"Asked? Asked? I never ask ask, Orion. I told you what must be done. While the others dither and discuss and debate, I act act." His breathing quickened, his eyes took on a look of madness. "They don't deserve to live, Orion. I'm the only one who knows what to do, how to protect the continuum against our enemies. They don't realize it, but they're actually serving the enemy. The stupid fools, they're working for the enemy! They deserve to be destroyed. Wiped out. Utterly."

I stared at him. He was raving.

"I'm the only one worthy of existence! My creatures will serve me and me only. The others will be destroyed, as they deserve to be. I will be alone and supreme! Above all others! Forever!"

I grew tired of his ranting. "Apollo, or whatever your name is, it's time for you to revive Athene..."

He blinked at me. More soberly, he replied, "Her name is Anya."

"Anya." I remembered. "Anya."

"And she is quite thoroughly dead, Orion. There will be no reviving."

"But you said..."

"What I said is of no matter. She is dead."

My fingers twitched at my sides. He stared at me, and I could feel the forces he commanded engulfing me, drowning me, freezing my body into stillness even though he chose to leave my mind awake.

With a scream that shook the heavens I broke free of his hypnotic commands and sprang for his throat. His eyes went wide and he tried to raise his hands to defend himself but he was far too slow. I grabbed him and the momentum of my spring tumbled us sprawling to the blood-colored gra.s.s.

"You built strength and killing fury into me too, didn't you?" I bellowed as I squeezed the life out of his throat. He made terrified strangling noises and batted at me ineffectually with his hands.

"If she can't live, then neither can you," I said, tightening my grip, watching his eyes bulge, his tongue swell. "You want to wipe out the others and reign supreme? You won't even last another minute!"

But powerful hands pulled my arms away and lifted me to my feet. I struggled against them, uselessly, and then realized who was holding me.

"That's enough, Orion!" said Zeus sharply.

I glared at him, blood-fury still pounding along my veins. Four other male Creators held my arms tightly. Still more of them, women as well as men, stood grouped around the fallen Apollo and me, dressed in an a.s.sortment of tunics, robes, glittering metallic uniforms.

Zeus waited until I stopped struggling. The Golden One lay gagging and coughing on the dried-blood ground, leaning on one elbow, his other hand touching his throat. I saw the purple imprints of my fingers there and I was only sorry that I hadn't been allowed to finish the job.

"We asked you to find him for us, not murder him," Zeus said, his sternness struggling against a satisfied little smile.

"I found him for myself," I said. "And when he refused to revive Ath... Anya, I knew he deserved to die."

Shaking his head at me, Zeus said, "No one deserves to die at the hands of another, Orion. That is the ultimate lie. Can't you see that he's mad? His mind is sick."

New fury surged through me. "And you're going to help him? Try to cure him?"

"We will cure him," said the lean-faced Hermes. "Given time."

He knelt over the fallen Apollo and touched him with a short metal rod that he had taken from his tunic pocket. The welts around the Golden One's neck faded and disappeared. His breathing returned to normal.

"Physical repairs are the easiest," Hermes said, rising to his feet. "Repairing the mind will take longer, but it will be done."

"He wanted to kill you-all of you," I said.

Hera replied, "Does that mean we should kill him? Only a creature thinks that way, Orion."

"He killed Anya!"

"No," said the Golden One, climbing slowly to his feet. "You killed her, Orion. She became mortal for love of you, and she died."

"I loved her!"

"I loved her too!" he shouted. "And she chose you! She deserved to die!"

I strained against the men holding me, but they were too many and too strong. Even so, Apollo dodged backward, away from me, and Zeus stepped between us.

"Orion!" he snapped. "To struggle against us is pointless."

"He said he could revive her."

"That was his madness speaking," said Zeus.

"No it wasn't!" the Golden One taunted. "I can can revive her! But not for him. Not so that she can give herself to this... this... creature!" revive her! But not for him. Not so that she can give herself to this... this... creature!"

"Bring her back to me!" I screamed, straining uselessly against the four who held me.

Hera stepped before me, her taunting smile gone; instead her face was grave, almost sympathetic. "Orion, you have served us well and we are pleased with you. But you must accept what must be accepted. You must put all thoughts of Anya out of your mind."

She reached up and touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers. I felt all the fury and tension drain out of me. My body relaxed, my rage subsided.

To Hera I said, "Put all thoughts of her out of my mind? That's like teaching myself not to breathe."

"I feel your pain," she said softly. "But what's done cannot be undone."

"Yes it can!" the Golden One snapped. He laughed and glared at me. Zeus nodded at Hermes, who gripped him by the shoulders. The burly redhead I called Ares also stepped close to the Golden One, ready to restrain him if necessary.

"I could do it," he said, his eyes wild. "I could bring her back. But not for you, Orion! Not so that she can embrace a creature, a worm, a thing that I made to serve me!"

"Take him back to the city," said Zeus. "His madness is worse than I thought."

"I'm not the mad one!" Apollo ranted. "I'm the only sane one here! The rest of you are crazy! Stupid, shortsighted crazy fools! You think you can control the continuum and save yourselves? Madness! Nothing but madness! Only I can save you. Only I know how to keep your precious necks out of the noose. And you you, Orion! You'll never see Anya again. Never!"

The murderous rage was gone from me. I felt empty and useless.

Hermes began to lead the Golden One away, with brawny Ares following behind. Zeus and the others began to fade, shimmering in the double sunlight like a desert mirage. I stood alone on the strange world and watched them slowly dissolve from sight.

Just before he disappeared, the Golden One turned and shouted over his shoulder. "Look at you, Orion! Standing there like a forlorn puppy. No one's going to bring her back! There's only the two of us who could, and I'm not going to, and you don't know how!"

He howled with laughter as he faded out and disappeared with the others, leaving me alone on a strange and alien world.

Chapter 44.

IT took several moments for the meaning of the Golden One's words to sink home. "No one's going to bring her back! There's only the two of us who could, and I'm not going to, and you don't know how!" "No one's going to bring her back! There's only the two of us who could, and I'm not going to, and you don't know how!"

I could return Anya to life. That's what he had said. Was it merely a taunt, a final cruel slash intended to tantalize me? I shook my head. He is mad, I told myself. You can't believe anything he says.

Yet he had said it, and I could not get it out of my mind.

I gazed around the alien landscape and realized that if I was to have any chance at reviving Anya, I had to be back on Earth to do so. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to return. I thought I heard the Golden One's mad laughter, ringing in the farthest distance. Then it seemed that Zeus spoke to me: "Yes, you may return, Orion. You have served us well."

I felt an instant of cold as sharp as a sword blade slicing through me. When I opened my eyes I found myself back in the great pyramid, in the burial chamber of Khufu.

Drenched with sweat, I lurched against the gold-inlaid sarcophagus. Every part of me was exhausted, body and mind. Somehow I dragged myself down the spiraling stone stairway to the underground chamber where Hetepamon waited.

The fat priest was kneeling before the altar of Amon. He had lit all the lamps in the tiny chamber. Pungent incense filled the room as he murmured in a language that was not the Egyptians' current tongue.

"...for the safety of the stranger Orion, O Amon, I pray. Mightiest of G.o.ds, protect this stranger who so resembles your beloved Osiris..."

"I am back," I said, leaning wearily against the stone wall.

Hetepamon whirled so quickly that he lost his balance and went down on all fours. Laboriously, he lifted his ponderous bulk to his feet.

"So quickly? You've barely been gone an hour."

I smiled. "The G.o.ds can make time flow swiftly when they want to."

"You accomplished your mission?" he asked eagerly. "You have fulfilled your destiny?"

"This part of it," I said.

"Then we can leave?"

"Yes, we can leave now." I glanced up at the statue of Amon standing above the altar. For the first time I noticed how much it resembled the Creator I knew as Zeus, without his trim little beard.

For the next several days we sailed up the Nile, Hetepamon and I, heading for the capital. Prince Aramset expected me there. Menalaos and Helen were there; they would be reunited before I returned. At least, I thought, she will live in the comforts of Egypt. Perhaps she will be able to teach her husband some of the arts of civilization and make her life more bearable.

Nekoptah awaited us, too. I had no idea of how Aramset would deal with him. The king's chief minister would never give up his power willingly, and the prince seemed terribly young for this game of court politics. I was glad that Lukka headed his personal guard.

But thoughts of them merely buzzed somewhere in the back of my mind as we sailed up the busy river. My eyes saw towns and cities glide by, monuments towering along the water's edge, farms and orchards being worked by naked slaves. But my thoughts were of Anya and the Golden One's taunting words.

Did I have the power to revive her? If so, how could I learn to do it when none of the other Creators knew how?

Or did they? I felt an icy anger grip me in its merciless clutches. Were they telling me the truth, Zeus and Hera and the others? Or was Anya the victim of a power struggle among them, the loser in a battle among the Creators? They said they did not kill one another, but the Golden One had caused Anya's death, and perhaps none of them chose chose to help me bring her back. to help me bring her back.

Each night I tried to make contact with the Creators, to reach their golden-shimmering domed city somewhere in the far future of this time. But they refused me. I lay on my narrow bunk in the creaking boat and saw nothing but the reflections of the river against the low wooden ceiling, heard nothing except the drone of insects and the distant faint voice of an occasional song from the sh.o.r.e.

Our reception at Wast was very different from the day when Helen, Nefertu, and I had first arrived. The prince himself awaited us, with an honor guard of brightly polished soldiery that lined both sides of the stone pier from end to end. Thousands of people thronged the waterfront, drawn by the sight of Prince Aramset, young and dashing in his purple-hemmed skirt and golden pectoral.

I saw Lukka and his men, wearing Egyptian armor now, standing proudly in the first rank, nearest the prince.

And no sign of Nekoptah or any priest from his temple.

We were welcomed quite royally. Aramset walked right up to me and greeted me with both hands on my shoulders, to the tumultuous cheers of the crowd.

"The lady Helen?" I asked him, over the noise of the cheering.

Grinning, he shouted in my ear, "She has had a happy reunion with her husband, and is now allowing him to court her in the Egyptian manner-with gifts and flowers and serenades by minstrels in the evening."

"They aren't sleeping together?"

"Not yet." He laughed. "She's making him learn the ways of civilization, and I must say that he seems eager to learn-so that he can bed her."

I had to smile to myself. In her own way Helen would cultivate Menalaos. Still, I felt more of a pang of regret than I had expected to.

Aramset greeted Hetepamon with regal solemnity, then showed us to chariots drawn by quartets of matched white stallions. Our parade moved up the streets of the capital at a stately pace; the prince was giving the crowds plenty of time to admire him. He may be young, I thought, but apparently he knows a thing or two about politics. He must have spent his few years closely observing the mechanics of power. I was impressed.

Once we reached the palace, I saw old Nefertu standing at the top of the stairs that led into its main entrance. I was glad to see him alive and safe from Nekoptah's machinations.

We alighted from the chariots, and Aramset came to me. "I must make a fuss over the chief priest of Amon; he is a much more important personage than a mere friend, Orion."

"I understand."

"In three days there will be a majestic ceremony, to seal the new alliance between the Achaians and the Kingdom of the Two Lands. My father will preside, and Nekoptah will be at his side."

"What is happening..."

"Later," the prince said, his youthful face beaming. "I have much to tell you, but it must wait until later."

So he went to Hetepamon while I fairly ran up the steps to greet Nefertu, realizing as I pranced toward him that it was the prospect of news about Helen that was really exciting me.

All that afternoon and well into the evening Nefertu filled me in on what had transpired during my absence. News of our peaceful success in the delta country had, of course, been flashed to Nekoptah by sun-mirror almost as soon as it had happened. He seemed furious at first, but put a good face on it for the king. He had made no overtures against Helen, realizing that his "hostage" had been turned into the prize for the alliance with Menalaos.

As the sun cast lengthening shadows across the city, we sat in my apartment, I on a soft couch covered in painted silk, Nefertu on a wooden stool where he could look past me to the terrace and the rooftops beyond.

"Nekoptah has been strangely silent and inactive," said the silver-haired bureaucrat. "Most of the time he has remained shut up in his own quarters."

"He won't give up the power of this kingdom without a struggle," I said.

"I believe the sudden emergence of Prince Aramset as a force to be reckoned with has stunned him and upset all his plans," Nefertu said. "And for that, we have you to thank, Orion."

"Meaning that Nekoptah blames me for it."

He laughed-a soft chuckle, actually, was all that Nefertu would allow himself.