Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
To my brother, who was there at the beginning,
and the sisters I have found along the way
List of Characters
STHENNO, EURYALE, MEDUSA – the Gorgons – are daughters of sea gods CETO and PHORCYS. They live on the north coast of Africa ATHENE, warrior goddess; daughter of METIS – one of mythology’s early goddesses – and ZEUS, king of the Olympian gods POSEIDON, god of the sea; brother to Zeus, uncle to Athene AMPHITRITE, queen of the sea; wife of Poseidon HERA, queen of the Olympian gods; wife of Zeus GAIA, goddess of the earth; mother of the Titans and the giants, including ALCYONEUS, PORPHYRION, EPHIALTES, EURYTOS, CLYTIOS, MIMAS and ENCELADUS
HEPHAESTUS, blacksmith god; son of Hera （but not Zeus） HERMES, messenger god HECATE, goddess of night and witches DEMETER, goddess of agriculture and mother of PERSEPHONE
MOIRAI, the Fates GRAIAI （the Greys） – DEINO, ENYO, PEMPHREDO; personifications of the spirits of the sea. They share a single eye and a single tooth HESPERIDES, garden-dwelling nymphs charged with guarding golden apples that belong to Hera. They also tend to have everything you might need for a quest NEREIDS, fifty sea nymphs of changeable temper ZEUS, king of the gods; husband of Hera
Mortals
DANA?, daughter of ACRISIUS, a minor Greek king DICTYS, her friend; brother to POLYDECTES, king of Seriphos, a small Greek island PERSEUS, son of Dana? and Zeus CASSIOPE, queen of Ethiopia; wife of CEPHEUS
ANDROMEDA, their daughter ERICHTHONIUS, legendary king of Athens IODAME, a young priestess of Athene
Other
CORNIX, a chatterbox crow ELAIA, an olive grove in Athens HERPETA, snakes
Part One
Sister
Gorgoneion
I see you. I see all those who men call monsters.
And I see the men who call them that. Call themselves heroes, of course.
I only see them for an instant. Then they’re gone.
But it’s enough. Enough to know that the hero isn’t the one who’s kind or brave or loyal. Sometimes – not always, but sometimes – he is monstrous.
And the monster? Who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved.
This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, she is the one you should fear. She is the monster.
We’ll see about that.
Panopeia
As far towards the evening sun as it is possible to travel, there is a place where the sea winds inland in a narrow twist. You are where Ethiopia meets Oceanos: the furthest land and the furthest sea. If you could fly above it, see it as the birds see it, this channel （which is not a river because it flows the wrong way, but you may see this as part of its magic）， coils like a viper. You have flown past the Graiai, although you may not have noticed, as they keep to their cave to avoid stumbling on their rocky cliffs and falling into the wild sea. Would they survive such a fall? Of course: they are immortal. But even a god doesn’t want to be battered between the waves and the rocks for all eternity.
You have also sped past the home of the Gorgons, who live not so very far from the Graiai, their sisters. I call them sisters, but they have never met. They are connected – though they do not know, or have long forgotten – by the air and the sea. And now, also by you.
You’ll need to travel to other places too: Mount Olympus, of course. Libya, as it will come to be called by the Egyptians and later, the Greeks. An island named Seriphos. Perhaps this seems too daunting a journey. But the place you have found yourself means you are already at the end of the earth, so you’ll need to find your way back. You’re not far from the home of the Hesperides, but they won’t help you, I’m afraid, even if you could find them （which you can’t）。 So that means the Gorgons. It means Medusa.
Metis
Metis changed. If you had been able to see her in the moments before she realized the threat, you would have seen a woman. Tall, long-limbed, with thick dark hair plaited at the back. Her large eyes were ringed with kohl. There was a quickness in the way her gaze seemed to fall on everything at once: even when she was still, she was alert. And she had her defences, what goddess did not? But Metis was better prepared than most, even though she was not armed with arrows, like Artemis, or with thinly contained rage, like Hera.
And so when she sensed – rather than saw – that she was in danger, she changed into an eagle and flew high, the gentle south wind ruffling the feathers of her golden wings. But even with these sharp eyes, she could not see what it was that had made the short hairs pulling at the edge of her plait prickle when she was in human form. She circled in the air a few times, but nothing revealed itself to her and eventually she flew down and settled on the top of a cypress tree, curving her muscular neck in every direction, just in case. She perched there, thinking.
She dropped down from the high branches onto the sandy ground, her talons scratching small furrows in the dust. And then she was not an eagle any more. Her hooked beak retracted and her feathered legs disappeared beneath her. As one muscled body became another, only the intelligence in the slit of her eyes remained constant. Now she slithered over the stones, a brown zig-zag stripe along her dorsal scales, her belly the colour of pale sand. She flickered across the ground as quickly as she had flown through the sky. And as she paused beneath a large prickly pear, she pressed her body into the earth, trying to feel the source of unease that she had not been able to spot as an eagle. But even as the rats that lived on scraps from the nearby temple raced away from her, she could not feel the footsteps of the creature she should be fleeing. She wondered what to do next.
She stayed under the cactus for a long time, enjoying the heat of the ground, allowing her hooded eyes to move, but nothing else. She was almost invisible, she knew. She was faster than most other creatures, and her bite was venomous, devastating. She had nothing to fear. But still she did not feel safe. And she could not stay here, a snake for ever.
She uncurled herself from the base of the cactus, and moved into the shade of the cypresses. Suddenly she reared up, and transformed again. The zig-zag on her scales fractured and became spots, the scales themselves softening to a coarse fur. Ears sprouted, clawed feet appeared at the end of muscular legs. The panther was beautiful, swishing her tail to send the flies spinning. She moved slowly at first, sensing each individual stone beneath the pads of her paws. Again, she felt the ripple of alarm she produced in the animals nearby. But once more, she could not shake her own fear. She ran through the trees, weeds snagging on her fur as her speed increased. They did not slow her at all. She could catch anything. And what could catch her? Nothing. She revelled in her power. She felt almost weightless, pure muscle in pursuit of prey. And then she was caught.
Zeus was everywhere and nowhere at once. She could not outrun this bright cloud enveloping her. She flinched as her cat’s eyes could not tolerate the glare, changed back to a snake as the cloud seemed to thicken and close in. She tried to slither away beneath it, but there was no beneath. The cloud emanated from everywhere, from the ground as much as from the air. She tried to speed away from it, but whichever direction she turned, it became more impenetrable. The brightness was intolerable: even through the brille that covered them, her eyes ached. She made one last attempt to free herself, changing forms again in rapid succession: eagle, but she couldn’t fly above it; boar, but she couldn’t gore her way through it; locust, but she couldn’t consume it; panther again, but she couldn’t outrun it. The cloud began to solidify and she felt herself squeezed. Her muscles began to throb from the pressure and she had no choice but to make herself smaller and smaller still: weasel, mouse, cicada. But still the pressure increased. She tried one last time: ant. And then she heard his hated voice, telling her she could not escape him. She already knew what she had to do to make the pain stop. Submit to another pain. Beaten at last, she gave in and reverted to her original form.