Dark Horse

Thirty-Three

The demon watched a ray glide through the water. The sea was so clear, every rippling movement of the ray's wings was cleanly visible, even the cloud of small silver fish spiralling alongside, and for a moment the demon envied the sinuous adventurer the freedom to come and go as he pleased.

Other adventurers had come and gone from this island — Jason in his fifty-oared Argo, Odysseus in his black ship from Troy — but nothing had really changed. Should the shades of the heroes return to these thyme-scented hills, they would still recognize the vultures, the snake hawks, the violet-blue coral, the twisted oaks, fragrant pines, the same sandy beaches and white rocky coves on which they had idled their time all those generations before.

Centuries peeled back.

To the day the Argo became trapped in this very gulf by a flotilla under the command of Medea's brother, Apsyrtus. Thanks to the connivance of his treacherous lover, Jason had been able to steal the Golden Fleece from under the nose of her father, but he had not bargained on the ferocity with which the family wanted it back. Nor the revenge they sought on the perfidious bitch who'd enabled him to take it from them.

In its mind, the demon saw the blockade close in. The trap tighten. There is nowhere for the Argo to run.

A plan forms in Medea's mind. Under cover of night she rows ashore. Sends word to her brother that she's been abducted, held captive, raped even. Remorseful (how could he have misjudged her?) Apsyrtus charges in to rescue his sister. Betrayal. She kills him. Dismembers his corpse and throws the body parts into the sea. Medea's plan is successful.

First the fleet must collect the mangled remains, since

Illyrian custom decrees that bodies must be complete to make their journey into the afterlife and there was no way they could let the son of the king down.

Then, leaderless, the flotilla quickly falls into disarray, allowing Jason to sail off with the Fleece, making Medea his wife.

The demon had always been a sucker for happy endings.