To conquer the world.
Aristotle may have trained young Alexandros to conquer the Persian Empire—which was all the world worth conquering, in his eyes—but to accomplish that, Alexandros needed a united Greece behind him, and only his father Philip could bring all the Greek cities together under Macedonian hegemony. And Olympias, I knew, was scheming to set Alexandros against his father.
“Why?” I asked her, the next time she summoned me to her bed. “Why do you try to make Alexandros hate Philip?”
“You ask too many questions, Orion,” she said, lazily twining her bare arms around my neck.
I put one thumb on her lovely throat. “I want to know.”
Her eyes widened. “You dare to threaten me?”
“I want to know,” I repeated in a whisper, applying a bit of pressure to her windpipe.
One of the pythons slithered up onto my back. I pressed my body close to Hera’s. “Your snake will have to crush us both.”
A viper slid past her face, hissing at me. “The poison will not work fast enough to stop me from snapping your lovely neck,” I said.
Olympias’ eyes glittered like the snake’s. But then I saw something different in them, as if another person were looking out at me through her jade-green eyes. “I have never died before. What is it like, Orion?”
I must have looked surprised. She said, “Oh, you have died countless times. Don’t you remember? No, of course not.”
A word drifted into my mind. A name. “Osiris.”
Her smile widened. “Yes, Osiris. The god who dies each winter and is reborn in the spring. That was you, Orion, in another life. And Prometheus. Do you remember the band of warriors?”
“In the Ice Age.” Vaguely I recalled a battle in the snowy wastes of a distant time. “Anya was there.”
“Is it exciting to die?” she asked me. I could feel the pulse in her throat quickening. “Is it arousing?”
Try as I might, I could remember nothing definite of those earlier incarnations. And then I realized what was happening.
“You’re playing with me,” I said. “Toying with my mind.”
But Hera’s thoughts were on death. “Tell me, Orion. What is it like to die? What does the ultimate adventure feel like?”
I remembered falling down the endless pit into the molten core of the Earth. I remembered the cave bear that ripped my body apart.
“Pain,” I said. “The deaths I have suffered have been painful ones.”
“And afterward?”
I rolled off her naked body. I could feel the snakes slithering out from under me.
“Afterward it begins all over again. Another life, another death. What does it matter?”
She was Hera. No more pretense of being Olympias, no need for witchcraft. Undisguised now, she revealed herself as the goddess, one of the Creators. Propping herself up on one elbow she traced a red fingernail across my chest. “What’s the matter, creature? Don’t tell me you’re bored with life.”
“What reason do I have for living?”
“What reason?” She laughed. “Why, to serve your creators. That is your reason for living. To do whatever I want you to.”
I stared up at the shadowy ceiling, avoiding her eyes, and asked, “And what might that be?”
“To see how far this hotheaded princeling called Alexandros can reach.”
“Your son.”
“Olympias’ son,” she acknowledged.
“What was it like to give birth?” I asked her.
She replied haughtily, “I wouldn’t know. That is a human ordeal that I want no part of.”
“Then you—” I hesitated, groping for words. “You inhabit Olympias’ body only when you choose to?”
Again her disdainful laughter. “Don’t torture yourself trying to understand us, Orion.”
“Us?”
“We Creators. Your mind can’t comprehend our powers, don’t even bother to try.” Then she leaned against me and ran her hand down my abdomen to my crotch. “Your task is to satisfy my desires, creature.”
“That’s easy enough to do in bed,” I countered, still avoiding her eyes, trying to maintain control of myself long enough to learn more. “But what am I to do about Alexandros and Philip?”
“Serve Philip well,” she said. “Protect Alexandros, as you did in Athens. And wait.”
“Wait? For what?”