Achilles’ hand is still on the hilt of his sword—half drawn from its beautifully tooled scabbard—but Athena has grabbed him by his long hair and physically turned him toward her, and he does not dare draw the sword now. To do so would be to challenge the goddess herself.

But Achilles’ eyes are blazing—more mad than sane—as he shouts into the thickened, syrupy silence that accompanies these time-freezes, “Why! Damn, damn, why now! Why come to me now, Goddess, Daughter of Zeus? Did you come to witness my humiliation by Agamemnon?”

“Yield!” says Athena.

If you’ve never seen a god or goddess, all I can do is tell you that they are larger than life—literally, since Athena must be seven feet tall—and more beautiful and striking than any mortal. I presume their nanotechnology and recombinant DNA labs made them that way. Athena combines qualities of feminine beauty, divine command, and sheer power that I didn’t even know could exist before I found myself returned to existence in the shadow of Olympos.

Her hand stays wrapped in Achilles’ hair, bending his head back and making him swivel away from frozen Agamemnon and his minions.

“I’ll never yield!” shouts Achilles. Even in this frozen air that slows and mutes all sound, the man-killer’s voice is strong. “That pig who thinks he’s a king will pay for his arrogance with his life!”

“Yield,” says Athena for the second time. “The white-armed goddess Hera sped me down from the skies to stop your rage. Yield. ”

I can see a flicker of hesitation enter Achilles’ crazed eyes. Hera, Zeus’s wife, is the strongest ally of the Achaeans on Olympos and a patroness of Achilles since his odd childhood.