Chapter 16

As he emerged onto the plateau, Prometheus was astounded by the sheer strangeness of his surroundings. It was as if this central flat area had nothing to do with the rest of the mountain, or indeed with the rest of the world. One of the huge silver fishes stood off to one side still now, resting. Nearby was the swarm of beetles standing in a neat line, ready to fly away. He shuddered, remembering Athena's invitation to him to get inside one.

In the centre was the weird, angular crag, and now he looked there were others beginning to take shape round about on the plateau and on the slopes beyond. One was nearly as wide as the main crag, but not as tall. Were they growing them?

At the far end of the plateau was a series of white mushrooms arranged in a straight line great, huge things surely the biggest mushrooms in the world! This was no doubt the grove where the Goddess grew her sacred mushrooms, the symbols of her power.

Athena, Artemis and Aphrodite were sitting on stump-like things at a sort of ledge near the grove. Both the things that they were sitting on and the ledge they were sitting at were unsettlingly regular, with pointed edges. Everything here seemed to be altogether too orderly and pointed arranged in series of objects all exactly the same shape and size as each other, lined up in neat rows beetles, mushrooms, crags. It reminded him of insects, the way they all made the same pattern over and over again like bees in a honeycomb.

The other Titans were exchanging nervous glances and seemed on the verge of running away.

But then Athena came running towards them smiling, and they fell to their knees and bowed their heads. All except Prometheus, who got down awkwardly on one knee, keeping the puppies cradled in one arm, and Pandora, who stood up straight and looked her right in the eye. There was something really weird about Pandora. Even when she wasn't being the Mother, she could be friendly or distant for no obvious reason. Maybe she hadn't decided who she was yet.

"Let me see. Let me see." Athena reached towards the bag of puppies. There was a slow warning growl from the mother and she snatched her hand back, sucking her finger as if the dog had actually bitten her.

"It is not a good idea to touch puppies when the mother is near," Prometheus said, and Athena nodded, slightly shocked.

"Sorry, I've never really had anything to do with live animals."

Prometheus was so amazed by this idea that he didn't say anything at all. How could anybody have nothing to do with live animals? How did they hunt? But he was saved from having to reply by Artemis, who had approached at a more leisurely pace.

"Hi, Prometheus, Pandora."

Pandora gave a curt nod, but Artemis was blithely unaware of it as she bent down to the mother dog, who did not, Athena noticed, growl at her.

"Hello, baby. How are you today?"

Artemis put her face right up to that of the dog, who not only didn't growl, but actually licked her cheek! Athena felt vaguely affronted.

"Ask him if the babies are OK." This to Athena. She passed the question on to Prometheus who nodded and grinned.

"Clever girl," Artemis said and stroked her hand along the dog's back, who responded by wagging her tale.

They all began to walk together towards the picnic tables. There were not enough chairs, of course, but perhaps it didn't matter, since the primitives eyed them with suspicion and then elected to sit on the ground.

Athena was dispatched to Hestia to see what she could do in the way of organising an impromptu feast.

Hestia rolled her eyes but was obviously delighted at being given the task.

"Help me arrange these, then," she said, and Athena dutifully arranged neat little pastries and snacks on trays, striving to conceal her burning impatience to get back to the others.

Zeus and Aphrodite had stood up to greet the group of primitives and seemed to be succeeding in carrying on some kind of conversation with Pandora, accompanying their mutually incomprehensible language with a great deal of gesticulation. It was amazing how much you could convey without words.

The Titans had already cracked open the pot of liquor they had brought with them and Athena, having escaped from Hestia by carrying over the snacks, was immediately sent back to get glasses. These were greeted with complete disbelief.

"What are they?" Prometheus asked.

"They're glasses," Athena said. "For drinking out of."

Prometheus shook his head.

"But you can see through them. Like water. Won't it just pour through?"

Athena shook her head and smiled.

"Here, try it." She held the glass out for him to pour the liquor in. He looked dubious but trickled some in. The liquid was thick and brown and looked vile.

Meanwhile, Artemis had fetched a sleeping bag from her tent and had settled the mother dog and her pups upon it. The puppies had immediately begun suckling, their tiny legs drawing up in an ecstasy of feeding frenzy. The mother let out a sigh that sounded almost human and lay gazing up at Artemis adoringly.

"She let Artemis near the puppies," Athena said, still somewhat miffed at the dog's previous behaviour.

"That's because Artemis saved her," he said, "and her puppies. Of course she trusts her."

"Would she remember that? I didn't know that dogs were so clever."

"Of course she does," said Prometheus. "Why not? Dogs think just like people do."

Athena mused on this for a moment.

"But you can't hear them think like you can hear people?"

"You can but they don't think in words like us. They mainly think in smells." Athena was astonished. "But how can you understand that?"

Prometheus stopped to work out how to explain. "When we're hunting it's nearly all smells and a lot of them we can't smell at all so we can't get it from the smell itself. But you learn to recognise what they're talking about by what they bring down after using a particular scent picture." He paused. "And anyway, they learn to think like us when they're talking to us. So between us we work it out. How else would we hunt together?"

Athena tried to catch the dog's thoughts but could pick up nothing, or as near as nothing. Maybe there was just a slight suggestion, a feeling of contentment.

"What's she thinking now, then?"

"I've no idea," Prometheus said. "You can only read thoughts when they are talked."

Athena thought about this and decided he was right. She could only hear her father's thoughts when he was actually speaking them aloud. When she caught thoughts that weren't part of a conversation she suspected he was talking to himself.

"What's that thing she's lying on?"

It was a sort of hide, he thought, but made of the same stuff as the butterfly dresses. Only it was very thick, thicker than a sheep's fleece, and had no colour at all.

"It's a" Athena hesitated, not sure how to describe it. "It's what we lie on when we go to sleep."

"Really? Even in the summer?"

The Tribe slept directly on the ground in summer. In the winter camp, when they stayed in one place for several months, they collected dried grasses and laid them on the floor with hides on top to sleep on. They all slept together, men, women, children and dogs, and it was very warm and comfortable as long as you weren't right at the edge.