ALTHOUGH MY HEART chokes in my throat the entire time Jason battles in the arena, when the final one of those frightful skeletons crumbles I suddenly find my voice and cheer like a madman with the rest of the crew. Despite the troubles, despite the continual fear, I am glad Iolalus found me a place aboard the Argoa. Not only am I out of sight of the Council, but Eurydice has promised to meet me in Portaceae when I return. My stomach leaps like a trout at the thought of her.
As Aeetes grunts his reluctant congratulations to Jason, Medea slips beside me. I must say this woman makes me nervous. Eurydice is lovely, but she bursts with kindness and friendship. Not to say Medea isn’t kind or friendly, she seems nice enough, but she carries herself with so much self-assurance it’s as if she sucks everyone else’s confidence from them. Or at least from someone like me whose hold on his self-esteem is about as firm as an overcooked noodle. Medea smiles at me in greeting and my cheeks flush red. I swallow hard and make a small nod before averting my eyes. Still, I feel her eyes on me and I steal a sidelong glance as if I can’t help but look at her. This time when our eyes meet, she looks away but steps closer to my side and presses her hand against mine.
My first instinct is to yank my hand away. What if Aeetes sees? Despite their heavy northern accents that made some words hard to discern, the songs his singers chanted last night made it clear no one should dare think of touching the Colchian princess. But the pressure of her hand is gone just as quickly as it came and in my hand I feel the sharp edge of a tightly folded piece of parchment. I don’t have the handy belt pouches my vigile companions wear so I cannot slip the message away. Instead, I cling to it hoping I don’t drop it.
Once inside the castle, Jason, Castor, Pollux and Odysseus are led to the baths, while the rest of us start the long, steep journey to our chambers to collect our things. Apparently we are going back to the ship, although we aren’t leaving. I don’t understand why Jason wasn’t given the pelt after the tasks or why we don’t just stay in the rooms we have been given, but my mind is more occupied with the parchment tucked in my palm. I linger at the back of the group. As the men climb the final stairway to the guest quarters, I slip into an alcove and open the message. I don’t know why, but my hands tremble. The trembling turns to all out shaking as I read it.
She has to be kidding.
Orpheus,
Jason spoke of your knowledge of technology. If you want to ever leave Colchis as a free man, meet me near the baths when the moon rises tonight. Tell none of the men you are coming and bring no one with you. If anyone asks, tell them you’ve been asked to play for the courtiers again.
Medea
Dear gods. I had heard rumors that if Jason failed we would be made slaves. I thought it was just a joke made up by the men to frighten me. But what can Medea want from me? I think of telling Odysseus when he returns. He seems like a man who would eagerly take part in an adventure like this, but I hesitate. Could telling him put us in more trouble? Zeus’s balls! Why did I ever come on this voyage? As soon as this question crosses my mind, I think of Eurydice. Everything I’ve been through on this trip has been worth meeting her.
I spend a fidgety afternoon pacing the harbor’s walls and trying to determine on what level of the castle the baths might be. Since I see no winches to haul buckets to the upper levels and the roof does not open up to the sky to allow in rain water, I can only guess the baths are in the lowest level of the castle and must be fed by a creek trying to make its way to the bay. Although I dread its appearance, the moon cannot come soon enough. Waiting for the unexpected must be the worst torture a man can endure. When evening finally comes and the sky darkens, I slip inside and find my way through the maze of halls and stairs to the castle’s deepest level.
The scent of perfumed water creeps up on me as I make my way along the dimly lit corridors of the castle’s lower level. I think of how the Dol, of how Eurydice, would have lit this interior space with warm lamps energized by roof-mounted solar panels. With each step, I pause, my legs shaking and my heart thudding hard enough to mute all other sounds. I peek behind, certain someone must be following. I know I should walk normally, as if I belong here and am simply going to have a bath, but I press myself against the wall so no one can sneak up behind me. In the low light, I don’t notice an alcove and stumble into it. A woman with a shawl tied over her hair stifles a cry of pain. I realize I’m standing on her foot and scuttle back.
“I’m so sorry,” I say too loudly. My voice echoes off the damp walls. I speak more quietly, “I was just going to have a—“
“I hope you’re better with electrical things than you are at lying.”
“Medea?”
“Yes, now come along.”
She takes my hand and guides me up a steep stairwell. It leads into a room that makes me feel quite at home. My nerves jangle a little less at the welcome sight of the equipment: cameras, cords, a few solar panels in disrepair, and other such things I have been tinkering with since a small boy. Medea shuts the door behind us.
“You know how to use these things?” she asks. I nod, afraid to speak. “Good. I’ve always had a head for building things, but this,” she waves a hand to indicate the room’s contents, “has always been beyond me.”
“You want me to teach you?” I ask hesitantly. I can think of no other reason she would want me here. But why wait so long? I could have spent the entire afternoon instructing her.
“No, well, yes, but there isn’t time. I need you to make something. Make a show.”
The conversation is like that between two people speaking two different languages. She doesn’t know how to ask for what she wants and I have no idea what she might need.
“I don’t understand,” I say feeling guilty for my stupidity. “Explain as if you were speaking to the stupidest child in the castle.”
Medea pauses as if trying to imagine where to begin.
“The pelt Jason needs is guarded by a dragon.” I nod indicating everything makes sense so far. “My father has a camera trained on the dragon. What the camera sees, my father watches in his bedchamber. Obsessively watches.” I nod again. “My father has no intention of giving Jason the pelt he has rightfully earned. I can put the dragon to sleep and take the pelt, but the camera will see me.”
She stops. I still am not clear on what she wants.
“I can’t cut the feed or your father will be left with a blank screen.”
Medea shakes her head.
“No, not so much cut off what the camera sees, but make the camera see something else. Make my father see the dragon as he normally is: alert and on guard.”
Medea stares at me expectantly. I understand now what she wants, or at least I think I do, but I can think of no way to do it. And her watching me does not help. Gods, I wish Stavros were here. He would know what to do.
The thought brings back the memory of my first time working with Stavros. Even in our short time together I learned a great deal from the clever Athenian. I never even knew what splicing was before he—
“Splicing.”
Medea startles at my outburst, which I’m sure makes as much sense to her as it did to me when I first heard the word from Stavros.
“Splicing?” she asks. Her lack of knowledge has drained some of her abundant self-confidence and, having somewhat of an upper hand, I find it easier to talk with her.
“Splicing is when you fit two pieces of something together to make them work. It’s not exactly what we will do with the camera, but the idea is similar. We’ll take some of what the camera has already seen and join it together. It will play over and over making your father think the dragon is, as you say, alert and on guard while you get the pelt. Do you understand?”
“I think I do. And my father won’t notice?”
“Does the dragon ever do anything interesting?”
“No, just mainly sits staring at the pelt and yawning now and then. But won’t you have to turn the camera off to make the—“ She circles a hand in the air trying to conjure up the right word. The action is actually quite appropriate.
“The loop. And yes, we will need to shut it down, but only for a bit.”
“The camera or the screen?”
I pause. I don’t know what kind of equipment Aeetes has in his room or his garden. I pick up one of the cameras and have to assume it is a twin of the one watching the dragon and the pelt. It’s a simple thing only made to send a direct signal of what it sees, rather than being designed to record and replay. This is unlike the cameras we have in Portaceae that have small cassettes in them to record what the camera sees.
“The screen,” I say and am about to explain the screen should have some recording device that holds what the camera sees, but Medea cuts me off.
“Then we need to do it now. He’s still feasting, but he’s in a foul mood and may retire early.”
Before I can protest, Medea grabs my hand again and pulls me from the room. She leads me through narrow passages that have to be between the walls of the castle because at regular intervals we come to places where the wall curves into our path forcing us to squeeze through the tight space. These must the evenly-spaced alcoves that line the hallways. I am thankful that, although I have many fears, claustrophobia is not one of them. Narrow passages lead to tight spiral stairwells and by the time we stop I’m dizzy from climbing. Medea presses against a panel and peers into wherever it leads before stepping in and gesturing me to follow.
We are in a huge bedchamber that’s at least triple the size of my mother’s entire house. Thick cloth hangs from a massive canopy and the bed is piled high with fluffy blankets and pillows. For some reason it strikes me as odd. Aeetes seems like a man who would sleep on a hard, plain bed. But I don’t have time to muse on this as Medea nudges me and points to a small screen.
“There it is. Hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”
My hands shake as I examine the screen. In the rush of everything I hadn’t stopped to think what would happen if I can’t find a recording device on this thing, and now my mind screams at me that there’s no way I will be able to do this, that this is far too complicated for someone who only built his first solar panel a few weeks ago. Medea’s pacing and peeking out of the bedchamber door do nothing to ease my worries. The shaking rattles up my arms as I realize the screen is nothing but a screen. No recorder. Nothing. I’m about to tell Medea the news so we can get out of here when my fingers run across a cable coming out of the back of the screen. It’s round, not one of the flat type of cables for power. My trembling hands run along the snaking cord to a small box.
My heart races.
This is it. This is what I need.
Fumbling my fingers along the cold metal housing, I search the box for its control buttons. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I think of Stavros’s calm assuredness as he faced a similar challenge and use him as my example.
Medea urges me to hurry, but I fight to put her voice far to the back of my mind. My nerves are already rattled and her urgency will not make my hands any steadier nor my head any clearer. I press a button with the reverse symbol. The scene in the garden goes in reverse. The camera, intended for security measures rather than entertainment, only collects a scene from the garden every couple heartbeats. This would show enough to settle Aeetes’s nerves, but makes it play back in a way that reminds me of someone stuttering. Regardless of the jerky images, Medea is right; the dragon does nothing of interest. In some ways I’m disappointed. I’ve never seen a dragon before and was hoping for something more impressive. This creature on the video is no more interesting than a sleeping cat that happens to be enormous and scaly.
I find a timer on the machine. Something tells me this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.
“How long do we need?” I ask.
“Until dawn. At least four hours.”
This is far longer than I would like. The longer this replays, the more likely the chance of Aeetes noticing the repetition. I had hoped we would only need the loop to run as long as it will take Medea to get down to the garden and sneak away with the pelt. But, with the camera clearly showing the pelt hanging from a tree branch behind the dragon, the loop is going to have to fool Aeetes until the Argoa can get out of Colchis. My hands resume their nervous tremble.
I allow the recorder to play for a specified amount of time then program it stop and start over from the beginning. After a few fumbles during which I fear erasing all the stored footage, I think I have it figured out. I press the button with the symbol for forward to advance the scene almost to the end and watch the screen. The dragon sits doing nothing, yawns and stretches, then a short flicker and the dragon sits yet again staring at what looks like nothing more than a fur rug in the black and white image on the screen. The flicker worries me. From what I’ve seen, the dragon turns after he yawns to resettle himself. With the camera’s stuttering shots, Aeetes may not notice, but I’d rather not take the risk.
“Do you have it?” Medea asks impatiently.
“Yes, but I want to adjust something.”
“No time,” she eases the door shut. “My father is coming. We need to go now.”
There is no time to reset the video. I could do it, but in the rush I would risk resetting everything and canceling the program. I have to hope the gods are on our side against these Colchians. I push the box back into position and straighten the screen. As Medea pulls me behind the hidden panel, the door to Aeetes’s chamber creaks open and the King of Colchis forces out a bellowing belch.
Medea takes me on another scramble through walls and stairwells. Despite my earlier thought of not being afraid of enclosed spaces, a sudden panic takes over me. I have no idea where I am or how to get back out.
“Medea, where are we going?”
“To get the pelt.”
I stop. Completely stop. Medea is in front so it takes her several paces before she realizes I am not behind her. She retraces her steps.
“I am not going into a garden guarded by a dragon.” I try to sound stern, but my voice wavers.
“You are,” she says firmly before softening her tone. “Look, he’ll be asleep. I promise. Besides, you have to go or you’ll be trapped in these walls the rest of your days. Or do you know the way out?”
She’s right. I have no idea where I am or how to get out without her guidance. My voice stolen by paranoia, I give no answer and instead gesture for her to continue onward. I am glad Eurydice is not a devious creature like this Medea. Woe the man who ends up with her for a wife.
We finally emerge into an enclosed garden. Of course the dragon steals my attention first. He is as big as a bear, but unlike a bear’s bumbling roundness, the dragon appears as sharp and jagged as broken glass. Even in the low light of the torches I can see the ripple of his leg muscles and the claws that are as long as my hand. He may have flown at one time, but now only stumps remain where the wings once were. The Colchians have cut away the appendages to keep the beast grounded. I’m disgusted. Stealing wings is a cruel thing to do to any flying animal, even a dragon. I should feel scared of the creature, but pity overrides my fear.
From the image on the screen, I know exactly where to look for the camera. If the loop is working the red eye of the camera should not be blinking. Medea is about to enter the garden, but I hold her back as I watch the device. When its eye remains dark for several hammering heartbeats, I lower my arm to let Medea pass.
To my astonishment she stands right in front of the dragon. It grumbles and a few wisps of smoke snake out of its nostrils, but it does not attack. With a snap of her fingers, the dragon’s head droops into sleep.
Medea then reaches for the pelt, wraps it in the piece of cloth she had been wearing over her hair, and ties it with the ribbon that had bound the shawl. It is only then I realize that the light in the garden was not from torches but from the luminosity of the pelt. The garden is now dark, so dark I am glad I didn’t leave the entryway for I would not have been able to find it again. Medea joins me, snaps her fingers and the dragon wakes with a snort. She tugs my hand and we are scuttling through walls once again.
I feel like a rat scurrying along a sewer and then thank the gods that we haven’t had to traverse any sewage areas. I quickly take away the thanks, afraid it will jinx me and leave me smelling of dung the entire voyage home. Medea assures me we are heading to the Argoa, but my sense of direction is completely thrown off by the castle’s hidden maze of tunnels, passageways and stairwells. Whenever I think we should be heading down, we are heading up; whenever we turn a corner I expect to be back at Aeetes’s bedchamber.
I fight down the fear that Medea may be lost in her own castle until the salt-and-fish scent of sea air begins seeping through the stones. I keep hoping each turn will deliver us to the harbor, but we begin heading up and the briny smell fades away. Just as I am about to question Medea’s mental map, we emerge at one of the walkways that lead down to the harbor. From the path, I can see the Argoa and, although I’ve decided I don’t particularly like sailing, a wave of relief washes over me as I follow Medea down to the ship on legs that shake from the excitement of the night.