Snakehead Page 11

  She shuffled off, muttering about my disgraceful curiosity, and returned with an armful of old clothes. I wanted to ask her, please, what should I do? Should I obey my Supernatural father, take off on a quest and commit murder? Commit the murder for my own reasons? For Andromeda? Should I stay on Serifos, kill a tyrant, unleash the destruction of war and break my real father’s heart? Or should I run away from the whole mess? Take a berth on the next ship out and never look back?

  These seemed to be my miserable options, and she was the holiest person I knew. But I didn’t manage to get started in the secret dark of the bathing chamber. When we were out in the sun again, I wearing a too-short, poor-box tunic the poor had declined through good taste, I knew it would be useless. I wasn’t going to get any help in here. Great Mother had gone off somewhere, and left her pets in charge.

  But I tried.

  “Holy Mother, is it ever right to commit murder?”

  “Of course not. What are you? Four years old?” She looked at me sharply. “Have you killed someone unfairly? Did things turn nasty up there? Oh, Perseus. You’re going to cost your poor family a fortune in hooliganism fines. You’ll have to say it was the heat of the moment; you’ll probably get away with that. Claim that you’re truly sorry and agree on a price with the family, that’s all.”

  I gave up.

  “What do you think of the black metal, Holy Mother? Is it a bad thing?”

  The old lady sniffed, and led the way to the gates. “It’s fine for farm machinery,” she said. “And common weapons, I suppose. Absolutely useless for ritual purposes. Put it in a bone-dry cave, that stuff rots faster than human flesh.”

  So much for old-time holiness.

  I walked into the hills, because anywhere in town I’d run into friends and neighbors buzzing with the news of the Medusa Head Challenge. At first I walked because I couldn’t stand to go home. I couldn’t face Dicty or my mother, and I didn’t ever want to see Andromeda again. If we were dead, what was the point? We should part now.

  After a while I just walked, lost in hopeless plotting.

  Andromeda would never break the vow she had made in the Enclosure. I could not stop her from sacrificing herself…. I knew how it would be done. She hadn’t told me, but I’d got it out of Dicty. He thought the description could be relied on: Taki’s agent was extremely trustworthy. Princess Andromeda would be chained to a sacred rock just offshore, and left there for the monster, or the tidal wave, which would devour her and subside with no further damage. If the priests were to be believed.

  I’d asked him how long it was supposed to take.

  The boss had shaken his head. “A matter of hours, I believe. There are big seas on that coast at the end of summer, without anything supernatural involved.”

  I saw myself rescuing her from that rock. I’d get to Haifa, be out there with a boat. I’d row up when the priests had left, cut the chains and snatch her away before she drowned.

  No use—she’d hate me and she’d be right. She was god-touched. Whatever that meant, it meant something real. More real than those conniving priests could imagine. Die in her place? No use—that would be an insult too. The duty was hers. If I wanted to save her, I had to deal with the God.

  Somehow, in that short span of time when she was on the rock, I had to make it so that her people didn’t need the sacrifice.

  When Great Zeus had ordered me to accept the Medusa Head Challenge, and told me that Godhead itself was no protection against the Medusa’s power, an idea had leapt at me, almost the moment I heard those words. I’d been brooding on it ever since.

  How would it sound if I told her?

  I’m going to kill an innocent woman to save your life, Andromeda. No! No!

  Find the Gorgons’ lair, spot the mortal one, chop off her head …

  No. Stop that.

  I can’t do it.

  I won’t do it. I won’t kill an innocent victim of their games.

  How do you tell which is the mortal one? What kind of blade do you use?

  I woke out of my walking daze in uncleared forest. I didn’t know what time it was; I couldn’t see the sun. The sky was a blank strip of blue, so intense it shaded to violet. The black shadow of the trees on either side confused my eyes. I didn’t know where I was…. Of course I knew where I was. I must know! Serifos is a small island. I could walk across the “trackless forest” of our highest peaks in an hour or so. But the path under my feet looked strange.

  My shoulders prickled. I looked behind and saw nothing move, but I knew I was in danger.

  There was light ahead. I made for it with relief, and came out of the trees into a high, stony place. Black slopes of ilex and pine fell into hazy brown distance; the shining sea was all around. The Turning Islands, my Kyklades, were spread in every direction, an island everywhere you looked, haloed in silver mist, floating between sky and ocean. The path wound between big red and rusty boulders. There were two people standing in my way, in a narrow place where there was no room to get by. The light was dazzling. I couldn’t make out the figures clearly, though I was within a few paces of them. I was afraid, and that made me angry.

  “Hey. Are you going to get out of the way, or what?” I demanded.

  My vision cleared. I saw that the taller of the two was dressed as a warrior, in polished black: a tunic as if carved from obsidian; leg and arm guards strapped around white sculpted muscle; a black breastplate. She had a shield on her back and a sword at her hip, and her face was so icily beautiful I couldn’t look at it. The young man with her wore a traveler’s cloak and hat and carried a herald’s staff. His sandals had wings at the heels. He looked more human than the woman, but it was hard to keep his smooth, bright face in focus; it seemed to be in constant motion.

  I knew who they were. I refused to fall on my knees. I wanted to run, but no one can run from fate. The other world had reached out to claim me, and there was nothing I could do. I hated to be in their power, but I needed them.

  “I never get out of anyone’s way,” said my half sister Athini, in a dangerously gentle tone. “What are you going to do about it, Perseus?”

  “Oh well.” I made as if to turn around and head back into the woods. (I was showing off; there was no risk that they’d let me go.) “There are other paths.”

  “Stay where you are, brat!” snapped the Goddess of Wisdom with her hand on her sword hilt. I remembered I was supposed to look out for her temper.

  “We need to talk to you,” explained the young man, whose staff and winged heels told me he was Hermes, the Divine Messenger, God of Thought. “Or rather, you need to talk to us. We’re here to equip you for your quest. Didn’t Father Zeus tell you?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything beyond Polydectes’ feast.”

  “But you know you have to slay the Medusa?”

  I could not let go of my anger. “For the sake of argument,” I said, “let’s say I know that. Let’s say I have to chop this woman’s head off, because you Supernaturals say so, and I don’t have a choice. But it sounds like murder to me. You can’t just tell me she’s a monster, as if that explains everything. Why does Medusa deserve to die? Hasn’t she suffered enough? Why do I have to do this? I don’t understand.”

  Athini came up close, in one stride. Her blinding face looked into mine. I felt her touch on my brow, same as when my father had pushed me off his yacht, into the whirling snake pit. “You have to do it because you don’t know,” she said.

  I backed off, stumbling and shaking my head.

  “Thanks. That’s very helpful.”

  “Don’t bother with the sarcasm, Perseus. These are mysteries. Just pay attention.”

  “The Medusa is innocent,” said Hermes. “She was once the most beautiful creature in the world, but she offended one of the Supernaturals. She was transformed, as you have heard, into a hideous monster whose glance turns anyone looking on her to stone. She banished herself to the Garden of the Hesperides, at the far end of the world, where she lives with th
e two Gorgon sisters, Sthenno and Euryale. They have boar tusks, snakes for hair, and they are winged…. Medusa has never willingly harmed anyone, but what you do will not be murder, far from it. For the Medusa it will be a joyful release.”

  “Which doesn’t mean the monster won’t put up a fight.” Athini unslung the shield from her back, and drew her sword. “And you are not immune to the petrifying glance, Perseus. You have to do it like this.” She demonstrated. “Look into the shield. Do not look at the Medusa. Look at the Snakehead directly and—divine or mortal—you are dead stone. Look into the shield. In reflection she is not a monster, I assure you. One sweep, and leap back. Her blood is poisonous, by the way. Don’t get the blood on your skin.”

  I thought I knew how to handle a sword and shield. I thought I was pretty good, tell you the truth, although I’d never drawn a weapon in anger. But when my half sister went into action, that was utterly different. I was awed.

  She held out the sword and shield. “Now you try.”

  God help me, I thought. But there was no escape.

  She schooled me till I was dripping, and let me stand for a breather. My poor-box tunic was drenched; my legs were trembling. Athini was cool and dry as marble.

  “Not bad. You can borrow the shield. I’ll have my sword back, thank you.”

  “Apart from the blood,” said Hermes, who’d been watching the training bout carefully, and making helpful comments (I mean, really helpful). “There are the Gorgon sisters. Sthenno and Euryale are not mortal or human, and never were. You can’t kill them, don’t try. The only thing you can do is get away from there, very, very fast. You’ll need to borrow these.” He stooped, swift as thought, and unfastened his sandals.

  I slung the shield of Athini on my back, and took the sandals. The wings on the heels were fixed with little golden studs; they were folded like a sleeping bird’s. I’d seen Yacht Club kids wearing winged sandals with the feathers done in cut leather, dyed white or gilded…. This was where the idea came from; this was the real thing.

  “Don’t put them on,” Hermes advised. “Put them in, er”—he took a dubious look at the sweat-sodden, poor-box tunic—“in the breast of your, er, training kit. Practice where you have plenty of space. No buildings or tall trees around, and no steep hillsides you might smash yourself into. But don’t worry, it’s intuitive, you’ll soon pick it up.”

  I held the sandals, not sure if I should really stuff them away.

  “And there’s this.” Hermes produced a slim bundle from under his cloak, unwrapped it and drew a weapon from a plain leather sheath. It was a strange thing, between a sickle and a hooked dagger and the length of a foot soldier’s short sword. “This is the harpe,” he said. “It’s Chaldean. It wants to help you. Please treat it with respect.” The blade was well-forged bronze, without any inscription; the edge had a silvery, wavering gleam. “The metal’s specially treated. It’ll sever Medusa’s head at one blow, which is vital. You won’t get a second swing at her.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll remember that.” I tucked the sandals under my arm. He slid the harpe into its sheath, wrapped it up again and put it into my hands.

  “Keep these things hidden until you’re off the island. Your enemy, Polydectes, doesn’t know that he is in our hands. He believes you were fathered either by a cunning mortal who sneaked into the tower, or else by some minor deity with no great power whom the king of Argos had offended. He thinks he’s sending you on a hopeless venture. Don’t let him know you’ve had our help.”

  “I won’t.”

  Athini stood with her arms folded. “How about ‘thank you,’ Perseus?”

  I did not feel grateful. Stunned, yes. Dazzled, definitely. Winged sandals, Athini’s own shield! Great Mother. But I didn’t feel like thanking them for the loan of these staggering treasures. They were supplying the gear they needed me to have, so that I could do their bidding. Why should I thank them for that? I used my common sense. I bowed very low and made the right noises. Athini looked slightly mollified. Now’s my chance to find out something I personally need to know, I thought.

  “You’ve been very kind and generous and thoughtful. I’m overwhelmed, Great Athini, Divine Hermes. But, er, there’s one thing. Excuse my ignorance, but which Divine Person did she offend? Which of the Supernaturals did something so terrible to the most beautiful creature in the world?”

  Until my father had told me I had to kill her, the Medusa had just been a name to me, just one of those hair-raising monsters that litter the Middle Sea: some of them real, some of them as fake as a stuffed mermaid. But I knew how the Supernaturals ganged up on each other. If it was true that the Medusa would be released by my blow, the Person who had turned her into a monster was not going to be pleased. I had to know whose divine toes I would be stepping on. I knew I’d be the one in trouble with whoever it was. Not Zeus, Hermes and Athini, oh no. That’s not the way it works.

  Hermes grinned, which worried me. “Ah, hmm …We’re glad you asked that.” He glanced at Great Athini. “That’s a very good question, isn’t it, sister?”

  Athini was not amused. She came up too close again, gripped me by my upper arms and fixed me with that terrifying, glorious gaze. “I did it. Something most improper happened to her, in one of my temples. I detest that kind of thing and I lost my temper.”

  “All right,” I said hurriedly. “That’s fine. Thanks. Just wanted to know.”

  She stepped back, and resumed her businesslike tone. “We come to the journey. The Gorgons live in the Garden of the Hesperides. Do you know where that is?”

  I told her what the Yacht Club kids had told me when I asked. “The Gorgons’ lair is in North Africa. Almost as far as the Pillars of the West, and back from the coast a bit, somewhere. There’s a huge mountain range. It’s in the foothills, I think.”

  She sighed. “You think. And how are you going to get there?”

  I’d been working it out. “I’ll take a boat over to Paros. I’d get a berth from there to Libya, and then coast-hop westward, asking the way as I go. I’d get better directions when I’m in the area, since I’ll be following the trail of the other champions.”

  No points. Athini and Hermes were shaking their heads.

  “No, no, no,” said Hermes. “Do not head south. That’s the way to join the statuary. You’re forgetting that Polydectes is your enemy, and you’re forgetting this is not a mortal quest. You must go down to the River, to find your way back to the Garden.”

  There was no river in the Medusa lore I’d picked up. “Er, which river?”

  Hermes looked amazed at my slow thinking. “The dark one, of course.”

  “Ask the nymphs,” Athini advised. “They’ll help you.”

  “Nymphs?” I felt a shift in the air, in the light, and panicked, because I knew Athini and Hermes were about to vanish, leaving me bewildered. “There’s a nymph for every tree and stone on Serifos, and what do those fragile creatures know? Which of them do you suggest I should ask?”

  Athini looked at Hermes. “He really is one of us,” said the Goddess.

  She smiled on me, for the first time: a smile so fierce and glorious it nearly knocked me off my feet. “My father’s half-mortal children are frequently supercharged dolts, Perseus. They see what mortals can’t see, they feel what immortals can’t feel, and they go crazy, torn between the worlds, and have to be put out of their misery. You will not share that fate; you are too wise. We salute you…. The Stygian nymphs are different from the simple spirits you know. The Graeae, the Elder Goddesses, will show you how to reach them. But they won’t do it willingly. You’ll have to trick them.”

  A bright cloud, like a sun-filled mist, fell between me and the Supernaturals.

  “The Graeae have one tooth and one eye between them. If one of them wants to eat, she says pass the tooth; if one of them wants to see what she’s eating, she says pass the eye. Your best plan is to steal the eye and the tooth, trade them for a passage….”

  The Divine
Messenger’s voice came from far away. It was fading … it was gone. Trade the eye and the tooth for a passage.

  I was alone on the stony height.

  “I don’t understand!” I yelled. “Why me? You know everything, you have all the power. If you want the Medusa’s head, Why don’t you just take it?”

  “That’s what we’re doing, Perseus,” said Athini’s voice. “You are our action.”

  The confusion I’d felt before Athini and Hermes appeared had vanished. I knew where I was. It was hot noon. I had a pair of winged sandals in the front of my tunic, Athini’s shield on my back and a wicked-looking curved dagger, wrapped up in a bundle of cloth, that the God Hermes had treated with great respect. I decided the harpe was safely disguised by its sheath, which was attached to a plain leather belt. I strapped it around my waist (the poor-box tunic’s belt was a piece of cord). I used the cloth to wrap Athini’s shield. I couldn’t do anything about the sandals’ shining white feathers, which poked out of the neck of my skimpy tunic. I plodded home, looking as if I’d stolen somebody’s prize fancy chicken.

  There was no one in the yard when I let myself in. Kefi was singing in the stable, accompanied by some mighty honks from the mules. I could hear voices from the kitchen and the dining room: our staff, my family, Andromeda, getting ready for the evening. I had a strange feeling that if I went into the restaurant, they wouldn’t recognize me. They’d say, You can’t be Perseus. He vanished, long ago…. I sneaked through the house like a ghost, and reached my own room without being spotted. Our ferret, Brébré, was asleep on my bed. I laid out my treasures, and sat there cuddling his warm, supple, furry body. He licked my chin. A ferret can be a surprisingly comforting pet.

  “I’m going away, Brébré. I’m going hunting. You won’t see me for a while.”

  Athini’s shield.

  Winged sandals.

  The harpe.

  And a bucketful of instructions that were fast escaping from my brain. Find the Stygian nymphs, steal the eye and the tooth. Practice where there are no trees. Could we go over that again, Hermes? I can’t memorize things I can’t understand.