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Epilogue

Kleanthes cursed the gods under his breath as he picked his way through the thorny underbrush, shoving brambles aside with his crook. He cursed himself, too, for bringing the flock so far from their usual leas, but the rain had been light this year, and grazing pasture was hard to find. A few strands of wool told him the lamb had certainly come this way. His calves were aching from the hard climb up the rocky slope, and sweat soaked his brow. He turned toward the sea, which was far below him now, and enjoyed a moment of the ocean breeze cooling him in the afternoon sun. He held onto his straw hat so that the wind wouldn't take it, and was just turning to resume his hunt for the missing lamb, when the wind changed. The breeze from inland was warmer, and it carried on it a scent of something animal. Kleanthes had never smelled anything like it before, and a sense of alarm rose in him. Lions were not common on the Isles anymore, but they were not extinct-just last spring, a lion had taken two of his uncle's flock.

Kleanthes tightened his grip on his crook and pushed forward more urgently, ignoring the way the brambles tore at his exomis. Finally, he emerged from the thicket and found himself at the edge of a clearing surrounded by lichen-crusted boulders. He was about to rush forward when he noticed the imprints in the ground. Something had been walking here. Something large. Something with man-shaped feet, but tipped with wicked claws. No lion, this. Kleanthes remembered shivering on his pallet at night after hearing his grandfather's tales of the cyclopes, the terrible giants that once roamed these lands. He ought to turn back, he told himself, but every lamb was precious, and his father would beat him if he returned without it.

A high bleat sounded from the clearing. That settled it. Stealthily, Kleanthes made his way around a boulder and into the clearing. And there he stopped. The lamb was indeed there, but it was in the arms of a monster. An enormous creature stood in the clearing. It wore the general shape of a man but it was easily three times the size of any man Kleanthes had ever seen. It towered over seven feet tall, and its shoulders seemed nearly as broad, its whole body layered with muscle. And beyond that, it was not manlike at all. Huge wings sprouted from its back, a long tail swayed behind it, and four eyes glinted beneath its crown of eight black horns. From head to toe it was armored in ruby scales. Though not a man, it was most assuredly male-doubly so, in fact, for two prodigious members swung nearly to its spiked knees, and despite himself, Kleanthes felt a peculiar arousal surge through him, his member rising beneath his exomis.

In its arms, the creature held his lamb, stroking it with a taloned hand that could have engulfed its entire body. It murmured something to the lamb in a language Kleanthes could not understand, its voice low and powerful enough to make small rocks dance around its feet when it spoke. Its tongue slid out from between huge fangs, forked like a serpent's, flicking in the air, and then with a start the creature looked up, its four eyes fixing directly on Kleanthes. The hairs on Kleanthes' neck stood, and he turned to bolt, but the creature suddenly called out, "Wait! Don't go!"

Kleanthes was shocked to hear it speak in clear, unaccented Aegean. He turned to run anyway, and then something strange happened-a pulse of energy seemed to move through him from his toes to his head, filling him with a warm, happy feeling, and a flood of desire. His erection strained beneath his clothes; he could feel a drop of arousal sliding down his shaft.

"Please." the creature said. "This must be your lamb. I will not harm it. Or you." It walked forward, and Kleanthes found the movement hypnotic: this beast of incredible size and power prowling toward him-the way its muscle shook with each step, the way its tail swayed, the way its weight made its feet spread out when it trod. The canvas-like sound of its wings catching the breeze. The way its chest seemed to double in size with each breath. The sway of its twin members, the jostle of a sac that surely contained two coconuts against the movement of its tree trunk thighs. The scent of its masculinity was intoxicating. When it stopped, it filled his vision: muscle, shoulders, scales, wings. It was growing erect, he realized in a mixture of fear and fascination, those members rising as if seeking out his mouth.

It blinked, first its inner eyes, then its outer. "You are so beautiful," it rumbled. "And it has been so long." It held out the lamb at the end of an arm larger than Kleanthes. "Your lamb found me on its own. I stay here so that I will not frighten others. And so that I will not... change things that should not be changed. Please tell no one that I am here."

Kleanthes took the lamb in his arms and looked around the clearing. At the far side was a cave, and within it, he saw signs of life: bundled wool and straw, scrolls, and an enormous chair and desk that each appeared to have been carved from stone. Toward one side of the cave, arranged somewhat neatly, was a rather sizable pile of bones-fish, deer, and other animals, including sheep, he noted with some annoyance. Though fortunately, as far as he could make out, none human. "How long have you been living here?" he ventured.

The creature was silent for a moment. "What year is it?"

"I don't know. But the traders said last spring we had entered the eleventh century."

The creature breathed out slowly. Its breath was warm and strangely dry. "The eleventh century... Then I have been here near two hundred years. Before that... elsewhere." It shook its head. "And I have so long left to wait."

Kleanthes blinked up at it. "Wait? What are you waiting for?"

It gave him a sad smile. "My friends. I am waiting for my friends. Would you care to wait with me for a while?"

Kleanthes looked down at the half-erect members before him, and up at the enormous creature, which had seemed so fearsome, and now strangely gentle. "I should get back to my flock," he said hesitantly.

"I could fly you back in moments. Tell me. What do they call this isle?"

"Satyros Isle, it is named."

The creature let out a low chuckle. "Indeed."

"It's true. Legend says that once those favored by Dionysios, the god of wine and fertility, dwelt on this isle, and that he granted those who pleased him most with the forms of satyrs, for which they were honored and revered by all." Kleanthes attempted a laugh, but it came out halting and nervous. "It is a silly myth, perhaps, but I have often thought of it, moving with my flock, or lying awake at night. Fun to dream of."

The creature's tongue slid from between its enormous jaws again, tasting the air. "Indeed," it said again. In one smooth movement it settled to the ground, its wings folding to its back, tail snaking behind it, the barbed tip twitching. The lamb sprang from Kleanthes arms to the ground and danced around playfully.

The creature looked over to Kleanthes. "Tell me, young shepherd. What do you desire?"