Free Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two by Bernard Evslin

Hecate.
    â€œTell me about him.”
    â€œHe’s the son of Ceto and Phorcys, and of all the monster brood is probably the most powerful. Uncoiled, he would stretch higher than that cedar. And his jaw hinge is located near his tail. While hunting in the sea he seeks whales because of his size but, as you have seen, will swerve away from a pod of whales to chase a ship.”
    â€œYes, yes!” cried Hera. “And when his jaws closed he was crunching the ship—mast, oars, sails, and all. It happened too fast for anyone to escape. He swallowed the whole crew and spat out the wood. Not a man was left alive. I saw it happen, O Hecate, and the darkest closet of your Hell can offer no sight more stimulating.”
    â€œWe have our moments,” drawled Hecate. “You haven’t visited us lately. We’ve added an interesting torment or two.”
    â€œForgive me, dear. All I can think of at the moment is Ladon. What a splendid beast—exactly what I need for Hercules. I can just picture those wonderful long jaws closing on that misbegotten cur. Chomp … gulp … nothing left but a bloody rag of lion skin and some splinters of oaken club. I can’t wait.”

5
    Another Hunger
    Iole was wandering through a wood. She heard voices raised in terror—yelling, shrieking, sobbing. Moving swiftly as a cat she climbed a cedar that towered over the other trees, so that she was able to look down past a fringe of willows into a clearing where a village stood.
    There she saw a serpent with huge, gaping jaws. He lay in a circle. His lower jaw rested on the ground; his upper jaw was lifted high, high. With his tail he was sweeping people into his mouth. He had encircled the entire population of the village, had eaten most of them, and was now finishing the rest. When the last one was gone, he spat buttons and bits of cloth, then carefully arranged his bulging coils and went to sleep.
    â€œWhat a brute!” said Iole to herself. “I hope Hercules hasn’t heard about it. Because my brave darling thinks he’s been put on earth to protect people against monsters, and he’d surely challenge this one. But it’s too big even for Hercules … Makes the Hydra seem like a tangle of earthworms … It’s gorgeous, though, in its own horrid way. Those mottled leather coils, green and yellow, like patches of sunlight on the forest floor … Is it awake? Yes … It has very big eyes for a snake. I can feel the heat of them. It’s a male, I think. Is he looking at me? He is! I wonder if he’s still hungry? How could he be, after that meal! … I’m not afraid. I refuse to be afraid. I’ve always liked snakes, and they’ve always liked me. That cobra who used to visit the meadow—the flower nymphs were scared, but I used him to jump rope with. Perhaps this one would be friendly, too …”
    Snakes have no eyelids; they can’t blink. And Ladon very much wanted to blink. Something absolutely strange was happening high up in the cedar. Like all reptiles, tiny or monstrous, he was color-blind; things were different shades of gray to him.
    But it was the mission of Iris to blazon the sign of the gods’ occasional mercy across the heavens. When she hung her rainbow, she mixed a magic in its colors so that they might be visible to all creatures who walked, flew, swam, or crept. Iole had inherited this gift without knowing it. Her own colors blazed, banishing grayness, and came to Ladon now not only as a wonderful dance of light, but as a fragrance of flowers; more than that—almost like the maddening odor of game when he was famished; but different from that too, quickening another hunger, one he had never known.
    He wanted to blink, but he couldn’t. He wanted … wanted … He wanted to enter that weird dazzling and take what it held—that red-gold fall of hair, those green eyes, those ivory-bronze arms and legs. His