Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

rest of us. She would come to worship on occasion, and she spoke to me each and every visit. She even took her hood off to do it. Apparently the magic didn't work more than once.
    "How are you faring, Thanos?" she would ask. Thanos is me, obviously, former loyal soldier, current temple furnishing. "Not so talkative now, are you?" When she ran a finger down my back, I felt it, very faintly, through the stone. "Not so disrespectful."
    Hands off the goods, wench.
    That she could hear me surprised both of us. "You are impossible to silence completely, aren't you? The others have lost their power of speech. I don't relish the thought of listening to you when I come to pray. I suppose I could have you knocked down…"
    That would be nice.
    "Which is why I'm not going to do it," she finished with a sneer. "I want you to exist for the rest of time just as you are, trapped and helpless. The gods have shunned you, Thanos. You are but a tribute to my lady, a shadow of a true man. You are bound for ever ."
    Well, damn. There wasn't much to say to that.
    It turns out that gorgon/witch hybrids live a long time. Ligia outlived Brasidas, his son, his grandson, and his great grandson. She lived to see the arrival of Philip of Macedon, and even with all her magic, there was no holding back his great army. He razed Stageira to the ground and enslaved its inhabitants. I only knew about it because Ligia came to the temple and prayed—desperately and aloud—for deliverance, but there was none.
    Well… that's not entirely true. Stageira had one thing going for it, and that was a philosopher by the name of Aristotle. Philip took him to tutor his son Alexander (yes, that Alexander). To show his gratitude, he rebuilt the city and freed the people he'd enslaved. Not the most consistent guy, but then, kings don't have to be.
    I didn't find out all of this by eavesdropping on Ligia's prayers. In fact, after the city burned, she seemed to give up on Hecate and stopped visiting the temple entirely, and all other worshippers stopped with her. There was the occasional sheep or goat herder, quiet and bored as they drove their flocks, but that was it. Until one day, a little boy ran into the temple, threw himself at my feet, and started bawling.
    I don't like crying. I can't think of many people who do, but I become really uncomfortable with it, enough that even though I knew he wouldn't hear me, I had to say, Kid, for the love of the gods, knock it off!
    Then, a miracle happened.
    Two miracles, actually. The first one was that the kid stopped crying, for which I was immediately grateful. The second was that he looked straight up at me, his eyebrows quirked and his mouth gaping. If I could have gaped, I would have done it, too. The boy's eyes were completely white.
    "You can speak?" he asked, awestruck.
    You can hear me?
    "Yes. Who are you?" He wiped his nose on his grubby arm and stood up to face me. He was a small child, probably no more than five or six. "Why are you trapped in the wall?"
    I decided to start with the simple stuff. My name is Thanos. I'm a warrior of Stageira. Or was, at least. What's your name?
    "Eryx, son of Ligia and Corus. My mother is a great sorceress," he stated proudly.
    Ligia had procreated. That was kind of shocking, given the snakes. At least the kid hadn't inherited those. I'm honored to meet you.
    "I've never spoken to a stone man before," Eryx said with innocent curiosity. "Who put you in there?"
    Time to tread carefully. Many years ago, there was a great battle here. Your mother worked powerful magic, and I was caught up in it. It turned me to stone.
    Eryx frowned. "Why did she leave you here?"
    A good question, and not one I really wanted to answer. Better not to antagonize the boy by insulting his mother. Magic like this is hard to reverse. I was made a part of the temple instead.
    "That sounds boring."
    It is.
    "I'm going to be a sorcerer someday," Eryx declared. He was terribly serious. Serious, it seemed, was his default state after tearful. "When I am, I'll be able to free you from the stone, and everyone will say how powerful I am, and no one will laugh at me."
    Ah, now we reached the crux of the reason he was out here instead of back in the city. Who's making fun of you?
    "The other boys," he muttered. "When Teacher was here, he would give me private lessons, but now that he's gone, I have to learn with everyone else. The boys laugh at me and call me a monster because of my eyes. I hate them all," he