Snakehead (11 page)

“Sit down, please. I have to talk to you, about matters that concern us both.” He gestured to another of the couches. The stateroom seemed to go on forever. From about halfway up the walls were made of something transparent that shone with a high polish.

“A lovely part of the world, Serifos. One of the best kept secrets of the Middle Sea, in my humble opinion.” The chieftain of the Olympians cocked his head, considering the view through his clear walls. “It’s slipped my mind: do they worship me particularly here? Is there some little ritual I could attend, since I’m passing?”

“I wouldn’t know. That would be up in the High Place. In Seatown we have the Great Mother’s Enclosure; that’s our only place of worship.” I knew I shouldn’t mention the old religion, but I was trying to have the guts to stand up to him.

“Ah yes, the Mother.” He scowled playfully. Playful like a thunderbolt … I was two people. One of them was in real danger of bursting into tears, wetting himself, hiding behind the couch. But the other Perseus, the one who felt no fear, didn’t want to let go of being mortal. I didn’t
want
to be on easy terms with this golden bully.

“She used to call us her pets, you know. Tell me, son, do I look like a domestic animal to you?
Do I look like a pussycat?”

Now that he mentioned it, there
was
something animal about him, more vast animal power than divine wisdom in his splendor. But there’s standing up for yourself, and there’s plain stupid.

“No, you don’t.”

He raised a mighty eyebrow.

“Sir.”

“Quite right. Well, the ‘pets’ are in charge now. The Mother’s day is over. We’re going to
develop
this place. We’re going to make the human world
buzz
. You’ll see.”

I nodded, because he seemed to want some response and I had none; and he laughed so that my mortal heart shook like a leaf. “Don’t look so doubtful. You will see it all, Perseus. From your place in heaven … But back to the here and now. The tyrant king Polydectes is about to invite you to a party.”

Oh, I see, I thought.
That’s
why he’s here. He’s going to tell me what to do. I’m facing the crisis of my life, so my father has come to give me advice.

“The king of Serifos hates me. Why would he do that?”

“Pay attention. Polydectes will invite you to a party, and at this party he’ll announce that he’s given up his pursuit of the Argolide princess, your dear mother. He has turned his mind to a more useful match, and he expects his vassals to chip in with a horse or two toward the bride price. That includes you.”

“I’m not his vassal!”

“Of course not. Be quiet and listen. He will then tell the company, in the most offensive way, that he knows you can’t possibly contribute. The foster son of a taverna keeper owns no horses, and hasn’t a hope of ever seeing that kind of money.”

I fired up at this, because it was an insult to the boss. The God raised a big well-cared-for hand. A white jewel in the ring on his middle finger sent out sparks of rainbow-refracted light. His thumb ring held a ruby the size of a sparrow’s egg.

“Don’t fly into a passion! I know that you have been fostered by a prince, a rare and virtuous man, for whom I have the greatest respect.”

My mother had told me that he was a polite old devil. Not that
she
remembered any politeness, but it was part of his reputation. I hadn’t believed her.

“The insults are meant to make you lose your temper. Polydectes will then suggest that instead you should bring him the head of the Medusa, a monster with snakes for hair whose glance turns anything she looks on to
stone. A whole army petrified in an instant, imagine it. He will say that if you are not too cowardly to achieve the quest, and if you deliver the Medusa to him, all accounts between the two of you will be settled. That will be his offer. You are to accept.”

“I see.”

The terrible lord of thunder looked at me sternly. Luckily, I had my mortal self under control.
“I see
is not an adequate response, Perseus. You must know the story of the Medusa. Any six-year-old in the whole Middle Sea knows it.”

I had heard of the Medusa, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “In one ear and out the other,” I said. “I can’t ever remember all those fancy monsters.”

“Ah well,” he muttered to himself, “brains aren’t everything…. The Medusa, Perseus, was once the most beautiful woman in the world. She offended the gods, and was turned into a monster. She lives with two sister monsters, also endowed with the snake hair and the petrifying glance. The three of them are called the Gorgons, but only Medusa is mortal. Her head has long been considered a highly desirable item by warlike princes. Champions and heroes have tried again and again to win the prize: they’re all stone. So will you be, if you look her in the eye, my half-mortal child. Make no mistake, Godhead itself is no protection from the Medusa’s power.”

“I understand,” I said, not risking another
I see
. “No,” said Zeus with a strangely human smile. “You
don’t understand at all. These are mysteries…. But you’ll know what to do when the time comes. You are to accept the challenge; that’s all you have to grasp for now. We’ll go on from there.” Go on
where?
I wondered.

My father shrugged his great shoulders. “In reality, by the way, Polydectes has not given up his outrageous, insolent pursuit of your dear mother. He’s obsessed, but he’s afraid to challenge you. You are my son, and he has some dim idea of what that means. He thinks you’ll go off after the Medusa and never come back. That way, in his limited reasoning, he’ll be able to take the lady by force, and incur no blame. He believes his brother will aquiesce once you are out of the way, and the very cozy setup he has on Serifos will continue undisturbed. Now repeat your lesson.”

I wondered how much I would remember, when I was back in the mortal world. I’m genuinely
not
good at remembering things I don’t understand. But that was his problem. I repeated my lesson. Party invitation, insults, horse-gift. The monster who turns people to stone. The challenge, which I was to accept.

There came a soft tap on the door.

“Come in!” he called, and the two sailor-servants appeared, one of them bearing a small table, the other a covered tray. The scent of fried fish and fried opotatos arrived with them. They ignored me, discreetly making sure I knew it, set the table in front of him and laid the
cloth, deftly arranging oil and vinegar, a small green salad and a carafe of chilled white wine, beads of snowmelt on its rounded sides. The African lifted the cover from a huge platter, offering for display a fish as long as my arm, wrapped in airy golden batter, and surrounded by fabulously expensive mountains of opotato, cut in batons and fried to perfection.

I think the opotatos make it too much of a show-off dish, myself.

“Ah,” cried Zeus, beaming and rubbing his hands. “Fish and chips! One of the sublime dishes of the world; and believe me, I know. First invented in my Aegean, of course. Invented here like
every
idea of value! Don’t ever let anyone tell you about Ur of the Chaldees, Perseus.
My Aegean
is top of the cradle-of-civilization class! And here, now, in the mortal realm of time,
you
are going to help me put it there.”

For a moment I knew what all this meant. I
knew
why the chief of the Achaean Supernaturals was talking to me about Polydectes’ social plans. I knew that somehow Andromeda’s flying marks were part of it…. Then it was gone again.

He held out his hands to be washed. “Oh, ah, Perseus. Won’t you join me?” The table was laid for one. Sublime truth fell away; he was just another big cheese, dying to get at his dinner. I work in a restaurant; I said what I was supposed to say.

“I’d be greatly honored, but I’ve got to be going, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Must you? Ah, very well. I’ll see you out.”

My father rose up like a thundercloud, and casually pointed a finger at the servants, table, food. The array shook itself and froze. Time had stopped for them all: the sailors, the dishes, the drops of melted ice. It dawned on me that Zeus’s sailor-servants were not human beings. They were like the yacht itself, like his huge human body: appearances, part of his game, and this made me shiver.

What am I? I thought. Am I more real than these toys?

He came out on deck with me, affable and relaxed, smiling in his beard. “Let me give you some advice. Your relatives, now. Some of them are reasonable, most of them are no-account. A bunch of drunks and squabblers, I’m afraid. Hermes, my courier, is a very safe young man. Make a friend of him; he’ll be useful to you. You can trust your half sister Athini, but watch her temper. Steer clear of my wife, obviously. Do not, under any circumstances, ever, tangle with your aunt Afroditi. I mean it.”

I was tempted to think this warning meant Afroditi might be an ally, but his tone of voice convinced me. “I’ll remember that.”

I was on the metal ladder; he was looking down. “Beware of hunger. Beware of tiredness. The body you are wearing is a fine one, but it is mortal, and those things will cloud your judgment. Oh, and beware of alcohol. Same reason.”

Everything was colored mist, reflected light, a veil over things that wouldn’t fit into the mortal world. But there
was mighty Zeus, leaning over the side of his pleasure yacht, giving me banal advice. Just like a human absentee dad, not knowing how to say goodbye. I felt a crazy, stupid pang of longing.

“Sir?” I could never call him father. “Sir, what does it mean? The Medusa, a beautiful woman, a monster with a snakehead? Why do I have to do this?”

He smiled and leaned down, and touched me with his fingertip, on the forehead, between my eyebrows. The world exploded: writhing, coiling, squirming into fantastic patterns, a nest of vipers the size of the universe. I fell into the snake pit, I kept on falling, out of the reflection, back into the things I knew.

I rowed to the shore and left the boat on the sand. Halfway up the headland path I felt something leave me. I looked back and the inlet was empty.
The Magnificent Escape
had vanished.

Everything looked strange, as if I’d been gone a very long time, but the shadows were hardly longer than they’d been when I left the Yacht Club. When I reached home, the staff were setting up for an evening at Dicty’s, as usual. Conversation was subdued, people greeted me uneasily. They didn’t know what was really wrong with Palikari, but they’d sensed trouble. Anthe was running the kitchen, in a bad mood. She told me that Andromeda was with Pali. She said, D’you have to keep asking where she is every single minute, Perseus?; and I said
yes
.

The boss was in the furnace yard, cleaning his tools
(which didn’t need cleaning) and talking to Moumi. “All well?” he asked when I walked in.

“All’s well enough,” I said automatically. Our watchword. They were staring at me, and I wondered what they saw. Which was real? This world, or the other?

“What happened to you?” asked my mother.

“I don’t know. Maybe I fell asleep on the shore.”

I sat on an old packsaddle, and told them about
The Magnificent Escape
.

Moumi put her palm to my forehead. It was burning, as if I’d been too long in the sun. I found out afterward, when I looked in her best bronze mirror, that I had a dark, rosy mark there, which took days to fade.

“Bathe, and then go and sleep it off, Perseus. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

T
he invitation arrived a few days later. It was delivered very properly, very old-style—like a memory of how things were done before the Great Disaster. The king’s embassy arrived with two horsemen bearing green branches and with six musicians on foot, playing the lyre and the double flute (but not well) as they marched. The herald had no Achaean staff of office, just a wreath and garlands. His hands were empty except for the traditional gift of scented oil. They stood on the waterfront, and requested permission to speak with the master of Seatown. Papa Dicty hadn’t been treated with such honor since the leadership challenge of long ago.

The people of Seatown watched from indoors. They’d cleared the streets when they saw the herald’s party coming, not sure what was going on. But the staff at Dicty’s were very excited. The king was suing for peace! Our
troubles were over! Papa Dicty was going to share Polydectes’ throne, the way things ought to be!

“First the stick, then the carrot,” said the boss dryly. “I suppose if we decline the invitation, we may expect more violence. I think I’ll call a Town Meeting.”

So we called a meeting, and everyone from within a day’s journey turned up. The Sacred Enclosure was packed. I sat with my mother and Dicty, going over what I planned to say, remembering the time when I was a kid, and climbed up with my friends to peek over the fence. And we were spotted, and yelled at, and chased…. Town Meetings had been rare in my lifetime, rare enough to be fascinating to little boys. Now I was one of the grown-ups, about to speak in public, but I didn’t feel privileged. I felt like a stranger, uneasy and awkward among these people I’d known all my life.