Part 5 (1/2)

'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 flas.h.i.+ng 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.