He had tried to manipulate me, control me, through my emotions. Tried and failed. What was he trying to do to me now, penning me in this soul-punishing cell?
He comes from another world, the planet that circles the sun’s companion star, Sheol. Why has he come here? From what era did he originate? What is his grievance against the human race?
He claims that he created the dinosaurs some two hundred millions years earlier than this era. He claims that he will extinguish the dinosaurs to make room on Earth for his own kind.
A thrill of understanding raced through my blood as I recalled Set’s own words, heard again in my mind his sneering, hate-filled voice: You breed so furiously that you infest the world with your kind, ruining not merely the land but the seas and the very air you breathe as well. You are vermin, and the world is well rid of you.
And again: We do not overbreed.
Then why is he here on Earth? Why is he not content with his own world, Shaydan, where his kind live in harmony with their environment? I had seen the idyllic pictures of that world in the wall mosaics of this castle. Why leave that happy existence to seed the earth with reptilian life?
I could think of three possibilities:
First, Set had lied to me. The mosaics were idealizations. Shaydan was overcrowded and Set’s people needed more living room.
Alternatively, Set had been driven off Shaydan, exiled from his native world, for reasons that I had no way of knowing.
Or, even more harrowing, the planet Shaydan was threatened by some disaster so vast that it was imperative to transfer the population to a safer world.
Which could it be? Possibly a combination of such reasons, or others that I had not an inkling of.
How to find out? Probing Set’s mind was impossible, I knew. Even in the same room with him I could no more penetrate his formidable mental defenses than I could muscle my way out of this miserable dungeon.
Could Anya probe his mind?
I closed my eyes there in the dimness of my cell and reached mentally for Anya’s mind. I had no way of knowing where in the castle she was, or even if she was still in the castle at all. Or even if she still lived, I realized with a cold shudder.
But I called to her, mentally.
“Anya, my love. Can you hear me?”
No response.
I concentrated harder. I brought up a mental picture of Anya, her beautiful face, her expressive lips, her strong cheekbones and narrow straight nose, her midnight black hair, her large gray eyes shining and luminous, regarding me gravely with depths of love in them that no mortal had a right to hope for.
“Anya, my beloved,” I projected mentally. “Hear me. Answer my plea.”
I heard nothing, no reply whatever.
Maybe she’s already dead, I thought bleakly. Maybe Set has raked her flesh with his vicious talons, torn her apart with his hideous teeth.
Then I sensed the tiniest of flickers, a distant spark, a silver glint against the all-encompassing darkness of my soul. I focused every neuron of my mind on it, every synapse of my being.
It was Anya, I knew. That infinitesimal spark of silver led me like a guiding star.
I felt almost the way I had when I had entered Juno’s simple mind. But now I was projecting my consciousness into a mind infinitely more complex. It was like falling down an endlessly spiraling chute, like stepping from subterranean darkness into blinding sunlight, like entering an overpoweringly vast universe. I knew how Theseus felt in the palace of Knossus, trying to thread his way through a bewildering maze.
Anya said nothing to me, gave no indication even that she knew I had entered her mind. I thought I understood why. If she gave any hint at all that she recognized my presence, Set would immediately know that I was awake and active—at least mentally. The only way to keep me hidden was not to make any response to me at all.
Swiftly, wordlessly, I gave her the details of my contact with Zeus. No reaction from her, none at all. She was guarding her mind from Set with every defensive barrier she could maintain. I wondered if she really knew I was there, so completely did she ignore me.
Set was still lounging on his throne, horned face staring at Anya, tail twitching unconsciously behind him. Poor Juno’s body had been removed and the bloodstains cleaned away. I wondered how long it had been since he had smashed me into senselessness. Perhaps only minutes had passed. Perhaps days.
Anya was not in pain. Set was not torturing her or even threatening her. They were speaking together, almost as equals. Even the deadliest of foes have reasons to communicate peacefully, at times.
“You are prepared, then, to leave this planet forever?” I heard Set’s voice in Anya’s mind.
“If there is no alternative,” she replied, also without speaking.
“What guarantee do I have that you will keep the agreement?”
“Agreement?” I asked Anya, but still there was no response from her. It was as if I did not exist, as far as she was concerned.
“You have won. Your power is too great, too firmly entrenched here, for us to dislodge you. If you permit us to escape with our lives and agree not to pursue us further, the planet Earth is yours forever.”
“Yes, but how do I know I can trust you? In a thousand years or a thousand million, how can I be certain that you will not return to battle against my descendants?”
Anya shrugged mentally. “You will have destroyed the human race. We will have no means of fighting you then.”
“You could create more humans, just as you created the one called Orion.”
“No. That was an experiment that failed. Orion has been of no use to us against you.”
I burned with shame at Anya’s words. They were true, and it hurt me to admit it.
“Then you have no intention of trying to bring him with you when you leave the earth?”
“How could he accompany us?” Anya replied. “He is nothing more than a human. He cannot change his form. He cannot exist in the depths of interstellar space, where we will make our new homes.”
A shuddering horror filled me. Anya and all the Creators were indeed fleeing from Earth and abandoning the human race to extinction at Set’s hands. Abandoning the entire human race. Abandoning me.
“Then you leave this creature Orion to me?” Set’s words were half request, half demand.
“Of course,” Anya replied carelessly. “He is of no further value to us.”
Deep in my underground cell I screamed a shriek of agony like a wild animal howling with pain and fright and the utter furious agony of betrayal.
BOOK III: HELL
Chapter 23
I did not withdraw from Anya’s mind. I was driven out of it, repelled like an invading bacterium, thrown out like an unwanted guest.
For hours I howled like a chained beast in my dark coffin of a cell, unable to move, to stand, unable even to pound the walls until my fists became bloody pulps. I huddled there in a fetal position, wailing and bellowing to a blindly uncaring universe. Betrayed. Abandoned by the only person in the continuum whom I could love, left to my fate as callously as if I were nothing more to her than the husk of a melon she had tasted and then thrown away.
Anya and the other Creators were fleeing for their lives, reverting to their true physical forms, globes of pure energy that can live among the stars for all eternity. They were abandoning the human race, their own creations, to be methodically wiped out by Set and his reptilian brethren.