Snakehead

  “This isn’t your doing!” she shouted. “I’m doing this, for the people!”

  No one could hear, except the priests and their servants. The chief priest pulled the hood of sacrifice over her face. She felt hands pushing her head about, setting the diadem in place. The drums, the chanting, the solemn moaning of the great brazen horns started to move away, over the water.

  “Good riddance,” muttered Andromeda.

  She ought to feel that things were right, now. She ought to be at peace.

  How long? The sea was supposed to rise up and drown a sacrifice in hours at this season, by the special mercy of the God. But she didn’t know how many hours….

  The blindfold was a nasty touch.

  I flew to Haifa, but not as swiftly as thought. I soon found out there was no way “through” this time. I brained myself against one hillside, and one tree … after which I looked where I was going. At dawn I touched down at a port on the Libyan coast (didn’t find out the name). I tried to get directions from a dockside taverna where they spoke our language. I was ravenous and they let me eat, bless them, although I had no coin they recognized, and I seemed to be insane. I touched down again on the deck of a big ship heading east, where I was taken for Hermes himself on account of the sandals, and that caused some excitement. They gave me water. And once more, at night, I stopped—in a place I did not understand at all. There were huge sheets of the transparent stuff that my father had on his yacht; crowds of people running around; and roaring, silver-winged creatures that galloped along great, brightly lit racetracks until they were going so fast they galloped into the sky.

  I found a bar there, and met someone who was god-touched. He told me, in a strange dialect of Greek, how to fly to Haifa, what bearings I should take by the stars, everything—as if it was something people did every day. Hermes fixed up that meeting. He was a true friend in need, the God of Thought, just as my father had promised me.

  * * *

  I reached the Phoenician coast and identified Haifa, though it didn’t look the way my god-touched guide had told me. I saw the earthquake damage as I approached, but the walled city that climbed the hill seemed untouched. I saw the procession, but I didn’t know what it was. I had spotted the palace by its strange white conical towers pocked with little black windows. I flew straight there and landed in a vast courtyard. There were people, many of them in red-and-white uniforms with white conical hats, just like the towers. They were milling around like an ants’ nest stirred up; they paid no attention to me. I followed the sounds of weeping and crashing to a double door. Two big men in the cone hats crossed their spears in front of me. Their skin was the same shining dark as my girl’s.

  “D’you speak Greek?” I demanded. “I need to see the king and queen.”

  “What business do you have with Their Majesties?” asked one of them, in Achaean Greek better than mine. I suppose he thought if I’d got this far, I must be more important than I looked.

  “It’s about the Princess Andromeda. She doesn’t have to die.”

  Their eyes were red with weeping. “She didn’t have to die,” shouted one of them. “She had escaped. She came back, poor child. It’s too late now.”

  “That’s what you think. I’m Perseus, son of Zeus. I can save her.”

  I was a big frantic lout dressed in rags; they could have just run me through. Maybe they felt the presence of the Gods, I don’t know. Anyway, they let me pass and told a woman (in a richer kind of red-and-white uniform) to take me to the queen. In a pillared room, dark because the windows were shuttered, smoky with incense and noisy with weeping and crashing sounds, the great Queen Cassiopeia and her husband, Kephus, were sitting stiffly on two thrones. The woman whispered to Cassiopeia, and the king and the queen came to see the madman.

  Andromeda’s mother was much older than my Moumi, but she was very beautiful, and even then—haggard with grief, her makeup running—she was a figure of great power. Kephus was younger. He wore gilded, fancy-dress armor, and I naturally hated him. I remembered the pain in Andromeda’s voice when she said Oh, Daddy … he has plenty of other children. But he looked formidable in his way. He led the city’s army in person, I later found out. I wondered how they saw me. I had the kibisis at my belt, with the sheathed harpe. The king of Hades’ helmet was tucked under my arm, and Hermes’ winged sandals were on my feet. Would they recognize the supernatural gear? Would they understand that they could trust me?

  “What is your petition, Perseus, son of Zeus?” said the king, in Greek.

  “I wish to marry your daughter Andromeda. If I subdue the monster, will you agree that she is released from her vow, and free to marry me?”

  I was thinking ahead. I could deal with a supernatural monster, but the dedication would be a problem. The priests wouldn’t let my girl just walk away.

  The queen stared at me: at hope that was hateful because it came too late. “The sacrifice has been offered. Ask the God if you may marry her.”

  Their Majesties swept back to the ceremony they had left, gold-and-purple cloaks swirling behind them. I realized what all the breaking and tearing meant: it was a funeral. But I couldn’t be too late! I had the Medusa Head! Why else did I have the Medusa Head? I grabbed the nearest courtier by his jeweled collar, shook him and yelled at him. “Where is she?”

  “She is on the rock of s-s-sacrifice,” he gabbled. “Y-y-you can see it from the harbor, g-g-great prince, m-m-mighty lord.”

  I dropped the man in a heap, and ran. Nobody stood in my way. I think the royal household would’ve been cheering me on, if they’d known what I was doing. But I remembered the helmet and slammed it on my head, just in case. I reached the big courtyard and leapt for the sky, praying that all the supernatural loot wasn’t going to vanish. But that couldn’t happen, because I was born to save her.

  I saw the priests at the harbor wall, with their horns and drums and gold cone hats. I saw the crowds of mourning, wailing people, and cursed myself because now I knew what the procession had been about. They’d taken her to the slaughter rock. I saw her lying there, covered in gold. She blazed in the morning sun. Soon as I was over water, I pulled off the helmet and chucked it. As long as it was in the sea, some nymph or other would take it back to its owner. Being invisible wasn’t going to help me now, and though you couldn’t see the helmet, it didn’t weigh nothing.

  A great yelling burst out behind me. I thought I’d caused the panic: the crowd had just seen a flying man, with a wicked-looking bronze sickle in his hand, appear in midair. Then I saw that the sea out beyond Andromeda had begun to boil.

  Sometimes the first warning people have of an undersea quake is a strange long wave, far out on the horizon. They see it but they can’t tell how big it is, until it’s close enough to drag the water back from the shore, until they see the gulfs exposed. Then everybody starts to run…. When the quake is close to land, you see what I saw. There’s no storm, the sky is clear and calm, but suddenly the sea roils and churns as if a huge fish, a fish as big as a hill, is thrashing about under the surface. And the killer wave rises right out of this churning, like a monster heaving up from the deep.

  I’d heard it described. I’d never seen it happen, until now.

  The Haifans were running for higher ground.

  They had called the God of Earthquake, and he was here.

  It was some vicious consolation to see the priests tearing up the hill, as fast as anyone. They’d expected a quiet drowning, not this. I crashed onto the rock, fell to my knees and slashed at the chains. The Chaldean dagger was a good blade. It sliced her shackles as if they were cords. “It’s me! Perseus!” The gold diadem went to feed the fishes. I dragged the hood from her head.

  Her great black eyes, a shock of meeting.

  “No!” she shouted. “No! This is mine!”

  “Get out of that gold dress!” I screamed. “You’ll sink like a stone!”

  I shot away again, slamming the harpe back into its sheath. The kibisis, the kibisi
s. I struggled with the drawstring. I had to get my hand inside and grab hold of the snakes, without touching the bloody stump of the Medusa’s neck. The snakes woke and hissed. They wrapped themselves dryly round my wrist and laced themselves through my fingers. It did not feel horrible. It was the feeling you have when you pick up a well-balanced, well-forged sword—and it knows you.

  Yes! I thought.

  Come on, you sea monster!

  You think you are so big. Let’s have you!

  Where was it?

  How could I show it the Medusa Head if it didn’t show itself? There was supposed to be a monster, a mighty thing with fangs and claws that rose from the deep. The earthquake was supposed to have a supernatural form, like the Gray Sisters: something that I could defeat. I could not turn the Middle Sea itself to stone … though I was so desperate, I tried. I raced out over the boiling center of the eruption, holding the Medusa face, with its petrifying gaze, above the waves. I screamed for the monster to come out and face me. But what rose up was the sea itself, a deadly tower of water, racing to shore as it grew. My girl, still dressed in gold, was kneeling on the rock, staring into the sky, oblivious of the great wave, waiting for the God.

  Then I saw the winged horse. I didn’t see him coming. He was just there, all at once, galloping down through the air. His hooves struck the earthquake waves, and they were calm. He trotted over the gleaming sea, his mighty wings curved above his back like a swan’s. He stretched out his neck, like a horse eager to greet some rider he knew and loved. I saw him bow his head, into Andromeda’s hands.

  Andromeda had not stripped off the gold dress. She had no sense of danger, only a crazy sense of defeat. It was just, her heart was crying. I was ready! Perseus, don’t take this from me!

  She saw the winged horse coming out of the sky.

  S’bw’r?

  The horse did not speak, but she heard her secret name in the warm breath on her hands. In Greek she was called Andromeda, meaning “great thinker,” or “ruler of men.” A proud name for a great queen’s daughter. Too proud: bound to lead to trouble. But in the secret temple language of her mother’s people she was just S’bw’r, “the one who thinks.”

  Bridle me, said the breath of the great winged horse.

  She reached inside the gold dress, and brought out the hank of purple yarn and the loom weights and made a halter. Just as in her dream, it was like catching a thought. His soft muzzle nosed into the halter. She drew it over his neat ears; she cinched the weights and leapt onto his back. The great wings beat downward and they soared into the air.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  No answer: horses don’t speak. The Middle Sea opened beneath them. She saw the Twelve Islands, and the Turning Islands. The ruined cup of Fira, like a hollow, rotten tooth. The mountainous length of Kriti, with two ends jutting up, like a comb. He circled to the north, over the capes and promontories of the Mainland coast. Over the Achaean nations he swooped down. Where his shining hooves struck rock, fountains sprang up: springs that had been imprisoned, lost, until Andromeda could ride this horse and free them. Oh! she thought…. This is what I was born to do. I was not meant to die, I was meant to open the springs.

  As if in answer the horse soared again, rising so high that the air was thin and cold. She saw a Greek city, rich in marble buildings, with vivid-columned temples. Rivers of light were springing from it and flying across the lands, weaving a fabric richer than her eyes could follow, vanishing north, east, west, south, to the ends of the earth. She felt the way she’d felt when she was writing down the “Dark Water” song, but it was not the dead who were calling to her, it was people who were yet to live. And she was part of the dazzling, world-spanning pattern that sprang from that shining city, because she had made the flying marks, because she had made the leap of power.

  Then the city was gone, and the flank of a mountain was in front of her, very big and coming up fast. She yelled out, clung to her yarn reins and clutched the horse’s flanks with her knees as he cleared a summit set around with white towers, reminding her of the palace at home—and there the winged horse landed softly, on all four hooves at once, like a huge eagle settling on his nest.

  It was a palace. There were gilded walls that glittered like crystal, halls and courtyards and gardens. There were people too—tall, splendid people with unearthly beautiful faces, watching her arrival. She could not see them, or their palace, clearly, but she felt them. Two figures grew solid and came walking toward her. One was a tall white-skinned woman wearing black armor. The other was an older man, with thickly curling dark hair and seashells in his beard, who wore a long tunic, greenish purple bordered with white. She’d seen the man once before: through the smoke of a brazier, in the Sacred Enclosure at Seatown. The winged horse bent his head and snorted eagerly. The man in the sea-colored robe came up and stroked his velvety muzzle, and rubbed him between the eyes.

  “His name is Pegasus,” he said to Andromeda. “It means ‘the fountain horse.’”

  “Is he yours?”

  “He is my child,” said the God of Making and Breaking, known as Poseidon to the Greeks. “As you are, but differently. But he belongs to himself.”

  Andromeda looked around. “Where is this place?”

  “This is shining Olympus,” said the armored woman. “Home of the Gods.”

  “But I’m not a Greek!”

  “Not yet. You will be. You have opened the springs, S’bw’r. And mended a family quarrel, you and Perseus together. Well done.”

  “Are you Athini?”

  “I am.” The Goddess turned to the God, as if Andromeda’s part was over. “Well, is it peace, uncle? Your Medusa has been freed, and I shall place her in honor.” She thrust out her hand, in a brusque, boyish gesture.

  Poseidon took the hand, with a warm smile. “It’s peace, my dear.”

  Andromeda knew there must be something more. She was colored mist, and so were the Olympians. They were as real as she, but there was something more, far greater, behind the veils. She and Perseus hadn’t struggled, and suffered, just to heal a quarrel between outsized human beings.

  “Will there be cities that aren’t built on hills? In valleys and on the shore, the way Papa Dicty says they should be? Will the people ever be fearless?”

  “Sometimes,” said the Goddess of Wisdom, and her dazzling, sorrowful smile filled Andromeda’s eyes, blinding her sight. Olympus vanished.

  The sea was calm, the waves just washing over the rock of sacrifice. She slipped down from Pegasus’s back and stood ankle deep in seawater to take off the bridle of purple yarn. He blew warmly on her shoulder. She kissed him. He sprang away, and swiftly disappeared into the bright distance.

  Perseus was there, waves breaking over his sandals.

  “You freed the Medusa?” said Andromeda.

  “Yes.” He touched the kibisis, which was strung on his belt. “She’s here…. I thought rescuing you was my plan. I was going to turn the sea monster to stone, so that you wouldn’t have to die. But it was that fantastic horse. He was born from her, when I struck off her head. That was how they meant me to save you. Is the horse yours?”

  “He’s called Pegasus. He belongs to himself. But the springs are opened.”

  “What springs? What does that mean?” said Perseus.

  “I think I know,” said Andromeda. “Only I thought I was dying for justice.”

  The churning waves had been contained as if in a large bowl; they hadn’t reached the quayside. The priests of Melqart, having seen the Lord of Earthquake calmed, were hurrying to reclaim the sacrifice. The sacred barge was already on its way out. Perseus and Andromeda shared a look that said talk about it later.

  The procession returned to the city: Andromeda in the midst of it, still dressed in gold; the priests trying hard to make out that the triumph was theirs. There was a lot of blowing of long horns, and perfuming of Andromeda with incense smoke. She ignored the priests, but she didn’t ignore the people. She gave them her han
ds, her smiles; she stopped and talked. Everyone seemed to know where we were going; I just went along with the crowd. Finally, we reached a temple precinct, high up in the massive, many-storyed labyrinth of Haifa. “This is the temple of Baal-Melqart,” said Andromeda. “I have something to do here.”

  Baal means “lord,” as I found out later. Melqart I can’t translate.

  Someone must have sent a runner to the palace while we were on our progress through the streets. Andromeda’s mother was already there, in a great stone court surrounded by huge, strange buildings. She came through the ranks of priestly servants, in her gold and purple. She’d repaired her makeup, but she was still looking shattered. She held out her hands, almost hesitant. “My daughter?”

  The princess and her mother embraced. It was a stately embrace, not a hug. I had the feeling that Cassiopeia, the great queen, did not know how to hug. If she’d ever known, she’d taught herself it was a weakness she couldn’t afford. Then Andromeda knelt, kissed her mother’s hands, stood up again and assailed the priests, who were hovering around the royal pair in large numbers.

  “You didn’t have to chain me,” she said, in Greek, to the big fat one in the most elaborate robes and the tallest of the gold cone hats. She spoke as if she knew the brute personally, and I suppose she did. “I was willing.”

  She strode up the court until she stood in front of a brazier that burned at the feet of a gigantic statue of the God. She stripped off the gold dress, ripping through the soft wires, so that it fell with a chiming of metal on stone. She raised her arms above her head, holding up the bridle she’d made for Pegasus. She spoke in a language I didn’t know, and dropped the purple yarn onto the holy fire. Flame leapt up and flowed around her, without touching a hair of her head.

  We don’t sacrifice to the Great Mother, aside from the occasional basket of fruit. But apparently, when this leaping flame happens, it means the God is satisfied.