The ex-scholic Nightenhelser, dressed in the same animal skins as the leaner Indian warriors, rushes between us and shouts syllables at the men. The Indians look sullen but lower their bows. I lower mine.
Nightenhelser stalks up to me. “God damn it, Hockenberry, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Rescuing you?”
“Don’t move,” he orders. He barks more odd syllables at the men and then says to them in classic Greek, “And please wait for me before serving the roast dog. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He takes my elbow and walks me back toward the stream, out of sight of the village.
“Greek?” I say. “Roast dog?”
He answers only the first part of the question. “Their language is complex, hard for me to learn. I’m finding it easier to teach them all Greek.”
I laugh then, but mostly at the sudden image I have of archaeologists three or four or five thousand years from now, digging up this prehistoric Native American village in Indiana and finding potsherds with Greek images from the Trojan War etched on them.
“What?” says Nightenhelser.
“Nothing.”
We sit on some less-than-comfortable boulders on the far side of the stream and talk for a few minutes.
“How goes the war?” asks Nightenhelser. I notice that he’s lost some weight. He looks healthy and happy. I realize that I must look as tired and grimy as I feel.
“Which war?” I say. “We have a whole new one.”
Always a man of few words, Nightenhelser raises his eyebrows and waits.
I tell him a bit about the ultimate war, leaving out some of the worst things. I don’t want to cry or start shaking in front of my old fellow scholic.
Nightenhelser listens for a few minutes and then says, “Are you shitting me?”
“I shit thee not,” I say. “Would I make this up? Could I make this up?”
“No, you’re right,” says Nightenhelser. “You’ve never shown the imagination to make up something like this.”
I blink at that but stay quiet.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
I shrug. “Rescue you?”
Nightenhelser chuckles. “It sounds like you need rescuing more than I do. Why would I go back to what you just described?”
“Professional curiosity?” I suggest.
“My specialty was the Iliad,” says Nightenhelser. “It sounds as if you’ve left all that far behind.” He shakes his head and rubs his cheeks. “How can anyone lay siege to Olympos?”
“Achilles and Hector found a way,” I say. “I need to get back. Are you coming with me? I can’t promise I’ll ever be able to QT this way again.”
The big scholic shakes his head. “I’ll stay here.”
“You realize,” I say slowly, shifting to Greek in case his English has gotten rusty, “that you’re not safe here. From the war, I mean. If things go badly, the entire Earth will . . .”
“I know. I was listening,” says Nightenhelser. “I’ll stay here.”
We both stand. I touch the QT medallion, then drop my hand. “You’ve got a woman here,” I say.
Nightenhelser shrugs. “I did a few tricks with my morphing bracelet, the taser, and other toys. It impressed the clan. Or at least they pretended to be impressed.” He smiles in his ironic way. “It’s a small group here and a big empty country, Thomas. No other bands for miles and miles. They need new DNA in their little gene pool here.”
“Well, go to it,” I say and clap him on the shoulder. I touch the medallion again but think of something else. “Where is your morphing bracelet? The taser baton?”
“Patroclus took all of that stuff,” says Nightenhelser.
I actually look over my shoulder and set my hand on the hilt of my sword.
“Don’t worry, he’s long gone,” says Nightenhelser.
“Gone where?”
“He said something about heading back to Ilium to join his friend Achilles,” says Nightenhelser. “Then he asked me which direction Ilium was. I pointed east. He walked off in that direction . . . and let me live.”
“Jesus,” I whisper. “He’s probably swimming the Atlantic as we speak.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Nightenhelser holds out his hand and I take it. It’s strange to shake hands palm to palm with a man, after these intense weeks of forearm grips. “Good-bye, Hockenberry. I don’t expect we’ll meet again.”
“Probably not,” I say. “Good-bye, Nightenhelser.”
My hand is on the QT medallion, ready to turn its dial, when the other scholic—ex-scholic—touches my shoulder.
“Hockenberry?” he says, pulling his hand away quickly so that he doesn’t accidentally teleport with me if I QT away. “Does Ilium still stand?”
“Oh, yes,” I say, “Ilium still stands.”
“We always knew what was going to happen,” says Nightenhelser. “Nine years and we always knew—within a small margin of error—what was going to happen next. Which man or god would do what. Who was going to die and when. Who was going to live.”
“I know.”
“It’s one of the reasons I have to stay here, with her,” says Nightenhelser, looking me in the eye. “Every hour, every day, every morning, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s wonderful.”
“I understand,” I say. And I do.
“Do you know what’s going to happen next there?” asks Hockenberry. “In your new world?”
“Not a clue,” I say. I realize that I’m grinning fiercely, joyously, and probably frighteningly, all signs of a civilized scholic or scholar in me gone now. “But it’s going to be damned interesting to find out what happens next.”
I twist the QT medallion and disappear.
Dramatis Personae for Ilium
Achilles
son of Peleus and the goddess Thetis, most ferocious of the Achaean heroes, fated at birth to die young by Hector’s hand at Troy and receive glory forever, or to live a long life in obscurity.
Odysseus
son of Laertes, lord of Ithaca, husband of Penelope, crafty strategist, a favorite of the goddess Athena
Agamemnon
son of Atreus, supreme commander of the Achaeans, husband of Clytemnestra. It is Agamemnon’s insistence on seizing Achilles’ slave girl, Briseis, that precipitates the central crisis of the Iliad .
Menelaus
younger son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, husband to Helen
Diomedes
son of Tydeus, captain of the Achaeans, and such a ferocious warrior that he receives aristeia (a tale within the tale showing individual valor in battle) in the Iliad, second only to Achilles’ final wrath
Patroclus
son of Menoetus, best friend to Achilles, destined to die by Hector’s hand in the Iliad
Nestor
son of Neleus and the oldest of the Achaean captains, “the clear speaker of Pylos,” given to long-winded rants in council
Phoenix
son of Amyntor, older tutor and longtime comrade of Achilles, who inexplicably has a central role in the important “embassy to Achilles”
Hector
son of Priam, leader and greatest hero of the Trojans, husband to Andromache and father to the toddler Astyanax (the child also known as “Scamandrius” and “Lord of the City” to the citizens of Ilium)