Vengeance of Orion Part 22

"Until they take the city," I answered.

"But they may never..."

I silenced her with a kiss. We made love, and she drifted to sleep.

I closed my eyes too, and willed myself to that other realm where the so-called G.o.ds played their games with destiny. Concentrating every particle of my being, I crossed the gulf of s.p.a.ce-time that divided my world from theirs.

Once again I stood in that golden aura. But I could see their city through the shining mist, its towers and spires seemed clearer to me than ever before.

"Ahriman," I called, with my mind as well as my voice. "Ahriman, my one-time enemy, where are you?"

"Not here, creature."

I turned and saw the haughty one I thought of as Hera. She wore a golden gown that left one shoulder bare, gathered at her waist by a chain of glittering jewels. Her dark hair hung in ringlets, her dark eyes probed me. With a smile that seemed almost menacing, she said: "At least you are dressed better than the last time we met."

I made a slight bow. My makeshift uniform of tunic and leather vest was somewhat better than the rags I had worn at Ilium.

"Are you here to draw more of my blood?" I asked.

Her smile widened slightly. "Not really. Perhaps I can save the blood that's still in your body. Our golden Apollo has gone quite mad, you know."

"He no longer calls himself Apollo."

She shrugged. "Names are not important here. I speak only so that your pitifully limited mind can understand."

"I am grateful for such kindness," I said. "The Golden One has found a tribe that worships him as their only G.o.d."

"Yes. And he seeks to eliminate the rest of us. And And," she added, with an arch of her brows, "he is using you to help him."

I stood silently, digesting this news.

"Isn't he?" she demanded.

"I am helping the Israelites to conquer Jericho," I admitted. "Or, at least, I'm trying to..."

"That's part of his plan, I'm sure of it!"

"But I didn't know he is attempting to..." I recalled the word she had used, "...to eliminate you."

"You know now!"

"Does that mean he wants to kill you?"

She almost snarled at me. "He would if he could. But he'll never get that chance. We'll crush him-and you, too, if you continue to aid him in any way."

"But..."

Leveling an accusing finger at me, she warned, "There is no neutral ground, Orion. Either you cease your aid to him or you are our enemy. Do you understand?"

"I understand," I said.

"Then consider carefully the consequences of your actions."

"The one they call Athene," I said. "He promised me that..."

"His promises cannot be trusted. You know that."

"I want to revive her, to bring her back to life," I said.

"And he's offered you her life in exchange for your obedience." Hera shook her head angrily. "Leave your dead G.o.ddess to us, Orion. She is one of us, and not for the likes of you."

"Can she be revived?"

"That's not..."

"Can she be revived?" I shouted.

Her eyes widened, whether with anger or fear or something else, I could not tell. She took a deep breath, then replied calmly, evenly, "Such a thing is-possible. Just barely within the realm of possibility. But it's not for you to even dream of!"

"I do dream of it, I dream of nothing else."

"Orion, you poor worm, even if she could be revived, she would have nothing more to do with you. She is one of us, so far beyond you that..."

"I love her," I said. "That's the one advantage I have over you and your kind. I can love. So can she. But you can't. Neither you nor the Golden One nor any of the other G.o.ds. But she can, and she has loved me. And she died because of that."

"You are hopeless," Hera snapped. She turned away from me in a swirl of golden robes and disappeared into the shining mist.

I stood alone for several moments, then remembered why I had come here. To find Ahriman. The one the Achaians called Poseidon, the earth-shaker.

Closing my eyes, I visualized his hulking dark form, his heavy gray face, his burning eyes. I called him mentally, telling myself that if he would not come to me, then I must seek and find him.

I remembered, dimly, a forest of giant trees where Ahriman and his kind lived, in a continuum that existed somewhere, somewhen. Did it still exist? Could I find it?

A dark shadow pa.s.sed over me. I sensed it even with my eyes closed. I opened them and found myself in a dark, brooding forest. Not a drop of sunlight penetrated the canopy of almost-black leaves far above me. The boles of huge trees stood around me like gray marble columns rising toward infinity. The ground between their trunks was cropped gra.s.s, as smooth and even as a park.

"Why are you here?"

Out of the darkness a darker shape took form: Ahriman, solid and ma.s.sive, decked in clothes the color of the forest. But his eyes glowed like red-hot coals.

"To find you," I replied.

He stepped closer to me. In his harsh, labored whisper, he asked, "And why seek me?"

"I need your help."

He glared at me. It was like a volcano threatening to pour out lava. "I will not shake down the walls of Jericho for you, Orion. I will not help your golden madman in his wild schemes."

"It's not for him," I said.

"That makes no difference. It is enough for me to protect my own people in our own continuum. I will not become a party to the quarrels of the self-styled Creators. They did not create me or my kind. I owe them nothing."

"The Golden One promised he would revive Athene if I helped him," I said, ignoring his words. "He waits for me in the great pyramid in Egypt."

"He waits there to destroy you, once you have finished your usefulness to him."

"No," I said. "I will destroy him-somehow."

"And what of your dead G.o.ddess then?" he asked.

I had no answer.

Slowly Ahriman swung his ma.s.sive head back and forth. "Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

I started to ask him what he meant, but the forest and Ahriman's dark, brooding presence slowly faded before my eyes, and I found myself sitting in the darkness of my tent, on the straw pallet next to Helen.

She was sitting up too, her eyes wide with terror.

"You were gone," she whispered, in a voice constricted by awe. "You were gone, and then you appeared beside me."

I put an arm around her bare shoulders and tried to calm her. "It's all right..."

"It's magic! Sorcery!" Her naked body was cold and trembling.

Pulling her close and wrapping both my arms around her, I said, "Helen, long ago I told you I was a servant of a G.o.d. That is the truth. Sometimes I must go to the G.o.ds, speak with them, ask them to help us."

She looked up at me. Even in the predawn shadows I could see the fear and wonder in her face. "You actually go to Olympos?"

"I don't know the name of the place, but-yes, I go to the home of the G.o.ds."

Helen fell silent, as if there were no words to express the shock she felt.

"They are not G.o.ds," I told her, "not in the sense that you believe. Certainly not in the sense that Joshua and his people believe. They care nothing for us, except to use us in their own schemes. They are not even immortal. The G.o.ddess that I once loved is dead, killed by one of her own kind."

"You loved a G.o.ddess?"

"I loved a woman who was one of the group whom you call G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses," I said. "Now she is dead, and I seek vengeance against the one who killed her."

"You seek vengeance against a G.o.d?"

"I seek vengeance against a madman who murdered my love."

Helen shook her lovely head. "This is all a dream, It must must be a dream. Yet-dreams themselves are sent by the G.o.ds." be a dream. Yet-dreams themselves are sent by the G.o.ds."

"It is no dream, Helen."

"I will try to understand the meaning of it," she said, ignoring my words. "The G.o.ds have sent us a message, and I will try to find its meaning."

It was her way of adjusting to what I had told her. I decided not to argue. Lying back on the pallet, I held her until she drifted back into sleep. My mind focused on Ahriman and his words to me: "Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

I thought I understood what he meant. With a smile, I went back to sleep.

Chapter 29.

"TUNNEL under the wall?" Lukka seemed more amused than skeptical.

We were facing the western side of Jericho, where the main city wall climbed along the brow of the low hill. There were two smaller retaining walls at the base of the hill, one terraced a few yards above the other, but no defensive trench in front of them.

"Is it possible?" I asked.

He scratched at his beard. The hill on which Jericho stood was made from the debris of earlier settlements. Untold generations of mud-brick buildings had collapsed over the ages, from time, from the winter rains, from fire and enemies' destruction. Like all cities in this part of the world, Jericho rebuilt atop its own ruins, creating a growing mound that slowly elevated the city above the original plain.

"It would take a long time and a lot of workers," said Lukka, finally.

"We have plenty of both."

But he was still far from pleased. "Tunnels can be traps. Once they see that we are tunneling, they can come out from their walls and slaughter us. Or dig a counter tunnel and surprise us."

"Then we'll have to conceal it from them," I said glibly.

Lukka remained unconvinced.

But Joshua's eyes lit up when I explained my plan to him. "Once the tunnel is beneath the foundation of the main wall, we start a fire that will burn through the timbers and bring that section of the wall down."

He paced back and forth in his tent, his back slightly bent, his hands locked behind his back. Joshua was a surprisingly small man, but what he lacked in height and girth he made up in intensity. And although the Israelites seemed to be ruled by their council of elders, twelve men who represented each of their tribes, it was Joshua alone who made the military decisions.

Finally he wheeled toward me and bobbed his head, making his dark beard and long locks bounce. "Yes! The Lord G.o.d has sent us the answer. We will bring Jericho's wall down with a thundering crash! And all will see that the Lord G.o.d of Israel is mightier than any wall made by men!"

It was cosmically ironic. Joshua believed with every ounce of his being that I had been sent to him by his G.o.d. And truly, I had been. But I knew that if I tried to tell him that the G.o.d he adored was as human as he, merely a man from the distant future who had powers that made him appear G.o.dlike, Joshua would have blanched and accused me of blasphemy. If I told him that the G.o.d he worshiped was a murderer, a madman, a fugitive from his fellow "G.o.ds," a man I intended to destroy one day-Joshua would have had me killed on the spot.

So I remained silent and let him believe what he believed. His world was far simpler than mine, and in his own way Joshua was right: his G.o.d had sent me to help bring down Jericho's wall.

The secret of Jericho was its spring, a source of cool fresh water that bubbled out of the ground, from what Ben-Jameen had told me. That was why the city's eastern wall came down to the bedrock level: it protected the spring. Most of the towers were on that side; so was the trench and the main city gates.

Under the guise of tightening the siege around the city we put up a new group of tents on the western side of the hill and built a corral to hold horses, all out of bowshot range. One of the tents, the largest, was where we started digging. Joshua provided hundreds of men. None of them were slaves; there were no slaves in the Israelite camp. The men worked willingly. Not without complaining, arguing, grumbling. But they dug, while Lukka and his. .h.i.tt.i.tes, as the Israelites called them, supervised the work.

Getting rid of the dirt became an immediate problem. We filled the tent with baskets of it by day, then carried the baskets a mile or so from the city and dumped them in the dark of night.

Timbers to sh.o.r.e up the tunnel were another problem, since trees were so scarce in this rocky desert land. Teams of men were sent northward along the river, to the land called Galilee, where they bartered for wood among the villagers who lived by that lake.

The ground was not too difficult for the bronze and copper pickaxes we had, so long as we stayed above bedrock. The layer of easy soil was barely deep enough to dig a tunnel. Our diggers had to work flat on their bellies. Later, I knew, when we reached the foundations of the two outer retaining walls, we would have real troubles.

I spent the nights with Helen, each of us growing edgier as the time dragged slowly by. She wanted to get away from this place, to resume our southward trek to Egypt.