Perseus shaded his eyes from the flashing light of the rising sun that was reflecting from the polished bronze.
‘Is the idea to dazzle Medusa with its glare?’
‘You must work out for yourself how best to use it, but believe me, without this shield you will surely fail.’
‘And die,’ said Hermes. ‘Which would be a pity.’
Perseus could hardly contain his excitement. The wings at his heels fluttered and he found himself rising up. He made some swishes with the harpe.
‘This is all just amazing. So what do I do next?’
‘There are limits to how much we can help. If you’re to be a hero you must make your own moves and take your own –’
‘I’m a hero?’
‘You can be.’
Hermes and Athena were so fine. They shone. Everything they did was performed without any seeming effort. They made Perseus feel hot and clumsy.
As if reading his mind, Athena said, ‘You will get used to Aegis, to the scythe, the sandals, the hood and the satchel. They are outwards things. If your mind and spirit are directed to your task, everything else will follow. Relax.’
‘But focus,’ said Hermes. ‘Relaxation without focus leads to failure.’
‘Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,’ said Athena.
‘So concentrate …’ said Perseus.
‘Exactly.’
‘… but calmly?’
‘Concentrate calmly. You have it.’
Perseus stood for a while inhaling and exhaling in a manner that he hoped was relaxed, yet focussed, concentrated, yet calm.
Hermes nodded. ‘I think this young man has an excellent chance of success.’
‘But the one thing these – wonderful – gifts can’t help me with is finding the Gorgons. I have asked all over but no one seems to agree where they live. On an island somewhere, far out to sea, that’s all I have been told. Which island? Which sea?’
‘We cannot tell you that,’ said Hermes, ‘but have you heard of the PHORCIDES?’
‘Never.’
‘They are sometimes called the GRAEAE, or Grey Ones,’ said Athena. ‘Like their sisters, the Gorgons Stheno and Euryale, they are daughters of Phorcys and Ceto.’
‘They’re old,’ said Hermes. ‘So old they have only one eye and one tooth between them.’
‘Seek them out,’ said Athena. ‘They know everything but tell nothing.’
‘If they don’t say anything,’ said Perseus, ‘what use are they? Do I threaten them with the sickle?’
‘Oh no, you’ll have to think of something subtler than that.’
‘Something much craftier,’ said Hermes.
‘But what?’
‘I’m sure it’ll come to you. They can be found in a cave on the wild shores of Kisthene, that much is common knowledge.’
‘We wish you good fortune, brother Perseus,’ said Athena.
‘Relaxed but focussed, that’s the key,’ said Hermes.
‘Goodbye …’
‘Good luck …’
‘Wait, wait!’ cried Perseus, but the figures and forms of the gods had already begun to fade into the bright morning light and soon they had vanished entirely. Perseus stood alone in the grove of sacred oaks.
‘This sickle is real at least,’ said Perseus, looking at the cut on his thumb. ‘This satchel is real, these sandals are real. Aegis is real …’
‘Are you trying to blind me?’
Perseus swung round.
‘Just watch how you flash that shield about,’ came an irritated voice.
It seemed to be coming from the very heart of the oak tree closest to him.
‘So you trees can talk after all,’ said Perseus.
‘Of course we can talk.’
‘We usually choose not to.’
‘There’s so little worth saying.’
Voices came now from all parts of the wood.
‘I understand,’ said Perseus. ‘But perhaps you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the direction of Kisthene?’
‘Kisthene? That’s Aeolia.’
‘More Phrygia, really,’ another voice put in.
‘I’d call it Lydia.’
‘Well, it’s certainly east.’
‘North of Ionia but south of the Propontis.’
‘Ignore them, young man,’ boomed an older oak, rustling his leaves. ‘They don’t know what they’re talking about. Fly over the isle of Lesbos and then up along the coast of Mysia. You can’t miss the cave of the Grey Sisters. It’s under a rock shaped like a weasel.’
‘Like a stoat, you mean,’ squeaked a young sapling.
‘An otter, surely?’
‘I’d’ve said a pine marten.’
‘The rock resembles a polecat and nothing else.’
‘I said weasel and I meant weasel,’ said the old one, quivering all over so that his leaves shook.
‘Thanks,’ said Perseus. ‘I really must be going.’
Throwing his satchel over his shoulder, attaching the scythe to his belt and settling the shield firmly in his grip, Perseus frowned in on himself to awaken the sandals and with a great shout of triumph shot up into the blue of the sky.
‘Good luck,’ cried the oaks.
‘Look out for a rock in the shape of a marmoset …’
THE GRAEAE
By the time Perseus landed neatly, toes down, on the Mysian shore, outside a cave whose outer formation resembled, to his eyes at least, a squashed rat, the day was all but spent. Looking westwards he could see that HELIOS’s sun-chariot was turning from copper to red as it neared the land of the HESPERIDES and the end of its daily round.
As Perseus approached the mouth of the cave he slipped on the cap that Hermes had given him, the Hood of Hades. The moment it was on his head, the long shadow that had been striding along the sand beside him disappeared. Everything was darker and a little misty with the hood over his eyes, but he could see well enough.
‘I won’t be needing these,’ he said to himself, leaving the scythe, satchel and shield on the sand outside the cave.
He followed the murmur of voices and a glimmer of light through a long, winding passageway. The light grew brighter and the voices louder.
‘It’s my turn to have the tooth!’
‘I’ve only just put it in.’
‘Then PEMPHREDO should let me have the eye at least.’
‘Oh, stop moaning, ENYO …’
As Perseus entered the chamber he saw, held in the flickering light of a lamp that hung over them, three fantastically old women. Their ragged clothes, straggling hair and sagging flesh were as grey as the stones of the cave. In the bare lower gum of one of the sisters jutted up a single yellow tooth. In the eye socket of another sister a solitary eyeball darted back and forth and up and down in the most alarming manner. It was just as Hermes had said, one eye and one tooth between them.
A pile of bones lay heaped on the floor. The sister with the tooth was gnawing the side of one, stripping it of its rotten flesh. The sister with the eye had picked up another bone and was inspecting it closely and lovingly. The third sister, with no eye and no tooth, raised her head with a jerk and sniffed the air sharply.