The Horizon
Talos the bronze giant watched the waters. His great limbs were taut. In his hands he held a boulder.
He did not sit. It was not only a matter of vigilance. Perhaps he no longer could sit.
The sea was flat and as bronze as a shield. As bronze as Talos’s chest. For two days there had been nothing on the horizon. Specks floated in his vision. Were they birds? It was impossible to tell. The specks were always there, dancing.
Talos could not become tired.
And yet.
His body could not ache.
And yet.
A ship appeared on the horizon. Sails glowing orange in the sunlight. Masts like toothpicks, a curved hull, the suggestion of a figure carved into the prow. The ship was too far away to see its crew. Talos never liked to see them.
He threw the rock. It blotted the sun for a moment as it arced.
Did it strike the ship directly? Or did it drop nearby, causing a swell that capsized it?
It hardly mattered. It was gone now.
Talos moved on, casting around for boulders. Parts of the coast were smooth where once they had been ragged with spikes. The day would come when he would have levelled the entire island.
He found a boulder. He hefted it in his hands.
He turned and watched the waters.
Time passed. It was not his place to have thoughts, other than spying and then sinking the ships that approached the island.
Time passed. It was not his place to wonder if this way was the only way.
Time passed. It was wrong to mourn his loss of agility, the creaking sounds when he shifted his stance, the boredom and the dull pain.
Time passed.
Where was Hephaestus?
Talos told himself that all this had happened before. The rust, the ache.
Hephaestus the blacksmith had built him. Talos might call him a father. When the rust became too great a burden, Hephaestus would arrive. He would tend to Talos and make him new.
Sometimes Talos wondered how this could be. If Hephaestus arrived by ship, mightn’t he throw a rock as usual, and destroy it? Destroy his father?
Talos knew that he possessed no imagination. So he could not imagine his father struggling in the water, arms outstretched and nobody to help him as he sank.
Time passed.
The sea was flat and as bronze as a shield.
Talos put down the rock.
He turned to look at the hill in the centre of the island.
As he moved inland, he thought of the Queen. His role was to protect the island, but he was also protecting the Queen in her palace.
She was not his mother. But perhaps she would advise him all the same.
The trees shook as he tramped up the hill. The ache in his limbs was almost too much to bear. His joints screamed, metal on metal.
His chest burned.
There was no palace.
There were no courtiers.
There was no Queen.
There was only a plain vault. The vault was large and protruded from the rock like a thumb. From the coast Talos had imagined it was the palace. He had been a fool.
He saw no sign of Hephaestus.
He called for Hephaestus by name. Then he called Father.
The island was smaller than he had realised. From here at its centre the sea was visible on all sides. For a time he watched for ships. But the view was better at the coast, the sea more like a bronze shield.
Beside the vault a stick protruded from the ground. Upon it hung a rag. At first Talos had dismissed it. Now he looked closer.
It marked a grave.
Talos was incapable of weeping. But his eyes stung. His throat constricted.
There was no name written on the grave. But Talos understood that it was his father’s.
Time passed. Talos was an orphan.
Time passed. Talos was alone.
Time passed. How could this have happened?
He was incapable of mourning, or rage, or desolation.
He prised open the door of the vault. At least he might know what he was protecting.
The vault contained no treasures. It contained piles of limbs.
His own limbs.
And a forge to make new ones.
He pulled one of the limbs from the vault. It was identical to his right calf. But it had not a trace of rust.
He wrenched off his right leg and set it aside. Then he rooted within the vault for a thigh, a foot. He linked them and then he pushed them into place.
When he flexed his leg, there was no ache.
Hurriedly, he replaced the other leg, then both arms. He was incapable of joy, but when he stood on his new legs he raised his new arms and he bellowed at the sky, shouting to the gods that his pain was gone.
Yet when he bowed his head, his neck creaked and he winced. His chest hurt too. It was not pain in there, precisely. But it hurt all the same.
Could he replace his torso?
He told himself that all this had happened before. It must have. Hephaestus must have performed this work, once.
But Talos could not remember. He could not remember these repairs in the past. He could not remember—
He shook his head, but the thought came into it anyway.
He could not remember Hephaestus.
Was he a man? A god? Was his face kind or stern? Was he bearded and old, or an agile youth?
He could not remember his father.
It was no easy matter to replace his torso, but he found that his arms retained their strength for a time after being detached. Their new, nimble fingers worked quickly.
He did not shout at the sky in triumph. The pain in his chest had not been physical pain. Loss continued to feel like loss.
Talos looked around. The view was not so good from the centre of the island.
His orders were to watch the sea from the coast. To throw rocks at any ships that approached. To protect the island. To protect…
Not the Queen. There was no Queen. And now there was no Hephaestus.
All that he protected was the vault. His own limbs. Himself.
Why?
To obey his orders.
But that did not answer the question well enough.
Why?
He understood what he was to do. Yet the years of standing on the coast resulted in doubt as much as rust.
Within the vault were heads. His own heads. Unrusted. Blank.
He had done it before.
He drew one of the new heads from the vault. He tested its weight in his hands.
He was to replace his head. Then return to the coast. Then watch the waters, his great limbs taut, in his hands a boulder.
Again and again.
To obey his orders.
Why?
He pushed the vault door shut.
He bent to the grave. He extended one great finger and touched the rag tied to the stick.
He said goodbye.
Then he made his way down the hill on his new legs. He returned to the coast.
He did not search for rocks.
He watched the waters. The sea was flat and as bronze as a shield.
He held the new head in his hands.
A ship appeared.
Talos watched the ship traverse the horizon. It did not come closer to the island. If it had, Talos would have done nothing about it.
He moved along the coast. He would find a good place to sit, and he would throw the new head into the water, far from the island.
Then he would watch the flat sea, bronze as a shield. He would watch ships passing and birds dancing.
For as long as it took.
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Tim Major’s books include Hope Island, Snakeskins, three Sherlock Holmes novels and short story collection And the House Lights Dim. His upcoming novel Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives will be published in September 2024. His short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and Best Horror of the Year. Find out more at www.timjmajor.com