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I blink again, and realize something else. There, across the river, it is spring. The banks are thick with hyacinths and violets; trees creep into blossom with pink-and-white blushes; anemones sprout at their feet. I can almost see the warmth in the air, the pale golden glow of it.
A great river divides its peak,the oracle said.You will find him on the other side.
Am I supposed to make my way through this great acropolis of the gods? They will hardly welcome me there, and a tremendous glass wall flanks the base of it.
I remind myself to think one step at a time. I have made it this far—the fog I have been traveling through was surely the fog I saw before at the mountain’s peak. Ajax must be a magicalcreature indeed, if we were able to scale so far in such a time. I imagine the horse beside me still, huffing gently and stamping the ground. I suppose he knows this place. Perhaps Eros has taken him here many times.
I look back at the dark river, where on this side the snow is still banked high, right up to the water’s edge, and the river itself is a corridor of broken ice, huge tables of it bobbing on the black, frigid depths. The bridge looks to be of a scanty sort, just rope and planks, swaying slightly in the breeze. I must hope that the ropes are tight and not too threadbare, and that the whole construction is enough to hold me.
I step up to the river’s edge and look down. Where it’s not covered by great sheets of drifting ice, the water is black. No sign of life—no waterfowl, no fish, not even moss. I suppose it’s too cold for anything to live in it. In the gaps between the ice, the surface is as steady and calm as a black mirror.
An ice-wind blows off the river and another shiver wracks me, but I take a couple of long breaths, forcing my limbs to be steady. I imagine the feeling of heat; of a strong fire crackling in the hearth of my father’s house, and turn again to the bridge. The river’s not so very wide, really. The bridge is perhaps thirty paces, maybe less.
I take another step and set one foot on the bridge. The movement sets the rope swaying. I’ll need to keep both hands tight on the ropes if I’m not to fall into these icy waters. I take a deep breath, and then step on with my other foot. The bridge sways gently, almost rhythmically, and I take another step, and then another. It feels stable enough after all, moving predictably with each small shift of weight. Soon I’m five paces in, and then eight, and then twelve. A harsh, icy wind blows my hair into my eyes and I blink, shaking it free. No matter: I’m halfway to the other side.
And then I take another step, and the water explodes around me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It happens so fast, all I understand at first is the roar of breaking ice and thrashing water. And the shadow—the great shadow that suddenly towers over me. Something has reared up out of the water, weaving side to side, scaled and silver, and I’m trapped as the water sluices wildly over the bridge. While the bridge rocks like this I can’t run, only clutch fast to the ropes while my heart explodes in my chest.
A great water-serpent, white-bellied, silver-scaled, towers over me, its three heads weaving together in a horrible, mesmeric dance. What a fool I was, to think I was about to reach my journey’s end! To think that the banks of anemones and sunshine were actually within reach!
The beast’s scaly lengths twist and turn like some monstrous vine. Its three heads are searching as it weaves about—searching for me, I know, and yet not seeing me. And I think I know why. There is something blind in the way these heads move. Although there is one great eye in each grotesque head, they are large and pale and empty. This creature is used to the murky depths, I conjecture: not the bright daylight where sun bounces off dazzling snow. No doubt its vision at night or even at dusk would far exceed mine, and I’d be ripped to shreds already. But here, at high noon, I have at least this one advantage. I keep my body down, ducked close to the slats of the bridge as it sways beneath me.
My body is weak. I have not eaten, nor hardly slept; my arrows are all but gone. As for my dagger, its blade is only the size of my hand: even if I were to somehow sink it into the hideof this creature, the beast is enormous. Adamantine or no, the dagger would barely dig into the outer layer of blubber.
I force myself to think clearly. I watch the monster’s blind, weaving dance as it hunts. If it doesn’t rely on sight, then it must rely on smell or sound, or both. Right now in the frigid air, with the wind died down, I doubt it can find me by smell.
Which means it will seek me out through sound. One more footstep, and it will know where I am.
I cannot risk a mad dash across the rest of the bridge. The rope swings too wide for me to move fast enough, especially here at the center, where its arc is widest.
I’ll have to slow it down before I can make my escape.
I feel in the quiver for the poisoned arrows. There are three left. Hopefully it is enough. Will they kill the beast, or merely injure it? Is a monster like this even mortal? But the poison stopped the harpies, I reason: even if it could not kill them, it must be powerful enough to have a strong effect.
First things first. I slip my right foot out of its sandal, as carefully as I can so as not to lose purchase against the bridge’s wet planks. Then I lunge, and fling the sandal over the side of the bridge. It hits the water with a smash and the creature rears, listening intently.I was right.Faster than I knew such a gigantic beast could move, it dives.
But it must know it has been tricked. The three heads search underwater only a few moments before they resurface, searching, sniffing. And now my arrow is notched and ready.
Wait for the moment.I think of my father, standing beside me in the woods as he trained Dimitra and me. I always released too early, he said.
Wait for the moment.
Each eye is large and clouded, almost white. In that moment of stillness, I release the bowstring, and the arrow flies true, landing straight into the eye of the creature’s third head.
It lets out a howl of pain, and thrashes as though it can shake the arrow free. Within moments, it seems, the head hangs limp. But the other two heads hiss and rage, still: if anything, they hiss and rage worse than before. I had hoped one arrow would be enough for the beast, but now I see its three heads must live three separate lives. If I am to take out all of them, it must be one by one. Two more arrows, two more heads: I cannot afford to miss.
One head rears and then another. I glimpse a forked tongue, fangs. The fear inside me is so bright it doesn’t feel like fear, but courage.
I notch another arrow, breathe deeply once more.
Now, Psyche.
I let fly, this time toward the left head. I can feel the arrow’s trajectory even as it spins through the air, and the monster howls in rage as the arrow lands, exactly where I wanted it to. It lets out an unearthly wail, and my blood chills. I suppose this creature is only as violent as the gods that created it—does it deserve this fate? Perhaps not, but there is nothing to be done. I must cross this bridge, Iwillcross this bridge. And for that, it seems, the serpent must die.
It’s bent over the water now, as though trying to find its own reflection in the black depths, seeking to understand what has happened to it. I notch the last arrow to the bow and breathe deep. From the recesses of memory, my father’s voice comes to me:
