For a moment he stared away over her shoulder, and his eyes misted. “They died in the year the Persians came, within two days. I saw that they had fitting rites and I spoke for them.”
“Killer,” she said. “I’m very tired. Please can we have this conversation another day?”
“I shall be as quick as I can!” he assured her ominously.
Then he staggered, and she grabbed his shoulders to steady him. One of his pupils was dilated… bleeding from the ear, flushed skin, loud breathing, double vision— all the symptoms!
“Heavens, boy!” she gasped. “You’re running around with a fractured skull!” She guided him over to the bed, and he flopped on it. She lifted his feet up and straightened the pillow and felt his forehead— a furnace. “You lie right there, Achilles!” she ordered. “I’m going to get help and move you up to the hospital.” She had turned away and had taken two steps when he snapped, “Stop!” She stopped.
“Come here!”
If he calls me to his bed…
Almost in spite of herself she went back, trembling violently, and looked down at his grinning face.
The same smile Graham had, the straight Greek nose, Graham’s bull shoulders, and the dark curls spread on the pillow… like… like Alan’s. Why had she not noticed sooner? But of course she had noticed— that was why she had jumped to his defense, why she could not hold back when he held out his arms to her, why her own reaction had repelled her, why she had presumed to nag him about Clio… why she had wanted to spank him.
“Alan?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Stunned, she sat down on the bed beside him. “How? What?”
“The Oracle told me,” he said, taking her hand. “It knew that you would choose to stay and that Father would not. It forbade me to talk to him, or tell you before he had gone. I tried, but my legs and mouth wouldn’t work…” They had all forgotten Alan. All the time she had been in the house of the Oracle— and when she had been talking with Graham and Maisie— none of them had remembered that there had been two children; only Lacey. More magic!
The Judgment of Solomon: Divide the children.
“I fell off in Arcady,” Killer said, still grinning. “That’s where my scar came from, the one that won’t disappear. It’s a faerie scar— I fell off, and one of the unicorn’s hooves clipped me.” Achilles— Al Gillis. He had been able to tell them his name.
“Oh, my poor baby!” she said.
Killer said, “Damn right!” and smothered a giggle. “Crion had been on an embassy to Sparta; he found me and took me home. I don’t remember, of course. I came here to ask a mother’s blessing, Ariadne. That was all. Did you want something else?”
“Oh, you…” You what? Obnoxious punk? Hero? Commander-in-chief?
“I… I am very proud of my son,” she said.
He was pleased. “I’m proud to have you as a mother. The Oracle told me how you saved Jerry and the others. I am a brave fighter— I think I got my courage from you.” Graham had stayed with the women when the Merans attacked the Cretans— probably Killer did not much care that he had not been allowed to speak to his father.
Not Killer, Alan! She leaned down and hugged him, and he put his arms around her, but gently.
“And you are going to marry Jerry Howard!” he said in her ear, and she could feel him chuckling inside. “And after that I shall always call him ‘Daddy’… and that will annoy the everlasting piss out of him!”
“Yes,” Ariadne said faintly to the pillow. “Yes, I’m sure it will.”
“I always was a little devil, wasn’t I?” said Killer.
Author’s Note
Can Achilles truly be Alan Gillis? WE HAVE only his word that the Oracle said so. If it is true, then why does he only know a few words of English and how did he get to Arcady?
A friend of mine has assured me that she spoke fluent Arabic as a child, but lost the ability through disuse. As an adult she knows no Arabic at all, so it does seem that a language can be forgotten.
The geography problem is tougher. A straight line from Crete around 2000 BC to western North America around 2000 AD does not go anywhere near central Greece in the classical period— as may be easily seen by plotting the points on four-dimensional graph paper. However, the principle authorities on migrating unicorns all insist that they normally fly a great circle route, not a straight line. Thus a pit stop in Arcady could be possible, and we should not discard Killer’s statement on grounds of geography, either.
Personally, I would not argue with Killer if he claimed to be the three princesses of Serendip.
Father Julius was correct in stating that unicorns were a symbol of Christ in the early church. They were demoted from this position around the thirteenth century, but that would have been after his time.
It was my own idea to make Asterios a demon. To the Greeks he was the perfectly normal offspring of a woman and a bull, but he did live in the Labyrinth and he did eat human flesh. How he managed this with bovine teeth was never explained, but probably it was easier than digesting hay in a human stomach.
The— real-world— palace at Knossos, as it has been excavated, covered several acres and may have been as high as five stories. It must have been very impressive and vastly bigger than anything existing in Greece at that time. The legend of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur may possibly have started when some Greek tourist lost his way in the great edifice, turned a corner, and came face to face with a priest wearing a ceremonial bull mask. It must have scared, in Killer’s phrase, the everlasting piss out of him, because the myth has been around for at least four thousand years.
Asterios’ mother— the lady who liked bulls— was Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos. Ariadne, who helped Theseus kill the Minotaur, was a daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, and therefore Asterios’ half-sister. They were an odd family.
The land of eternal youth has had so many names that I was at a loss to know which to use. I finally coined yet another— Mera— as an abbreviation of chimera. In typical Meran fashion, the dictionaries I have consulted do not quite agree on chimera’s meanings, but it seems to have three.
1— In Greek mythology, a fire-breathing monster, part lion, part goat, and part snake. We always get back to Killer, don’t we?
2— A fanciful and unbelievable mixture of things. No comment, I’ll leave that one to the critics.
3— A mirage, and unattainable fancy. Pity! But Jerry said that Mera is always just out of sight. I, for one, intend to go on looking. See you here.
D.D.