Aries.
«"I shay, impwesshive dishplay. " said Nick as they climbed the steps to the first temple, "Like a glow in the dawk doll. Vewy pwactical fow when you have to go to the loo at night."
"Stop behaving as if it were all a game!" cried Ilya, "Don't you realise how close to death you were?"
"Being alive ish being closhe to death." said Nick philosophically," Anyhow, it'sh an English thing: we tweat waw as if it wewe a game and gamesh as if it wewe waw. Tewminally stiff-uppewlipped, that'sh ush."
"God, Nick, you sound like a cross between Sylvester and Daffy Duck. You should do most of the talking, they will spend more time trying to figure out what you are saying than trying to kill us." said Esk with a chuckle.
"We've been lucky so far." said Sir Frederic, " We won't be able to pull off a stunt like that twice. Damned, we're short an entire database, with all the files the Office has compiled on the Saints and their possible identity! I'll have to work from memory."
"Anything on the fellow upstairs, other than that he is Tibetan?" asked Esk, "You'll be able to brush up on the lingo, Cap."
"Tibet has always been an inaccessible country with a medieval system until the beginning of the twentieth century, and since 1950 it is closed again. The Chinese government has not been forthcoming, even though we warned them of the presence of a Saint's training camp at Rozann."
"That will be abandoned now that Hades has been vanquished for good and Dokho has become the new pope." said Ilya.
"Cap, are you alright?" asked Esk, seeing his father struggling with the steps, " You are huffing and puffing like the wolf in the fairytale."
"I hate stairs." said Mr. Field, " I hope Athena will be gracious enough to come down to us."
"It is part of the intimidation process." said Sir Frederic, "Destined to make us hot and tired and irritated and therefore vulnerable."
"Oh Lord, save us from children playing an adult game." sighed Mr. Field.
Almost in answer to his prayer there came a childish giggle from the rocky mountainside on their left, and the elderly Englishman was airlifted up a few feet above the ground. More surprised than afraid, he flapped his arms like a little bird attempting to fly for the first time, which caused him to vault backwards, feet pointing up towards the Temple. In that position he remained hovering.
"Don't just stand there like a bank of oysters! Do something!" he bellowed.
Sir Frederic, though deskbound for the last thirty years still had the reflexes of an SOE man and acted with alacrity. Grabbing his friend's legs he tried to coax mr. Field back to the ground. Instead he was lifted up in turn, and made to somersault a couple of times. There came another giggle.
"Kiki! Stop this! It is not funny!" cried Ilya, realising who had put his friends in such an undignified position. Diving for the rocks, he caught nothing but thin air. The giggling continued on the right hand side.
"You're out of practice, Cygnus!"
Nick and Esk stood open-mouthed hesitating between crying out in horror or bursting out in laughter as their elders went drifting quietly up towards the Aries Temple.
"This … isn't possible." the young scientist gasped, "Whatever happened to gravity?"
"Don't ask me, ask Newton!" answered Nick, flashing a gap-toothed grin. A second later he himself, too was catapulted high into the air.
"Whoa! You cannae change the laws of physics, Scotty, don't beam me up! Let go…er, no, don't let go!"
Bobbing up and down like a giant bearded balloon he came after mr. Field and Sir Frederic.
Esk was Kiki's next victim. Vainly trying to return to earth, making swimming movements and muttering mathematical formulae to either explain or contradict what was happening, he followed the others.
Ilya was livid.
"Kiki, how dare you! You cannot play with people like that; besides, they have been through enough grief already. Put them down at once! I'm sure your master Mu wouldn't approve either."
"Bleeeeh!"
The little redheaded Tibetan appeared out of nowhere and stuck out his tongue. "My Master will become the new Libra Saint before long and then I'll be Aries and I'll be able to do what I want!"
"Sanctuary must be desperate if they are seriously contemplating promoting you to Sainthood, but you do have the right attitude!" said Ilya angrily, " I'm not going to waste my time with you. It's Mu I have to speak with."
Ignoring Kiki's protests (and pulverising with a wave of his hand a huge boulder the brat send at him) he hurried up the steps, arriving almost simultaneously with his unfortunate companions. The same invisible force that had lifted them now put them down, gently, facing the Aries Saint.
"Not an unpleasant way to travel." said Mr. Field.
"Quite." agreed Sir Frederic, adjusting his elegant trench coat, "With prior warning it would have been an almost enjoyable experience."
"Shpeak for yourself." snorted Nick, who had spent most of the journey upside-down.
Esk was staring myopically (he had lost his contact lenses on the way) at Mu.
Is he supposed to be Tibetan? With a generous dollop of white man's blood in his veins, I'll wager, or else he has bleached up and dyed his hair."
"Letsh check it out then." said Nick, and he called out: "Tashi deleg!"
"You've just wished him a happy New Year, Nick." said Esk with a chuckle.
"Well it is, almost. Anyway, I got it out of Tintin*, and when I was in Kathmandu nobody said anything about it!"
" They were probably being polite. I'll teach you the proper greeting!"
The young scientist placed his fingertips together in a prayer-like gesture and said: " Jooley!"
It pleaded for Mu that his expression did not change an inch.
"That is how they greet in Ladakh: your uncle Tsarong was pulling your leg when he taught you that." said Mr. Field with a sigh, " Now, if it is at all possible, will you two boys not make fools of yourselves for, say, five minutes so that I can talk seriously with this young man? I'd be much obliged, thank you."
With that he turned towards Mu and launched a sting of Tibetan** at him. The Aries Saint's thin eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly, and he answered in the same language.
"If no white man has set foot in Tibet for the past three decades or so, how can he be the son of one?" wondered Sir Frederic, studying the Saint attentively, " Yet he must be: his eyes are as green as Hubert's and Queer's."
"Maybe he ish Cap'sh long-losht gwandshon."
Esk's handsome face darkened.
"The joke is in bad taste, Nick. Aventine and Caelia were mere babies when they were lost; had they lived, neither of them would have been old enough to have a son his age: I give him about twenty-three, like Queer. Deep down, Cap is convinced his children are still alive. God! I call them children, but they would have been forty by now, had they lived. Anyhow, Cap was not the only white man in Tibet at the time, rare though it was. Maybe Harrer sowed some wild oats during his seven-odd years there."
"Hawwew?"
"German POW in India, escaped, ended up in Lhasa. Friend of the Dalai Lama's. I wonder what they are talking about?"
"Hawwew and the Dalai Lama?"
"No, idiot, my father and the escapee from the set of 'Excalibur' *** "
""Yesh, he doesh look wathew shilly in that outfit. Ish thewe any functional weashon fow that yoke?"
"All Sacred Cloths are made to resemble the constellations they represent." explained Ilya.
"That should pose a problem for Puppis Navis." said Sir Frederic dryly.
"This is all so much scientific rot!" exclaimed Esk, "The names of the constellations are culturally bound. The Big Dipper, the Chariot, the Plough, Ursa Major, they are all names for the same thing! Besides the stars change position over time. In a couple of millennia, the sky will look completely different at night. Plus it all depends on which stars you chooses to connect. Orion may look pretty obvious to us, but in the Southern Hemisphere he stands on his head: the Aboriginals see him as a bird, and the Maori as a pirogue. "
"The Saints are protected by their constellations." said Ilya, " When they die their essence joins the stars and they give guidance to their successor from the heavens."
Esk groaned.
"The Sun is a star, and you are more likely to be influenced by your wardrobe than by a fiery ball of gas light-years away! Astrology! Superstitious nonsense and unscientific clap-trap!"
"That is what you used to say about telekinesis." Sir Frederic remarked.
Esk rolled his eyes.
"I give up! I hope this will turn out to be a very bad dream and I wake up from it soon!"
He ambled over to his father.
"Cap, could you continue your conversation with Golden Boy in a more common language so that we can all understand?"
"We can if you can keep a civil tongue in your head, son." Mr. Field replied, "This, by the way, is Mu. He has been telling me how Vimi and Skippy arrived. They are fine, apparently."
He turned back to the Aries Saint.
"My wife will be here presently. Would you be kind enough to reassure her as well? We should be on our way to Athena."
The delicate eyebrows knotted into a frown.
"Danger lies ahead for you, " said Mu, in a slow and heavily accented English, " Death for Hyoga. Do not continue."
There was genuine concern in his voice.
"I appreciate that, but my daughter, my daughter-in-law and my future grandchild are being held hostage I have already lost two children, a long time ago. I won't lose any more."
Mu's eyes grew wide with wonder.
"And well they should, this must be the first time a Saint is confronted with a father who cares about his children; or children cared about at all." thought Ilya, as he observed the scene.
"Do not go." insisted Mu, "I will not harm you, nor would Aldebaran or Aiolia, though they will stop you. But you will never come to the Leo temple: Gemini will banish you to another dimension, and Cancer will kill. As for the others…"
He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but all could guess what he meant.
"Nevertheless." said Mr. Field.
"Cap, may I speak with Mu privately for a moment?" asked Ilya politely.
Mr. Field cast a glance at Sir Frederic, who shrugged.
"Go ahead, son."
Mu's eloquent eyebrows rose slightly.
"Son?" he asked, switching to classic Greek, "What does that mean, Hyoga?"
"It means that I am part of their family." answered Ilya , " It means that I know all about the crimes Kido committed and Athena abetted."
Briefly and without emotion, the Russian told Aries what had happened to him in the past few months, carefully omitting the part the former Opiuchus Saint had played in it.
"Most of all it means that I will no longer be manipulated or lied to. Nor will the rest of Humanity. That is what we have come tell Athena, as well as demand the return of the hostages."
"You will not reach beyond the third Temple." Mu informed him calmly, " Aldebaran you might talk into letting you pass, the Gemini, never. Saga has a debt he wants to pay, to prove his unswerving loyalty to Athena, as for Kanon…you know how ruthless he is. He will surely kill you."
"Undoubtedly. That is why I need your help, Mu. There is nothing I can do or say to stop these people from going on; yet I would see them safe. You can teleport them away. Then it will be just me against the Saints. Will you do that?"
Mu considered.
"They seem quite determined, and may not like what you are planning to do."
"Of that I am sure, and I hope they will forgive me. I have seen too many loved ones die, some by my own hand. I won't be responsible for their deaths as well."
"Without your Cloth you don't stand much chance alone, either."
"Mu, I don't want to fight. I won't kill any longer! How I am going to get through to Athena I don't know yet, but I have to try. If I am killed in the process, so be it. But I cannot wear the Cloth again: it is a trap. It turns you into a Saint. It will turn me into Hyoga once more! If I am to die, it will be as Ilya Vladimirovitch Sjevtsjenko!"
"I hope you two realise that we all took Classic Greek in school." interrupted Sir Frederic, "Mine's a little rusty, and you weren't exactly talking Homer, but I got the zest of your conversation. Maybe I did not make it quite clear to you, Ilya. This operation is neither about you against the Saints nor about us against the Saints. We are not going to have another repeat of your Battle for Sanctuary or your interminable God-Wars. We are not the Enemy, and no more is Athena. Humanity has passed the stage of such primitive black-versus-white thinking, I hope. So we have come to talk as two reasonable factions have to do to come to a compromise and avoid overt hostilities. If this is ever to be resolved, there exists no other way. You have been repeating yourselves for centuries, but the World has changed. Humanity has evolved beyond you!"
"Amen to that!" cried Nick, " Though you may not like to heaw it. Hawdly anybody doesh, when told they awe dinosauws that eithew have to adapt ow face the fact that they awe obsolete."
"Is that what you plan to say to Athena?" asked Mu with a slight smile.
"A little more diplomatically, but yes, that is about it." answered Sir Frederic.
"Not us, though: the official delegation of diplomats that comes after us will. " said mr. Field, " We are merely a family. Ilya, you are a good boy but you can't take it all on yourself. Don't try to protect us. What little I know of your parents makes me certain that they would wish to protect you instead. Having placed myself in loco parentis I will strive to do the same."
A look that kept the middle between surprise and delight crept over Mu's face. Gingerly, he placed a hand on mr. Field's chest, as if to better convey the sentiments he struggled to find words for.
"You are a good man. You are all good! Luck for Ilya. I will help you. Come with me."
He gestured them into his Temple.
"Wait, what about mother and Queer? They are still with that Chamaeleon girl June or Jane or whatever; shouldn't we send for them?" asked Esk, looking over his shoulder in the direction from where they had come, and then gave a great cry: " Look at that thing! It's burning!"
They all turned to see what he was pointing at. Rising like a torch from a crevasse along the path to Rodorio stood the giant Zodiacal Clock, eleven of its flames burning brightly, the twelfth, at the Aries sign, fading fast.
Both Ilya and Mu exclaimed in alarm.
"The Clock has been lit! That means Sanctuary has officially declared you enemies, and all may challenge you!" said the young Russian, his face twisted with fear for his new family,
"You must turn back. Every Saint loyal to Athena is now honour-bound to kill you."
"Odd intewpwetation of honouw Sanctuawy hash"
"You don't understand!" wailed Ilya, " They will kill you: no talking, no explaining, no diplomacy, they won't listen! You are doomed if you don't turn back!"
Sir Frederic looked hesitant and doubtful, but mr. Field shook his head. Esk copied his father and Nick, while biting his lip, did the same.
Mu looked from the one to the other. Slowly he raised one arm, forefinger outstretched. His aura glowed about him. In the sky above, something glimmered, growing bigger as it hurled towards them in a whiff of icy air, like a comet.
It was a box. Over Ilya it hovered, broke open and poured its contents.
"Nooooo!" screamed the Russian, " Mu, don't! Please! I told you, I will not be a Saint anymore! Don't do this to me…I will not wear the Cloth again!"
"It was the most dreadful moment of my entire life, next to watching my mother drown. I was absolutely terrified of what the thing would do to me. Mind you, I didn't know as yet that the Cloths were instrumental in the process of indoctrination. Housing the spirits, or part of them anyway, of all its previous wearers it was the most formidable enemy anyone could face. "
"And yet as a protection it only served up to a certain point. Taking off the Cloth had a similar effect to keeping one's eyes permanently closed, Shaka's big thing. By voluntary making yourself vulnerable, you opened your spirit to the Seventh Sense."
"Once a Saint had reached that stage, their indoctrination was complete and the way back closed, or so everyone assumed."
"Lucky us that it did not turn out to be so."
"Didn't it?"
"Nooo!" Ilya screamed again as the Cygnus Cloth broke apart and its separate components started to fit themselves to his body. The cold metal enclosed him like straightjacket, its Power seared through him opening wounds he had thought closed and healing, leaving them raw and
bleeding again.
His Mother. Camu. Isaak. The killing of the countless, nameless others.
The death of Seiya.
He fell to his knees.
"I can't, please, no, I can't…please…It hurts too much!"
"To be a Saint is to suffer." came the voice of Mu, towering over him, pitiless; and then the Aries Saint was kneeling by his side, his green eyes boring into Ilya's blue ones, "Will you not risk for your family what you did for Athena? You are strong. You have cast aside the Cloth once before and denied the Goddess. I, who am older than you and believed myself to be stronger, wiser, better…I, Mu, have not had that strength or courage, though my heart beats as yours. Athena walks a path that will lead to War and to ruin, for Olympos will not tolerate her breach of the age-old rules of the God-game. She may even win it: but it will certainly mean the perdition of all our Souls. Hyoga…Ilya…I am with you."
Without explaining his enigmatic words further, Mu took the younger Saint by the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet. In Greek he added: "Protect your family. I shall go ahead and speak to Athena first: that may pave the way for the rest of you. She alone can turn the Clock back. Kiki will fetch those still left behind. "
"But…how will reach Athena without passing the Temples? If you do, your fellows will attack you too. Teleportation works only from the outside to any given Temple, or from Temple to Temple, and going down."
"I intend to take another route. The Mountain is steep and hostile to those who attempt climbing it, but it is not unsurpassable. Marin managed. And I am a Mountain man!"
Suddenly, Mu's eyes took on a cheeky glitter and he grinned the lopsided grin that was so typically his. "Did you think I spend all of my years in Jamir sitting around and meditating, waiting for Saints to come and have their Cloths repaired? I've climbed a fair few mountains in my time, and Greece is hardly the Himalayas!"
"OK, that went too fast for me." said Esk, " I dropped Greek in fifth year anyway. Translation, please, Saint Michael Lookalike."
Ilya's heart sank. He did resemble the Archangel in his winged God-Cloth, and hated it. He did not want the Fields to think he placed himself on the same level as God's fighting Angel, although, with their customary irreverence towards the Deity, they would not mind him reeking of blasphemy.
Instead, the Fields quickly discussed what was to do. Sir Frederic approved of Mu's plan, but mr. Field looked intently at the Aries Saint as he said: "You are committing yourself to a venture without certain outcome, other than death."
"Death comes." said Mu, his face serene.
"Yes, and at my age one is prepared for it. You on the other hand are young. You have so much living to do yet, so much to look forward to…"
"Life is good." affirmed Mu, " I do not wish to die."
He turned to Ilya.
"This…is too difficult. Tell them that I wish…I wish my own father looked out for me like he does for his children. You are very fortunate."
"I know."
It seemed as if Mu wanted to say more, for his lips trembled, and he swallowed. Then, with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.
"That went wathew well." remarked Nick.
"Rather! Lets go then!" agreed sir Frederic.
In passing, the Intelligence Officer clapped his hand on Ilya's shoulder and spoke softly:
"Lad, I've had many men serving beside and under me, and I've seen them flag and fail, and then seen them doggedly go on, while trembling with fear or bereft of all hope; and there were times that I cursed the uniform. Never, though, have I seen such courage as yours. " He added, even more quietly: " One never stops being a soldier once one has donned the uniform, you know. The trick is to know when one has to be a soldier and when not. I have every confidence in you knowing when… and we are there to help you through."
The Englishman gave Ilya a small nod and began to ascend the Stairway to the Taurus Temple. Nick and Esk followed, but mr. Field lingered, staring at the spot where Mu had disappeared.
"A very likeable young man." he murmured, "Somehow he seems familiar. Ah, well, that must be his Tibetan side. He is obviously a half-breed like my late wife was. Yes, that must be it." He sighed, braced his shoulders and went after his sons.
Ilya too, sighed. He was not happy with being unable to change the Field's minds. This meant they would see things through till the end, and the end would be bitter, for he felt sure they would all die.
And yet they were no longer alone. June had let them pass, and Mu had placed himself squarely on their side. Somehow sir Frederic's plan of winning the hearts and minds of the Saints was working against all odds. What was it that Mu had said? That he wished his own father to have been so caring. Did the Aries Saint remember his parents still, Or perhaps, again?
"Maybe they, too can be identified and found for him. If we survive, I'll ask my friends to do that. Knowing him, Cap will probably have thought of that already. We owe it to Mu!"
Happy that the Aries Saint was a friend, he too started to climb the Stairway.
To be continued
Author's notes :
*Read: Tintin in Tibet
** There are many Tibetan dialects. As Mr. Field's brother-in-law Tsarong is a Khambo, it is likely that he chiefly knows the dialect of the nomadic people of Kham province.
*** The 1981 Boorman- movie of course, not the sword.