Stone Blind(68)
Euryale sees not the man, not Perseus. But she sees the indentations in the sand as he runs across it. And although she has no idea how he is there and also not there, she knows that the man who killed her sister is running across the shore right in front of her and she lets out a curdling roar and suddenly I hear the beating of wings and I feel the night displaced as Euryale rises into the air and flies straight at Perseus. Even through this golden prison I can feel the movement and I hear a strangled scream from the murderer as he pumps his legs, trying to speed up. He twists his back and I wonder if he is about to jettison the weight of me, but he is just looking to see how close she is behind him, and he would have been better off not knowing, because she is gaining on him as fast as thunder, faster. And I know Euryale will not miss her prey, not now, not ever. She could catch a bird in the air in full flight, Medusa saw her do it more than once.
And I feel a surge of something – not joy, because I can’t feel that, not vengeance because I haven’t reached there yet – but I want her to snap her jaws around his pathetic trunk and break him into two halves. I want her to catch the bag as his unfeeling hands drop it and I want her to hold it, to hold me as he expires before her and she drags her clawed feet across his twitching body. I want her to carry me back to Medusa, back to Sthenno, back to the cave. I want to be buried where I fell. No, where I was cut down. I want to stay with her, I don’t want to be carried away by my killer in the darkness, I want it all to be over.
But what I want has no effect on what happens. Athene intervenes of course. Perseus is suddenly shoved to one side: he has climbed the rocks by our, their patch of the coast. Or rather, the sandals climbed the rocks. Perseus is panting from the exertion or more probably from fear. Nothing I have subsequently observed about Perseus has changed my original opinion of him: he is spineless. Euryale can no longer see his footsteps in the sand, she has simply followed the only line of ascent he could have taken. And Athene – who must have been watching this whole time – pushes him hard and he stumbles and loses his footing and crashes down onto his knees and I am gratified to hear a muffled cry of pain and I hope it hurts. Although realistically, it is unlikely to hurt as much as having your neck severed.
Euryale flies over us, I feel her quickening wings – she is so close I believe I could reach out and touch her but I can’t, of course. And then she is gone, and I will never see my sister again, or hear her, or be held by her. Sthenno is still on the sand, I think, because I hear her keening cry and I know that she is holding my broken body and cradling it in her arms. I wish I could comfort her.
Athene directs Perseus to follow her and he gets back on his feet, complaining about his injuries and the way she pushed him, and I hear the anger in her voice when she responds, though he seems not to notice. He continues to speed away from the Gorgon home: I hear the sea but it is far below me. He twists his other arm through the straps of the bag, so I am tightly held, like a precious object.
Which, it will soon be revealed, I am.
Reed
One thing people rarely know about Athene is that she invented the flute. It isn’t the most important thing about her, as far as most people are concerned. Mortals pray to her for wisdom, for advice, for her help in their battles. When they want music they turn elsewhere: to the Muses, to Apollo. Her interests are well-documented, and she has rarely shown any passion for song. But on one occasion she heard a noise so remarkable that she longed to be able to emulate it so she could hear it again.
The flute, then, was inspired by the Gorgons. Specifically, it was inspired by the sound Euryale made when they found the body of Medusa. Piercing, atonal, bellicose. Athene had never heard anything like it. How could she make such a sound on a battlefield? She experimented for days. But even with all her divine power, and all her cleverness, she couldn’t come close.
She sat, disconsolate, by a quiet riverbed, not very far from her beloved Athens. She considered going back to the Gorgon cove and asking the sisters to teach her how they roared. She could sense there was something about this plan that was flawed, although she couldn’t quite place the weak spot.
Her frustration was mounting – if she hadn’t helped Perseus kill the Gorgon, she would never have known what she was missing, and if she had let the Gorgon kill him, she might have had more time to study her battle cry – but she did not know what else she could do. And then she felt the gentle Zephyr breeze gathering strength. It whipped through the reeds beside her and the quiet riverbed was transformed into a wild cacophony.
Athene looked around her in astonishment as she realized here – all around her – was something that could help her achieve her desire. She took a sharp little knife and hacked at the plants, cutting a large hollow reed that she hoped would create the noise she wanted. She bored small holes into the stem so she could adjust the note with her fingers. (Later flutes would be decorated with burned rope held against the body of the reed, but this was the very first and it was quite plain.)
When she blew into the top of it, the reed made exactly the penetrating scream she demanded. Musicians – satyrs, in the first instance – would come along later and bend the instrument to their talent, creating the far sweeter sound we associate with the flute today. But Athene was no musician, and nor was she looking to play a tune. The first flute therefore sounded exactly like what it was.
The desperate cry of a reed that has been severed from its root.