Stone Blind(33)

‘Well,’ she said to her brother. ‘He’ll probably die before we get him anywhere near the Gorgons. But we did say we’d help him.’

‘We did,’ said the man. ‘I’m Hermes, by the way. Since you seem to be struggling. This is Athene.’

Perseus opened his mouth and closed it again.

‘It’s lucky we already know who you are,’ Athene said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to gods just wandering up to me and telling me they can help.’

‘Gods have been helping you since the day you were born,’ Hermes replied.

‘You should pay more attention,’ Athene said.

‘I will now. Did you say we had to go to see someone else?’

‘The Graiai,’ said Hermes. ‘Don’t worry, we know the way.’

‘And they’ll help me?’ Perseus asked.

The gods looked at one another. ‘It probably depends how you ask,’ Hermes said.

*

He was standing on a broad ledge, midway up the cliff face. Perseus had no idea how he had travelled from the sacred grove to this rocky outpost, where an angry sea battered the grey stone beneath his feet. Turning to look up, he had to grab at the rock beside him and steady himself. He probably could climb it, if he had to, but it was a long way to fall if he lost his footing. He couldn’t have made his way here without divine assistance, he knew: even his year at sea had not taught him how to moor a boat against a sheer cliff. No wonder the gods had laughed at him. He looked left and right and realized he was alone.

He felt a sudden lurch of fear, and crouched down before his legs lost their strength. This was how Dictys had taught him to cope with seasickness when it had overwhelmed him on his first voyages. He breathed through his mouth, watching the horizon until it steadied. Gradually, he felt able to stand again, so he did. He decided he was more likely to find the Graiai above him than below, and followed the ledge up the side of the cliff.

It was a slow process, punctuated with occasional bouts of terror when the wind picked up and threatened to toss him into the ocean. Again, he would crouch down, shrink his body to create a smaller target, and press himself against the cliff. He traversed one section on hands and knees when he could see no other way to continue. And as he climbed he tried to believe that he was on his way to the first real part of his quest, and not that he was a plaything of the gods who were watching him from some impervious vantage point and enjoying all this.

He crept a little further up the ledge, wishing he knew what he was looking for. Did the Graiai live on the top of the cliff? Why had the gods abandoned him where they did? Or what if he’d gone the wrong way, and they had been just around the curve of the rock from where he began his climb? What if it got dark while he was perched here? The panic threatened to overwhelm him and he wished himself back on Seriphos, with his mother and Dictys to look after him. He cursed himself for the way he had tried to show the king he was a man, when he still felt like a child.

As he inched his way up the rock, he thought he heard something over the sound of the wind and the distant waves breaking beneath him. He stopped and tried to quiet his ragged breathing; he couldn’t hear it now. But when he squeezed his way past another jagged corner, he found himself standing at the entrance to a cave. He ducked back and listened again. Perhaps he could hear a voice. No, two voices. He was afraid and he clung to the idea that the people he heard sounded old. Perhaps they would be slow and that would give him an advantage. Pausing, he tried to calculate what else was in his favour. The gods had brought him here, so he could suppose they didn’t want him to die. Then he thought of what was against him. He had the short sword he had borrowed from Dictys, but he didn’t really know how to use it. The Graiai certainly outnumbered him. And they had what he wanted. But hadn’t Hermes said it depended on how he asked? So perhaps these things didn’t matter.

He stepped out into the entrance of the cave, and heard the voices fall silent. They had seen him already. But then came a sudden shout.

‘Why have you gone quiet? What’s going on?’

‘Shh, I think I can see—’

‘Don’t shh me. Just because you have the eye doesn’t give you the right to shh people. Does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t. Not at all.’

‘Let me see!’

There was a scuffling sound and then a squawk of anger.

‘Give it back!’

‘No, you weren’t using it properly. Otherwise you’d see that a man has come to visit us and you would have said so.’

‘I want to see.’

‘You can see later.’

Perseus stared into the gloom. Gradually, he saw that he had been wrong: there were three figures, not two. He could just see their outlines, hunched and cloaked. Their heads were bound in scarves and only one seemed to be facing him. Her face was screwed up and she looked older than the rock she lived on, older than the sea.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. And the other two women – if they were women – turned to face him.

‘I’m Perseus,’ he said. But his voice sounded weak and small and he despised himself. No wonder he was met with a cacophony of cruel laughter.

‘You’re Perseus,’ said the one in the centre.

‘Let me see,’ screeched the one on the right. ‘What does he look like?’