We stared at its eerie, alien face, its flat slashing mouth. We watched its white-gilled stomach pass over us. Aeëtes’ eyes had been wide and bright. “Think of the weapon it would make.”
I was about to break my exile, I knew it. It was why I had waited for night and the drifting clouds across my aunt’s eyes. If I succeeded, I would return by morning, before my absence was noticed. And if I did not, well. I would likely be past punishments.
I stepped into the waves. They rose over my legs, my belly. They rose over my face. I did not have to weight myself with rocks as a mortal would have, fighting against my own buoyancy. I walked steadily down the ocean’s shelves. Above me the tides kept up their relentless motion, but I was too deep to feel them. My eyes lit the way. The sand stirred around me, and a flounder darted from my feet. No other creatures came near. They could smell my naiad blood, or perhaps the lingering poisons on my hands from so many years of witcheries. I wondered if I should have tried to speak to the sea-nymphs, seek their aid. But I did not think they would like what I had come to do.
Deeper I went, falling into the fathoms of blackness. That water was not my element and it knew it. The chill dug at my bones, the salt scoured my face. The ocean’s weight piled like mountains on my shoulders. But endurance had always been my virtue and I kept on. In the distance, I glimpsed the floating hulks of whales and giant squids. I gripped my knife, its edge sharp as the bronze could hold, but they too stayed away.
At last, I landed upon the sea’s lowest floor. The sand was so cold it burned my feet. All was silent there, the water utterly still. The only light came from drifting strands of luminescence. He was wise, this god. To make his visitors travel to such a hostile place, where nothing lived but him.
I cried out: “Great lord of the deep, I am come from the world to challenge you.”
I heard no sound. Around me stretched the blind expanse of salt. Then the darkness parted, and he came. Huge he was, white and gray, burned onto the depths like an afterimage of the sun. His silent wings rippled, rills of current flowing off their tips. His eyes were thin and slitted like a cat’s, his mouth a bloodless slash. I stared. When I had stepped into the water, I had told myself that this would be only another Minotaur to wrestle, another Olympian I might outwit. But now, with his ghastly immensity before me, I quailed. This creature was older than all the lands of the world, old as the first drop of salt. Even my father would be like a child before him. You could no more stand against such a thing than stem the sea. Cold terror sluiced through me. My whole life I had feared a great horror was coming for me. I did not have to wait anymore. It was here.
For what purpose do you challenge me?
All the great gods have the power to speak in thoughts, but hearing that creature in my mind turned my belly to water.
“I come to win your poison tail.”
And why would you desire such strength?
“Athena, daughter of Zeus, seeks my son’s life. My power cannot protect him, but yours can.”
His unblinking eyes rested on mine. I know who you are, daughter of the sun. All that the sea touches comes to me at last in the depths. I have tasted you. I have tasted all your family. Your brother came once also seeking my power. He went away empty-handed, like all the rest. I am not such a one as you may fight.
The despair rolled through me, for I knew he spoke truth. All the monsters of the depths were covered in scars from battles with their brother leviathans. Not him. He was smooth all over, for none dared to cross his ancient power. Even Aeëtes had recognized his limit.
“Still,” I said, “I must try. For my son.”
It is impossible.
The words were flat as the rest of him. Moment by moment, I could feel my will leaching from me, bled away by the relentless chill of those waves and his unblinking gaze. I forced myself to speak.
“I cannot accept that,” I said. “My son must live.”
There is no must to the life of a mortal, except death.
“If I cannot challenge you, perhaps I can give you something in exchange. Some gift. Perform a task.”
The slit of his mouth opened in silent laughter. What could you have that I want?
Nothing, I knew it. He regarded me with his pale cat eyes.
My law is as it has ever been. If you would take my tail you must first submit to its poison. That is the price. Eternal pain in exchange for a few more mortal years for your son. Is it worth the cost?
I thought of childbirth, which had nearly ended me. I thought of it going on and on with no cure, no salve, no relief.
“You offered the same to my brother?”
The offer stands for all. He refused. They always do.
It gave me a sort of strength to know it. “What other conditions?”
When you have no more need of its power, cast it into the waves, so it may return to me.
“That is all? You swear it?”
You would seek to bind me, child?
“I would know you will honor your bargain.”
I will honor it.
The currents moved around us. If I did this thing, Telegonus would live. That was all that mattered. “I am ready,” I said. “Strike.”
No. You must put your hand to the venom yourself.
The water sucked at me. The darkness shriveled my courage. The sand was not smooth but jumbled with pieces of bone. All that died in the sea came to rest there at last. My skin rose, prickling and prickling, as if it would tear away and leave me. There was no mercy among the gods, I had known it all my life. I made myself walk forward. Something caught at my foot. A rib cage. I pulled free. If I stopped, I would never move again.
I came to the seam where his tail joined gray skin. The flesh above looked unwholesomely soft, like something rotted. The spine rasped faintly against the ocean floor. Up close I could see its sawtooth edge, and I smelled its power, thick and gagging-sweet. Would I be able to climb out of the deep again, once the venom was in me? Or would I only lie there, clutching the tail, while my son died in the world above?
Do not draw it out, I told myself. But I could not move another inch. My body, with its simple good sense, balked at self-destruction. My legs tensed to flee, to scramble back to the safety of the dry world. Just as Aeëtes had before me, and all the others who had come for Trygon’s power.
Around me was murk and dark currents. I set Telegonus’ bright face before me. I reached.
My hand passed through empty water, touching nothing. The creature was floating in front of me again, its flat gaze on mine.
It is finished.
My mind was black as that water. It was as if time had skipped. “I do not understand.”
You would have touched the poison. That is enough.
I felt as though I were mad. “How can this be?”
I am old as the world, and make the conditions that please me. You are the first to meet them.
He rose from the sand. The beat of his wing brushed my hair, and when he stopped, the seam where his tail met his body was before me again.
Cut. Begin in the flesh above, else the venom will leak.
His voice was calm, as if he told me to slice a fruit. I felt dizzied, still reeling. I looked at that skin, unmarked and delicate as the inside of a wrist. I could no more imagine cutting it than an infant’s throat.
“You cannot allow this,” I said. “It must be a trick. I could blight the world with such power. I could threaten Zeus.”