by Paul Collins
‘Bit like catching starlight in a jug, sir. But I'll try.'
He felt both scared and fascinated as he settled down to the job. The firedrake was beautiful. Pity it was so dangerous. He realised soon enough that he could tell it nearly any lie, because it was like a newborn in most ways, and the warship Eagle was all the world it had ever experienced. It didn't seem to know that there was such a thing as dry land.
Billy made the mistake of letting that information slip. The firedrake became highly excited.
Take me there! Now! Put me ashore where I will not be surrounded by this horrible wetness!
‘Wait, now, Mister Roman Candle,' Billy said. ‘It ain't that easy –'
Take me to land!
Billy wheedled. ‘Blimey, now, what do you think we're doing? The Eagle's headed for land right now! The captain can't wait to let you off! But you have to do the right thing by us, see? No leaping about starting fires. No more burning the sails for a lark. Most of all, stay in one place.'
The firedrake shimmered and sparkled.
How long until we reach this dry land?
‘Five days,' Billy lied. ‘A week at most.'
The crackling voice grumbled and threatened. The firedrake had no patience. At last, though, it accepted what Billy told it.
He seldom left the creature. He wasn't supposed to. He wasn't supposed to look at the work in progress under the forecastle, either. He squirmed forward and spied on it nevertheless.
At first it made no sense to him. The carpenter had cut a hole about a yard square in the deck. Underneath it, he was building an odd-looking engine; a long thick plank fastened down at one end to a heavy timber block, a bit like a see-saw, but with one side much longer than the other. By the long end stood a drum-winch with strong cable wound about it.
Billy crept away, puzzled. What would that do? He couldn't imagine any mechanical engine being much good against the firedrake. It moved too fast. Besides, anything made of wood it could simply burn.
The cap'n had better know what he's doing! thought Billy.
A couple of days later, the captain sent word that the firedrake might come up to the open air. It welcomed the chance. Billy didn't think he could have kept it below for much longer. The square hole in the forecastle deck had been covered, now, by a neat wooden hatch with a shallow sand-filled tray nailed atop it for the firedrake's use. Lamp oil and rum stood nearby. Billy poured a cup of the raw spirit into the firedrake's mouth; it breathed out little blue flames and purred with pleasure. Gazing ahead, past the bowsprit, it demanded to know where land lay.
‘The way we're headed,' Billy answered. ‘Two or three days and we'll see the shore.'
He remained puzzled. That long plank and winch must be just about exactly beneath the firedrake, of course …
Suddenly he realised. Chainshot and grape in a broadside! Captain Rodney was a genius! Only why was he waiting?
Then a call came from the masthead lookout. ‘Sail! Sail! French fleet and convoy dead ahead!'
That must be the convoy they had been sent out to intercept. Billy's heart hammered. What a time! The Eagle was alone, and they couldn't move or load one charge of gunpowder with the firedrake aboard. They were helpless.
The captain said dispassionately, ‘Clear the decks. We engage the enemy.'
The Eagle made straight for the French fleet. Ten fighting ships. Half of them carried more than seventy guns. An immense merchant convoy with them.
Dermot's lips had become very dry. He licked them and whispered to Billy, ‘The Frenchmen must be about to die, cully. Laughing.'
The firedrake crackled and hissed with delight. French ships or English, it did not care; all it saw in the great flotilla yonder was food. If it consumed twenty ships there would still be abundance left.
Billy shivered. Enemies or not, he didn't care for the thought of that happening to the French. They were men. Not fish to be fried.
He looked at the firedrake with new eyes. It wasn't a mischievous sprite, it was a menace, and if it got ashore it might consume whole cities. What was the captain waiting for?
Under the forecastle, the ship's carpenter said quietly, ‘Go.'
A brawny seaman promptly swung a mallet, knocking the brake off the winch, which spun wildly around. The long plank sprang upward with all the force of flexing wood. It smashed into the underside of the new hatch with a kick like a giant's boot. Billy, standing beside it, was knocked off his feet. He fell down on a deck that was vibrating like a drum.
The hatch shot upward like a cork from a bottle. Sand scattered everywhere. Hatch, sand, and the crowing firedrake all hurtled over the side. The hatch struck the sea with a great splash. The firedrake fell after it. With a hissing shriek it vanished into the ocean.
As swiftly as that, it was over. The menace was gone. Billy, springing to his feet, scanned the heaving green water. There was nothing to see but a wooden hatch bobbing afloat.
Captain Rodney roared from the quarterdeck, ‘About ship! Action stations all!'
The powder magazine opened for work, and from then onward Billy was far too occupied for any thoughts of the firedrake's demise. While he and Dermot and the rest sweated in the guts of the ship, the rest of the English fleet hove in sight, to find the Eagle again – and the French convoy they had been hunting.
Billy had often wondered how he would do in real fighting action. He found out that day. He laboured among the fearful noise of the guns, the strangling, blinding smoke and the whizzing shrapnel. He saw men die.
He and Dermot came through it alive. The English won, with most of the French warships captured, and even though there was an inquiry into the Eagle's sudden departure from the fleet, every officer and man swore to the firedrake's reality and danger. It was believed, on the whole, but was reckoned too fantastic to enter in official records.
Captain Rodney received a commendation for gallantry. He rewarded Billy by having him taught to read and write, and then making him a midshipman. Billy hated being educated at first. Years afterwards, though, wearing his lieutenant's coat, he felt more grateful.
And he never forgot the firedrake, or doubted for a minute in his life that the world was an amazing place.
Andromeda's rage was instant. She ignored the tears in the Babylonian slave's eyes and backhanded her face. ‘If you pull my hair again, barbarian, I'll have my father feed you to the sea monster!'
She snatched the gold and ivory comb from the slave, who dropped to the ground in terror. The useless creature had been a king's daughter back in Babylon, Andromeda's father had said, when he'd brought the new girl to her. ‘Precious booty of battle', he'd boasted and, by the look on his face, Andromeda was meant to be impressed. King's daughter or not, the barbarian girl shouldn't have pulled her hair.
Andromeda's rage wanted to claw its way out of her, and tear through everything around her. Every muscle in her body, every bone, throbbed with the pain of it. She strode to the window and looked longingly down at the sea. Oh, to be free! The sea monster bellowed in the distance, and the sound stirred something deep in Andromeda's chest. There was something she needed desperately, something she had been missing for such a long time – but what was it?
Rage moved the sea monster, deep in the ocean. Her long, green-grey body rippled with anger. She needed to kill, now, but the little fish that fled from her were not worthy opponents.
Aha! She felt a sailing boat moving on the water's surface, far above her. Rage boiled in her gigantic blue-green veins. How dare these petty humans invade her domain!
She coiled her long body through the water until she was directly under the sailing boat, then speared straight up, driving the ship high into the air. For a moment, it felt wonderful. The impact of the wooden boat on her armoured snout was pure joy. As she submerged, she saw fishermen and their gear floating in the wreckage of the boat. The kicking legs and flailing arms of the humans fed her rage. She hunted them down, one by one, and crunched their bones. After she'd eaten the
m all, though, her fury was as violent as ever. Her tail lashed the ocean viciously. She needed more victims.
Andromeda turned back to her golden bedroom, her beautiful cage. She pushed the rage down further, out of sight, out of knowledge. The little slave, poor terrified creature that she was, didn't deserve to die. Someone deserved to die maybe, but not her. Andromeda was a king's daughter; she must act like one. Dignity was everything.
Deliberately, she breathed deeply and smoothly, as Tithonius had taught her three years ago when the rages had started, after her breasts had begun to swell. She'd always tried so hard to be a dutiful daughter and princess, but time after time, the anger had overwhelmed her. Raging with self-pity in her lovely room, she'd gazed down at the furious waves, wishing so much to be free … Now she felt empty inside, as if she'd lost something vital to her, but what could it have been?
The mage Tithonius had been the only person who could help her, but before he could find out what had happened, her father had expelled him from the kingdom. The monster had appeared in the sea soon after Andromeda's rages started; her father had ordered Tithonius to ignore the princess's trivial problems, and instead to spend all his energies on defeating the monster. When the mage had failed, he was banished. With Tithonius gone, though, the sea monster had killed so many men that the people were calling for human sacrifice.
Soon her father, Cepheus, would choose a husband for her: a prince from one of the half-hostile kingdoms that encircled their country. She would be traded like a brood mare to some man she'd never met. She would be his queen, would bear his children, royal hostages to ensure the safety and prosperity of her father's kingdom, and her husband's. Then, dignity would be all that was left to her.
Andromeda put out her slender, pale arm and lifted the slave girl from the floor. She placed the comb back into the girl's reluctant hand.
‘Comb my hair, girl,' she said as calmly as she could, sitting herself back down on her gilded stool in front of the polished silver mirror. Her reflection stared back at her, her violet eyes shining wild, cheeks flushed almost crimson, hair a writhing mass of glossy black. Then, more gently, she said, ‘Don't be afraid. I would not let my father give you to the sea monster even if he asked. Please comb my hair.'
The slave girl's eyes were red, but she stood up straight as a statue, and without a word started to comb Andromeda's hair again. Yes, Andromeda thought, her father had been right. The girl really had been a king's daughter, once. Just like her.
Perseus flew over Cepheus' kingdom, miraculously propelled by Hermes' winged helmet and winged sandals. Medusa's severed head, in a bag tied around his neck, bumped once more into his chest. He winced. Surely it was far too heavy for a head – even the head of a gorgon, child of the gods. The hideous fat snakes that had served her for hair writhed inside the goatskin bag, and his skin crawled. But Medusa couldn't turn him to stone, not now. The bag protected him; as long as the head was inside the bag, he couldn't see the face even by accident. He was safe.
But why were the snakes still moving? he wondered. He'd killed Medusa, hadn't he? Hermes had lent Perseus his famous winged sandals, so that he could fly swift as the wind, and grey-eyed Athene had guided his hand as he looked into his polished bronze shield and hacked Medusa's snake-wreathed head from her shoulders with Hermes' adamantine sickle. If he'd even glanced at the gorgon from the corner of his eye, he'd have turned into stone, a Perseus-shaped statue forever. But he hadn't. He'd looked into the shield, not at Medusa's face, and he'd killed her. He'd done what Athene and Hermes had wanted. Medusa was dead.
All the same, Perseus could feel Medusa's blood, dripping from the bag onto his chest and down his stomach. It burned like snake venom. Was it eating through his tunic and dissolving his skin? He didn't dare stop to look. But when he landed, when he finally took off his tunic, would he see flesh, or only bones? Perseus shuddered but winged upwards.
But what was that below him? It looked like a beautiful maiden, chained to a cliff next to the sea. He shook his head. Nothing these barbarians did would ever surprise him.
He angled down to take a closer look. Rescuing a woman – especially one as pretty as this one looked from here – should be an easy task, after killing snake-haired Medusa.
Andromeda stood on the rock, a living sacrifice to the sea monster. She tried not to pull at the chains that held her to the cliff. Dignity, she thought, dignity.
The priest of the god Amun, in far-away Egypt, had told her father's messenger how to rid his country of the sea monster. The answer had been simple: ‘Give your daughter to the monster, and all will be well.'
Half of the kingdom was lined up along the beach, waiting, watching. Spray from the breaking waves fell over her again and again. Andromeda's white linen gown was soaked. If she'd been free to move, one pace would have taken her to the sea. She could have dived in, dived down and down, and been free forever. No foreign prince, no royal children … no sea monster. Now, though, all she could do was stand here, waiting for the monster to take her. She heard it bellowing in the distance, and quaked.
It was her duty to die for her country. She stood up very straight. She was a king's daughter.
But how long would it be, before the monster came for her?
Medusa seethed with pain and misery. She had borne children to Poseidon Earth-Shaker, Father Zeus' brother and equal. How dare this mortal upstart, Perseus, behead her? He could not have done it without the connivance of Athene, that bloodless bitch birthed from Zeus' head, and Zeus' fool messenger Hermes.
Medusa felt the blood dripping out from the vessels of her severed neck, drip by drip. Her snakes writhed in fury.
Revenge. She would have revenge.
The monster could smell something wonderful: better than a giant squid, or a boatful of fishermen. Something she'd been looking for all her short life, without even knowing it. Something she needed, if she was ever to be whole and complete.
She whirled around in the water, using all the sensitive organs she used to hunt her prey. Oh, but the smell was exquisite! She needed it!
Straight as an arrow, she flew underwater to the source of the smell. Overwhelmed with joy and desire, she lifted her head out of the water and saw the thing she needed: a human being, young, female, slender, standing very straight. The girl was chained to a cliff.
Their eyes locked.
Andromeda stared into the sea monster's huge violet eyes. She knew those eyes. Every day she saw them shining in her silver mirror. She had to get closer, to touch the lovely beast, to stroke her wet, shining skin. The princess didn't fear the monster's muscular coils, her steel-hard scales, her jagged teeth. The monster would never harm her. The girl needed the sea monster, if she was ever to be whole and … happy. The monster was her, was what she'd lost.
The creature lifted her head higher above the waves, watching the sacrificial human.
Andromeda's heart beat very fast, but not from fear. Her gaze was still locked onto the monster's unimaginably huge eyes.
There was an audible gasp from the people lined up on the beach. The monster's great jaws opened wide, then closed – but no blood flowed. Andromeda's chains, broken by the immense teeth, fell to the rock.
Gazing up into the monster's violet eyes, Andromeda stretched her arms wide, and put her hands out to touch the monster's green-grey scaled body.
Herself. Her life. Her freedom.
‘Don't move, maiden,' Perseus shouted. ‘I'm here to rescue you. I will kill the monster for you.' He only hoped that he could reach her before the sea monster took her. The closer he got to her, the lovelier she looked. What were her people thinking, to chain her on a rock for a sea monster to eat? She was far too beautiful to sacrifice.
Strangely, the girl didn't move. She was gazing at the hideous, scaly creature. Of course, he thought, she must be transfixed with terror. Or had the monster enchanted her somehow, taken away her will? He would attack it from behind, give it no chance to try such tricks on him.
The monster still hadn't noticed him. Its whole being was concentrated on the lovely girl. Surely she only had moments to live. Descending as fast as he could, Perseus pulled his sword from its scabbard.
‘No!' the girl screamed, when finally she looked up and saw him. ‘No! Don't kill it! It's me! The monster is me!'
Perseus ignored the girl's nonsense. She was delirious with fear. There was no time to lose. He would act now without Athene's help. He would kill the sea monster, and rescue a beautiful girl. Surely she was of royal blood, maybe even a princess.
Luckily, the monster was still acting as if he wasn't there. It was almost an insult to a hero like him, but perhaps the gods had arranged it so, to assist him. Perseus swung his sword and slashed viciously at the back of the scaled neck, once, twice, three times.
The monster's neck was like stone. The sword broke, and fell from Perseus' near-paralysed right hand. What weapon could he use now against it? If his sword had failed, his stabbing dagger was useless. The monster, which up till now had acted as if he were nothing, or less than nothing, turned its massive head to face him. The immense jaws opened, showing its jagged teeth.
The world seemed to stop, then Perseus felt Medusa's loathsome snakes writhing in the goatskin bag around his neck. Their fat bodies pressed nauseatingly against his chest. He thought he heard a noise from the bag; a low, rattling noise.
Yes! The head of Medusa was a fearsome weapon! A glance from her eyes would turn the monster to stone. Petrified, it would be a monument to his greatness.
‘Don't look,' he yelled to the girl, then thrust his hand into the bag, eyes tightly closed lest he himself be turned to stone. His stomach heaved, but he took hold of the snakes, and pulled. The heavy head hung in his hand. Careful not to open his eyes even a hair's breadth, he held the head out towards the monster's face.
