They go out into the place where the demigod Aeneas had led the Greek slaughter, more than a year ago. Red flowers grow now where their comrades fell. All else is quiet.
Ophellios releases the string of his bow and a bird falls from the sky. It was only a small thing, but the arrow pierced neatly its heart; there will be enough meat for feasting later.
There is hunger in the camp.
He turns, looking to his lone companion. “How many have you caught, Lord Aetos?”
They come in time to a lonely and wild place. One could believe almost anything of this lost and lonely hill, nestled among others at the foot of the mountain but shrouded in darkness; and indeed, coming here, the soil is like ash and dust, the trees long dead and withered, and the only sound is the wind blowing through old stone.
At the top, half-buried in dead shrubbery and dust like ash, is the collapsed facade of a temple.
Ophellios stands still, too still, as he looks up at the ruined temple.
His eyes are larger than they should be and they blink too little; the black points are only narrow, the blue like the unknowable wells of the sea in storm.
He has taken Aetos’ hand, squeezing it tightly. He is not sure when he started doing that.
“There is something Terrible here.”
The pendant around the King of Pylos’ neck glows hot. Like a dog eager to reunite with its master, its divine contents surge forward.
His sword is out of its sheath and his eyes are alert.
He had not had proof with his own eyes of the boy's parentage until now, only whispers and now hearsay; until now, he could almost have doubted it, almost believed it was some great trick, some conspiracy; to see it with his own eyes still chills his blood.
He stares for a long moment at the godling.
Then he squeezes his hand back.
"What is it?"
“You need not put yourself at risk for this. It is not so important, in the grand scheme of the Fates. And you are not so unimportant.”
"I could say the same of you. But I will not turn my back and leave you here like a coward, for fear of trees and stones and ominous feelings."
This was an enormous temple once. Among the dead shrubbery are shattered marble pillars of Titanic size, stones that must have been lifted by Cyclopes' strength, twisting passages carved through the earth.
And in the end they come to a wide flat space in which there stand two huge braziers, flaming merrily with coals though the signs of great age mark them, and a place where a statue should be.
It’s the man from his nightmare, all those years ago in Pylos when he was a boy–
Ophellios hesitates no longer. He kneels instantly, pressing his forehead to the rough ground.
“My lord Apollo. My sire. You honour me.”
"Stand up, My son, nor kowtow before your father; for I it was who got your fair mother with child, in the days when Pylos sorely lacked an heir."
His gaze falls on the other mortal, and it is not a kindly one.
"And, look! What mortal dares to enter here?"
He rises, though he keeps his head bowed.
When the god’s Sight is turned the other way, Ophellios dares to glance up at his–
father.
Well, this does not look good.
"O lord Apollo of the silver shafts, it is I, Aetos, the king of Crete; have I not burnt fine oxen for you, venerated your name upon my island, and counselled well your son?"
"I know you, proud king, and your name and your birth, and the name of your father, and more things besides; for the gods see further than men. I ask rather, who are you to come here?"
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