Chapter 16

As I continue my report on the happenings of myself and my crew I must begin with some negative things. After another hundred years twenty-six of our original number have left this world and journeyed into The Afterlife. They have fulfilled their duties as Olympians well. They have left many children, both full bloods and, natives. But sadly I must report that over half the native children born in the first generation that we were here have already died, and even a third of the full bloods have already succumbed to age! Most only regenerated twice! The energy levels on this world, even with all that that Hades is producing is simply not enough to sustain our Olympian abilities, even with the food suppliments! However, our descendants are doing well. They are good leaders, good teachers, and are helping these people tremendously, though it is hard to maintain them in a civilized state. To some of them the more corrupt a leader is, the more popular he is. This is a difficulty that Creos has had to deal with for ages, but that we are finding very frustrating.
2 I, myself, have had two native lovers during this time. The first was Io, who I met quite by accident, but immediately became attached to. A short time after our meeting there was a horrendous volcanic eruption and the sky became blanketed with clouds. We had to take up our ships and disperse them, or the people would've had no crops, and the winter would've lasted several years! Io's contact with me had a strange result. She began to grow fur all over her body, and, horns! Rather embarrassed about this, her and her consort Arges, began to travel the world but I never lost my affection for her and she had thirteen children by me, and two by her consort. During their journeys they helped many people, and the people began to call Io The Sacred Heffier. During one terrible battle when Arges was defending a people from barbaric invaders he lost both his eyes. Though blind his knowledge was so great that people still welcomed them wherever they went. Some of the most ridiculous stories arose from these incidences! People said that I turned Io into a heffier to hide her from Hera and that Hermes blinded her consort so he could steal her back. You really wonder how these stories come into being when they have no basis in truth whatsoever! Hermes and Arges were the greatest friends! He often visited him and Io wherever they were encamped. I will say my wife is kept busy flying to and fro delivering our children! She simply cannot be everywhere at once and has trained a group of most excellent midwives to tend those women she cannot be with.
3 The mortality rate among the women in this area in childbirth is very low, and the rate of survival among the children very high. The natives have come to believe that this area is extremely blessed by The Gods, that people here live extremely long lives. Well, perhaps, in a way, it is true!
4 My second native lover was Semele. We had eight children but tragically just before the last one was to be born she was acidentally killed by a javeline thrown by an angry soldier off her palace wall who was having an argument with his wife. The man was so distraught he threw himself off the wall to his death! I arrived moments after the incident and though I was not as skilled as my wife I managed to remove and revive the child, who we called Dionysus, who I took to Olympus and he dwelled with us all of his days. One day when he was in his teens Creos was visiting, and the boy mentioned how much he missed his mother. "Oh, she misses you, too!" Creos answered. "She was so angry at having lost so much of her life that she was reborn almost immediately as one of Lornias' children among the dark skinned people. But she is vaguely aware of her previous existence and keeps longing for the child that she has never seen."
5 "Take me to her!" Dionysus insisted. Creos looked to me and I nodded in agreement. The minute Semele and her son's eyes met they knew they could not be separate. He brought her back to Olympus and made her his wife and they dwelled there, away from other people, having several fine children who delighted everyone! Of course the natives have altered this story a bit, have their own version of it. But in a way it's not all that different from the truth! I once asked Creos how many lives he has lived in the native form. He looked at me and smiled. "Too many!" he remarked. "I have been a part of these people's history so many times that I have had to create several fragments of myself in The Afterlife to carry on the duties of those individuals so I am free to do other things!" Sometimes I think maybe I'm doing too much! But if they are to survive we must use all our abilities!"
6 "What abilities!" I muttered, "What abilities!"
7 There has been another small problem of late. Rather large meteorites have been heading for this world. There would've been several major impacts over the last hundred years, had I not put one of our children, Hermes, to the task of detecting them and going up and breaking them into smaller pieces that would burn up in the atmosphere, this world's inhabitants may have been put to an end! There would've been so many impacts that this world would've become a ball of ice! Oddly, most of the destructions have been at night and visible in the sky. The natives have called it the time of the falling stars. Creos has remarked "How strange it is that you just happen to be here when this phenomena occured! If you had not been, these people wouldn't be here! It's almost like somebody brought you here knowing this was coming."
8 "You make me nervous," I told Creos, "when you speak of things like that! You make me VERY nervous!"

Page 28

Go To The Next Page

Return To Links Page