shrill. "Shoot 'em all!" His pistol was still in his hand. He brought it up to a two-handed grip, stepped back a pace—and stumbled over an empty rower's bench and landed on his ass.
"Single shots!" ordered Cruz. "We're next to a whirlpool! We can't afford to hit the rowers!" He took a careful bead on the son of a bitch who'd so casually killed Hooper.
Then, from behind him, the little guy with the wild hair shouted, "Look out! Scylla!"
Cruz ignored him, still gauging the tactical situation. Take the lead two with those big cheese cutters out. And then the one who had a spear ready to throw. Turn and check out what the guy was shouting about . . . What was that yowling noise, anyway?
A thousand drills kept him calm. "It don't mean nothin' . . . "
He squeezed the trigger—and felt his stomach tie itself into a sick knot and his pulse start hammering.
When you've fired a rifle often—you know exactly how it should kick, sound and feel. It shouldn't—do what it had just done!
The "explosion," if you could even call it that, was piteous. The bullet plopped out and landed a few yards off. What could only be voices, tiny reedy little voices, issued from the muzzle. Anibal tried to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see what the new problem was.
Facing up to that, with a badly designed club—which was all his M16 was now—nearly doubled his already racing pulse rate.
"Fix bayonets," Anibal croaked.
The monster poured herself sinuously out of the dark cave. The black cave-mouth was perhaps forty feet above the water level. And the monster was going to reach them . . .
The six gleaming mottled necks weren't the worst part, thought Liz. They were like thigh-thick pythons with odd dangling clawed feet. But the heads! The heads were a terrible mixture between a woman and a shark—complete to the gill slits. Liz realized that the glisten on the scaly necks was water. The cave up there must be water-filled.
She also realized something more terrible still: the channel narrowed just here. Scylla's lair was perfectly positioned. The suck of Charybdis was now a furious roar of angry surf. The black ship barely moved, although the rowers stroked with frantic intensity. Actually, if they were moving anywhere, they were going backwards. Looking across, Liz realized she was looking straight into the terrible vortex. Such a volume of water was disappearing down the throat of the whirlpool that you could see the exposed rocks and sand . . . and even a few wildly flip-flopping fish.
This vessel would be lucky if it managed not to be sucked into that terrible hole. They certainly weren't going anywhere. Scylla could feed at her awful leisure. Her dreadful, high-pitched, puppy-in-fear yowling cut through even the wild sea-roar, echoing between the two cliffs.
Liz started to rummage hastily through her capacious shoulder bag. There was something for any emergency in there. The problem was always to find anything specific. Well, she could always just hit them with the bag. As usual, it weighed a ton. It seemed to accumulate junk faster than she could clean it out. Ah. Pepper spray!
McKenna looked briefly at the inoperative M16. No time to field-strip it now. He dropped it and grabbed a spare oar from between the rowers' benches. The damn thing was heavy. It would be like trying to fight people off with a telephone pole. Then the black guy yelled, "I'll be the rowlock! You swing it about."
It worked well. They could hold off the guys with the swords just as long as nobody threw a spear. Or the thing behind them didn't get them. Jim had risked one quick glance behind him . . . his mother was a fanatical conservationist. She'd even gotten him to like spiders, but snakes still freaked him out. Cruz and Dietz would just have to deal with that thing.
Jerry watched in horror as Scylla's heads swung lower and lower. One soldier tried what was presumably supposed to be a burst of automatic fire.
It didn't work quite the way he had intended. A wailing Greek tragic chorus issued from the rifle barrel. If Jerry understood it correctly, it was a lament for the death of several lesser earth-spirits killed by the next lump of lead while they'd been pushing this one out. The soldier peered in puzzlement at his weapon.
Always keep your attention on the enemy. . . .
Scylla obviously preferred prey that wasn't prepared for her. A head snaked down and seized the soldier. Kicking and shrieking, the paratrooper was ripped skywards.
The swarthy sergeant had grabbed an oar and swung it at Scylla's nearest head, smashing it sideways. He nearly rescued the other soldier—except that the man . . . just suddenly wasn't there any more.
Jerry realized that there was one way out of this nightmare. Die. Unfortunately, from what he'd been told, you got home dead too.
One of the Achaeans must have appeared tasty and distracted Scylla. She seized one of the sword-wielders next. The falling bronze Mycenaean blade nearly pinned Liz like a butterfly.
Liz grabbed it . . . just as, to Jerry's horror, a head dived at her. Maybe the monster thought a female would be easier prey. Liz sidestepped Scylla's lunge neatly. The head thudded into the deck planking. Hard. It didn't stop Scylla for an instant. The head turned upward and lunged. Somehow the biologist managed to trap it between her body and arm, and then throw her legs around it.
She'd tried to do to what a good fisherman would do to a snoek. Only this was more like a cross between a Great White Shark and a python than a nasty-toothed predatory fish. It was also much bigger. Much, much bigger. And these teeth would make a big snoek's needle-like teeth look like toothpicks. Her full-strength wrench hadn't been nearly enough to tear across the base of the gill arches. Instead, she was being lifted off the deck. The creature was shouting at her. Any moment now its slimy strength would overmaster her. She'd dropped her pepper spray. But she still clutched the overgrown cheese knife that the sailor had nearly pinioned her with. She shoved it into the gills and cut outwards, as she desperately pulled back on the nose.
You can snap a fish's neck if you sever the narrow piece of flesh where the gill openings nearly meet on the throat. On little fish it is surprisingly easy. With big fish, you struggle, but it is still possible. On really big fish it is virtually impossible unless you cut right through it. She'd cut it through. And fear lent her terrific strength. Truly desperate strength.
In a wild threshing and a spray of blood she was flung to the deck. Liz could have been badly hurt. But she hit Jerry, who'd been trying to grab her legs, and then crashed onto the hind end of the cowering Salinas.
The long neck swung about dementedly. The other heads withdrew slightly. Jerry, staggering to his feet, realized that they were lamenting. Well, most of them were.
"Poor Dindymene!" cried one, in tones of horror.
"How cruel and disrespectful!" said another one of the heads. It sounded as if the disrespect was what hurt most.
"She was always Mother's favorite, eh, Pleione?" said the head next to the dangling Dindymene, not sounding as if she missed her fellow Scylla-head much.
The biggest of the heads was plainly shocked. "You know Mother never played favorites, Enyo!"
"Did too!" Enyo snapped back. "And it serves Dindymene right, always trying to get the tenderest ones!"
"We must avenge her!" hissed one of the other heads. "We'll eat all of these."
"You just want to pick the fat ones, Phaedra. You got the last swordfish even though I spotted it first!" snarled another.
Dragon's teeth, thought Jerry. If only I can get them to bicker . . .
But he was no good at talking to ordinary people. Other academics were fine, but these were worse than bank managers. And it would have to be in ancient Greek too. He quailed at the idea, and then bit his lip. Somebody had to do something. And there was no one else . . .
He took a deep breath and shouted, "But, Enyo, how can I keep my promise to you, if you let them devour us. You promised! You'll never be human again . . . "
A head pulled back. "I never made any promises! Not to someone who can't even speak proper Greek!"
Jerry oozed puzzlement and sincerity. "But you agreed! 'The others have to go,' you said, and 'We cannot have one human body with many heads,' you said. 'Leave it to me,' you said. 'Especially Phaedra, she's a spiteful cat,' you said."
"You selfish little bitch!" The Phaedra-head snapped at the Enyo-head.
It went downhill from there. Fast.
Liz had staggered to her feet. She wasn't looking at the bickering, biting heads. She was looking at the sea. "Little guy, tell the sailors to start rowing like fury," she said, sotto voce. "The whirlpool has just stopped sucking."
"Row!" Jerry shouted in his best classical Greek. "Row for your lives!"
For a moment the Greeks looked at him. Then the armour-clad one on the stern said a word that was quite similar sounding. And in a hasty ragged chorus, oar blades bit water.
It took the squabbling heads some time to register.
"They're getting AWAAAY!" they snarled in chorus.
The oarsmen lashed the water to a foam. A head lunged furiously after them. Liz depressed the trigger on her little pepper-spray canister that she'd picked up from the deck. The effects were wholly unexpected. It should have sprayed an aerosol of eye-streaming, nose-and-throat-irritating gunk. But obviously, like the rifles, that would have failed to obey the rules of this strange universe. Instead they were all overpowered by the smell of fresh-cut onions . . . The essence of onions. About a thousand of them.
The head, streaming tears and spluttering, pulled back, hitting itself against the cliff wall in its haste to back off.
And from beside the far cliff Charybdis began to vomit back her water.
Looking back, Jerry saw an immense and ancient fig tree on the far cliff disappear into the whirl of upflung spray. He didn't see any more. He was too busy clinging to the gunwale. The oarsmen actually managed to get the black ship up on the plane on the first wave.
Jerry knew that he wasn't a great sailor. Within two minutes of riding out the waves from the erupting Charybdis, he proved that the whirlpool didn't have the proprietary rights on vomiting in this part of the world. He had Lamont, the police lieutenant and the tall soldier for company, too.