The Theft of Fire

The thumb would not hold its shape. Prometheus pressed it into place, smoothed water over the joint, and tried again. Beneath his fingers the little hand lay open, soft earth waiting to become flesh.

Around him, the people he had already made were stirring. One tested the ground with a bare foot. Another held both hands before his face and slowly brought the fingertips together. At the edge of the river a man bent to drink, startled by the face that bent towards him from the water.

Prometheus finished the thumb. The hand closed around his finger.

He waited until it released him before rising.

By evening the riverbank was cold. The people drew close to one another, folding their new limbs against their bodies. A man gathered a heap of fallen branches and settled behind it, trying to keep the wind off his chest. The wind came through.

Prometheus knelt beside him. He knew what the branches lacked.

Above the darkening earth, the gods had fire. Below, the people watched the last warmth leave the stones. Zeus had given them no share of it.

Prometheus looked down at the hand he had finished that morning. Its owner had tucked it beneath his arm to keep it warm.

Then Prometheus stood and went uphill.

The Hidden Ember

On the slope grew fennel, its tall stems dry enough to snap. Prometheus broke off a length and turned the broken end towards the fading light. Within the firm outer wall lay pale pith.

He carried the stalk with him.

When he reached the fire, he stood for a moment beyond its brightness. Heat moved over his face. Before him, embers settled beneath a shifting crust of ash; each small collapse opened another seam of red.

His empty hand hung at his side. He could still go back with nothing but the stalk. No one below had asked him for what they had never seen.

He stepped into the light.

With the broken end he gathered a little of the burning heart of the fire into the fennel. Smoke curled past his knuckles. He turned the stalk, coaxing the heat into its pith, until a red point glowed inside and the flame outside had disappeared.

Then he withdrew it.

From a distance there was nothing to see: a figure carrying a dry stem. Close to his palm, the stolen fire went on consuming its small hiding place.

He walked down towards the earth. Where the wind swept across his path, he sheltered the broken end with his hand. Once the glow dimmed beneath a cap of ash. He stopped in the lee of a rock and breathed gently across it. Red brightened within the stalk.

At the riverbank, the people were scarcely visible. He heard their movements before he could distinguish their faces.

The man behind the branches lifted his head.

“Bring them here,” Prometheus said.

The man hugged the pile closer.

“Here. On the ground.”

Prometheus laid fine, dry scraps beneath the smallest twigs. Then he lowered the glowing end into them.

A thread of smoke rose. The man leaned away from it. Prometheus kept the stalk steady, bent close, and breathed. Smoke thickened. For an instant it seemed that the ember had vanished altogether.

A yellow flame slipped between two twigs.

The man reached for it.

Prometheus caught his wrist.

“Near it,” he said, easing the hand back. “Not into it.”

Together they held their palms towards the flame. The man spread his fingers. He moved them nearer, then away, finding the place where the heat was good.

Others came out of the dark. One knelt. Another brought a branch too thick for the little blaze, and Prometheus laid it aside, choosing thinner pieces first. The fire took them. Light reached the gathered faces; shadows stirred on the river stones.

Someone laughed, a short, surprised sound.

Prometheus drew the spent fennel from beneath the wood. Its end crumbled between his fingers.

Across the open earth, the new light shone where Zeus could see it.

The Mountain

Hephaestus brought the chains to the Caucasus.

Their weight dragged against the stone as he climbed. Prometheus watched him lay out the fastenings. Far below the ledge, slopes vanished into a depth full of cloud. There was nowhere for a foot to find purchase beyond the edge.

“Whose command?” Prometheus asked.

“Zeus’s.”

The smith lifted a chain.

Prometheus turned his face towards the valley. The people beside the river were beyond his sight. He had left them feeding the fire, arguing over which branches would catch, holding their hands out to its heat.

Hephaestus took his wrist.

Iron closed. The hammer rose and struck, and the mountain returned the sound. Prometheus pulled once against the fastening. The chain tightened; the rock did not move.

The smith worked until the last bond held. When he gathered his tools, the small sounds of metal touching metal seemed very clear.

Then his footsteps dwindled down the mountain.

Prometheus listened until he could hear only the wind.

The eagle came out of the bright sky.

At first it was a distant shape, turning. Prometheus followed it with his eyes. It circled lower, opened its wings above the ledge, and the rushing air struck his face.

He tried to wrench himself aside.

The chains stopped him.

The bird tore at his liver. When at last it lifted away, he could no longer hold his head upright.

Darkness came slowly. In the cold, his immortal body began to mend. He felt strength returning, little by little, and raised his face from his chest.

At dawn there was no wound left to close.

Then a shadow crossed the rock.

He strained against the chains before he heard the wings.

Days passed in that rhythm. Nights restored what daylight took. Snow gathered on the ledge and melted; water ran past his feet and froze again. He learned the sound of ordinary birds, the thin beating of their wings, and the heavier rush that made his whole body brace against the mountain.

Years went by.

The Bowstring

One day there were footsteps below the ledge.

Prometheus heard them stop, then scrape forwards again. A man climbed into view carrying a bow. He looked at the chains and then up into the sky.

“Go down,” Prometheus said.

The stranger fitted an arrow to the string.

Above them, the eagle was circling.

“Get below the rock.”

The man planted his feet.

Prometheus saw the bird fold its wings. He pressed his shoulders back against the stone; the familiar terror had reached him before he could master it.

Beside him, the bow bent.

The string snapped forwards. The eagle broke its descent with a harsh cry, struck the slope beyond the ledge, and fell out of sight.

Prometheus waited for it to rise.

Loose stones rattled down the mountain. Nothing followed them.

The stranger lowered his bow.

“Heracles,” he said, answering the question Prometheus had not yet found breath to ask.

He came to the fastenings, but Prometheus watched the empty sky.

“There is more than a bird holding me here.”

“Chiron has consented to die in your place. I have brought his offer before Zeus.”

Prometheus turned towards him.

Heracles’s hands rested on the iron. He spoke of the centaur’s wound: an arrow that had struck him, a hurt no medicine could heal. Chiron was immortal. He had long desired an end to his suffering.

For a while Prometheus said nothing. The wind stirred the loose end of Heracles’s clothing.

“Willingly?”

“Willingly.”

Heracles bent to the bonds.

When the last fastening gave, Prometheus’s arm fell heavily to his side. He tried to lift it. The movement was small, awkward, entirely his own.

Heracles caught him as he stepped away from the stone.

They rested on the ledge. The hero was travelling in search of the golden apples, and Prometheus, slowly flexing his freed hands, told him how to seek the help of Atlas. Heracles listened carefully. Before he rose, he repeated the counsel back.

Then he took up his bow and continued on his way.

Prometheus remained a little longer. A bird passed high overhead, small and swift, and disappeared beyond the ridge.

He laid his open palm against the rock. The stone had been warming in the sun. After a while he lifted his hand, stood, and began the descent.