The Gorgon Bride

by Galen Sulak-Ramsey

  “I’m coming. Keep your big giant pants on,” said Alex. About fifteen yards in, he stopped. To his right stood a large set of poorly made shelves. How it remained together, Alex had no idea, for the wood splintered and cracked in a half dozen places, and the entire thing leaned to the side so much that he was certain one sneeze would send it all toppling over.

  On the top shelves sat a variety of cheeses, most being haphazardly placed. Beneath those were pails and bowls of milk, and judging by the smell, all had passed their due date. At the bottom sat several jars, some clay, others metallic. Plants grew out of most, save one. That one sat tucked in the back, capped.

  Alex leaned in with the torch for a closer look. The jar that caught his eye was made of silver and along the top and bottom edges ran rings of gold. “Oh, no way,” whispered Alex, taking the jar in hand. He turned it over and sure enough, a tiny trident was engraved on the bottom.

  Alex looked up. “Polyphemus?”

  A large set of hands grabbed Alex from behind, hoisting him into the air. “Does Odysseus think I’m that stupid?” Polyphemus yelled. “Does he think he can rob from me, take my eye, and I would forget?”

  Alex struggled in the cyclops’s crushing grip. “Get the hell off me!”

  Alex was thrown through the air. Though he lost his grip on the silver jar, he managed to keep hold of the torch as he flew. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much when he struck his head against the rocky wall. Dazed, Alex slowly pushed himself off the ground. The torch had gone out, and all he could see was the mouth of the cave, some forty yards away.

  “Tell me, stranger, where can I find Odysseus?” the cyclops called out in the darkness. “Oh, how I’ve longed to chew on his bones! Tell me stranger, and I shall make your death a swift one!”

  Alex kept quiet, thinking any sort of reply would invite a colossus-sized beat down. Carefully, he inched toward the exit of the cave, holding his breath the entire time.

  The back of a fist met Alex’s chest, and again Alex slammed into the wall. The wind flew out of him, and pain laced his ribs. Gasping for breath, Alex looked up to see Polyphemus standing nearby, perfectly silhouetted against the mouth of the cave.

  “I don’t need an eye to hit you, stranger,” the cyclops laughed. “You smell of weakness and fear. I can hear the tremble in your breath.”

  Alex pushed away the pain, and still refusing to answer, opted for a more direct and speedy approach. Now able to see his adversary, he made a beeline for the exit, hoping to skirt the cyclops’s long reach. But like his last attempt, Polyphemus hit him with a crushing blow, one that again sent Alex flying back.

  “Tell me where Odysseus is or I’ll snap every bone in your body!” the giant demanded.

  “Okay, okay,” Alex said, coughing and sputtering. He panted heavily, partly because he was short of breath, but mostly because he wanted to buy himself a little time. As he did, he shifted his grip on the torch.

  “I won’t ask nicely again,” the Polyphemus growled, taking a step toward him.

  Alex threw the torch in a high arc. “He’s right behind you!”

  The torch thumped on the ground, and Alex nearly yelled in triumph as the cyclops took the bait. The giant spun around, swinging wildly, as Alex bolted for the exit. When he neared the giant, Alex slid feet first between the giant’s legs, and not a moment too soon. Polyphemus came back around with an open hand, grazing the hairs on Alex’s head.

  Alex shot to his feet before the off-balanced giant could recover. A few strides into his run, Alex kicked something hard.

  The silver jar suddenly appeared in the outside light, sailing high and far out the cave. The sight of the prize redoubled Alex’s determination and he dug deep, demanding more speed, more power out of his legs.

  Polyphemus gave chase, his heavy footsteps thundering behind Alex as he broke free of the cave.

  “Hit him, now, Odysseus!” Alex yelled when the giant came into the light.

  Polyphemus stopped at the mouth of the cave and tore a chunk of rock out of the mountain the size of a baby grand. He shifted his grip on it once before throwing the boulder at Alex with uncanny accuracy.

  Alex leapt to the side, and an impact crater, complete with massive boulder, appeared where he was only moments ago. “You’ll have to do better than that, old man,” Alex taunted. A second boulder, one that was even closer to finding its mark than the first when it landed, made Alex reconsider aggravating Polyphemus any further. Instead, Alex bolted for the jar.

  “How many more can you outrun?” Polyphemus said, tearing off a third rock and sending it Alex’s way.

  Alex stopped dead in his tracks, the boulder taking some skin off his chin as it flew by. He froze and held his breath. The jar he desperately sought lay about twenty yards away, and he could probably get to it, but he wasn’t sure how much longer his luck would hold out. The next rock the cyclops threw could very well be the last the monster would need.

  As Alex stood still, planning his next move, Polyphemus held a fourth rock overhead. For the longest time, neither of them moved, but eventually, the cyclops lowered the boulder and raised his nose and sniffed the air. A toothy smile spread across the giant’s face, and Polyphemus began a slow approach, nose leading the way.

  Alex cursed silently, knowing he couldn’t stand where he was much longer. But to run would cause noise and that would invite more boulders to fly his way. Even if his spirit would never shed his immortal body, the last thing he wanted was to be the Polyphemus’s eternal plaything.

  An idea popped into mind, and a smile grew on Alex’s face. Quietly and with as much haste as he dared, Alex shed the chiton he wore. Carefully, he tiptoed toward the boulder, all the while wiping as much of his sweat and stink onto the cloth as he possibly could. Once he arrived at the rock’s final resting place, he jammed the chiton underneath and slinked off not a moment too soon.

  Polyphemus reached the boulder not even a half minute later. He felt the ground and discovered a piece of the chiton protruding from underneath the former missile. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, stranger,” the cyclops teased. “Or have you lost the will to run?”

  Alex, a good way off, kept silent, bent down, and gingerly took the silver jar.

  Polyphemus grunted and gave the boulder a hard shove. It rolled over several times before coming to a stop. The cyclops searched the ground, smiling as if his latest kill was but one pat away. That smile faded once he grabbed Alex’s clothes. The giant tore at them, hit the ground fast and furious, and howled with rage.

  Alex backed away cautiously, being sure no leaf or noisy stick would be trodden underfoot, all the while congratulating himself on the fine job he’d done. Then the wind changed.

  Polyphemus jerked upright and sniffed the air twice. He charged Alex with a speed that belied his decrepit frame. “You’ll never leave this island alive,” he yelled.

  Alex took off running, lungs gulping massive quantities of air as his legs burned, trying to keep up with the demand he set. He occasionally glanced over his shoulder as he sprinted through the forest, and more often than not he had to dive away from a granite missile. Thankfully, each time Polyphemus stopped to throw, Alex managed to get a few more strides in before having to dodge, and thus Alex soon had a sizeable lead on the cyclops.

  On this went, the running, the dodging, the running again, until Alex burst from the tree line. The joy of being almost free vaporized in an instant. He’d come out of the forest too far south. Jessica and the ponies were a good half-mile away, likely closer to Polyphemus than to him.

  “Get over here!” he yelled, waving his arms and running for his chariot. At first, neither Jessica nor the ponies seemed to hear him, so he kept yelling over and over, until finally they started for him.

  Polyphemus bolted out of the forest in front of him, boulder in hand. He skidded to a stop and readied for a throw. He balked momentarily, turned his head, and then launched the missile at Jessica.r />
  “Look out!” Alex yelled.

  To Alex’s never-ending thanks to the Fates, the ponies didn’t want to die as much as Alex didn’t want to see them all crushed, and they shot high into the air, narrowly avoiding the cyclops’s attack.

  The ponies swooped down, and a second boulder clipped the back end. The chariot twisted to the side, and Jessica screamed as she held on for dear life.

  Alex crouched as Polyphemus tore yet another rock from the ground and readied for a throw. This time, however, it was clear the cyclops knew where the chariot was headed, as he was waiting a moment to flatten Alex, the ponies, and Jessica all in one shot.

  Fearing that Polyphemus’ aim might be that good, Alex summoned every ounce of strength he had and crouched so he could launch himself as high as he could. He shook a single finger over his head, not daring to call out his idea and praying Jessica—or at least the ponies—would understand.

  The cyclops hurled the boulder with deadly accuracy. It came faster than all the others, and Alex was so in awe at it’s speed, he almost forgot to jump.

  “Cripes!” he yelled as his legs shot him up. Ten, twenty feet he sailed while his former girlfriend—smart, in tune, and there to save him—drove the chariot so it was at his side at the peak of his jump.

  “Gotcha,” Jessica said grabbing his forearm and helping him swing inside the chariot.

  “Holy crap that was close,” Alex said, laughing. As he watched Polyphemus’s island disappear, he glanced at the jar and smiled. “I hope this does the trick. I don’t want to have to do that again.”

  “Me either,” Jessica said. “Could’ve been worse, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Instead of rocks, you could’ve been dodging whales.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Alex jumped off his chariot and stormed across the sandy shore to where Odysseus stood ankle deep in the surf with a net in hand. “Got a question for you,” Alex said. “Did something slip your mind about your friend? Did you forget he was a one-eyed giant that wants to eat you?”

  “I did tell you to steal the jar and not engage him,” Odysseus said, lowering his net. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that he’s not the nicest of fellows. It’s not as if you would’ve been stealing from a widow.”

  “You could have at least warned me!”

  “Or mentioned he was the guy whose eye you poked out,” Jessica added. “I nearly took a rock to the face over all this.”

  Odysseus shrugged. “Life and love are unpredictable, get used to it.”

  “I don’t ever plan on getting used to fighting a cyclops.”

  “We rarely get all that we plan for,” said Odysseus, casting his net into the sea. “But that is another matter. Tell me, Alex, what happened once you found Polyphemus?”

  “I asked him for directions, since neither of us knew who he was,” Alex answered. “He led me back to his cave. We got into a fight. I almost had my brains splattered against the wall, but I still managed to get away with the jar.”

  “Knowing him, that must have been a giant fight, no pun intended,” Odysseus remarked, pulling up an empty net. “He’s always been an unrelenting one.”

  “It was a big fight,” said Alex. “A bloody one at that.”

  Odysseus tossed his net to the side. “I’m impressed you made it out in one piece. Many men fell to Polyphemus, many good men. What was your secret?”

  “Quick wits and quicker reflexes,” Alex said, reliving the fight in his mind. “For a moment I thought that would be the end of me.”

  “And?”

  Alex shrugged. “And nothing. I got away.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Jessica said. “I only caught you midair as you ran for your life.”

  Alex smiled. “Sorry, yes. She one hundred percent had a hand in whisking me to safety.”

  Odysseus looked out to the horizon and pressed his lips together. He stood in silence for a moment before grunting. “After such a struggle, one filled with uncertainty and no promise of success, did you at least find what you need?”

  “I said I got the jar,” Alex said, handing it to him. “The mandrake is inside.”

  “These are leaves, but not what you need,” Odysseus said as he opened the jar and inspected the contents.

  “I need the potion, which you said you could make with the leaves.”

  “I said you need to know what love is.”

  “And I said I need to know who I love,” Alex corrected. “Or at least, should. Ergo, I need that potion.”

  “Still bent on making it?”

  “You make it sound like there’s an alternative.”

  “There are alternatives in everything. Love. War. Life. They all have choices we make and none of them come with guarantees,” Odysseus said. “Who you love is no different than doing what you love—be it for duty or pleasure. However, since I can see you’re going to still argue with me on that, we should move on and focus on what’s next.”

  “Wonderful,” Alex replied, rolling his shoulders and working out some of the stiffness that had settled in. Regardless of his Heraclean body, he hurt after repeatedly being slammed into a cavern wall. “What do I need to get now?”

  “Let me say first, I’m glad you’re dedicated to see this through, because Polyphemus was the easy part,” Odysseus said as he tossed his net to the side and started drawing a map in the sand. “In the northeast part of Peloponnese lives the direct descendant of the famed Nemean lion.”

  “It’s not an ordinary lion, is it?” Alex asked, fearing it was some sort of multi-headed, fire-breathing, petrifying monster that snacked on armies. Not that he had met one yet, but it had to be coming sooner or later.

  “Heracles had to kill the Nemean lion as part of his twelve labors,” Jessica filled in. “Trick was, however, its golden hide could not be pierced by any weapon. As you can imagine, it wasn’t a walk in the park.”

  “Lovely,” Alex said. “Let me guess, I’ve got to do the same.”

  Odysseus nodded. “Yes. A life of love takes courage, Alex, and at times that life includes terrible fights that we’d rather not undertake. Thus, we’ll need that lion’s teeth and mane.”

  Alex ran both hands through his hair and locked his fingers behind his head as he thought the scenario through. “How did Heracles beat this creature?”

  “With a club and his bare hands,” Odysseus replied.

  “He wrestled a lion?”

  “Strangled it.”

  Alex shook his head. “I’ll find some other way,” he said. “I’m not wrestling a lion.”

  Odysseus raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not wrestling a lion,” Alex said once more. “You’ll see.”

  “We’ll see,” Odysseus said with an unsettling smile.

  “There has to be another way,” Alex insisted.

  Odysseus motioned to the net on the ground. “You could use that to slow him when he charges.”

  Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “At which point I’m supposed to jump on his back?”

  “That’s the general idea.” The hero paused and then pointed further up the beach. “I’ve got another net for you as well. Take them both. If you miss with the first, you might be able to toss the second.”

  “I won’t miss,” Alex declared. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “You know how to use them?”

  “I used to fish with casting nets when I was little,” Alex explained. “But that’s not the point. The point is, when we did we didn’t pull up five-hundred-pound killing machines. Even if we did get one, we would’ve tossed it back, not given it a belly rub.”

  “What strategy you use is up to you,” Odysseus replied, “but you’ll need that lion if you want your wife back, and if I were you, I’d want as many options as possible in regards to accomplishing that task.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the nets,” Alex said. “I’ll be bac
k before you know it.”

  “Good. There’s one other thing I must mention.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your friend will need to wait here. If she helps in defeating the lion, it could taint the spell. Not to mention, I don’t think you want to chance her being eaten.”

  Jessica grimaced. “I’d rather not be a snack, so if it’s all the same, I’ll sit this one out.”

  “No worries. I understand.”

  Alex said his goodbyes and left. Once he was back on his chariot, he wondered how he could use the nets Odysseus had given him. Perhaps he could poison the animal once he had it snared. Surely its hide couldn’t protect it against a good dose of cyanide, which he’d need to get. Or maybe he could crush its head with a boulder. Or maybe he could shoot the damn thing in the mouth. That had to be viable. Get it mad, let it roar, and jam a gun down its throat before pulling the trigger. Of course, that meant he’d need a pit stop back at Termessos, but that wouldn’t take long.

  Yes, that’s what he’d do, he decided. Blast the lion right in its mouth. Quick. Simple. Easy. And best of all, it didn’t involve wrestling a five-hundred-pound killing machine with his bare hands.

  * * *

  On a small hill, Alex stood on a broken wall and used his binoculars to scour the area. To his left grew a clump of trees that freely offered an oasis of shade to an otherwise flat and sun-beaten landscape. To his right, a small, rocky stream darted and bubbled through the field. About three hundred yards ahead of Alex, a family of deer meandered about, oblivious to the world, and as far as Alex was concerned, begging to be eaten by a lion. Despite these things that Alex was certain should attract any ferocious feline, there was no big cat anywhere to be seen.

  “Why can’t you be like all the other lions, Mister Lion?” Alex asked, taking a moment to clean his binoculars with the bottom of his jacket. “The ones on TV never hide. They aren’t camera shy. They lounge and yawn, stretch, and yawn some more.”

  Alex pulled his nearly empty canteen off his web belt and took a swig of water. The drink did wonders for his parched mouth and throat, and if he was going to be out here much longer, he’d need a refill. “I know where you are, Mister Lion,” said Alex, wiping his mouth and noting the sweaty feel of his back and chest. “You’re avoiding this god-awful heat.”