The Golden One glared down at me. "That was a mistake that will not be repeated."

"No, not with Ahriman and his tribes safely in their own continuum now."

"That is done and we survived the crisis," said the one I called Zeus. "The question at hand is what to do about the particular nexus at Troy."

"Troy must win," insisted the Golden One.

"No, the Greeks should..."

"The Trojans will win," the Golden One stated flatly. "They will win because I will make make them win." them win."

"So that you can create this Ilian empire that appears to be so dear to your heart," said Zeus.

"Exactly."

"Why is that so important?" asked the woman.

"It will unify all of Europe and much of Asia," he replied. "There will be no separation of East and West, no dichotomy of the human spirit. No Alexander of Macedon with his semibarbaric l.u.s.ts, no Roman Empire, no Constantinople to act as a barrier between Asia and Europe. No Christianity and no Islam to fight their twenty-century-long war against each other."

They listened and began to nod. All but the skeptical woman and the one I called Zeus.

It is a game to them, I realized. They are manipulating human history the way a chess player moves pieces across his board. And if a civilization is utterly destroyed, it means as little to them as if a p.a.w.n or a rook is captured and removed from the board.

"Does it really make that much difference?" asked one of the dark-haired men.

"Of course it does!" the Golden One replied. "I seek to unite the human race, to bring all the many facets of my creatures into harmony and unity..."

"So that they can help us to face the ultimate crisis," said Zeus, almost in a mutter.

The Golden One nodded. "That is my goal. We need all the help we can get."

"I am not certain that your way is the best method," Zeus said.

"I'm certain it's not not," said the woman.

"I'm going ahead with it whether you approve or not," the Golden One retorted. "These are my creatures and I will bring them to the point where they can be of true a.s.sistance to us."

The others in the circle murmured and nodded or shook their heads. There was no unanimity among them. As I watched, they began to fade away, to blur and dissolve until only the Golden One and I stood facing each other against the all-pervasive glow of a place that had no location, no time, in any world that I knew.

"Well, Orion, you have met the others. Some of them, at least."

"You spoke of us as your creatures," I said. "Do the others have creatures of their own, as well?"

"Some do. Others seem more interested in meddling with my creatures than in creating their own."

"Then... the men and women of Earth-you created them?"

"You were one of the first of them, Orion," he answered. "And, in a sense, you then created us."

"What? I don't understand."

"How could you?"

"You created the human race so that we can help you," I said, repeating what I had heard.

"Ultimately, yes."

"But while the others think you will bring us humans to their aid, you actually plan to have us help you against them against them," I realized.

He stared at me.

"And that will make you the mightiest of all the G.o.ds, won't it?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying. "I am am the mightiest of all the Creators, Orion. The others may not recognize that fact, but it is so." the mightiest of all the Creators, Orion. The others may not recognize that fact, but it is so."

Now I felt my lips twisting into a sardonic smile.

He knew my thought. "You think I do this out of egomania? Out of l.u.s.t for worship by creatures I myself created?" He shook his head sadly. "How little you understand. Do you have any great desire for your sandals to adore you, Orion? Is it necessary for your happiness to have your sword or the knife hidden under your kilt to proclaim you as the greatest master they have ever known?"

"I don't understand..."

"How could you? How could you dream of the consequences that I am dealing with? Orion, I created the human race out of necessity, truly-but not the necessity to be adored! The universes are wide, Orion, and filled with dangers. I seek to protect the continuum, to keep it from being torn apart by forces that you could not even imagine. While the others dither and bicker, I act act. I create. I command!"

"And to accomplish your goal it is necessary for Troy to win this war?"

"Yes!"

"And it was necessary to destroy the starship we were riding? Necessary to kill the woman I loved? The woman who loved me?"

For a moment he looked almost startled. "You recall that?"

"I remember the starship. The explosion. She died in my arms. We both died."

"I revived you. I returned you to life."

"And her?"

"She was a G.o.ddess, Orion. I can only revive creatures whom I myself have created."

"If she was a G.o.ddess, how could she die?"

"G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses can die, Orion. Tales of our immortality are rather exaggerated. As are the pious recitations of our goodness and mercy."

I felt my heart thudding in my chest, the blood roaring in my ears. My head swam. I could barely breathe. I hated this man, this golden self-styled G.o.d, this murderer. Hated him with every fiber of my being. He claims to have created me, I told myself. Yet I will destroy him.

"I did not want to kill her, Orion," he said, and it almost sounded sincere. "It was beyond my control. She chose to make herself human. For your sake, Orion. She knew the risks and she accepted them for your sake."

"And died." A murderous rage was burning inside me. Yet when I tried to take a step toward him, I found I could not move. I was frozen, immobilized, unable even to clench my fists at my sides.

"Orion," said the object of my hatred, "you cannot blame me for what she she did to herself." did to herself."

How wrong he was!

"You must serve me whether you like it or not," he insisted. "There is no way for you to avoid your destiny, Orion." Then he added, muttering, almost to himself, "No way for either of us to avoid our destinies."

"I can refuse to serve you," I said stubbornly.

He lifted one golden eyebrow and considered me, the haughty, mocking tone back in his voice. "While you live, my angry creature, you will play your part in my plans. You cannot refuse because you can never know which acts of yours serve me and which do not. You stagger along blindly in your time-bound linearity, going from day to day, while I perceive s.p.a.ce-time on the scale of the continuum."

"Grand talk," I spat. "You sound almost as grandiloquent as old Nestor."

His eyes narrowed. "But I speak the truth, Orion. You see time as past and present and future. I create create time and manipulate it to keep the continuum from being torn asunder. And while you live, you will help me in this mighty task." time and manipulate it to keep the continuum from being torn asunder. And while you live, you will help me in this mighty task."

"While I live," I repeated. "Is that a threat?"

He smiled again. "I make no threats, Orion. I have no need to. I created you. I can destroy you. You have no memory of how many times you have died, do you? Yet I have revived you each time, so that you could serve me again. That is your destiny, Orion. To serve me. To be my Hunter."

"I want to be free," I shouted. "Not your puppet!"

"Pah! I waste my time trying to explain myself to you. No one is free, Orion. No creature can ever be free. Not as long as you live."

He clasped his arms together across his chest and disappeared as abruptly as a candle snuffed out by a sharp gust of wind. Suddenly I was alone in the fog-wrapped darkness of the plain before Troy.

As long as I live, I thought silently, I will struggle to reach your throat. It was a mistake to tell me that you are not immortal. I am the Hunter, and now I know the prey I seek. I will kill you, golden Apollo, Creator, whatever your true name and shape may be. While I live I will seek your death and nothing less. Just as you killed her, I will kill you.

Chapter 8.

"YOU there! Hold!"

I was standing in the Trojan camp again, a sudden sharp wind gusting in from the sea and shredding the mist that had covered the plain. Campfires dotted the darkness, and off in the distance the beetling towers of Troy bulked black and menacing against the moon-bright sky.

I tottered on unsteady feet, like a man who has drunk too much wine, like a man who has suddenly been pushed through a door that he had not seen. The Golden One and the other Creators were gone as completely as if they had been nothing more than a dream. But I knew they were real. They were out there in another plane of existence, toying with us, arguing over which side should win this wretched war. My hands clenched into fists as the memory of their faces and their words fueled the rage burning within me.

A pair of sentries approached me warily, heavy spears in their hands. I gulped down a deep breath of chill night air to calm myself.

"I am an emissary from the High King Agamemnon," I said, slowly and carefully. "I have been sent to speak to Prince Hector."

The sentries were an unlikely pair, one short and squat with a dirty, tangled black beard and a pot belly bulging his chain mail corselet, the other taller and painfully thin, either clean-shaven or too young to start a beard.

"Prince Hector the Tamer of Horses he wants to see," said the pot-belly. He laughed harshly. "So would I!"

The younger one grinned and showed a gap where a front tooth was missing.

"An emissary, eh?" Pot-belly eyed me suspiciously. "With a sword at his side and a mantle of chain mail across his shoulders. More likely a spy. Or an a.s.sa.s.sin."

I held up my herald's wand. "I have been sent by the High King. I am not here to fight. Take my sword and mantle, if they frighten you." I could have disabled them both before they knew what had happened, but that was not my mission.

"Be a lot safer to ram this spear through your guts and have done with it," said Pot-belly.

The youngster put out a restraining hand. "Hermes protects messengers, you know. I wouldn't want to draw down the anger of the Trickster."

Pot-belly scowled and muttered, but finally satisfied himself by taking my sword and chain mail. He did not search me, and therefore did not take the dagger strapped to my right thigh. He was more interested in loot than security.

Once Pot-belly had slipped my baldric across his shoulder and fastened my mantle under his quivering chins, the two of them led me to their chief.

They were Dardanians, allies of the Trojans who had come from several miles up the coast to fight against the invading Achaians. Over the next hour or so I was escorted from the chief of the Dardanian contingent to a Trojan officer, from there to the tent of Hector's chief lieutenants, and finally past the makeshift horse corral and the silently waiting chariots, tipped over with their long yoke poles poking into the air, to the small plain tent and guttering fire of Prince Hector.

At each stop I explained my mission again. Dardanians and Trojans alike spoke a dialect of the Greek spoken by the Achaians, different but not so distant as to be unintelligible. I realized that the city's defenders included contingents from many areas up and down the coast. The Achaians had been raiding their towns for years, and now they had all banded together under Trojan leadership to resist the barbarian invaders.

That was the Golden One's aim: to have the Trojans beat back the Achaians and gain supremacy over the Aegean. Eventually they would establish an empire that would span Europe, the Middle East, and India.

If that was his goal, then mine must be to prevent it from being achieved. If Odysseus was offering a compromise that would allow the Achaians to sail away without burning Troy to the ground, then I must sabotage the offer. I felt a momentary pang of conscience. Odysseus trusted me. Or, I asked myself, had he sent me on this diplomatic mission because he could better afford to lose me than one of his own people?

With those thoughts swirling in my head, I was brought before Hector.

His tent was barely large enough for himself and a servant. A pair of armored n.o.blemen stood by the fire outside the tent's entrance, their bronze breastplates gleaming against the night. Insects buzzed and darted in the firelight. No slaves or women in sight. Hector himself stood at the entrance flap to the tent. He was a big man for these people, nearly my own height.

Hector wore no armor, no badge of his rank. Merely a soft clean tunic belted at the waist, with an ornamental dagger hanging from the leather belt. He had no need to impress anyone with his grandeur. He possessed that calm inner strength that needs no outward decorations.

In the flickering light of his campfire he studied me silently for a moment. Those same grave brown eyes. His face was handsome, intelligent, though there were lines of weariness around his eyes, furrows across his broad brow. Despite the fullness of his rich brown beard I saw that his cheeks were becoming hollow. The strain of this war was taking its toll on him.

"You are the man at the gate," he said finally. His words were measured, neither surprise nor anger in them.

I nodded.

He looked me over carefully. "Your name?"

"Orion."

"From where?"

"Far to the west of here. Beyond the seas where the sun sets."

"Beyond Okea.n.u.s?" he asked.

"Yes."

He puzzled over that, brow knitted, for a few moments. Then he asked, "What brings you to the plain of Ilios? Why are you fighting for the Achaians?"

"A duty I owe to a G.o.d," I said.

"Which G.o.d?"