Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 03

Agatra was not the most beautiful woman in the world.

In fact, as local song and story have it, the men of the village of Nevila were hard-pressed to call her a woman at all. The only reason they did so was out of an acute sense of self-preservation. Those same local songs and stories have recorded instances of noses being skewered, hair being plucked by the strand from beards and scalps, and worse atrocities, just because a man forgot to say, "Morning there, Agatra, you're looking lovely today."

For a man, life in Nevila was just one damn thing after another.

The women, on the other hand, understood Agatra fairly well; and while they certainly didn't condone the plucking and the skewering most of the time, they knew they often felt that way themselves—

whenever things weren't going right, nothing fit, their hair wouldn't obey the brush or the comb, and the kids had turned into demonic spawn overnight.

There was, therefore, a certain kinship between the Nevilian women and Agatra, a bond that often saw a woman climb the wooded hillside in order to have a long heart-to-heart with her friend. Sometimes the woman returned red-eyed from sobbing, but serene and ready to move on; sometimes the woman returned without having visibly received any help at all; and once in a great while, the woman returned with iron in her spine and ice in her eyes, which was when the men knew the skewering and plucking were about to begin.

Late one morning a woman named Peyra made the climb.

There was no path, no trail; there were no signposts.

The women of Nevila knew the way by instinct.

Peyra was young and slender, her dark brown hair falling in thick waves to the center of her back and held away from her matching eyes by a wide red band. By her clothes it was clear she wasn't wealthy, nor was she ragged. Around her waist was a narrow leather belt from which hung a bulging pouch.

She made her way quickly through the widely spaced, high-crowned trees, oblivious to the blue sky, the gentle warm breeze, and the profusion of wildflowers that would have, on another occasion, made her laugh with the sheer joy of such a splendid display.

Eventually she reached a broad clearing. There were no flowers here, and the grass didn't dare grow very high. The slope rose precipitously at the back, and in its solid rock face was the mouth of a cave flanked by two twisted, stunted, virtually leafless trees that seemed as old as the hill itself.

Peyra hesitated as she stepped into the open. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe she should go farther afield, to one of the cities, to find what she needed. They were rumored to have anything a person could possibly want, natural or otherwise.

But she didn't know the cities, and she did know Agatra.

There was no one else who could help her.

Nervously she brushed her hands over her hair, smoothed the skirt of her dress, adjusted her belt, and patted her cheeks and brow to rid them of possible unseemly perspiration.

"Well, Zeus and beanpods," a voice called harshly, "are you going to stand there all day?"

Peyra smiled.

Agatra was home.

To the right of the cave's entrance was a boulder whose flat top had been smooth by the rump of many a visitor. It was just the height of a chair, and Peyra sat there comfortably, facing the cave. She couldn't see inside. Even when the sun was at its brightest and its light filled the clearing, an inch inside the cave there appeared to be no light at all.

Once settled, she said, "Good afternoon, Agatra. I have a problem."

"Of course you do. Nobody ever visits me otherwise. Nobody ever comes along just for the hell of it, do they? Bring me a pie, a dumpling, a little stew in the winter when my bones are creaking. No, they only come when they have a problem. I could be lying here, dying, falling apart, ants and spiders dividing me up for rations, and nobody would know it. Never write, never call out a greeting on the way by."

Peyra's smile broadened.

She was in luck.

Agatra was in a good mood.

"So, dearie, what can I do for you?"

Peyra wasn't sure how to begin. In the first place, listening to that rasping voice for any length of time made her want to clear her throat, cough, or beg for a drink of water. But if she did, Agatra would be insulted and force her to leave. In the second place, if she didn't word her problem correctly, Agatra might do something terrible, like plucking or skewering, neither of which were appropriate in this case.

"A man, right?" Agatra said in as solicitous a tone as that voice ever got.

Peyra shifted, and patted the pouch resting in her lap. "Well, yes. Sort of. My husband, actually."

"Ah. Young . .. Garus, am I right?"

Peyra nodded sadly.

"Oh my, I do hope he's all right."

Peyra shook her head, and scowled at a sudden sting of tears. She had promised herself she wouldn't do this. Agatra hated it.

"I hate that," Agatra snapped. "Stop it at once."

The stinging vanished.

"Now. Start at the beginning, dearie. I've got plenty of time. I always have plenty of time. Nothing else to do. Nobody here but you and me. Nobody's ever here. I'm all alone. In the dark. Just me. And a cockeyed spider."

Peyra couldn't help it; she giggled.

Agatra laughed. At least, Peyra thought it was a laugh. It sounded like someone coughing her way along the high road to an urgent appointment with Hades. Whatever it was, however, it made Peyra feel better already.

"Well," she began, staring at the worn grass at her feet, "we were in Hyanth, Garus and I were.

Visiting, you know?"

"No," Agatra grumbled sourly. "I wouldn't know."

Peyra ignored her. "We were looking for new cloth, something not seen around here often, and Hyanth, being on the crossroads, sometimes has things like that. For our shop, you know? Garus, he always looks for the bright stuff, the really make-your-eyes-close bright stuff. I myself was after something a little more subtle."

"Like blood red?"

' 'Yeah. It kind of makes a fashion statement, you know what I mean?"

"Haven't a clue, dearie."

"Oh." Peyra could sense the impatience, closed her eyes briefly, and patted the pouch again. "Anyway, our second day we heard there were going to be some performers in the square, so instead of coming home like we planned, we decided to stay another night and have a look."

"Your idea," Agatra said. "Not his."

Peyra nodded, and felt the stinging again. "Yes."

"Something happened."

"Yes."

"Something terrible."

"Yes."

"You going to tell me or do I have to guess?"

Peyra couldn't stop the tears this time, and she turned her head away in embarrassment, trying to dry them with the backs of her hands and her sleeves. Her sleeves got soaked, and the tears kept falling.

A noise then, like the gentle scraping of powerful, and really sharp, claws on the ground. Peyra couldn't believe it, and whirled just as Agatra stepped out of her cave.

Down in the village, and in the fields, and in the forest, and along the wide stream that ran past the village, every man froze in terror and inexplicable guilt.

In the trees around the clearing, the birds couldn't decide whether to flee or freeze, and one was so indecisive he fell off his branch.

To the left of the cave's entrance, opposite the rock on which Peyra sat, was a fallen tree whose bark, in places, had been rubbed off to the dark gray wood beneath and pocked with deep holes. Agatra didn't like the rock because she kept sliding off; she liked the tree because her talons could take better hold.

For good reason, Agatra was not the most beautiful woman in the world.

She was a Harpy.

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It took a while for Agatra to settle herself on her perch. Unlike most of her kind, she was on the plump side, and while she insisted she only looked that way because her wings refused to lie straight, not even the men were fooled into thinking she was svelte.

And while her body resembled a sated, gluttonous robin after a particularly wonderful spring, her neck and head were those of a woman who had seen far too many springs slip away behind her. Her wrinkles were legendary, her thinning hair gray and in a sloppy braid around her crown, and not even her closest kin talked about the wattles.

Not if they didn't want to be plucked and skewered. And gutted.

Her eyes, however, were amazing. Large, slightly tilted at the corners, and of a blue that changed hue with every change of her mood. Which meant that most of the time they were ice or the center of a flame; now, however, they were warm, the color of a perfect summer morning.

"He dead?" she asked, clasping her hands in front of her. She may have been old, but her arms were thick enough to fell a tree with a single blow.

"No," Peyra sobbed. "Oh, Agatra, he's a frog!"