Pandora Gets Lazy (19 page)

The fires were so hot that it took only ten minutes exactly before the wet mud had been baked hard enough to imprison each man.

“They bake the cylinder, but not the man,” Pandy said.

“They have it down to a science,” Iole went on, tapping her shears to a curious guard.

“Iole!” said Pandy as a thought struck her. “Why didn't you give Homer the Eye of Horus? He might not feel any effects at all. It might have saved him!”

“Oh, of course! Why didn't we think of that?” Iole said sarcastically.

“I only meant . . . ,” Pandy said quickly.

“As if we even knew what was going to happen to him when we were led in here? As if we weren't shackled ourselves and couldn't move! You're certainly not serious, are you?”

“I'm sorry, Iole,” Pandy said. “That was stupid of me to even ask.”

“We couldn't have done it, duh,” Alcie said. “But don't think we didn't think about it. Lemons, I even tried to slip it around his neck when I went up to feed him, but his neck's so thick it won't go around. I found a longer piece of leather and was going to give it to him, but they took him off my rounds yesterday, so I've only been able to see him from far away.”

“I'm sorry, guys . . . it was dumb.”

“Apology accepted. So is this giving you any ideas of how to get him out?” Iole asked.

“Um, absolutely,” Pandy lied.

Without warning, a shout went up.

“Number one,
done!
” a slave called.

Over at the first oven, the black cloth was ripped away, the man underneath gasped for air. The platform was swiveled sideways and the cylinder rolled back onto the ground and away. The whole process began again. Ovens were loaded and unloaded three more times while the girls watched.

“Come on,” Pandy said at last, “take me to Homer.”

“Ooooh, you've got a plan! I can tell. Iole, she's got a plan!” Alcie squealed, then she yawned widely.

“Oh, Alce, when do you sleep?” Pandy asked.

“I can't sleep,” Alcie said. “Not with Homie up there. I try, but I can't shut off my mind.”

“Don't say a word,” Iole mumbled to Pandy.

They slowly made their way to the far side of the village, passing other wells and mixing pits and prebaking ovens. And everywhere, columns.

“Watch this,” Iole said, bringing them to a halt at one point and gesturing to a column and a huge piece of strange equipment nearby.

“What's that?” Pandy said.

“An LPLD,” Alcie replied matter-of-factly.

“Once more, in Greek, if you please?” Pandy asked.

“A Large Portable Lifting Device,” Alcie said.

“We have no idea what the actual name is,” Iole said. “Alcie came up with LPLD because she's not clever when she's tired.”

“I have no problem admitting that,” Alcie said with a shrug.

The LPLD was being rolled into position alongside the column. For a second, Pandy was reminded of the scaffolding she would see periodically on the sides of buildings or temples back home when workers needed to repair something high up on the exterior. But this contraption looked more ominous. It was a huge array of beams, boards, ropes, and spinning wheels; the entire device was only slightly taller than the man on the column (almost reaching the very bottom of the heavens).

“It's sort of a pulley,” Pandy said.

“That's what I said,” Alcie replied. “It's a pulley.”

Two slaves raced up two wooden ladders, then transferred onto two ropes hanging down on either side from the top of each column.

“Oh, I get it . . . a regular ladder could never go up that high,” Pandy said.

“Well, it could,” Alcie said, “but it would be unwieldy.”

Pandy looked at her.

“That's what Iole told me.”

The slaves, now at the top, each grabbed two hooks from the pulley, dangling in the air close by, and set the hooks into grooves in the top section.

At a signal, slaves manning the ropes lifted the top section off and lowered it to the ground. Then, just as quickly, the new section with a new slave was lifted high and set into place.

“Raise your arms, slave!” commanded a guard on the ground. Slowly, the man in the new section lifted his arms, the muscles on his back tensing and straining as he began holding up his own little section of the heavens.

“But what about the used-man?” Pandy asked.

“Watch,” said Iole.

With picks and hammers, two men began pounding on the hard clay of the old section until it simply crumbled. The used-man fell limply onto the ground, where he was lifted to his feet and led away.

“Why is his bottom half twisted and red?” Pandy asked quietly. “It wasn't exposed.”

“That much weight . . . that high up?” Iole said. “I don't think we'll ever know what it must be like. The sun and weight penetrates, I'm certain.”

“My Homie is losing his silky smoothness,” Alcie said quietly.

“Oh, please,” Iole muttered.

“What? I'll still like him!” Alcie said.

Pandy had never really stopped to think about her uncle and what his life had been, and would be again, if she could get Laziness back in the box. She had taken for granted that the heavens would always be far, far overhead. It was just something normal, like Sabina's bad cooking. She hadn't really pondered what strength and courage it took to bear the heavens,
the whole thing
, all alone. She looked up: everywhere around her men were sunk into columns, their arms and backs being twisted and crunched, baked into bizarre, gruesome statues.

The girls continued walking until they were close to the inner wall of the mountain that sloped up to the ridge. An enormous guard stepped directly into their path.

“Why aren't you three working?” he demanded.

“Excuse us,” Iole said, tapping her shears. “Out of our way, please.”

“What's that? Huh? Okay, so you have a tiny pair of clippy things around your neck, so what? Get back to work!”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I am assistant to the barbers of Atlas and as such I have been given liberty to traverse this entire village in peace and safety. And they are with me.”

“I know nothing about this.”

“What are you . . .
new
?” asked Alcie.

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Iole said, “well, I urge you to ask anyone, and now, if you please.”

“I don't think so.” The guard grabbed Iole by her arm.

“That arm was recently broken, sir,” she said calmly but sternly, “and if you break it again and I am unable to satisfactorily perform my duties,
you will be broken
, sir,
by Atlas himself
!”

“All right, suppose what you say is true,” said the guard after a moment, releasing his grasp, “what are you doing out here? And what are these others doing with you?”

Iole hesitated a moment too long.

“Yeah, I thought so,” said the guard, grabbing for Iole once more.

“Atlas wants a new look!” Pandy blurted out.

Iole and Alcie just turned to stare at her.

“A what?” asked the guard.

“Yessss,” said Pandy, wondering exactly what was coming out of her mouth next, “he's tired of having black hair and he wants to go blond.”

“Thaaat's riiiiiight,” said Alcie.

“Atlas sent you out here to find a new
hair color
?” the guard asked.

“Precisely,” said Iole. “After much research and experimentation, he's decided that the hair color he wants is exactly the same as that of the youth on that column.”

She pointed to a column about twenty meters away on the slope. Alcie quickly readjusted Iole's arm to a different column in the same area.

“So we have to bring him in . . . have to get him down,” Pandy said.

“So we can match it,” Alcie said.

“That's why she's out here,” said the guard, nodding at Iole. “But you two don't have the little clippy things around your necks.”

“We're consulting,” Pandy said. “I previously worked at Calypso's Clay Pot Beauty Emporium in Athens. I was an expert in color.”

“And so was I,” said Alcie.

Pandy spied an LPLD being hauled toward a nearby column.

“Ah, perfect! Right on time,” she said. “Iole, would you please redirect that pulley toward the . . . column . . . that we need it, uh, under?”

“Certainly,” Iole said, running off.

“And since you're here,” Pandy continued to the guard, “it would be so helpful if you could supervise.”

“I don't know,” he said at last, a scowl creeping over his face. “This doesn't sound right. I need to talk to my captain.”

“Well, I'm sure he'll say the same,” Alcie called after him, but he was already clomping out of sight.

“Sour plums! He's gonna come back and he's gonna be mad!” She whirled on Pandy. “So, Atlas is gonna
dye his hair
?
This
was your big plan?”

“I didn't have a plan!” Pandy cried, racing after Iole and the portable pulley.

“But I thought you had a plan!” yelled Alcie, running to catch up.

“I never had a plan!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Homer up High

With Iole directing the slave guard, the LPLD was almost in position underneath Homer's column.

“How are we gonna get him out, huh?” Iole heard Alcie say to Pandy as the two girls caught up.

“I don't know yet,” Pandy responded.

“She doesn't have a plan.” Alcie smirked at Iole.

“So I surmised,” Iole said to Pandy.

Alcie ordered two slaves to help her position the two short ladders.

“We'll get him down and then we'll figure it out,” Pandy said, totally unsure of what was going to happen next.

“Come on,” Alcie said to Pandy.

Alcie began climbing one ladder while Pandy followed up the second.

“Wait! Oh Gods,” Alcie cried when she was only a few meters high. “Hang on . . .”

Alcie fumbled in her pouch for a moment, then withdrew the Eye of Horus on a long leather strand.

“Got it!” she cried.

Alcie rushed up her ladder again, passing Pandy. After only a few meters, they transferred onto the rope ladders hanging from the top. Neither girl spoke until they were almost eighteen meters high. Then Pandy stopped.

“Alce!”

“What's wrong?” Alcie called down.

“I . . . just looked down. I . . . I . . . can't move,” Pandy said. Her teeth were chattering a little and her knuckles were turning white as she gripped the ropes.

Alcie descended her rope ladder and leaned out to look Pandy in the eye.

“Look at me. Pandy, look at me! You've been this high up before . . . Olympus, right? The Chamber of Despair in Egypt?”

“I know, but . . . but . . . the ground just kinda rushed away from me,” Pandy said, closing her eyes and swaying a tiny bit. “Oh Gods, all I can think about is falling out of Apollo's chariot.”

“Okay, right, that was bad. But . . . but . . . you're here! You lived! Figs! Look at me! You can do this. You made it this far without missing a single step, and you're almost there! Now, look at me, right in the eyes . . . good girl . . . now take one step. Just one.”

“I can't,” Pandy whispered.

“Don't gimme that! Pomegranates. You can do anything. I've seen you! Anything. Except maybe come up with a good plan. Now, with me, one step.”

Pandy put her foot on the next rung of the rope ladder, then quickly took it down again.

“Can't.”

“Pandy, keep looking at me. Listen, Homer is up there and he is counting on us. On you. On
you
, okay? Now, with me.”

Pandy looked at Alcie and didn't move her eyes. Slowly she climbed the next rung.

“Good girl! Okay, let's think about something really great,” Alcie said, climbing just a little faster, forcing Pandy to keep up. “Like how much Tiresias the Younger is gonna soooo like you when we get home and he hears about how you saved the world and everything.”

“He got . . . t-t-turned into a g-girl, remember?” Pandy said, breathing hard.

“I'm not saying there won't be adjustments. Keep it in the positive! Like with Homie and me. He totally, like, lives in a different city, but we're gonna write and stuff . . .”

“Alcie, Tiresias the Younger is a girl!” Pandy said, climbing without really thinking.

“. . . and we're gonna see each other during festivals . . . and here we are!”

Alcie stopped climbing only two meters from the top.

“Not so bad. Okay,” she said, “I've seen them do this. Reach out and grab the two hooks closest to you.”

Pandy saw the hooks, easily within reach, yet still she closed her eyes as she grabbed for them, horrified of looking down.

“Got 'em?” Alcie asked.

“Wait, yes.”

“Good. Now, put the hooks in the two grooves on your side. Don't . . . don't look down! Look at me, if you have to. Are they in?”

“Yes,” Pandy said, hooking the second rope.

“Good, now wait a moment before we signal to the ground,” Alcie said, climbing higher.

“Hi, Homie,” Pandy heard Alcie say. “Pandy's with me and we're gonna get you down. Pandy . . . Pandy, come up here.”

Gods, Pandy thought, this was how it was all gonna end. No Hera, no enchantment, no magic. Just a fall off a rope ladder.

“Hi,” she said, slowly climbing the last few rungs of the rope ladder to bring herself up to one side of Homer. Then she caught her breath.

Homer's back was almost completely twisted around and his skin, the color of a ripe peach, had tiny wrinkles in most places.

“Hi, Homer,” she said again.

But Homer didn't speak; he didn't even acknowledge they were there. His eyes were shut tight, his mouth was set in a terrible grimace. His breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. Pandy saw the darkness over his head, huge stars once again so close by, and Homer's hands pressing on something transparent.