God, face and figure
unbelievably perfect, and a pleased, stupid smile spread all over his
countenance. Hermes/Mercury, slim and wily, with a foxy face and quick
movements, had slipped in silently. And all the others had been there,
too. Mars looked grim, but when Forrester was formally proposed for
Godhood, Mars made no objection.

The entire Pantheon had then gone single-file through a Veil of Heaven
to a room Forrester just couldn't remember fully. At the time, his eyes
simply refused to make sense out of the place. Now, of course, he
understood why: it didn't really exist in the space-time framework he
was used to. Instead, it was partially a four-dimensional
pseudo-manifold superimposed on normal space. If not perfectly simple,
at least the explanation made matters rational rather than supernatural.
But, at the time, everything seemed to take place in a chaotic dream
world where infinite distance and the space next to him seemed one and
the same. He knew then why Diana had told him that the word "machine"
could not describe the Gods' power source.

He had been seated there in the dream room. But it wasn't exactly
sitting; every spatial configuration took on strange properties in that
pseudo-space, and he seemed to float in a place that had neither
dimension nor direction. The other Gods had all seemed to be sitting in
front of him, all together and all at once--yet, at the same time, each
had been separate and distinct from the others.

He wanted to close his eyes, but he had been warned against doing that.
Grimly, he kept them open.

And then the indescribable began to happen. It was as though every nerve
in his body had been indissolubly linked to the great source of
God-power. It was pure, hellish torture, and at the same time it was the
most exquisite pleasure he had ever known. He could not imagine how long
it went on--but, eventually, it ended.

He was Dionysus/Bacchus.

And then it had been over, and a banquet had been held in his honor, a
celebration for the new God. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion, and
Forrester himself had been feeling pretty good until Mars, smiling a
smile that only touched his lips and left his eyes as cold and hard as
anything Forrester had ever seen, had come up to him and said softly:

"All right, Dionysus. You're a God now. I didn't touch you before
because we needed you. And I don't intend to kill you now; replacements
are too hard to find. I'm only going to beat you