“Who among us knows the will of the Fates?” snaps Ares, still pouting, his arms folded across his powerful chest.
“Father does.”
“Zeus says he does,” says the god of war with a sneer.
“Are you doubting our lord and master?” Athena’s tone is almost, not quite, light and teasing.
Ares looks around quickly, and for a second I fear I’ve given myself away by making a noise where I stand on a flat boulder, afraid to leave footprints in the sand. But the war god’s gaze moves on.
“I show no disrespect to our Father,” Ares says at last, his voice reminding me of Richard Nixon’s when he was speaking into the hidden Oval Office microphone he knew was there. Putting his lies on the record. “My allegiance and loyalty and love all go to Zeus, Pallas Athena.”
“Which our Father must certainly note and reciprocate,” responds Athena, no longer hiding the sarcasm in her voice.
Suddenly Ares’ head snaps up. “God damn you,” he shouts. “You just brought me here to get me away from the battlefield while your cursed Achaeans kill more of my Trojans.”
“Of course.” Athena launches the two syllables as a taunt, and for a second I think I’m going to witness something I’ve not seen in my nine years here—a direct battle between two gods.
Instead, Ares kicks sand in a final show of petulance and QT’s away. Athena laughs, kneels by the Scamander, and splashes cold water on her face. “Fool,” she whispers—to herself, I presume, but I take it as a statement directed at me protected here only by the Hades Helmet’s distortion field; “Fool” seems to me an accurate judgment of my folly.
Athena QT’s back to the battlefield. After a minute devoted to trembling at my own foolishness, I phase-shift and follow.
The Greeks and Trojans are still killing each other. Big news.
I seek out the only other scholic visible on the field. To the unaided eye, Nightenhelser is just another slovenly Trojan foot-soldier hanging back from the worst of the fighting, but I can see the telltale green glow the gods have marked us scholics with even when we’re morphed, so I take off the Hades Helmet, morph into the form of Phalces—a Trojan who will be killed by Antilochus by and by—and I walk over to join Nightenhelser where he stands on a low ridge looking down on the carnage.
“Good morning, Scholic Hockenberry,” he says when I approach. We’re speaking in English. No other Trojan is near enough to hear us over the clash of bronze and the rumble of chariots and both of these motley coalitions are used to odd tribal languages and dialects.
“Good morning, Scholic Nightenhelser.”
“Where have you been the last half hour or so?”
“Taking a break,” I say. It happens. Sometimes the carnage gets to be too much even for us scholics and we QT away to Troy for a quiet hour or so—or for a large flagon of wine. “Did I miss much?”
Nightenhelser shrugs. “Diomedes came charging in about twenty minutes ago and was struck by an arrow. Right on schedule.”
“Pandarus’ arrow,” I say, nodding. Pandarus is the same Trojan archer who wounded Menelaus earlier.
“I saw Aphrodite inciting Pandarus,” says Nightenhelser. The big man has his hands in the pockets of his rough cape. Trojan capes had no pockets, of course, so Nightenhelser had sewn these in.
This was news. Homer had not sung of Aphrodite urging Pandarus to shoot Diomedes, only of Athena’s earlier prompting of the archer to wound Menelaus so the war would resume. Poor Pandarus is literally a fool of the gods this day—his last day.
“Flesh wound for Diomedes?” I say.
“Shoulder. Sthenelus was there and pulled it out. Evidently this arrow wasn’t poisoned. Athena QT’d into the fray a minute ago, took her pet Diomedes aside, and ‘ put energy into his limbs, his feet, and his fighting hands .’ “ Nightenhelser was quoting some translation of Homer that I’m not familiar with.
“More nanotech,” I say. “Has Diomedes found the archer and killed him yet?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“Did Pandarus give that endless speech before Diomedes killed him?” I ask. In my favorite translation, Pandarus bemoans his fate for forty lines, has a long dialogue with a Trojan captain named Aeneas—yes, the Aeneas—and the two go charging at Diomedes in a chariot, flinging spears at the wounded Achaean.
“No,” says Nightenhelser. “Pandarus just said ‘Fuck me’ when the arrow missed its mark. Then he leaped on the chariot with Aeneas, tosssed a spear that went right through Diomedes’ shield and breastplate—but missed flesh—and said, ‘Shit,’ in the second before Diomedes’ spear caught him right between the eyes. Another case, I presume, of Homer’s poetic license in all the speech-making.”
“And Aeneas?” That encounter is crucial to history as well as the Iliad. I can’t believe I missed it.
“Aphrodite saved him just a minute ago,” confirms Nightenhelser. Aeneas is the mortal son of the goddess of love and she watches over him carefully. “Diomedes smashed Aeneas’ hipbone to bits with a boulder, just as in the poem, but Aphrodite protected her wounded boy with a forcefield and is carrying him off the field now. It really pissed Diomedes off.”
I shield my eyes with my hand. “Where is Diomedes now?” But I see the Greek warrior before Nightenhelser can point him out, about a hundred yards away, in the center of a melee, far behind Trojan lines. There is a mist of blood in the air around shining Diomedes and a heap of corpses on each side of the slashing, hacking, stabbing Achaean. The augmented Diomedes appears to be hacking his way through waves of human flesh to catch up to the slowly retreating Aphrodite. “Jesus,” I say softly.
“Yeah,” says the other scholic. “In the last few minutes he’s killed Astynous and Hypiron, Abas and Polyidus, Xanthus and Thoon, Echemmon and Chromius . . . all the captain Pairs.”
“Why in twos?” I ask, thinking aloud.
Nightenhelser looks at me as if I’m a slow student in one of his freshman classes. “They were in chariots, Hockenberry. Two men per chariot. Diomedes killed them all as the chariots came at him.”
“Ah,” I say, embarrassed now. My attention isn’t on the murdered Trojan captains but on Aphrodite. The goddess has just paused in her retreat from the Trojan lines, still carrying the wounded Aeneas, and is now strutting to and fro, clearly visible to the milling and frightened Trojans fleeing Diomedes’ attack. Aphrodite is forcing the Trojan fighters back toward the fray with stabs of electricity and shimmering forcefield shoves.
Diomedes sees the goddess and goes berserk, hacking his way through a final protective line of Trojans to confront the goddess herself. He does not speak but readies his long spear. Aphrodite raises a forcefield almost casually, still carrying the wounded Aeneas, obviously not worried by a mere mortal’s attack.
She has forgotten Athena’s modifications of Diomedes.
Diomedes leaps forward, the goddess’s forcefield crackles and gives way, the Achaean lunges with his long spear and the shaft and barb of it tear through Aphrodite’s personal forcefield, silken robes, and divine flesh. The razor-sharp spearpoint slashes the goddess’s wrist so that red muscle and white bone show. Golden ichor—rather than red blood—sprays into the air.
Aphrodite stares at the wound for a second and then screams—an inhuman scream, something huge and amplified, a female roar out of a bank of amplifiers at a rock concert from hell.
She reels, still screaming, and drops Aeneas.
Rather than press home his successful attack on Aphrodite, Diomedes unsheaths his sword and prepares to decapitate the unconscious Aeneas.
Phoebus Apollo, lord of the silver bow, QT’s into solidity between the berserk Diomedes and the fallen Trojan and holds the Achaean at bay with a pulsing hemisphere of plasma forcefield. Blinded by bloodlust, Diomedes hacks away at the forcefield, his own energy field crashing red against Apollo’s defensive yellow shield. Aphrodite is still staring at her mangled wrist, and it looks as if she may swoon and lie there helpless in front of the still-raging Diomedes. The goddess seems unable to concentrate enough to QT while in such pain.