The Enchanter Reborn

ARMS AND THE ENCHANTER John Maddox Roberts

This time the millions of whirling spots of color underwent a color change during passage. They began a nice, restful blue, a sort of sky-blue reminiscent of a pleasant summer day. It did not last long. The blue shaded to a purple that seemed, somehow, ominous. The purple went to blood-red, then to a lurid yellow-orange. And it got hot. Then they were standing on a broad pavement and the yellow spots coalesced into flames that shot skyward for hundreds of feet. It got even hotter.

Even over the roaring of the flames they heard an unearthly screeching, wailing racket that could only be likened to banshees being fed into a buzzsaw. For a moment the screeching was drowned out by a thunder of crashing masonry. They were in a city, and the city was in flames.

Shea looked up. "I don't see any bombers." Surely nothing else could account for such wholesale destruction.

"I would think not," Chalmers said. "The technological level would seem to preclude them. Look there." He pointed to the far end of the huge plaza upon which they stood. There, men waving long, bronze swords and oversized spears were herding hundreds of women and children into a sort of impromptu corral made of stacked furniture, hangings, platters and cups made of gold and silver, lamps and tripods of bronze, chains, sculptures, wine jars, tables inlaid with ivory, chests, in fact a whole department store of valuable goods. This was the source of the horrid screeching, which was set up by the women. They tore at their hair, rent their garments and scratched their faces. Mostly they wailed, in a demonstration of terror and grief that seemed exaggerated even in the midst of such a catastrophe.

"That's the worst acting I've seen since our sophomore production of MacBeth," Shea commented.

With a roar, a tower at least four hundred feet high began to topple on some buildings that capped a low hill just beyond the plaza. Its fall began in slow and stately fashion, picking up velocity as it reached forty-five degrees, flames shooting from its windows in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics. It crashed down like a bomb, hurling flames, stones, smoke, and dust over a vast area. The men guarding the prisoners cheered and waved their weapons.

"Somebody wants to take this city right off the map!" Shea said.

"I think this is not a good place to be," Chalmers observed. "Perhaps we should find a quiet corner to think things out."

"Right. Maybe we can find a bar still open somewhere. Let's ... who's that?"

They had turned to go down a side street and found their way blocked by a large man who was speaking to an even larger woman. The man was dressed in bronze armor, with a lion skin thrown over his shoulders and back. He was spattered from head to foot with blood. The woman stood more than a head taller, her height boosted even more by the fact that her feet were three or four inches off the ground.

The man wore a look of utter distress but the prevailing racket prevented Shea and Chalmers from hearing what he was saving. He reached up, as if to embrace the woman around the neck, but his arms passed right through her. He had another try, with the same result. Apparently he was slow to learn from experience, because he had another try at it. This time, the woman faded from view. He seemed on the verge of bursting into tears, but the appearance of Shea and Chalmers distracted him. His facial expression switched from grief to grim determination so quickly that it was like an optical illusion.

"You two slaves," he called. "Come here and pick these up." He pointed to a pile of weapons on the pavement by his feet.

"We aren't slaves!" Shea said indignantly.

"Foreigners, then. Pick these up and follow me, if you would leave this city alive. They are sparing only comely women and children fit for slavery."

"It might be the best idea," Chalmers said.

"I don't know," Shea said hesitantly. "It looks like joining the losing side to me.

"Jump to it!" the huge man roared. They jumped.

"You seem somewhat the sturdier," the man said to Shea. "You bear my shield. Your companion may be my spear-bearer for my last walk through my beloved city. Be ready to hand me a trusty, ashen spear at my call, and have my shield ready for my left hands grasp." With that, the warrior strode down the street.

Shea stooped and pulled the shield upright. Grasping the straps on its inner surface, he struggled to lift it. The thing was astoundingly heavy, seventy or eighty pounds by his estimation. It was as tall as he was, a convex oval with small oval cutouts giving it a narrower "waist" section. It seemed to be made of multiple layers of hide faced with decorated bronze. He staggered along beneath this load, Chalmers beside him having similar difficulty with his armload of spears. Their polished shafts slithered around as if they were oiled.

They caught up with the man just as he strode out into another great square. This one was lined with lofty, templelike buildings, all of them spouting the now expected flames. Bodies lay everywhere; on the pavement, on the temple steps, hanging out of windows. The square was dominated by some sort of immense sculpture, an animal figure that towered over the rooftops. It was a sinister thing with its fierce, painted eyes and upstanding mane, despite the incongruous trapdoor hanging from its belly. Chalmers gasped.

"The wooden horse!"

"Aye," said their leader. "It was with this ruse that the Greeks took storied Ilium, not with valor. We were mad, for the gods made us so. We heeded not the warnings of Laocoön the priest, but dragged it through the gates and celebrated with drunken revelry. Thus are we punished for our impiety.

"We're in the Iliad!" Shea groaned.

"Harold," Chalmers chided, "surely you cannot be that ignorant."

"I don't see why not!"

Chalmers sighed. "I can see that the classics are no longer taught as they were in my day. The Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector. Troy still stands, the Horse is unbuilt, Achilles is alive."

"Well I was too busy with psychology to pay much attention to the classics. What is it, then, The Odyssey?"

"Difficult to say. That one has some flashback sequences about the Horse and the fall of ..." Their leader had stopped, Shea stopped likewise, and Chalmers bumped into Shea with a clatter of ashen shafts. Three enemy soldiers came down the street toward them, shield to shield. They were even bloodier than the man Shea and Chalmers followed, white plumes nodding from their helmets, making them appear even taller than they were, which was a head taller than the Americans, although not quite so tall as the man in the lionskin.

"Shield!" barked that worthy. Gratefully, Shea shoved it toward him. The man slipped his left forearm through a strap and grasped the handle near one edge and lifted the massive contraption as easily as if it were made of wicker. He snapped his fingers and Chalmers laid a spearshaft in the upturned palm.

"Here's a Trojan dog still alive!" crowed the warrior in the middle. "Dibs on his armor!"

The Trojan raised his spear. "Eat bronze, Danaan!" He hurled the heavy spear from a distance of twenty feet. It struck the enemy shield dead center. A fifty-caliber machine-gun bullet could not have struck harder. It plowed through bronze and hide without losing velocity, slammed into the man's breastplate, plowed through his body and out through the back-plate, knocking him back a dozen paces to fall clattering to the pavement.

"Spear!" Chalmers gave him another. Shea could only gape. The warrior on the right hurled his own spear but their guide batted it aside with his shield. It nicked Shea's ear in its whispering passage. The second spear crashed through that man and pinned him, shield and all, to the doorpost of a nearby house.

The third Greek heaved his spear almost simultaneously. The Trojan whipped out a long sword in a bronzen blur and hacked the head off the spear in flight. A second blow did the same for the Greek. The helmeted head, plumes spinning, disappeared over a rooftop as the body toppled, adding to the general mess.

Shea gave a low whistle. "This guy really knows his business!"

"A hero," Chalmers affirmed. "They usually did."

The Trojan set off again and they followed. They had to step lively to keep up with his long strides, but he really was not hurrying, considering he was fleeing from a city fallen to the foe. But then a warrior, especially a hero, Shea reflected, would never run from the enemy.

"There is something," Chalmers muttered, "decidedly familiar about that man."

"How is that possible?" Shea asked. "Nobody knows what Homeric heroes looked like, not in any detail."

"I don't know, it's just ..." He shrugged and trudged on. Chalmers only had three spears now, so they were much easier to handle. Relieved of the shield's weight, Shea was having an easier time of it as well.

"Ah, sir," he hazarded, "just where are we going?"

"To the inland gate. A little way beyond that gate lies an ancient funeral mound, and a shrine of Ceres the Bereft. There await some folk of my household, whom I must lead away from this place."

"Does that sound familiar?" Shea asked Chalmers.

"It does. Let me see ... it's been so long ..." Just then a couple more Greeks showed up and it was spear-handing time again.

By the time they reached the inland gate they were down to one spear, and the Trojan's sword was getting notched and dull. They were not alone going through the gate. A stream of people, mostly women, the elderly, children and downtrodden sorts who were probably slaves, were on their way as well. Many carried pathetic bundles of belongings, and they looked like war-stunned refugees of all times and locales.

When they were outside Shea scanned the surrounding plain with amazement.

"There's no detachment out here to bag the catch," he said. "No surrounding army at all!"

"The Greeks were too primitive for that," Chalmers told him. "The so-called siege of Troy was really no such thing. The Greeks just camped on the beach and raided the Countryside. They fought the Trojans whenever the Trojans felt like coming out to fight. They didn't even try to starve the city out or cut it off from the rest of the world. People pretty much came and went as they pleased."

"That's no way to run a war," Shea protested.

"It may be just as well that they were so naive about organized warfare, considering the level of carnage they could wreak without it."

The hero turned to gaze toward the towering wall and the city that was now little but a pillar of flame and smoke. Tears ran down his cheeks, plowing furrows in the blood, soot, and dirt and making a ghastly mud on the gorget of his armor.

"Farewell, beloved Ilium! You are fallen at last, but the gods have foretold that I shall raise a new Troy upon the banks of a foreign river, where the race of Priam shall flourish once more!" With that he turned and trudged away. Shea and Chalmers, for lack of a viable alternative, followed the broad, armored, lion-skinned back.

"I think I've got it," Chalmers said, "but I want to be sure. There were so many poems and legends from the Trojan cycle. The Iliad and Odyssey were just the most famous."

The walk was not a long one, but the sky was growing pale by the time they reached the mound. It was no small household waiting there, but a crowd of several hundred people of all ages. Some wept on the altar of the shrine, others sprawled exhausted on the mound, but most gathered beneath a large, stately cypress tree. At the base of the tree sat an elderly man, cradling in his arms an object or objects wrapped in fine cloth. The hero made his way to the old man and bowed respectfully.

"Did you find your wife, my son?" asked the old man.

"I did, father, but death had already snatched my beloved Creusa from me. In despair, I was about to throw my life away in battle with the Achaeans, but her shade appeared to me, chiding my despair and assuring me that the immortal gods had other plans for the son of Anchises. Travel far from Ilium, she said, as the gods guide you by sea, and found a new Troy whose kings shall be your own descendants. And so I returned to you. Now, we must be away, for soon the Danaans will weary of their swinish rapine and plunder. They will harness their swift horses to their chariots and scour the countryside for us."

A small boy came up and took the hero's hand. "Father, who are these strangely-dressed people who came with you from the city?"

The hero, who seemed to have forgotten them, turned and took notice. "Oh, these fellows rendered me some small service as I made my way through the city. They have earned a place in our little band, which seems to have grown."

"Yes, a great many have arrived since you went back to the city to seek your beloved Creusa," the old man said. "I had thought them a great bother, but if you are to found a new city and a new royal line, then you must have followers."

"Very well. Father, you must carry the household gods a while longer. I cannot touch them until I have purified myself of blood in running water." With that he handed his shield to a brawny youth. To Shea's amazement, he bent and tenderly lifted the old man, shifting him to a piggyback carry on the lionskin. With the boy's hand in his he raised his trumpeting voice.

"All who would come with Lord Aeneas, follow me! We go to seek our fate upon the broad breast of father Neptune!" With that he began to walk away, closely followed by his household. By ones and twos, then in small groups, the others picked up their goods and went as well.

"That's it!" Chalmers said. "This is the Aeneid! Aeneas, the last of the great Trojan heroes, fled from the burning city, carrying his aged father, Anchises, and leading his son, Ascanius. In the flight he lost his wife, Creusa, and he returned to the city to find her."

"How did he lose her?" Shea asked.

"Nobody knows. That part of the poem is missing. Anyway, he went through the burning city and saw the bound prisoners and the piled plunder. The ghost of Creusa appeared to him, 'larger than life', the poem says, that's why she looked so big, and told him what he just told his father."

"Well, I wish him all the best, but what do we do?"

"We go with him, of course!" Chalmers said.

"Why? I can't say that building a new Troy is on my list of things to do this week. I didn't see enough of the old one to conceive a real affection for it.

"Because this man is going to travel!" Chalmers said. "We are looking for Florimel, and if she's in this world, the only way to find her is to travel. Of course, we could always go back to the city and hope the Greeks don't kill us. Then we might hitch a ride with Odysseus; he's going to travel, too. Of course then we have to risk Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, the Laestrygonians, and so forth, get turned into pigs, eaten by a Cyclops, that sort of thing."

"On second thought," Shea said, "following our friend Aeneas sounds like a dandy idea." And so they went.

The day got hotter as they walked along, but at least there seemed to be no pursuit. There was little talk among the despondent refugees, so there was plenty of time to observe and ponder. It seemed odd to Shea that the people around them were all rather large. Not giants like Aeneas and the men of his household, but averaging bigger than typical twentieth-century Americans.

"I thought ancient people were much smaller," Shea noted. "But even the women here are bigger than I am."

"It's the age of heroes," Chalmers said. "Everything was bigger, better, handsomer. Men were stronger, women more beautiful and virtuous, or conversely more wicked. The heroes of Homer are always picking up stones 'such as three men could lift, as men are now'."

"Kind of like the way we picture the Old West, eh? The good guys are better, the bad guys are badder, and everything is much cleaner than it actually was."

"Exactly. In all probability, the Earps were back-shooting cardsharps who wore filthy clothes that never got ironed and had rotten teeth, but legend has made them towering, heroic exemplars of good fighting evil. It was the same with the heroes of antiquity."

"But these don't even look like Mycenaeans," Shea complained. "Just a while ago, I saw an article in National Geographic ..."

Chalmers shook his head. "Homer lived, if he lived at all, around four hundred years after the Trojan War. Virgil lived another eight hundred years after that. He had no idea what the people of the Mycenaean civilization looked like. What we see here," he swept an arm to take in the solemn procession, "is how Romans of the Augustan Age pictured the people of Homer. It's an amalgam of general Hellenistic fashions and old Greek paintings from walls and vases, sculptures and so forth. There's a prevalence of bronze, because Homer stressed that all the weapons and armor were bronze."

Before them, Aeneas walked tirelessly along, still carrying his father.

"Aeneas has lots of followers, even slaves," Shea said. "Why does he always carry the old guy?"

"That's Virgil again, rather than Homer. Virgil wanted to create a Roman national Epic, using Homeric models. But Roman heroes had to have Roman virtues, and to the Romans no virtue was greater than pietas. It was the scrupulous observance of duty toward one's parents, ancestors, hearth and gods. Those are the household gods Anchises is carrying wrapped up in that cloth. The image of the great hero carrying his aged father and the Penates on his back is the most vivid image of pietas in all of Roman legend."

"I see. So you know the poem pretty well?"

"It's coming back to me: 'Arma virumque cano,' it begins, 'Of arms and the man I sing'."

"I thought George Bernard Shaw wrote that."

Chalmers sighed. "And to think I once thought you were an educated man."

"What about it, Doc? Do you think you can work us up a little magic?" Shea profoundly hoped so. The band of refugees had reached Antander near the foot of Mt. Ida and there had set about building a fleet to bear them westward. Their number included numerous craftsmen, and even the noblemen did not seem averse to working with their hands, as long as the work involved weapons, horses, or ships. They cut and hauled wood and the ribs and planks took shape almost as if by magic, for the craftsmen worked the same way the heroes fought, with inhuman swiftness and certainty.

Even in the midst of all this legendary activity there was scut work to be done by inferiors. Boiling pitch and hauling it to the growing fleet was one of these. It was the job to which Chalmers and Shea had been set. Apparently, they were good only for such filthy, unpleasant labor. Harold was anxious to raise then-status, especially if they were to gallivant around the Mediterranean with this crew. And the crew was growing, as more refugees from the sack of Troy and its nearby villages trickled in. Already, a dozen ships were near completion and more keels had been laid.

"I think I can work something," Chalmers said. "It's not simple. The people of this mythos don't go in much for the mechanical sort of sorcery we've seen elsewhere; the use of spells and rituals that are actually rather scientific, even if the rules seem arbitrary."

"Yes, but?" Shea said, impatiently.

Chalmers ignored the urging and laid aside the stick with which he had been stirring a cauldron of boiling, stinking pitch. He sat wearily on a convenient rock and mopped his brow with a rag. Both of them had swapped their sixteenth century garb for tunics of local weave.

"Classical magic," Chalmers bore on, "characteristically involves bribing, flattering and manipulating the gods, getting them to do what you want."

"That sounds bad. Are Greek gods as hard to deal with as university department heads?"

"Oh, nothing that difficult. More like police or small-time politicians. That's the good part, you see:

Greek gods work cheap. All they really want is modest sacrifices and lots of flattery. They respond readily to suggestion that other gods, who are invariably rivals, are trying to horn in on their glory. They are extremely childish and extremely powerful."

"But then don't you ran the risk of falling afoul of those other gods?"

"Unfortunately, yes. And gods will frequently strike at a rival by attacking the rival's worshippers and favorites."

"Who are the favorites?" Shea asked, picking up the stick and giving the pitch a stir. It was almost hot enough.

"Their children, for one. Take Aeneas over there." Chalmers nodded toward the beach, where the hero was inspecting a rack of oars made of polished olive wood. Like everything else here, the oars were exquisitely designed and made. They could have hung in a first-rank art museum.

"What about him?"

"Well, you've seen his father. Do you know who his mother is?"

"Mrs. Anchises?"

"The goddess Aphrodite. Or, rather, Venus, this being a Roman story."

Shea gaped. "Venus? You mean Aeneas is a demigod?"

"A great many of the heroes were. Greek gods and goddesses spread themselves pretty thin."

"But Venus herself!" Shea shook his head in wonder. "But what did the goddess of love and beauty see in old Anchises?"

"I daresay he was younger then," Chalmers said drily. "Doubtless he was handsomer as well. It was a great help on the battlefield. Once, the Greek hero Diomedes wounded Aeneas but his mother spirited him away before Diomedes could deal the deathblow."

"And American soldiers complain that their officers get too many privileges!"

"Ah, yes, I suppose so. Anyway, there were smaller magics sometimes practiced in the classical world, and some of these used the principles with which we are familiar; affinity, sympathy, contagion and so forth. I may be able to accomplish something minor but impressive."

"Maybe you could whip up some soap," Shea said hopefully.

"I could do that without magic, I think. All you need is animal fat and wood ash, although I'm not truly certain of the process. My grandmother used to make soft soap on her farm. The magic would be in getting these people to use it."

"I guess so. The way they nib themselves with olive oil and scrape it off ... well, it gets the worst off, but it sure doesn't make them smell much better. It distressed Shea that even the most spectacularly beautiful noble ladies always trailed a scent of rancid oil.

At least he had that to salve his vanity. People of the heroic age could bruise the twentieth century ego. The nobles were gigantic and beautiful. The yeomen, craftsmen and other freemen were large and handsome. Even the slaves were bigger and better looking than the average modem American. Shea had never considered himself a vain man, but he had never thought of himself as both small and ugly. Activity near the shore caught his attention.

"There they go again," Shea said. "Sacrificing another bull, looking for omens." These people seemed to spend half their time on the lookout for omens. "They went over a calf's liver yesterday and the omens were fine. If that foretells a good voyage, why do it all over again?"

"That isn't how it works." Chalmers told him. "Omens, auguries, haruspices and the like don't foretell the future. That's a confusion with the sort of biblical prophecy that entered our culture after Virgil's time."

"If they aren't reading the future," Shea said, exasperated, "then what is all this rigamarole about?"

"The gods are fickle, even childish, remember?" Chalmers said, patiently. "They can change their minds. When the omens are taken regarding an enterprise, they indicate the will of the gods at that time. Things can always change. The idea is to keep testing the weather, find the prevailing trend of divine thought, and start out on the right note."

"That seems awfully uncertain."

Chalmers shrugged. "No more so than the stock market."

That evening there was a banquet. Somehow, refugees in this mythos seemed to live better than their twentieth-century counterparts. Due to the cunning of Prometheus, the gods got only the fat and bones of the sacrifice. The worshippers got everything else. Another good reason for so many sacrifices, Shea thought, his mouth watering at the smells wafting from the fire-pit. Some traveling entertainers had chanced by and were performing acrobatics and juggling for the feast-ers as they waited for the viands to cook. In the hospitable Trojan fashion, other travellers, going up or down the coastal road, had been invited to partake.

All took their seats on the beach in strict order of precedence, with Anchises and Aeneas at one end, Shea and Chalmers very near the other, just above the slaves.

"Got your magic ready?" Shea whispered.

"I believe so," Chalmers said, uncertainly. "If this were the genuine Homeric world I would be in despair, but Virgil lived after the great age of Greek logic. It was from this that our scientific method and symbolic logic were derived. Even though these people are the near-barbaric characters of Homer, this continuum should be infused with the rigor of Greek logic."

"That sounds logical. No pun intended, of course. When do we pull it?"

"After the banqueting, when everyone is jovial and well-disposed. That's when the serious drinking starts."

The slaves and children began to serve the sacrificial meat. Like the heroes of Norse myth, these people seemed to live on little else, although to Shea's relief they would set out bread, fruit and cheese for any who craved such common fare. The upper end got served first, and they tore into it without waiting for the rest.

A boy staggering under the weight of a wine jar filled Harold's wooden bowl, using a bronze ladle. He took a swig and made a face. It was thin, sour stuff, resinous from the pitch-caulked cask in which it had aged and salty from the seawater that had washed out the cask. It was also weak, since it had been cut with at least four parts of water.

"How do they ever manage to get drunk on this swill?" he asked Chalmers.

"The heroes get better wine," Chalmers said. "But even what they have is poor wine by our standards. It's drunk green, before it can go sour, at which time it's passed along to the lowborn."

"Here comes the grub!" said a shipwright who sat to Harold's left. A team of slaves walked down the line bearing a stretcherlike serving platter, from which a serving girl hooked slabs of meat with a fork. Before the Americans and the shipwright she laid a smoking rack of pork ribs. Shea's salivary glands went into overdrive at the smell. He tore a rib loose and ripped off chunks of stringy meat with his teeth. It had been sauced with something sweetly pungent. It was not quite barbecue, but it was close enough.

"Look at them nobles," groused the shipwright. "Eatin' all the best parts while we're left with the offal."

"They're getting the prime rib and sirloin, eh?" Shea looked toward the head of the "table" and saw, to his amazement, that Aeneas was carving on a smoking ox head. He sliced a gristly hunk of flesh from the jaw and ceremoniously presented it to his father. Anchises thanked him courteously, stuck the tough plug into his mouth and gnawed at it with teeth that were no longer what they had been.

"That's what they consider gourmet eating?" Shea said, incredulously.

"They have no way of knowing that spare ribs are a delicacy to us," Chalmers said. "After all, not so long ago in America, pork ribs were slave food. The masters ate the hams and chops, the slaves got the ribs and trotters. Barbecued spare ribs are one of those triumphs of culinary ingenuity, like oxtail soup."

"Let's not clue them in," Shea advised.

"Your pardon," said a man who sat across from them, "but did you gentlemen happen to witness the fall of the great city?" He was one of the invited travellers, a merchant of some sort, whose tunic and robe were of decent quality but stained with much travel.

"We saw the final night," Chalmers told him. "Have you just learned of it, sir?"

"That is so. I am Pierus, a traveller in fine cloths dyed with Tyrian purple."

"Another anachronism," Chalmers muttered to Shea. "Homer knew about Sidon, not about Tyre."

"Eh?" the merchant said.

Shea made a throat-clearing sound "Ah, you asked about the fall of Troy. As it happens, we were in the city on its very last night." He went on to give a brief description of what they had seen and what they had learned from the refugees.

"How splendid!" the merchant said. "Heroes, gods, a long war ended by a subtle stratagem." He slapped his knee. "Wait until my customers hear about this! I'll bet we get a few good songs out of this one!"

"Undoubtedly," Chalmers said. "Do you travel widely?"

"Wherever there's a demand for Tyrian purple, which is to say everyplace. Can't have royalty without purple, and the world is crawling with royalty. The temples need it, too, robes for the gods and that sort of thing. Why, I was just at the sanctuary Ismaros ..."

"Ismaros?" Shea asked.

"Yes. That's an island up near Ciconian territory, Thrace, you know. The sanctuary of Phoebus Apollo needed a full-length robe for the god, heavily embroidered with gold. Biggest sale I ever made."

"Ismaros!" Chalmers said.

"That's what I said: Ismaros."

"Does the priest there dwell in a sacred grove?" Chalmers had, Shea thought, an odd gleam in his eye.

"That's right. His name is Maron."

"And did he, by any chance, give you some of the fabled wine of that grove?"

"That he did. It was a signal honor. In gratitude for the robe, he gave me a cup no larger than a thimble, and it was no more than a drop of the wine, the rest was water, but it was like the nectar of the immortals. Spoiled me for wine ever since." He got a faraway, wistful look, like a man who once got a peek into heaven.

"Oh, look!" Chalmers said, pointing at something over the merchant's shoulder. The man turned to see what it was, and when he did Chalmers switched wine-cups with him. It was not done with quite the expertise of a sleight-of-hand artist, but it got the job done. Shea was mystified, but made no comment.

The merchant turned back. "What was it?"

"Oh, I thought I saw a falling star. An omen, you know. I guess it was just a firefly."

"Firefly? What's a firefly?"

"Oh, ah, um ... well, it's something we have back home in the Orient. A sort of bug that carries a lamp."

The purple merchant looked as if he doubted Chalmers' sanity. He took a sudden interest in the carpenter who sat next to him and proceeded to ignore the two Americans.

"What the hell was that all about?" Shea asked.

"Had enough to eat, Harold?"

"I guess so." The rack of ribs was now a little pile of gleaming bones.

"Then let's go take a walk."

The two got up, Chalmers cradling his expropriated wine cup carefully. Perhaps a couple of tablespoons of vinegary dregs swirled in its bottom. They drew back to a tiny poplar grove situated near the beach and sat on flat stones.

"We've just been granted a golden opportunity!" Chalmers said.

"How?"

"Ismaros! Maron, the priest of Apollo on Ismaros, had ... that is to say, has, in his house a store of the greatest wine in the world; a wine so powerful that it can be mixed with twenty parts of water without losing its strength. It's the wine that Odysseus ... or rather Ulysses, since this is the Aeneid, will use to get the cyclops Polyphemus drunk ... that is, if he hasn't already." Parallel poems caused Chalmers to tangle his tenses.

"Sounds like good stuff," Shea observed. "But as I understand it, Thrace is a ways north of here. What good does the wine do us up there?"

Chalmers held up the bowl. "You remember the magic principle of contagion, don't you? Things that have come into contact will always retain an affinity. The Catholic church of the Middle Ages built the whole trade in holy relics on the principle. Well, that man recently drank Maron's wine, and his lips touched this cup. I think my little demonstration this evening is going to be far more spectacular than we expected."

"Reed, if I didn't know what a dignified and self-possessed scholar you are, Id swear you were chuckling with glee."

"One doesn't get an opportunity for a coup like this very often."

"Always assuming it works," Shea added.

"Well, yes, that is always a consideration. If it doesn't, they'll probably kill us for wasting their time."

By the time the moon was high, the overfed feasters were growing bored with the entertainment. All fell silent when the two strangers came forward to stand in front of Aeneas and Anchises. They bowed, low, and Shea launched into his prepared spiel.

"Noble Anchises, heroic Aeneas, with great generosity you have permitted us to join your band, to share in your adventures as you fare forth to found a new city, nay, a new kingdom! This night, you have feasted us royally and we wish, in our humble way, to repay your liberality."

This seemed to amuse Aeneas. "The Orientals, is it? To men of honor, generosity looks for no reward. But, if it is your desire to bring us some gift, my father and I accept with thanks."

"What might this gift be?" Anchises asked.

"We wish to bring you something a little different in the way of entertainment. My companion, the estimable Reed Chalmers, is a magician of some note. This evening, he will essay a feat of magic which shall strike you with wonderment, gladden your hearts, and provide a noble addition to this feast, so bounteously provided by our princely host and his semi-divine son." Shea had learned that the nobles loved flattery as much as the gods, and he laid it on thick.

"Not a rabbit out of a hat," Anchises said, peevishly. "I've seen that one."

"No, my lords," Chalmers said. "I intend something a bit more subtle. For this feat. I shall need an amphora of sour wine, one that has turned undrinkable."

"That seems reasonable enough," Aeneas said. "Half our store is vinegar by now, fit only for cooking and for cleaning jars. Fetch one."

A pair of slaves brought a forty-gallon jar by its thick handles. They jammed its pointed bottom into the sand and left it standing there.

"Now, a ladle, please," Chalmers said. One of the serving girls handed him one. He removed the stopper from the jar and dipped up a ladle full of the sour fluid. This he carried to Aeneas and Anchises. He passed it beneath their noses, which wrinkled in aristocratic disdain.

"Are you satisfied, my lords, that this wine has gone sour beyond hope of redemption?"

"Decidedly," Aeneas said.

"I shall improve it," Chalmers said. He raised his arms heavenward and cried out in a melodramatic voice: "I call upon you, Dionysus of the grape and Phoebus Apollo of the laurel! Behold, for the benefit of your favorite, I wreak a metamorphosis. Venus, aid me to provide a vinous crown for your son's festivities!" He looked down and waved his hands over the amphora, saying as an aside to Shea: "Here goes. Modern chemistry meets Aristotelean logic meets primitive shamanism. Keep the bowl handy."

All fell silent as he began to intone his spell.

"Let this be the proposition, that wine is wine, that is to say; A is A. Let it further be postulated that vinegar is wine that has undergone a change, that is to say; AB. Let it be postulated yet further that this change is a consequence of alteration among molecules, which are made of atoms, which indivisible particles are asserted by Empedocles, Democritus and Leucippus.

"No logical reason exists forbidding the reversal of this process. Let us therefore rearrange these molecules, restoring them to their former chains." He turned to Shea. "The bowl," he whispered. Shea handed it to him. Chalmers swirled the dregs in the bottom and chanted in a high, quavering voice:

"Phoebus Apollo of the grove of Ismaros, let the example of your matchless vintage guide these errant molecules into the divine paths of your own creation!" Solemnly, he tipped the bowl and allowed the few drops of sour wine to drop within the great jar. Then he dipped the bowl into the jar, allowed it to fill, and released it to sink to the bottom. He replaced the stopper and stood with head bowed. He whispered to Shea. "Be ready to run if this doesn't work."

"All set," Shea said. He had already picked a direction.

Chalmers took a deep breath and ceremoniously raised the stopper. The pin-drop silence continued as something emerged from the jar. It was a fragrance, intensely sweet and so powerful that it seemed to have color. The crowd of feasters looked puzzled, then rapturous. There was a collective "Aaaaahhhhhhh!"

Hesitantly, Chalmers filled a ladle, raised it and let the contents cascade back within. The formerly reddish-yellow liquid had turned to something not merely red, but a maroon so deep that it was almost black.

With an expression of wonderment, Aeneas rose and came forward!. He held a cup of hammered gold, with tiny doves perched on its handles. He held it over the amphora and Chalmers filled it. The fragrance was almost overpowering by now. Reverently, Aeneas took the cup to Anchises and offered it to him. The old man raised it to his nose and sniffed, going almost cross-eyed when the full bouquet hit his olfactories.

"Uh, m'lord," Shea hazarded, "it really ought to be mixed with water, twenty to one. This stuff will lay a Cyclops out flat." The two aristocrats paid him no heed. Anchises took a healthy belt. A moment later his eyes bugged half out of his head and his face turned scarlet. He gasped for a few seconds, then spoke.

"Whooooooeeeee! That's sonic hooch!" Everybody cheered and clapped, already hall-drunk from the fumes alone.

"Make up a bowl with twenty measures of water and one of the new wine," Aeneas yelled, "so that all may have some. First, though, fill me a cup of the straight goods!" Chalmers did so, and Aeneas knocked back a slug. When his eyes refocussed he clapped Chalmers on the shoulder.

"Boys," said the hero, "not only have you capped my banquet in rare style, but you've risen in my estimation as well. From now on, you're off pitch-boiling duty. I'm making you wine stewards for the fleet, with all the honors due that noble station."

Within minutes, the whole crowd was blissfully plastered. Amazingly, there was not a mean drunk in the lot. All were singing and romping around and carrying on, as if they had been robbed of all care and all rancor.

"Well, you did it," Shea said. "But let's lay off the stuff until they're all safely out."

"Agreed," said Chalmers. "And I think we had better content ourselves with the diluted wine. It's even more potent than advertised."

Within an hour, the whole company was on the sand, snoring in unison. Shea and Chalmers each dipped a bowl, clicked cups in toast, and took a drink.

It was like concentrated delight, what the gods would drink if the gods were committed winos. It made Chateau Mouton Rothschild taste like Dago Red.

"I can't believe Aeneas and his father could drink it straight and live," Shea said.

"Heroic appetites are notorious,' Chalmers explained. They took another sip.

"Ah, Doc, is this stuff supposed to be hallucinogenic as well?"

"Not that I had heard. Why?"

"Because there's a guy made of gold and about twenty feet high standing over there by the ship we were caulking today."

"Uh-oh." Slowly, Chalmers turned to look. The man, if that was what he was, strode toward them. When he was near they came to just above his knee caps and had to squint their eyes against his brightness. His beautiful, terrible face glared down at them. He was not happy.

"Mortal fools! Know you who I am?"

"We ..." Chalmers began.

"I", the huge golden man said, cutting him off, "am Phoebus Apollo, Silverbow, Shootafar, Apollo of the Golden Locks, solar deity extraordinaire!"

"Lord Apollo," Chalmers cried, "what have we, poor wretched mortals that we are, done to anger you?"

Apollo bent low and hissed. "What have you done? You don't know? You miserable, impious, blaspheming bootlegger!"

"I, ah, don't understand," Chalmers said.

"We intended no disrespect, sir," Shea assured him.

"You think that excuses you?" His expression grew thunderous. "You just came in here and usurped the sacred wine of Apollo, and you expect to get off easy? You should have known better than to invoke my name, mortal! That brought me all the way from Ethiopia to witness your sacrilege."

"Hey, we were just trying to keep the party going," Shea protested.

"Silence!" He gave them an evil grin. "You know what happens to mortals who mess with me? Ever hear of Niobe? My sister Diana and I killed her six sons and six daughters. Shot them dead! I guess you've heard of Marsyas, that satyr who said he was a better musician than Apollo?"

"I'm not sure," Shea said weakly while Chalmers just looked pale.

"I skinned that bastard alive!" He chuckled sadistically. "I'm going to have to think up something really bad for you two. I'll teach you to mess with Phoebus Apollo!'

"But, but we didn't ...

"Oh, shut up, you little worm. While I'm thinking this over, I want you to think it over. Anticipation is half the fun. I'll be seeing you, mortals, just when you toast expect it!" There was a sudden, gusting whirlwind, and Apollo, to their unutterable relief, was gone.

"Now we're in for it," Shea groaned. "Just when things were looking up!"

"Well," Chalmers said weakly, "it might have been worse."

"How?"

"How? My dear Harold, Apollo is one of the nicer gods!"

The morning of the fleet's departure dawned clear and sparkling. Aeneas made his last-minute arrangements, assigning crews to the fleet that had now grown to twenty ships. He took Shea and Chalmers to a vessel that was wider and deeper-bellied than the others.

"This is the fleet's wine ship," Aeneas explained. "It is commanded by my friend, Achates. Ah, here is the master now."

By the stem of the vessel stood a man who was taller than most, but not so tall as Aeneas: about six foot five by Shea's estimation. This classed him as a noble warrior, but not quite of hero rank. There were a number of them with the fleet. Shea had dubbed them heroids.

"Brave Achates!" Aeneas called.

"Noble Lord Aeneas!" Achates said, grinning obsequiously and displaying a small gap between his front teeth. Next to him a plump lady sat on a bale of wool, doing needlework. "How may I serve my lord?"

"Achates, these men shall sail in your vessel. They will keep our wine from souring. It is an important duty, and they are to have no others during the voyage."

"Absolutely, my lord. I shall care for them as if they were my own children. A warm berth and a soft life, that's what it shall be, my lord. Anything else? If he had a tail, Shea thought, it would be wagging.

"That suits me excellently. I place much trust in you. Achates. Half an army's or a fleet's morale lies in the quantity and quality of its wine.

"My lord does me too much honor." He grinned and bowed at the same time.

"My ship goes first," Aeneas said. "The others launch immediately after. A good voyage to you." He turned and strode away.

"I shall not fail von, Lord Aeneas."

Achates straightened up to his full height. Then he glared at the new additions to his crew.

"Oh, this is just what I need! Not bad enough I get the bloody wine ship, but I'm saddled with a couple of layabout foreigners with nothing to do but taste the wine From time to time! Well, I ought to be used to this sort of treatment by now, always 'Achates, fetch my spear' and 'Achates, see if the bulls to be sacrificed are without blemish' and 'Achates, take charge of the wine ship.' Now I ask you: Is that any way to treat a bloody hero? No, it is not!" His half-hysterical rant ceased abruptly and he looked down at the lady who sat next to him. "Isn't that right, dear?"

She paid him no attention, but set her embroidery hoop aside and smiled engagingly. "So you two will be sailing with us? How nice. I'm sure we'll get along famously. I'm Mrs. Achates, but just call me Harmonia."

"Charmed," Chalmers said, taking her hand and kissing it. Achates turned his face aside and made a disgusted sound.

"Where do you want us to stow our belongings?" Shea asked, pro forma since they had almost nothing to stow.

"Let's go find you berths," Harmonia said, standing. She was only a little taller than Shea and Chalmers.

"Listen, you lot," Achates said. "I am in charge of this ship!" He punched a forefinger against his bronze-sheathed sternum.

"Yes, love," Harmonia said, not glancing at him. "Now, come aboard, you two. I'm afraid it's going to be awfully crowded for a while." Achates wandered off to bark at some slaves toiling at last-minute sailing preparations. Shea and Chalmers followed the woman up the rickety gangplank.

"Let's see, now," she surveyed the little ship, "his lordship and I have the little hut at the stem, and the slaves will sleep among the amphorae, but nobody has that little decked area up at the bow. Will that suit you?"

"Admirably," Chalmers assured her. Most of the vessel was open, with two small stretches of deck fore and aft. Most of it was given over to cargo space, with an open, pitlike hold that was devoted to the amphorae. The ship was ballasted with sand and the wine jars were stuck by their pointed bottoms into the sand, where they were securely held.

"It won't be as comfortable as the town house in Troy, I'm afraid, but I hope you won't be too distressed." She smiled sunnily, revealing teeth slightly more gapped than her husband's.

"The destruction of your city must have been a terrible shock for you," Chalmers said solicitously.

"Oh, I didn't live there all that long. Dear Achates acquired me when he and his friends sacked my father's citadel. It was a great bother, but that's the way heroes are, you know."

"And what a lucky man he was," Shea said gallantly.

"I've always thought so. Now, dear Mr. Chalmers, will you be making more of that divine wine for us?"

"I fear I cannot," Chalmers said. "There are, let us say, diplomatic reasons that forbid it. But what is left in the amphora I transformed should last a long time, since it can be so heavily diluted."

"Oh, splendid! It was so nice to have the boys pleasantly drunk for a change. And not a trace of hangover afterward! Well, you two make yourselves comfortable. I must go now and undo whatever it is my husband's done."

Like the others, their ship was beautiful but of alarmingly light and flimsy construction. Since the ships were usually dragged up on shore at night, they could not be too heavy.

"It's hard to believe they propose to sail these things all over the Mediterranean," Shea said. "When Aeneas talked about building a fleet, I pictured something like those massive galleys in Ben Hur."

"Such ships probably never existed," Chalmers told him, "except perhaps as harbor defense vessels, or specially built craft for storming port defenses. The galleys of antiquity had to be built as light as racing sculls. Even the Roman triremes would look flimsy to modern eyes."

"If you say so."

Trumpets announced the time to sail. The sacrifices were done, the omens taken, and there was nothing left to do but haul the ships down to the water. This was accomplished with a great deal of grunting and groaning, and then the ships were afloat. They ran out oars and assembled a quarter mile offshore and the order was given to hoist sail. Halyards strained, yards rose up the masts, and the sails bellied out with the late-morning breeze. There was a great deal of weeping at this leavetaking, for the refugees knew they would never see their native land again. Slowly, majestically, the fleet began to sail north.

"Why north?" Shea asked. He stood in the bow of the wineship with Chalmers, Achates and Harmonia.

"Why north?" Achates said in a conversational tone. "Why north? Because that's the way the bloody wind's blowing!" By the last word, his voice reached its accustomed shriek. "Perhaps you want us to sail south when the wind's coming from that direction? You want us to defy the gods by sailing against the wind, is that it? That's the way the gods let you know where they want you to go, after all. You raise your sails and they blow you where they want you to go! Oh, I suppose we could be like bloody Agamemnon and sacrifice a princess or two for the wind of our choice, but as it happens we're fresh out of princesses. Lord Aeneas has just the one boy, and he's not about to sacrifice him so that some silly little twit of a foreigner can have a wind that blows from a less southerly direction!" He seemed on the point of collapsing from apoplexy, his face turning scarlet between the cheekplates of his helmet and his horsehair crest quivering with rage.

"Remind me not to ask again," Shea said.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" Harmonia commented.

"Yes, it is, dear, quite," said Achates, perfectly calm.

Their prow divided the water cleanly, sending up twin fans of spray. As they reached the deeper water the color of the sea grew strangely dark, with violet undertones. Shea commented on this phenomenon.

"A holdover from Homer," Chalmers told him. "This is the famous 'wine-dark sea'." Dolphins frolicked alongside the ship, and occasionally they saw tritons, fishtailed and bearded with seaweed, rise to the surface. Aboard the flagship, they saw Aeneas leaning over the rail to confer with a triton. Apparently, he was asking directions.

That night they hauled their ships ashore, built fires and ate; frugally before rolling into their blankets to sleep. The next day they made landfall on a stretch of rolling coastland. Aeneas announced that he would go ashore to test the omens. It looked, he said, like a promising place to found a city.

"Oh, I hope not," Harmonia said. "This is Thrace. The people here arc such savages. She stayed aboard ship and tended to her embroidery, but Shea and Chalmers went ashore with the rest of the men.

"Thrace?" Shea said. "It didn't take very long to get here."

"This is an epic poem," Chalmers informed him. "It skips over the long, dull stretches."

Slaves manhandled a bull off one of the livestock ships and brought it, protesting, ashore. Aeneas was thumbing the edge of his knife. It was sacrifice time again. Men were piling rocks for an altar.

"You two," Aeneas said, beckoning to Shea and Chalmers. They came running. "We must have a bower for the altar. Today I sacrifice to my divine mother and other gods for their blessing upon a work begun. Go to yonder hillock," he pointed toward the intended terrain feature, "and bring me shoots of cornel and myrtle."

"Ave, ave, sir," Shea said. They tramped up the hillock and stood among the slender saplings.

"Do you know which are cornel and which are myrtle?" Shea asked.

"I doubt that anyone will notice," Chalmers said. "Let's just pull up a few of these and take them to the beach."

Shea stooped and grasped a sapling about a foot from the ground. With both feet braced, he hauled on it. There was a slight, strange give, then, shockingly, a loud groan sounded from beneath the ground.

"What the hell? Reed, what was that?" At that moment Chalmers tugged another sapling, and this brought an even louder groan.

"I think we are dealing with something very bad here," Chalmers said. "I suggest we pass this on to the authorities." They went back to the beach and found Aeneas conferring with his captains.

"My lord," Chalmers said, "we've run into difficulty getting you the wood for the bower."

"Difficulty?" Achates barked. "Is pulling up a few weeds beyond you? I mean, what's the problem? Granted you two are spindly as reeds, but you ought to be up to ..." Aeneas signaled him to silence.

"These are my wine stewards, old friend. Let them speak."

"Absolutely, m'lord. Perfectly understood."

"When we tried to pull up some saplings," Shea said, "a loud groan came from beneath the ground. It sounded human."

"This is truly an omen," Aeneas said. "Let us go and investigate it." They tramped to the knoll and Aeneas selected a sapling. He pulled one-handed and the sapling came up reluctantly. The groan was alarmingly loud this time. The root tangle came free with a repulsive ripping, popping sound. He held it up for inspection. The root mass was covered with blackish goo and half-congealed blood dripped from it.

"Oooohh, gross!" said someone at the back of the crowd.

Aeneas tried another sapling: same groan, same blood. Being a man who always did things by threes, he tried again: groan, blood, and this time a sob. Then a voice sounded from deep below.

"Is that you, Aeneas?" said the sepulchral voice.

"I know that voice," Aeneas said. "Polydorus?"

"That is who I am, or at least, was. I'm dead now. Priam sent me north with a chest of gold to bribe the king of Thrace to come to Troy's aid. He killed me and took the gold instead. His men pinned me here with spears and the shafts took root."

"What a bastard!" Achates cried.

"That's what I said," Polydorus con finned.

"That does it," Aeneas said. "You can't ask for a worse omen than this. No city here, by Jupiter. Polydorus, we'll perform all the rites for you and set your shade to rest."

"Much obliged," said the shade.

So the bull was sacrificed to the shade instead of to Venus, a mound was raised over the burial site, and the women were brought ashore for some of their extravagant mourning. When the last libation was poured out, they sailed away.

"Nothing like a good cry to make you feel better," Harmonia said. "Of course, Trojan women have done very little but cry for the last ten years, so I suppose we should be the happiest women in the world. We aren't, for some reason."

The winds took them to the island of Thymbra, where the king received them hospitably but let them know that the island was full up, with no room for new cities. Aeneas went to the local shrine and asked for a sign. There was a minor earthquake and a godly voice, suggesting that Crete might be a nice place to visit. A recent civil war had left plenty of land unoccupied.

So off they went, spreading their sails to whatever breeze the gods decreed. They passed islands that rose dreamlike from the dark sea. Strange creatures came to the shores to gaze on the fleet. Stranger ones glided in the sea beneath their keels.

As it turned out, there was plague in Crete. One night there, as Aeneas slept, his household gods appeared to him and told him that Italy was the place to be. So they packed up, made their sacrifices, and set sail for Italy.

"Italy!" Achates shouted as the mast creaked from an overfilled sail. "Italy! Where in the name of Mercury is bloody Italy? I never heard of the bloody place and that's where we have to head! I mean, why can't the gods just come out and say where they want us to go, instead of sending us all over the bleeding wine-dark sea like a bunch of bloody driftwood?" He began to beat his head against the mast, which did little except put a few new dents in his helmet.

"For once he's making sense," Shea said. "Why don't they just say what they want?"

"It wouldn't be an epic if things were easy," Chalmers assured him.

A few days after Crete they fetched up on an island where herds of cattle and flocks of sheep ran about near the shore unattended. They were out of fresh meat, so the men stormed ashore with bows and spears, whooping after prey. By nightfall, whole carcasses were turning on spits and all were preparing for a feast.

"This is going entirely too well," Shea said. Truer words were never spoken. They were scarcely out of his mouth when something perfectly hideous swooped in from the darkening sky, screeching like souls in purgatory.

"What the hell ..." Shea ducked as scabby claws scraped his scalp.

A whole Hock of winged monsters converged on the roasting meat. They had bodies like vultures but their faces were those of women. Long, forked tongues slashed from their mouths as they tore at the roasting flesh. A horrible smell of decay filled the air.

Achates snatched off his helmet and hurled it to the sand. "Harpies!" he screamed. "We're on the island of the bloody harpies! I give up! I just bloody well give up!"

Equally distraught but even more enraged, the men drew their weapons and flailed wildly at the disgusting creatures. They were unable to inflict a single wound. The harpies were as bulky as large turkeys and looked as ungainly, but they avoided the slashing bronze as easily as if they had been bats. Even the blindingly swift blows of Aeneas were to no avail. The creatures slithered around the blades without nicking a feather, as if they were playing a game. Then they flew away, all but one. The remaining harpy perched on a crag and glared balefully. Shea decided that absolutely nothing in the worlds could glare as balefully as a harpy. This one was even uglier than the others, with the hair and features of an ancient hag.

"Do you know me, mortals?" the thing croaked.

"I know you, Celaeno," Anchises said. "You are wide-famed."

"Know, then, that you have violated our land, slaughtered our beasts, and offered violence to those you have despoiled. For this you have earned my curse."

"Speak on, Celaeno," Aeneas said. As Shea had come to expect, he offered no excuses. A hero would never do such a thing.

"You seek Italy? You shall find that land, but as punishment for your slaughter of our beasts, you shall not raise the walls of your city until you have suffered deadly famine, a famine that shall make you grind your tables with your teeth! Farewell, Aeneas!" With a parting screech, Celaeno flapped away into the shrouding dark.

"Well, isn't that just ducky?" Achates said, as the last ratty feathers drifted to the ground. "Look at that! I mean, just look!" He held out a hand, palm up, to draw everyone's attention to the roasting meat, as if the awful smell had not already done that for him. "It's honking! Pure rotten from the touch of those foul creatures!" The carcasses had turned a livid purple, and their stench was all but palpable.

"Peace, brave Achates," Aeneas said, sounding to Shea's ears just a touch weary for the first time. "We have more to concern us than some prematurely decayed flesh."

"Excuse me, my lord," Chalmers said. "But all may not be lost."

"Say you so, friend Chalmers?" Aeneas said, his eyebrows going up quizically. "Your prince would be most grateful were you able to temper the evils of this ill-starred evening."

"You recall how I mended the soured wine?" Chalmers said.

"Who could forget it?"

"I may be able to do the same for this decayed flesh."

"Truly?" Aeneas frowned. "But decay is a part of the god-decreed consequence of mortality. May you do this without attracting the disfavor of the gods? No feast is worth such a punishment, as I have just found out."

"I think so," Chalmers said. He held up a finger in pedantic fashion. "Natural decay, as my lord so perspicaciously points out, is a part of mortality. These beasts died for our benefit but a few hours ago. Should they be rotten now? Not so!" There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd. "No, they grew rotten with unnatural swiftness from the touch of unclean creatures. I think I can restore them to their natural condition without violating any divine rules."

"Then work your wonders," Aeneas said, "and earn the further gratitude of your prince."

"Ah, Doc," Shea said as Chalmers made his preparations. "Do you think you can really do this? We're talking about an irrevocable biological process here."

"No, Harold. You keep forgetting that we aren't on our own Earth. There, decay is caused by bacterial action. What those harpies just did to this meat would be utterly unnatural there. This world knows two sorts of decay, and perhaps more. This accelerated, not to say instantaneous, sort, is the type of petty magic that can be easily reversed."

"Easily?" Shea said, an eyebrow slightly raised.

"Well, I think so. First of all, we need a virgin."

"Doc! I'm shocked! They're crazy about sacrificing around here, but even they don't go in for human sacrifice. You don't propose to sacrifice a virgin just to salvage the banquet, do you?"

"Harold, sometimes I question your judgment. No, this is a mere application of sympathetic magic. Surely you remember the principle?"

"Voodoo dolls, right?"

"That is the most familiar example. Things that share certain things in common, characteristics or appearance, have a magical affinity. Believe me, Harold, the young lady will not suffer the slightest damage. And we'll need the local equivalent of extra-virgin olive oil, and some wine from the first pressing."

The oil and wine proved to be no problem, but the virgin was. Not because of a shortage, but because every mother seemed determined that her daughter should be the representative virgin. Shea rejected infants and immature girls. That, it seemed, would be cheating. The girl had to be nubile. The winner was a lovely girl of fourteen, with waist-length, black hair and enormous eyes.

"She'd have been wed by now," her mother said wistfully, "but that awful Diomedes hewed her betrothed asunder."

While the assembly maintained silence, Chalmers took the girl by the hand and led her to one of the carcasses, which still sizzled on its spit, a horrid sight and a worse smell. Shea stood by with the oil and wine. Chalmers raised his face to the skies and intoned:

"Oh, divine Hygeia, also known as Salus, daughter of the splendid Aesculapius and goddess of health, by these tokens of purity, I call upon you to restore this unnaturally corrupted flesh to wholesomeness, for which favor we will raise a shrine in your honor upon this spot, and our prince, the noble Aeneas, will establish your worship in far, barbaric Italy."

He nodded to Shea. Ceremoniously, Shea poured some of the oil onto the carcass, then some of the wine. Chalmers held the girl's hand out toward the carcass.

"Now, my dear, you must touch it."

The girl wrinkled her nose. "Oooohhh! It's nasty!"

"Nevertheless, it is necessary."

With great reluctance, the girl extended her hand, then brushed her fingertips against the flesh for an instant, snatching her hand back as quickly as she could. Little brown fingerprints appeared where her fingers had touched, and the brown swiftly spread over the carcass, eliminating the decayed flesh in less than a minute. Even the rips and gouges made by the harpies had disappeared.

"Aaaaahhhhhh!" went the crowd.

They went from one carcass to another, repeating the ritual. The girl had lost all her reluctance and delighted in all the attention she was getting. Her mother looked fit to burst with pride. Within minutes, all had been restored and the stench of decay had vanished as if it had never been.

There was great rejoicing and congratulation, Chalmers and Shea being on the receiving end of a large amount of back-slapping. This was a perilous thing when the back-slappers were heroes. The interrupted banquet resumed.

With a pleasantly full stomach, Harold took a walk along the beach. The night was graced with a full moon. A few Nereids splashed in the shallows, playing strange music on conch shells. He paused when he saw a bulky figure seated on a rock, chin in hand. Then he recognised Aeneas. The hero seemed uncharacteristically melancholy.

"Is everything all right, m'lord?" Shea asked.

Aeneas noticed him for the first time. "Ah, friend Shea. I cannot thank you enough for salvaging this night's feast. And perhaps my leadership as well."

"Surely the confidence of your followers in your leadership is unshaken, my lord!"

"Would that it were so." Aeneas sighed deeply. "But heroes are a fractious lot at the best of times. One can keep their esteem while the favor of the gods holds out, but let the immortals indicate disfavor, and the doubt sets in. Even now, they grumble in discontent, and each thinks himself a worthier leader than I. Why have the gods forsaken me, Harold Shea? Why do they lead me this weary chase instead of speaking forth plainly?"

It was unsettling to see the leader and foremost hero subject to self-doubt. It was positively un-Homeric. He sought words to comfort a hero. What would such a man find bracing and reassuring in a time of trial? Then he hit upon the perfect formula. He put a hand on the leader's armored shoulder.

"Lord Aeneas," Shea said, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

Slowly, Aeneas turned his head and looked Shea in the eyes. Even sitting he had to look down slightly.

"A man's gotta ... say, I like that. Priam himself never said anything wiser." He rose from his rock. "You have done me another great favor, Harold Shea. I shall not forget it." He walked back toward the campsite, whispering to himself. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. A man's gotta ..."

The Storm blew for days. At first Shea and Chalmers were terrified that their fragile ship would sink, them they were too seasick to care. The voyage seemed to be lasting forever, and they were no nearer to finding Florimel than when they landed in the Aeneid.

From the island of the harpies they had sailed past a whole archipelago of Achaean islands where they dared not put in. Sailing past Ithaca, home of the detested Ulysses, they had jeered and thumbed their noses, but had kept their distance. In one land they visited with some fellow Trojan refugees. Considering the scale of the destruction, it seemed that an inordinate number of survivors had escaped. Chalmers explained that this was clue to the- Hellenistic fad for tracing every city-state's origins to a Homeric hero. Greece and the eastern Mediterranean were home to the Achaean heroes, so the west had to be settled by fleeing Trojans.

On Sicily they had sighted a whole tribe of cyclopes, including the now-blind Polyphemus himself. In Drepahum they had cremated and buried Anchises, amid much extravagant mourning and sacrifice. It seemed that the old boy was not fated to see his son's new city after all.

In the end, the storm abated and they were down to seven ships. One had been seen foundering but the others, it was hoped, might just be scattered. At last, they made landfall. They were not sure of their location, but it seemed to be somewhere in Libya.

They staggered ashore and hauled up the ships, stern-first, on the sand. Everything they had was drenched, so they emptied the holds and spread their belongings out to dry. Then they flopped wearily onto the beach.

"Achates," Aeneas called out, "start us a fire, will you? Then we must see about a sacrifice."

"You and you," Achates said, pointing in turn to Chalmers and Shea, "go fetch me some kindling." As they gathered twigs and dry grass, they heard him muttering to himself. "Give us a fire, Achates. Must be all I'm good for. Could've told any slave to do this, but no, we must have good old Achates to fix us up a fire, mustn't we? Just because his mother's a goddess ..." and so on. The fact was, Achates had an uncanny knack with flint and steel (another advantage, Chalmers pointed out, of being in a Virgilian, rather than an Homeric, epic. You couldn't get a fire started with flint and bronze.) With the kindling gathered. Achates had a flame going quicker than the Americans could have accomplished with a Zippo.

"Achates," Aeneas called.

Achates muttered, "Now what the bloody hell does he want?" but aloud he said, "Yes, my lord?"

"Fetch my bow and arrows. We must find some food before these people starve. And send someone out to get us some sacrificial beasts. We need a white goat and a black one."

"At once, my lord." Achates smiled. "That's more like it. A bit of hunting, just dear Prince Aeneas and his beloved companion Achates. You noticed he didn't ask any of the Others to go with him, didn't you, dear?"

"I noticed, love," Harmonia said, already at work on her damp embroidery.

"You two," Achates once again pointed to Shea and Chalmers, "have been lying about too long. Go find us a white goat and a black one."

"Goats?" Shea said, instantly regretting it.

"Oh, yes, goats. You know what goats are, don't you? Wooly things? Bad smell? Go 'bleat'? Two of them, eh? One white, one black? Is that difficult? I mean, IS THAT SO BLOODY DIFFICULT?" Achates' raging shriek caused pebbles to fall from a nearby bluff.

"Got you, boss," Shea said hastily.

"Now where are we going to find a white goat and a black one?" Shea asked when the two were gone.

"I suppose we could go searching in the hills," Chalmers said despondently. "Wild goats seem to thrive everywhere. I might be able to come up with a magical lure.

"Oh, sit down, you two," Harmonia said. "Just relax for a while. Look around you. This is inhabited country. You can see fields and vineyards from here. Sooner or later a goatherd will come along and we'll just buy a pair from him. Half a jar of wine will buy as fine a pair as you could ask for in the colors of your choice, with a couple of pounds of goat cheese thrown in."

"How eminently sensible," Chalmers said, collapsing cross-legged to the sand. Shea sat beside him.

"Now, dear Mr. Chalmers, tell me what has you so despondent. After all, things could be worse. You might have been on one of the ships that foundered or was lost. We might have fetched up on a hostile shore, or one inhabited by monsters. Really, things aren't so bad."

"I know," Chalmers said, "but we've been searching for Florimel for so long, and so far we've found no trace of her."

"Florimel?" Harmonia said. "Is that a woman?"

"The most beautiful woman in the world," Chalmers averred.

"Well, it's not a good idea to set your heart too keenly on one woman. That's what poor Prince Paris did, and look what happened to Troy because of that!"

"But Florimel is my wife," Chalmers said.

"Oh, that's different. It's all right to put yourself out a bit for a wife. How did you happen to misplace her? Did Achaean pirates carry her off?"

"Not exactly," Chalmers said.

"Well, don't lose heart. I'm sure you'll find her. We keep running into old friends from Troy, so there's no reason why you shouldn't find your wife.

They spent a couple of hours unsouring and desalinating wine that had gotten contaminated with seawater during the storm, and by the end of the job, Chalmers was restored to cheerfulness.

"You're looking better, Doc," Shea said.

"I think Harmonia is right. These epics always involve a great deal of coincidence, and people are always reencountering each other alter long separations and in unlikely places. We may just have fallen into the odd logic of ancient storytelling."

A horn blew and they looked up to see the hunters returning with the makings for dinner. Achates carried three dead stags and Aeneas four, a stag for each ship. These they dumped on the beach to be dressed, skinned and cooked by the slaves. Then they came walking toward the wine ship.

"Heads up, Doc, Shea said. "Here comes the boss."

"My friends," Aeneas addressed them, "during our hunt we encountered an adventure that was passing strange." He was not winded, despite the half-ton or so of stag he had just been carrying.

"Strange adventures often fall the lot of heroes," Chalmers observed.

"That is so," Aeneas said. "For on our hunt we met with my mother."

"The goddess Venus?" Chalmers said.

"Exactly. She appeared to us in the guise of a huntress, with bow and high-laced boots. She told us that this land belongs to a new city called Carthage. Its ruler is the daughter of the king of Tyre, Dido by name."

"Dido," Achates snorted. "What sort of name is that? Dido! It isn't a name. It sounds like one of those indecent objects that pack of sleazy Phoenician merchants tried to sell to us!"

"Peace, Achates," Aeneas said.

"Sorry, my lord."

"Anyway, friend Chalmers, I would see this city and perhaps look upon its Queen. But I would prefer to accomplish this unseen. Have you a spell for this?"

"Hmmmmm," Chalmers pondered. "I haven't attempted a spell of invisibility in this world ... that is to say, since coming from the Orient. However, if you will give me leave to think upon the problem, I believe I can come up with something!"

"Very good. We shall feast upon stag-flesh, then I shall call upon you again." He turned to go examine the altar his slaves had erected. As soon as Aeneas was away. Achates gave them a heady eye. "Where are those goats?"

"Here they are, dear," came Harmonia's cheery voice. A group of local villagers had come to the shore to trade with the newcomers. Harmonia came from the impromptu market leading two goats, one white and one black. "A lovely pair of prime billies, ripe as ancient cheese." She handed the lead ropes to her husband. "Now run along and give these to Lord Aeneas, love. He has his knife out already."

"All right," Achates said stiffly. "If you want to do these lowborn rascals' work for them, you won't catch me complaining about it." He stalked off, tugging the reluctant goats behind him.

"Can you do it, Doc? Invisibility is a pretty subtle business."

"I believe so. Invisibility occurs a number of times in the Greek myths. The helmet of Mercury confers it, for instance. Harmonia, would you happen to have a mirror you can bear to part with? A cheap one would be adequate. Ideal, in fact."

"I'm sure I have." She threw open a chest and rummaged around in its contents. "Ana!" She withdrew a flat disk of bronze with a wooden handle. "It's gone all dingy, but I could polish it up."

"Perfect,'' Chalmers said. "I'm afraid I'll have to damage it a little, but it should be repairable."

"Not to worry, love. Dear Achates will find me a really good one next time he sacks a village."

The afternoon was given over to gorging on stag-meat washed down with watered wine. Then everyone stretched out and took a much-needed siesta. About three o'clock, had there only been clocks, Aeneas' son shook Shea and Chalmers awake.

"My father wants to know if you have your spell ready," he said.

"I have. Tell your father we shall join him momentarily, Ascanius."

"My father says I'm to be called Julus from now on," the boy informed them. He ran back to his father, who was donning his most splendid armor.

"Why would Aeneas change his son's name?" Shea asked.

"Names were frequently changed to acknowledge some crucial event, such as the founding of a new city. But the real reason is that Virgil was writing propaganda for his patron, Augustus."

"Propaganda?"

"Yes. After the civil wars, everyone wanted stable, settled government. Augustus, nee Gaius Octavius, derived his legitimacy from his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. The Julian family traced its ancestry to Julus, the son of Aeneus, and thence to the goddess Venus. In Troy, the boy was called Ascanius. In Italy, he was, or rather will be, Julus." A look of enlightenment came over Chalmers' face. "That's it!"

"That's what?" Shea asked.

"Remember how I said that Aeneas looked familiar? Now I remember. He looks just like the portrait busts of Julius Caesar!"

"Whatever are you two babbling about?" Harmonia asked.

"Just sorcerer talk," Shea assured her. "Come on, Doc. The boss is getting impatient." They hurried over to where Aeneas and Achates stood.

"My lord," Chalmers said, "with a day or two to work on it, I could probably come up with a more efficient spell. As it is, my companion and I must go along with you to keep the spell working."

"I could not ask for doughtier or more loyal attendants," Aeneas said.

"Oh, bugger!" Achates murmured. "What was that, Achates?"

"I said, 'oh, wonderful', my lord."

"Excellent. Chalmers, work your enchantment."

Chalmers took the disk of thin bronze, now polished to reflective brilliance, in both hands. "Oh Helios, whose rays illuminate the world with incomparable beauty and glory, hear my supplication. As I bend this light-glancing mirror, so, I pray you, bend your rays around us four, so that they pass by us, never rebounding to strike the eyes of observers." Slowly, he bent the mirror until it formed a discoid half-circle, he then held it by the handle as it shimmered for a while, then became oddly opaque, as if it neither reflected nor absorbed light.

"Ready, my lord?" Chalmers said.

"Is that all?" Aeneas said. "I feel no different, and I see the three of you quite clearly."

"Yet we four," Chalmers told him, "who stand within the radius of my spell, are quite invisible to anyone outside the circle."

"Then let us go forth to look upon Carthage," Aeneas ordered.

The journey was not a long one. They passed through a brief stretch of fields and woods, then up to a rocky ridge line. From the top of the ridge, they looked down upon a spectacular scene. Below them, a great city was under construction. A girdling wall stood more than man-height, its defensive towers risen to twenty feet or more as wagons brought cut quarry blocks to raise them higher. Houses and temples stood already roofed, and men were digging away at a vast, semicircular foundation where soon a theater would rise. All around the new city, fields were under the plow and vineyards being laid out. It was a scene of beelike industry.

"Now that's how to build a city!" Aeneas said with awestruck admiration.

"Never be a match for dear Ilium," Achates said, wiping away a nostalgic tear.

They descended the ridgeline and entered the cultivated land. Everywhere, colonists were planting crops and orchards, but no one saw the strangers as they passed. Dogs sniffed the air and barked in bewilderment.

They walked through the wide gateway and into the city, where the sound of chisel on stone and hammer on nail assailed them from every direction. Huge ox-drawn carts rumbled and squealed by on ungreased axles, carrying building materials or hauling away excavated earth. In the center of the city a grove had been planted, and in the middle of the grove was a lofty temple, nearer than the other public buildings to completion. Its doors were of massive bronze. Through the doors they went, and into the vast, echoing interior.

The interior walls were completely carved with scenes in low relief, painted in realistic colors. Most of them appeared to be battle scenes.

"By Jupiter!" Aeneas said. "It's the Trojan War!"

"Word sure does get around," Shea commented. In accordance with the compressed time frame of epic verse, the whole story of the siege of Troy was depicted, from the judgment of Paris to the abduction of Helen, all the battles that followed, culminating with the wooden horse being dragged into the city.

"Here I am!" Aeneas cried. "I'm squaring off with Achilles. I was just about to chuck a rock at him when Father Poseidon of the sea-blue hair yanked me out of the fight."

"Just when you were about to squash him, too, m'lord!" Achates said.

"Yes, it was a pity. The old boy meant well, though." They continued to wander around admiring the decorations, like tourists in a museum.

"I don't see me anyplace," Achates said, disappointed.

From outside came a sound of music. Someone was playing harps and flutes, gently thumping on tambourines and rattling sistrums. Shea looked out through the doors and saw a gaily clad procession making its way up the broad ceremonial avenue through the grove toward the temple.

"Company, boss." Shea called out. Aeneas came to join him by the door.

"I think the queen comes, with her court," Aeneas said. "She may wish to sacrifice, or perhaps she will hold court here, since this stately temple befits royal majesty."

"And has a roof," Shea pointed out.

"Let us retire to yonder corner," Aeneas said, "and all invisible observe this queen, to see if she is wise and just, as well as beautiful."

Shea had not spotted Dido yet, but Aeneas seemed to be in no doubt that she would be beautiful. In the age of heroes, queens were always beautiful.

First up the steps and into the temple were the musicians. These were the sort of youths and maidens who always seemed to liven up the festivities at these affairs. You never saw a paunchy, middle-aged musician. After them came girls scattering flower petals. Then the Queen entered, followed by her court. She was almost as tall as Aeneas, with the sort of regal bearing that made crowns and regalia superfluous. Her hair was midnight black and her flawless complexion was tawny. This, Shea thought, must be how Virgil pictured Tyrian royalty. Behind her came her court, mostly dark men and women in vaguely eastern-looking robes. Chalmers gasped and gripped his arm.

"Yes, she's a looker, all right," murmured Shea.

"Look!" Chalmers strangled out, pointing. Amid the dusky pulchritude of Dido's ladies-in-waiting was a willowy fair brunette, spectacularly beautiful but tiny by comparison with the heroically scaled competition.

"Florimel!" Shea said.

"Be still!" Achates hissed.

"But that's my wife!" Chalmers protested.

"The queen?" Aeneas said.

"No, the pale one!"

"Ssshhhhhh!"

Some of the courtiers were looking around, trying to find out where the odd sounds were coming from. Slaves brought in a portable dais and a carved throne and set them up. The dais they draped with a huge, gold-embroidered purple cloth. The throne was covered with lynx and leopard skins. Dido mounted the dais and seated herself on the throne. Ranged near her were her advisers and courtiers. Just behind the throne stood the ladies of the court. A chamberlain thumped on the floor with his staff.

"The glorious, beauteous, and most sagacious Queen Dido of Carthage holds court! Let all who have business before Queen Dido come forward with humility, and you shall be heard." He thumped the staff three more times and stood aside.

Before any supplicants came forward, Dido reeled off a list of the next day's work assignments, both agricultural and construction-oriented, from mixing the mortar to sweeping up the refuse in the evening.

"She's not even using notes," Shea said. Chalmers was too agitated to care.

Next she dealt with the division of property among her nobles and freemen; then she assigned military duties and training schedules. Then she entertained supplications. First to come forward was a man of expensive clothing and pompous demeanor. Cold and jewels winked all over his hands and arms.

"Most gracious Queen Dido," the man intoned. "I come once more to press the suit of my royal master, King Iarbas, that splendid chieftain who was so smitten with your beauty and majesty that his generous heart was touched and he was more than anxious to part with this land upon which your nascent city now rises in glory.'' He bowed deeply.

"The esteem in which I hold King Iarbas," Dido said, "is so boundless that the immortal gods themselves could never set limits upon it. However, I have consulted closely with my augurs and they assure me that the time has not yet come for me to marry. Assure your royal master and my friend, fabulous King Iarbas, that, when I find that my time to wed has come, his suit shall be among the first to which I give serious consideration."

"Your majesty is too kind," the envoy said, bowing deeply and gritting his teeth. He backed his way out of the temple, bowing all the way.

"I'll cuddle up to a leper before I crawl into that old goat's bed!" Dido said. The court laughed heartily. "Who's next?" An official came forward.

"Your majesty, we have a little problem. Several shiploads of lost mariners have shown up on our coast. We tried to drive them back, but they keep swarming in. If they were raiding we'd just kill them, but they insist they just need a place to stay. Their own home has been destroyed, they claim."

"Refugees?" Dido said, exasperated. "I just get a kingdom off the ground, and now I'm supposed to take in refugees? Do they think I have land for all of them? Where will they find jobs?" She fumed for a few minutes, during which nobody said anything. Then: "Where do they come from?"

"Troy," the official said.

Dido slapped her forehead. "Wonderful! Just great! Not only do I get refugees, but the most gilt-edged wanderers in the whole Mediterranean show up on my doorstep. Now if I send them away, everybody will say that heartless Dido was cruel to poor, homeless Trojans!" She fumed a while longer. "On, well, let's have a look at them."

The crowd parted and a large group of tattered, bedraggled men and women entered the temple. They clearly had not been eating well for some time, but they bore themselves with dignity. In the forefront were several men of the heroid class.

"Antheus!" Achates whispered. "And Sergestus!"

"And there are Cloanthus and brave Ilioneus!" said Aeneas. "Our lost ships are safe!"

Dido's heart seemed to melt at the sight of the stalwart supplicants, and the women who carried or led wide-eyed children.

"Speak, Trojans," Dido said.

One came forward. "Majesty, I am Ilioneus. Since Priam's peerless city fell to the stratagems of wily Ulysses, we have sailed Poseidon's watery domain, seeking a new home promised by the gods. The noble Aeneas was our leader, but we lost him in a great tempest. Whether he and the others dwell yet above ground, or below with the shades, we know not. We crave your favor. Queen Dido. If we cannot abide here, I beg you do not drive us forth untimely, but allow us a little while to repair and rebuild our ships. Allow us provisions sufficient to keep life in our bodies, so that we may sail to Italy, there to seek noble Aeneas. And if he be dead, perhaps king Acestis of Sicily, who is of Trojan blood, will allow us to become his subjects."

Dido sighed. "Fear not, Trojans. It is not in my heart to drive forth people who are both brave and bereft. If it is your wish to continue your voyage, I will give you all you need. If you would rather abide here, lands shall be found for you." There was wild applause from the court at this generosity.

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Acne as said. "Chalmers, disinvisiblize us!"

Chalmers took the mirror between his hands and slowly straightened it. As he did, it lost its strange opacity until it reflected normally, although it had a slight ripple in the middle. Aeneas strode forward superbly, closely followed by Achates. Towering above the crowd, he went through the throng like a warship through an enemy battleline.

Dido noticed the commotion. "Now what?" Then she saw the man coming toward her. "Ooh, who's this?" She reached up and patted the hair at the nape of her neck.

"Hey, it's Aeneas!" shouted Antheus.

"Yes, Queen Dido. I am Aeneas Anchisiades, late a prince of far-famed Troy. The gods, ever mindful of the son of Venus, have cast me here, upon the shores of the beloved and most bounteous queen of Carthage."

"What a terrible time you must have had," Dido said. She smiled, a gleam in her eve, and patted the broad seat next to her. "You just come sit right here and tell me all about it."

Chalmers hurried over to the gaggle of court ladies, Shea close at his heels. He and Florimel embraced noisily amid the scandalized stares of the others.

"It's okay, they're married," Shea assured them. "Long separation, many hair-raising adventures before being reunited, that sort of thing."

"You're one of Lord Aeneas' men?" a lady asked.

"We've followed him since Troy," Harold said.

"He's a knockout! " the woman gushed.

"I just adore a man in shiny armor," said another one. "There's something about bronze that makes me go all quivery."

"Is he married?" asked a third.

"He's a widower," Shea informed them.

"Eligible!" they all cooed. Apparently, husbands of suitable bloodline were in short supply hereabout.

Chalmers and Florimel had not yet emerged from their clinch.

"So your Queen is unmarried as well?" Shea asked.

"She was. Her husband was Acerbas," said the lady with a thing about bronze. "But her brother, Pygmalion, murdered Acerbas, and that's why she had to flee. We went to Cyprus first, then we came here to Libya."

Shea was beginning to form a picture of the Mediterranean world in the heroic age as a sort of perpetual gang war combined with a mass migration of okies, everyone alternately murdering each other and looking for the promised land.

"How did Lady Florimel happen to be among you?" Shea asked.

"We were just getting the city started," said the first lady. "Queen Dido was about to consecrate the boundaries of the city and she'd just cut a bull's throat and asked Minerva for a sign, when Florimel popped out of thin air and plopped right down into the blood. You should have seen the look on her face! Well, her majesty took this as the best sort of omen. She's so cute and tiny and fair that Dido adopted her as a pet."

Shea tapped Chalmers on the shoulder. "Uh, Doc? Doc?" He gave up. "I won't be able to pry those two apart with a crowbar for a while."

He wandered around the temple until Dido announced an official court banquet to be prepared that evening. With her arm linked firmly into Aeneas', she led them to the sprawling palace complex, where she assigned quarters for all the better-born newcomers. Achates was dispatched, moaning and grumbling, to fetch the highborn refugees from the ships while abundant provisions were sent out for the rest of the crews.

The banquet was lavish, and Dido stuck to Aeneas like glue throughout, feeding him tidbits with her own royal fingers. Chalmers and Florimel had at last come up for air, and Shea was able to get some of her story at last.

"It does so embarrass me to own my foolish vaporings," she told him, "but in my silly vanity I thought I had mastered my dearest Reed's magical equations, and thought to try some small faring to test my new skill. Imagine my chagrin when I found myself in a world I knew not—and then in another, and then in another still until finally I discover myself sitting in a great mess of bull's blood and surrounded by . Florimel gestured vaguely at those around her.

"Must've been a shock," Shea opined.

"Howbeit, I was most fortunate in my place of landing, for Queen Dido has been most gracious. She is a most capable Queen, but her land suffers from a shortage of heroes. A hero is something like a knight, but there is no ceremony to dub a hero. When people spoke of the war in Troy, I knew that my knowledge of this world was not utterly wanting, for who has not heard of Troy, of brave Hector and wrathful Achilles? But soon I knew that this was but one of the manyfold worlds, for all knew the name of Troilus, son of Priam, but none had heard of his ladylove, Criseyde."

"Yes, she was a medieval creation,'' Chalmers said, "well known by the time of the Orlando."

"Well, this is all very interesting," Shea said. "But now we're all reunited and it's time to make our way home. This is a fine party, but I'm really craving a decent salad, a scotch and soda, a hot fudge sundae and the company of my beloved Belphebe, not necessarily in that order. And what kind of story can I give her for why I'm so late?"

"If you tell her all that has happened since we left," Chalmers advised, "by the time you get to the end of it she shall have forgotten why she was angry in the first place."

"I so look forward to seeing her too," Florimel said, "and returning to a world which, although dull and full of unpleasant smells, has little of the savagery and uncertainty of this, and where animals are slaughtered decently, out of sight, instead of wherever people happen to be when they wish the favor of their heathen gods." She cast fond eyes toward the head of the table, where Dido was casting fond eyes toward Aeneas. "And my lady Dido will soon wed Lord Aeneas, and they shall dwell happily here, raising a dynasty to rule Carthage."

Chalmers looked much abashed. "Well, ah, my dear, you see, that isn't going to happen."

"And wherefore not? It seems written in the stars, for these two match one another marvelous well."

"I am afraid," Chalmers told her, "that there's a tradition in classical mythology of heroes treating women very shabbily. Theseus and Ariadne, Jason and Medea, these arc typical. Sad to say, Aeneas and Dido follow the same pattern."

She looked at him darkly. "Pray what becomes of them?"

"They live happily here for a while, but it is the destiny of Aeneas to found Rome. His followers urge him to leave her and go on to Italy. Naturally the gods join in, and he abandons her.

Now Florimel was glowering. "And does she weep a while, then dry her tears, console herself that Aeneas was not a mete husband for her, and find one worthier?"

"No, no ..." Chalmers stammered, unable to look her in the eve. "Actually, she stabs herself and dies slowly from a sucking chest wound.

Damn! I'd forgotten that," Shea said.

"I forbid it!" Florimel said. "She has been too kind to me. I shall not allow her to suffer so ignoble a late!"

"Hey, don't blame Reed," Shea said. "This is Virgil's doing."

"I care not," Florimel said. "If there be a world where Troilus hath his Criseyde, and another where he hath her not, then there may be a world wherein Queen Dido does not slay herself over a vagabond with the face and form of a god and the brain of a dung-beetle."

"You know. Doc," Shea observed, "that sounds like one of your syllogisms."

"Why, yes, it does! And it may just be valid. If we effect an alteration in this continuum, allowing Dido to live and continue her reign in Carthage, then we shall merely have brought about an alternate Aeneid, among many possible Aeneids. And this one may have existed!"

"What do you mean?"

"Virgil is known to have torn up early drafts of his epic. This could be one of his earlier versions. In fact, as Virgil was dying, he dictated in his will that the Aeneid, and all other works he hadn't had a chance to polish, were to be destroyed. Fortunately, Augustus forbade any such thing and rescued it, along with lesser works."

"You mean," Shea said, "that it's possible Virgil wrote a version where a couple of weird Orientals showed up, saved the wine and the banquet contaminated by harpies, and concocted a spell of invisibility for Aeneas?"

"Even epic poems need comic relief," Chalmers assured him.

"And to think," Shea said, "we may have ended up in a first century, b.c, wastebasket."

"If we pull this off," Chalmers said, "we may even be doing a future Rome a favor."

"How's that?" Shea asked.

"As Dido dies, she curses the departing Trojans, calling upon her own descendants to savage the descendants of Aeneas. The ancient Romans believed Hannibal to be descended from Dido."

"It is a disaster," Florimel wailed. "I tried to tell the queen that this Trojan would be a poor choice for king of Carthage. I urged upon her that his mother is Venus, and the antipathy between Venus and her own goddess, Juno, is widely famed. She was vexed and waxed most wroth with me. She did call in her sister, the Princess Anna, and asked her advice. Anna did say that Carthage is surrounded by enemies and while rich in artisans and husbandmen, it is poor in warriors, while the martial valor of the Trojans is renowned throughout the world. Then Anna urged withal that Carthaginian industry wed to Trojan valor would make her both safe and great. Even now, the sisters go to every nearby shrine, sacrificing ewes and rams, heifers and flawless bullocks, seeking the favor and advice of the gods."

"Anna has the hots for Ilioneus. I've seen her mooning after him." Shea took a sip of the new vintage. "It doesn't look promising.'"

"These intemperate passions seldom last long.

Chalmers said.

"The question is, which will ran out first: the passion or the livestock?"

"And that is not all!" Florimel said. "The Queen no longer takes any interest in the building of her city, whereof before she was so diligent in care. No longer do the walls rise, no longer do the young men drill upon the common in warlike exercise. But rather have all caught their sovereign's strange lassitude, and while away their days like lovesick swains.

"I thought things seemed awfully quiet," Shea said. "I was getting used to all that hammering and sawing."

"She's like the queen bee in a hive," Chalmers said. "Everything centers upon her. When she is busy, they're busy. When she acts like an infatuated schoolgirl, so do they. This is more serious than I had thought."

"Do you see divine intervention here?' Shea asked. "After all, Aeneas's mother is the goddess of love. Could this be her work?"

"I don't doubt it," Chalmers said. "Actually, Venus was a fertility goddess. Romantic love was the business of her son, Cupid. No doubt she put him up to this. It's been too long since I last studied the poem, I no longer remember the details, but as I recall it's all some sort of power play between the gods that favor Italy, and those who want Carthage to rule."

"You just can't get away from politics," Shea complained. "How shall we handle this?"

"We don't want to fall afoul of any more gods," Chalmers told him. Still ..." He fingered his chin and took on an abstracted expression. "... this lovesickness is inflicted by Cupid's arrows, therefore it must in some way be analogous with a toxin. The very word toxin is derived from the Creek toxicon 'of the bow.' Therefore, an antitoxin may be efficacious."

"Love is not a poison!" Florimel protested, "it is the pure emotion of the knight, the troubador or the goodly clerk for the lady he worships."

"Preferably somebody else's wife," Chalmers said. "Anyway, this is a very specialized sort of love, deliberately inflicted by the gods and almost always for a bad purpose."

"Right," Shea said. "Considering what she's in for, Dido really needs to be cured of this passion."

The chamberlain appeared at the door of the suite the three now shared. He rapped importantly with his staff, even though they were less than ten feet away.

"Her Majesty, Queen Dido," he droned, "requires the attendance of the foreign sorcerers. Reed Chalmers and Harold Shea, at her sacrifice in the temple of Poseidon."

"She wants us as sorcerers," Chalmers muttered. "This sounds ominous."

"It's a chance to gain some leverage," Shea told him. "Let's make the best of it."

They brushed their sandals and Florimel fussed over their tunic seams, straightening them and picking off bits of lint. "Thou need'st a haircut, my love," she told Chalmers.

When they were presentable, they hurried to the temple of Neptune. This was an imposing structure near the harbor, its walls faced with polished marble and its bronze roof gilded, with sculpted Nereids and tritons tootling conch shells from every corner. They mounted the broad steps and entered.

Inside, the air was heavy with incense smoke that billowed from bronze tripods full of coals. Huge garlands of flowers draped the walls and heaps of petals all but obscured the floor. The queen stood before a massive altar carved from rich porphyry. Surrounding the altar were men in long, striped robes wearing pointed caps. They looked decidedly downcast. Dido and her sister, Anna, flanked a massive bull. The animal was covered with garlands and festal wreaths and was even chewing on one.

"Oh, no," Shea said. "I hate this!"

"Come you here, my guests," Dido said imperiously.

"What would you have of us, my lady?" Chalmers asked.

"These soothsayers of mine," she indicated the glowering men in striped robes, "can avail me nothing. They've gotten so they can't tell a liver from a spleen! I need to know that the gods favor my marriage to Aeneas, that noble prince of Troy. I need to know that he loves me and no other and will dwell here with me in Carthage forever!" Obviously, the Queen was going to entertain no doubts.

"Your majesty," Shea said, "in our land we have a special spell to determine this. You see, no bull is necessary. All you need is a daisy."

"A daisy?" the queen said.

"Yes. You pull off the petals in succession, reciting the formula: He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. He ..."

"That," Dodo said coldly, "is not sufficient to attract the attention of the Olympian deities. Now attend me." She addressed Chalmers. "I want you to read the liver of this bull for me. Tell me what the great Neptune thinks of my destiny. I must know if he approves of my nuptial plans."

An attendant handed her a knife and she nodded to her sister. Anna raised a hammer suitable for pounding railroad spikes and brought it down on a spot midway between horns and eyes. Shea and Chalmers closed their eyes as the crunch echoed through the temple. They opened them in time to see Dido cut the unfortunate beast's throat, sending a foaming torrent of blood to splatter everyone near and puddle around their feet. Some of it swirled down the drain in front of the altar.

The bull collapsed, and attendants held up the legs on its upper side. With a single, practiced sweep of her knife, Dido opened it from throat to tail. A great mass of viscera came tumbling out onto the floor. Shea and Chalmers turned pale and tried not to gag too loudly.

"Brace up, Doc," Shea said when he was in control of his esophagus. "We always knew those steaks and hamburgers came from someplace really unpleasant."

Dido handed her knife to an attendant. Another stood by with a bronze model of a beef liver, its bumps and valleys labeled for convenience in taking the haruspices. It was a sort of religio-medical reference for soothsayers.

"Now get that liver and interpret it for me," Dido ordered.

Chalmers took a deep breath and waded into the quivering mass of hawserlike intestines and began sorting through the ghastly mess, pushing aside the still-gurgling stomach chambers, lifting the twitching heart out of his way, at last emerging with the slippery purple liver in both hands. An assistant priest deftly snipped a few tubes and membranes to free the organ from the body cavity, sending decorative arcs of blood, bile and gall in several directions. Chalmers seemed about to faint, but Shea grasped his elbow.

"Just keep breathing through your mouth and tell her what she wants to hear, Doc."

They stumbled their way clear of the disgusting tangle and found a spot of dry floor where they could examine their trophy. Slaves heaped more incense onto the braziers to help kill the smell. The queen and her sister stood unselfconsciously dripping with gore as attendants plied mops around their feet.

Chalmers raised the weighty organ toward the altar. "O great Neptune of the Sea-blue hair, Earthshaker, god of horses, of seafaring Tyrians and horse-taming Trojans, hear the prayer of gracious Dido! How rests your mind upon the question of a royal marriage of Carthage and Troy? Shall Queen Dido wed noble Aeneas, and abide with him here until dread death darkens the eyes of them both?"

There was stillness for a moment, then the liver in Chalmers' hands began to wobble, wriggle and writhe. A collective gasp of horror went up from the assembly as the gelid mass bulged and put out pseudopods, shaping itself into something that began to resemble a human head. Tendrils of liver sprouted all over it to form hair and beard. A beaklike nose divided the face and lids opened to reveal livery eyeballs. The stern mouth gave the expression "liverlips" new meaning. When complete, the glaring portrait bust was stem and intimidating.

"But that isn't Neptune!' gasped a priest. "That is his terrible brother, divine Pluto!'

Dido bowed and covered her head with a fold of her gown. "Dread lord of the nether world, we were expecting a sign from Neptune!"

"And what am I, chopped liver? You wanted a sign, didn't you? Of course, if you really don't want to hear what I have to say ..."

"By no means, my lord!" Dido babbled out. "It is just that I was not prepared to speak with a chthonic deity! I haven't performed the proper riles and ..."

"Think nothing of it. Now hear me! You are under no circumstances to wed this peripatetic Trojan. The gods have other plans for you both. Even as we speak, he follows the counsels of the Olympians, to sail for Italy, there to found a kingdom for his son, Julus, You must abide in Carthage, and begin a glorious dynasty of your own blood. Forget about him! I, Pluto of the underworld, brother to Neptune and Jupiter, have spoken!" The head collapsed into multilobed shapelessness and Chalmers dropped it to laud on the mosaic floor with a resounding splat.

Dido collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Her sister put a comforting arm across her shoulders and priests helped her to her feet. Then a slave ran into the temple.

"Your Majesty! Bold Aeneas sets sail for Italy! He sends word that Mercury, messenger of the gods of Olympus, came to him and bade him fare forth without delay. He sends you his gratitude and affection, but he requests that you not seek to detain him here."

"That's a lot of gall!" Princess Anna said indignantly. "Does he really think the queen will beg him to stay?"

"Even now," the slave said, "his ships leave the harbor."

With a stricken expression, Dido strode toward the entrance of the temple, the rest hurrying behind her. Last of all came Shea and Chalmers.

"Doc," Shea said, "was that really Pluto? Or was it a trick of yours?"

"Honestly, Harold, even I am not certain. But I will never, never eat liver again!"

Outside, they found the queen weeping. In the harbor, the black ships were under oars, making for the open sea. Some had already hoisted their sails, for the gods had thoughtfully provided a favorable wind. Many of the women sniffled at the sight of so many prospective heroic husbands getting away.

Slowly, Dido turned and began to walk toward the palace. Her escort joined her in mourning. After a while, they tried to cheer her up.

"After all," said Anna, "we haven't sent out the invitations yet.

At the palace she dismissed them all except Chalmers and Shea. "Tarry here with me a while," she said. Then she took her seat on the purple throne.

"How may we serve you, Your Majesty?" Chalmers asked.

"You come from afar, and you may see the will of the gods without the fear and favoritism of my own priests. Tell me truly: Was this for the best?"

"Assuredly, Queen Dido," Chalmers said. "It is Aeneas' destiny to found a city that will one day be Rome."

"Rome?" she said.

"That's what they will call it. You are well rid of him."

She nodded sadly. "Aye. That may be so."

"Your Majesty," Shea said, hesitantly, "you won't do anything ... rash, will you? I know this has been a blow, but you'll get over it."

She looked up at him. "You mean I'm not to kill myself?"

"Well, uh, yes."

She sat back, her hands gripping the lion heads of the armrest. "Do you know how I happen to own this city?"

"Actually, I'm not really clear on that," Shea admitted.

She leaned forward. "When we arrived here, refugees like the Trojans, I went to King Iarbas and asked to buy land. He agreed to sell me as much land as could be encompassed by an ox hide. Then in his contempt he tossed me the hide. I swallowed my pride and agreed to his price, much to his surprise. His mistake was in using the word 'encompassed' rather than 'covered.' I spent days cutting that hide into a single, continuous string and with that string I marked the boundary of my new city."

"That was very sagacious, Your Majesty," Chalmers said.

"Many have thought so. King Iarbas has not ceased pestering me since with his suit of marriage. Now tell me," she looked from one of them to the other. "Do you think that I am the sort of queen who would kill herself and leave her beloved nation without a sovereign just because a footloose adventurer tossed her over for a country of his own?"

"Assuredly, you are far too wise for that," Chalmers said.

"So I am." She cupped her chin in a palm and pondered for a minute, then she rose and walked to a broad balcony that opened off the throne room.

"Everybody back to work!" yelled Queen Dido. Immediately, the sound of hammer, saw, and chisel resumed. She turned back to them. "You may go now." Shea and Chalmers bowed their way out of the throne room.

Florimel almost fainted when she saw them. "You look horrible!"

"We had a run-in with a god and a liver," Shea told her. "Aeneas is gone, Dido isn't going to kill herself, and we don't have time to take a bath. Let's get out of here. Just a second while I get my sword."

Chalmers took a parchment from a table. "This has the equations I've been working on. If I can recite them with perfect precision, I believe they will return us to our own world. Come on." He placed the parchment on the floor. They sat cross-legged around it, holding hands.

"By the harp of Homer and the stylus of Archimedes," Chalmers intoned, "by the shape-shifting magic of Proteus and the logic of Zeno; by the arts of the Muses and the mathematics of Pythagoras; I call upon you Olympians to witness that granting the existence of P and likewise that of Q, then P equals not-Q, even as Q equals not-P ..." As he spoke, someone entered the room.

"Are you leaving us?" It was a slave. In fact, it was the slave who had run into the temple to announce the departure of Aeneas. Chalmers, concentrating on his parchment, did not look up.

"Go away!" Shea hissed. It was imperative that Chalmers recite his equations precisely.

"My, my," the slave said. "And you're not even going to say goodbye?" Something seemed familiar about the slave's lopsided grin. Then the man seemed to swell. He grew several feet in height, and he turned gold.

"Forgot about me, didn't you?" said Phoebus Apollo. "Well, I never forget a mortal who crosses me!" He pointed at the parchment and a beam of blinding light shot from his finger, incinerating the parchment in an instant. "Have a pleasant journey, mortals!"

The room wavered around them and it began to fade. So also faded the laughter of the vengeful god. Last of all, there was a rustling, crackling sound, as of a giant pair of hands crumpling a first draft to toss it into the wastebasket. Then they were off into the aether.

The kaleidoscope of colored spots whirled on, and on, and on for, it seemed, hours. Harold Shea, clutching Reed Chalmers' bony hand in his, said:

"Hey, Doc, where is this taking us? At this rate, my kid will be a grown-up young woman by the time we get back to our own space-time continuum!"

"I'm sure I had the formula correct," replied Reed Chalmers. "It included Florimel, and I double-checked it before starting the spell. But then that rascally deity Apollo wiped it out halfway through the formula. I finished as best I could from memory; but I may have misplaced an item or two. So, to answer your question, I simply do not know. We shall have to wait and see."

"Assuming we're going to land anywhere! What if the god's interference haves us trapped between universes forever?"

"Then we shall have to compose ourselves and submit to fate with the best grace we can muster."

"Easy for you to say!" snorted Shea, never one to submit supinely to fate however overriding. "I can see myself coming home and having Belphebe say: 'Oh, darling, what a shame you weren't in time for our daughter's wedding yesterday!' ... But hey, I think we're about to land somewhere!"

The polychromatic whirl slowed, and beyond it a landscape was taking shape. As it formed up, however, it became increasingly evident that, whatever space-time continuum it formed a part of, it was not that of the neighborhood of Garaden, Ohio.