No! thought Daeman. But pressed down hard on his red circle.

The three wooden chairs shot skyward, rotating around the crackling, shifting, chord of lighting, shooting upward so quickly that a sonic boom echoed across the seabed floor, shaking the crawler on its springs. A second later, less than a second later, the three chairs were out of sight overhead as the thread of pure white energy twisted and writhed and arched to follow the hurtling points of light on the equatorial orbital ring.

39

Olympos, Ilium and Olympos

The little robot fascinates me and I’m tempted to stay in the Great Hall of the Gods and find out what’s going on, but I’m leery of getting closer because the gods might hear me in this vast, hushed space. The dialogue between the gods and the robot has shifted to ancient Greek now—at least the gods, including Zeus, are speaking in the common language I’ve grown used to here—but I’m far enough way that I can catch only fragments of it.

“. . . little automatons . . . toys . . . from the Great Inland Sea . . . should be destroyed . . .”

Rather than try to creep closer, I remember why I’m here—Aphrodite’s comb—and the importance of my getting back to the Trojan women. The fate of hundreds of thousands of people below may depend on what I do next, so I tiptoe backward, away from the gods and the odd machines, and find my way down the long side corridor to the little suite of rooms where I first met the Goddess of Love just a few days ago. Can it just be a few days ago? Much has happened since then, to say the least.

There are voices—gods’ voices—echoing from elsewhere in the Great Hall, and I slip into Aphrodite’s pied-à-terre with my pulse pounding in my throat. The place is as I remember it from a few days ago—windowless, lighted by only a few tripod braziers, with only the couch and a few other pieces of furniture, including a softly glowing blue screen on the marble desk. I’d thought at the time that the screen was like a computer screen, and I cross to it now to look. It’s true—the glowing blue rectangle is separate from the desktop, hovering an inch or two above the marble surface, and while there’s no Microsoft Windows menu on it, a single white circle floats there as if inviting me to touch it and activate the screen.

I leave it alone.

Near the couch is where I remember some of Aphrodite’s personal items on a small round table, although I’m only hoping that there’s a comb among them. There’s not. I see a silver brooch and some silver cylinders—divine lipsticks?—and an elaborately carved silver mirror lying facedown, but no comb.

Damn it. I have no idea where Aphrodite’s home is among the estates scattered around on the broad green summit of Olympos, and I certainly can’t ask one of the gods for directions. I’d gambled and lost on Helen’s challenge to bring back the comb. But the important thing was to show them that I have the ability to travel to Olympos and back, and speed is of the essence. I have no idea how long the Trojan women will wait.

I grab the mirror without looking at it carefully, envision the basement room in Ilium’s Temple of Athena, and twist the QT medallion.

There are seven women there when I flick into existence, not the five women I’d left in the basement room a few minutes before. All of the women take a step back when I arrive, but one of them shrieks wildly and throws her hands over her face. I still have time to see that face and I recognize it—this is Cassandra, King Priam’s loveliest daughter.

“Did you bring us the comb, Hock-en-bear-eeee, as proof of your ability to travel to and from Olympos as do the gods?” asks Hecuba.

“I didn’t have time to search for it,” I say. “I brought this instead.” I hand the mirror to the nearest woman, Laodice, Hecuba’s daughter.

Helen says, “The carving on the silver handle and the back of the mirror is similar to what I remember of the goddess’s comb, but . . .”

She stops speaking as Laodice gasps and almost drops the mirror. The mirror is picked up by the priestess, Theano, who looks into it, goes white, and hands it to Andromache. Hector’s wife looks into and blushes. Cassandra grabs it from Andromache, lifts it, stares into it, and screams again.

Hecuba grabs the mirror away and frowns at Cassandra. I can tell immediately that there is no love lost between these two women, and I remember why—Cassandra, given the power of prophecy by Apollo, had urged King Priam to have Hecuba’s baby, Paris, killed upon birth. From her childhood onward, Cassandra has foreseen the disaster resulting from Helen’s capture and the ensuing war. But, according to tradition, Apollo’s gift of prophecy to the girl was accompanied by the curse that no one would ever believe her.

Now Hecuba is staring into the mirror, mouth slack.

“What is it?” I ask. There must be something wrong with the mirror.

Helen takes the mirror from Hector’s mother and hands it to me. “Do you see, Hock-en-bear-eeee?”

I look into the glass. My reflection is . . . odd. I’m me there, but also not me. My chin is stronger, my nose smaller, my eyes bolder, my cheekbones higher, my teeth whiter . . .

“Is this what you’ve all seen?” I ask. “This idealized reflection of yourself?”

“Yes,” says Helen. “Aphrodite’s looking glass shows only beauty. We have looked upon ourselves as goddesses.”

I can’t imagine that Helen could be any more beautiful than she already is, but I nod and touch the surface of the mirror. It’s not glass. It feels soft, resilient, rather like an LCD screen on a laptop computer. Perhaps that’s what it is and inside the carved backing might be powerful microchips and video morphing programs running algorithms of symmetry, idealized proportions, and other elements of perceived human beauty.

“Hock-en-bear-eeee,” says Helen, “let me introduce two others we’ve brought here this morning to judge whether you speak the truth. This younger woman is Cassandra, daughter of Priam. This older woman is Herophile, ‘beloved of Hera,’ the oldest of the Sibyls and priestess of Apollo Smithneus. It was Herophile who interpreted Hecuba’s dream lo those many years ago.”

“What dream is that?” I ask.

Hecuba, who, it appears, will not look at Herophile or Cassandra, says, “When I was pregnant with my second child, Paris, I dreamed that I gave birth to a burning brand that spread its fire to all of Ilium, burning it to the ground. And that child became a rampaging Erinyes—a child of Kronos, some say, the daughter of Phorkys say others, the offspring of Hades and Persephone say still others—but, all acknowledge, most likely the daughter of deadly Night. This Erinyes of flame had no wings, but it resembled the Harpies. The smell of its breath was sulfurous. A poisonous slaver poured from its eyes. Its voice was like the lowing of terrified cattle. It bore in its belt a whip of brass-studded thongs. It carried a torch in one hand and a serpent in the other, and its home was in the Underworld, and it was born to avenge all and any slights against mothers. Its approach was heralded by all the dogs of Ilium barking as if in pain.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s quite a dream.”

“I perceived the Erinyes to be the child later named Paris,” says the old hag named Herophile. “Cassandra also saw this, and recommended that the baby boy be killed the moment he emerged from the womb.” The old priestess gave Hecuba a scalding look. “Our advice was ignored.”

Helen literally steps between the women. “Everyone here, Hock-en-bear-eeee, has had visions of Troy being put to the torch. But we do not know which of our visions arise merely from anxiety for ourselves, our children, and our husbands, and which visions are gifts of true sight from the gods. So must we judge yours. Cassandra has questions for you.”