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But Vesuvius stayed quiet. Of course it did. Hephaestus or Vulcan or whatever name he checked into motels with locally was probably up at the top of the spectacular cone, peering down, leering down, at some other spectacular cones. "Men," Andromeda muttered. No wonder they'd given her this job. And they wouldn't thank her for it once she did it, either.
As Andromeda flew down toward the Gorgons with the spectacularly un-Hellenic names, Victoria flew up to meet her, saying, "Whoever you are, go away. We're just about to shoot."
Shooting struck Andromeda as altogether too good for them. "Some victory you're the goddess of," she sneered, "unless you mean the one in Lysistrata."
"You're just jealous because you can't cut the liquamen, sweetheart," Victoria retorted.
Andromeda smiled a hemlock-filled smile. "Doesn't matter whether I am or not," she answered. "I'm on assignment from Zeus and Hera, so you can go take a flying leap at Selene."
"Uppity mortal! You can't talk to me like that." Victoria drew back a suddenly very brawny right arm for a haymaker that would have knocked the feathers right off of Hermes' sandals.
"Oh, yes, I can," Andromeda said, and held up the shield Hera had given her.
She didn't know whether it could have done a decent job of stopping the goddess' fist. That didn't matter. Victoria took one brief look at her reflection and cried, "Vae! Malae comae! Vae!" She fled so fast, she might have gone into business with her Greek cousin Nike.
A grim smile on her face, Andromeda descended on Cindy, Claudia, and Tyra. They were lined up on the beach like three tenpins-except not so heavy in the bottom, Andromeda thought resentfully. Had they been lined up any better, she'd have bet she could've looked into the left ear of the one on the left and seen out the right ear of the one on the right.
They turned on her in unison when she alighted on the sand. "Ooh, I like those sandals," one of them crooned fiercely. "Gucci? Louis Vuitton?"
"No, Hermes'," Andromeda answered. She fought panic as they advanced on her, swaying with menace-or something.
"I wonder what she's doing here," one of the Gorgons said. She waved at the gorgeous scenery, of which she and her comrades were the most gorgeous parts. "I mean, she's so plain."
"Mousy," agreed another.
"Nondescript. Utterly nondescript," said the third, proving she did have room in her head for a three-syllable word: two of them, even.
And the words flayed like fire. Cindy, Claudia, and Tyra weren't even contemptuous. It was as if Andromeda didn't rate contempt. That was their power; just by existing, they made everyone around them feel inadequate. Zeus wanted me, Andromeda thought, trying to stay strong. But what did that prove? Zeus wanted anything that moved, and, if it didn't move, he'd give it an experimental shake.
Andromeda felt like curling up on the beach and dying right there. If she put the shield up over her, maybe it would keep her from hearing any more of the Gorgons' cruel words. The shield…!
With a fierce cry of her own, Andromeda held it up to them. Instead of continuing their sinuous advance, they fell back with cries of horror. Peering down over the edge of the shield, Andromeda got a quick glimpse of their reflections. The shield had given her and Victoria bad hair. It was far more pitiless to Cindy, Claudia, and Tyra, perhaps because they had further to fall from the heights of haute couture. Whatever the reason, the three Gorgons' hair might as well have turned to snakes once the shield had its way with them.
"Plain," Andromeda murmured. "Mousy. Nondescript. Utterly nondescript."
How the Gorgons howled! They fell to their knees in the sand and bowed their heads, trying to drive out those images of imperfection.
Still holding the shield on high, Andromeda drew her sword. She could have taken their heads at a stroke, but something stayed her hand. It wasn't quite mercy: more the reflection that they'd probably already given a good deal of head to get where they were.
Roughly, she said, "Stay away from Olympus from now on, if you know what's good for you. You ever come near there again, worse'll be waiting for you." She didn't know if that was true, but it would be if Hera could make it so.
"But where shall we go?" one of them asked in a small, broken voice. "What shall we do?"
"Try Sports Illustrated," Andromeda suggested, "though gods only know what sport you'd be illustrating."
"Been there," one said. Andromeda had no idea which was which, and didn't care to find out. The other two chorused, "Done that."
"Find something else, then," Andromeda said impatiently. "I don't care what, as long as it's not in Zeus' back yard." And mine, she thought. Thinking that, she started to turn the terrible shield on them again and added, "Or else."
Cindy, Claudia, and Tyra cringed. If they weren't convinced now, they never would be, Andromeda judged. She jumped into the air and flew off. That way, she didn't have to look at them any more, didn't have to be reminded that they didn't really look the way Hera's shield made them seem to. Plain. Mousy. Nondescript. Utterly nondescript. Her hand went to the hilt of the sword. Maybe I should have done a little slaughtering after all. But she kept flying.
She took the scenic route home-after all, when would she be able to talk Hermes out of his sandals again? She saw Scylla and Charybdis, there by the toe of the Italian boot, and they were as horrible as advertised. She flew over the Pyramids of Egypt. Next door, the Sphinx tried his riddle on her. "Oh, everybody knows that one," Andromeda said, and listened to him gnash his stone teeth.
She admired the lighthouse at Alexandria. It would be very impressive when they got around to building it-and when there was an Alexandria. Then she started north across the wine-dark sea toward Greece.
When she got to the coast near Argos, she saw a naked man chained to the rocks just above the waves. He was a lot more interesting than anything else she'd seen for a while-and the closer she got, the more interesting he looked. By the time she was hovering a few feet in front of him, he looked mighty damn fine indeed, you betcha. "I know it's the obvious question," she said, "but what are you doing here?"
"Waiting to be eaten," he answered.
"Listen, garbagemouth, has it occurred to you that if I slap you silly, you can't do thing one about it?" Andromeda said indignantly. "Has it?"
"No, by a sea serpent," he explained.
"Oh. Well, no accounting for taste, I suppose," she said, thinking of Pasiphae and the bull. Then she realized he meant it literally. "How did that happen?" Another obvious question. "And who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Perseus," he said. "My grandfather, Acrisius, is King of Argos. There's a prophecy that if my mother had a son, he'd end up killing Gramps. So Mom was grounded for life, but Zeus visited her in a shower of gold, and here I am."
"And on display, too," Andromeda remarked. Zeus had been catching Hades from Hera ever since, too-Andromeda remembered the snide Mr. Shower-of-Gold. But that was neither here nor there, and Perseus was definitely here. "The sea serpent will take your granddad off the hook for doing you in?"
"You got it," Perseus agreed.
"Ah… what about the chains? Doesn't he think those might have something to do with him?"
Perseus shrugged. Andromeda admired pecs and abs. The chains clanked. "He's not real long on ethics, Acrisius isn't."
"If you get loose, you'll do your best to make the prophecy come true?" Andromeda asked.
Another shrug. More clanks. More admiration from Andromeda. Perseus said, "Well, I've sure got a motive now, and I didn't before. But I'm not in a hurry about it. Omens have a way of working out, you know? I mean, would you be here to set me free if I weren't fated to do Gramps in one of these years?"