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.”
The world you speak of is nothing to me. You have won, now take the prize. Cut.
His voice was neither harsh nor gentle, yet I felt it like a lash. The water pressed upon me, vast depths stretching out into their endless night. His soft flesh waited before me, smooth and gray. And still I did not move.
You were ready to fight me to have it. Not if I am willing?
My stomach churned against itself. “Please. Do not make me do this.”
Make you? Child, you have come to me.
I could not feel the knife handle in my hand. I could not feel anything. My son seemed distant as the sky. I lifted the blade, touched its tip to the creature’s skin. It tore as flowers tear, ragged and easy. The golden ichor welled up, drifting over my hands. I remember what I thought: surely, I am condemned for this. I can craft all the spells I want, all the magic spears. Yet I will spend the rest of my days watching this creature bleed.
The last shred of skin parted. The tail came free in my hand. It was nearly weightless, and up close there was a quality to it almost like iridescence. “Thank you,” I said, but my voice was air.
I felt the currents move. The grains of sand whispered against each other. His wings were lifting. The darkness around us shimmered with clouds of his gilded blood. Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.
Then, child, make another.
He glided off into the dark, trailing a ribbon of gold behind him.
It was a long way back up with that death in my hand. I saw no creature, not even in the distance. They had disliked me before; now they fled. When I emerged onto the beach it was nearly dawn and there was no time to rest. I went to the cave and found the old stick Telegonus had been using as a spear. Still trembling a little, my hands unwound the cord that bound the knife to its end. I stood a moment looking at its crooked length, wondering if I should find a new haft. But this was what he had practiced with, and I thought it safer to keep it as he was used to, crooks and all.
I held the spine gently by its base. It had filmed over with a clear fluid. I bound it to the stick’s end with twine and magic, then fitted over it a sheath of leather, enchanted with moly, to keep the poison at bay.
He was sleeping, his face smooth, his cheeks faintly flushed. I stood watching him until he woke. He started up, then squinted. “What is that?”
“Protection. Do not touch anything but the shaft. A scratch is death to men and torment to gods. Always keep it sheathed. It is only