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  Three or four of the ordinary household servants of the palace had also spent the night in the great hall, standing by to serve the king and his magician, though so far the servants had had little to do. Now, somewhere in the background, at least two of these people were being drawn into interaction with some of the entourage of inhuman attendants who had come with the great visitor. Alex could hear a man and a woman in low-voiced talk, but he did not want to spare a moment to see what they were up to.

  Almost since the moment of his entry, Dionysus had been standing in one place, swaying a little on his feet. But now he suddenly lurched forward, so that the king on his throne involuntarily recoiled. But the tottering god had suddenly decided that he did, after all, need a place to sit down. He threw himself not into the chair Minos had indicated, but another, taller, not quite a throne, that had once been occupied by the queen on state occasions, and had now been practically unused for almost two decades. There seemed no special significance in this choice of a resting place. Rather it was as if the distinguished visitor had simply made the handiest selection, to keep himself from falling.

  As soon as the god's substantial bottom was firmly supported by the chair, he rapped the floor sharply with his ornate staff. His resonant voice boomed out, more loudly than before: "Let's settle your little problem now. Where is this treasonous brother? Let him be brought here, so I can warn him—do you think, Minos, that a warning will be sufficient?"

  "Regrettably," said King Minos, clasping his soft hands together, "I have grave doubts about that. And at this moment I am not even sure exactly where my brother is."

  Suddenly he looked sharply at the soldier standing nearest to Alex, who happened to be the corporal in command of the small contingent. "And the commander of the guard still has not appeared. Where is he?"

  The corporal saluted awkwardly. "I don't know where either of them are, majesty."

  At that point, everyone was distracted by Dionysus sliding out of the seat he had just taken, a movement quite obviously involuntary, that left his divine form sprawled on the rush-strewn floor, his thyrsus clattering down beside him. In the next moment he was grabbing at the breasts of a kitchen wench, a poor and simple girl, but not unattractive, who for the last minute had been approaching him slowly from across the room, as if drawn by some invisible thread of fascination. Only a moment ago this girl had been engaged in murmured conversation with the sprites and satyrs halfway across the room, and now she was lying with their god on the floor. Dionysus pawed at her bosom without even turning his head to look at her. It seemed a purely reflex action, as joyless and even hopeless as his booming laughter.

  And over in a far corner of the great room, one of the household's male servants, who had also somehow become involved with the inhuman Dionysian entourage, had evidently just taken something to drink that did not agree with him. The servant was suddenly vomiting, abandoned to helpless, hopeless retching.

  And now the god himself, forcing himself to sit up straight on the floor, appeared to be struggling to regain some shreds of dignity. Absently he let go of the girl, and tried to straighten the garland of vines that now perched crookedly on his head.

  It was growing more and more obvious to the onlookers that this specimen of divinity was hopelessly drunk.

  But again his impressive voice filled the hall. "Must reassure the rightful heir—who's that, by the way? Your son, I s'pose? Is it any one of these wretches here?" And Dionysus squinted at the handful of people present, again taking them one at a time, as if he suspected them of trying to hide their true identities.

  Minos, who had been rubbing his forehead wearily, raised his head. "I have no son, Lord Dionysus. In fact there is no undisputed heir; a matter that I have not yet had the time to rectify."

  You have had almost eighteen years, thought Alex, in silent accusation. Everyone knew it was that long since the true, respected queen had died; since then there had been only royal concubines, and no offspring worth mentioning. You have delayed shamefully, oh king, and in doing so you were unfair to your two marvelous and deserving daughters. His grip tightened on his spear. And some would even say that it is not true that you have no son.

  To judge from the expression on the king's face, it seemed that the royal thoughts might possibly be running along similar lines. Minos did not seem drunk, despite the formidable amount of wine he had consumed during the night, a little at a time. But he did seem very bitter.

  "My late wife . . ." the king began to say, then let his words rest there, as if he could see no point in going on with them. He looked around him, at the small gathering of his fellow humans in the great hall, and their disgraceful visitor, and it was as if he were asking himself, how have I come to this?

  Abruptly the god rolled over on his side, turning his back on all three of the people who had so far been most affected by his presence—the lamenting monarch, the feebly vomiting varlet in the far corner, and the dazed serving wench. As Dionysus rolled, the folds of his cloak came open. Scanty and wretched undergarments hung loose, revealing gross nakedness, including a flabby paunch that the deity swung around only with some difficulty.

  The move had brought the Twice-Born into a position directly facing Alex. Now, thrusting with one elbow on the floor to raise himself a little, squinting at the lithe form of the young soldier, who was standing only about ten feet away, Dionysus addressed him in a low voice: "Once I . . . I was . . . like you."

  Being spoken to directly by a god, any god, was something of a shock for Alex—though not quite the shock it would have been an hour ago. Still, he was flustered and did not know what to think, let alone what he ought to say if he should be required to answer. The note of envy in the god's voice was staggering.

  Alex had never had cause to consider himself particularly handsome. He was of average size, generally healthy, and perhaps physically a little stronger than most young men, at least when his anger was aroused. His brown beard was at last starting to grow in with a reasonable thickness. But no one had ever found any godlike qualities in either his mind or body. Vaguely he could foresee humorous taunting in the barracks when it became known there what the god had said.

  To Alex's relief, he was not required to respond. Already Dionysus had turned his back on him, and was groping for a wineskin, obviously looking for a drink. When he found what he sought and held it up, the skin hung flat and empty on his hand. Whatever magical sources of wine he might possess, they seemed to be running dry.

  Alex could only stare at the divine visitor sitting helplessly on the floor. In the young man's mind, fear, disillusion verging on embarrassment, and a great curiosity were struggling for dominance.

  The king had fallen silent after his own small outburst, and was evidently making an effort to collect himself. As an awkward silence grew in the great hall, Alex noticed that the general transformation which had been wrought by the entrance of Dionysus was already fading, as if the power that had brought it into being was waning fast. The vines that had begun to climb the pillars in the hall were dying, the luxuriant growth of leaves turned dry and dead and falling. The drafty air was distributing them in little swirls around the floor. The thicker stems were turning to stone, so that they now seemed to have been carved as part of the pillars by some master artisan. The lesser sprites and powers, all but invisible presences that had accompanied the entrance of the god, were dying too, or perhaps only silently taking their departure, one by one. Fading with the flute music into nothingness.

  Minos started to speak again, then stopped. He cocked his head, turning it slightly as if trying to listen to some faint, unwelcome noise.

  Now Alex could hear it too. There were at least two men, it seemed, making no particular effort to be quiet, for he could hear their voices just outside the closed door of the main entrance to the hall.

  Chapter Two

  You sent for me, my brother?" The last two words were spoken in a tone of mockery, by the man who was standing just outside the door w
hen it swung open. It was a harsh voice, one that Alex immediately recognized, though he had seldom heard it before.

  In through the open door strode a tall man garbed in a robe of royal splendor, wearing a sword and a bronze breastplate. His head was bare. He advanced with a confidence that did not seem at all shaken when his gaze fell upon the immortal visitor. It was as if Prince Perses, the king's younger brother, had expected nothing less.

  A step behind the prince came a military officer, General Scamander, commander of the Palace Guard, fully armed and armored, younger than the prince, and much more massively built. The commander swung the large door shut behind him, and in a few clipped words ordered Alex and his three comrades to see that it remained that way. There were only two exits from the great hall, the second being a small door commonly used only by servants. The soldiers of the guard were to prevent anyone from going in or out by either way.

  "I did not send for you, no," said Minos, who appeared suddenly diminished upon his throne.

  "I see you have summoned another." Perses nodded, unsurprised. "Well, so be it. I, too, have decided that my affairs might prosper better with an ally."

  "And you are not to interfere," Scamander added, speaking in a low voice, but certainly not a whisper, to his men.

  "Yes sir," responded Alex, in ragged chorus with his comrades. And like them, he wondered silently: Interfere in what?

  General Scamander, informally known among his troops and behind his back as the Butcher, for some feat of pacification accomplished on the mainland many years ago, turned and stood with his hands behind his back, smiling benevolently in the general direction of Minos on his throne.

  The corporal was now hastily giving orders, and Alex and the other two privates instantly obeyed. Two men were now stationed at each door, Alex being assigned to the main entrance, and all of them were now slightly farther from the throne than they had been.

  Alex understood the confidence of the new arrivals, their casual attitude about the presence of Dionysus, when he observed the next figure to appear in the great hall.

  All ordinary portals were closed, but this newcomer minded that no more than Dionysus had. It was a truly impressive form which now materialized just behind the prince; and at his first glimpse of it, Alex understood that after a lifetime without ever seeing a single god, he had encountered two in the space of a few minutes.

  This second divinity was physically somewhat smaller than the Twice-Born. Not a bulky shape, hardly more than half the size of the commander of the guard; but beside it, even the Butcher seemed to have shrunk to insignificance. A male body, thin to the point of emaciation, wearing almost nothing but a necklace of small round objects. When Alex looked more closely, he could see that they were human skulls, somehow shrunken or miniaturized to the size of oranges. The skin was grayish overall, mottled here and there with shades of blue. Matted locks of almost colorless hair fell in coils on either side of the thin, beardless face, and at first the young soldier thought there was something wrong with the high brow. But then Alex realized that what he was looking at was not exactly a defect. There was a third eye, browless, no trick of decoration but a real organ, centered in the forehead, perhaps an inch above the usual two.

  Not everyone at first recognized the newcomer. The soldier standing beside Alex asked him a question, in a whisper so low that it was barely audible an arm's length away: "Who?—What—?"

  And Alex, with the hair standing up on the back of his neck, mouthed one soft word in reply: "Shiva."

  Shiva the Destroyer.

  A movement at the far end of the hall caught Alex's eye. Looking in that direction he saw the figure of a bull, a little larger than life size. In the faint light of dying fires the hide of the animal (that was of course not really an animal at all) looked the gray of dead wood ashes. Nandi, the bull, was wingless, but capable of the swiftest flight . . . a creature as inseparable from Shiva as the leopards and chariot were from Dionysus.

  Alex, who from childhood had been fascinated with the stories of the gods, saw the bluish neck—legend said that Shiva was thus marked as a result of holding in his throat the poison thrown up at the churning of the cosmic ocean, near the time of the creation of the world, and thus saving humanity from its effects.

  The Third Eye of Shiva now winked briefly, partially open, just long enough to afford an anxious onlooker a hint of destructive fire somehow impounded.

  If the king had been right in his earlier claim, about the Faces of the Gods—and Alex knew nothing to suggest that Minos had been wrong—then even this dark god, like all the other gods, was only a transformed human.

  But somehow that thought made the presence of the Destroyer no easier to bear.

  At his first sight of Shiva, Dionysus had frozen momentarily, as if turned to stone. A moment later the Twice-Born one let out a hoarse yell, half of terror, half of challenge, then grabbed up his thyrsus staff and struggled to his feet.

  Ignoring both gods for the moment, Prince Perses strode straight forward toward his brother, drawing his sword as he advanced. Minos, still looking weary as well as frightened, stood up unarmed from the throne and barked an order to the commander of his guard—

  Alex did not hear the words of the command clearly. But whatever they were, they were ignored. And by that the king knew his fate.

  Minos spoke a few words to his brother, in so low a tone that Alex could not hear them. Prince Perses, grinning mirthlessly, said nothing, but only continued his advance without pause, and when he came within reach of the throne used his sword, once, twice, in a thorough and workmanlike way.

  Minos met his death with stoic dignity.

  The slain man fell, his blood leaked out. Royalty had been reduced in a moment to a mere object. Alex had seen killing before—such matters were all in a day's work for a soldier—but never had he seen a human life ended quite as cold-bloodedly as this.

  Any of the handful of other humans in the hall who might have been inclined to fight for Minos were held motionless by a combination of fear and habitual obedience. The soldiers all stood frozen under the Butcher's glare.

  "Hold your posts," the general advised them, in a hard but yet not unfatherly tone. "That's it. Good men."

  And Dionysus, after that one blustering moment in which he had seemed to challenge the intruders, was suddenly no more to be seen. The Third Eye of Shiva had opened fully for a flicker of time, emitting a dazzling narrow lance of light, and the dropped and abandoned staff fell clattering on the floor. At a touch of the ray from Shiva's forehead, the stout wood smoked and flared and disappeared.

  When the surviving people, Alex and his fellow soldiers among them, had the chance to look around again through eyes that were no longer dazzled by reflections of the Third Eye's beam, no trace of the terrified Dionysus was to be seen. His entourage of satyrs and invisible, discordant singers had vanished with him, leaving only a residue of vomit, and grape leaves, and crumbling, dying vines. The servants who had taken part in his last celebration went crawling and slinking away, as well as they were able. The man who had been retching was silent now, perhaps terrified into a semblance of self-control.

  The smell of wet leaves had been covered, smothered, by the sharper smell of blood.

  "I am now Minos," said the old king's brother, speaking clearly into the sudden silence. He who had been Prince Perses was standing now with the empty throne just behind him, as if very nearly ready to sit down on it. His sword was back in its scabbard on his belt. Alex could not remember seeing him wipe the blade on anything.

  "You are Minos, majesty," acknowledged the Butcher, and offered a sharp military salute. Then the general shot a quick glare at his soldiers, to make sure that they were following his lead. Alex's right arm shot up obediently. Behind the general, Shiva was standing like a statue, and said nothing.

  The new Minos stood looking down with satisfaction at the dead body of his brother, lying almost at his feet. Behind him, the priest-magician Creon had been
standing with folded arms during the violence, obviously not much perturbed and perhaps not surprised.

  "You are now Minos," Creon echoed quickly. Then he added, "I do not know the fate of Dionysus, majesty."

  The usurper, now bending over the body of his brother, shook his head, as if to say that he did not know either, nor much care, where the defeated god had gone.

  General Scamander stepped forward suddenly, picked up from the stone floor the slender golden circlet that was the traditional crown of Corycus, and with a humble gesture offered it toward the throne. With steady fingers Perses accepted the emblem of authority, and casually put it on his own head.

  The commander of the guard, who had drawn his own sword only to salute with it, now slammed it back into its scabbard. Turning around again, he began in his harsh voice to tell the simple soldiers what they had just seen.

  Alex's own eyes and ears had told him a wildly different story, but now was certainly not the time to suggest that there might be some discrepancy, or even think about it. Alex found that his eyes kept returning to the dead body of the old king on the floor.

  Having concluded his narration, the general immediately began to go over it again, repeating his explanation in short simple words, as if to children. Anyone who had been too shocked or stupid to understand the business the first time had better get it now. The main point to be grasped was how Dionysus, the treacherous god who had just fled the hall, had slain the old king before departing.

  "You saw that, did you not?" His glare swung from one soldier to another, making sure to get the reaction that he wanted from each one before moving to the next. Now it was Alex's turn. "You?" the officer demanded.

  "Yes. Yes, sir." And at the same time Alex remained perfectly aware that that was not at all what he had seen. But that knowledge must be suppressed. And anyway, with true gods and great magic involved in these events, could a simple man trust his own senses, his own thoughts, in anything?