The Estruscan Chimera

PROLOGUE

THE MAN WIPED THE SWEAT FROM HIS brow and sighed. By all the gods, it was hot here by the kilns. He could only dream of a place in the hills where the air sighed in the cypress trees, or of the sea, almost near enough to see here in Velc, from the highest treetop, but not so close that its breezes cooled his face.

He had chosen the vessel with care. He'd tested several, feeling their weight and their balance as he made a pouring motion and running his fingers across the surface to feel for imperfections in the clay that would destroy his work in the final firing. This one was perfect.

He'd thought long and hard about the subject, too, how best to capture the heroic struggle, the fight to the death between two bold antagonists, how to place the black figures against the red background to best effect on the softly rounded surface.

The choice of subject had been easy, the one he 'd heard first from some Greeks who toiled in his workshop, his son's favorite tale, the story the boy had asked to hear every night before sleep. He could recite it, almost without thinking, these many years later. About how Proteus, king of Argos, plotted against the brave and beautiful Bellerophon because Proteus's wife, the lovely but deceitful Antea, her advances spurned by the noble Bellerophon, had told the king terrible lies. How Proteus, enraged, had sent Bellerophon with sealed orders to Lycia, where the Lycian king, upon opening the tablet, had learned that Bellerophon was to die. How he had sent the young hero on an impossible mission to kill the dreaded chimera, a monstrous creature with the head of a lion, the hissing tail of a serpent, and a goat in between, who with every fiery breath scorched the Lycian soil.

How Bellerophon, guided by the gods and aided by winged Pegasus, had triumphed. Flying over the monster, he 'd shot a bolt of lead down the throat of the terrible beast. Melted by the creature's own fiery breath, the molten metal seared her entrails. How in agony, the monster died.

The man picked up his tools, and after a moment's hesitation, touched the surface. This one he was not doing for the workshop, not for the wealthy families who snapped up his work for their loved ones' tombs. It would not be for sale. This would be his masterpiece.