Nothing did, though. So after my third cup of coffee, I paid the fat, moustached owner his tab, and left the place.

Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees. The street was deserted, and quite dark. I turned right into Leoforos Dionysiou Areopagitou and moved on until I reached the battered fence that runs along the southern slope of the Acropolis.

I heard a footfall, way back behind me, at the corner. I stood there for half a minute, but there was only silence and very black night. Shrugging, I entered the gate and moved to the tenemos of Dionysius Eleutherios. Nothing remains of the temple itself but the foundation. I passed on, heading toward the Theater.

Phil, then, had suggested that history moved in great cycles, like big clock hands passing the same numbers day after day.

"Historical biology proves you wrong," said George.

"I didn't mean literally," replied Phil.

"Then we ought to agree on the language we are speaking before we talk any further."

Myshtigo had laughed.

Ellen touched Dos Santos' arm and asked him about the poor horses the picadores rode. He had shrugged, poured her more Kokkineli, drank his own.

"It is a part of the thing," he'd said.

And no message, no message…

I walked on through the mess time makes of greatness. A frightened bird leapt up on my right, uttered a frightened cry, was gone. I kept walking, wandered into the old Theater at last, moved downward through it…

Diane was not so amused as I had thought she would be by the stupid plaques that decorated my suite.

"But they belong here. Of course. They do."

"Ha!"

"At one time it would have been the heads of animals you had slain. Or the shields of your vanquished enemies. We're civilized now. This is the new way."

"Ha! again." I changed the subject. "Any word on the Vegan?"

"No."

"You want his head."

"I'm not civilized.-Tell me, was Phil always such a. fool, back in the old days?"

"No, he wasn't. Isn't now, either. His was the curse of a half-talent. Now he is considered the last of the Romantic poets, and he's gone to seed. He pushes his mysticism into nonsense because, like Wordsworth, he has outlived his day. He lives now in distortions of a pretty good past.

"Like Byron, he once swam the Hellespont, but now, rather like Yeats, the only thing he really enjoys is the company of young ladies whom he can bore with his philosophy, or occasionally charm with a well-told reminiscence. He is old. His writing occasionally shows flashes of its former power, but it was not just his writing that was his whole style."

"How so?"

"Well, I remember one cloudy day when he stood in the Theater of Dionysius and read a hymn to Pan which he had written. There was an audience of two or three hundred-and only the gods know why they showed up-but he began to read.

"His Greek wasn't very good yet, but his voice was quite impressive, his whole manner rather charismatic. After a time, it began to rain, lightly, but no one left. Near the end there was a peal of thunder, sounding awfully like laughter, and a sudden shudder ran through the crowd. I'm not saying that it was like that in the days of Thespis, but a lot of those people were looking over their shoulders as they left.

"I was very impressed also. Then, several days later, I read the poem-and it was nothing, it was doggerel, it was trite. It was the way he did it that was important. He lost that part of his power along with his youth and what remained of what might be called art was not strong enough to make him great, to keep alive his personal legend. He resents this, and he consoles himself with obscure philosophy, but in answer to your question-no, he was not always such a fool."

"Perhaps even some of his philosophy is correct."

"What do you mean?"

"The Big Cycles. The age of strange beasts is come upon us again. Also, the age of heroes, demigods."

"I've only met the strange beasts."

"'Karaghiosis slept in this bed,' it says here. Looks comfortable."

"It is.-See?"

"Yes. Do I get to keep the plaque?"

"If you want…"

I moved to the proskenion. The relief sculpture-work started at the steps, telling tales from the life of Dionysius. Every tour guide and every member of a tour must, under a regulation promulgated by me, "…carry no fewer than three magnesium flares on his person, while traveling." I pulled the pin from one and cast it to the ground. The dazzle would not be visible below, because of the angle of the hillside and the blocking masonry.

I did not stare into the bright flame, but above, at the silver-limned figures. There was Hermes, presenting the infant god to Zeus, while the Corybantes tripped the Pyrrhic fantastic on either side of the throne; then there was Ikaros, whom Dionysius had taught to cultivate the vine-he was preparing to sacrifice a goat, while his daughter was offering cakes to the god (who stood aside, discussing her with a satyr); and there was drunken Silenus, attempting to hold up the sky like Atlas, only not doing so well; and there were all the other gods of the cities, paying a call to this Theater-and I spotted Hestia, Theseus, and Eirene with a horn of plenty…

"You burn an offering to the gods," came a statement from nearby.

I did not turn. It had come from behind my right shoulder, but I did not turn because I knew the voice.

"Perhaps I do," I said.

"It has been a long time since you walked this land, this Greece."

"That is true."

"Is it because there has never been an immortal Penelope-patient as the mountains, trusting in the return of her kallikanzaros-weaving, patient as the hills?"

"Are you the village story-teller these days?"

He chuckled.

"I tend the many-legged sheep in the high places, where the fingers of Aurora come first to smear the sky with roses."

"Yes, you're the story teller. Why are you not up in the high places now, corrupting youth with your song?"

"Because of dreams."

"Aye."

I turned and looked into the ancient face-its wrinkles, in the light of the dying flare, as black as fishers' nets lost at the bottom of the sea, the beard as white as the snow that comes drifting down from the mountains, the eyes matching the blue of the headcloth corded about his temples. He did not lean upon his staff any more than a warrior leans on his spear. I knew that he was over a century old, and that he had never taken the S-S series.

"A short time ago did I dream that I stood in the midst of a black temple," he told me, "and Lord Hades came and stood by my side, and he gripped my wrist and bade me go with him. But I said 'Nay' and I awakened. This did trouble me."

"What did you eat that night? Berries from the Hot Place?"

"Do not laugh, please.-Then, of a later night, did I dream that I stood in a land of sand and darkness. The strength of the old champions was upon me, and I did battle with Antaeus, son of the Earth, destroying him. Then did Lord Hades come to me again, and taking me by the arm did say, 'Come with me now.' But again did I deny him, and I awakened. The Earth was a-tremble."

"That's all?"

"No. Then, more recent still, and not at night, but as I sat beneath a tree watching my flock, did I dream a dream while awake. Pheobus-like did I battle the monster Python, and was almost destroyed thereby. This time Lord Hades did not come, but when I turned about there stood Hermes, his lackey, smiling and pointing his caducaeus like a rifle in my direction. I shook my head and he lowered it. Then he raised it once more in a gesture, and I looked where he had indicated.

"There before me lay Athens -this place, this Theater, you-and here sat the old women. The one who measures out the thread of life was pouting, for she had wrapped yours about the horizon and no ends were in sight. But the one who weaves had divided it into two very thin threads. One strand ran back across the seas and vanished again from sight. The other led up into the hills. At the first hill stood the Dead Man, who held your thread in his white, white hands. Beyond him, at the next hill, it lay across a burning rock. On the hill beyond the rock stood the Black Beast, and he shook and worried your thread with his teeth.