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she had passed a full day without weeping. "Thank you, thank you, my lord!"
"You are welcome. I envy you the joy of your homecoming. And I envy your
family
when they see you. There will be much rejoicing when you arrive."
Before walking away from the vessel that had brought him to Dia, Alex gave
her
to her faithful steersman, who was still with him. "This ship is yours now,
good
Acetes. Make what profit from her you can."
"Thank you, great lord!"
Ariadne's presence on Dia had been strongly suggested by Aegeus, before he
was
turned into a dolphin.
Some of Alex's sprites and powers, sent ahead to look around the island, now
brought him a report.
But at first Alex could not believe what he was hearing. "Theseus has done
what?"
The whisperer told him. Alternate waves of outrage and joy engulfed the
latest
avatar of Dionysus. She had been badly treated, mortally offended but she was
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physically unhurt, and she was here.
Despite his recent access of divinity, Alex still felt very shy at imagining
himself in the presence of the princess he thought that with the Twice-Born
to
support him, he could face another god now, calmly enough, if required. But
somehow this was different.
"She is only a mortal woman, why am I so nervous?"
His entourage had no answer to that question, but to chide him. It does not
behoove a god to take the presence or absence of mortal flesh so seriously.
These were the words of the disreputable Silenus.
His reply was stiff. "Thank you for your advice. But I am the god, not you."
And
it occurred to Alex to wonder, not for the first time, how and why Silenus,
who
had no real body, should show in his image all the ravages of dissipation.
You see me as I am, lord; your true servant, incapable of guile or deception.
Even Dionysus seemed to be taken aback by such a fabulous claim, and unable
to
find words for an immediate reply. Eventually Alex got out, "Oh, compelled to
be
absolutely truthful, are you?"
My devotion to the truth, Your Divinity, requires me to qualify that
description. In pursuit of the highest truth it is sometimes necessary to
deviate from strict accuracy in less important matters. In such a case for
example, in my service to yourself the greater good to be accomplished must
work
to purify the means that are necessary to achieve it.
"I see. Of course. This is your roundabout way of admitting that you are an
incorrigible liar. I ought to have remembered that fact before now."
I am most honored that Your Divinity remembers me at all.
Wondering how best to approach the woman he so desperately loved, Alex could
this time find nothing very helpful in the long memory of Dionysus. Probably
the
god's usual approach to such matters was simply too different from his own.
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Left
on his own, and feeling strangely awkward, the young man pondered how to
introduce himself. To say "I am a god" would be no more than the simple
truth,
but an unaccountable shyness held him back from that approach. He was a god,
but
like the avatars of other deities, he was also something less or something
more.
To say "I am Alex the Half-Nameless" would also be the truth, or at least a
half-truth, but now seriously misleading.
In the end, Alex decided that he would neither announce his name to the
princess
at once, nor make any effort at disguise. Let Ariadne recognize him if she
could though, as he reminded himself, she had never been very familiar with
the
face of the young soldier whose only name was Alex. Nor had she ever seen him
dressed in any other garments than the uniform of the Palace Guard.
He was still wearing around his neck the medallion of silver and gold that
she
had given him long days ago, but all of it except the chain was hidden under
his
purple cloak, where that garment was clasped around his neck.
When Alex saw her crouching in among the rocks, and the image of her as it
appeared in the eye of Dionysus assured him that she had taken no great harm,
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