The Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy Read Online Free PDF

swaggered like old salts and went by the name of the Black Rats, eyed him with rudeness.
    “You may touch my tail,” he said with dignity. “Everyone wants to.”
    The Black Rats snickered in unison and one of them said, “Not us, boy. We can look.” White, thin, with soiled black hair and dirty faces, they resembled unwashed turnips.
    “You are wise not to touch him,” I snapped. “Your dirt might rub off.” Vanishing into the cabin, I returned with a bunch of grapes and a rhyton of mild red vine. Astyanax emptied the vessel with a single rapid gulp.
    “Drinks like a fish,” the one-eared sailor muttered, but Astyanax ignored the remark and crammed his mouth so full of grapes that he looked like a field mouse gorging himself on grain. All the while, he peered around him at the fixtures of the ship, its furled yellow sail, its wicker cabin, and its deck of Etruscan cypress.
    “The goats of Amphitrite are starting to kick,” said the captain impatiently, pointing to the white-capped waves which had begun to slap the bow. “It is time to sail.”
    Astyanax ate more slowly. “I would like more grapes,” he said when he had finished the first bunch.
    I handed him another bunch. “You must take these with you.”
    “I want to join your crew,” he announced.
    “It isn’t my crew. I am just a passenger.”
    He turned to the captain. “Is there room for another passenger? I can fish and mend sails to pay my passage.”
    “Can you stay out of water for days at a time?”
    “No,” he admitted. “I dehydrate.”
    “Well, then, you can’t be a passenger. Over the side now. The goats are impatient.” Indeed, the ship was rocking from side to side as if she were being slapped by a Cyclops.
    He wriggled across the deck. I knelt to lift him over the bulwark. He shook his head. “My tail is adequate.”
    Poised on the bulwark, he turned and looked at me. “Thank you for the conversation,” he said, and before I could tell him goodbye, he hit the water.
    I helped the men lower the sail—I felt a need to keep busy—and the Turan cut through the goats like a wolf through a flock. I will not look back, I thought. If I mean to find Circe, how can I encumber myself with a fish-tailed boy who eats like a whale?
    However, I did look back, sneakily, like a fox that has stolen a pullet. The island had dwindled until the red columns of the palace seemed slender wounds in the white immaculate walls, and yes, Astyanax followed a few hundred feet in our wake. He raised his hand and called, “Bear, goodbye!”
    “Lower the sweeps!” I shouted. The sailors looked at the captain, and the captain looked at me.
    “Has the moon possessed you?” he growled. “There is nothing to stop for here.”
    “You can double my fare,” I said. “I am taking on a friend.” I seized a sweep, a long wooden oar with a blade of double width, and thrust it into the sea. The ship veered sharply to the right.
    “Oh, very well,” grumbled Vel. He lowered a sweep on the starboard and returned the ship to its course, with speed considerably reduced.
    Astyanax soon overtook us. I threw him a rope and he climbed, laughing, into my arms. I heard him mumble a name.
    “What did you say?” I asked.
    “Hungry,” he said. “I lost my grapes.” I think he really said “Hector.”
    I did not suspect the difficulties—dangers, I should say—which hunched like sphinxes along the road to Circe. The trouble started almost at once—not Circe’s part in it; not yet, anyway. I had paid the captain for Astyanax’ passage, and the Triton had kept his promise to fish for the crew. But Vel was not appreciative. First he complained that the fish were small and bony. “Fit for him, perhaps. Not for me.” Then he said, “Tritons are Greek, not Etruscan. How do we know he isn’t spying for pirates?” The mood of the captain soon infected his crew. The Black Rats, petulant as well as soiled, began to grow insufferable. When Astyanax stretched on the