Hermes Trismegistus

"This matter was very distant from us now, and you have heard it countless times, but every day, I must sing his story to you."

As the desolate notes of a lyre sounded, an aged voice lifted and began to sing.

"Our city-state was once under the protection of a demigod. He was a child of Hermes twice-great, able to travel a thousand miles in a day. By his keen eyes and nimble feet, he conveyed the oracles of the great god Hermes, and only then did we survive one assault after another by the armies of the underworld." Bards had a unique skill: they could cram any sentence, no matter how different, into their unchanging tunes. "But a demigod could never stand against a true god, even if He was an evil god, an underworld fiend spurned by fate. Our city fell, but the demigod who protected us invited the source of his power—"

The old man drew in a deep breath, forced out an exaggerated, masklike expression, and cried out the name he praised in a faraway cadence:

"Our savior, Hermes Trismegistus!"

The true face of Hermes Trismegistus would never be glimpsed by mortals; the people who lived upon the earth could kiss only his busy shadow.

At times he was a silver eagle called "Vedrfolnir" by the northern barbarians. Its feathers held a metallic sheen, every plume reflecting the ugliness and beauty of souls like a mirror. With sharp eyes, it watched everything in the world, and all things—including those underworld dead that writhed and crawled hidden in the darkness—had nowhere to hide beneath his gaze.

Sometimes that eagle would stand atop a young man's head. Egyptians who had run here from the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea told us this was Thoth from their