Ilium

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.”

I turn to look at the younger woman. She is blonde and anorectic, but somehow still stunningly beautiful. Cassandra’s fingernails are bitten short and bloody, and her fingers are always twitching and intertwining. She can’t stand still. Her eyes are as red-rimmed as her nails. Looking at her reminds me of photos I’ve seen of gorgeous movie starlets in rehab for coke addiction.

“I have not dreamt of you, weak-looking man,” she says.

I ignore the insult and say nothing.

“But I ask you this,” she continues. “I once dreamt of King Agamemnon and his queen Clytaemnestra as a great royal bull and cow. What does this dream say to you, O Prophet?”

“I’m no prophet,” I say. “Your future is merely my past. But you see Agamemnon as a bull because he will be slaughtered like an ox upon his arrival home to Sparta.”

“In his own palace?”

“No,” I say. I feel like I’m in the crucible of oral exams at Hamilton College, my undergraduate alma mater. “Agamemnon will be killed in the house of Aigisthos.”

“By whose hand? At whose will?” presses Cassandra.

“Clytaemnestra’s.”

“For what reason, O Non-prophet?”

“Her anger at Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigeneia.”

Cassandra continues to stare at me, but she nods slightly to the other women. “And what do you dream of me and my future, O Seer?” she asks sarcastically.

“You will be savagely raped in this very temple,” I say.

None of the women appears to be breathing. I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Well, this witch wants the truth, I’ll give her the truth.

Cassandra seems unfazed, even pleased. I realize that the young prophetess has been seeing this rape for most of her life. No one has listened to her warnings. It must be refreshing for her to hear someone else confirm her vision.

But her voice sounds anything but pleased when she speaks again. “Who will rape me in this temple?”

“Ajax.”

“Little Ajax or Big Ajax?” asks the woman. Cassandra looks neurotic and anxious, but also very lovely in a vulnerable way.

“Little Ajax,” I say. “Ajax of Locris.”

“And what will I be doing upstairs in this temple, Little Man, when Big Ajax of Locris ravages me?”

“Trying to save or hide the Palladion,” I answer. I nod toward the small statue just ten feet from me.

“And does Little Ajax go unpunished, O Man?”

“He’ll drown on his way home,” I say. “When his ship is wrecked on the Gyraean Rocks. Most scholars think this is a sign of Athena’s wrath.”

“Will she bring doom to Ajax of Locris out of anger at my rape or to avenge the desecration of her temple?” demands Cassandra.

“I don’t know. Probably the latter.”

“Who else will be in the temple upstairs when I am raped, O Man?”

I have to think a second here. “Odysseus,” I say at last, my voice rising at the end like a student’s hoping his answer is correct.

“Who else besides Odysseus, the son of Laertes, will be witness to my defilement that night?”

“Neoptolemus,” I say at last.

“Achilles’ son?” interrupts Theano with a sneer. “He’s nine years old back in Argos.”

“No,” I say. “He’s seventeen years old and a fierce warrior. They will call him here from Skyros after Achilles is killed, and Neoptolemus will be with Odysseus in the belly of the great wooden horse.”

“Wooden horse?” says Andromache.

But I can see from the dilated pupils in Helen, Herophile, and Cassandra that these women have had visions of the horse.

“Does this Neoptolemus have another name?” asks Cassandra. She has the tone and intensity of a dedicated public prosecutor.

“He will be known to future generations as Pyrrhos,” I say. I’m trying to remember minutiae from the BD scholia, from the Cyclic poets, from Proclus’ Cypria, and from my Pindar. It’s been a long time since I read Pindar. “Neoptolemus will not sail back to Achilles’ old home on Skyros after the war,” I say, “but will land in Molossia on the western side of the island, where later kings will call him Pyrrhos and say they are descended from him.”

“Will he commit any other acts on the night the Greeks take Troy?” presses Cassandra.

I look at my jury of Trojan women—Priam’s wife, Priam’s daughter, Scamandrius’ mother, Athena’s priestess, a Sibyl with paranormal powers. Then this vision-accursed child-woman and Helen, wife of both Menelaus and Paris. On the whole, I would prefer OJ’s jurors.

“Pyrrhos, known now as Neoptolemus, will slaughter King Priam that night in Zeus’s temple,” I say. “He will throw Scamandrius down from the walls and dash the baby’s brains out on the rocks. He will personally drive Andromache to the slaveship. This I have told the others already.”

“And will this night come soon?” presses Cassandra.

“Yes.”

“In months and years or days and weeks?”

“Days and weeks,” I say. I try to estimate how many days it will be before Achilles will kill Hector and Troy will fall if and when the Iliad time-table reasserts itself. Not many.

“Now tell us—tell me, O Man—what my fate will be after the rape of Ilium and Cassandra,” snaps Cassandra.

Here I hesitate. My mouth goes dry. “Your fate?” I manage.

“My fate, O Man of the Future,” hisses the beautiful blond. “Surely, ravaged or not, I’ll not be left behind when Andromache is dragged off to slavery and noble Helen is claimed again by angry Menelaus. What is to become of Cassandra, O Man?”

I try to lick my lips. Can she see her own fate? I have no idea if Apollo’s gift of prophecy goes beyond the fall of Troy. Someone, I think it was the poet-scholar Robert Graves, translated Cassandra’s name as ‘she who entangles men.’ “ But she’s also someone who has been cursed by the gods always to tell the truth. I decide to do the same.

“Your beauty will result in Agamemnon claiming you as his concubine,” I say, my voice barely audible. “He’ll take you home with him, as his . . . concubine.”

“Will I bear him children before we arrive?”

“I think so,” I say, sounding preposterous even to myself. I keep getting my Homer mixed up with my Virgil, my Virgil mixed up with my Aeschylus, and all of the above mixed up with Euripides. Hell, even Shakespeare took a whack at this story. “Twin sons,” I say after a pause. “Teledamus and . . . uh . . . Pelops.”

“And when I arrive at Sparta, Agamemnon’s home?” prompts Cassandra.

“Clytaemnestra will kill you with the same axe she murders Agamemnon with,” I say, my voice more shrill than I meant it to be.

Cassandra smiles. It is not a pleasant smile. “Before or after she beheads Agamemnon?”

“After,” I say. Fuck it. If she can take it, I can. I’m probably dead anyway. But I’ll use the taser on as many of these bitches as I can before they drag me down. “Clytaemnestra has to chase you for a while,” I say. “But she catches you. She cuts your head off as well. And then she kills your babies.”

The seven women look at me for a long, silent moment, and their gazes are unreadable. I tell myself never to play poker with any of these dames. Then Cassandra says, “Yes, this man knows the future. Whether his vision and presence here are a gift to us from the gods, or a trick of the gods to uncover our treachery, I do not know. But we must trust him with our secret. The time before the end of Ilium is too short to do otherwise.”

Helen nods. “Hock-en-bear-eeee, use your medallion to go to the camps of the Achaeans. Bring Achilles back to the foyer of the nursery in Hector’s house at the time of the next changing of the Ilium guards.”

I think. The guards on the wall change and the gongs ring at what would be 11:30 a.m. That’s about an hour from now.

“What if Achilles doesn’t want to come with me?” I ask.

The collective gaze the women pour on me now is four parts contempt combined with three parts pity.

I QT the hell out of there.

I shouldn’t do it, it’s foolish, and it’s mostly because I’m afraid to face Achilles, but all through Cassandra’s oral quiz, I’d found myself curious about the little robot back on Olympos. I’d seen odd things on Olympos before, of course—not counting the gods and goddesses, who are weird enough—odd things such as the giant insectoid Healer. But something about the little robot, if that’s what it is, had struck me. It didn’t seem part of either of the worlds I’ve been dividing my time between over the past nine years—neither of Olympos nor of Ilium. The little robot seemed more of my world. My old world. The real world. Don’t ask me why. I’ve never seen a humanoid robot except in sci-fi movies.

Besides, I tell myself, I have an hour before having to present Achilles to Hector. I tug on the Hades Helmet and quantum teleport back to the Great Hall of the Gods.

The little robot and the other devices, including the big crab-thing, are gone, but Zeus is still here. And so are more of the gods. Including the war god, Ares, who was last seen healing in the tank next to Aphrodite.

Mother of Mercy, where’s Aphrodite now? She can see me, even when I’m wearing this helmet. She ordered the Muse to give the helmet to me only because she could track me down any time she wants. Is she out of the tank already? Jesus Christ.

Ares is roaring at all the gods while Zeus sits on his throne. “Madness rules below!” cries the god of war. “I’m gone for a few days, and you let the war get out of hand. Kaos rules! Achilles has killed Agamemnon and taken command of the Achaean armies. Hector is in retreat when victory for the Trojans was royal Zeus’s command.”

Agamemnon dead? Achilles in command? Holy shit. We’re not in the Iliad anymore, Toto.

“And what of the automata I brought to you, Lord Zeus? These . . . moravecs?” demands Apollo, his voice echoing in the huge hall. I see more gods and goddesses filling the mezzanines above. The swimming pool viewing screen cut into the floor is showing scenes of madness and murder on the Trojan battle lines and in the Argive camp now. But my focus is on the huge, powerfully built, white-bearded Zeus where he sits on his golden throne. His wrists are massive, like something sculpted out of Carrara marble by Rodin. I’m close enough to see the gray hairs on Zeus’s bare chest.

“Calm down, Apollo, noble archer,” rumbles the god of all gods. “I’ve ordered the moravec automata eliminated. Hera has destroyed them both by now.”

Can this get worse? I wonder.

Right then, Aphrodite enters the hall between Achilles’ mother, Thetis, and my Muse.