Aristotle had stood aghast at the agonies suffered by the kind though foolish Ethiopian, who had, it seemed, served as the comic performer among this troupe of barbarian nomads of this distant tomorrow. He missed Arlene, and the more so since he now had questions, and no one to answer them. For the entire day Three-Rivers, who despite being the youngest of these folk was their leader, had been missing. This now left him without a single Tomorrow Person to speak with. He was curious about many things.

My, look at the towering Amazon brought back by the Beast-Achilles.

Well then it is good that he has been summoned away.

The Tomorrow People were standing around speaking, and their words troubled this handsome blonde Amazon, who unconsciously drifted towards Aristotle and his attendants. Helia, having been given to the Ethiopian comic by her master Three-Rivers, who seemed to have her magically enthralled, had come immediately to Aristotle’s side upon the vanishing of her dear comic.

She obviously finds fatherly comfort by your side, as she surely found among the Priests of Apollo. Comfort her then.

“Now dear girl, your Ethiopian shall return. In the meantime stay close by my side. I am respected by these folk, if not understood.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder and wept silently.

Then there was the savage Agrianian Augulus, one of Alexander’s loyal dogs of war, whose fate seemed to be unpalatably linked with his own. As much as Aristotle detested this man, he did owe him his life, and knew him to be a reliable ally. He too came to stand by Aristotle as the Tomorrow People squabbled. The Agrianian was obviously lost without the Beast-Achilles, who he regarded as the incarnation of his patron deity.

Comfort him in a manly manner.

“So my Agrianian friend, where do you think your War Wolf has gone?”

Augulus spoke in his broken military koine, “Wolf-War Teacher, we call him Wolf-War; he of the wild who joins in the hunt of man by man.”

These petty savages and their needling obsession with the specifics of their superstitions still infuriate me!

You sought to comfort him. Do not abandon the task in mid-effort.

“Of course Augulus, I offer my apologies. It appears that my study of divine syncretism has muddled my sense of piety. In any case, where do you think he is off to?”

Augulus spoke through his long ago smashed and drooling mouth, as his remaining eye scanned the trees about them, “He has been summoned to war by some hoop-holder, just as your elegant whore summoned him to slay the Spartan Menander and his hired Lokrian dogs.

The Ethiopian is obviously an attendant, certainly a past war-companion—though not a warrior—as indicated by the emotional quality of their discourse.”

Have I just been lectured to be a toothless one-eyed savage?

“Indeed, that was most learned my friend. Now, as the experienced campaign-hand among us, standing here in this alien land among our nomad hosts, what do you advise?”

“You know the answer already Teacher, don’t patronize me.”

“Again, right you are, and I apologize. I shall not under estimate your powers of the mind again—I assure you.”

Augulus nodded reluctantly to Aristotle, who the hardened warrior obviously despised as a mere muse of a man. Then the small exotic looking man with the yellow cast to his features, approached the blonde Amazon to comfort her, and then led the woman closer to Aristotle.

Who is he again?

I never did pick up the knack for barbarian names.

They are just barbarians, even if they are product of a hundred thousand tomorrows.

“Whatever is his name Augulus?”

“It is Aung I think, their mechanic. He is introducing the saucy wench to you as if you are the Median King himself. You must be known to The People of the Afterlife. By the smell of her and the swing of her hip I’d say Wolf-War has already used her. Maybe he brought her back for you?”

“How absurd is that?”

“About as absurd as you bedding that green-eyed witch of his!”

“But this one, she is so very dangerous looking, feral even.”

“A likely wench about camp I’d say!”

“Augulus, I so dislike necessitating another apology to one of your ilk…but you are a dirty, savage, stinking, barbarian murderer, and I find your accurate illumination of the truth in these matters quite disturbing!”

There you have done it. Now your only ally is about to slay you fool.

Augulus stepped close, breathed his fetid breath into Aristotle’s face, causing Helia to gasp in horror, smiled a great drooling smile, and slurred through pulpy scarred lips, “Now I can feel right about liking you, you old day-dreamer. If you need a throat slit, call on me. You’re just the randy, crotchety old bastard hiding behind big words Alexander said you was!”

The man winked his one eye and then walked off toward the large warrior as Helia clung to Aristotle for comfort and ‘Aung’ stood patiently holding hands with this nomad clan’s newest woman, so recently brought into camp like some lamb snatched from her flock by the Beast-Achilles. He looked up into her eyes and she did seem as if she looked upon a king.

Cool your ire old man. In the absence of their all-too-Olympian leaders, the unattached women are looking to you as their patriarch.

He smiled up into the blue eyes of the handsome barbarian wench and she spoke his name and then what he took to be her name, “Zoee.”

He took her hands between his and repeated her name with a note of kindness, “Zoee.”

He then looked to ‘Aung’ with the air of command and began walking to the wheeled house of he who called himself Three-Rivers and Thunder-Boy with Helia on his arm. ‘Aung’, however tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the most worn looking wheeled house, the one that belonged to the gigantic Redman and his large blonde woman with the rose painted upon her enormous breast. When Aristotle looked down into his almond-shaped eyes questioningly the man smiled and spoke in an oft-rehearsed Ionian phrase, “Thunder-Boy!”, and then turned away, holding hands with Zoee, the compliant Amazon, who towered ridiculously above him.

Helia then nuzzled up to his arm, which she would not let out from within the tangle of her intertwined arms, “Come my girl, we are off for an audience with your master—the Shining One, though he calls himself Thunder-Boy.”

She could not be disabused of her notion of his divinity by any means, as indicated by her plaintive response, “Of course Teacher, how else would a son of Zeus wish to be acknowledged? He is no bastard like Herakles. Look, see how his eyes shine like the sun!”

As she pointed he saw, and wished almost to believe her, though that would have entailed disbelieving he of whom she spoke; he who sat behind the glass face of the magnificent wheeled house, his eyes glowing like a sun-streaked sky of blue and gold…

…They climbed up into the house and sat together in the high over-wrought and decadently comfortable seat normally occupied by the wife, and looked upon him there, seated in the high-backed cushioned throne reserved for the patriarch of the rolling house.

The youth was almost Aristotle’s height with lustrous straight black hair that fell to his shoulders, and was kept from his eyes by a band of white linen-like cloth. His skin was a reddish copper hue, his face perfectly—almost femininely—formed. His body was that of a healthy youth, though he claimed to have suffered from some terrible deformity before his ascension and acceptance among the Olympians, who for some bizarre reason chose to abide in the futuristic barbarian realm of America.

You are not truly prepared to accept the ‘Olympian’ explanation for these curious beings?

It is a workable theory…

Perhaps if we tone down the bit about a lustful chief god hurling thunderbolts at us from a mountaintop as if he were some brat stoning his father’s pets!

Yes, but you witnessed the Beast-Achilles appear at the base of a thunderbolt and slaughter a company of Spartan-led shield-men!

Even they deny their divinity, claiming to be nothing but men.

I trust they have some age-defying elixir so that I might be granted the years necessary to ponder this question concerning their nature.

The boy’s eyes were normally a crystalline blue, at odds with his extreme Asiatic complexion. Just now, as he communed with, whatever he communed with—if it be Zeus there is certainly a thunderbolt with my name etched in it—he seemed like an entranced blind man, with eyes wide open and of gold, with arcane blue symbols and lettering falling like the drops of water from a cliff above, to tumble back into the youth’s mind beneath his cheeks.

They sat in the wife’s throne, Helia on his lap, and their hands held together, and watched for hours it seemed, until finally, the eyes blinked shut, squinted, tears gushing from the corners, and then opened back up to reveal deeply troubled eyes of blue shot with red, as if the youth hand been drinking—no crying—for some time. Helia gasped in sorrow, and then her small youthful master turned to them, his eyes suddenly clear and compassionate, “Welcome Helia, Best-purpose. I apologize for the time away. I had business with Mother and Father—Mother has been troubling of late.”

Helia then pinched Aristotle and whispered excitedly, “I told you he was Apollo. He was among the hallowed halls of Olympus attempting to make peace between Zeus and Hera! You know they are ever arguing about things great and small.”

Three-Rivers/Thunder-Boy appeared not to hear her, as he was suddenly distracted by something that seemed to chill him, like a cold hand had been placed upon his neck. Helia then cut into the youth’s obvious feelings of discord with a predictably empty-headed womanly statement, “So, how are your mother and father—and what were they arguing about?”

By Thales and Socrates girl!

The youth answered her matter-of-factly in the most perfectly accented Ionian imaginable, “Oh Mother wishes I would consummate my marriage to you, but Father says I am to remain celibate.”

Helia, in a very womanly way, exceeded her normal oracular responsibilities, “Then I too shall remain celibate until the day you take me in your arms Master. It is what I was sworn to. I swear before Zeus your Father not to tempt you by flesh or wile, and swear before your Mother Hera, that when she finally prevails over her husband, that I shall remain pure and willing, worthy to share your wedding bed.”

That was quite solemn actually. Your priestly friends indoctrinated her well, with even a touch of oratory.

The youth seemed almost not to have heard her, and then looked to them with eyes of panged worry, “Eddie and DeathSong have been recalled to Winter Past. How did they take it?”

To be continued with ‘Grandfather Best-purpose’