QBLH
The Five of Pentacles:
The Earth who is happiest
in peaceful growing
cannot stand the evolving
and destructive motions at all.
Worry
Chapter LXIX
We bathe in your light
Using Idiot, Jim fabricated a simple enclosure—no more than a narrow chamber resembling a vertical coffin. At his command, one side opened without hinge or door. Jim stepped inside, and the fourth wall re-formed seamlessly around him. To any outside observer, nothing remarkable occurred.
Yet the Box did not move. It never truly occupied the tent in Anatolia at all.
Instead, the surrounding world appeared to contract while the Box remained fixed, anchored outside ordinary space. Time itself paused for the duration of the transfer. When Jim returned, it would be to the exact instant of departure, as if no interruption had occurred.
The Box functioned as a singularity—appearing and vanishing as a discrete point in space-time, leaving no trace of passage.
In the next moment, Jim emerged into an adjacent manifold contiguous with Xiang’s chamber. Opening what appeared to be an ordinary door, he stepped into a small room and found Xiang in conversation with Hatshepsut.
She saw Jim and gasped.
Forgetting Xiang entirely, Hatshepsut rushed forward and seized him, pressing a delighted, unrestrained kiss upon his lips.
“So happy to see you again, darling,” she breathed. “You came for me?”
Jim glanced briefly at his son, then returned his attention to Hatshepsut with a cool, deliberate composure.
“I take it you love my son, Hattie?”
The question struck its mark. Hatshepsut froze, remembering her pledge. She had sworn herself to Qblh, yet by Isis’s edict she had loved Xiang. The contradiction trembled visibly within her.
“Forgive me, my lord,” she said softly. “I have loved no other—and I love you no less. Do you no longer care for me?”
Jim’s expression softened despite himself.
“Of course I care, Hattie. I could not resist troubling you just a little. But our time together has passed—or nearly so.”
“No,” she said at once, smiling through the tension. “It is the future. We were trapped in time. Isis did not know how to return us to Artemis. She promised us that you would.”
Jim said nothing. His sister had been devastatingly effective in her conquest of Earth. Yet history would show that her dominion could not endure—or if it did, Jim preferred a rule unseen, unannounced, and unremembered.
Hatshepsut continued, her voice rising with reverence.
“Need we say that we venerate you, Qblh?
Your understanding is secret, subtle, and sublime.
Who shall name thee without veneration,
without the prostration of soul, spirit, and body
before thy goodness—
as by your favor we bathe in your lustful and illimitable light?”
Xiang watched in silence, unsettled. Hatshepsut did not merely love Qblh—she worshipped him. The imbalance stung. He attempted to draw her attention, but she clung instead to Jim, seeking even the smallest acknowledgment.
She was aroused as well, eager, insistent.
Jim felt the familiar pull. Hatshepsut had always been a weakness. Yet he did not yield. To them, he was an unfathomable mystery—the eternal Qblh of Artemis. To himself, the mystery was known, and it demanded restraint.
Egypt would have to survive without Hatshepsut. The age of Isis was ending. Destiny required clarity.
Sensing Xiang’s growing impatience, Jim made his decision. Xiang and Hatshepsut could no longer remain together. John’s offer to tutor Xiang returned to him, fully formed.
“Genie,” Jim said calmly, “contact John. Tell him Xiang is ready.”
“Understood, Qblh.”
Hatshepsut watched as a sphere blossomed from empty air. She recognized it immediately—a royal Venetian merkabah unit. When it opened, Aphrodite and John stepped through.
Jim faltered only briefly. He had little memory of his mother, and discovering her alive unsettled him more than he expected.
Aphrodite smiled gently at Hatshepsut.
“You did well, my dear. I relinquished my empire to walk beside my husband through time. Once we leave a moment, we cannot return to it.”
The revelation overwhelmed Hatshepsut. She collapsed without a word.
Jim absorbed the shock in silence. Xiang, by contrast, accepted it with ease, smiling faintly at his father. Jim flushed as he realized the resemblance—how easily he might confuse one for the other.
Aphrodite spoke again, her voice warm and steady.
“You wonder if I crowned Isis too soon. We have always been figureheads, my son. Artemis tolerates no change, only stewardship. Your work—and Xiang’s—has ensured the survival of both Artemis and Earth for generations. John and I have traveled many times. There will be many more.”
She turned to Xiang, pinching his cheek playfully.
“We would like to borrow you.”
John placed his hands on Xiang’s shoulders, guiding him gently toward the merkabah.
“Do I really have a choice?” Xiang asked.
“There is no other way,” Jim replied. “I must return her. You must go with the family.”
Aphrodite kissed Xiang’s brow, assuring him the journey would be delightful. John smiled at Jim.
“I’ll call you.”
Then they were gone.
Jim turned back to Hatshepsut, still unconscious.
“Idiot,” he said quietly, “prepare an isolation manifold. She must be delivered to Artemis before she wakes.”
“No problem, Jim.”
A stasis field formed, enclosing Hatshepsut. The manifold contracted into nothingness.
Jim stood once more in his tent within the Amazon camp.
Satisfied, he shifted his focus to Medea. After that would come his marriage to Antiope.
Genie’s solution was immediate.
“We will place them aboard the Pegasus before it is returned to Artemis. I always have her coordinates. Isis will assume you are returning her servants to safety and will not question it.”
Time twisted easily for Idiot; convenience was sufficient justification.
Hatshepsut would awaken months later in Artemis orbit, unaware that no time had passed at all.
Jim’s thoughts returned to Medea—and to the Golden Fleece.
Low profile was essential. He had learned this lesson repeatedly in simulation.
“Idiot,” he said, “what of the dragon’s teeth?”
“It is a riddle,” Idiot replied.
Jim listened.
Two bulls of bronze…
the seed of armed men…
the destruction of those who rise from it.
“A riddle of stopping war,” Jim said. “And its inheritance.”
“Which aligns with our mission.”
“And others may interfere,” Jim added. “As they already have.”
With Hatshepsut and Xiang withdrawn from Egypt, the currents of history were once again permitted to follow their natural course. Thera now lay abandoned—its people long gone, its harbors silent. Vast lava fields still bled into the sea, raising choking clouds of ash and steam where fire met water. Sailors feared those waters instinctively. They spoke in hushed tones of a lake of fire veiled by demonic mist, a place where ships vanished and gods withdrew their favor. As they altered course, I read the terror on their lips even before their helms turned away.
“Then it seems,” Jim said, “that we must reach the palace of Minos before Moses confronts Pharaoh.”
“No,” came the reply. “Crete must be confronted after Moses. Egypt must fracture first.”
Jim paused. “Why Crete?”
“Because Crete is the backbone,” Idiot answered. “The Minoan thalassocracy underpins Philistine power. Their maritime reach, their ritual economies, and their priesthoods flow outward from Crete into the Levant. Baal worship, goddess cults, and blood-ritual economies do not originate in the desert—they arrive by sea. Crete is the distributor. Philistia is the receiver.”
“Their gods travel with their ships,” Jim said.
“Yes. And their myths will later be softened, aestheticized, and preserved as classical mythology—stripped of their original brutality, but not their influence.”
“And Troy?” Jim asked.
“Troy follows the collapse of Minoan dominance. With Crete diminished, Troy rises to control the Hellespont—the choke point between worlds. Whoever holds Troy controls passage between the Aegean and the Black Sea. It becomes the rival hinge upon which the emerging Greek city-states must turn.”
“And Colchis?”
“Colchis is older than Troy and farther east. It is the western gate of the great trade artery reaching toward the Caspian and beyond—to the Silk routes and the distant Orient. Its king controls the eastern sea lanes. Another power beyond him governs the overland passage, maintaining balance between east and west.”
Jim considered this, then asked, “And the Amazons in the Orient?”
“Neutralized,” Idiot replied. “We executed a clean withdrawal when we intercepted the Pegasus. Isis herself summoned all Amazons westward for conference. No emissaries remain out of position.”
The board was clearing. The pieces were falling back into place.
History, once nudged, was resuming its relentless march.