THEY WERE HUGE—each one easily the size of a mule. The nails alone (dark yellow and thick as tower shields) might have served to armor a battering ram. Yet for some reason, the scene struck me as funny. After all the terrible things I’d seen in Hell, a pair of enormous feet just didn’t inspire the sort of terror it might have under other circumstances. No doubt, there would be some horrendous body attached to those feet, but thanks to the mist, I could see it only from the knees down; and what I saw just wasn’t scary. In fact, I found a sudden and irresistible urge to laugh.
It was the sort of situation that would have been best met with silence. But as usual, I spoke: “Here’s something I wasn’t expecting to see, but now that I have, I’m rather sorry I didn’t bring along a nail file.” I laughed at my own wit. “Can you imagine what this fellow spends on sandals?” I laughed again, louder. “I’ll bet he’s a phenomenal swimmer.” I dissolved in a fit of laughter, but there was no response at all from Proteus, and when I looked over my shoulder for him, there was nothing but a slowly freezing puddle of water. I sobered quickly.
“Hail to you, stranger,” I shouted up into the mist. “Greetings and great blessings of the gods!” Well, it was as good a greeting as any under the circumstances.
The feet disappeared and were replaced by a pair of colossal hands, then a face and shoulders. I tried not to look anxious. “Sir. Lord of the Sandy Cliff. Great-Footed Giant, whose mighty toes—”
“Shut up,” said the giant. “Who are you who laughs in the lowest pit of Hell?”
“I am Odysseus, Son of Laertes. Lord of Ithaca. I am making a great journey at the request of—”
“Who?” the giant asked, squinting at me and looking me over, head to toe. “You? You’re Odysseus? Son of Laertes? Surely not.”
“Well . . . yes,” I said, unsure whether to be insulted or pleased.
“Funny,” he said, shaking his great head, “I would have expected you to be taller.”
I sighed.
“Nonetheless, Odysseus, Son of Laertes, we are well met.” He extended his index finger and wagged it up and down. I inferred from this gesture that he meant to clasp hands, so I reached for his finger and did my best to hold on. When this awkward exchange was concluded, the giant smiled and spoke again. “We have a friend in common.”
“Do we?”
“You knew Hercules, did you not?”
I decided to tell the truth. “Alas, my grandfather knew him well; but I did not.”
“Your grandfather?”
“Autolycos. King of Phocis.”
“Ah,” he gasped, “the great Autolycos!”
“And who might you be?” I asked. It seemed I had given him a lot of information without receiving much in return.
“My name is Antaeos,” he answered, lacing his fingers and setting his chin on them. “I am one of the twelve sentries of Lake Cocytus.”
“Antaeos?” I said. “Antaeos, the wrestler?”
“The same,” he said, smiling.
“I thought Hercules killed you,” I said.
“He did. He did. But it was a fine match. And like I always said, if you’ve got to die, you might as well die at the hands of a demigod. I meant it as consolation to the folks I killed, but Fortune is a fickle goddess. My own words came back to haunt me eventually. Every man is immortal until he is suddenly—and unexpectedly—not.”
All this made precious little sense to me, but his tone was friendly. “Antaeos, since you clearly mean me no harm, may I ask you a question?”
The giant looked at me as though he’d just noticed I was there. “I never said I wouldn’t harm you. In fact, I probably will. It is my job to stand guard here, you know. But all the same, you may ask your question. My neighbor, Nimrod, isn’t much of a talker, and these others, well . . . they’re a little arrogant,” he whispered, holding up one hand as though that would prevent his voice from carrying.
“Well, Antaeos, I was going to ask for your help, but since you’ve answered that question already, allow me to ask you another: Why aren’t you chained up like the rest?”
Antaeos frowned and poked about in his nose with his thumb. It was a very large thumb, and his nostril appeared to have grown to accommodate it. “Well, you see,” he said at last, “ever since I lost that wrestling match to Hercules, I just haven’t had much fight in me. I don’t think the Boss figures I’m much of a threat.” He pursed his lips on one side of his face and nodded. “I am, though.”
“You know, I’m a wrestler myself,” I said, sidling up to him with my thumbs in my belt.
“Is that so?” he answered. He looked me over with a critical eye. “I’d heard as much. But you don’t seem to have the shoulders for it.”
“No,” I admitted, “but it takes more than shoulders.”
“You don’t really have the legs either.”
I forced a smile and nodded.
“But you’re short, and that helps.”
“And I can think on my toes,” I added, feeling somewhat self-conscious.
“That can go a long way in wrestling,” he conceded, but his voice had the ring of polite condescension.
“I once wrestled the giant Ajax to a draw,” I added. “I took him out behind the knees when he stopped for breath. I might even have pinned him if the match hadn’t been called.”
“A giant?” he exclaimed. “You wrestled a giant?”
“Yep.”
“A giant like me?”
“Well, not as big as you, but he was pretty big.”
“You say you took him out behind the knees when he wasn’t looking.”
“I was in a tight spot.”
“Fighting dirty is what that is.”
“That’s fighting to win,” I said, “and mind you, this was Ajax, the Bulwark of the Achaeans.”
“I have heard of him,” Antaeos said. “He is a giant I would like to meet.”
“Alas,” I said, and the regret was genuine. “He was on his way here with me, but I had to leave him behind.”
The giant assumed a thoughtful look. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “If you tell me where you last saw him, I’ll let you go without smashing you.”
“I have to warn you . . .” (I didn’t have to warn him, and I wondered even then why I felt the need.) “The odds of finding him alive are rather slim.”
“No matter. It’s an excuse to be up and about.”
“And you wouldn’t hurt him if you did find him?”
“Goodness, no. I’d just like to wrestle him.”
I looked at the giant again in disbelief. “Pardon my candor, but you aren’t much of a sentry.”
“No,” he said as he worked an enormous finger into one enormous ear. “But you can’t be good at everything.”
I wanted to ask more, but it seemed to me that I was already pressing my luck. Instead, I told him where I had left Ajax, and without so much as a good-bye, he stepped over me into the mist.