Then Atlas slid the last few meters feetfirst, dragging Pandy behind him in the dirt.
He crashed into the closest column, which caused a chain reaction as sections burst apart, smashing into other columns close by. In less than a minute, seventeen columns crashed to the ground.
The sections that hit Atlas's body only glanced off, but the top section, with the slave in it, hit him in just the right soft spot in the middle of his forehead, dazing Atlas to the point that he just lay on the ground, very confused. Pandy stumbled over to her uncle, only somewhat aware of Iole racing down the slope toward her. She clambered onto Atlas's torso, causing the Titan to moan in pain with her every move, and walked over his great barrel chest and thick neck until she was right below his chin. Taking the hair in her hands, Pandy said a short prayer to all the Olympians at once and pulled with all her might. She was unaware that the residual heat from her body was charging up through the hair to its root, causing the skin around it to expand; in fact, now that she was standing so close, Atlas's entire face was turning beet red and his already massive pores were expanding with sweat.
She had used almost all the strength she had and was just starting to realize that it was not going to be enough when . . .
Pop.
The mutant hair flew out of Atlas's nose like a rock out of a slingshot, sailed past Pandy's face, whipped out of her hands, and stuck in the dirt almost five meters away.
Immediately, Pandy felt Atlas's body go limp and saw his head roll to one side. Pandy leapt off Atlas's chest as Iole ran up, the small wooden box already held tight in her hand.
“Ready?” Pandy asked.
“Ready,” Iole said.
The two girls dashed off to find the end of the hair.
“Well, Achilles' tendon!” Iole said when they came upon the bulbous mass, now covered with dirt. “No wonder you had such a hard time getting Laziness out.”
“The hair itself isn't Laziness,” Pandy said. “I grabbed it and . . . nothing. It's concentratedâit's all right at the end.”
“You forgot the net, you know,” Iole said.
“Thank you, Miss Obvious!”
The end of the hair was at least three times the thickness of the hair itself. It was, under the dirt, milky gray and looked like a large, filmy, slimy rope that had been wound around the end of a stick.
“Looks like the things my dad uses to clean out his ears, only bigger,” Pandy said.
“Oh, too much information!” Iole said.
“What
ever
,” Pandy said. “Let's just pull it off and get it in the box. Net, please.”
Iole fished out the adamant net from Pandy's pouch and handed it over. Then Iole slid Pandy's hairpin out of the clasp on the wooden box and readied herself to open the lid when Pandy gave the order. Pandy wrapped her right hand in the net and moved toward the bulbous mass. Instantly, the sickening gray matter began pulsating, as if it had a heartbeat.
“Not expecting that,” Iole said.
“Fine, so it's . . . alive,” Pandy said. “Fine.”
She was almost upon it when the slimy strand began to uncoil itself from around the hair.
“Gods!” Pandy cried, stepping back. “It's a . . . it's a . . . what
is
it?”
Suddenly, as one end fell to the ground, a large mouth opened up, revealing many rings of sharp gray teeth. Then, just as quickly, the mouth closed up again.
“Incredible!” Iole said, the wooden box dropping to one side. “It's a parasite!”
“What?”
“Makes perfect sense!” Iole gasped. “Laziness was feeding off your uncle, sapping his strength and energy while it lived in his nose.”
“Too much information!” Pandy yelled.
The parasite, Laziness, was now fully uncoiled, stretching itself along the ground almost half a meter. At once, the sickly creature began slithering away in the dirt.
“Oh, no you don't!” yelled Pandy, reaching out with the net, but the parasite was too quick and was slithering faster than she could move. Pandy and Iole took off at a run, but the parasite was easily outstripping them, and soon they were out of the area of crashed columns and heading back toward the middle of the village. Workers had begun to filter back from other parts of the village and Laziness was heading right for the middle of a crowd, which included Ismailil and Amri.
“Move, boys, move!” Pandy screamed. “Run!”
The entire crowd scattered again, but the parasite had locked in on Ismailil and was slithering fast, gaining on the little boy. Pandy knew she couldn't zap it with heat; Laziness would vaporize and escape completely. Her only hope was to outrun it, but Laziness was still outmaneuvering Pandy and was now within striking distance of Ismailil, its back end whipping wildly, propelling itself forward.
Just as Laziness was literally rearing its front end, mouth open wide, to attack the little boy, a mixing pole came whistling through the air, caught the parasite in the middle, lifted it high and brought it down again on the ground with a tremendous wallop, pinning Laziness to the earth.
The parasite struggled to free itself, wiggling furiously, but by then Pandy was upon it, wrapping both hands in the net and grabbing each end.
“I've got it!” she cried, not looking up. The pole was quickly taken away. “Iole?”
“Right here!” she said, gently flipping the clasp on the box.
Laziness was now curling itself like a snake into a tight ball.
“On a count of threeâone . . . two . . .
three
!”
Iole cracked the lid just enough and Pandy flung Laziness inside. Iole snapped the lid shut, flipped the clasp down, and slid the hairpin neatly back into place.
“Nicely done,” Pandy said to Iole. “I didn't even see anything else try to escape.”
“We're getting faster. We should start timing ourselves.” Iole smiled back. They both heard the faint hissing as Laziness dissolved inside the box.
Only then did Pandy and Iole both look up to see who had wielded the mixing pole with such force and accuracy. What they saw, however, was a flutter of a dirty cloak as whoever it was was swallowed up in the crowd.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Brother to Brother
“You told me you were going to the lavatorium!” Hermes said, dragging Prometheus behind a deserted guard hut, away from the crowd. “ âOh, please, my friend, just give me a little of my strength back so I can hurry to the lavatorium.' That's what you said!”
“I know,” Prometheus replied. “And I went. And I also just happened to assist my daughter. I didn't plan it, it just sort of happened.”
“You lied.”
“Oh, knock it
off
already, would you?” Prometheus cried, startling Hermes. “I have been good as goldâdid and didn't do everything you said. Kept my word, didn't let her know I was here, did not interfere with her and Atlas,
as promised.
Watched my baby girl swingin' on the end of his nose hair, almost getting herself killed. Listening to you, just sitting right next to me, relaxed and cool as a cucumber. Blah, blah. Not even caring. And when everything between the two of them was over, done, finished, I just whacked a big . . . whatever it was . . . with a stick. So chain me up in Tartarus now, if you're gonna do it, because if not, I have to go talk to my little brother.”
Prometheus began to walk away. After several steps, he stopped and turned around. Hermes was staring at him, mouth agape.
“You coming?” Prometheus asked.
Before Pandy could even rise to follow the person in the cloak, Alcie arrived, trying as best she could to support a very weak Homer.
“We saw it!” Alcie said, sitting Homer down and propping him up against a nearby column. “You okay, Homer?”
“I'm cool,” he whispered.
“We saw everything! Well, apricots, almost . . . but we were far away,” Alcie said, standing and hugging Pandy. “Gods! For someone who doesn't like heights, you were practically flying off the mountain!”
“Don't remind me, okay?” Pandy said.
“All right,” Iole said, “what now?”
“Now,” Pandy said, “you guys get some people together and start helping the slaves who crashed down out of the columns. See if Atlas hurt anybody else. I'm gonnaâ”
“You are going to do nothing, my pretty maiden,” a voice behind her said. Suddenly, Pandy felt herself being shackled into manacles. The brutish guard had hold of her arms as the sinister white-haired guard walked around to face her. Behind him, guards seized Alcie and Iole and put them in chains. Almost every guard in the village was surrounding them in a giant ring.
“This is going to be so much fun for me,” the white-haired guard sneered. “For all of us, actually. You arrive and we have nothing but trouble. I just can't decide what to do with you three first. But I know where you're going to end up.”
He looked overhead.
“The first maidens to hold the heavens. What an honor!”
The guard spun around to face the crowd.
“Back to work, everybody!” he yelled.
Nobody moved.
“Did you not hear me?” he screamed. “You want to die along with these three?
Get moving!
”
But nobody moved.
They were all looking at the brown-haired girl with the smoking wrists.
“Whaaa?” said the guard softly.
Pandy's head was down, her eyes hidden. The locks on her manacles were glowing bright red and smoking. As they melted off her wrists, she looked up and everyone saw her clear white eyes.
“I so don't think so.”
The guards began to flee to the opposite side of the village. Pandy focused her mind on superheating every piece of metal the guards had on them. Immediately, glowing red swords, spears, helmets, cloak pins, shin and wrist guards, and breastplates were flying everywhere. Then she focused on superheating their outer clothing. Suddenly, large men, screaming and wearing nothing but skimpy undertogas, were dashing across the village, away from the enchanted girl.
Pandy took a deep breath and looked at Alcie and Iole, her eyes brown once more.
“You're so cool,” Alcie said.
“Thanks.” Pandy smiled. “Okay, so you guys get some peopleâ”
“Excuse me, oh cool one.” Iole held up her hands, in shackles. “You forgot these.”
“Oh, sorry,” Pandy said. “Where's the key?”
“Doesn't matter,” Iole answered, “it's melted.”
“This is so un-cool,” Alcie said.
Pandy put her face in her hands.
“Gods!” she groaned into her palms. “I can't melt them off you without burning you.”
“No, thank you!” Alcie said. “As if!”
“But I have to go back and talk to my uncle before too much time passes!”
“Look,” Iole sighed, “just go. We can deal with these later. Homer's getting his strength back and these shackles aren't even adamant. Maybe he can break them. Just go.”
“Okay, I'll be right back. I hope,” Pandy said, dashing off, calling back over her shoulder. “I'm sorry!”
Prometheus had been standing beside his brother's giant face for almost a minute, gently poking Atlas's nose with his foot and watching the hairs on Atlas's face and head start to recede and thin out to normal.
“Brother?” he said to the Titan, still unconscious. “Brother? Time to wake up!”
Atlas began to stir. He opened his large eyes, his vision trying to clear. At last, he focused on a tiny old man kicking his nose. As Atlas's brow began to furrow, Prometheus realized the situation.
“Hermes, he doesn't know who I am. Change me back to me.”
“Nothing doing, pal,” Hermes said, leaning against a shattered column and tossing a hand-sized chunk of clay in the air.
“I'll cover my head with my hood, just do it . . . just until I'm done talking to him.”
Hermes looked at Prometheus for a moment, then sighed and flicked his wrist.
Instantly, Prometheus felt himself back in his own body. Covering his head, he peered out from under the hood.