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three-headed dog of Greek mythology who guards the doors to Hades, I guard the three doors to the Dei, the secret of its origins. You, Athanasius, though you do not know it, guard the secret to its destiny.”
    Athanasius, sinking down on his knees beside the old man, said, “I want to know everything.”
    “The first thing you must know is that the Dei is only thirty years old, but the powers behind it are much, much older,” Cerberus told him. “I come from a family of stargazers and assassins, cousins to the Dovilins. We have been assassins for hire, run out of Cappadocia, since the days of the Hittite kings, and before that Egypt. My side of the family took a different turn when my great-grandfather followed the stars to Bethlehem to assassinate Jesus at his birth on orders from King Herod. But three stargazers from the East convinced him otherwise, and my family ever since has served the Lord.”
    Athanasius nodded. “But not the Dei.”
    “No. As I told you, the spirit of the Dei goes back centuries, to before the pharaohs of Egypt and the fall of Atlantis, all the way to the creation of the universe. They follow the stars in everything they do, from the founding of Rome to great military campaigns to the planting of crops.”
    Athanasius looked at Gabrielle. “Forecasting. You chart the stars to grow grapes.”
    “We use the seasons and cycles of recorded history to make better guesses for farming,” Cerberus said. “Not to chart our lives. A man reaps what he sows, regardless of what the stars may say. Which is more than I can say for the Romans, who conscripted my services during the Judean War thirty years ago.”
    “Vespasian,” Athanasius said. “The first head.”
    “You were right, Gabrielle,” Cerberus said. “He is quick to connect the dots.” Cerberus took a breath. “Yes, Vespasian, and then his son Titus. They wanted to know their enemy’s intricate Jewish calendars and Sabbaths and use the stars against them. Then, after destroying Jerusalem, they brought the treasures of the temple to Rome and erected a vast coliseum, the Flavian Amphitheater. All this you know now. But what you don’t know is that the Dei was forged in the ashes of the Judean War between three men: Vespasian, Dovilin and Mucianus.”
    Mucianus! Athanasius thought. Surely it was no coincidence that the last apostle John directed him to the memoirs of the former Syrian governor in the library at Ephesus.
    “Mucianus was the mastermind who put the Flavians and Dovilins together,” Cerberus said. “Domitian’s father Vespasian had been given a special command in Judea by Nero with orders to put down the Great Jewish Revolt almost thirty years ago, and Mucianus supported him with arms and troops and passage across the Anatolian plains. After Nero died and there was civil war for control of Rome, Mucianus marched on Rome on behalf of Vespasian with an army drawn from the Judean and Syrian legions—and Dovilin mercenaries and assassins. Meanwhile, Mucianus had Vespasian travel to Alexandria, where he was proclaimed emperor, and secure control of the vital grain supplies from Egypt. Vespasian’s son Titus remained in Judea to deal with the Jewish rebellion.”
    “Where was Domitian in all of this?” Athanasius asked. “He had to have been 17 or so during the Year of Four Emperors.”
    “Under Mucianus’s protection in Rome while Vespasian was in Egypt,” Cerberus said. “Domitian was the nominal head of Rome in the months before his father finally arrived to claim the throne. But for all practical purposes Mucianus was the de facto emperor of Rome.”
    “What happened to Mucianus later on? He seems to have disappeared from Roman life entirely, leaving only his travelogue of Asia Minor.”
    “That is a very good question, Athanasius, and you must find the answer, because the Dei has evolved considerably from Mucianus’s original three-fold purpose,” Cerberus explained. “The first purpose of the Dei was to