“Restful here,” the presence says.
Sam sees the hero then, sees him and knows him at once. The hero glows, as though lit from within, a bronzy fire that shines through his short tunic, flames around his sandals and sword. On the floor beside him, as though casually dropped, is a high crested golden helmet which burns like a little sun.
“Theseus,” Sam breathes, making it a prayer. “Here!”
“Why not here?” asks the hero with a brotherly smile, head cocked benignly, beaming, his eyes alight. “I came to extend a fraternal hand. You wanted me, didn’t you?”
For the moment Sam cannot remember. Wanting Theseus has not occurred to him, even in the same instant admitting that perhaps he has wanted … someone. Why not Theseus? “Did I?” he murmurs, wondering if he is dreaming. It would be churlish, he decides, to deny the hero whether it is a dream or not. “Of course, I did.”
“As I said,” the hero goes on, striding to and fro upon the mosaics beneath the arches, “it’s restful here, but dull. The possibilities for adventure are limited. The immediate landscape creates no feelings of awe or majesty. It creates no feelings at all except apathy. There are no canyons, no precipices, no caverns. You seem to have no bandits, no despots, no Procrustes, cutting you to fit …”
“We’re all cut to fit,” Sam objects, coming to himself, aware that he is merely listening, mouth open, taking no part iii this happening. “Oh, yes, we’re all cut to fit! There’s only room for certain habits and attitudes here. Constructiveness. Dependability. Honesty and reliability. There’s no room for epics, for sagas, for legends.” He babbles, surprised at his own lack of surprise. He sees the hero. The hero is not an imaginary image, not a delusion, not a hologram. When Sam puts out his hand, it meets flesh and leather and metal. When he sniffs, he smells sweat. Of course, he could be dreaming that he touches, feels …” We’re all cut to fit, psychologically,” he cries. “All our legends have been lopped off. Like limbs, from trees.”
“Which leaves life boring,” the hero challenges, smiling at him, mocking him only a little. “Bored, Samasnier Girat. Aren’t you? You feel the need for a quest, don’t you? Yours is probably the same as mine was. We’re fellows, aren’t we? Comrades? I’ve come to help you.”
“Help me?” “Raise the stone. Find the sandals, swing the sword. Find your father.”
“But I know where he is …”
“I knew where mine was, too. That doesn’t mean it was easy, getting there. There were many, many barriers in the way. Many villains to dispose of. Many heroic deeds to accomplish. And then while I was doing all that, there were the women, following, clinging. You have to be careful of them …”
“Careful of them?”
“Women. They’re tricky.”
“Yes,” says Sam, realizing the hero has just told him a great truth, “Yes, they are.”
“They don’t understand men. They pretend, sometimes, but they really don’t understand men,” says Theseus, his voice growing faint. “They don’t see the world as we see it. …”
Sam nods, believing the words though he is not sure what the hero means.
“You need a sword belt, Sam Girat,” the hero whispers. “You have no sword belt for your sword, when we find it.”
“Don’t go!” cries Sam, aware that the hero is becoming tenuous, misty. Sam puts out his hand and feels something spongy and unreal.
“I’ll be back,” the hero whispers. “Later. Watch for me.”
And he is gone. Night is gone. Through the slit windows, the pale tentacles of morning are insinuating themselves, sucking their way across the temple floor. Sam goes out where dawn marks the eastern sky with a long, violet line which spreads upward in shades of purple and plum, exploding instantly into pink daylight.
“I saw him,” Sam erupts with joyous laughter. “I really did see him. Theseus! I saw him!”
He capers like a goat. He dances. He frolics his way to the brotherhouse, occasioning interest, wonder, perhaps a little fear in those who are up very early and see him leaping along the path like a young milk-vlish. At home, he crawls into bed and falls at once into deep sleep while the day-to-day world wakes and surges around him.
• • •
• In later years Sam remembered wakening after the episode in the temple with the absolute certainty the hero was real. That same day, Sam had started making a sword belt from a pattern found in the Archives. He made it of worked leather with semiprecious gemstones set into it. One could pick up the stones along the little streams anywhere in Hobbs Land. Sam had made a special trip to borrow a polisher at the craftsmen’s market at Central Management. He hadn’t been accustomed to doing that kind of work, and it had taken him some little time, doing it right, doing it over until it was right.
When he had finished with it, Sam kept the sword belt hanging in the back of his closet, behind his off-time robes. Later on, again at the hero’s suggestion, he had made a helmet decorated with gold medallions, so he could be properly dressed when he found the thing under the stone. He never doubted he would find it or them, or something else like them. Theseus was clear on that point. Sam would not only find the sword, he would find adventure and challenge and heroism of his own. He would find a destiny fitting who he actually was, which was not a farmer upon dull Hobbs Land, dedicated to grains and legumes and increasing the production of hairy-legged milk-vlishes.
“Patience,” said the hero, again and again.
Even though years
