The Great God Dionysus, Lord of the Vine, Ruler of the Revels, Master of
the Planting and the Harvest, Bestower of the Golden Touch, Overseer of
the Poor, Comforter of the Worker and Patron of the Drunkard, sat
silently in a cheap bar on Lower Third Avenue, New York, slowly imbibing
his seventh brandy-and-soda. It tasted anything but satisfactory as it
went down; he preferred vodka or even gin, but after all, he asked
himself, if a God couldn't be loyal to his own products, then who could?
He was dressed in an inexpensive brown suit, and his face did not look
like that of Dionysus, or even of William Forrester. Though neatly
turned out, he looked a little like an out-of-work bookkeeper. But it
was obvious that he hadn't been out of work for very long.
_Hell of a note_, he thought, _when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar
just because some other God has it in for him_.
But that, unfortunately, was the way Mars was. It didn't matter to him
that none of what happened had been Forrester's fault. In the first
place, Forrester hadn't known that the girl at the Bacchanal had been
Venus until it was much too late for apologies. In the second place, he
hadn't even picked her; he'd kept his promise not to use his powers on
the spinning figure of Mr. Bottle Symes. But Venus had made no such
promise. Venus had rigged the game.
But try explaining that to Mars.
He didn't seem to mind what went on at the Revels of Aphrodite--being
Goddess of Love was her line of work, and even Mars appeared to
recognize that much. But he didn't like the idea of any extracurricular
work, especially with other Gods. And if anything occurred, he, Mars,
was sure damned well going to find out about it and see that something
was done about it, yes, sir.
Forrester finished his drink and stared at the empty glass. It had all
begun on the day of his Final Investiture, and he had gone through every
event in memory, over and over. Why, he didn't know. But it was
something to do while he hid.
It hadn't been anywhere near as simple as the Investiture he had gone
through to become a demi-God. All fourteen of the other Gods had been
there this time; a simple quorum wasn't enough. Pluto, with his
dead-black, light-absorbent skin casting a shade of gloom about him, had
slouched into the Court of the Gods, looking at everybody and everything
with lackluster eyes. Poseidon/Neptune had come in more briskly,
smelling of fish, his skin pale green and glistening wet, his fingers
and toes webbed and his eyes bulging and wide. Phoebus Apollo had
strolled in, looking authentically like a Greek God, face and figure
unbelievably perfect, and a pleased, stupid smile spread all over his
countenance. Hermes/Mercury, slim and wily, with a foxy face and quick
movements, had slipped in silently. And all the others had been there,
too. Mars looked grim, but when Forrester was formally proposed for
Godhood, Mars made no objection.
The entire Pantheon had then gone single-file through a Veil of Heaven
to a room Forrester just couldn't remember fully. At the time, his eyes
simply refused to make sense out of the place. Now, of course, he
understood why: it didn't really exist in the space-time framework he
was used to. Instead, it was partially a four-dimensional
pseudo-manifold superimposed on normal space. If not perfectly simple,
at least the explanation made matters rational rather than supernatural.
But, at the time, everything seemed to take place in a chaotic dream
world where infinite distance and the space next to him seemed one and
the same. He knew then why Diana had told him that the word "machine"
could not describe the Gods' power source.
He had been seated there in the dream room. But it wasn't exactly
sitting; every spatial configuration took on strange properties in that
pseudo-space, and he seemed to float in a place that had neither
dimension nor direction. The other Gods had all seemed to be sitting in
front of him, all together and all at once--yet, at the same time, each
had been separate and distinct from the others.
He wanted to close his eyes, but he had been warned against doing that.
Grimly, he kept them open.
And then the indescribable began to happen. It was as though every nerve
in his body had been indissolubly linked to the great source of
God-power. It was pure, hellish torture, and at the same time it was the
most exquisite pleasure he had ever known. He could not imagine how long
it went on--but, eventually, it ended.
He was Dionysus/Bacchus.
And then it had been over, and a banquet had been held in his honor, a
celebration for the new God. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion, and
Forrester himself had been feeling pretty good until Mars, smiling a
smile that only touched his lips and left his eyes as cold and hard as
anything Forrester had ever seen, had come up to him and said softly:
"All right, Dionysus. You're a God now. I didn't touch you before
because we needed you. And I don't intend to kill you now; replacements
are too hard to find. I'm only going to beat you--to within an inch of
your damned immortal life. Just remember that, buster."
And then, the smile still set on his face, he had turned and swaggered
away.
Forrester had thought of Vulcan.
Mars wasn't a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good
a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more
than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it
justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all
his own.
"Right" was what was good for Mars. "Wrong" was what disturbed him. That
was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for.
Vulcan was one of the results.
Vulcan had been Venus' lawful husband, as far as the laws of the Gods
went. That didn't matter to Mars--when he wanted Venus. He had thrashed
Vulcan, and the beating had left permanent damage.
The damage was translated into Vulcan's limp. Any God's ability to heal
himself through the machine's power was dependent on the God's own
mentality and outlook. And Vulcan had never been able to cure his limp;
the psychic punishment had been too great.
Forrester ordered another drink and tried to think about something else.
The prospect of a fight with Mars was sometimes a little too much for
him to handle.
The drink arrived and he sipped at it vacantly, thinking back to Diana
and her story of the Gods.
There was one hole in it--a hole big enough to toss Mount Olympus
through, he realized. Where had the Gods gone for three thousand years?
And how had they gotten to Earth in the first place?
Those two unanswered questions were enough to convince Forrester that,
in spite of all he knew, and in spite of the way his new viewpoint had
turned his universe upside down in a matter of hours, he still didn't
have the whole story. He had to find it--even more so, now, as he began
to realize that the human race deserved more than just the "security"
and "happiness" that the Gods could give them. It deserved independence,
and the chance to make or mar its own future. Protection was all very
well for the infancy of a race, but man was growing up now. Man needed
to make his own world.
The Gods had no place in that world, Forrester saw. He had to find the
answers to all of his questions--and now he thought he knew a way to do
it.
"Want another, buddy?"
The bartender's voice roused Forrester from his reverie. He had
absent-mindedly finished brandy-and-soda number eight.
"Okay," Forrester said. "Sure." He handed the bartender a ten-dollar
bill and got a kind of wry pleasure out of seeing the picture of
Dionysus on its face. "Let's have another, but more brandy and less soda
this time."
The drink was brought and he sipped at it, looking like any ordinary
citizen taking on a small load, but tuned to every fluctuation in the
energy levels around him, waiting.
Only a God, he knew, could hurt another God, and even then it took
plenty of power to do it. Actually to kill a God required the combined
efforts of more than one, under normal circumstances--though one,
properly equipped and with some luck, could manage it. As far as his own
situation was concerned, Forrester was prepared for a deadly assault
from Mars. Maybe Mars didn't intend to kill him, but being maimed for
centuries, like Vulcan, was nothing to look forward to, and it was just
as well to be on the safe side. Just in case the God of War had managed
to get one or two other Gods on his side, Forrester had talked to Diana
and Venus, and had their agreement to step in on his side if things got
rough, or if Mars tried to pull anything underhanded.
And any minute now....
Suddenly Forrester felt a disturbance in the energy flow around him.
Somewhere behind him, invisible to the mortals who occupied the bar, a
Veil of Heaven was beginning to form.
With a fraction of a second, Forrester was forming his own. But this
time he took a little longer than he had before.
It wasn't the first time he'd had to run. For over a month now, he had
been jumping from place to place, all over the world. He had gone to
Hong Kong first. When Mars had traced him there and made a grab for him,
Forrester had made a quick jump, via Veil, to Durban, South Africa. It
had taken Mars all of forty-eight hours to find Forrester hiding in the
native quarter, wearing the _persona_ of a Negro laborer. But again
Forrester had disappeared, this time reappearing in Lima, Peru.
And so it had gone for five full weeks, with Forrester keeping barely
one jump ahead of the God of War.
And, in that month, he had achieved two important things.
First, he had begun to make Mars a little overconfident. By now Mars was
fully convinced that Forrester was nothing but a coward, and he was
absolutely certain that he could beat the newcomer easily, if he could
only come to grips with him.
Second, Forrester had discovered that Mars' basic reflexes were a trifle
slower than his own.
If Mars had been able to form his own Veil and step through it in time
to sense the last fading glimmers of Forrester's Veil, he would have
been able to follow immediately. Instead, he had to go to all the
trouble of finding Forrester over and over again. That meant slower
reflexes--and that, Forrester thought, might just give him the edge he
needed.
But this time, Forrester was going to let Mars follow him--slow
reflexes and all. This time, he waited that extra fraction of a
second--and then stepped through the Veil.
He was in the middle of a great rain forest. Around him towered trees
whose great trunks reached up to a leafy sky. The place was dark; little
sunlight came through the roof of leaves and curling vines. A bird
screamed somewhere in the distance, sounding like a lost soul in agony;
the sound was repeated, and then there was silence.
Forrester was exactly where he had intended to be: in the middle of the
Amazon jungle.
He had time for one look around. Then Mars stepped out of a shimmering
Veil only yards away from where Forrester was standing. Immediately,
Forrester felt Mars throw out a suppressor field that would keep him
from forming another Veil. He did the same thing. Now, as long as both
held their respective fields, neither could leave.
"Greetings," Forrester said.
The bird screamed again. Mars ignored it.
"You're just a little too slow," he said, grinning. "And now, buster,
you're going to get it--and get it good."
"Who?" Forrester said. "Me?"
Mars hissed his breath in and fired a blast of blue-white energy that
would have drilled through a foot of armor plate. But Forrester blocked
it; the splatter of free energy struck at the nearby trees, sending them
crashing to the ground. A small blaze started.
Forrester followed the blow with one of his own, but Mars parried
quickly. A few more little fires began in the vicinity. Then Mars
bellowed and charged.
By the time he reached the spot where Forrester had been, Forrester was
fifty feet in the air, standing with his arms folded and looking down in
an interested manner.
"You ought to watch out," he said. "You might stumble into a Venus
Flycatcher down there. I mean besides the one you've got already."
Mars' mouth dropped open. He gave vent to an inarticulate roar of rage
and leaped into the air. As he rose toward Forrester, the defender
closed his eyes and changed shape. He became a rock and dropped. He
bounced off Mars' rising forehead with a great noise.
Mars roared and dived for the stone--and found himself holding a large,
angry tiger.
But an old trick like that didn't fool Mars. Tiger-Forrester, suddenly
finding himself fighting with another tiger as ferocious as himself,
began clawing and biting his way free in a frenzy of panic. He managed
to make it just long enough to become a stone again, dropping toward the
Earth.
For a moment, the other tiger seemed uncertain. Then, catching sight of
the falling stone, he became an eagle, and went after it with a scream,
claws outstretched and a glitter of hatred in the slitted eyes.
Forrester reached the ground first. The eagle braked madly, trying to
escape a giant Kodiak bear. Forrester stood on his hind legs and
battered the air with great, murderous paws. Mars scooted upward,
already changing into something capable of coping with the bear. A huge,
bat-winged dragon, breathing barrels of smoke, flapped in the air,
looking all around for its opponent. It did not notice Forrester
scurrying away in the shape of an ant through the leaves and thick humus
of the jungle floor.
By now, the air was becoming smoky and the flames were licking up the
sides of trees all through the vicinity, and racing along the giant
vines that curled around them. The dragon belched more smoke, adding to
the general confusion, and roared in a voice like thunder:
"Coward! Dionysus! Come out and fight!"
There was an instant of crackling silence.
Then Forrester stepped out from behind a blazing tree. He, too, was a
dragon.
Mars snarled, breathed smoke and made a power dive. Forrester dodged and
the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into
the ground, and Forrester slammed the War God on the side of his head
with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke
and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring at
Forrester with great, bulging, hate-filled eyes.
"Man to man, you bastard!" he said in a flame-filled roar.
Forrester leaped back to avoid being scorched. He poured out some smoke
of his own. Mars coughed.
"Damn it, no more shape-changing!" the War God thundered.
"Fair enough!" Forrester shouted. He changed back to his Dionysian form,
circling warily until Mars had followed suit. Then the two began to
close in slowly.
Around them the forest burned, vegetation even on the swampy ground
catching fire as the entire vicinity crackled and hissed with heat.
Neither of them seemed to take any notice of the fact.
Mars was a trained boxer and wrestler, Forrester knew. But it was
probably a good many centuries since he'd had any real workouts, and
Forrester was counting heavily on slowed-down reflexes. Those would give
him a slight edge.
At any rate, he hoped so.
The circling ceased as Mars leaped forward suddenly and lashed out with
a right to the jaw that could end the fight. But Forrester moved his
head aside just in time and the fist glanced off his cheek. He staggered
back just as Mars followed with a left jab to the belly.
Forrester clamped down on the War God's wrist and twisted violently,
pulling Mars on past him. The War God, caught off balance, lunged
forward, tripping over his own feet, and almost fell as he went by.
Forrester, grinning savagely, brought his right hand down on the back of
Mars' neck with a blow whose force would have killed an elephant
outright.
Mars, however, was no mere elephant. He grunted and went down on his
hands and knees, shaking his head groggily. But he wasn't out. Not
quite.
Forrester doubled up his fist as Mars tried to rise, and came down again
with all the force he could muster, squarely on his opponent's neck.
There was a satisfyingly loud crack, audible, even in the roar of the
burning forest. Mars collapsed to the ground, smothering small fires
beneath his bulk. Forrester leaped on top of him and grabbed his head,
beard with one hand and hair with the other. He twisted and the War God
screamed in agony. Forrester relaxed the pressure.
"All right, now," he said through clenched teeth. "Your neck's broken,
and all I've got to do is twist enough to sever your spinal column.
You'll be crippled for as long as Vulcan has--maybe longer."