"On your way! Back to your valley!"
Lightless, the sky seemed only a black blanket drawn over his head. The winds once more gusted, tearing angrily at trees and bushes. The thunder rumbled ominously in preparation for another lightning strike.
"Marry for yourself a simple galleymaid. Do not anger the mighty Zeus! Husband to Athena? Bah!"
He shrank back in dismay, wide-eyed.
Though he was silent, Athena bravely replied. "He has saved me from your evil brother, Pluto. He has risked his life for mine. He shall be rewarded. Oh mighty Zeus, if you love me, grant this to me."
Rumblings reverberated from the walls of the mountain canyon. Finally they give way to silence. Then, with brief lightning flashes from cloud to cloud, there is a response.
"Very well, my dear. Perhaps it shall be as you desire. He's a brave young man. Striking down a minion of Pluto alone does not, of itself, make him deserving. Nevertheless, he may indeed join us on Olympus."
The voice stopped, the clouds darkened even more. The mountain, in the midst of day, is black as midnight.
By the sound alone he knows that Athena again reaches her hand to him. And again a bolt from the sky separates the two.
"No! First he must prove himself worthy." The voice once more thunders. "To win the hand of a Goddess is not an easy chore. But, if you prove yourself, it shall be as you desire. First, though, . . .," - and now the voice grew soft and warm with an assumed kindness.