Aeneas, looking over his shoulder at the wound in the landscape that was the death of Ilion of the topless towers, decided that he would defy the gods and find some way, any way to save his city. Paris should not have been born, he thought. If he had not been, or if Priam had done as he should have, Troy would be living and happy now, and I would still be with my beloved Creusa.

That night, he entreated his goddess-mother to come to him, as he prayed beneath the stars on the deck of his ship, with Troy still burning on the horizon, and Aphrodite, her hair unbound and her feet unsandalled, in her chariot drawn by sparrows, appeared before him.

"My son", she said, "What is it that you desire this time? Who has wronged you, Aeneas?"

"Mother, I beg this thing of you, in the name of Love, which is yours. Give me a way to change the fate of Troy."

Aphrodite shook her lovely head once and decisively. "No. The Fates have decreed the death of proud Pergama, and Father Zeus will not let anything happen to the contrary. And have I not done enough for you? I have saved you from Diomedes' wrath, even letting him mar my fair skin with his brutal spear, and now I have let you escape from Troy, parting the flames before you and veiling the eyes of the Achaeans so that they would not see you. I can do nothing more."

"Would that you had let me die with the city I love! I would rather be a slave in that greatest of cities than a king anywhere else. Grant me this thing, I beseech you!"

"I cannot give you what you ask," the goddess said, and closed his eyes with sleep.

Aeneas dreamed. He hid behind a rock near where the baby Paris played, before his Judgment, before his theft of Helen. His sword ready, he slipped out and slew the child, without remorse – for knowing what he knew, was it not better for one child to die than for many thousands and a great city? And then he felt may years pass and was again on the deck of a ship, fleeing the ruin of Troy.

He woke, sorrowing that it had not worked, that Troy was still dead, but said to himself, Troy can yet be saved. He fell back into sleep.

The great horse stood on the beach, towering into the sky. Around it his people wondered at its mass and height, not suspecting (his hands curled into fists) that it was pregnant with their ruin. And now Laocoon would run up and meet his fate and the horse would be brought inside… He addressed the multitude. "My people! This is disaster for us. If you bring this horse inside the walls, they will fall and not one of you will be left living on the morrow. I am not pitiable Cassandra or any unknown man who tells you these things but Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite and the cousin of King Priam… Burn it now, or Troy burns tonight!"

The people heed his words, and the horse burns, accompanied by the shrieks of the dying warriors hidden inside. But Troy cannot survive long cut off from her supply lines and soon the citizens die within their high walls…

Aeneas woke in a cold sweat. That is not how it was! he thought, and I did not make it worse… He closed his eyes once more.

In this dream he was someplace else, a place he did not recognize or define. It did not seem to be empty, but he could not see details. It did not seem white, but he could perceive no colors. Neither did he have the sense of existence as he had had in the other dreams – he felt no body, only a consciousness. "You do not know why" he heard, "only that Troy fell. You do not know every cause – perhaps if an arrow had flown straight, or had not flown straight your city would yet stand. Perhaps seeds of destruction were sown years ago, perhaps even at the city's birth. No mortal can change fate, for no mortal can know all the causes of an event, even one so simple as the fall of a leaf from its branch."

Aeneas woke and wept bitter tears as the spray broke and crashed onto the deck of the ship.