'About Zarian?' questioned Thea quietly.

'Yes...no not Zarian like he is now....but him....you know, as Zeus! Mnemosyne said he had a job for me! I feel light headed when I think about it. I know it's ridiculous, but it was so real. I keep saying it's just in my imagination, but it doesn't help, doesn't stop it being real and ....'

Thea frowned at her twin, interrupting him.

'What you need is some real work Alex. Ma says you're going to Markham over the weekend, I think you'll find what she has to show you there will get you into the land of the real fast enough.'

Alexander felt the dissonance with Thea once more click into place. She was holding out on him, humouring him in some way. It was time to confront her as he had the vision of Nemmi at Psathi. Thea too reinforced the feeling that something was going on, as much as the feelings he was registering within himself.

'Listen Thea, I don't know what's going on but my external world, is out of my control. I can't do anything, speak to anyone who is not holding out on me. First Lucina, then Ma, then that vision of Nemmi, now you.'

He drank a large gulp of Amaretto, letting its strong sweetness fortify himself for what was to come. Thea remained silent, attentive.

'There's something else....about you....Nemmi's vision at least told me something about it but it's so fantastic, it can't be true....' he seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. '...All I was going to do was get a job in the Firm, like you and....well....get a view of the working world for a bit, and if I liked it I would settle down. Like you all say, I didn't have anything better to do. But I can't seem to be allowed to get my own grip on things. I've always had the feeling of being marked out. I suppose that's why I got so wild, it's like a constant pressure, the sense of expectation, unspoken, kind of a.s.sumed by all of you.' He hesitated a moment, before going back to what he really wanted to say. 'I didn't say what Nemmi said in my waking dream, you cut me off before I could say.'

'About Zarian being Zeus?'

'Absolutely! And....this is hard for me Thea....Nemmi says you are....you are....really Themis....and therefore her sister, not mine, and you are here to keep an eye on me....and I'm going slowly mad with it all....and Nemmi in Psathi also said...'

He was gabbling now, he lowered his voice but spoke with sufficient animation to make the whole restaurant strain to hear him, except n.o.body could.

'...I'm the son of Zeus and Ma and that he has a job for me; and that's when I fainted and you rang and Nemmi wasn't there in person any more, just the e-mail screen.'

He stopped and sat back in his chair, challenging her. They remained like that, for a long moment. He felt the same growing tension he had had all day with the key people in his life.

'Well?' he said at length. 'Am I going mad? '

Suddenly his will to fight left him, there was too much to explain and he felt tired deep in his bones. Never the strongest when actively challenged, he felt used up, like a computer on low batteries he could muster enough power to seem switched on, but could no longer do much.

'I think we should pay the bill and leave this excellent establishment,' said Thea calmly.

She rose, the hovering manager smiling all the while, helped her into her coat.

Alexander had no more resources to continue the argument and submitted to being ushered out of the restaurant, he waited by the door as his sister paid the bill, and he allowed her to hail a taxi and bundle him in. Thea gave directions and they sat side by side in silence, neither seemed to want to speak first. Alexander hunched into the corner, arms folded, struck dumb at the foolishness of his outburst, unable to tell what Thea was thinking, or what she was going to say next.

The ball was in her court. He had nothing to say.

Greek G.o.ds were myths, their reality was a pleasurable fiction of infancy made real in the way children who play alone invent playmates for their amus.e.m.e.nt. He was happy to keep them inwardly and thanked Nemmi for her remembrances despite everything. His world was made infinitely richer by them. They had more substance than the footballers and cricketers made heroes by his friends and the seeming pointlessness of his schooling was made bearable by having them near. In pre-adolescence, he reached a stage when he could summons them to his mind and in quiet moments, alone, he talked to them and travelled their Chronosphere along timelines, as Nemmi would say, at the speed of thought. As a young adult, they had diminished in intensity, he knew they were there below the surface, giving meaning.

He had a.s.sumed they were going home but as the cab turned towards the City, surprised, he broke the silence.

'Where are we going?'

'To JNO'

'What, at this time of night! What for? I've seen enough of that place for one day thank you, I'm tired and I want to go home and think.'

He didn't care if Thea was going to say any more. As for feeling close, he supposed that he did, they had been brought up as siblings after all, sharing the same mother. At this thought his mind began to race again. Weary of it, he allowed thoughts to tumble like clothes in a washer and tried as best he could to ignore them.

He and Thea remained silent, he waited for the next thing to happen. Thea as usual had the game plan and he was taking time-out.

Chapter 8.

The taxi stopped outside the JNO building. Its plate gla.s.s glowed eerily green in the dimmed, internal, night-lights. They got down, Thea beckoned the security guard from his desk and flashing her pa.s.s, bade him open the small side-door. At the lift she pressed the b.u.t.ton for the eighteenth floor penthouse suite. The lift-motor sounded too loudly in the silent building, sinister and empty in the night. They both felt it, Alexander held her hand as he had done when as children, they had hidden from the adults under the tablecloth at Sunday lunch. He wanted to feel close, and realised how little physical contact they had had as children. Time now lost, with no way of retrieving the magical hiding feeling, separated, while present, in the world of adults. Thea's matter of factness had prevented her from too much play.

The lift stopped and getting out Thea made for a corner door, marked 'PRIVATE.' Removing a key from her shoulder bag, she opened the door, entered, gestured him to follow. It was pitch black within. He heard her punch her finger several times at what he thought was a numbered key pad on the wall and a ceiling light illuminated the room. It was another lift. Now his wits began to work.

'But we're on the top floor Thi, there's nowhere to go!' He said, not understanding.

She flashed him her finest smile and gave his hand a friendly squeeze. The mechanism whirred gently.

'Open the door, Alex, that's it, press 'O', nothing simpler' she said. Alexander pressed the illuminated b.u.t.ton on the panel by the door and it slid open. Before him, a step down, was the same view of the beach at Psathi he had experienced not two hours ago. He felt the warm sea air on his face and smelt the salt of the sea, lapping gently in the tideless Mediterranean.

Stepping first from the lift, Thea turned to him, extended her hand and led him along the warm sand to a cave entrance in the sheer volcanic rock face of a cliff. The move from bright sunlight to semi-darkness distracted him from his amazement at the unexpected surroundings as he had to concentrate to climb the steep rough floor. There was no opportunity to think as Thea led him through a labyrinth of twists and turns, pa.s.sing many other pa.s.sageways until they emerged into blinding sunlight onto a fine terrace. They were on a plateau placed high over the inland valleys and craggy hills of central Ios. He recognised at once the playground of his boyhood, and smiled in recognition at some of the women who busied themselves around the central figure of Lucina. Seeing the siblings appear from the cave, she rose from her divan, gestured away everyone except Nemmi who remained smiling at them from a sun-lounger. Alexander stood transfixed. He wanted to turn to Thea for support, but he felt her stroke his arm in a gesture of farewell and she returned to the darkness of the caves.

It was clear to him there was a plan, and they were all in it. His mind excluded Penny from the plot, feeling she was as much a victim of all this strangeness as he. If it was another waking dream he had no control over the very tangible reality around him. He was certainly where he was, all his senses told him so. This was a real person in the shape of Lucina walking towards him, arms outstretched in greeting. This was Nemmi, beaming at him. This was the unexpected summer sun warm, on his face, the sound of sea birds and the undertone of the breeze in the pomegranate and lemon trees. But this time he was not confused. Through the cave, if he could again find his way, was the lift door to the penthouse suite, the logic of his movements were clear within him and he kept his sense of what had happened. Thea had gone, improbably back to Hampstead, which must logically be somewhere below him, a taxi ride away. He hung onto this thought as firmly as possible, though forced to put it to the back of his mind to cope with Lucina confronting him for the second time that day with arms outstretched.

She embraced him warmly, stroked his hair back from his forehead and kissed him on both cheeks as a mother or older female relative to a loved but often absent son or nephew and drew his head into the fragrance of her shoulder. At this moment though awed he was shocked to feel something from deep in her pa.s.s to him; something given.

Hitherto, his experience of profound affection had been limited to Nemmi and his mother and sister. Having no other family, of which he knew, he had experienced love as a mutual exchange, given as much by him as received from others, equal in measure and accepted with ease. He did not count the rather more l.u.s.tful encounters with several young women of his acquaintance.

He was however, now being embraced by Lucina neither asking nor wanting reciprocation, a free bequest not requiring a response. Waking dream or no, the strength of feeling was unmistakable. Lucina was giving him affection as a gift, sincerely granted which he felt as mutually binding. Illusion or reality, she seemed to hold him until his mind settled and she released him only when she deemed she was understood. Then, like a fond mother seeing her only son after many years, she held him from her at arm's length feasting her eyes. At length she spoke, not to him but to Nemmi.

'He is so fine, Mnemosyne, you have done well, you, Elithia and Themis. It is well for us do you not think that I can love him so?' She did not remove her gaze as she spoke.

'Alexiki mou,' she spoke very softly, devouring him with her eyes. He thought heard her more in his mind. 'Welcome, we are so glad you are here, there is only so much time and we must begin soon. Everyone will help, at least most of us will, there are always those whom even we do not control, who will do their own will as fated in their natures. Welcome! Of course you have been here before as a child so you will know us at least a little. Mnemosyne has told you of the timelines and the way the Chronosphere works, again at least a little. You will need to learn more and soon. But first some explanations are needed for you must understand absolutely if you are to achieve the task for which you were born. Please come and sit with us here on the terrace. Everything will be explained.' Noting his hesitance, she led him gently forward and sat him next to her. Food and drink were brought soundlessly at the hands of bright young women, coming and going. Not until he was as comfortable as he could be in the circ.u.mstances, did Lucina speak again. 'Few are invited here, Alexiki mou, and only on particular business, most could not cope with the experience.' She paused to allow him to digest the meaning of her words, when she was sure of him she continued. 'We are the offspring of Gaia, her children. We, serve The Mother and care for her as well as we can. We safeguard her. But time is running on too fast.' Noting his perplexity, she stopped and interjected. 'But you are bewildered, as your mother before you and I must allow you to find yourself. Please ask of us what you want and we will answer.'

This yet more powerful encounter with Lucina as Hera, in the presence of Mnemosyne on Ios where he was born, on the terrace where he had played as a child, left his mind dismembered, hanging. Nothing tangible remained in his head about time, place, before or after. All his thoughts seemed spread, displaced into their components like the exploded drawings of engine parts in a repair manual jumbling into an irrecoverable heap. He would never rea.s.semble them into something which worked. Hera's invitation to question, reduced him like someone expected to deliver a keynote speech at a conference of important people, and who had utterly forgotten his subject.

He had never had a strong grip on reality, inner or outer. His uncertainties tugged at his sleeve all the time in the 'real' world. In short, neither world made sense. And now, paralysed, he was expected to do some task by people who had brought him up for the purpose; whose reality was in doubt and who were the cause of the little grip he had on himself. He also had no doubt who they were nor of the power they wielded.

Paradoxically in a corner of his mind he also recognised them as the beings who had germinated the only substantial thoughts he had ever had. The mirages he had felt since the first encounter in the lift, were more real than the 'real' world of tube trains and bills of lading. If the real world was as vague as he now felt it to be, the unreal world of his mind may indeed be the real one, and these figures from the far past were his mind made tangible. He was in a back-to-front reality, in which his mind reified beings who, being there always and for everyone, were an embedded mythology built into the structure of thought itself. Perhaps only through them could he find a true grip on his inner and outer worlds.

As all this raced through his head, the two women sat calmly, observing. Alexander, bringing his mind to focus on them for a moment, was supported by their calm silence. By some unknown means, they knew his thoughts and had joined with him.

The barriers between inside and outside were so breached he did not know where he ended and they began. He no longer was so sure of his place in relation to the taxi ride home. Was he in Psathi or his mind? Did it matter? He felt a monstrous meltdown of his brain and a release of tension which left him transfixed in a nowhere place of sheer being which was enough, which was everything. He was pure mind, focussing inwards, operating with the building blocks of thought. He heard Mnemosyne's voice in his mind. Saw the whole scene, Hera, the glorious sunlit terrace, Psathi, the greenish light that was JNO it was neither dream nor reality. A suspension of s.p.a.ce and time and a sense of travelling high, a condor gliding on the breath of the High Andes lifted and embraced by an absolute, crystalline sky. There was neither past nor future, nor even now, thus suspended, Mnemosyne's thoughts grew out of the sound of the wind to fill his mind.

'Chronos who is hidden from the world, holds yet the skein of Time. Banished by Zeus, his power undone, he is forced by Zeus, to weave timelines through the world to make the Chronosphere. I showed you as a child, and as a child you felt, but could not know. I watched you flounder in the waking dream and waited for the time foretold when you would be ready. Here we exist in the Chronosphere in pure thought. Few mortals join us here. For aeons we have brought only the chosen to this place of being, men and women strong in spirit. We strengthened them and sent them back. Know then that Zeus, vanquisher of Chronos gave mortals time to use, through which to learn, leaving them no better gift. Know you how Prometheus, the everlasting friend of humankind, gave them fire and was hard punished, more so for the gift of it than the thing itself. But at last Zeus has lost faith in those mortals who set their faces against Gaia, who scorn the gift of time and used fire against Her. But for us, Hera, Prometheus, Haephestos, and other filial G.o.ds, humankind would be no more. Other races would be in their stead, for Zeus loves them not. Know then, to help mortals stop the suffering of our Mother, he has begotten you. The die is cast and you will be well prepared for you cannot escape your fate, know then you are loved of the G.o.ds though you will be sorely tried.'

His mind flipped like a computer screen on the click of a mouse. The scene before him seemed to turn inside-out. His head filled with another voice, male, and full, reverberating inside his skull filling all the corners of his brain. As the sound coalesced into its component words, he needed time to fully register the light of the halls of the 89th floor of the Olympic building in New York. Not that he knew where he was, nor that he was privy to Zeus'great announcement. Although Alexander was beginning to accept that his external world could change without his control, he was overawed by the sheer style of his new surroundings and the beings populating it. None of his mythic meandering with Nemmi had prepared him for the ma.s.sive splendour of this contemporary manifestation of Olympus on Earth.

Before he could even start coming to terms with what was happening his shoulders were grasped by huge muscular hands lifting and turning him at the same time. He stared into the face of a giant, at least half as big again as an average man. He sat him on a table and placing his fingers on his ma.s.sive lips, pointed with the other enormous arm to a misty figure on a dais who addressed the hall. The voice in his brain was coming from this source.

'Through the millennia I tried in vain to keep down their ambition.' The voice had a basic resonant vigour but sounded wearied by cares too heavy to bear, it was the voice of endings, carrying a sense of termination, detachment, disengagement from the world as an unnecessary appendage it wished now to do without. The tone plucked at his conscience forcing his attention while the voice continued to fill his head.

'...I kept them pre-occupied with the air, earth, and water. I awed them with electricity and chemistry. I left them to their own devices to war and plunder, to find their own selves. I set them riddles of discovery for their delight. But I liked them not, for they would use my gifts to destroy what they cannot create and that for their pleasure. They use them to make life easy for some by making it hard for others. But some of you were entranced by them. Their likeness to G.o.ds, their vulnerable inner selves spoke poetry to you and you wished them Time to seek their true selves. Against my will you gave them gifts...' He raised a mighty arm and pointed his outstretched hand, the quivering fore-finger a rod of lightning pointed straight at Alexander, who was seized with a new terror, its intensity greater than anything he had ever known before. A crackle of electricity spun a blue flame past his ear to explode against the chest of the giant standing behind him, showering him with sparks. '...Prometheus, you gave them fire and they never looked back.' A deep growl emanated from behind Alexander like a small earth tremor, pent rage enveloped him, and subsided as the giant relaxed only with an obvious effort of will.

'Their G.o.dlike qualities entranced you, aye, and I caught it from you when unguarded, for I have aesthetic qualities too. You may well sn.i.g.g.e.r Pan my bent friend, but I am at times delighted by pretty things. (He ignored the polite laughter and deliberately avoided making eye contact with Hera) 'Yes they are resourceful and used your help do achieve some fine things. The sheer n.o.bility of their best and their energy for both good and evil is truly breathtaking. I confess to being amused and played games with them, with and against some of you. But games only were they, for I never liked them altogether. I allowed some of their best to become G.o.ds, immortal in the myths they wove of us, I allowed them to worship us even encouraged the practices they patterned into ritual, for by this they gave respect, for us and for Gaia our mother. Gave we her to their charge to use and endow, to make and remake. To love and cherish. For she is strong and generous. But they had nothing but their pride to goad them onwards. Unable to live with her they must conquer Her, own Her, have mastery over Her. So I gave them more Time. I encouraged Mnemosyne to go among them with remembrance to know what they were and what they may be together with Her. Themis, went she among them to give order and justice. All here gave what they were and offered thus knowledge and wisdom so they would honour us and through us, Gaia our Mother. And the greatest among them were conducted here and given the secret of the Chronosphere and told of timelines through which comes great wisdom. And we made of them educators to teach of the bounty from which they sprang and to which they returned and to which they sprang forth again and again for generations upon generations. Each piling their knowledge up on what had gone before. They had all they wished and more and could make rich return to Gaia, to become the G.o.ds they dreamed themselves to be. And so I gave them Time.'

Zeus stopped to check out his audience, spotted Alexander overshadowed by Prometheus, and continued. 'We, the G.o.ds have no use for Time, for thus did we bury Chronos far below in Tartarus. We are light, and travel timelessly. Only those who observe see us temporally. Heroes we gave them to follow and observe, to remember when their pride lead them into evils and to suffering. And yet I gave more Time, even to those whom I most distrusted. Now I would have them gone from the world. Gaia herself is wearied of them. And still I give Time and insight into the world to discover those things that will bring them close to us, the Timeless Ones.'

He paused again to see if he still had the attention of his audience. Some of the lesser G.o.ds were teasing each other like children bored in a cla.s.sroom. Even the greater were a little glazed. They knew it all, had seen it all but waited politely for the inevitable punch-line. Prometheus' impatience was palpable. Athena had laid down her aegis, and was working on some kind of drawing with Hephaestos. Poseidon absent mindedly pared his nails with his trident. Over the aeons the G.o.ds had largely given up on mankind and concentrated on their own affairs out of sight of those who no longer saw a need for them. They watched in pity as scholars dug around in the broken pieces of their history, occasionally giving inspiration to the better of them spurred by Mnemosyne and some of the busier G.o.ds. Some had joined up with the One who now had the most hegemony over mortal's minds than any other, despite too being on the wane. Others linked up in Africa and other parts where simpler more earthbound G.o.ds had remembrance still, and lent a hand. Some went to the East and became part of 'The Way'. Others simply gave up humankind and set off to find other worlds, other mortals. Most merely continued their bent in secrecy, janitors for Gaia the Mother. Poseidon maintained the motion of the sea, Demeter kept up with the harvest and Hades secretly maintained the past intact, from below, completely out of mortal sight .

Zeus contemplating the remnant of his band, knew he was all but finished as a real force in the affairs of mortals, his cohorts just folk-memories, objects of curiosity. He was weary of it all, of that there was no doubt. He would go, and leave this duplicitous race to their fate. But first he would set them a task to show his force yet within them. Unlike the One, inactive and fatigued as he himself, he would Act and the One needs must react or be finally overwhelmed. He was the positive Earthshaker. He alone had animated Europa, who's children had so much ravaged the Earth, and he would require them to suffer the ultimate test. His irritation rose and he sent a couple of thunderbolts ringing round the hall to ensure all were awake. Prometheus grasped a terrified Alexander again by the shoulders and boomed gently into his ear.

'Do not fear, he is showing off, he dislikes to be taken for granted and likes to shake a little for attention.' The noise startled the a.s.sembled company into mindfulness and the Earthshaker, mollified, continued his discourse.

'And what have they done with these gifts? What? Tell me that! They cheat on their birthright! They have too much pride and belief in their own G.o.dlike qualities and mistake me not - I blame you for this! All of you!'

He glared round at the now attentive audience, sweeping his great arm round the room, setting off a couple of smaller thunderbolts to keep up the interest - he was getting nicely into his stride.

'You led them to believe in their own sense of self-importance, played with them, pandered to their conceit. You sided with them in their war games, and so puffed them up they thought to dispense with you and turned you into bedtime stories to amuse their children. Mnemosyne struggled hard to keep us alive as folk memories though they lost the Chronosphere and with them the timelines. This weak-headed race you loved so, behaved as if they owned the All. They are now convinced it is in their grasp. They believe they own Gaia herself and subvert her to their own interests. So they ravage her and design on Ura.n.u.s and chase the soul of Eurynome herself to enjoy the innermost secrets of the universe. Yes they may know much, but they cannot own anything! They would conquer All and reach beyond what they control and destroy what sustains them. Even as Chronos wanted Time for himself so this race of men wants the All for their little use. With the illicit gift of fire...' The rumble behind Alexander, never quite silent throughout the oration, became noticeably louder. '...they put Gaia to the torch.' Working himself up now, he elevated his grandiloquent style a notch by striking an oratorical pose he had from Plato and went on even more theatrically than before.

'This base race put themselves from Her and like a milch-cow use Her as their possession. How can they forget that without Her there is nothing? She made them and will discard them. Still I gave them Time, hoping they would learn from all of you. I gave them you as mentors, and gave I tutors of their own kind, story tellers to train them in the use of timelines to ripen their inner knowledge so they may endow Her bounty with creations of their own in which they would live as G.o.ds. But no! They would rather plunder Her and then discard what they make and pile up their waste wherever there is s.p.a.ce. Still I gave them Time and yet they fear to give back their wealth to Gaia for fear of what they may lose. They grasp what they can and purloin what is there in case it pa.s.ses them by. And I gave them generations and more tutors so they would learn and still Mnemosyne went among them to confer remembrance, but they did not want it lest it held them back. Words and deeds set in timelines through the power of thoughts set down, guarded by the Muses offered I them thus inner lives to contemplate. But they lost the treasure of remembrance and it fell into the dust of their minds, buried. So over-laden with questing are they, they forgot their birthright and gave to their children greater desire to have yet more.' He paused for effect, raised his hands in mock pleading and with a ma.s.sive sigh, weary unto death, he continued.

'Yet I gave them Time. All the Chronosphere had they in their vision, this web of delight to make them one with Gaia and with us to live in pleasure and fulfilment. Where like us they would be weightless and careless of the time of their generations in worship of Her as She is nurtured by my beloved Hera. Thus they would fear Hades no longer, and have their own management of time. In their eagerness for the new, they ignored the inner life of the Chronosphere to place it outside themselves in some far of heaven of Yhawhe who can never be known like they once knew us. They gave Him our gift! With His consent they dug Gaia's body and traded her gifts as if they were their own. They blessed their great G.o.d for His beneficence and they forgot their Gaia. Mesmerised by their cleverness they elevate themselves above all creation. They put themselves above Gaia!'

He paused again, the pa.s.sion in his eyes flashing fire. Checking round the hall for signs of inattention, he noticed some of the younger or more flighty G.o.ds were showing symptoms of mild delinquency. He had the feeling this was not news to them and may even be over the heads of many. Time to drop the bombsh.e.l.l, to get them all properly in awe and behind his plan to ensure his latest mortal offspring got all the help he needed to pull off the great task. Loosing off a long rumble to discourage flagging, he continued, in a voice especially thunderous for the occasion.

'Know then. Gaia has given all she has to give. She has breathed to me of the speed they work, they outstrip their ability to control their own evils and still they go on. The speed of change they wreak on themselves leaves them bereft of Time. They go too fast to stop and will die from the very momentum. So rapid is their mindless spiral of change they have used up the Time I gave and I will give no more. No more Time! They ravage Gaia to the point of no return and there is now no time to alter the effects. So I give them one chance only, and that slim indeed. It is the only one. They must change their very natures!'

Now he had them, all eyes were on him, he knew all their thoughts. Mortals change their nature? Why it wouldn't be humankind without them being what they were. Proud, clever, vengeful, violent, exploitative, loving and forgiving. It was unheard of! Use their inner knowledge as a public beneficence? To be soft and forgiving, when there was glory to be had, fame, discovery public acclaim, making and doing. People wanted refrigerators and cars not poetry and beauty. What's he on about this time? He's really been around too long, He waited a little until the noise subsided - Now for the bomb he thought, this will get them buzzing.

'I herewith end their timeline!'

A vibration shimmered through the hall. Heads turned on each another. A hubbub rose. Can he do it? Probably! What about us? This was going too far. End this race of mortals? They knew he had never liked this race of men but had indulged their better qualities in the hope they would turn out well in the end. Many of those present found them attractive and fun, others were too preoccupied with keeping the separate functions of Gaia going. Although it was getting harder they had not considered ending the time-line, there must still be time to work something out. Now Zeus had their full attention and the sounds ceased. Noting with satisfaction the pregnant silence of the hall, he visibly grew another couple of feet, allowed his robe, beard and hair to wave impressively in a wind he directed at himself, threw his arms aloft and as the Master, he spoke.

'At Midnight, 31st December in the year of Mortals 2012 their timeline will end! None of you will prevent it! There will be no big bang, no fireworks, no great natural disaster. Simply, Gaia will not sustain them and they will perish by degrees. It is too late for warnings. They must change now, to be ready for then. Unless they stop their mad spiral Gaia will give no more of Herself. Her rains will be acid, food chains will breakdown, crops will fail, icecaps will melt, seas will rise and they will perish by inches all! This is my last will and testament. I now, at this very moment, bequeath Gaia and the Chronosphere to mortals to use as they will. If they do not use Her well from the year 2012 they will begin to perish rather than shall Gaia. There it is! - I will do nothing more!'

He gestured to Prometheus who lifted Alexander on his shoulders for them all to see.

'See where Prometheus shows off this lad of my loins. Through him do I offer a last chance to bring about the saving of our Great Mother!'

Pleased with the effect, Zeus, with an imperious flourish, sat again on his throne among swirling clouds and waited for the reaction. There was a low murmuring as the glorious crowd turned to see who Prometheus was carrying. The giant paraded the swaying youth round the hall and placed him upright before the Old Thunderer.

He smelled unmistakably of wet earth, of rain before the storm. Strong arms embraced him while a cry of delight rose from behind. The Thunderer released him from his embrace, and he felt the light weight of a fine garment placed round his shoulders. A brilliant coat of a fine metallic mesh fell full length to the floor. It flashed with stars and clouds, hills and valleys were wrought wonderfully into the weave. He felt he was made of pure air and could travel anywhere within this garment, through time, s.p.a.ce and back again. He found it difficult to glance directly at Zeus, the strength of his beaming smile blinded him, for the king of G.o.ds made no concessions to his mortal frailties. Instead Alexander met the gaze of Hera next to her husband, itself hard to bear but supportable by comparison.

Until this announcement, only Hera and her close companions had known what Zeus was up to and they had used the time wisely and had gained some concessions by the formation of JNO From the time he privately told Hera of his great intention she had worked unceasingly. He had at first been adamant. Mortals would perish. The Pantheon was no longer sufficiently interested in them to a.s.sist. They had trashed it all and they had to go. The G.o.ds would decide if another race were to inhabit the Earth once Gaia had recovered. There was no time for this fifth race, they were at the end of their thread. He had taken pity on their vulnerability, their weaknesses, their pathos the essential tragedy of their short and brutal lives.

Had he not the right? After all he had given them? They wanted to own what they saw and would not heed their inner voice which begged a sharing and a nurturing. timelines had been laid deep in their psyches to share the Chronosphere so they could all use their histories, their inner knowledge for the good of each other and the world. But they produced their poisons faster than they could invent the antidotes. They use up Gaia's resources faster then they could be replenished. Gaia will die of her many hurts before they can invent the cure. They will have to change or go! 2012 is a good enough year. It happened to be the time the Mayans ceased their counting of the centuries, perhaps they already knew? But now they were all long gone and any useful message was gone with them.

Hera, wife and nurturer, asked for time for herself and those G.o.ds who still cared to try and make a change by 2012 now their time was finite. She begged to begin new work with mortals. He struck a bargain with her for he owed her much for her undeserved fidelity to him and in truth he held a grudging affection for the race. He had wished them better many times. But Gaia gave him no choice. Well, he conceded, maybe not exactly dead on 2012: perhaps later if things improved for Gaia. But definitely thereabouts. Exact.i.tude was never his weakness.

He would, however not have it said he was a wrathful G.o.d. There had been enough of that. Hera could expect nought from him but he would allow her freedom to do what she could with whomsoever of her allies would help. If they could pull Gaia from the brink he would not stand in their way. He would do one thing. He had been a little reticent about it, even coy, he fancied one more experience with one of their beautiful women. When Hera fired her eyes at him, he shrugged and acknowledged his weakness, but promised there would be value for her plan if she were to turn a blind eye on this occasion. He would provide a son who would bridge the underworld with that of mortals and so provide a full understanding of the past and give Hera the opportunity to save humankind. Yhawhe, and the future, he would deal with himself.

After he would go elsewhere than Earth and lead whoever of his tribe would go out into the starry Firmament and seek other worlds to play in. If she succeeded she may stay with his son and his heirs.

So Zeus came to Penny as Alexis the adventurer and revolutionary. In truth he had hopes of the revolution of that time, that he would spark a change in the mortal inner mind and give a new generation hope before things sped totally out of their control. He thought he had come close, but once again they failed to seize their chance.

Hera had set about her task at once. To ensure that Penny would find her, she wrote to Zeus, an earthly letter. He had opened it with a smile and left it where Penny would find it. He had found her charming and intelligent. She had the inner beauty that he sought, while her physical attractions were pleasant enough she was chosen for her spirit. In his love making he saw to it no man would ever give such heights of exquisite pleasure and no man would ever match his peerless n.o.bility or sense of purpose. She, the new woman of the future was to have no need of G.o.ds, despite her doubts she would change what needed to change from her own inner strength.

On the 89th floor of the Olympic building in New York, Hera hitched herself, Alexander and Mnemosyne to a time-line and returned to the sunlit terrace of their Psathi home.

Startled once more by this new change of scene, Alexander jerked out of his chair in utter disbelief. The women waited patiently as he gradually found his bearings and resumed his seat, unable to separate the images raging through his shocked brain. They really did know what was going on in his mind, he thought. This new shift of place had been less gentle than the others. He had come back to Psathi with a b.u.mp. He had somehow maintained his grip on the metallic coat, the gift of Zeus, which he held in wonderment, a tangible reminder of the sensations he had experienced. He was glad to be with these women, relaxed, calm, watchful and solicitous.

They seemed to help him. He breathed more easily and the ma.s.s of images receded from his seething mind until again he could hear clearly the wind sifting the leaves and smell the lemon trees on the air of his childish summers. His mind ratcheted up the recent taxi journey and he seemed to have woken from a deep dream. Sensing his renewing calm, Hera spoke, 'It is common for Zeus to give gifts to those he has chosen. The coat is yours. Wear it, it will be useful.' There was in her voice, a matronly warmth, like water in a parched land. Irresistibly, he knew it was meant and with it he knew the worry mothers have for the trials that will come to children when they are called into the world. Alexander's gaze flitted from the garment he held to the faces of the women.

'He knows us Mnemosyne', Hera spoke gently to her companion. 'Thank all the G.o.ds my husband spoke truly.'

'I was his teacher, he learned with pleasure.'

'But can he act as well as know?' Hera continued, Oh My husband, how good it is to have again one who knows us truly. We will reveal ourselves, unlayer our gifts and have him use them as before, pray we are not too late. I had not hoped to have these thoughts again and would have had the race perish for their lack'.

She turned to Mnemosyne. 'I thank you daughter of Gaia, for your work with this youth. Go now and work harder yet 'til this task is done'.

They embraced, Mnemosyne approached Alexander, took from him the mantle of Zeus, folded the ultra fine material into a small square and popped it into a pocket of his coat as if it were a handkerchief. He saw triumph in her eyes and she stroked his cheek tenderly, and left.

For the first time in his life Alexander was alone with Hera. Each encounter drew him inexplicably and increasingly into the field of her force.

Face to face, she was at her ease. He felt her fall in step with his thoughts and carry him with her through labyrinths of the mind touching parts of his knowledge yet scarcely understood. Like early morning dreams of great intensity, full of moment and doing, they flew down vistas of history, built edifices of time, swam oceans of memory. They climbed arduously towards the midday sun, she led him upwards so the earth was a blue and white jewel set in black satin on the breast of Gaia enthroned on stars. Gaia's smile embraced them both and her outstretched arm gathered them to her feet. The vault of her halls stretched limitlessly above while the marble of her floor emptied into an immeasurable void, bending his senses. He was amazed at the immense sadness he felt as they merged together in a vast fugue. Waves of pain flashed through the miles of his every nerve, searing his feelings until the magnitude of their grief matched and rent his soul again and again. His body lost importance, his pure thought moved and merged with theirs as the beginnings of the universe billowed and melded, expanded and combined.

All three united in a single stem of thought containing a power that could crack his single brain like a walnut. Bound by the strength of two great G.o.ddesses, his thoughts wove with theirs until he knew the beginnings of the universe, understood the origin of life on his brilliant and cooling planet. Races of men came and went, life wove and re-wove in pretty spirals of DNA subtly changing, renewing Gaia's hold on them. Numbers imprinted into his brain, calculations, equations, quant.i.ties, divisions, projections, potentialities, probabilities, possibilities. Vast crowds of people in movement, fleeing, regrouping, great halls of state, great clouds of pure thought rising to envelop the world, a force field for change, at first garbled, then delineating into strands, knitting into filaments, growing into ropes strong enough to hold the huge weights of the collected thought of all humankind, distilled and full of power.

Chapter 9.

On the sunlit terrace on the island of Ios, Hera held her mind-link with the last son of Zeus. Both felt the anguish and grief of Gaia. The greater will of the one wrapped round the fledgling understanding of the other who was beginning to learn what it was to be related to a G.o.d.

Sustained by the strength of combined thought, his new flame of understanding sought kindling in the strands and sinews of the larger and finding hold, dared to burn brighter. As it grew tentatively in intensity, a gust of doubt all but extinguished its yet weak flickering. Responding, the greater moved to protect the new flame so it would stay caught, but in a renewed and stronger gust, it expired. Hera sighed audibly and let it go and the mind-link was lost. She had registered the strength of the doubt and was anxious.

The spell broken, Alexander, exhausted, slumped in his chair, his mind blank. When at last he pulled together the strength to lift his head, Hera was gone and Themis sat in her place. For a long time Alexander and his twin sat silently. Neither spoke audibly. Alexander found her accompanying his thoughts as she worked on his doubts. Both concluded there was no way back, he was committed to action by his fate. Time did not pa.s.s, rather it was absent. When they were ready Themis spoke, her voice was steady, and her message decisive.

'You know all there is to know, now you must act'. She stood, shook her hair, ran her hands along the sides of her head and deftly tied the black tresses catching them up in a neat chignon.