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could hear them mumbling promises to certain gods that later they would offer
sacrifices.
Beside the hole there was a mound, overgrown with grass, and Argeus now
whispered it must be the base of the altar that Phrixus had set up to Zeus.
To
Proteus, it looked more like a mound of dirt thrown up by some tremendous
impact, as if a Giant's club the size and weight of a falling house had here
struck at the earth.
Once he started to look around, it was easy to pick out other fragments,
miscellaneous and unidentifiable, left over from the crash landing.
Similarities
in appearance strongly suggested to Proteus that the Fleece and the Bulls had
once been part of the same creature, or machine, the remaining parts of which
lay smashed and scattered irretrievably.
Jason had now approached the hanging Fleece, and was reaching up with one
hand
to touch it tentatively. It would not be easy, Proteus thought, to
reconstruct
the details of that flight and its hard ending. Rooting with the toe of his
sandal under some leaves, he uncovered a strange bit of metal, all twisted
and
black, as if it had been scorched. In the light of the single lantern, and
the
faint glow of the Fleece itself, he could see how other similar pieces were
embedded in the ground, some in the trunks of trees. He bent quickly and
picked
up a bit of softer stuff, not glowing like the Fleece. It felt something like
wool and something like grass, and it rang musically when it was touched.
When
he tried to squeeze it hard, his fist suddenly felt weak, and he hastily cast
the object from him.
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But all these things were only momentary distractions; they had come here for
the Fleece, and there it was. To get directly beneath it, Proteus had to move
around to the other side of the spreading tree that held the treasure up,
some
six or eight feet above the ground, within reach of a tall man.
In the moment when Proteus got his first full look at the object of their
long
voyage, the doubts he had begun to have of its divine origin were swept away,
and he was struck with wonder. So were all his shipmates, Jason included.
Only
Medea and her servant, both of whom had seen the sight before, were less
impressed. The princess kept glancing back nervously over her shoulder, in
the
direction where the unseen Argo waited, as if expecting her father's palace
guard to appear at any moment.
In spite of all else, the Fleece drew Proteus's attention back to itself
again.
As if someone had frozen a sheet of golden flame, and somewhat dimmed its
light
. . .
The sight of it conveyed somehow the power of a huge waterfall, though it was
not actually in motion. Still the tiny bits of substance that made it up
seemed
never still. It was quite big enough, as it sagged in heavy folds among the
branches, to make a cover for a royal bed. Everyone present could feel the
power
of what hung there in the tree, or imagined that they could. The edges appear
frayed, the strands composing them growing thinner and thinner as they
stretched
farther from the center, until they indeterminately raveled out into
invisibility.
Proteus stared at the branches of the tree that held the Fleece, thinking to
himself that they must have been transformed over the years, under the
strange
weight of such a golden burden. It was somehow disquieting that they seemed
no
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different from any other branches on the trees around.
No two Argonauts were affected in exactly the same way. Some fell on their
knees
as if in worship, some hung back in fear, refusing to come near the tree.
Meanwhile others' faces showed that greed had come alive in them. In the
darkness before dawn the faint golden glow of the treasure before them
transformed each man's countenance, so that he seemed something other than
what
he truly was.
The stuff where it was the thickest and most solid had the color of pure,
raw,
glowing gold, so intense that beside it Medea's hair, escaping from her
scarf,
had acquired a pale and lifeless look. Men stretched out their hands to touch
it
as it went by. Proteus impulsively reached with his fingers to brush the
thing
in passage. The feel of it was warm, with slow pulsations of even greater
warmth
perceptible.
"Take it, Jason, and let us go," Medea said.
Proteus could see how the muscles hardened in Jason's arms when he lifted
down
his trophy from the tree, but it was not too heavy for a man to handle.
Folding
it into a manageable bundle took a little time, and somehow the careful
bundling
was soon spontaneously undone.
But moments later, when Jason tried to run with his prize in the direction of
the ship, he discovered that the Fleece somehow resisted any but the slowest
acceleration.
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