“The sonie’s fixed,” said Odysseus. “Or at least it can fly. Want to watch its test flight?”
Daeman shrugged. “Not especially. But I do want to know what you’re going to do with it.”
Odysseus glanced at Petyr, Peaen, and Harman. “First, I’m going to do some reconnaissance,” he said. “See what the meteor damage is in the surrounding area, see if the machine will carry me all the way to the coast and back.”
“And if it doesn’t?” asked Harman.
Odysseus shrugged. “I’ll walk home.”
“Where’s home?” asked Daeman. “And how long will it take for you to get there, Odysseus Uhr?”
Odysseus smiled at that, but there was great sadness in his eyes. “If you only knew,” he said softly. “If you only knew.” Trailed by his two young disciples and Hannah, the barbarian walked back up the hill toward the house.
Harman and Ada strolled with Daeman.
“What’s he up to?” Daeman asked Harman. “Really?”
“He’s going to find the voynix,” said Harman.
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.” Harman didn’t need a cane any longer, but he’d said that he’d gotten used to the walking stick and now he used it to whack a weed growing among the flowers.
“Servitors used to weed the garden,” said Ada. “I try, but I’m so busy with the meals and laundry and everything . . .”
Harman laughed. “It’s hard to get good help these days,” he said.
Harman put his arm around Ada’s waist. The young woman looked at him with a gaze that Daeman couldn’t interpret, but knew was important.
“I lied,” Harman said to Daeman. “You know and I know that Odysseus is going to attack the voynix, stop them from doing whatever they’re planning to do.”
“Yes,” said Daeman. “I know.”
“He’ll use that war to prepare his disciples for what he considers the real war,” said Harman, looking up at the white manor house on the hill. “He’s trying to teach us how to fight before the real battle arrives. He says we’ll know it—that the war will come like whirling spheres, opening holes in the sky, bringing us to new worlds and new worlds to us.”
“I know,” said Daeman. “I’ve heard him say that.”
“He’s crazy,” said Harman.
“No,” said Daeman. “He isn’t.”
“Are you going to war with him?” asked Harman, sounding as if he’d asked himself this question many times.
“Not against the voynix,” said Daeman. “Not unless I have to. I have another battle to fight first.”
“I know,” said Harman. “I know.” He kissed Ada, said, “I’ll see you up at the house,” and walked up the hill alone, still limping slightly.
Daeman found himself suddenly out of energy. There was a wooden bench here with a view of the lower lawn and the evening-shadowed river valley, and he sat on it with relief. Ada sat next to him.
“Harman understood what you were talking about,” she said, “but I don’t. What battle do you have to fight first?”
Daeman shrugged, embarrassed to talk about it.
“Daeman?” Her voice suggested that she was going to sit here on the bench until he spoke, and he didn’t have the energy to stand up and walk away at the moment.
“There’s a blue searchlight rising into the night at a place called Jerusalem,” he said at last, “and in that light are trapped more than nine thousand of Savi’s people. Nine thousand Jews. Whatever Jews are.”
Ada looked at him, not understanding. Daeman realized that she’d not heard this part of their story yet. They were all slowly relearning the fine art of storytelling—it filled the candlelit evenings with something other than washing dishes.
“Before Odysseus’ promised war gets here,” said Daeman, his voice soft but determined, “before I have no choice but to fight in some huge struggle I don’t understand, I’m going to go get those nine thousand people out of that goddamned blue light.”
“How?” asked Ada.
Daeman laughed. It was an easy, unselfconscious laugh, something he’d learned in the last two months. “I have no fucking idea,” he said.
He struggled to his feet, allowed Ada to steady him, and they walked side by side up the hill toward Ardis Hall. Some of the disciples were lighting the lanterns at the outside table already, although it was still an hour before their evening meal. It was Daeman’s turn to help cook tonight, and he was trying to remember what course he was in charge of. Salad, he hoped.
“Daeman?” Ada had stopped and was looking at him.
He stopped and returned her gaze, knowing that the young woman would love Harman forever and somehow feeling happy about it. Maybe it was the wounds and fatigue, but Daeman no longer wanted to have sex with every female he met. Of course, he realized, he hadn’t met many new females since the meteor storm.
“Daeman, how did you do it?” asked Ada.
“Do what?”
“Kill Caliban.”
“I’m not sure I killed him,” said Daeman.
“But you beat him,” said the young woman, her voice almost fierce. “How?”
“I had a secret weapon,” said Daeman. He saw the truth of what he was saying even as he said it.
“What?” asked Ada. The evening shadows were long and soft on the sloping lawn around them, the evening sky gentle above Ardis Hall, but Daeman could see dark clouds gathering on the horizon behind her.
“Rage,” he said at last. “Rage.”
65
Indiana, 1200 b.c.
About three weeks after the start of the war to end all wars—no kidding—I use my gold medallion to QT to the opposite side of the world. I had promised Nightenhelser I’d come back for him and I like to keep my promises when I can.
I’d left in the middle of the night Ilium–Olympos time, stepping out of a conference in one of the new blastproof tents where Achilles now meets with his surviving captains, and then just QTing away on a whim—knowing that all such personal quantum teleportation will be a memory soon—and it’s a shock when I pop onto a grassy hillside on a sunny morning in prehistoric North America. There isn’t much grass growing around Ilium these days and none on the bloody plains of Mars.
I wander down the hill to the stream, then cross over into the woods, blinking at the sunlight and relative silence here. There are no explosions, no shouts of dying men, no gods teleporting in amid the violence of screaming men and horses. For a minute or so, I worry about any Indians that might be around, but then I laugh at myself. I don’t boast impact armor these days, nor do I have a magical Hades Helmet or a morphing bracelet, but the bronze and duraplast armor I’m wearing has been tested. And I know how to use the sword on my belt and the bow over my shoulder now. Of course, if I meet Patroclus, and if he’s managed to arm himself, and if he holds a grudge—and which of these Achaean heroes doesn’t?—I wouldn’t wager a lot of money on my chances.
Fuck it. As Achilles—or maybe it’s Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo—likes to say, “No guts, no glory.”
“Nightenhelser!” I shout into the forest. “Keith!”
For all my bellowing, it takes me an hour to find him, and I do so only by blundering into the Indian village in a clearing about half a mile from where I’d QT’d in. There are no tipis in this village, only rough huts made of bent branches, leaves, and what looks to be sod. A campfire is burning in the center of the six-wigwam village. Suddenly dogs are barking, women are shouting and scooping up kids, and six male Native Americans are drawing primitive bows and nocking arrows at me.
I draw my beautiful cedar bow, handcrafted by artisans in distant Argos, nock my beautiful handmade arrow in one fluid, well-practiced move, and aim at them, ready to bring them all down with my shafts in their livers while their silly sharpened sticks bounce off my armor. Unless they get me in the face or eye. Or throat. Or . . .