I should tell you, daughter of my daughter, how I did my duty and delivered friend Polyphemus into the hands of the hard-eyed Galatea at the Well of Geryon. I should tell you, then, how I bid him farewell and made my way home, to a ready bed and a restful night’s sleep—or what remained of the night, at any rate. These things I should tell you. But, alas, I cannot. It would be a tissue of lies.
Oh, aye. I should have done those things. But mischief is the currency of the young, and Pandora’s affliction has ever kept itself hard by my shadow. As we descended from the acropolis in silence, I felt the hand of a different god run its fingers down my knobby spine. Dolos, who is Guile, planted a seed of an idea in the rich loam of my imagination. Curiosity gave it nourishment, and it flowered into childish bravado. Mere Achaean? For all that he was my guest-friend, I would show this foreigner what it meant to be a man of Aeolia. We were not mere Achaeans!
The city, at that hour, was nigh upon deserted. A few stray dogs, a drunken sailor lying in a pool of his own vomit, a sad-eyed midwife carrying a bundled still birth to its final resting place beyond the city’s boundaries—these were the only folk abroad. The moon headed into the west, chasing the sun into the watery unknown beyond the Pillars of Herakles and the mighty river Oceanus; even so, its light was plenty for me to steer by. We went as quickly as I dared, and before the end of the hour I had us skirting a grove sacred to Poseidon so we might come upon the Well unseen.
Have you ever been to the Well of Geryon, child? No? You must go with me, one day. It’s a natural stone basin that’s fed by a stream that spills from the rocks above it, nestled at the foot of a low range of hills just beyond the city. Or, it was in my day. Truth be told, I’ve not laid eyes on it in years. For all I know, it sits at the heart of some tin-hearted nobleman’s villa, now. That night, though, the moon lent its burbling waters a tinge of silver; the stone basin was festooned with offerings to the naiad said to dwell within—a daughter of Asclepius, or so the rumor goes, who imbued the water with healing magic. Being but a boy, I was more interested in seeing what others had left behind. There were trifles of carved ox horn or driftwood, wreaths of shorn hair tied up with ribbon, crumbling cakes wrapped in linen, even a small bronze figurine gone waxy with verdigris. So consumed was I with examining these treasures that I did not see Galatea step from the shadows.
I think blind Polyphemus knew she was there. Of course, he said not a word of warning to me, his supposed friend, so that when she emerged from the darkness not three paces from where I knelt on the rocks at the Well’s edge—trying to make sense of that figurine—I nearly went head-first into those roiling waters. I can laugh about it now, to be sure. Is it not a silly scene to imagine? But at the time, fear knotted my innards and that seed of an idea, so lovingly tended over the last hour, was very nearly choked to death by weed-like Panic.
“You have done what was asked,” Galatea said to me. Her dark cloak rustled as she none-too-gently took Polyphemus’s arm; beneath that garment, she no longer wore the dress of an Aeolian, but some filmy, sheer fabric that she’d cinched at the waist with a brightly-beaded belt. “Go now.”
Polyphemus nodded in agreement. “My thanks, son of Lykaon.”
“Will you—”
“I said go!” Galatea snarled.
I stood there a moment, watching as spray from the falling water dampened my legs. Galatea took Polyphemus and led him out into the night. But to where? To a rendezvous? Or to an ignominious death and a shallow grave? That seed planted by Dolos blossomed and bore fruit. Screwing up my courage, I crept after them. And as I crept I prayed—to primordial Night, to the naiad of the Well, to Zeus Savior himself—that Galatea would not see me, nor Polyphemus hear me. All I can say, child, is the gods must have heard my plea. Galatea led him into the hills, along an old cart track rank with weeds and overgrown by gnarled chestnut trees, until they came to an ancient crossroads. A single torch flared in the darkness. Its flickering light drove me under cover, and I watched an eerie conclave unfold from the relative safety of an exposed root-ball.
There was no preamble. Galatea led Polyphemus to the center of the crossroad, where a torchbearer stood. She was a woman, too, and clad in the same manner as Galatea—in diaphanous white linen that left nothing to the imagination. A bound and hooded figure lay in the dust at her feet. Galatea and the torchbearer, both, rattled sistrums…a strange and metallic din that sounded nothing like our melodious chimes. A third woman joined them. She swayed with the discordant tune and added music of her own, played on a bone flute. I heard chanting, deeper than a woman’s voice, and realized it must be Polyphemus. Here was old sorcery, child. It tore my resolve out by the roots, shook it free of courage, until it was only base fear that kept me there—fear of Galatea and these other foreign maenads who would surely carve my balls off with a blunt knife if they found me lurking about. I wish I had run, truth be told. For what happened next, dear Eirene…it haunts me to this day. Look at me! Three-score years later and the memory of what happened still makes me tremble like a bride on her wedding night.
Do not think me a mad old fool, but believe me when I tell you: their sorcery summoned something. My heart leapt into my throat as a figure stepped into the circle of wan light. A woman—at least from the neck down—as naked as a babe in arms. But it was no woman, child. This creature of the night had no human face, but rather the head of a lion.
Galatea and her sisters swayed to the clash of their sistrums and the skirling of the flute. This creature, this horror of Aegyptos that tainted the good earth of Aeolia, paced back and forth. Its breasts jounced; it snarled and strained against an unseen leash, as though the hand of some greater god kept it in check. I heard it ask something of Polyphemus, its voice muffled though undeniably feminine.
The blind giant drew himself to his full height; he threw his arms wide. A name rolled off his lips. A name I recognized even though he spoke the tongue of his homeland. “Odysseus!” he roared in answer.