Wouldn’t it be grand, Dooring thought, if I caught this fellow in some scheme? Perhaps then Lord Felph would give me some respect.
Dooring smiled to himself, satisfied, as he exited the ship.
Chapter 7
The night lord Felph released her, Hera shook from head to toe in anticipation. The heavens did not thunder, the rocks did not cry out. Yet it was such a momentous event in her life, it seemed odd to Hera that all nature did not take notice. With Zeus at her side, Felph had Hera sit in a chair before her vanity. Chandeliers of green brass hung above Lord Felph like vines, and the glow globes in them suspended in the air like pale lavender honeysuckle. The walls in this room tonight all displayed three-dimensional images of a tropical glade in shades of deep green, as if they stood in a vast garden of mangrove under the moonlight, with water glinting from distant pools.
Hera felt as if she were in an enchanted forest, then Dooring brought out the Guide extractor from its case. The device was a simple rod in shape-thin, like a long splinter of silver. A magic wand.
With this Felph touched her Guide on the central gem, on her forehead, and the AI quit sending its pulses through Hera’s nervous system, released control of her muscles. She seemed to relax more deeply than ever before. It was as if all her life she’d been tense, expectant, and now she eased totally into a plush, soothing couch.
After he’d freed Hera, Felph then freed Zeus. There was fear in Felph’s eyes as he did so, yet Zeus only smiled when the deed was finished.
Yet if the heavens did not thunder at her release, certainly the world changed profoundly. Hera did not notice it all at once. The first clues came as she and Zeus undressed, prepared for bed.
Zeus stood before the mirror on his vanity, removing his dinner jacket, putting away the platinum and Tanzanite pin he’d worn in his lapel. He’d been prattling, and Hera had been so preoccupied with her thoughts as she took off her makeup that she didn’t notice the turn in the conversation.
Zeus said, “I don’t know why father insists on hiring these off-worlders. It’s their mantles he wants, not the people under them, eh? Put on a Lord Protector’s mantle, and I’d be a Lord Protector myself.”
Hera said, between wiping off her eye shadow, “I doubt he’d sell it. You can’t buy a Lord Protector’s mantle.”
“If he didn’t sell, we could always take off his head. The mantle would make a fine little basket to hold it in, don’t you think?”
Hera turned and stared at him. He’d never made such a tasteless jest, never spoken that way before. But then, perhaps he’d never been free to do so. Her husband had worn a Guide all his life, and until this moment, Hera had believed that she loved him, that she loved Zeus desperately despite his penchant for adultery. Now she just stared at him in wonder, not knowing what to say.
Zeus was gazing into the mirror, his long dark hair swept back over his muscular shoulders, staring intently at his own reflection, at eyes so dark and penetration that it was like gazing at holes in the sky. He stared through the mirror, into some scene imagined; his lips curled in a sardonic grin.
Who are we? Hera wondered, suddenly feeling odd. The room was familiar, with its separate vanities and wardrobes, the enormous bed where they’d made love so many thousands of times. But the people in the room, Zeus and herself, were not familiar.
When she was a child, Hera had once asked Felph why she wore a Guide. He’d told her that all princes and princesses wore crowns. For years after, she’d always wanted to believe that the Guide made her special. But she never felt special. The Guide had only made her a slave, controlled her thoughts, ordered her perceptions, stimulated her emotions. It had made her a stranger to herself.
Hera had not chosen to marry Zeus, not really. As a child, she’d been enamored of him, and once when she was twelve, he’d lured her to a garden, and there he’d raped her. Afterward, she felt it was her fault. She forgave him, and in time grew to love him inestimably.
Lord Felph had created her to be Zeus’s wife, had given her to him. Her Guide had not allowed her to love another, to think wantonly of another man.
So Hera loved Zeus as perfectly as one person could love another. She craved his presence. She admired his strength. She ignored his faults. She forgave his infidelities.
And Zeus loved her in return, in his way. It was true that Lord Felph, acting from some motive Hera did not understand, had given Zeus more freedom than he allowed his other creations. Zeus’s Guide had let him lust after other women. Indeed, Hera wondered if his Guide had not even encouraged him to seek their affections.
While Hera’s Guide held her prisoner in her rooms, Zeus would sneak from the palace to visit his paramours.
Yet Zeus always returned. Lord Felph had given Hera a special beauty that had always drawn Zeus back no matter how many times he loved other women. Perhaps it was her beauty. Perhaps his Guide had made him return. Hera wanted to believe he would have come back to her in any event.
I should test him, Hera thought. This stranger, my husband. Now that he does not wear a Guide, I should test him.
Hera got up from her vanity, turned her back so that Zeus would not see her face, and stood looking out the high, arched window. Brightstar sailed over the deep valleys, falling like an enormous diamond through sapphire skies. Hera’s tower looked down seven hundred meters to a lower level of the palace and the fields beyond.
She opened the window. Secreted in terrace gardens two hundred meters below were beds that teemed with roses and orchids, Japanese plum and lavender. A gust of cool wind brought the fragrance to her window.
Hera tasted the scent of flowers on the wind. Smiled. This is a fertile place in the desert, she thought. Fertile lands, fertile minds plotting about how to be more fertile. She did not have to reflect to discern the source of Zeus’s anxiousness. “You looked … irresistible, tonight.”
He shot her a brief but fetching smile in the mirror, used his toes to push his shoes off his feet.
“You did not need to impress me. Was it Maggie you were after?”
“You know I love only you,” Zeus protested. He stood before the mirror, naked now, and began cleaning off his own makeup. “Maggie … sounds too much like maggot. Who would want to make love to a maggot? Besides, she is pregnant.” Hera knew he wanted Maggie by the way he heaped on insults.
“I don’t know,” Hera demurred. “She has red hair. No one else on Ruin has red hair.…That would be enchanting, and she is only a few months along. Not overly large yet. Do not think of her as pregnant, think of her as fertile, a ripe melon full of sweet fruit, ready to burst. Perhaps she is lusty, too, a woman of passion. She is not from this world. Who can guess what secrets she knows for pleasing a man?”
“Yes, well apparently she pleases one man,” Zeus said.
“What of him?”
“A husband is but a nuisance. Perhaps while you divert yourself with Maggie, he would be entertained by me?” Zeus knew Hera had never hungered for another man, not so long as she’d worn her Guide, so she was quick to add, “Gallen seems very bold, and handsome.”
Zeus turned, raised his right brow. “Do I hear lust in your voice?” He affected concern, but his voice hinted at eagerness, as if she would agree to a swap.
Tonight, he was saying, perhaps we could put off our long feud, our petty rivalries? Tonight, perhaps, you will let me enjoy my decadence?
Of course, Hera could not agree to that. It was a game to him, chasing other women. He, Hera, and Arachne all played the “Great and Dreadful Game,” a contest where points were awarded for various feats of manipulation. Zeus’s philandering was part of the Game to him.