Stone Blind(73)
But I also sense something else: fear and readiness. It was a woman’s voice I first heard but now it is many voices. Some are expressing fear, some are shouting threats. Some are praying. Others say nothing but I hear them just the same, the way they prepare themselves to act: leather on skin, wood on stone, metal on metal.
There is another sound, and it is one I recognize but do not know. It’s impossible to explain this contradiction, so much so that I can hold onto it only for an instant and then it is gone. I feel something grab at me and I cannot place that either. Is it a memory or a thought, a connection or a burst of pain? Is it warm or cold? I cannot say. I’m not even sure it was there at all, because it disappears completely.
Then there is the familiar sensation of Perseus opening the kibisis and grabbing at my snakes. One of them bites him but it doesn’t stop him from balling his fist around three of them and pulling me out of the bag. The glare is dizzying after the darkness and I blink twice. I am faced by a crowd of mortals but they are not looking up at Perseus, or at me. This is how so many of them are still alive. They are instead looking at the water beneath me. It is a large crowd spread across a wide area: men armed with spears, women holding rocks that they are ready to throw. Two of the mortals are dressed in great finery. At first I mistake them for the leaders of these people, but then I see their headdresses and I realize they are priests. I cannot identify a king or queen; perhaps they are absent.
Perseus is to the side of the shore. Beneath him, in front of the rest of her people is, what? A queen? A sacrifice? She is wearing a diadem, a bracelet: both are gold. But she is tied in front of a large rock and she is screaming. Luckily she is not looking to her right so she doesn’t see me. Then Perseus whirls in the air and now we are facing what the sacrificial offering is facing. Which is a calm sea, marred by only a few ripples.
And yet something must have made her scream. The mortals behind her are now advancing towards the water. There is the sound of men arguing and pleading. It is the priests, I think, trying to persuade their people not to attack. The water is stirred and something appears on its surface. If it was much smaller, it could be a dolphin. It is a quick dark body glistening in the light. An eel? But it is vast, whatever it is. A second creature appears far across the bay: there are no fins or gills, just a dark tentacle unfurling. And then a third, a fourth, a fifth: this is a huge shoal of fish or dolphins. There is a sudden plunging sound, as these giant fish all descend at once and another rises in their midst.
And then I understand why she screams. Because it is not a shoal of creatures, it is one immense creature. I have never seen anything like it and nor has Perseus because he gasps. Obviously, he is scared of everything so this isn’t a reliable indicator. But if I took breaths, I would gasp too.
Men will tell you that Gorgons are monsters, but men are fools. They cannot comprehend any beauty beyond what they can see. And what they see is a tiny part of what there is. So for Perseus the only difference between this great creature and Medusa and her sisters is one of scale. They terrified him because of their claws and teeth and wings, I terrify him with my gaze. The beast in the water terrifies him because of its size and its mighty jaws. But he has me to fight the creature so why is he still afraid? Because he is a coward, and even when he fights with the assistance of the gods, he never stops fearing for his life.
So why has he decided to come here and defend the woman who is tied between those tree stumps? There are several reasons I could give you, and each of them is part of the truth.
*
He did not know what he was getting himself into when he flew here. He heard a woman screaming and imagined himself a hero and then he arrived and saw a creature that terrorized all who laid eyes on it (all but one) and it was too late then to just flap his shoes and fly away. So now he is stuck with trying to attempt an audacious rescue.
He was frustrated by his many failures so far, and by his inability to complete his quest.
He is testing his father’s love for him, by fighting a creature that can obliterate him with a single bite.
He is getting a taste for adventure, rather late in the day. He is heavily armed and favoured by the gods and he wants to take advantage of this.
He has already destroyed a Titan and left a great stone monument to its destruction. What else could he achieve?
He sees a woman in danger and he tries to save her.
He is malevolent and he wants to kill.
*
The people armed with spears and arrows are letting them fly at the monster they fear as it towers above their sacrifice. Mortals are perplexing: why did they tie her up if they didn’t want her to be eaten? The creature shows no sign of feeling the few arrows that hit their mark. It shrugs them off. Spears hit the side of a huge tentacle, but they too bounce, useless, into the water. The beast drops back beneath the surface and the men pick up their second spears, nock more arrows. They jeer, thinking they have scared it away. Perhaps Perseus is not unusually stupid, by mortal standards.
The water churns and the creature rises up and drops immediately back. The resulting wave rushes inland and knocks its assailants off their feet. When the water retreats, their weapons are drawn back into the sea. The men are left lying on wet sand, little knowing that the beast has chosen not to create a larger wave and take them too. The girl bound in front of the rock is drenched: her tunic is ragged, her crown askew. She screams again, as the water begins to surge.
Perseus has no spear or bow and his curved sword is no good to him here unless he flies much closer, which he is unwilling to do. He manoeuvres himself to a place next to the rock and slightly behind it. He drops to just above the height of the water, and raises his hand. The hand that holds me.