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  Snakes On An Immortal Dame

  Polly Connor

  Published by Polly Connor, 2016.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  SNAKES ON AN IMMORTAL DAME

  First edition. December 28, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 Polly Connor.

  ISBN: 978-1386489207

  Written by Polly Connor.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Snakes On An Immortal Dame

  Sign up for Polly Connor's Mailing List

  Further Reading: The Longest Ever Very Short Phone-Call

  Also By Polly Connor

  To Julie.

  Image used in constructing this bookcover is by https://openclipart.org/user-detail/rlouisell2010, public domain.

  Snakes On An Immortal Dame

  MEDUSA WAS A GODDESS. (A monster, you might have read. But that only proves that history is grabbed and re-written by men. In their accounts they tend to say she's hideously ugly, too. But then a rejected suitor will often devalue what he was never offered in the first place.) And it was far beneath her – far, far beneath her – to meddle in the petty mortal affairs of humans. At least, if it was done at their impertinent beckoning, rather than at her own whim and magnificent desultory impulse.

  But she was weakened by millennia of dozing, only occasionally interspersed by periods of feasting, orgies and petulant toying with the odd human toy or two. Or sometimes a young god boyfriend, until they got tiresome and ran off with a serving hussy, or a young tree.

  Her defences were down, now. And somehow, they were breached.

  Breached, and the first she knew of it was when she came to awareness, blinking and disoriented, in the middle of a chanting circle. The air was cold, a long way from the balmy breezes of Paradise that she was used to. There was darkness, as if they'd descended down the Styx to challenge her pet hound Cerberus himself. There was a fire. And she was flung out on cold hard (pebbly) ground. Naked, and gasping. Outraged.

  Not that she'd never been tumbled in the bushes, even in mortal lands, now and then. Since her first rude deflowering by a wandering Poseidon, but she'd had her reckoning with him once her power had grown. Over the millennia, one acquires experiences. With the odd handsome mortal shepherd, occasionally, even. But still. That was at her own bidding, and with toys of her own choosing. This... this was being summoned. Summoned, and by mortals, too. Medusa was not accustomed to such breaches of etiquette.

  Because Medusa was very far from being a fool, or inexperienced in the petty manipulative tools that mortals resorted to, in an attempt to influence their fate, and the gods. As she pushed and staggered to her feet, she cast quick angry gazes about her, and her anger heated up. There was the stink of traditional narcotic herbs burning on the fire. Her instincts were precise, and she could tell she was in mortal lands, a few centuries on from her last visit. And yes, she was surrounded.

  She was surrounded by mortals – by chanting mortals. The stink and hum of witchcraft was all around her, and it made her furious. Where had they got the old runes and songs from? She'd thought them all stamped out long ago. The gods had scant tolerance for anything that actually worked to reduce and manage their powers, after all. Evidently they hadn't been as thorough as they ought to have been. And as a result, she was here – trapped, and bound, and enchanted. In the mortal realm. And stuck in a human body.

  A human body, and that was sufficient offence in itself. Her hand went up automatically to her hair – her hair, lousy fluffy soft human hair, where her snakes ought to have been hissing and maintaining a lethal sentry duty, against all comers.

  It enraged her more than her unasked nudity, to have her snakes, her pets and darlings taken away from her. And she lunged about, glaring at the cowled and hooded figures still chanting away with their pathetic means at a petty control of divinity – and she opened her mouth. Opened it to rail at them, to strike them down with curses and lightning bolts and the natural magic she possessed herself, a thousand times more powerful than any silly little human charm. She'd have struck them all down with a casual force that would have smeared the ground with blood and entrails, and there the end of the matter would have lain.

  Of course, they were crafty with their cowls, pulled well down to mask their eyes. Any eye contact, and she could have frozen them into marble where they stood, fixed their hash but good. But no, it was all heads down and eyes lowered, as for the pre-warned.

  But she staggered, a little. And whatever poxy hex they'd worked on her, was still enough to slow her down a mite, to hold her within their smudged chalk circle, if not for much longer. It was enough, for their purposes, though.

  The last thing that she knew, then, was a glimpse of the mortal who stood close to her, commanding the rest. He was the one with the book of charms open before him, leading them in magicks, with the air of one who might actually know what he was doing. With his poor natural sciences and alchemies, his substitutes for inborn and enduring power. He was just that much quicker than a drugged god, and he flung a hand up as she threw herself at him, intending mayhem.

  Really, for a mortal, he was quite able. Whatever words and wishes he tossed her way worked fairly well. That was the last thought she had, before she hit the ground, and knew no more. That, and a good look at his face as his cowl fell open, with him chanting, his eyes on her. His eyes were fierce – almost as fierce as her snakes, and she could respect ferocity. Even if she would be obliged to crush it, later. They were hazel, and rather pretty, too, behind the mechanical contraption these poor limited creatures called spectacles. She struggled to summon her power, to show him the limits of his schemes. But there was nothing there, when she called on it.

  Not that it mattered. And then she was out cold, and she knew nothing more.

  ___

  She woke up without remembering. And then she remembered. It helped, that she was bound with laughable bonds, that couldn't have held a domestic cat. (Felines, the gift of the gods, that they'd been magnanimous enough to bestow on mortals, however many thousand years since.)

  But it brought to mind where she was, and the vengeance that she had to make a mental note to rain down upon her captors quite shortly. At least, once she'd blazed through the enchantments that still held her more securely than any chains could, it seemed.

  “Greetings, fair Medusa. We are honoured by your presence, and seek your indulgence and your favour,” the same bastard who'd felled her, opened. He was sitting across from her, on a rickety little chair in what appeared to be a dingy human habitation. It was purely instinct to blast him with her eyes. She was a captive, after all. Medusa had some courtesy – her reputation for turning every man and beast in her path to stone was undeserved. But kidnapping, also, was discourteous.

  But her powers were still extinct. It was unnerving, and a little frightening. It made her feel like the mortal girl she had not been in eons, since that dirty old goat Poseidon had ravaged her and paid off her family to keep quiet.

  But as to this youth, and his blandishments. It was a fair and diplomatic opening, she allowed. He had some skill as a courtier, at least. “You're not going to get out of that any time soon,” he added now. “I added extra eye of toad and newt's intestine, and we brought back a few rocks from the Parthenon for extra oomph. It should hold you for a good twenty minutes, I calculate. And really, all we want to do is talk and ask you a favour. Can't you hold off slaughtering us where we stand for twenty minutes, while I explain?”

  It took her off guard. And in any case, she found that it was true. Whatever else this mortal little dev
il might be, he was a top-notch little sorcerer. She couldn't have moved to save her life, nor to end his. Or not yet, anyhow. So she sagged back against the cheap soft furnishings she was laid on – a sagging velveteen settee, a long way from the silken couches she'd normally have lounged on, to eat grapes by the bunch.

  And she looked him up and down – him, and the rest of his pesky magic-meddling little gang. He was a pretty creature, she conceded reluctantly – as mortals went. Put him in a toga and give him a few sheep to herd, and she could have been quite taken with him. The rest of his associates were less her style. (An elf, fair of hair and of face, but a little effete and spindly – a dwarf with matted locks and clad all in the blue fabric de Nimes that she remembered from a sojourn to Paris a century or three back – and a pretty plump young witch.) And she sighed, a god's sigh. A man could pay a high price, for making a god sigh.

  “Very well, then, petty little mortal creature,” she snapped at him. “Since I can do no other – and you have left me no choice – you may tell me your story. But crack along with it – since if it fails to entertain me, I shall exert a high price, and one that may involve flaying your hide from your bones!” She looked down at herself, where they'd loaded her onto a heap of cushions like so many pounds of potatoes. “And need I be nude while you do it?” Not that she was ashamed of her nakedness. Like any goddess, she was lovely and immortal and her curves were generous and a pleasure to the eye. (Except that these ample curves were unfamiliar, and not the ones she was used to. What devilry had this wizard got up to with her form and spirit?) The dwarf, indeed, seemed to be taking an inordinate interest in those curves, and she grudged him the joy of it.

  To do him justice, this pretty mortal youth flushed, and seemed conscious of the justice of her complaint immediately. He leaped to grab at a blanket and cover her with it, despite the disappointed whimper of the dwarf. And the buxom little witch rolled her eyes, smacked him about the head, and observed, “Well, we're probably settling in for the long haul, then. I'll put the kettle on.”

  This did not mean what Medusa would have expected it to mean, from her last visit amongst the creatures of the lower realms. There was no assembly of firewood, no blazing fire in the hearth, no great black iron pot bubbling with herbs and streamwater. But instead, five minutes later, she found herself allowed to sit upright upon the sofa, blanket about her. (And the condescension of permission might cost them dear, later.) With a crude china mug in her hand, steaming with a thick brown brew only distantly related to the intoxicating tea-herb brought from the far Indies and restricted to the aristocracy, when last she sampled it.

  And she heard their tale. Not that she hadn't heard far better. Over eons and eons, during many of which a tale well told was the only amusement available, at least to these mayflies who bloomed and died in the span of half a century. It would have helped if all four of them hadn't jumped in and interrupted continually, stealing their turn to add their mite. And it would have helped, too, if it hadn't been such a hackneyed story of tragedy, loss and young love – starring the young warlock who seemed to be in charge. Medusa remembered the visit before last, to old Elizabethan England, and the young playwright she'd kept disreputable roustabout company with. He'd had a good tale along those lines, as she remembered it, he and his friend Marlowe.

  Not that you'd have known the warlock's involvement, from how they told the tale. He took less and less part in the telling of it. By the time it came to the last lines, the sad little fizzle of a miserable ending, he was hunched over on a wooden stool, his head hanging down and his hands clasped between his knees. He left the tale, finally, to the onlookers, who had plenty to say.

  And despite herself, despite the amateur skills of the tale-tellers, eventually Medusa was captured and intrigued. “...and so, it's very unfair. Poor William!” the young witch exclaimed, patting the warlock's back consolingly. “Caroline was only trying to help us hold back the invasion of demons from an alternate realm, and promote peace and self-determination for humans on this plane.” She nodded importantly, and Medusa was old enough to recognise the glint in her eye. That was a girl on a crusade, all right. “How was she to know that the man she got into an argument with about it was an angel in disguise?”

  The elf sighed, leaning against the sofa back, up much too close to Medusa's godly person, and too casually. “I don't know, Mags. Well, if he'd just told her that they were too strong in numbers and too powerful, and to leave them to him, that would have been true. And tactful. But to tell Caroline that supernatural warfare was a matter of angel dominion, and not for little girls to dangerously mess about in...” He sighed again, and clicked his tongue. “

  And Medusa drew her own conclusions. The god of the Jews and the Romans after them was involved, she surmised. Not the Greeks, who had been so much more malleable and willing to bow down to an ever-breeding and rapacious pantheon. And his winged acolytes, too, one of whom these meddlers' friend had come up against. The girl was dead, and Medusa had never met her.

  But just from the tale as told by her friends, she could perfectly well deduce a thing or two, with no need for clear pools of rainwater and scrying into the recent past. An egotist, then. Who'd plunged alone, into a danger she was unequipped to meet, provoked by the suggestion that she ought to leave the job to the professionals and get the heck out of the way.

  Well, it seemed scant loss to Medusa, even if you approved of supernatural vigilantism and human attempts to reclaim power and dominion from the gods. (Whichever Gods you might be talking about. It wasn't as if she approved these parvenus of recent millennia, and automatically blackballed them from any club she belonged to.)

  But perhaps it was different, if you'd known the silly creature personally. Dwarf, elf and witch all looked a little downcast, thinking about their former colleague in mayhem and magic. And the boy – William – was closer to crushed. He was silent, almost curled up in a ball, and all the spirit and life seemed to have ebbed right out of him. Not that Medusa was the maternal type of goddess. She did not at all feel a little twinge between the ribs.

  In any case. As stories went, it did scant service to explain her presence, except as an audience to their sad sad sob-story of recklessness and bereavement. “My condolences,” she said, with a stiff hauteur that was possibly unconvincing. “But, my mortal children, what do you think that I can do about it? Even Zeus himself could not restore life to the dead and gone, and I have not quite his powers.” (Well, in fact, Zeus had been known to travel down to the lower regions, to argue the toss with Pluto and Persephone, over a favoured slave-girl here and there, even in the face of Hera's wrath. But it wasn't as if she wished to encourage them in their delusional hopes.) “Dead and gone is just that, irretrievable,” she added, sniffily. “I recommend that you mourn your dead, and let your rage and sorrow arm you for your future battles. In which endeavours I wish you great success, and if we have now established that I cannot help you further, then I think I shall be on my way and–”

  And there she was, fighting her way out of enchantment, fighting her way to her feet and feeling her godly power surging back to her fingertips. Before the limp sad prettyboy hunched up before her lifted a hand – not his head, but just his hand – and whisked it quickly in her direction.

  Medusa found herself slapped down on her arse on the couch, once more, without a finger being laid on her. It wasn't often that she found herself lacking the words to express herself, but on this occasion – well, it was a first. At least, for a moment or two. Then, she managed to utter coldly, “Well. I see you have quite impressive powers, for a mortal, William. But what good do you imagine it will do you? As I say, I can do nothing to breathe life into a body once dead. Without the vital pneuma, all hope is gone. Now, if there were even a trace of life, perhaps it would be a different story, but–”

  And now William straightened up. And had a bit of alertness to him, come to life again. Not to mention the stern, determined look on his face. But it was the dw
arf who reached across to pat her on the arm – the familiarity of it! - through the blanket she was still hunched up in. “But there is, you see! It's you. You're her. There's life.”

  And now, across from her, young William the warlock smiled. A slightly cool, meaningful smile, too. “Where did you imagine your snakes had gone?” he asked, now.

  Medusa's hands went to her head – where normally her little pets writhed, hissing and spitting, flicking forked tongues over her fingers. For the first time in forever, she felt vulnerable. As well as furious. “What have you done?” she asked, in a voice softer than normal for her.

  William smiled wider. And he didn't look quite so young, so innocent any more. Perhaps it was because she'd had a taste of the power coiled up in that wiry frame.

  “I could keep the pneuma in her, you see,” he explained – chatty, just as if he wasn't talking about the difference between life and death. “The doctors couldn't have done it, Intensive Care couldn't have, but I could. I loved her, and I wasn't about to let her take a trip to Hades without me.” His face was a little bit eerie, uncanny, as he said it. For a mortal. “But I couldn't do more than that. She'd have been dead already, if it hadn't been for me chanting incantations day and night.” His friends hunched and crowded about him, now, abandoning her. And there was a trace of respectful apprehension in their faces, as they looked at him. They knew his power, all right. She hadn't seen it herself, to begin with. But he looked such an innocent, pretty young thing. How could she have known?

  And now he smiled directly at her, sweet and charming, a bit boffiny behind the spectacles. And not quite all there, a little bit mad perhaps. It was more power than a mortal was designed to contain, and there had to be consequences. “But you said yourself,” he said, pointing it out respectfully.