The Gorgons Gaze # 2 (Companions Quartet) (12 page)

He gazed up at the stars that formed the Pegasus, wondering
where Skylark was now. He longed to be flying with him in the skies above; if he spent too long apart from the pegasus, he started to feel weak, as if a key part of him was missing. Skylark was probably chasing the wind in some remote part of the moor. They’d be seeing each other soon. Col turned over and drifted off to sleep.

“Colin?”

He was woken some hours later by a firm shake of his shoulder. He sat up abruptly to come face to face with his mother. Her fair hair glimmered frostily in the moonlight; her eyes were in shadow.

“What’s the matter?” Col yawned.

“Nothing. It’s time to come with me.” She looked across at Rat. “But do not bring your friend—this is for you alone.”

Col rubbed his knuckles into his eyes to drive his drowsiness away. It appeared that now would be a very good time to have his wits about him. Shuffling out of his sleeping bag, like a moth emerging from a chrysalis, Col scooped up his things and shoved them into his backpack. As he did so, his hand touched a cool, smooth object; he seized it and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. His mother watched his preparations in silence. She moved off the instant he was ready. They were heading deeper into the wood. Col gripped the mirror, finding its cold hardness against his skin a comfort.

“Where are we going?” Col asked. He instinctively kept his voice low.

“To meet her, of course. She wants to see my hatchling.”

“Your
what
?”

“You.”

Col swallowed. There could only be one “her” as far as his mother was concerned: the gorgon.

Forcing himself to follow, he stumbled after her into the trees. The wood was full of shadows of half-seen creatures flitting through the patches of moonlight. A light flutter caught his ear, and he saw what he thought was a bat whisk past. His mother was leading him into a part of the wood he had never seen before—the deepest, densest thicket of oak trees and holly bushes. Brambles grabbed at his clothes and scratched his fingers as he shook himself free, almost as if they were reluctant to let him through.

“Is it far now?” he asked.

Cassandra had not been hindered by the thorns. She seemed to glide past all obstructions.

“No, not far. It is a special place, Colin. I’m trusting you with my biggest secret by bringing you here.”

Col felt a flush of pride. “Does it have a name, this place we’re going to?”

“Snake Hollow. It’s where the gorgon always returns—the nest where she hatches her hair-serpents. She must come here every year.”

“And if she can’t?”

“Her serpents will not be reborn and she will die.”

They reached a bank that plunged steeply down from a rocky lip. Cassandra stood at the very edge and pointed.

“The nesting cave’s not far from here—that’s where she’s waiting for you.”

“For me? Why—aren’t you coming with me?” Col’s voice shook. He did not want to be left alone now with the gorgon so close.

Then Cassandra did something she had not done for many years. She put her arm around her son’s shoulders and drew him into an embrace. Col felt a rush of fierce love for her. He had been so starved of any sign of her affection that this small gesture was like an earthquake inside him.

“No, she wants to meet you alone—without another human present. She wants to explain. Please listen to what she has to say. I want you on our side when it all happens.”

“When what happens? Mom, what are you talking about?”

Cassandra ignored his questions. “I’ll drop you down onto the ledge, and I’ll wait here until you return. Don’t forget—use your mirror and you have nothing to fear.” She hesitated again and cleared her throat. “And, Colin—don’t anger them.”

“Them?”

She shook her caped head, refusing explanation. “Give
me your hands. I’ll lower you as far as I can, then you drop the last few feet onto the ledge. Do you understand?”

Col swallowed, wondering if he could turn back even now. But how could he refuse to go ahead? His relationship with his mother was so fragile—he would shatter any belief she had in him if he did that. She was so fanatical about her companion that she never saw the danger for anyone else in her drive to do her best by the gorgon. Like now: she seemed to think nothing of dropping her only child over a cliff. Before he could decide what to do, his mother had seized both his forearms and was guiding him to the edge.

He had to do it. Falling was better than failing.

Col surrendered himself to the inevitable. They both knelt—Col with his back to the edge, his feet already hanging in the air.

“Off you go,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure you’ll make it.”

As Col inched his way backward on his stomach, his mother stretched out at full length, taking his weight. He soon found out why there was no climbing down—the edge was in fact the lip of an overhang; only an insect could crawl down this incline. He was dangling over the void, his wrists complaining in his mother’s grip.

“I’m going to release you on the count of three. Be careful!”

“A bit late for that, isn’t it?” he muttered.

“Lean forward—not back,” he urged himself, desperate
not to lose his balance on the shelf. One mistake and he’d end up at the foot of the slope.

“One, two, three!” Her grip opened and Col dropped onto the ledge. He threw himself forward to hug the rock face, bruising his temple as he collided with stone. He was down! Cassandra’s head appeared above him.

“I told you you’d be all right. Now follow the ledge around to your left. It’ll lead you down to the cave. I’ll be waiting here to help you back up.”

And she was gone. No word of praise for getting down safely. Nothing. Col shuffled along the narrow sill, fear running through him like an electric charge. Stepping on a crumbling piece of the ledge, his left foot gave way. Stones clattered down the sheer drop as he scrabbled to keep a hold. Nails scraped on bare rock. Gripping on to a tree root, he just managed to save himself. He pulled himself back up and collapsed, panting, against the cliff.

Clinging like a fly to a wall, Col saw the full absurdity of his situation. A mad laugh bubbled up uncontrollably inside him. He was risking falling to his death to meet one of the most deadly creatures alive. He must be mad.

There was nothing for him now but to go on. He shuffled along until he turned the corner. The path descended in steps into the black heart of the forest. The sky began to spit with rain, making the muddy rock slippery underfoot. To his relief he found that he had tree branches to hold and made faster progress. In the murk ahead he thought he
could see a dark hole—the mouth of the cave perhaps?

It was time to “be careful.”

He groped inside his jacket for the mirror, pulled it out, and held it in front of him so he could look closely at the cave entrance. As far as he could tell in the weak moonlight, it seemed empty. An orange light flickered within. She had a fire then.

“Hello! I’m here.” His voice echoed off the hillside in a mocking imitation of his own words: “Lo! Ear!” There was no other reply. Col continued to edge forward only stopping when he was within an arm’s length of the entrance. What should he do now? Risk entering or wait until he was invited in?

He tried again: “It’s me—it’s Col.”

Above the gentle patter of the rain on the leaves around him, Col heard a rustling and hissing noise like the dry scrape of a twig broom on a pathway. It stopped, only to be followed by a soft voice speaking in a sibilant hiss:

“
Ss
-step inside.
Ss
-stand with your back to me. Hold out the mirror
ss
-so you can
ss
-see me.”

Not at all sure he wanted to see the speaker, Col sidestepped into the entrance of the cave and spun himself around so that he was facing outwards. He lifted the mirror with a shaking hand, struggling for a moment to find the angle that would show him the creature. She flashed into sight briefly—a blur of bronze—then came back in sharp focus at the center of the mirror when he
steadied his hand. A pair of hard, jet-black eyes stared back at him. They were set in a heart-shaped face with skin that glowed tawny gold in the firelight. Long folds of hair fell back over the creature’s shoulders, looking strangely solid as if each lock was carved from sandstone. At first glance the gorgon seemed draped in swathes of silky material, but Col then saw she was wrapped in her own golden wings. He was astonished. He had imagined something monstrous and fearsome, not this beauty.

“You had something you wanted to tell me?” he asked, his voice cracked with fear.

She nodded, displacing one of her tresses as she did so. The lock slid over her slim shoulder, blinked a pair of small black eyes coolly at him, and slithered back to join its siblings. Col gave a start that he tried to disguise as a cough.

“Well, I’m listening,” he said, uncomfortably aware of how exposed his back would be if any of these benign snake-locks changed their “mind” and choose to strike. Rain was now dripping down his forehead and into his eyes, spotting the surface of the mirror and distorting the gorgon’s face, making her look as if she was melting with tears. He wiped the glass quickly with the sleeve of his jacket, losing the reflection of her face as he did so.

“Come into the cave,” the gorgon said softly, rustling a little closer. “
Ss
-sit here while we talk.”

Col could not see where she was pointing and did not much like her invitation, but he remembered what his mother had said about not angering “them”—perhaps she had meant the snakes? He shuffled backward until his heels struck an obstacle. Reaching out behind him, he touched the flat top of a boulder. He sat down and, a moment later, felt something gently brush his collar. Instinctively, he jumped away, thinking it was one of the snakes paying him a visit, but he was wrong. The gorgon’s hand, cool and dry to the skin, now caressed his cheek; he could just see the tips of her almond-shaped fingernails at the edge of his vision.

“Yes-
ss
, Ca
ss
-ssandra
ss
-said you were a
ss
-strong boy—I can
ss
-see it in your face-
ss
and in your shoulders-
ss
. You will be a fine man
ss
-soon.”

Col shifted uneasily under the creature’s touch, both embarrassed and pleased by her words. He was flattered to see himself through her eyes for a brief moment. Squaring his shoulders, he resolved not to flinch again from her hand.

“Mom—Cassandra—said something’s going to happen. Is that what you want to talk to me about?” He flashed the mirror around the ceiling, the rock wall, until, there, he found her again.

“Ha!” The gorgon gave a shout of laughter, making him start. To Col’s dismay, the laugh opened her mouth wide, wider than any human mouth, revealing great teeth, like
the tusks of a boar, curling up from her lower jaw to meet dagger-like fangs descending from above in a fearsome bite. “
Ss
-something might be happening—but we need
ss
-someone to make it work.” Her tongue flickered black in the red maw of her throat.

Col, mesmerized by the contrast between her smooth beauty when her face was at rest and the monstrous teeth revealed when she spoke, only half took in her words. It was like watching a sleeping python as the feeble line of its closed mouth suddenly roused to face danger, hissing, jaws open, fangs dripping venom.

“W-who do you need to help you? Me?” he stammered.

She smiled enigmatically. “Why not you, my bold one? We creatures-
ss
need to fight to pre
sss
erve our exi
ss
-stence before humans-
ss
stamp us-
ss
out. Look what is happening to me—to my la-
ss
t refuge. But even that is to be torn away from me. And why?” She gave another of her bitter laughs, shaking her head back and this time stirring all her snake companions as they sensed her rising anger. “Ca
ss
- ssandra told me the wood is doomed because it creates-
ss
a bend in a human-road, making it slower for those machines of yours-
ss
.”

The snake-locks wove in and out of one another in an angry dance, creating a writhing halo around her head, all eyes glaring at Col in his mirror.

“Is this-
ss
all the excuse humans need to make others homeless-
ss
—to drive some of us into extinction? Will you
let this happen? Or will you help save us-
ss
?
Ss
-ave me?” Her voice dropped to a soft plea, the snakes no longer lashed the air angrily but swayed sinuously on her shoulders, all eyes still fixed on him. Their gaze was like a cold breeze chilling his back; under this scrutiny, he had no difficulty understanding the power of her deadly eyes.

“Of course I don’t want this to happen. What can I do?”

“Fight with us-
ss
. Do not wait until the machine crushes us-
ss
, but act now.”

If Col had been thinking straight he would have been suspicious of her arguments, but he was under the spell of the image the gorgon was reflecting back to him. Her words painted an alluring picture of a young warrior ready for combat.