Stone Blind(56)

‘It does.’ But Sthenno’s voice was filled with doubt.

‘She can protect herself!’ Euryale said. She couldn’t understand why her sister wasn’t as happy as she was. Why neither of her sisters seemed to be happy.

‘She can’t do anything else,’ Sthenno hissed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Power is something you can control,’ Sthenno said. ‘Medusa can turn anything to stone, yes. But she can’t not do it, if she doesn’t want to.’

‘Why wouldn’t she want to? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

Sthenno took a pause, and organized her thoughts. ‘I’m saying that she can’t avoid turning something to stone, even if she wants it to stay as it is. She just looks at it and it’s gone.’

‘Yes! A mighty power.’

‘And a terrible curse,’ said Sthenno. ‘Because she cannot look on any living creature without destroying it.’

Euryale stopped turning the stone scorpion in her hands, and considered it. ‘It’s only a scorpion,’ she said. ‘There are dozens in the caves. Hundreds, probably.’

‘And Medusa could kill every one just by turning her head.’

‘We were always worried a scorpion would sting her,’ Euryale continued. She was beginning to see her sister’s point, but didn’t want to give up this giddy feeling. ‘Now they never can.’

‘No, they never can,’ Sthenno agreed. ‘But she can never look at a bird again. Or one of our flock. Or a mortal girl. She can’t befriend anyone or love anyone unless she is blind to them. Because if she tries to catch even a glimpse of any living thing, she will kill it.’

‘Stone dead,’ said Euryale.

‘Yes. And so she withdraws to her cave and covers her eyes and consoles herself that she will never see again.’

‘She could look at us.’

‘She won’t. She’s terrified she would kill us.’

‘She can’t be. She knows we’re undying.’

‘She knows her new power comes from an undying source. She doesn’t know how it would affect us, that’s why she’s bound her eyes. So she can’t hurt us.’

‘She could test it,’ Euryale said.

‘She won’t. You know she won’t. She loves us and she will never take the risk of hurting either one of us.’

‘She can’t live in the dark for ever.’

‘That is exactly what she plans to do.’

Euryale let out a low wail. ‘How do you know all this? When she doesn’t say anything?’

‘The same reason you know it,’ said her sister.





Athene


The cliff split and splintered ahead of him and Perseus had no idea which way he was supposed to go. He saw a reasonably flat boulder and sat on it, panting. Helios was high overhead and hurling his brightest rays down onto Perseus’s aching head. He thought of Hermes wearing his angular sunhat when they met on Seriphos, at the sacred grove of Zeus. It seemed so distant – in both time and space – that Perseus was filled with a sudden melancholy. He didn’t think he had failed on his quest yet, but it was so hard to keep track of the days. How long had it taken him to reach the Graiai? How long had they spent travelling from there to the garden of the Hesperides? It had felt instantaneous, as though the world had simply reordered itself before his eyes. And yet he had arrived at each new place exhausted, ravenous, parched. So perhaps the journeying had taken many days, and the gods had simply addled his mind so he didn’t notice.

He could almost hear the corrosive scorn in Athene’s voice if she knew what he was thinking. As if he needed any more derision from her. A bright green lizard darted across his foot, and he started. He wished he had Hermes’s sunhat, rather than the cap he was carrying in his bag. And – now he thought about it – he wished he wasn’t carrying the bag either. It was so heavy, it left dark red marks on his shoulders. There were thin white streaks of salt on his tunic, where his sweat had formed echoes of the straps, so that even when he wasn’t carrying it, he was thinking about it. Not that there was ever a time when he wasn’t carrying it, he thought. Apart from when he slept or rested, like now. The first night he spent with it, he had tried to use it as a pillow with his cloak folded on top of it. Despite many unpleasant evenings since he embarked on his quest, it was the least comfortable night he had ever spent. The bag hated him, he had decided. It didn’t want to be used by him, or even borrowed by him. It grew heavier with every hour, and resentment was the only cause he could name.

He dug around in the bag for his water-skin and raised it to his lips. The liquid tasted warm and gritty and he was no less thirsty when he stoppered the skin and put it away again. He knew he would come across a stream at some point, but not when or where. He felt his cheeks burn and this had nothing to do with the heat of the sun. It was the persistent shame he experienced at being so unsuited to adventuring. He could not shake the belief that another quester would know how far he had travelled and which path he should take. Perseus felt like he just blundered from place to place until the gods intervened. Of course, he reminded himself, it was a sign of his heroic prowess that the gods intervened on his behalf. A lesser man would not have such powerful allies. But this didn’t raise his spirits for long. Zeus was his father, yes, but that was down to his mother, whom Zeus loved. He, Perseus, was almost incidental. He had never even met his father.