The new city council was in its first session, sitting around a small table in relative darkness, lit by a single candle. Despite the discomfort of the room’s low ambient temperature, the fireplace was out. Antonia, Magistrate of the Isle of Curth following the untimely death of her husband five years ago, considered the group seated in front of her. Her sister Margot was bundled in a blanket, staring apprehensively at their single light source. Margot’s husband had gone missing nearly three years ago. Antonia’s father-in-law, the only surviving of the original dozen founders of Curth City, was dressed normally, somehow impervious to the chill. He had nodded off during the early formalities as she swore in the new council member.
Antonia was not very thrilled, but these were desperate times. Her parents had come to this remote place looking for a new beginning, a place they could govern themselves. The landmass was small, yet fertile. Deserted. Undeveloped. Available. Their first hot summer, when the central waterfall became a trickling brook and exposed Her cave, had offered a different destiny.
She reminded herself that the boy seated at the table was no more than eight years old. He continued his short, memorized paragraph. “Understanding these portents, I, Flavius of Curth, do solemnly vow to protect the Isle from outsiders, as we protect them from Her.” He turned to Antonia, grinning widely, “Mother! Did I say it right?”
Antonia smiled back. “Yes, my love. Quiet now, it is time for business. Listen carefully.” She regarded the fifth, final, empty chair at the table. They were deep into the rainy season, yet Bernard and Delilia both disappeared on the same night? Something smelled wrong. She would have to call for another village sweep to look for illegal boats. Ickatheptus did not mention seeing new statues on the beach this morning, and that odd fellow would know. Antonia realized what needed to be done.
Margot elbowed the old man. He awoke with a shiver, tensed up, and said, “Light!”
Antonia said, “Yes, Good Father, it is approaching midday, but the doors and windows are barred. Council, I invoke the Writ of Conscription.”
Margot gasped. “Now? Need I remind you that this village numbers less than twenty.” She looked at the empty chair.
Antonia slapped the table. “Those two young lovers found a way off of Curth, I am sure of it. They have endangered us all. Yet, the Spring equinox is upon us, it has been raining for a fortnight, and tonight is a New Moon. That is why we should strike now! We deserve peace, to live free of this mystical burden, as our elders deserved.”
The old man shook his head. “She is correct. We are too few. We should send for a worthy champion instead.”
Antonia gritted her teeth. “I remind you that we sent my brother four years ago. All he succeeded at was bankrupting our treasury, and disappearing off-Curth with his empty promises. Further, if we hide here in the midday dark debating this for much longer, She will be at full strength again soon enough. I doubt our numbers will survive that. Either She is gaining power over time, or we are becoming reckless and inexperienced.” She caught her son’s eye.
Margot shrugged. “Who, then? Bernard was the next name on the List.” She blinked at the candle. “Oh.”
Antonia folded her hands. “Ickatheptus.”
Her son laughed. “Icky? Our champion!”
Antonia walked to the beach with her hood pulled low, navigating the path by a long sharp piece of silvered glass set on a short handle. She passed the Curth Banners, a line of animal skins on wooden frames, painted with the same warning in more languages than Antonia could remember. LAND AND JOIN US FOREVER.
She crossed bright white sand to the rocky outcropping a short way down the beach. A large stone thrust upwards, offering a commanding view of the bay. Dozens of granite statues of people stood nearby, arranged in orderly rows facing East. All ages and shapes were represented, most cast in a cowering pose. A short young man with dirty hair was squatting in front of the striking figure of a tall man in armor, a javelin held aloft in one hand. The younger was muttering to himself, cleaning seaspray and lichen from the left stone foot. “No, that’s stupid. Even if she said yes, how would she even dance?” He stood, back still to Antonia, and moved to the next statue. He rubbed the end of a broken forearm. “Juliet! You know I have no more mortar! Not until we can extract more clay from the hills.” He bent and picked up Juliet’s right hand by the wrist, fingers splayed outwards, a futile attempt to shield her eyes in her final moments. “I’ll go get a sling, you naughty girl.”
Antonia cleared her throat. The man jumped and dropped the stone forearm. The thumb broke off, banging against Juliet’s legs on the way down. Ickatheptus turned a bright crimson and stared hard at his boots. “Ma… Ma’am. Bernard and Delilia did not join us last night.”
Antonia caught sight of her husband a few rows back, clawing at his own face in abject horror, and her blood boiled anew. She knew Ickatheptus lived by himself in a shack nearby. If anyone had news, it was Icky. “Yes, you told me this morning, remember? Has She come this month?”
Ickatheptus blushed a darker purple. “No, Ma’am. I’ve not caught a glimpse of Her for weeks. I think the air is too wet.”
“Icky,” Antonia began and frowned. “Ickatheptus, the Curth council have invoked the Writ.” She offered the mirrored blade forward, handle first. “You are hereby conscripted to defend this island, and all of mankind, from the ultimate evil.”
Ickatheptus briefly held his temples in both hands before running his fingers through his hair. He accepted the knife. “To the death, Ma’am? There is no other way?” He tried looking up, and failed.
Antonia shook her head. “We are all that stand between Her and total destruction. You were born into this duty, on this island, as I was and shall remain.”
His shoulders fell into a deeper slouch. “Yes, Ma’am. For Curth.” But, what if?
His walk to the island’s center, along a racing streambed, was pleasant. He did not often head this direction in the sunlight, and barely noticed the lack of birdsong. He reached the waterfall close to midday. At the edge of the pool, he raked his hair again and edged himself along the cliff face. He pushed through water falling from 15 feet above and entered a small opening beyond. A stone boar recoiled on its back haunches near a three foot hole in the wall.
Ickatheptus crawled through the hole and into a larger chamber. The light, filtered through rushing water into a lightly dancing ambience, was very dim, but he could clearly see three doorways on the far wall. Water dripped somewhere nearby. He crouched behind a large boulder, facing the entrance, and tried to catch the doorways in the reflection of his knife.
“Hello?” His heart was racing. This was really happening. “I saw you on the beach, uh, last month?” A beastly cry echoed around him. He heard something slide against sand, and saw movement in the middle doorway. In his excitement, he dropped the mirrored knife and managed to kick it several feet away. He was hoping not to need a blade, anyway. The sliding noise stopped. He felt hot breath on his left side as he glanced upwards slightly, and beheld a pale blue midriff, incongruous navel lightly ringed by scales. Ickatheptus blushed purple again and looked down at his hands in his lap. Here goes nothing. “Uh, I noticed that you visit with the others, the ones you turned and moved to the beach. But, you always leave before sunrise.” Her tail thrashed, but the figure Ickatheptus dared not look upon fully settled against his left shoulder. A human female voice started crying.
Sweating through his tunic, he took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice steady. “Can you speak? You could tell me all about that, if you like. Momma always said I was a good listener.”
Antonia woke the next morning to a thunderous pounding on her bedroom door. “Mother! Come quick!” Flavius called through the thick wood. “The beach!” Antonia stirred. She wrapped herself in a robe and untied three layers of heavy curtains. The army of stone family and friends on the beach should have been visible from her window at this time of day, ordinarily bathed in late dawn golden sunlight. Something had changed. She raised her robe’s deep hood, and grabbed a new mirror shard. Outside the house, Flavius, his own hood down, grabbed her hand and rushed her to the sand. The nearest animal skin warning was covered in an ancient Greek dialect, scratched in soot. AT PEACE SOON I PRAY. SORRY.
The island’s collection of lost souls was gone. Evidently, all had been smashed in the night, to fist size and smaller pieces. Each had then been carefully individually rearranged, broken rocks of solidified flesh forming that person’s own cairn. These final memorials were arrayed in expanding semi-circles, with the rocky outcropping as focal point.
Two new stone figures sat atop the outcropping. On the left, Ickatheptus sat cross legged, frozen while shielding his eyes partly against the morning light. He was smiling slightly, the happiest expression that Antonia had ever seen on the boy’s face. At his side, holding his right hand, was Her. She was coiled upon an immense scaly tail, human torso covered by a wispy torn tunic. Hundreds of tiny snakes had turned in unison to snarl at the Eastern horizon. Piercing snake eyes, a small slightest hint of a nose, and a big toothy grin had greeted the morning with the same ecstasy captured on Ickatheptus’s face. Seagulls cried in the air. Parrots called to each other in the distance.
Antonia fell to the sand weeping as the realization of the full scope of this turn of events washed over her. Tomorrow morning, she too was now free to witness the glory of a new day beginning, with her own eyes, listening to the crashing surf. Sitting with a friend.
From Reddit WritingPrompt [WP] For months Medusa terrorised the village, turning all those who looked at her to stone. Finally, in desperation, the village calls forth their ultimate weapon against her—an introvert.