The First Heroes Read online

  “No, Father,” said Kusi. “Only warriors claim victories.”

  Orqo looked sideways at Wiraqocha. Kusi was adamant, surely he could see that.

  The Inka crossed his arms. “You are young, Kusi. We will discuss this again. You and your generals will join us for a victory feast when the sun sets?”

  Kusi looked from one man to the other, then stepped back. “Yes, Father.” He turned to Orqo. Barely moving his lips, he whispered, “You deserted Qosqo. You left my mother to the Chankas.”

  “Not only I,” Orqo protested.

  Kusi leaned toward Orqo’s ear. “Father is honorable, but old. He would not have abandoned Qosqo without persuasion. I know who the real cowards are. Both of them.” Then Kusi looked at Qori Chullpa and spat on the ground.

  Orqo shook with the injustice of his accusation. But Kusi was gone, swallowed up by his admiring troops. Orqo could only return to his litter and follow Wiraqocha. It took all his concentration to sit upright. Once they were well inside the fortress, his father irritably ordered the bearers to set him down. Orqo did the same. Wiraqocha whispered some quick orders to one of his soldiers, then took Orqo’s arm and led him toward their private courtyard. Qori Chullpa touched him reassuringly before going to see that the feast would be ready.

  “So Kusi won,” Orqo said. His mouth was dry as sand.

  “Yes,” Wiraqocha admitted. He cleared his throat and put a hand on Orqo’s shoulder. “I have decided. When we return to Qosqo, I will give you this.” He touched the fringe on his forehead. “I have been Inka long enough. It is time for you to begin your reign.”

  Orqo swallowed. “The people will not accept me as Inka, not while Kusi lives. They loved him before. Now he is the hero of Qosqo.”

  “Don’t worry.” Wiraqocha removed his helmet and rubbed his head. “I have already sent men to take care of him.”

  “You mean—”

  “An ambush.”

  Orqo shuddered. He needed more aqha. “And the people who love him?”

  “The people are changeable. They will learn to love you, too, when they have no choice.”

  “And the gods?”

  Wiraqocha did not reply.

  The crag called Chupalluska was one of the few landmarks on the river that Orqo knew—and that knowledge he owed to Kusi. After the failed ambush, Kusi had returned to Qosqo, claimed the title of ruling Inka, and declared that Orqo was forbidden entry into the city until he recognized Kusi as ruler. Of course Wiraqocha would permit Orqo to do no such thing, and Orqo had traveled widely to find warriors willing to fight for him. He had passed Chupalluska more than once. Now he saw it loom in the distance, and his heart froze within him. He swam for shore to rest before his decision.

  But the river was impatient. Now, it whispered. Go now. Or there will be no choice left.

  “What do you mean? Will I die or not?” Orqo responded impatiently.

  The river ran silent.

  He could almost bear it, he thought, if only he could tell Kusi—if only he could watch his brother’s face as he learned that he owed it all, his empire, his riches, his victories, to his despised brother Orqo. To die unknown, unacknowledged, was unendurable. But the thought that the Inka people would disappear from the face of the earth was more horrible than anything he could imagine.

  Mama Runtu had been right. He held Kusi’s fate in his hands—but much more than Kusi’s.

  One last time he turned to the river. “I want Kusi to know,” he said.

  Mayu-Mama laughed. Very well.

  Orqo could not believe it. “He will know? How?”

  Trust.

  “Why should I trust you?”

  Have you a choice?

  Orqo paused.

  Go.

  He plunged into the water, kicking and paddling just enough to keep from drowning. He could think only of the proud, hate-filled face of his brother, spitting on the ground as he refused to let Orqo claim the spoils.

  As long as Kusi knows, he thought. I can bear this as long as Kusi knows.

  He will know, Mayu-Mama whispered, almost inaudibly. He will know.

  The crag neared. Orqo felt weak, and his wounds burned. He swam toward the shore and death.

  And so it happened that Orqo, son of Wiraqocha, met his fate at the hands of his brother’s soldiers at the crag of Chupalluska on the Willkamayu. Kusi had Orqo’s body cut to pieces. Wiraqocha’s grief, however, knew no limits, and some of those faithful to him carefully gathered up Orqo’s limbs and head and put them in a sacred place.

  Kusi, as Pachakuteq Inka Yupanki, built an empire that grew in size and in wealth until an army of white men with metal armor and their diseases struck it down. Pachakuteq, however, died an old man before the strangers arrived, and his mummy was lovingly guarded by his descendants. Wrapped in fine cloth, wearing new eyes of beaten gold, Pachakuteq continued to watch over his empire.

  But time and space do not exist for the dead as for the living, so when the jaw of Orqo spoke gloatingly in its secret cave, the mummy of Pachakuteq in its shrine heard with maize-husk ears.

  I made you, the jaw would say. You could have been nothing. You owe it all to me.

  Then the jaw would shiver and laugh as the mummy of Pachakuteq, Earth-Shaker, flashed its golden eyes and ground its teeth.

  The earliest record of the Myrmidons, soldiers renowned for their industry, thrift, and endurance, comes from Homer’s Iliad, in which they fight under the command of Achilles. Centuries later Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, reached back to the days of Achilles’ grandfather Æacus to explain their origin and their name, “Ants.” Entomology—and etymology—being undeveloped disciplines at the time, Ovid overlooked one crucial detail of Formicidae biology. Larry Hammer, in his poetic epic, has not.

  The Myrmidons

  LARRY HAMMER

  The plague came out of nowhere. No one knew

  What god or goddess sent it, and the signs,

  When not ambiguous, were all too few:

  The oak leaves still, the livers whole and fine,

  From left and right the birds flew in straight lines,

  And worst of all, the tea leaves all refused

  To form a pattern readers could have used.

  And so Aegina suffered under doubt

  As well as spotted fever. Amid the death

  And raw despair, a couple souls were stout

  And tended invalids to their last breath;

  But others, I report to my regret,

  Were drunken, rowdy, riotous, and rude—

  In short, a bacchanalic rout ensued.

  The harbor, drunk with sailors, caught the mood,

  And soon from there the tide of riot spilled

  To sweep depopulated streets in flood

  Until the city plain was all but filled,

  A violent lake—except where good sense stilled

  The fires round two places, islanding

  Plague houses and the palace of the king.

  King Æacus was long since past his prime

  And, not as strong as once, in youth, he’d felt,

  He couldn’t stop the carnival of crime.

  His sons? Off heroing with club and pelt

  And so no help with troubles he’d been dealt.

  They’re only known today for being hid

  In family trees, and not for what they did—

  For hero means “he scatters wide his oats,”

  And heroes’ brats are strewn across the nations,

  Like jetsam tossed from overloaded boats.

  Son Tenon apprenticed that vocation

  With the greatest of the generations:

  No lesser man than he—a drum roll please—

  The man, the myth, the legend—Heracles.

  Soon after Telamon had helped the Herc

  To conquer Troy, he spawned the Ajax who

  Would later try to replicate that work.

  Young Peleus sacked as well a town or two

  Before he gave a fa
teful goddess woo;

  His son Achilles had his song of rage

  That still is read in this descendent age.

  Thus, sonless, Æacus was forced to handle

  The crisis, and he too old to wield a sword—

  Which added to his shame, for the scandal

  Of crumbling state will always hurt a lord,

  Since he is judged by his domain’s accord.

  And so, as when mere anarchy is loose,

  He did what monarchs do, and prayed to Zeus.

  During a lull, he climbed the island’s peak

  Alone (though leaning on the shoulder of

  His—valet of the chamber), there to seek

  The god’s will in his place—for there above

  Aphaea’s temple is a sacred grove.

  He tottered in and settled in the shade,

  Then after catching breath, he slowly prayed:

  “Dear father—so my mother says you are,

  And I think well enough of Mom that I

  As king renamed this island after her—

  Help us or the city soon will die:

  What plague has left, the riots have made fly.

  We ask in whatever name you wish we use,

  Help us—the city dies if you refuse.”

  The sun beat down. Summer’s cicadas chirred.

  Some ants marched up a tree. A gecko found

  A hidden moth. At last the old king stirred

  And from an empty sky, with dreadful sound

  A bolt of lightning struck and fire crowned

  The Thunderer’s most sacred oak—a sign

  Unerring of assistance that’s divine.

  The crack set Æacus’s head to ringing.

  “Give me—” he started, feeling full of awe,

  “Give me—” he thought he heard the acorns singing,

  “Give me—” alas! slow thinking was his flaw,

  “Give me—” he took the first thing that he saw,

  “As many citizens, replacement folk

  For losses, as the ants upon this oak.”

  Leaves whispered to a wind not there, then stilled.

  The king correctly heard that message too,

  And toddled home, secure that Zeus had willed

  His realm reborn, his populace renewed.

  He was so heartened, he decided to

  Go past the citadel down to the city,

  Nod, smile, clasp hands, be seen, and do the pretty.

  For being seen at being king is, more

  Than judgments, generaling, or golden throne,

  The greater part of kingship. Even for

  The weak, an order makes a leader known.

  A word stopped refugees from leaving town:

  “It all will turn out right now,” he assured.

  The sailors looked askance, but none demurred.

  To fully play the part, back at the castle

  He ordered up a feast in celebration.

  The palace cheered—except, it was a hassle

  For servants, fixing quickly the collation.

  That night, the castle’s total occupation

  Was fun, both eating hard and drinking deep,

  Which led to—not more riots—heavy sleep.

  In deepest night, the hour of Hecate,

  The quiet of the world rolled out before

  The city and the stars. The king’s oak tree

  Shook branches like maids stretching after chores.

  Ants fell to ground, and got up ants no more:

  They lost two limbs, stood upright straight and strong,

  A formic horde become a human throng.

  When Dawn rose from her lover’s bed to light

  The east, ’twas well before the better folk,

  But after early servants. To their fright,

  The mountain side was moving—was it smoke?

  No, it’s descending, like a falling cloak.

  The growing light revealed to servile classes

  A ragged stream of strapping naked lasses.

  For myrmidian workers—soldiers, too—

  Are female; they’re the only ones who swarm,

  While hustling for the food they bring back to

  The queen and drones in their below-ground dorms.

  ’Twas these upon the oak who were transformed,

  And those who change partake of prior nature

  For what you were before will shape your fate here.

  The past is—not the present—present in us;

  We aren’t slaves to it, but as we grow

  We have its habits and, as mirrors twin us,

  It gives us shadow selves we cannot disavow:

  What we have done informs what we are now—

  But if I keep digressing from my topic

  My story line will end up microscopic.

  The servants, startled, finally woke the guards;

  A guard, the king: “Your majesty, come see!”

  He came, he saw, he rubbed his eyelids hard,

  And mumbled, “What the ———!” (I am not free

  To print the word). But then, with gravity,

  The king went out to greet what for the nonce

  We’ll call “ant girls”—in Greek, the myrmidons.

  He met, midst smoking ruins by the wall,

  This unclothed cohort causing a sensation

  And hailed them, thanking Zeus for, most of all,

  His answered prayer—this in explanation

  Of what was going on to the staring nation.

  It worked, for just a few men hit upon

  These women—who ignored them and walked on.

  This shrug-off irked the men, who started grousing,

  But then a charred beam shifted in the dust,

  Reminding people soon they’d need more housing—

  Although new clothing also was a must.

  Before ancestral voices had discussed

  The tasks, the women from the ant collective

  Just dusted off their hands, and turned effective.

  Burials first. They learned that, during the clashes,

  The plague had burned itself out, once refused

  New fuel, on quarantined survivor ashes.

  The obvious conclusion from the clues:

  The cure’d been carried by the girls from Zeus.

  Their epidemiology was slight,

  But their theology may well be right.

  The girls received the kingdom’s reverence

  With calm good grace, then started reconstruction.

  Some city men with vast experience

  Tried giving all these newborns some instruction,

  But ants and building need no introduction;

  Relations with the townsmen turned uneasy,

  For all that they were Greeks and civilisé.

  Continued nakedness too caused a snit—

  While some, the outside workers, took to clothing,

  The others, never having needed it

  Before, rejected its constraint with loathing—

  And there is, for a hide-bound elder, no thing

  That signals civic ill-health like the crudity

  Of unselfconscious public nudity.

  The king worked soothing old men’s ruffled feathers,

  But who’d soothe his? His issue was, despite

  Their civic efforts, one of duty: whether

  As subjects they’d obey him, king by right.

  They didn’t hear his orders—no, not quite;

  They listened, but then didn’t seem to heed him.

  It was as if they didn’t really need him.

  They did it well—’twas several days, at least,

  Until he noticed he had been deflected

  To planning the next sacrificial feast

  And not the new defense to be erected—

  A skill that came from practice: they’d protected

  Drones’ fragile egos from all things that vex

  To k
eep them trained on their sole purpose—sex.

  That’s not to say they didn’t value It—

  Indeed, with drones reserved for royal thirst,

  They prized it more because ’twas illegit.

  The habits of hands-off were kept at first,

  Confusing many men, when they conversed—

  They didn’t understand that going nude

  Says nothing for how easily you’re screwed.

  But then an ant tried it, and soon all learned

  That every woman is a queen to men—

  Once homage has been horizontally earned.

  They took to having sex like sailors when

  On shore leave, if you credit that—but then,

  According to the deeply held male credo,

  There’s nothing, nowhere, stronger than libido:

  Sex drives our species: for our procreation,

  We do all that we do that is outstanding;

  Sex drives our drive for wealth: it marks our station,

  And nothing’s sexier than social standing;

  Sex drives the arts—not just love songs’ demanding,

  For all the Muses are invoked to aid

  Success for artists hoping to get laid;

  Sex drives our social structures: “Marry me”;

  Sex drives our mores: in our mating dance,

  Without rules for the steps of he and she

  The rituals turn discordant, askance,

  As partners lurch about and don’t advance—

  As soon our sex-mad ingenues found out

  When their stumbling turned the ball into a rout.

  The girls’ miscues were bad enough—their chase

  Also tripped on sexual disparity:

  They had replaced one third the populace

  (Those dead or fled), so men were one in three;

  While two on one might seem a fantasy,

  When the two women both are too voracious

  And squabble over you—now that’s hellacious.

  Their own behavior shocked each myrmidon—

  Were not they all from the same city/nest?

  Hadn’t they worked together, fed the young,

  Dug tunnels, gossiped, eaten as a mess,

  Defended colony, and all the rest?

  As sisters, they were sickened by their fighting,

  But shock alone won’t make you do the right thing.

  Without a queen or history to guide them,

  They quarreled—when provoked or just because.