“I can tell you if you want,” I said, reluctantly.

“No, I don’t want at all. It’s delightful being in the dark for once. It’s such a nice change.” He laughed, panting, then we saved our breath for running. Down below we could see some boats going out already with the tide, but Phaenarete was still waiting at the quay when we came up alongside.

20. Apollo

20

APOLLO

Once the door closed behind the rest of them, the three of us stood alone in Hilfa’s sitting room, looking at each other uncomfortably. Then Arete sighed, and took up the papers and read through them again, silently. “I feel Necessity pressing hard on me,” Jathery said. The spell of gla words had no effect on either of us, but I could feel the power gla was putting into them, to make us trust gla. Gla looked all Saeli now, with the greenish skin and the bright lids and the strange knobbly joints that didn’t bend the way human joints bend. The patterns on gla skin were not random, as on mortal Saeli, but formed changing letters in an alien alphabet that perhaps Arete could read.

“Don’t push me,” I said. “I’ve agreed to let you come with me, for Alkippe as much as for the aegis of Necessity, but that doesn’t mean I like you or want anything more to do with you than I have to. And afterwards you’ve agreed to abide by Father’s judgement.”

Gla glared at me.

Arete began to read aloud.

When she had finished, I looked at Jathery. “That seems possible,” I said.

“This is what Athene and I prepared, for the two of us to go,” Jathery said. “How did she do it alone?”

“I’ve read you all she wrote,” Arete said.

“She obviously didn’t want us to know that, and did want us to work together,” I said.

“Well, we can do that,” gla said, scowling. Gla face was much more flexible and human than any normal Saeli face could be. It made me wonder how much time gla had spent around humans, and with Athene.

“I know you can do it. What I’m worried about is you getting back,” Arete said, and her voice quavered. She dashed away tears from her eyes and hugged me. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow evening,” I said.

Arete nodded. “I’ll talk to Porphyry, if necessary. But I hope very much to see you instead.”

We stepped out of Hilfa’s sitting room and out of time.

I’m not going to tell you the details of Athene’s instructions for how to get out from Avernus. She went to a lot of trouble to hide them, and for extremely good reasons. We followed them, and they worked, and we found ourselves … out there.

Where time and space are all and one, and self

Is smeared out over every where and when,

And memory, and soul, and stars, and dust,

Future and past and I and now and then