Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  She was hugging Medusa in Tartarus. She’d thought of kissing her, and Medusa had seen her all dopey and fooled by illusion and needy with lust.

  Cressida stepped away quickly, her cheeks burning so hard, she expected even the illusion of ice to melt. “Sorry about that. Sorry.” She straightened clothes that didn’t need straightening. “Right, illusion. Everyone got that? Good.”

  Arachne and Agamemnon were peering at the landscape as if figuring it out, and she hoped they hadn’t been watching as she and Medusa almost made out. Or more likely, she’d almost made out while Medusa stood there awkwardly, and Cressida drunkenly pawed at her. But Medusa was watching from the side of her eye with a little smile playing about her lips that said she was at least amused, which was better than hurt or offended, though not by much.

  “Sorry,” Cressida mumbled again.

  “It’s all right,” Medusa said. “Everyone needs a hug now and again.”

  “Right.” Cressida nodded hurriedly. Everyone needed a friendly hug now and again, but she could still feel Medusa’s warmth clinging to her, though she no longer needed it for that. She could smell Medusa’s sandalwood soap, feel the way their bodies had pressed together.

  Yes, all right, she told her imagination. You can go back to sleep now. We’ve figured it out, thanks.

  As she looked around the frozen landscape, Cressida breathed deeply, fighting the images of cold that wanted back in, making her want to rub her arms and legs. The imagery didn’t disappear, but it was hard not to buy into it. Arachne and Agamemnon seemed to have the same trouble, reaching for their shoulders or rubbing their fingers together.

  “I don’t get it,” Arachne said, “is the harpe buried here somewhere?”

  “Maybe in the sides of the glacier?” Pandora asked.

  Agamemnon studied the glacier walls. At one in particular, he squinted and tilted his head far to the side. “That’s no glacier. It’s the father of the gods.”

  Cressida peered at the wall of unassuming ice. It wasn’t nearly as big as the mouth of Tartarus, but it stood large enough to hold a giant. Through the ice, she could pick out hints of his limbs, his head far above them, taller than any dinosaur that had ever walked the earth. How had he existed? Where had he existed? Had he ever run around free, or was his entire existence powered by belief, and he’d always been down here, frozen into a mountain because people believed that was what had happened to him?

  She grabbed Medusa’s hand, suddenly very sorry for all the denizens of the Underworld. Had any of them done what their legends said they’d done? Maybe all their tales were in their heads, and they were walking the Underworld because people put them there in their stories. She swayed a bit, lightheaded.

  “What’s wrong?” Medusa asked.

  “I’m just a bit overwhelmed.”

  Medusa squeezed her hand and gave her a sympathetic smile. Cressida’s gaze brushed Medusa’s lips again, and she told herself to bottle those feelings. This was the woman who’d asked for Cressida’s help in killing someone, someone who was already dead, but still. Would it be easier to think of him as someone who’d never existed? As Medusa’s lips curved in a smile, Cressida knew it would. If she decided to help, she would have to think of Perseus as someone who existed only to fill his role in this tale.

  “Tartarus is a terrible place,” Medusa said.

  “It’s not just that.” Cressida looked at the frozen Cronos. From his feet, she could barely make out the mask of rage that was his face; the ice broke his features into many pieces, the perspective slanted. “It’s all of you trapped here forever. I mean, you’re alive-ish, but you can’t go anywhere. No wonder some of you get stuck on…” She shut her mouth quickly.

  “On revenge?” Medusa’s fingers tightened slightly, but whether it was a warning or simply a reaction, Cressida didn’t know. “Killing Perseus isn’t just about revenge.”

  Cressida nodded, knowing it was about Medusa’s sisters, too, but the passion that flared in Medusa’s eyes when she spoke said there was even more to it than that. “It’s your reason for being.”

  Medusa took her hand back, her expression unreadable as she looked away. Cressida wished she’d kept those words inside, but they’d come rushing out, and she didn’t know how to apologize. She told herself it was this place getting to her, and even though she felt bad for what she’d said, without Medusa’s hand in hers, she could breathe a little easier, and her thoughts fell into more orderly rows.

  Chapter Eight

  Medusa felt a pang of guilt and risked another look at Cressida. More than just a pang. They’d shared a moment, cuddling in Cronos’s prison, as silly as that sounded in hindsight. The way Cressida had stared at her lips had set off an avalanche of naughty thoughts, ones she’d pulled back quickly as she realized Cressida wasn’t completely sane in that moment. And now that Cressida’s thoughts had taken a different track, Medusa knew she’d made the right decision.

  She was tempted to argue that revenge wasn’t her reason for living. Killing Perseus was about her sisters, about justice. She wanted to ask what choice she had if she wanted to save her family. Was she supposed to obliterate an innocent shade instead? Should she hunt down others she deemed guilty, who’d never done anything to her personally, so she could sacrifice them on the altar of saving her sisters? No, that should be reserved for someone who deserved it, a so-called hero who slaughtered others in the name of greatness and was rewarded for it by a system that valued great deeds over a simple life well-lived.

  But she didn’t want to drag up that pain and lay it out in front of the others. For a moment, she’d been having fun on their little jaunt, even with the danger. She supposed it was good that Cressida was thinking about helping her, weighing the options. Even though her words had dredged all these thoughts up, they were kind, sympathetic words, but they only served to remind Medusa this was all a sham. There was no quest from Hecate, no dangerous journey that Medusa had been pulled into because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were on a task cooked up by Medusa herself to secure the harpe of Cronos so Cressida could kill Perseus.

  And it was working, Medusa reminded herself. She should be happy, but instead she was edging on misery made worse because Cressida was clearly attracted to her, and she was feeling the same way.

  This was going to get worse before it got better if she didn’t nip this guilt in the bud.

  As the others peered around Cronos’s prison, searching for clues to the harpe’s whereabouts, Medusa made herself relive the past, painful as it was. She’d heard the various stories of how she’d supposedly died and the perils that Perseus had faced in order to claim her head, but she remembered things differently. She remembered baking bread.

  “A house is never small if the hearts within are full.” She’d heard that somewhere. Long after they were tired of ruling kingdoms with their fearsome powers, she and her sisters had retired to share a house, split up the housework, tend the garden with its few olive trees, and fetch water from the river nearby. People had thought Medusa was the only mortal among the three mighty gorgons, but their godhood had long slipped from them, and they hadn’t used their powers in ages. She and her sisters had faded from the minds of men, but that didn’t matter because they were alive, and they lived in peace.

  Stheno had been in the garden that day, Euryale at the river. Medusa had stepped out into the sun and stretched before dusting the flour from her hands. She’d flicked some Stheno’s way. Stheno had said something about not risking a fight with a woman who had her hands buried in dirt, and Medusa had backed away, chuckling. She’d laid down on a wooden bench in the shade, looking up into sun-dappled leaves. Euryale had come through the gate with a basketful of wet washing, and when Medusa had offered to help, Euryale had kissed her forehead and told her to relax because she was going to do all the cooking that night. She’d groaned theatrically but smiled all the same. Stheno’s soft singing had lulled her to sleep.

  She’d often wond
ered what had woken her: Stheno’s song falling silent, or the soft sound her head made when it hit the grass. Stheno’s staring eyes had been the first thing Medusa had seen upon waking. Her sleepy brain hadn’t been able to make sense of it right away, nor had she known what to make of the legs coming toward her backward. She followed them up a young man’s body, to another pair of wide eyes, these looking at her in the reflection of a shield.

  The hiss of his sword cutting through the air had been the last thing she’d heard, and then she’d been standing on the shore of a river with a host of other souls. Not understanding what was happening, she pushed through the others, searching for her sisters, not wanting to find them, but she found Stheno quickly.

  “Where is Euryale?” they said at the same time.

  Medusa choked down her own tears. “Not here, not here. Maybe she hid.”

  “What happened? Where is this place?” Stheno wept, grabbing Medusa’s shoulders. “We were in the garden. We were just in the garden.”

  As they watched, some of those around them lost form, floating up to join a fog that drifted over them, over the river. Some among the crowd reached for the drifting others and caught them as one might catch a cobweb. With cries of horror, they let them go.

  When the robed figure poled a long, flat boat over to meet them, they all cried out, wailing for children or parents, and their cries were echoed by the half-formed faces in the drifting fog.

  “That’s Charon,” Medusa whispered. “We’re dead. That man killed us.”

  “What man?” Stheno clutched at Medusa’s hands. “Where is Euryale?”

  Maybe he meant to rob them? No. He’d been walking backward, so he knew what she could do. He’d been after the gorgons, but if Euryale was around the side of the house, he might have missed her, might have thought there were only two instead of three. Legends could be so, so wrong.

  Then she pictured Euryale finding their bodies and having to live out the rest of her long life alone. Maybe she would become a monster of legend again and track down their murderer. Maybe she would find the nearest village and turn everyone to stone. More likely, she’d find the quickest way to end her own life out of heartbreak.

  “Medusa? Stheno?”

  Stheno leapt at their sister gladly, but Medusa shut her eyes in quiet horror. She knew by Euryale’s confused look that she’d been murdered, too.

  “We’re dead,” she said. “A man killed us, and now we’re dead.”

  Charon had carried them to the Meadows of Asphodel, where all the souls lived who hadn’t done enough deeds that the gods deemed great. Even there, she and her sisters had found a way to be happy through the long years, but now her sisters had faded almost to the point of shades, and they would be easy pickings for those who harvested souls for their ambrosia.

  Medusa made a fist. She wouldn’t let that happen. And before she saw Perseus obliterated, she would tell him she would have helped him in his quest had he asked. If it would have saved her sisters, she would have done it. If it would have saved anyone, she would have done it.

  But that was one of the things that made a hero great. They never asked. They took what they wanted, and the gods rewarded them by giving them even more. Well, now it was her turn. If any of the gods remained, she’d see what they thought of that. Such a ballsy deed might please some of them; they might even move her and her sisters to the Elysian Fields. Oh, how she’d laugh then. Maybe she’d have revenge on more of the heroes: throw Jason to Medea, give Hercules to the many he’d killed. Those would be great deeds indeed.

  Medusa stared up at Cronus’s face. Under the layers of frosted ice, his eyes were white pits, his mouth open in a primal scream. He would have appreciated her plan.

  “Legends say Zeus released him,” Cressida said softly.

  Thinking of her own stories, Medusa smiled. “Legends say a lot of things.”

  “But if this place is shaped by belief…”

  “Well, there’s what really happened and what people believed happened. Belief from the mortal world keeps us sentient, yes, but the reality of our existence can be quite different from what people expect, as you’ve seen.”

  Cressida frowned as if she either couldn’t accept what she’d seen with her own eyes, or she didn’t like that the Underworld was the way it was.

  Medusa chuckled. “Well, if you truly believe we’re all shaped by human belief, you might want to stop thinking of Cronos as free. Unless you want him to be.”

  Cressida shook her head rapidly, and Medusa had to smile. Unless he’d also been maligned by myth, he was famous for eating his own children; not someone she wanted to meet. Medusa sighed. Maybe Cressida was right. Who knew what to believe anymore?

  “Anything?” Pandora called.

  Arachne was suspended above them, clinging to the ice wall from one of her gossamer strands. She had climbing spikes attached to both feet, and as they watched, she put her hands to the ice and looked inside. “The harpe’s not sheathed at his waist.” She flung another strand upward and pulled herself that way.

  “How much rope does she have?” Cressida asked.

  Medusa bit her lip. “It’s not really my story to tell.”

  Cressida turned her head slowly. “Oh?”

  “You know a lot about myth, yes? You said you had studied it?”

  “I’m getting my master’s in classical literature. It’s my aunt that has a doctorate.” She pointed upward at Arachne, mouth open as if she might say something, but she put her finger down and shut her mouth, as if she didn’t really want to know what was in that backpack, whether it was full of string or if Arachne was spinning it herself, and the pack was hiding a spider’s abdomen.

  “It’s up by his head,” Arachne called. “As if he was trying to swing it when he was frozen. We’re going to have to chip it out.”

  “Help me up,” Pandora said.

  Arachne sent down a loop of string and passed it through a piton. She lowered the string, and Agamemnon hauled Pandora up as she sat in the loop.

  “It’s got to be huge,” Cressida said. “Since he’s so big. Forget wielding it. How are we even going to get it out of here?”

  “Magic weapons,” Agamemnon said with a shrug. “They find a way.”

  Cressida didn’t seem convinced, but Medusa had heard the same. Still, she pictured all of them dragging the harpe through Tartarus while being chased by the Hecatonchires, not to mention also carrying whatever Medea wanted for herself.

  Above them, Pandora nodded as she touched the slick surface. “I think I can open a way, but if we crack the ice…”

  “We might release him,” Agamemnon said. Icy wind gusted through the glacier as if to punctuate the words, and everyone shivered, though Medusa knew it was more from fear than any illusion of cold.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Agamemnon asked.

  “Hecate commanded it,” Medusa said. They were so close; she wasn’t going to let them back out now.

  Agamemnon’s mouth set as if he might argue, but he didn’t say anything. Arachne and Pandora exchanged a glance but also stayed quiet. They couldn’t argue with Hecate. A goddess would not be pleased if they came back empty-handed, never mind that they’d never been dealing with a goddess in the first place.

  Arachne handed something to Pandora, a stethoscope. She put it against the ice. Maybe they’d be able to hear Cronos’s giant heartbeat. Arachne tapped over the ice with little tools. Medusa backed away enough to see Cronos’s face again. The Hecatonchires had resisted her power. She had no doubt that Cronos would be able to do the same. Cressida backed up to join her, the worry lines between her brows speaking the same fears.

  A pattern of cracks appeared around the harpe as Pandora and Arachne sought to get it out. At last, the ice cracked in one long splintery line, jagged around the edges, the sound grumbling through the landscape.

  They all froze, and Medusa grabbed Cressida’s arm, ready to drag her from this place. She was the important element, not
the harpe, though it was the surest way to kill Perseus and preserve his essence. If Medusa had to, she could find another weapon, though that would require distracting Cressida for a little longer.

  Cressida held on to her as if grateful for the protection, and Medusa saw something else besides gratitude, besides the bit of attraction they’d been throwing back and forth. She was touched by Medusa’s protection. That was beyond attraction to affection, and even though Medusa was prepared for that, it still caused her a further shiver of guilt. She couldn’t let Cressida love her. It couldn’t get that far.

  Even if that was what she needed to succeed?

  She tried to push the thought away. All that mattered was that the crack stopped when it exposed the pommel of the harpe.

  “You’re up,” Medusa whispered.

  Cressida gawked at her. “There’s no way I can lift that. It’s huge!”

  “It’s all a matter of perspective.” Medusa led her to where Agamemnon was lowering Pandora. “The weapon will conform to the needs of the wielder.” At least, she hoped so. She tried to put on a confident smile.

  Cressida grumbled something about people asking her again and again to touch strange things, but she took Pandora’s place. She looked a little green as Agamemnon hauled her upward, but she didn’t complain as she reached Arachne’s side. She put her hand in the ice and strained forward, grunting.

  Inside the ice, the harpe flickered blue, and Cressida pulled her hand out slowly, the grip of the sword resting neatly in her palm. She stared at it with wide eyes.

  “Titans aren’t always huge,” Pandora called. “They’re whatever they want to be, so their weapons have to fit that.”

  As Agamemnon lowered her to the ground, Cressida stared in wonder at the sword, turning it to and fro. It wasn’t a magnificent piece, wasn’t covered in acid etchings. It didn’t gleam. The pommel wasn’t ornate or topped with jewels. It was simple, brutal, the grip well worn, and the metal heavy and nicked. Something about it screamed sharpness, as if it would cut you for looking at it wrong.