“You are not alone, my love.”
“Anya!”
“I am with you always, even if I cannot help you directly.”
The memory of her abandonment welled up in me. “You deserted me once.”
The living statue’s face almost seemed to cry. “I am ashamed of what I did, Orion.”
I heard myself reply, “You had no alternative. I know that. I understand it. My life was unimportant compared to the survival of the Creators. Still, it hurts worse than Set’s fires.”
Anya answered, “No such noble motives moved me. I was filled with the terror of death. Like any mortal human, I fled with my life and left the man I love most in all the universes to the mercies of the cruelest of the cruel.”
“I would have done the same,” I said.
She smiled sadly. “No, Orion. You would have died protecting me. You have given your life many times, but even faced with final extinction you would have tried to shield me with your own life.”
I had no response to that.
“I took on human form as a whim, at first,” Anya confessed. “I found it exciting to share a life with you, to feel the blood thundering through my body, to love and laugh and fight—even to bleed. But always I knew that I could escape if it became necessary. I never faced the ultimate test, true death. When Set held me in his power, when I knew that I would die forever, that I would cease to be, I felt real fear for the first time. I panicked and ran. I abandoned you to save myself.”
“I thought I hated you for that,” I told her. “And yet I love you still.”
“I am not worthy of your love, Orion.”
Smiling, I replied, “Yet you have my love, Anya. Now and forever. Throughout all time, all space, all the universes of the continuum, I love you.”
It was true. I loved her and forgave her completely. I did this of my own will; no one was manipulating me. This was not a response that the Golden One had built into my conditioning. I truly loved Anya, despite what she had done. Perhaps, in a strange way, I loved her in part because she had experienced the ultimate fear that all humans must face. None of the other Creators had shown the courage even to try.
“And I love you, my darling,” she said, her voice growing faint.
“But where are you?”
“The Creators have fled. When they saw that Set could attack them here, in our own sanctuary, they abandoned the Earth altogether and fled for their lives.”
“Will you return to me?” I asked.
“The other Creators fear Set so much! They thought that destroying Sheol would put an end to him, but now they realize he is firmly entrenched on Earth. Only you can stop him, Orion. The Creators are depending entirely on you.”
“But I can’t do it alone!” I called to her diminishing voice. I could feel her presence fading, dwindling, the statue losing its living warmth, returning to pure marble.
“You must use your own resources, Orion,” Anya’s voice whispered to me. “The Creators are too afraid to face him themselves.”
“Will you return to me?” I repeated.
“I will try.” Fainter still.
“I need you!”
“When you need me most, I will be there for you, Orion.” Her voice was softer than the sighing of an owl’s wing. “When you need me most, my love.”
CHAPTER 34
I was alone in the empty main square again, staring at the cold marble statue of Athena.
Alone. The Creators expected me to face Set and his minions without them, without even their help.
Feeling drained, exhausted, I went to the marble steps of the Parthenon and sat down, my head sunk in my hands. From across the square the giant golden Buddha smiled placidly at me.
For the first time in all my lives I was facing a situation where my strength by itself was of practically no value. I had to use my mind, the powers of thought, to find a way to defeat Set. He overpowered me physically, that I knew from painful experience. He had an army of Shaydanians at his clawed fingertips and legions of dinosaurs under his control.