As if at that bell, the fighting ceased. Danaus dropped dead. Stunned at my own salvation, I turned its instrument in my hand: of newer manufacture than the Erytus model, its reliefs depicted the earlier donnybrook in that same hall. Further, as though Calyxa herself had drawn the day, while distraught Andromeda lovingly cupped her late lad's head, I remarked that the wound she wept on, intaglio'd in his temple, was the image of his bowled foredropper. Now she stood, my wife, wild-eyed, to keen general grief: besides Cassiopeia and Danaus, all the Seripheans and sundry palace guards were slain- including Galanthis, whom Cepheus had had the satisfaction to dispatch and posthumously geld. Fresh flesh lay everywhere among the petrified. Slightly wounded, Cepheus wept by Cassiopeia's corpse; a guard tapped my shoulder and deferentially put himself and his surviving comrades at my orders: was it my pleasure that Cepheus and Andromeda be killed at once, or reserved for torture?
Before I could reply that they were on pain of flaying to obey henceforth no other than their ancient king, Cepheus entreated me to spare his daughter's life, but denied that any Ethiopian could take his, which was already flown to Hades with his black queen's shade. Fetching up Athene's dirk (scuffled himward as his cup had me-), he hilted it to heart, spat blood, rolled eyes, and died as he had lived, at Cassiopeia's feet. Andromeda wailed from her perished paramour dead-dadward, even washed with tears her hard mother's hair, root and follicle of our misfortunes. Then she rose above all, still regally herself, faced me from the fear-chased figure of chicken Phineus, and invited me to kill her as I had everything she prized.
"Sorry about your folks," I said. "Danaus too." But she'd none of my apology: as I well knew, she declared, she hadn't loved my young half-brother, only consoled herself with him; it was I she'd loved — Perseus the man, not gold-skin hero or demigod — and wedded we, till I had by lack of heart-deep reciprocity murdered marriage and love alike. "You never did love me," she charged, "except as Mythics might mere mortals."
"She talks like you."
Two more pages? My soul winced from her words; the fact remained, however — my fact, felt first to the auricles in the heart of Calyxa's shrine — I was, ineluctably and for worse as much as better, one of the Zeusidae, a bloody mythic hero.
"You're free, Andromeda," I told her.
No thanks. "I've always been!" she cried. "Despite you! Even on the cliff I was free!" I couldn't follow her, let it go. Spear her or spare her, she declared, she wanted no more of me; would remain in Joppa if alive, fetch from Argos our younger children —
Unpleasant middle Perseus, who had dwelt stonily between the young Destroyer and the New-Medusa'd man, interrupted her to sneer, "And find another Phineus?" — his last words, as I put him to death promptly and forever on hearing me speak them. Therefore I didn't bother with apology when thereby Andromeda was inspired to perfect wrath. In the first place, she raged, her uncle had been a kind and tactful fellow, no doubt no hero, but a better man in other ways than myself; in the second, be me reminded I wasn't the only g-s'd hero in the book: she could if she chose most surely find another, even goldener; but (in the third place — and how her mother's regal eyes flashed in her face!) the last thing she cared to do was to subject herself to another man, heroic or humble: no Cassiopeia she, all she wanted, in what years were left her, was to build as best she could a life of her own. What I craved, on the other hand, she dared say, was a votary, a mere adorer, not a fellow human; let me find one, then: the sea was shoaled with young girls on the make for established older men.
"Like your girlfriend with the hood," she ended bitterly, pointing at the door behind me. "Do what you please; I've stopped caring; just leave me alone."
Till that last imperative she was in possession of herself; alone undid her: she threw her arms around Phineus's neck and salted his shoulder with fresh tears. My own flowed too, no want of eyewash in this episode. I un-Cepheus'd my dagger, considered which of us to kill. Motionless as her renditions on the walls of Chemmis, but in my tear-flood swimming as at my submarine first sight of her, gentle Medusa stood just beyond the threshold. Half the four chambers of my heart surged: one ventricle, perhaps, would stay forever vacant, like a dead child's chair, in memory of my mortal marriage and late young-manhood; one auricle, as yet unpledged, shilly-shallied on the verge of choice. If only she'd beckon, summon, relieve me of doubt, reach forth her hand! But of course she wouldn't, ever. For a pulseless moment I stood halfhearted in this transfixion, as if she were the simply baleful Old and not the paradoxic precious New Revised Medusa. Then (with this last, parenthetical, over-the-shoulder glance at Andromeda and my fond dream of rejuvenation: difficult dead once-darling, fare you well! Farewell! Farewell!) I chucked wise dagger, strode over sill, embraced eyes-shut the compound predications of commitment — hard choice! soft flesh! — slipped back mid-kiss her problematic cowl, opened eyes.
"Now may we talk?"
My heart: all night.
"The night's half done."
So was my life. I.e.:
"Okay. We've half a night ahead." And ditto the next and next and next, till even our stars burn out. Half of each I'll unwind my tale to where it's ours, and half of every we'll talk. There's much to say.
"But much goes without saying."
And half of forever is forever. How long do you suppose we've been up here, love? Three nights? Three thousand years? Why do you imagine —
"You're asking all the questions. Shan't we take turns? I've seven.''
I too. One:
"Least first. I love our story and the way it's told, but I wonder about one or two things. The alliteration, for example?"
No help for that; I'm high on letters. Look at II-F-2, my Saharan scribble, or the Perseid epistles posted between II-A and — B. .
"Basta. One?"
We're not alone. Who else is here?
"Everyone who matters. No help for that, either. My eyes, you see. . Athene's conditions. . everyone I looked at in that last sentence turned to stars — except stone Phineus, who returned to flesh and blood. Don't ask me why."
I think I know, and thank you.
"Cepheus is overhead; he comes up first, talking to himself. Cassiopeia's with him; I put her a bit lower down. ."
Good show. You needn't really have included my ex-in-laws, but I did like old Cepheus. I wonder whether he's repeating his monologue.
"Perhaps we all are. I thought you'd want the whole cast out. Even Cassiopeia has her bright spots, if you look for them. Pegasus is flying off upper-leftward — "
It's good you have custody.
"Perseus. ."
I wonder what ours would have looked like. Not a question.
"I know. So. Andromeda's at his flank, just over my head, looking either at her father or at her mother's hair."
Above us. .
"In chains again, too, but don't mistake my motives. She's on top only in the night's first half, and her chains are jewels — temples, nipples, loins, and shanks, if you want to know, where she did wear jewels when you first met her."
Ah.
"Don't be cross: those bonds she hated are what define her, from your story's point of view. I mean her immortal part, which can't be offended, whatever her mortal part might feel."
I'm not nettled; I thank you for the shining image, Medusa. What's her mortal part doing these days?
"You're out of turn. Cetus, finally, is below your left foot. Even she has a story, if one cared to tell it: it's a monstrous fate to be born beastly."
Now who's hung up on letters? Not a question.
"It's you I'm hung on. Shall I say how bright your stars are? N.Q."