Ada looked at him for a moment. "You're not curious? About what's out there?"

Daeman tapped at his vest as if brushing away crumbs. "Don't be absurd, my dear. There's nothing of interest out there ... pure wilderness ... no people. Why, everyone I know lives within a few miles of a faxport. Besides, there are Tyrannosaurus rex Tyrannosaurus rexes out there."

"A tyrannosaurus? In our forest?" said Ada. "Nonsense. We've never seen one here. Who told you that, cousin?"

"You did, my dear. The last time I visited, half a Twenty ago."

Ada shook her head. "I must have been teasing you."

Daeman thought about this, about his years of anxiety over the thought of ever visiting Ardis again, about his tyrannosaurus nightmares over the years, and could only scowl.

Ada seemed to read his thoughts and smiled slightly. "Did you ever wonder, Cousin Daeman, why the posts decided to keep our population at one million? Why not one million and one? Or nine hundred thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine? Why one million?"

Daeman blinked at this, trying to see the connection in her thoughts between talk of a Lost Age child's jinker and dinosaurs and the human population that had been the same ... well ... forever. And he didn't like her reminding both of them that they were cousins, since old superstitions sometimes inhibited sexual relations between family members. "I find that such idle speculations lead to indigestion, even on such a beautiful day, my dear," he said. "Shall we return to a more felicitous topic?"

"Of course," said Ada, blessing him with the sweetest of smiles. "Why don't we go down and find some of the other guests before lunch and our trip to the pour site?"

This time she went first down the ladder.

Luncheon was served outside on the northern patio by floating servitors and Daeman chatted amiably with some of the young people-it seemed that several more guests had faxed in for the evening's "pour"-whatever that was to be-and after the meal, many of the guests found couches in the house or comfortable lounge chairs on the shaded lawn in which to recline while draping their turin cloths over their eyes. The usual time under turin was an hour, so Daeman strolled near the edge of the trees, keeping an eye out for butterflies as he walked.

Ada joined him near the bottom of the hill. "You do not use the turin, Cousin Daeman?"

"I do not," he said, hearing that he had sounded more prissy than he had intended. "I've accustomed myself to the things after almost a decade, but I don't indulge. You also abstain, Ada, my dear?"

"Not always," said the young woman. She was twirling a peach-colored parasol as she strolled, and the soft light gave her pale complexion a beautiful glow. "I check in on the events now and again, but I seem to be too busy to become as addicted as so many are these days."

"Turins do seem to be ubiquitous."

Ada paused in the shade of a giant elm with broad, low branches. She lowered and closed the parasol. "Have you tried it?"

"Oh, yes. It was all the rage halfway between my Twenties. I spent some weeks enjoying the ... excess of it all." He could not completely strain out the tone of distaste at the memory. "Since then, no."

"Do you object to the violence, cousin?"

Daeman made a neutral gesture. "I object to its ... vicariousness."

Ada laughed softly. "Precisely Harman's reason for never indulging. You two have something in common."

The thought of this was so unlikely that Daeman's only response was to flick away dead leaves on the ground with the point of his walking stick.

Ada looked up at the sun rather than calling up a time function on her palm. "They will be rousing themselves soon. 'One hour under the cloth equals eight hours of turgid experience.' "

"Ah," said Daeman, wondering if her use of the cliche had been in the form of a double entendre. Her expression, always pleasant but bordering on the mischievous, gave no clue. "This pour thing-will it last long?"

"It's scheduled to go most of the night."

Daeman blinked in surprise. "Surely we're not bivouacking down at the river or wherever this event is to be staged?" He wondered if sleeping out under the stars and rings would improve his chances of spending the night with this young woman.

"There will be provisions for those who want to stay all night at the pour site," said Ada. "Hannah promises that this will be quite spectacular. But most of us will come back up to the manor sometime after midnight."

"Will there be wine and other drinks at the ... ah ... pour?" asked Daeman.

"Most assuredly."

It was Daeman's turn to smile. Let the others stay for this spectacle, he would keep pouring Ada drinks through the evening, follow up on her "turgid" line of suggestive conversation, accompany her home (with luck and proper planning, just the two of them in a small carriole), pour the full force of his not-inconsiderable powers of attention upon her-and, with only an added bit of additional luck, this night he would not have to dream of women.

By late afternoon, the twenty or so guests at the manor-some babbling about the day's turin-experienced events, going on and on about Menelaus being shot by a poisoned arrow or somesuch nonsense-were gathered together by helpful servitors and everyone departed for the "pour site" in a caravan of droshkies and carrioles. Voynix pulled the vehicles while other voynix trotted alongside as security, although-Daeman thought-if there were no tyrannosauruses in the woods, he failed to see a reason for security.

He had maneuvered to be in the lead carriole with their hostess, and Ada pointed out interesting trees, glens, and streams as they rumbled and hummed two or more miles down the dirt path toward the river. Daeman took up more room on their side of the red leather bench than he had to even given his pleasant plumpness, and was rewarded with the feel of Ada's thigh alongside his for the duration of the voyage.

Their destination, he saw as they came out on the limestone ridge above the river valley, was not the river, exactly, but a tributary to the main channel, a literal backwater some hundred yards across, where erosion and flooding had created a wide shelf of sand-a sort of beach-on which a tall, rickety structure of logs, branches, ladders, troughs, ramps, and stairways had been constructed. It looked like a crude gallows to Daeman, although he had never seen an actual gallows, of course. Torches rose from the shallow tributary and the rickety contraption itself stood half on sand and half over water. A hundred yards out, blocking this channel from the actual river was a narrow island-overgrown with cycads and horsehair ferns-from which birds and small flying reptiles exploded into flight with a maximum of cries and frenzied flapping. Daeman wondered idly if there were butterflies on the isle.

On a grassy area above the beach, colorful silken tents, lounge chairs, and long tables of food had been set up. Servitors floated to and fro, sometimes bobbing above the heads of the arriving guests.

Walking behind Ada from the carriole, Daeman recognized some of the workers on the strange scaffolding: Hannah at the apex, tying on more structural elements, a red bandana tied around her head; the demented man, Harman, shirtless, sweating, showing bizarrely tanned skin, was stoking a contained fire twenty feet below Hannah; other young people, presumably friends of Hannah's and Ada's, shuttled back and forth up the wooden ramps and ladders, carrying heavy loads of sand and extra branches for construction and round stones. A raging fire burned in the clay core of the structure and sparks rose into the early evening sky. All of the workers' actions appeared purposeful, even though Daeman could see no possible purpose to the tall stack of sticks and troughs and clay and sand and flame.

A servitor floated by and offered him a drink. Daeman accepted and went off in search of a lounge chair in the shade.

"This is the cupola," Hannah explained to the assembled guests later that evening. "We've been working on it for about a week, floating materials down the river in canoes. Cutting and bending branches to fit."

It was after a fine dinner. Sunlight still illuminated the high hills on the near side of the river, but the valley itself was in the shadows and both rings were glowing bright in the darkening sky. Sparks leaped and floated toward the rings and the puff of bellows and roar of furnace were very loud. Daeman took another drink, his eight or tenth of the evening, and lifted a second one for Ada, who shook her head and turned her attention back to Hannah.

"We've woven wood into a basket shape and coated the center of the furnace-the well-with refractory clay. We made this by shovel, mixing dry sand, bentonite, and some water. Then we rolled the claylike goop into balls, wrapped them in wet ferns and leaves to keep them from drying out, and lined the furnace well with the stuff. That's what keeps the whole wooden cupola structure from catching fire."

Daeman had no idea what the woman was going on about. Why build a big, gawky structure of wood and then set a fire at its center if you don't want the thing to burn down? This place was an asylum.

"Mostly," continued Hannah, "we've spent the last few days feeding the fire while putting out all the little fires the cupola furnace started. That's why we built this thing near the river."

"Wonderful," muttered Daeman and went in search of another drink while Hannah and her friends-even the insufferable Harman-droned on, using nonsensical terms such as "coke bed," "wind belt," "tuyere" (which Hannah was explaining meant some little air entrance on their clay-lined furnace, near which the young woman named Emme kept working the wheezing bellows) and "melting zone" and "molding sand" and "taphole" and "slag hole." It all sounded barbarous and vaguely obscene to Daeman.

"And now it's time to see if it works," announced Hannah, her voice revealing both exhaustion and exaltation.

Suddenly the guests had to stand back on the sandy river's edge, Daeman retreating to the grassy sward near the tables, as all the young people-and that damnable Harman-leaped into a frenzy of action. Sparks flew higher. Hannah ran to the top of the so-called cupola while Harman peered into the clay-furnace-contained flames below and shouted for this and that. Emme worked the bellows until she fell over, and was relieved by the thin man named Loes. Daeman half listened to Ada breathlessly explaining even more details to huddled friends. He caught phrases like "blast pipe" and "blast gate" and "chilled slag" (even though the flames were raging hotter and higher than every before) and "blast pressure." Daeman moved another fifteen or twenty feet further back.

"Tapping temp of twenty-three hundred degrees!" Harman shouted up to Hannah. The thin woman wiped sweat from her brow, made some adjustment to the cupola far above, and nodded. Daeman stirred his drink and wondered how long it would be before he could get Ada alone in a carriole on the way back to Ardis Hall.

Suddenly there was a commotion that made Daeman look up from his drink, sure that he would see the whole structure in flames, Hannah and Harman burning like straw figures. Not quite. While Hannah was was using a blanket to swat out flames on the ladder below the top of the cupola-waving away helpful servitors and even a voynix that had come in close to protect the humans from harm-Harman and two others had finished poking inside the fiery furnace and had just opened a "taphole," allowing what looked to be yellow lava to flow down wooden troughs to the beach. using a blanket to swat out flames on the ladder below the top of the cupola-waving away helpful servitors and even a voynix that had come in close to protect the humans from harm-Harman and two others had finished poking inside the fiery furnace and had just opened a "taphole," allowing what looked to be yellow lava to flow down wooden troughs to the beach.

Some of the guests surged forward, but Hannah's shouts and the radiating heat from the flow of liquid metal forced them back.

The crudely carved and lined troughs smoked but did not burst into flame as the yellow-red metal flowed sluggishly from the cupola structure, past the ladders, spilling the last foot or two into a cross-shaped mold set in the sand.

Hannah rushed down a ladder and helped Harman seal off the taphole. They both peered through a peephole into the furnace, did something to-Ada was explaining to a guest-the "slag hole" (different from the taphole, Daeman vaguely noticed) and then the young woman and the older man-soon to be a dead older man, Daeman thought cruelly-leaped from the cupola structure onto the sand and rushed over to look at the mold.

More guests surged down the beach. Daeman wandered down, setting his drink on a passing servitor's tray.

The air was very cool down here by the river, but the heat from the red-glowing mold in the sand struck Daeman's face like a fiery fist.

The molten stuff was congealing into a red and gray cross-shaped mass.

"What is it?" Daeman asked loudly. "Some sort of religious symbol?"

"No," said Hannah. She took off her bandana and wiped her sweaty, soot-streaked face. She was smiling like a crazy person. "It's the first bronze cast in ... what, Harman? A thousand years?"

"Probably three times that long," the older man said quietly.

The guests muttered and applauded.

Daeman laughed. "What good is it?" he asked.

Harman looked up at him. "Of what good is a newborn baby?" said the sweating, bare-chested man.

"Precisely my point," said Daeman. "Loud, demanding, smelly ... useless."

The others ignored him as Ada gave Hannah, Harman, and the other workers hugs, just as if they'd actually done something of worth. Guests milled. Harman and Hannah climbed ladders and started fussing, peering through peepholes and poking into the furnace with metal bars as if there was to be more of this lava production. Evidently, thought Daeman, this pyrotechnics show was to continue into the night.

Suddenly needing to urinate, Daeman wandered up past the tables, considered the tent-covered rest room pavilion, and decided-in the spirit of all this pagan nonsense-to respond to this call of nature al fresco. He climbed above the grassy shelf toward the dark line of trees, following a monarch butterfly that had fluttered past him. There was nothing unusual at seeing a monarch, but it was late in the day and season for it to be out and flying. He walked past the last voynix and moved under the high branches of elms and cycads.

Somebody, possibly Ada, shouted something from the river's edge a hundred feet away, but Daeman had already unbuttoned his trousers and did not want to act the cad. Instead of turning back to respond, he moved another twenty feet or so into the concealing darkness of the forest. This would just take a minute.

"Ahhh," he said, still watching the butterfly's orange wings ten feet above him as the patter of his urine fell on a dark tree trunk.

The huge allosaurus, thirty feet long from snout to tail, pounded out of the darkness at twenty miles per hour, ducking under branches as it lunged.

Daeman had time to scream but chose to tuck himself back into his trousers rather than turn and run while thus exposed. For all his lechery, Daeman was a modest man. He raised his heavy wooden walking stick to fight off the beast.

The allosaurus took the cane and arm both, ripping the arm free at the shoulder. Daeman screamed again and pirouetted in a fountain of his own blood.

The allosaurus knocked him down and ripped his other arm off-tossing it into the air and catching it like a morsel-and then proceeded to hold Daeman's armless but still thrashing torso down with one massive clawed foot until ready to lower its terrible head again. Casually, almost playfully, the monster bit Daeman in half, swallowing his head and upper torso whole. Ribs and spinal column crunched and disappeared into the thing's maw. Then the allosaurus gobbled the man's legs and lower body, flinging pieces of flesh around like a dog with a rat.

The fax buzz started then, even as two voynix rushed up and killed the dinosaur.

"Oh, my God," cried Ada, stopping at the edge of the trees as the voynix finished their bloody rendering.

"What a mess," said Harman. He waved the other guests back. "Didn't you warn him to stay inside the voynix perimeter down here? Didn't you tell him about the dinosaurs?"

"He asked about tyrannosauruses," Ada said, her hand still over her mouth. "I told him there weren't any around here."

"Well, that's true enough," said Harman.

Behind them, the crucible continued to roar and shoot sparks into the darkening sky.

9.

Ilium and Olympos Aphrodite has turned me into a spy, and I know the punishment we mortals have always dealt out to spies. I can only imagine what the gods will do to me. On second thought, I'd rather not.

This morning, the day after I became a secret agent for the Goddess of Love, Athena quantum teleports herself down from Olympos and morphs into a Trojan, the spearman Laodocus. Obeying Zeus's command that the warriors of Ilium should be made to break the current truce, she seeks out the archer Pandarus, son of Lycaon.

Using the cloaking Hades Helmet and private teleportation medallion that my Muse gave me, I QT after Athena, then morph into a Trojan captain named Echepolus, and follow the disguised goddess.

Why did I choose Echepolus? Why is this minor captain's name familiar to me? I realize then that Echepolus has only hours to live; that if Athena is successful in using Laodocus to break the peace, this Trojan-at least according to Homer-is going to get an Argive spear through his skull. I realize then that Echepolus has only hours to live; that if Athena is successful in using Laodocus to break the peace, this Trojan-at least according to Homer-is going to get an Argive spear through his skull.

Well, Mr. Echepolus can have his body and identity back before that happens.

In Homer's Iliad, Iliad, this breaking of the truce occurred just after Aphrodite had spirited Paris away from his one-on-one battle with Menelaus, but here in the reality of this breaking of the truce occurred just after Aphrodite had spirited Paris away from his one-on-one battle with Menelaus, but here in the reality of this this Trojan War, that non-confrontation between Menelaus and Paris had happened years ago. This truce is a more mundane thing-some of King Priam's representatives meeting with some of the Achaeans' heralds, both sides working out some abtruse agreement about time off from the fighting for festivals or funerals or somesuch. If you ask me, one of the reasons this siege has dragged out for almost a decade is all this time off from the fighting; the Greeks and Trojans have as many religious celebrations as our Twenty-first Century Hindus had and as many secular holidays as an American postal worker. One wonders how they ever manage to kill each other amidst all this feasting and sacrificing to the gods and ten-day-funeral celebrations. Trojan War, that non-confrontation between Menelaus and Paris had happened years ago. This truce is a more mundane thing-some of King Priam's representatives meeting with some of the Achaeans' heralds, both sides working out some abtruse agreement about time off from the fighting for festivals or funerals or somesuch. If you ask me, one of the reasons this siege has dragged out for almost a decade is all this time off from the fighting; the Greeks and Trojans have as many religious celebrations as our Twenty-first Century Hindus had and as many secular holidays as an American postal worker. One wonders how they ever manage to kill each other amidst all this feasting and sacrificing to the gods and ten-day-funeral celebrations.

What fascinates me now, so soon after I vowed to rebel against the gods' will (only to find myself much more of a pawn to their will than ever before), is the question of how quickly and how sharply real events in this war can swerve from the details of Homer's tale. Disparities in the past-the sequence of the Gathering of the Armies, for instance, or the timing of Paris's aborted battle with Menelaus-have all been minor discrepancies, easily explained by Homer's need to include certain past events in the short span of the poem set in the tenth year of the war. But what if events really really take a different course? What if I were to walk up to-say-Agamemnon this morning and stick this spear (poor doomed Echepolus' spear, to be sure, but still a working spear) through the king's heart? The gods can do many things, but they can't return dead mortals to life. (Or dead gods either, as oxymoronic as that sounds.) take a different course? What if I were to walk up to-say-Agamemnon this morning and stick this spear (poor doomed Echepolus' spear, to be sure, but still a working spear) through the king's heart? The gods can do many things, but they can't return dead mortals to life. (Or dead gods either, as oxymoronic as that sounds.) Who are you, Hockenberry, to thwart Fate and defy the will of the gods? queries a craven, professorial little pissant voice that I listened to and followed most of my real life. queries a craven, professorial little pissant voice that I listened to and followed most of my real life.

I am me, Thomas Hockenberry comes the reply from the contemporary me, as fragmented as he is, comes the reply from the contemporary me, as fragmented as he is, and right now I'm fed up with these power-addled thugs who call themselves gods. and right now I'm fed up with these power-addled thugs who call themselves gods.

Now, in my role as spy rather than scholic, I stand close enough to hear the dialogue between Athena-morphed as Laodocus-and that buffoon (but fine archer) Pandarus. Speaking as one Trojan warrior to another, Athena/Laodocus appeals to the idiot's vanity, tells him that Prince Paris will shower him with gifts if he kills Menelaus, and even compares him to the ultimate archer-Apollo-if he has the skill to bring off this shot.

Pandarus falls for the ruse hook, line, and sinker-"Athena fired the fool's heart within him" was the way one fine translator described this moment-and has some of his pals hide him from view with their shields while he prepares his long bow and chooses the perfect arrow for this assassination. For centuries, scholics-Iliad scholars-have argued the issue of whether or not the Greeks and Trojans used poison on their arrows. Most scholics, myself included, argued the negative-such behavior simply did not seem to meet these heroes' high standards of honor in battle. We were wrong. They sometimes do use poison. And a lethal, fast-acting poison it is. This explains why so many of the wounds listed in the scholars-have argued the issue of whether or not the Greeks and Trojans used poison on their arrows. Most scholics, myself included, argued the negative-such behavior simply did not seem to meet these heroes' high standards of honor in battle. We were wrong. They sometimes do use poison. And a lethal, fast-acting poison it is. This explains why so many of the wounds listed in the Iliad Iliad were so quickly fatal. were so quickly fatal.

Pandarus lets fly. It's a brilliant shot. I track the arrow as it flies hundreds of yards, arcing and then hurtling directly toward Agamemnon's redheaded brother. The shaft will skewer Menelaus as he stands at the forefront of his fighters watching the heralds jabbering away in no-man's-land. That is, it will skewer him if no Greek-friendly god intervenes.

One does. With my enhanced vision, I see Athena abandon Laodocus' body and QT to Menelaus' side. The goddess is playing a double game here-tricking the Trojans into breaking the truce and then rushing to make sure that one of her favorites, Menelaus, is not actually killed. Cloaked head to toe, invisible to friend and foe but visible to this scholic, she slaps the arrow aside the way a mother flicks a fly from her sleeping son. (I think I stole that imagery, but it's been so long since I actually read read the the Iliad, Iliad, in translation or the original, that I can't be sure.) in translation or the original, that I can't be sure.) Still, despite her protective and deflective slap, the arrow hits home. Menelaus shouts in pain and goes down, the arrow protruding from his midsection, just above the groin. Has Athena failed?

Confusion ensues. Priam's heralds flee back behind the Trojan lines and the Achaean negotiators scurry back behind the protection of Greek shields. Agamemnon, who has been using the truce time to inspect his troops lined up row upon row (perhaps the inspection is timed to show his leadership this first morning after Achilles' mutiny), arrives to find his brother writhing on the ground, captains and lieutenants huddled around him.

I aim a short baton. Although the baton looks like the kind of swagger stick a minor Trojan commander might carry, this is not Captain Echepolus' property; it is mine, standard issue for us scholics. The baton is actually a taser and a shotgun microphone, picking out and amplifying sound from as much as two miles away, feeding the pickup to the hearplugs I wear whenever I'm on the plains of Ilium.

Agamemnon is giving his dying brother one hell of a eulogy. I see him cradle Menelaus' head and shoulders in his arms and hear him go on about the terrrible vengeance he-Agamemnon-will wreak on the Trojans for the murder of noble Menelaus, after which he laments about how the Achaeans will-despite Agamemnon's bloody vengeance-lose heart, give up the war, and take their black ships home after Menelaus dies. After all, what's the use of rescuing Helen if her cuckolded husband is dead? Holding his moaning brother, Agamemnon plays the prophet-"But the plowlands here in Priam will feed your flesh to the worms and rot your bones, O My Brother, as you lie dead before the unbreached walls of Troy, your mission failed." Cheery stuff. Just the kind of thing a dying man wants to hear.

"Wait, wait, wait," grunts Menelaus through gritted teeth. "Don't bury me so fast, big brother. The arrowhead's not lodged in a mortal spot. See? It penetrated my bronze war-belt and got me in the love handle I've been meaning to lose, not in the balls or belly."

"Ahh, yes," says Agamemnon, frowning at the wound where the arrow has only lightly penetrated. He almost, not quite, sounds disappointed. The whole eulogy is moot now and it sounded as if he'd worked on it for a while.

"But the arrow is is poisoned," gasps Menelaus as if trying to cheer his brother up. Menelaus's red hair is matted with sweat and grass, his golden helmet having rolled away when he fell. poisoned," gasps Menelaus as if trying to cheer his brother up. Menelaus's red hair is matted with sweat and grass, his golden helmet having rolled away when he fell.

Standing, dropping his brother's shoulders and head so quickly that Menelaus would have crashed back to the ground if his captains had not caught him, Agamemnon shouts for Talthybius, his herald, and orders the man to find Machaon, Asclepius' son, Agamemnon's own doctor and a damned good one, too, since Machaon is supposed to have learned his craft from Chiron, the friendly centaur.

Now it looks like any battlefield from any age-a fallen man screaming and cursing and crying as the pain begins to flow through the initial shock of injury, friends on one knee gathered around, helpless, useless, then the medic and his assistants arriving, giving orders, pulling the barbed bronze head out of ripping flesh, sucking out poison, packing clean dressings on the wound even while Menelaus continues to scream like the proverbial stuck pig.

Agamemnon leaves his brother to Machaon's ministrations and goes off to rouse his men to combat, although the Achaeans-even without Achilles in their ranks today-seem hung over and angry and surly and in little need of a rousing to get them to fight.

Within twenty minutes of Pandarus's ill-conceived arrow shot, the truce is over and the Greeks attack Trojan lines along a two-mile stretch of dust and blood.

It's time for me to get out of Echepolus' body before the poor son of a bitch catches a spear in the forehead.

I don't remember much of my real life on Earth. I don't remember if I was married, if I had children, where I lived-except for murky images of a book-lined study where I read my books and prepared my lectures-nor all that much about the university I taught at in Indiana, except images of stone and brick buildings on a hill with a wonderful view to the east. One of the odd things about being a scholic is that fragments of non-scholic-essential memories do return after months and years, which may be one of the reasons the gods don't allow us to live that long. I am the oldest exception.