Olympos

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Chapter One

Helen of Troy awakes just before dawn to the sound of air raid sirens.She feels along the cushions of her bed but her current lover, Hockenberry,is gone—slipped out into the night again before the servantswake, acting as he always does after their nights of lovemaking, actingas if he has done something shameful, no doubt stealing his way homethis very minute through the alleys and back streets where the torchesburn least bright. Helen thinks that Hockenberry is a strange and sadman. Then she remembers.

My husband is dead.

This fact, Paris killed in single combat with the merciless Apollo, hasbeen reality for nine days—the great funeral involving both Trojans andAchaeans will begin in three hours if the god-chariot now over the citydoes not destroy Ilium completely in the next few minutes—but Helenstill cannot believe that her Paris is gone. Paris, son of Priam, defeatedon the field of battle? Paris dead? Paris thrown down into the shadedcaverns of Hades without beauty of body or the elegance of action? Unthinkable.

This is Paris, her beautiful boy-child who had stolen her awayfrom Menelaus, past the guards and across the green lawns of Lacedaemon.This is Paris, her most attentive lover even after this long decadeof tiring war, he whom she had often secretly referred to as her "plungingstallion full-fed at the manger."

Helen slips out of bed and crosses to the outer balcony, parting thegauzy curtains as she emerges into the pre-dawn light of Ilium. It ismidwinter and the marble is cold under her bare feet. The sky is stilldark enough that she can see forty or fifty searchlights stabbing skyward,searching for the god or goddess and the flying chariot. Muffledplasma explosions ripple across the half dome of the moravecs' energyfield that shields the city. Suddenly, multiple beams of coherent light—shafts of solid blue, emerald green, blood red—lance upward fromIlium's perimeter defenses. As Helen watches, a single huge explosionshakes the northern quadrant of the city, sending its shockwave echoing across the topless towers of Ilium and stirring the curls of Helen's long,dark hair from her shoulders. The gods have begun using physicalbombs to penetrate the force shield in recent weeks, the single-moleculebomb casings quantum phase-shifting through the moravecs' shield. Orso Hockenberry and the amusing little metal creature, Mahnmut, havetried to explain to her.

Helen of Troy does not give a fig about machines.

Paris is dead. The thought is simply unsupportable. Helen has beenprepared to die with Paris on the day that the Achaeans, led by her formerhusband, Menelaus, and by his brother Agamemnon, ultimatelybreach the walls, as breach they must according to her prophetess friendCassandra, putting every man and boy-child in the city to death, rapingthe women and hauling them off to slavery in the Greek Isles. Helen hasbeen ready for that day—ready to die by her own hand or by the swordof Menelaus—but somehow she has never really believed that her dear,vain, godlike Paris, her plunging stallion, her beautiful warriorhusband,could die first. Through more than nine years of siege and gloriousbattle, Helen has trusted the gods to keep her beloved Paris aliveand intact and in her bed. And they did. And now they have killed him.

She calls back the last time she saw her Trojan husband, ten days earlier,heading out from the city to enter into single combat with the godApollo. Paris had never looked more confident in his armor of elegant,gleaming bronze, his head flung back, his long hair flowing back overhis shoulders like a stallion's mane, his white teeth flashing as Helen andthousands of others watched and cheered from the wall above theScaean Gate. His fast feet had sped him on, "sure and sleek in his glory,"as King Priam's favorite bard liked to sing. But this day they had spedhim on to his own slaughter by the hands of furious Apollo.

And now he's dead, thinks Helen, and, if the whispered reports I've overheardare accurate, his body is a scorched and blasted thing, his bones broken,his perfect, golden face burned into an obscenely grinning skull, his blue eyesmelted to tallow, tatters of barbecued flesh stringing back from his scorchedcheekbones like ... like ... firstlings—like those charred first bits of ceremonialmeat tossed from the sacrificial fire because they have been deemed unworthy. Helen shivers in the cold wind coming up with the dawn and watches smoke rise above the rooftops of Troy.

Three antiaircraft rockets from the Achaean encampment to the southroar skyward in search of the retreating god-chariot. Helen catches aglimpse of that retreating chariot—a brief gleaming as bright as themorning star, pursued now by the exhaust trails from the Greek rockets.Without warning, the shining speck quantum shifts out of sight, leavingthe morning sky empty. Flee back to besieged Olympos, you cowards, thinksHelen of Troy.

The all-clear sirens begin to whine. The street below Helen's apartmentsin Paris's estate so near Priam's battered palace are suddenlyfilled with running men, bucket brigades rushing to the northwestwhere smoke still rises into the winter air. Moravec flying machines humover the rooftops, looking like nothing so much as chitinous black hornetswith their barbed landing gear and swiveling projectors. Some, sheknows from experience and from Hockenberry's late-night rants, will flywhat he calls air cover, too late to help, while others will aid in puttingout the fire. Then Trojans and moravecs both will pull mangled bodiesfrom the rubble for hours. Since Helen knows almost everyone in thecity, she wonders numbly who will be in the ranks of those sent down tosunless Hades so early this morning . . .

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Excerpted from Olympos by Dan Simmons
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.