Lynkeus froze. Eurydice sighed and began to impress on the pebble she held a compulsion. As soon as Lynkeus touched that stone, he would hold fast to anything in his hand. He would go back to the inn, leave Eurydice’s bundle there, and then return to the ship. As soon as he stepped out of the inn, the compulsion would leave him, except for impressing on his memory the fixed idea that Eurydice had been with him. Then she released the freezing spell as she took the pebbles from his hand. To Lynkeus, it was all one movement, followed by her casting the protective spells on all three pebbles.
She shook her head as she handed them to him. “I am sorry, I think the ones I cast in the temple were stronger, but I hope you will need less protection.”
“Thank—” he began.
Then the pebbles touched the palm of his hand. The hand closed. He rose to his feet and walked away. Eurydice sighed with relief and turned back in the direction from which she had come whispering the words for the look-past-me spell. She shivered slightly, feeling cold and empty. Damn Orpheus, he had been so clever about arranging that the crew would make her go back to the inn, he might just have doomed them all. The Power she had expended on the compulsion spell and three more amulets had drained her more than she expected. She had been so richly filled, she had forgotten to be cautious in the use of her Power.
She shook her head as she cast her thread of Finding and set out to follow it. Her Lady was offended, she thought. She should not have used the Lady’s strength to fight off her worst impulses while she and Orpheus made love—she shivered again. That had not been love, not that joining. It had been part trial for supremacy, part hate, part physical sensuality, and part need, but no part of it had been love.
“But Lady,” she breathed, “I would have killed him, or me, if I had not used every defense I had. I know coupling in hate is not welcome to you. I beg your pardon. Forgive me, please. We will never make such an offering of pain and cruelty and call it love again.”
Nothing. No warmth, no feeling of distant laughter. Tears rose to Eurydice’s eyes, and she hugged her arms around herself, resenting the small drain of the look-past-me spell. If the Lady would not fill her… Panic tightened her throat, but the thread to the Found was still there. Eurydice pushed away the terror of being repudiated by her Goddess and rushed toward Orpheus. Bespelled as she was, she did not dare try to find comfort in his arms or even touch him, but she could look at him.
Chapter Twenty-one
Eurydice was gasping so hard for breath when she came in sight of Orpheus that for some time she did not even dare come close enough truly to fill her eyes with him. He seemed to be asleep, but she was sure it was a “listening” sleep, as he was expecting Jason, and that loud breathing would bring him instantly alert. When she was no longer gasping like a bellows that needed mending, she crept slowly closer. Suddenly the amulet between her breasts warmed. Eurydice stiffened. Bespelled? Was Orpheus not asleep but bespelled?
She took two hasty steps closer, the amulet growing warmer but not unbearably hot, then paused. Did she want to do anything? If Orpheus had been ensorcelled, it was to keep him from accompanying Jason. Do I really care whether Jason is bound to Medea? Eurydice asked herself. The answer to that was “no,” but there were other considerations. Would Orpheus feel bound to remain in Colchis if Jason did? What would be the fate of the rest of the crew? Sighing, Eurydice began to move forward again, only to feel a strange little breeze tug at her cloak. Instinctively she looked in that direction and saw a cleared pathway into the wood. The amulet was very warm against her breast. There had been no open pathway there before. It was not Orpheus who was bespelled—he, too, was wearing an amulet.
Hurriedly Eurydice made a wide arc out from the edge of the pathway around Orpheus and behind him. From where she stood now, the line of trees seemed without any break. She settled down quite close but inside the line of trees and behind some brush. She was not sure the look-past-me spell would hide her from Medea; there was no harm in taking precautions.
Whether it was those precautions or her spell—or their own preoccupation—she was noticed by none of the party that came around the side of the castle soon after long, angry streaks of red lit the eastern sky. Jason’s voice was loud enough to bring Orpheus to his feet long before they came anywhere near him. Eurydice rose also and made sure she was clear of the brush, so it would not tremble when she moved away, but was still hidden by it.
Jason was protesting that Aietes had refused to accompany them just so he could later refuse Jason the golden fleece. Medea kept shaking her head. Eurydice could not hear what she was saying but she thought probably Medea was insisting that her father was truly unable to come. Eurydice shuddered—it was the truth. And then she wondered if Jason were a little mad. Why in the world should he want Aietes, who was at best ambivalent about his attempt to seize the fleece? But then she realized it was not Aietes he wanted but the bulls. As Orpheus walked toward them and Eurydice followed behind the screen of trees, Jason was complaining loudly that he could have mastered them. Medea did some more head shaking.
“You do not need them to pull the golden fleece from the stream,” she insisted, but without raising her husky voice. “That was just my father’s lie, so you would agree to the test of harnessing and plowing and trying to control the dragon’s teeth.” She looked up as Orpheus reached them, and the corners of her lips drew in briefly. Her voice remained pleasant, however, when she added, “You and Orpheus will be able to drag the fleece out of the stream. Then we can devise some kind of sledge upon which to draw it back to Colchis. Anyway, who do you think would hold the bulls while you mastered the serpent? I cannot do it.”
Medea waved her hand as she spoke. Eurydice’s amulet gave a short flare of heat, but nothing painful, and the path was open before them. Orpheus had gasped—Eurydice thought in surprise at the sudden heating of his amulet—but Medea nodded at him and smiled. Eurydice was relieved; apparently Medea still was unaware of her magic. She assumed Medea had taken the sound as an expression of awe at the breaking of a perfect illusion.
Meanwhile, Eurydice had parallelled Orpheus’ path until she could see the opened trail through the trees. She paused there until Orpheus, Jason, and Medea had passed her. When they were a little way ahead, she followed. Mostly she kept within the trees that bordered the cleared way, but she became confident enough that if thick brush blocked her advance, she did not hesitate to step out into the path to follow more easily. Twice she was sure she heard steps and the crackle of a broken twig behind her, but she did not pause to look back, and neither did those ahead. Jason and Orpheus were keeping up an animated conversation about how to approach the serpent, as much, Eurydice suspected, to hide any telltale noises of a group of men following as to decide on tactics.
Eurydice frowned as that idea came to her. Orpheus and Jason might not realize it, but such a device would be useless if Medea was capable of reading thoughts throughout the palace. She should be able to sense the men—unless she was sorcerously preoccupied… Perhaps Aietes was not dead. Perhaps she needed to keep a hold on him to keep him quiescent. But possibly they were only trying to distract her.
The sun was well up—gilding the path and thus making the shadow of the bordering trees darker—when Eurydice began to hear the sound of rushing water. It was only a little louder when Medea held up a hand. Orpheus promptly unslung and uncased the cithara.
“There is no—” she had begun, when Jason seized her and put his hand firmly over her mouth.
He bent over her, clearly speaking into her ear some warning or even a threat (Eurydice saw her stiffen and then, Eurydice thought, deliberately relax), and then Orpheus began to play. To Eurydice’s surprise, it was not a sleepy sound; instead it mingled with the sound of the water, hissing and slithering with a regular, heavy beat that moved in undulations in the mind. For a moment she was puzzled, and then she almost leapt forward and seized Orpheus. That idiot had no doubt agreed to draw the serpent’s attention to himself so
that Jason could get the potion Medea had prepared into the creature’s mouth without being bitten.
Even as she took several hasty steps she realized that her intervention would do no good. The noise she made, the argument that would ensue would not stop Jason and Orpheus from trying to get the fleece. All it would accomplish would be to warn and anger the serpent, who would be that much harder to subdue. Gritting her teeth over cries of mingled rage and fear, she came a little closer—and Medea, who seemed to have agreed with Jason’s demands and been released—turned and stared in her direction.
Hastily, Eurydice stepped back. She remembered the peculiar sensations that she had experienced in the palace and wondered if Medea, becoming sensitized to her magic, was experiencing something similar. She was much closer to Medea than Medea had been to her in the palace, but the look-past-me was a weaker spell. Still, she must keep her distance from Medea, who, preoccupied or not, seemed to have sensed her.
Orpheus began to walk along the path again, playing his instrument slowly, moving slowly. With an iron hand, Jason held back Medea, who had started forward. She seemed about to speak, but Jason’s hand threatened her mouth and she waited silently until Orpheus was out into the clearing. Jason came to the edge of the path then and watched as Orpheus veered off to the left—Eurydice could tell that from the way Jason’s head moved. After a little longer, he stepped out, drawing Medea with him and moving to the right. Unable to wait any longer, even if Medea did sense something, Eurydice came close enough to the opening of the path to see.
There, she stood transfixed, unable to move a limb. Across a narrow clearing, a creature had reared up out of the water, which was still rolling off it in sparkling drops. Serpent it had been called, but it was surely more than that. Its head… Eurydice swallowed and looked elsewhere. But looking at the body? neck? brought little comfort. It reared up and up, its skin a shiny black with a faint, linear iridescence marking deep folds in the flesh, and water rushed around it, whitened to foam where it broke against the unmoving column. That slender stalk, anchored so firmly that it did not even sway under the pressure of the rushing water, seemed far too fragile to hold up the huge head. Eurydice shuddered and then forced herself to look.
What was most horrible was a strange, distorted, semblance of humanity. The upper portion of the head was high-domed, rounded like a human skull, and the eyes, although wider apart than any man’s, still had a human look, with lids, which no serpent ever had, and lashes so long and thick that Eurydice could see them from where she was. Above and below those pitiful eyes, all semblance of humanity fled. There was no nose and no chin, only a thin line of mouth that curved right down into the pleated flesh of the throat. Over the top of the high-domed head and down the body/neck ran a serrated crest. To right and left of the crest on the skull were two long, forward-curving horns, ivory white, shocking against the black of the rest of the creature, and so fine pointed that a sparkle of light flashed from one tip as the head moved.
There was a sort of ruffle of skin or some other material around the base of the horns that seemed to ripple a little. Eurydice wondered if that was not some organ that picked up sound. Serpents were supposed to be deaf, and this one had no ears, but a deaf guardian was not wise. Deaf or not, it knew one party had gone right and the other left. The head swung from side to side, watching first Orpheus and then Medea and Jason, but always, Eurydice thought, spending just a little more time with Orpheus.
Eurydice’s eyes darted to her lover. She could just see that long neck extending still longer—the creature was so tall now it looked as if a lunge would carry it right over the cleared area—and those horns hooking into the serpent’s prey, holding it, perhaps drawing it into the water… Orpheus was still moving, but more to the left than out into the cleared area. Perhaps he was still far enough away to be safe. Pulled by a sick fascination, Eurydice’s eyes went back to the serpent. It did nothing for a few moments, aside from the head movement that kept both Orpheus and Jason and Medea in view, and Eurydice shook off her paralysis and stepped forward out of the path. Instantly, the head jerked to a stop and the maw—no other word would suffice—dropped open, long teeth dripping something swinging forward in the upper jaw.
Eurydice stopped dead again. It was aware of her—and aware of the look-past-me spell because it had reacted with threat to her, which it had not done for Orpheus or Jason. Then the serpent quickly looked right and left as if it understood that Eurydice’s presence might be a diversion. Eurydice could hear that Orpheus, although he must have been as startled as anyone else, had not hesitated in his playing and her eyes flew to Medea, who, she feared, might now be more suspicious of a magically disguised addition to their party. Coincidence had saved her. When the serpent opened its mouth, Jason, ever alert for a good opportunity, must have decided to throw the flask from where he was. When Eurydice’s eyes fell on them, she saw Jason with his arm half raised to throw the small flask he held while Medea clung to his wrist.
In the next moment, Eurydice withdrew back into the trees that edged the clearing. The serpent’s mouth closed and after a glance over her shoulder, Eurydice started to weave her way to the left toward Orpheus. Those weird eyes started to follow her, but in an instant the head swung toward Jason and Medea. Eurydice breathed a long sigh of relief. With her fear both of the serpent and of discovery diminished, her mind was open to the after-images of the event that had taken place. The opened mouth had been huge, huge enough to engulf a whole man… That was what the horns were for, to hook prey close enough for that maw to come over it. Eurydice shuddered, having a sudden vision of how that pleated body/neck would swell as the prey went down. She looked away.
Eurydice moved a little faster toward Orpheus, wanting to be closer, and with a little effort, put the dreadful image of the expanding throat/belly out of her mind. That was not important, except to make more obvious the question of why Medea had stopped Jason from tossing the potion into the creature’s mouth from a safe distance. It was a long throw, but surely Medea had seen Jason in practice throw a heavy spear still farther and hit a smaller target.
Eurydice had thought she understood why, if Medea was bound to the serpent and could control it, she did not simply bid the creature let Jason take the fleece. Guarding the fleece was its primary motivation and likely she could not cancel that. Now she began to wonder why, with Aietes out of the way, Medea could not bid it be quiet while Jason poured the potion down its throat?
Could Medea want Jason dead after all? No, that could not be true. Just that morning, she had done something dreadful to her father to keep him from interfering with Jason’s attempt to get the golden fleece, to keep him from urging Jason to endanger himself by killing the serpent… No, that was not right either, it had to be the other way. Medea had made it plain that she did not want the creature harmed. But the serpent would have suffered no harm if Jason had got the potion into it from farther away. Then Medea wanted Jason close to the serpent, close enough—close enough for what? Not to be swallowed. No, not close enough to be swallowed but close enough to be bitten? And since she clearly did not want Jason dead, it was not poison but a vulnerability to her influence that the serpent’s bite would deliver.
Eurydice turned quickly to look at Jason and Medea. He had both her hands fast in one of his own, and his head was bent so he could speak directly into her ear. Eurydice had to look away; there was an unhealthy combination of threat and sexual excitement emanating from them that reminded her of that horrible coupling last night, that abomination that might have cost her her Lady’s favor. She was still cold and empty inside, her Power diminished. Eurydice cast another look at them over her shoulder. Medea was flushed and one of her lips looked swollen. Jason still had hold of her hands—no, they were bound softly together by her scarf—and he was looking toward Orpheus.
Orpheus had likely been watching for that sign. He now began to play more loudly, the sound of the cithara swelling over that of the running water. All at once, Eu
rydice forgot everything but the music. She was recalled to herself by the painful heat of the amulet between her breasts and stopped her sleepwalker’s advance just short of touching Orpheus. Against her will, she took another step closer, her hand rose, reached toward him. She fought it down and then had to link her hands together behind her back to prevent herself from clutching at him. She realized then that, for the first time since she had known him, Orpheus was deliberately using his Power, and it was so great that her protection spell, which had broken Medea’s and Aietes’ ensorcellments and illusions, could not break his binding. With tears in her eyes, Eurydice made herself deaf.
She was free at once, which confirmed what she had always suspected—that Orpheus’ Power was tied to his music. But she did not have time to think about that. Her eyes flew to the serpent. Its head was still now, its attention fixed on Orpheus.
Perhaps it was a trifle closer to the shore, but it did not seem able to leave the water. Eurydice spun to look for what was to her mind an equal danger, and found it. With a dazed expression, Medea was moving away from Jason, cutting across the clearing to approach Orpheus. Midway, she jerked and shook herself, stopping where she was. First she looked angry, then she looked for Jason. Eurydice’s eyes followed hers.
What protected him from Orpheus’ music, Eurydice did not know, but doubtless he had plugged his ears or invoked some other immunity when he had signaled Orpheus to begin playing with Power. He was approaching the serpent, moving slowly and very smoothly. His hands were in front of him, one holding the flask of potion; the other might have been supporting the bottom of the flask also, but Eurydice suspected it was resting on the hilt of his sword. Her eyes came back to Medea.
At first, Medea continued to stare at Jason, eyes hot and hungry. When he was almost halfway across the open area, a frown creased her brow and her lips tightened. Eurydice saw her glance at the serpent and then turn her head toward Orpheus, back to the serpent, to Jason, to the serpent again.
Enchanted Fire Page 38
