Pandora Gets Lazy (14 page)

She gave one last glance into the void, staring at the large gray sphere with the ring, already floating off somewhere else, and the two suspended lifeless bodies of the reddish men; eyes bulging, mouths agape, now and forever a part of the heavens.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Meanwhile . . .

“Prometheus?”

Artemis had materialized in the middle of the main room, her enormous silver-stringed bow scraping both the floor and ceiling at once. Taking a long look around, she sighed deeply. She'd been in Prometheus's house before, but she couldn't bring herself even to
try
to comprehend how someone could live in such cramped surroundings . . .
by choice
! She suddenly became thrilled she was a goddess with lovely, spacious apartments on Mount Olympus and the freedom to roam the world on a whim, if she chose.

“Prometheus?”

“Prometheus isn't here, Huntress,” came a raspy voice from the stairwell. “Allow me to welcome you in his stead.”

“What in Hades?” said Artemis.

“I am his houseguest, a simple wanderer,” said the figure emerging from the shadows. It was an old man in the ragged clothes of a beggar, leaning heavily on a walking stick, his hair almost white, his eyes bandaged, indicating blindness.

“What are you doing?” asked Artemis.

“I'm trying to find the food cupboards to pour you a proper glass of—”

“Prometheus? What are you
doing
?” she asked again, this time, a slight giggle to her voice.

The old man stopped in his tracks with a small sigh, then he stood upright and took off the blindfold.

“You knew it was me?”

“Um, how shall I put this delicately?
Yes
!” Artemis laughed out loud.

“Did I fool you for a second?” Prometheus asked.

“For a split second, maybe.”

“Then maybe I can fool everyone for that long. Hey, what are you doing here? Where's Hermes?”

“Oh, when he got your prayer, he was just sitting down to his weekly father-son chat with Pan. Same thing every time: ‘Pan,
son,
it's not nice to chase maidens and nymphs and then turn them into reeds or echoes or pine trees when they run away.' Hermes is getting tired of having to explain to their parents why these girls won't be coming home for evening meal. At any rate, he sent me to see if I could assist in some way . . . but he needs to see this getup for himself. Stay right there, don't move a muscle!”

With a silver flash she was gone. Ten seconds later, in another silver flash, Artemis and Hermes were both standing in the main room.

“. . . no, Artie, the boy
doesn't
get it,” Hermes was saying. “I'd like to spank him, but he's half goat, and that's some hard flesh down there.”

He stopped and stared at Prometheus, then threw back his head with a laugh.

“Oh, Pro, pal, you have got to be kidding me! What, you've become an actor now? You're doing . . . lemme guess . . .
Oedipus II: The Reckoning
?”

“I need your help,” Prometheus said quietly.

“By my winged helmet, what did you put in your
hair
?” Hermes was now doubled over, one arm clinging to Artemis.

“Fat and white ash. I need your help,” Prometheus said again.

“This must be going around. First Hephaestus in that pirate beard and now you!”

“Hermes, I need you to help me.”

Hermes straightened up, realizing that his dear friend wasn't even smiling.

“Uh, okay. Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends. But before you ask, you gotta tell me about the old man act.”

“It's all part of it,” Prometheus said. “I haven't heard from Pandy in over two weeks. The last thing she told me was that she was on her way to Jbel Toubkal.”

“We know,” Artemis said.

“Okay, okay, you know,” Prometheus said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I get it. You guys know everything. Where she's going and what's happening and I don't and that's fine. But I don't know how she
is
. The shells aren't working.”

“It's the mountains, my friend,” Hermes said. “Take it easy.”

“I can't take it
easy
!” Prometheus cried. “Could you take it easy if something happened to Pan? Yes, he causes problems, but he's your
son
! Artie, could you take it easy if something happened to a baby animal that you loved? Huh? Could you?”

“No,” Artemis replied.

“No way!” Prometheus said, his chest beginning to heave. “So here's what I need. You don't like this disguise, fine! Find me another. Anything you want. Just get me on top of that mountain without Zeus seeing. Because she's going to meet Atlas, and my brother will, quite probably, tear his only niece to pieces!”

“Pro . . . my friend . . . I want to help, but . . .”

“He will kill her, Hermes. And then where will we all be, huh? Where will the world be? He doesn't know who she is and we don't know what condition he's in! When I last spoke to her, Pandora told me about a big black wall or something. I can't even guess what's going on. My point is, even with whatever power she's got, she's no match for him. I'm the only one he ever listened to growing up. I was his favorite brother. I'm the only one who can save her!”

“Prometheus,” Artemis began.

“No! Listen . . . a disguise. Change me! Zeus won't know. And then you can just zap me there.”

“Oh, yeah, zap you,” Hermes said.

“You know, Hermes”—Artemis shifted slightly, clearing her throat—“with the right touches, we might be able to—”

“Oh, don't start with me, you!” Hermes cried. “Do you know what Dad would do?”

“But Prometheus does have one salient point: if Pandora is killed, then what becomes of the world?”

“Right! Right!” Prometheus stepped forward, shaking his index finger at Artemis. “What she said! Listen to her!”

“Do you know what you're asking? Both of you?” Hermes dropped his voice. “Pal, your kid is fine. She had a brief moment just now where we thought we were gonna lose her, but nothing happened; she just changed the constellation Gemini from triplets to twins . . . Who's gonna care, am I right?”

He gave a nervous little laugh, but Prometheus stared him down.

“Pro . . . I . . . I just can't,” Hermes began.

Then Prometheus did something he'd never done before, to neither man nor god. Not when Zeus had captured him and chained him to the rock, not when he was brought before Zeus to receive the box, not even when he'd asked Sybilline to be his wife.

He got down on his knees.

“I'm begging you.”

“Aw, sheesh, Pro.” Hermes shuffled his feet.

“I'm begging you. My daughter will be killed and I'm the only one who can stop it. Nobody needs to know. I'll just be some old beggar who kept a Titan from slaughtering a little girl. Not even a smudge in the history scrolls.”

There was a long, long silence as Hermes looked at the ceiling.

“Please?” Prometheus whispered.

Hermes looked at Artemis, who arched her eyebrows and smiled ever so slightly.

Then he looked down at Prometheus and began to speak.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out and Up

When Pandy fell asleep the following night, she had noticed that the air around her, while still filthy and thick, was just slightly easier to breathe. But she was too exhausted to wonder why. Since their near-death experience the previous morning, she had worked feverishly to keep the boys in good spirits as they crawled forward, recounting the entire history of Greece (as much as she knew), telling about each of the gods, her beautiful white shepherd dog, and finally divulging almost all of her tale, except the really scary parts. After much humoring and prodding, she managed to get them to agree that they had both done something not terrifying, but
wonderful
, which no other human being would ever, ever do. They had actually
seen
the inside of the heavens. They had floated with the stars! Not even the gods did
that
. How special they were!

As the boys shifted their outlook from horrified to enchanted, they each seemed to find new strength and crawled without so much as a whimper.

Now, as Pandy awoke two days after that experience, she saw that the black void was suspended farther off the ground . . . at least a full meter. And the farther the line crawled, the higher the bottom lifted and the easier it was to breathe. At last, the entire line of captives was able to stand. But there was no time to stretch; everyone was forced onward, marching on bruised knees and feet. They passed the captain of the guards, standing alongside the road.

“Excellent job!” he yelled to his men at the front and rear. “We didn't have to kill anybody and we lost only one. And it was just a woman. No matter.”

No matter? This was not the first time that Pandy had listened to a man say a woman didn't matter: she flashed on the caliphs, the Channels of Earthly Displeasure, riding atop the slug tent at Wang Chun Lo's Caravan of Wonders, telling her they would not speak to her because she was female. What kind of a dummy would think that way? “Gods,” she thought, staring at the captain's sandals as she trudged by, “would they treat their mothers that way?” She wondered what Athena or Artemis or Aphrodite or even Hera would say about that.

A yank on her shackles from Ismailil told her that she was moving too slowly. Lifting her eyes, she was suddenly confronted with a view of the tallest mountain she'd ever seen (except for Olympus) directly in front of her.

Jbel Toubkal.

She couldn't possibly guess how high it was.

Even through the dense air she could see the base of the mountain, covered with brush, rise into barren slopes that were covered with snow. But the highest peak, almost covered by the bottom of the heavens, was distinguished with a faint orange haze.

She realized they were now in a huge bell-shaped dome, surrounded on all sides by a circle of the black heavens. Pandy caught a faint whiff of smoke from an unseen source. The morning sun could barely penetrate into the dome, and everything was dull, almost colorless. Only the orange haze, reflecting off the snow on the mountaintops, was obvious.

Pandy tripped on a rock, nearly toppling herself as she stared up. Jbel Toubkal was holding up the canvas of the heavens at the highest point. Then the canvas spread out, like the top of Wang Chun Lo's tangerine tent, over the taller of the surrounding mountains, which held the heavens like tent poles.

An hour later, as the slaves arrived at the very base of the mountain, the line was stopped for only a few minutes as the captives were tossed a few pieces of flatbread and a water-skin was passed down the line. Pandy managed to sneak an apricot to Amri and a fig to Ismailil while gulping down two slices of dried apple herself.

Then the line was moving again. Within the next five minutes, the road began to incline more steeply and narrowed to a slim, rocky path. Looking over her shoulder to check on Amri, Pandy saw another group of prisoners just emerging from underneath the void of the heavens many kilometers back.

For the rest of the day, they climbed. And climbed. Toward the evening, Pandy felt a sharp tug behind her and was convinced that Amri had somehow fallen off the path and was hanging off the side of the mountain.

But he had simply sat down, too tired to move any farther. Immediately, Pandy picked him up, determined to carry him to the top if necessary. It was then she realized that she herself was just not going to make it. She stumbled once and Amri clung to her neck. Then she stumbled again and just stayed on the road, every one of her muscles on fire, knowing she was about to be killed and tossed over the side. And not caring a bit as she fell asleep where she had fallen. She was done.

She snapped back into consciousness, not because Ismailil was shaking her, loudly crying that the rear guard was making his way up the hill, his sword drawn, but because there was something funny going on with her sandals.

All of a sudden, Pandy was jerked back upright. In fact, it was only her sandals that straightened out; her legs (and the rest of her) just followed. On their own, her sandals began to move forward up the hill. Her leg muscles weren't being taxed at all. Yet she was “walking.” She turned back to Amri; from the look on his face, he was experiencing the same phenomenon. Pandy gazed downward; his sandals were raised slightly off the ground, as were hers and Ismailil's. And then she noticed a small, bushy gray tail sticking out from under Ismailil's left heel. As she stifled a gasp, a small pinecone bounced sharply off her forehead. She looked around and finally spotted Dionysus's attack squirrel on a rock high above the path. She probably would have missed him if not for the fact that he was actually waving at her.

They were being carried on the backs of squirrels. Squirrels with the strength of Hercules.

The entire episode happened so fast that everyone was moving forward by the time the guard reached Amri.

“What happened?” he snarled.

“I just fainted . . . for a moment,” Pandy said, trying to at least look like she was walking. “I'm sorry.”

“Should have left you three in the darkness when we had the chance,” the guard muttered as he tromped away. “Nothing but trouble.”

As true darkness fell, the prisoners were herded off the path and onto a flat area halfway up the mountain. The top of Jbel Toubkal was much closer, and the orange haze was now a glow. At this higher elevation, the cold descended quickly. The captain and his guards gathered underneath a small rocky overhang, built a fire, and roasted their evening meal, staying warm as they passed a wineskin.

The prisoners, exposed to freezing air, huddled together for warmth after eating their meager rations. Pandy gathered the boys underneath her mother's cloak, pulling it over all their heads, but it was still insufficient, and in minutes both Amri and Ismailil were shivering violently. She thought her furry wolfskin diary might help and was just undoing the pouch strap when she felt dozens of soft little paws crawling all over the top of the cloak.