Chapter 7

Just a note: All of these chapters are in very rough form, and I appreciate any feedback you could give me. This is written for the middle-school level, too--so keep that in mind. Thanks for pointing out the typos as well!

Chapter 7

It was several minutes before the god appeared again.

Philipp and his morose mount had continued their flight silently. He had no idea where they were headed. He hoped the ram did at least.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where we’re going, do you?” Philipp asked timidly.

The ram grunted. “How should I know? One minute I was about to take a bite out of the best clump of meadow grass I’d seen in ages—next thing I know, I’m soaring through the air with yet another adventurous brat on my back.”

“So, is that a no?”

He was actually relieved when he heard the poppings of the reappearing god.

“How about a break, boys?” Hermes said cheerfully. He did a lovely swoop through the air and landed crosslegged on a large pink patch of cumulus.

The ram rumbled something inside and flew the two over to join him.

“My—my what a glorious day!” Hermes beamed a radiant smile.

“The Underworld, again?” Philipp asked.

”No—no—this was more personal business.”

“Did it have anything to do with me? Did you go see the person who you stole me for?”

Hermes knitted his eyebrows. “All in good time, boy, all in good time. I thought maybe Colchi needed a little bit of rest. He is getting pretty old—even for an immortal.”

“At least I’ve got a brain in my head,” the ram grumbled.

“Do you? I assumed it was stuffed. So, tell me, Philipp, what do mortals do to pass the time? I find mortals most fascinating.”

“Except adults and shepherds, right?” the boy added.

“Oh, yes—adults always seem to want to stab one another—or carry this one’s wife off. Plus, they’re always yelling your name in the middle of the night. Hermes, Hermes, look at me. I’m stabbing a cow for your glory. Who cares?”

“But stabbing a ram—“ Colchi croaked.

“I don’t have to worry about that as much as some of my bigger relatives. They never get a moment’s peace. That’s one of the perks of being a nobody, I guess.”

“Why would you need to know how to pass the time?” asked Philipp. “With your staff I wouldn’t think you’d need to.”

“Aren’t you a clever one?” The god laughed. “It’s complicated.”

“So?”

“It would take forever to explain and besides we’re thinking of a way to pass some time!”

“That’s what we mortals do: we talk!”

The god wrinkled his nose. “I know—way too much—I think you do it just to hear yourselves.”

“Tell me! I really want to know!” the boy said eagerly.

Hermes reluctantly agreed. “All right, but I’ll have to dumb it down so that your mortal mind can comprehend it.”

“Please…” Colchi snorted.

“It’s like this: Chaos is the fabric of existence. It is made up of two things: Space and Time. Time and Space are great things, and they work together very well—but Time is tricky. I can’t just go punching a hole in Time every time I feel like it.”

“Anymore…” the ram hissed.

“Quiet, you! Let’s use Colchi for an example. Imagine his fluff is Space.”

“It’s called fleece.”

“Imagine his fleece is Space, and Colchi himself is Time.” The god held up a rosy pointing finger. “If I move from here to here, it’s no problem.” He stuck his finger into the ram’s wool and dragged it up his side. The fluff matted down for a second but then popped right back up.

“What does that show ?” asked Philipp.

“It shows us that Colchi is in desperate need of a bath” said the god wiping his finger on his tunic. “But mainly that nothing about him has changed. Now, if I were wanting to poke a hole in Time—“

The god stuck his finger into the side of the ram, and it suddenly sunk in and appeared on the other side. “That’s a different story!”

The ram cried out, “NO TICKLING!”

“If we do that, we poke a hole in our dear Colchi, and we have some serious problems.” The god pulled his hand back through.

“Never stopped you before, you bloodthirsty—”

“Do you understand?” Hermes asked the boy, ignoring the ram.

“I think so—is that the reason you stopped? Did you get in trouble?”

The god raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know…it just seems…”

“Well, when you hold an instrument of such power, people start wondering if you’re responsible enough to handle it—then you go and have one little mishap, and everything starts to get blamed on you.”

“Short answer: yes,” said Colchi under his breath.

“Who made you stop?”

“Who else? Dad. Zeus.”

“Totally?”

“On special occasions I’ve been known to fudge a bit. But I have a Time restriction only. Space is fine.”

“Like when you take me back to my mom—we can go back then, right?” asked Philipp.

Hermes looked into the eager eyes of the little boy and hesitated. “Sure, Sheepboy, sure.”

“Okay! Now, I’ve got one more question.”

“You are quite the question factory!”

“What about the future? Can you go into the future?”

“Sure—you could if you wanted to—I’ve tried it in fact. The bad news is that it’s not happened yet—let’s say that it’s a sculpture in progress—all blurry—a total mess—makes you sick to be there.”

“I see. I guess that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, I guess so. We had better get going. This cloud’s not going to hold us up for too much longer. Plus, I think he’s gone by now.”

“Who’s he?”

“Oh, the Sun. We’ve had some bad business before—and it’s around noon, which means he’s directly overhead. I thought it might be better if we laid low for a while.”

“Why don’t we just appear where we need to be?”

“I’m only supposed to be using this thing for official Underworld business. I have to save up the juice for those trips. At least I got us this far. Now, Colchi, wake up—let’s get going.”

“I was imagining myself dead again. It suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Sheesh. Get a load of that smell,” the god fanned a hand at the ram. “Maybe we’ll fly through a rain storm to clear that up.”

Colchi drowsily flew back into the air, and the messenger god followed. They hadn’t flown fifty feet when Hermes commented:

“It is hot up here, or is it just me?”