Part 6 (1/2)

'Come on, Let's go back', she said. She tossed her head and set off. Alexander stood silently and allowed himself to be led through the caves, into the lift and down to the waiting taxi. They travelled in silence.

As the vehicle turned the entrance to Regent's Park, Themis slipped the dividing gla.s.s to the cab and asked the driver to pull over. Still silent, Alexander got down while she motioned the now curious driver to continue. Alexander walked as far as the lake, where he sat on a bench self-absorbed. He had no idea of actual time, but sensed subliminally the queer absence of activity which in the dead of night creates inexplicable whispers and rustlings, ill explained movements, footsteps and the occasional real sound of a car. He sensed a city almost but not quite asleep.

His mind returning to him, was charged with new thoughts, which existed hitherto only vaguely known, sometimes glimpsed obscurely. Now they were easily accessible as if he were riffling through a well organised filing cabinet. He found he could take a thought, express it perfectly in his head, link it to any other, rework it and plot the development of the concept as it had grown through the history of human thought. He had total knowledge, unyoked to time, separate from, but incorporating his own personal experience. Beyond this, he sensed a host of other categories of human experience belonging outside himself, harder to join with but potentially equally accessible if he were to make the effort. He tried to catch onto a group of them by physically turning his head, without result. He found that by, as it were, turning his mind to face in a particular direction he could bring them into focus.

The mere knowledge of this drew from him a powerful resistance in his dominant personal psyche which drove him to his feet and set him running. Anywhere to escape the awful portent of his recent encounters. He needed desperately to shake them off, like a dog from the water, to rid himself by running so far he would leave them behind. But the sound of his foot falls seemed to overtake him in the night and the rasping breath in his throat echoed in the trees and bushes, spurring him onwards.

The further he ran, the more wildly he went, until at last he stopped with a loud wail of despair. Panting hard, he leaned heavily against a lamp-post his arm crooked to keep him from falling.

It's no use, he thought, once there is knowledge, there's no going back, like Adam, I know what I know and cannot unknow it. Panic shot through him as he realised that whatever he did; the knowledge would still be there. But I can refuse to go along with it. I have my will, despite whatever I know, I don't have to take any action.

Even as he formulated thoughts of refusal, he knew he would not be able to maintain his will in the face of what he knew....of what was crowding into his brain. Arguments for action ranged themselves with stark accuracy, making refusal the act of a coward. Act he must. To know what must be done and not to act is self-betrayal. Henceforward, he would have to live with that realisation or his life would be as phoney as an eleven pound note.

'Why me?' he railed aloud. He muttered incoherently to himself. 'I can't do it, I don't know where to begin! And there's no time! They said so.' He laughed aloud hollowly. 'No time for immortals, that's a laugh!' He beat his fist at the lamp-post as if that proud bearer of the city's illumination were personally responsible for his problems.

'H'allow me to h'a.s.sist young man. 'Praps yer a bit p.i.s.sed eh, boychik? or suicidal is it?'

The speaker was a small ugly little man of around five feet, dressed in an amusing archaic mixture of spats, striped trousers and morning coat. Knees and elbows stuck prominently from his gabardine, his ears were pointed, and he was very hairy. A coa.r.s.e thatch overhung his collar and grew vertically from the top of his bare head. A wicked grin showed little tombstone teeth glinting whitely in the gloom. As he spoke he straightened so he could waggle his goatee directly at Alexander.

'Yea! Yea! You know 'oo I am,' he giggled. His whinnying tone grated on Alexander's ear. 'Yer woke me up my lad with all this rus.h.i.+n' about inna trees and bushes,' He thrust his scruffy chin into Alexander's face, searching him minutely. 'But I'm fast an' run wiv the wind, over rocks 'n canyons, wake me up matey 'n I c'n catch you. Catch! Catch! Hee! Hee! Catch's catch can, I c'n catch yer!'

With this the little manikin hopped all around Alexander, waving his brolly like a matador and he finally ended up cross-legged on a park bench. He rummaged somewhere deep in his pocket for a curiously shaped pipe, filled it a.s.siduously with tobacco, searched for matches and lit it. He looked up the while at Alexander and, then back at the pipe and said through a cloud of smoke, a toothy grin splitting his dark visage.

'Apollo's got my tunin' pipe, Hermes nicked it and sold it 'im, I used to be able to tell the future but 'e nicked that along 'a the pipe. But you know, don't yer, of course y'do.' He paused gazing quizzically at Alexander. 'You're pretty too, like 'im. What'll you nick from poor Pannie then?' He bounced from the bench, with the same amazing rapidity by which he had attained it.

As he came close, Alexander thought his animal smell seemed quite appropriate.

'E said 'e made it hisself, but it's lie, it were mine, all mine. That's why 'Era keeps me near by 'er, she knows, and you know 'cos yer know and Pannie knows y'know. It's all lies. They say I'm in league with...shush, you know 'oo...but it's lies, 'cos there aint no you know 'oo...it's in their minds, 'cos they gotta blame somebody so they puts it all onter me. But 'Era knows what's what and she keeps me near by 'er.'

Suddenly he delved into the front of his striped trousers and pulled his huge erect phallus from the hairy depths. Waving it triumphantly at the lamp-post, as if in direct compet.i.tion, he cavorted round Alexander and it, singing. 'It's lies, all lies, I am maker, conceiver, I am song, dance and merriment!'

After several tours, he stowed his remarkable instrument back in its hirsute darkness and stood grinning for all he was worth.

In spite of his cares, Alexander could not help laughing. The little man encouraged him by flapping his hands, palms up, and whinnying like a demented donkey. The effect was to make the youth laugh until tears streamed down his face and his ribs hurt.

'See, merriment...that's it my lad, none o' this 'ang-dog stuff. Trouble with 'Era and all 'er crowd is they take 'emselves too serious, and that's funny don'cher fink?'

He turned his head around in mock anxiety and whispered, 'don't tell 'er I said that.' Mimicking her voice wonderfully, he went on playfully. 'I am not amused Pannie my boy.' That's what she'd say, but she is when I get goin', I h'amuse 'em all. Wiv'out me they'd never larff, not properly, only at the misfortunes of each other.

They're a jealous lot, forever gettin' one-up off each other. Not me, I just take the p.i.s.s. Gotta laugh or gotta cry. Hey was you cryin'? Thought I heard you cry just then. He sat again, cross-legged on the bench and beckoned Alexander to join him.

'So, talk ter me, boychik. What's our proud 'Era bin an done to you then? As if I can't guess.'

Unexpected encounters seemed to be the order of the day. Alexander wondered if only he could see Pannie. If so were they both in another dimension or was the little man in his?

'That depends' said Pannie.

So thoughts are no longer my own, thought Alexander.

'You gott.i.t boychik' voiced Pannie out loud.

'Whose are they then? And can anyone listen in?' he thought, without speaking.

'Only us,' thought Pannie 'What - all of you all the time!'

'Well, if we wanted to I 'spose we could, never tried it meself makes the brain 'urt, but I could...Yea, I could. That's what makes Zeus special. 'E c'n do it easy, don't be fooled by 'im 'e's got loads of concentration 'e 'as.

'You said just now it depends, depends on what?' Thought Alexander, anxious that Zeus might be tuned in to this interchange and being powerless to do anything about it, decided it had to go on even if he was.

'Depends on what you want,' Pannie's mind was now fully engaged with his, and the conversation became an entwining of thoughts. Vast quant.i.ties of communication were absorbed one into the other in no time at all.

'I don't understand' Alexander's apparent lack of knowledge was interpreted by Pannie's mind as more than mere ignorance, rather a lack of practical experience of the knowledge Alexander had had from Mnemosyne, Hera and Thea. All the G.o.ds had this knowledge, not all of them used it, simply because of the energy it used when there were more pleasurable or exciting things to do with it than crack your brain to initiate new action. Pannie knew this better than most. Running after nymphs, hiding in bushes to jump out and 'get' them, took its toll. Being a laugh and keeping the curious of mankind at arm's length from his mistress, was as much as he could do; and that was more than enough. But he could of course, if he wanted, he just didn't want to.

'Neither do I want to act. Ill considered action could lead to anything. You can't always control what can happen. It's too serious,' thought Alexander. Pannie's linked mind agreed.

'S'right ole c.o.c.k. Yer can't live like that all the time, it'd drive yer bananas, bein' serious all the time. Can't be doing with all that obeissancing and sak'rificin' and fartarsin' around with b.l.o.o.d.y entrails an' all that. Farcical if you asks me! Mind you, the G.o.ds, they used 't lap it up, made 'em feel wanted like.'

Alexander's mind conjured armies of objections, hosts of detailed impossibilities, mountains of resistance. The clouds of doubt almost choked Pannie's bright and darting mind, which despite his nimbleness, nearly eclipsed his thought processes. No wonder Hera had broken off her encounter and sent him to soften up the lad. Pannie's mind made a skip, and lodged itself outside Alexander's. Without breaking off, it rested just out of range of the destructive doubt which clogged up the localised Chronosphere. It registered a flash of dissatisfaction with his mistress for this stupid task and he received a small shock in response. s.h.i.+t! He thought, Hera was on auto-think.

Pannie's mind knew about doubt, disbelief, refusal, call it what you will. This was how mortals rendered G.o.ds useless; stopped their fun. Working up mortals was fun and since they died so soon, there was an unending supply of new recruits. But once doubt was widespread the stream dried up. Now Gaia was complaining and on the point of giving up and even Pannie's fun loving brain could see the importance of that. No Gaia, no people, no fun, not even the prospect of any and only this doubting stripling between him and that!

Out of reach of Alexander's mind Pannie waited until Alexander got over his attack of the collywobbles. When the cloud of doubt and refusal lost intensity Pannie's mind put out a thought feeler. Alexander's mind was running out of energy, it had had a hard time in the last few hours and needed to sort itself out, unravel and take things easy for a bit.

Pannie's own lazy mind was well aware of the effort needed to keep going in the Chronosphere all the time, the fancy G.o.ds did it a lot, that's what made them powerful, they just knew everything so acted quickly and that way got a lot of control.

Pannie's mind followed the feeler and engaged again. Ignoring the thinning banks of doubt with expressions of disgust, Pannie brought Alexander down to earth. 'See 'ere mate, It'd be easier on all 'on us if we stick t' level one boychik'

'Level one?' thought Alexander, 'Yea, don'cher know nuffin' about the 'sphere and 'ow it works 'n all that?

'Well I know a bit about timelines, lifts and getting about on the Chronosphere.'

'H'i know ha'bit about timelines h'and lifts,' mimicked the uncouth little man. 'Yer don't know nuffin' you! 'Ow long yer been att.i.t then boychik?'

Alexander was surprised that he had been 'att.i.t' for longer than he realised....all his life he thought.

'About twenty four years, and stop calling me boychik!'

The manikin began to laugh, and then he was all laughter rippling along the night paths, skimming the lapping water of the streetlit lake. 'Twenny four yers, 'an 'e finks 'e knows sumfink about it!'

Stopping his skipping, he thrust his thoughts right at him.

'You know 'ow long I've bin att.i.t, eh? D'you know? Yer don't do yer? More'n five thousand years, an' that's only what you mortals fink, 'cause we was muckin' abaht onner 'sphere a lot longern'at. So done'cher give me no lip abaht no twenny four years, boychik, you've gotta long way t'go you 'ave, boychik! You listen t'me matey, an gett.i.t good. Level one, that's like beginners, like what we does wiv nymphs and tree G.o.ds an' all them little G.o.ds. Them biguns, the Named, like 'Era n Prometheus an' them sort, they don't 'ave nuffin t'do wiv them little 'uns, that's fer me t'do, I gottem all to 'andle, I 'ave, an' lemme tell yer they needs 'andlin'. So that's level one Boychik - like it's like talkin', but it ain't talkin' it's finkin' like, it's faster'n talkin' 'cos yer don't 'ave ter take it in like, it's there an' you can 'ave lots'a people att.i.t at the same time, see. Like you n' me now. But I'm doin' it slower'n usual 'cos yer green as gra.s.s.'

Alexander realised that the little man had not opened his mouth for some time, and was sitting calmly smoking his curious pipe, smiling his little animal smile, stroking his ragged goatee and occasionally rearranging the bulge in the front of his trousers. He also realised he had taken in what Pannie was thinking and was also replying at the same time instantaneously.

'You gott.i.t, boychick, that's level one. Nah-then, level two's a different box 'a tricks all t' gevver.'

The narrative style of communication seemed to melt and what came from him hovered suspended before him and met the thought patterns coming from Pannie, they merged and he again found himself in a powerful mind-whirl of exchanges which left him at the extreme edge of concentration.

'That's level two, stronger innit? Like what you got wiv 'Era 'n Themis jus' now. You can get a lotta info that way, but it's knackerin' 'cept fer them big 'uns what works 'arder'n me att.i.t.'