Pandora Gets Lazy (3 page)

OKAY
!

Then the nuts re-formed again, this time faster, into a sentence.

HOW ARE YOU
?

“Fine,” Pandy whispered in awe.

EXCELLENT
! I WAS WORRIED! the nuts spelled out.

“You were . . . Who . . . ?”

. . .
IS THIS
?

“Uh-huh.”

THREE GUESSES
!

“Um . . . Hermes?
Ow!
” She'd named the only god she'd spoken with who had a sense of humor, when suddenly a pinecone hit her squarely on top of her head. She looked up to see a large gray squirrel sitting on a high branch with a mound of pinecones at his side.

SO VERY, VERY WRONG
!

“Sorry. Uh . . .”

WANT A CLUE
?

“Yeah, I mean, yes, thank you. I mean, please.”

I
'
M
CRUSHED
THAT YOU CAN'T GUESS. YOU HAVE TWO MORE TRIES
!

There were so many words that there weren't enough nuts to finish the exclamation point, so the sentences had to wait until the tree shook a few more loose, giving Pandy time to think. Crushed? Wheat was crushed for flour and olives for oil . . . both of which came from the earth.

“Demeter?” she said timidly.

Bonk!
Another enormous pinecone bounced off her skull.

“Ow!”
she cried louder, glaring at the squirrel, whose little claws were already clutching another cone.

LAST CLUE . . . READY
?

“I guess . . . ,” Pandy mumbled.

PLEASE DON'T WINE IF YOU DON'T GUESS RIGHT
! spelled the nuts.

“I won't whine . . .” She suddenly noticed something wrong. “Wine” for “whine”? “Crushed”? Crushed grapes make wine!

“Dionysus?” she said, immediately covering her head with her arms.

CORRECT
! spelled the pine nuts in huge letters. Then the nuts lay horizontal for a second, then back to vertical, then alternating between the two . . . making it look like the word was flashing. After a few seconds, the nuts quickly formed the legs, torso, arms, and head of a huge man. Suddenly the eyelids popped open and two bluish green eyeballs stared at Pandy as the figure began to move.

“Dionysus?” Pandy asked.

“Oh, sorry . . . hang on,” the god said through his pine-nut mouth. A handful of nuts left the hem of his nut-toga and re-formed as a ring of grape leaves circling his head. Others formed a wine goblet in his right hand.

“There we go!” he laughed. “Recognize me now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl! Very proud,” he said, slurring his words just the tiniest bit as he skipped and danced around the clearing, sending the occasional stray pine nut flying. “No time to lose, however. You're heading into dangerous territory, sweet maiden. Had I known, when I put Laziness in the box lo those eons ago, where it would settle if it was ever released, well, I would have thought twice, I can tell you. Here's a clue, very general, mind you: do you like hair? I love mine. So dark and curly. But the form of Laziness . . .”

He shuddered where he stood, all the little nuts jiggling at once.

“. . . it's
disgusting
. Icky. All right, enough of that. No more clues. Now, you must find your way into the High Atlas Mountains up to the tallest peak, called Jbel Toubkal, and isn't
that
the funniest name you've ever heard! I swear on my own toenails, these Libyans have the funniest names for things. Say it with me:
Jbel Toooobkaaal!
Oh, I can't stand it!”

But Pandy's memory had been activated. Where had she heard that strange name before? Someone else used to make a joke out of it as well . . . but who?

Dionysus had begun to laugh so hard that he swallowed a few nuts from his own tongue and began to choke. When he couldn't stop, he frantically motioned behind him and then beckoned to Pandy, who rushed over and began whacking his nut-back as hard as she could. Finally, Dionysus coughed up a few stray nuts and caught his breath. As he stared up into the enormous pine, avoiding Pandy's eyes, his voice took on a deeply serious—and sober—tone.

“Let's just keep the fact that I nearly choked on myself our little secret, yes?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed.

“And continuing. Right now you're in the Middle Atlas. It was as far as I could let the wind carry you when you fell, without drawing attention . . . but it's only a short two-week walk. Down first, then a whole lotta up. And I'll try to arrange a few signposts . . . keep you on the straight and dangerously narrow.” He paused, putting a nut-hand on a nearby tree.

“But I don't see any way down from here,” Pandy began. “It's almost a straight drop . . .
Ow!
”

Three pinecones conked her head in rapid succession.

“You humans have absolutely no faith!” said Dionysus. “That's become the major topic of conversation over ambrosia on Olympus: humans losing their faith. So depressing. Right, then, so you know where you have to go. Your friends will most likely show up if they're not killed, and then you can capture this horrible thing and I can stop worrying! About my little contribution, at least. Let someone else take over. I'm simply exhausted!”

And with that, every pine nut dropped to the ground, leaving only two blinking bluish green eyeballs.

“Ready?” she heard Dionysus's voice on the wind.

“Yes, sir,” Pandy said.

Instantaneously, the eyeballs disappeared and the pine nuts re-formed themselves into a large, shallow cup shaped exactly like the top of a fancy wine goblet, only it was about two meters in diameter and perhaps four centimeters thick.

Not knowing what to do, Pandy just stood where she was. Was the god going to fill it with wine? He couldn't possibly want her to drink— Then a few stray nuts formed the words GET IN! as another pinecone crashed right into her skull.

“You wouldn't be so brave if you were down here!” she shouted at the squirrel. In a flash the squirrel scampered down the tree trunk until he was level with Pandy, then he lobbed a cone right into her forehead, chattering delightedly.

“Why I . . . ,” Pandy sputtered.

PLAY WITH THE ANIMALS LATER, PANDORA
! spelled the nuts.

Scowling at the squirrel, she climbed into the pine-nut cup, surprised to find how sturdy it was. Immediately the cup began moving toward the edge of the clearing, forcing Pandy to sit down. Realizing it was heading over the edge, she gripped the rim of the cup with all her might.

“Waaahhhh!”

She couldn't stop herself from screaming as the cup sailed down the steep descent, bumping, pitching, and lurching as it picked up greater and greater speed. Pandy felt every crash into each shrub, every collision with the larger rocks, and had to duck several times as the cup flew under low-hanging olive branches.

“It's Dionysus. He likes me. He's told me where to go. It's Dionysus. He likes me. He's told me where to go,” she chanted over and over to herself.

The cup careened into a thick, nasty-looking cluster of yellowish shrubs, veered slightly left, then sailed off a rocky outcrop as Pandy became airborne for almost ten seconds.

“But he liiiiikes meeeee,”
she screamed, just as the cup rose up underneath her again.

With the speed of one of Zeus's lightning bolts, the cup headed for the bottom of the hill, straight on a crash course with a cluster of enormous boulders. Feeling only fairly certain that she wasn't going to be killed, Pandy gritted her teeth and held her breath. The boulders were only seconds away. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could; if, this time, she really was going to be dashed to bits, she didn't want to see it coming.

But with her eyes still closed, Pandy missed seeing the two small boys emerge from behind one especially large boulder.

For their part, watching a screaming girl in a flying white object bearing straight for them, the boys, all alone and nearly delirious with hunger, both thought separately that they had finally died, and they prayed that this was a very loud but hopefully gentle spirit coming to reunite them with the spirits of their family.

Centimeters before crashing, the cup came to a stop so fast that the bottom skidded over some smooth, flat rocks, creating enormous friction and heat, and Pandy smelled the delicious aroma of roasted pine nuts.

Opening her eyes, Pandy stared straight up at the boulder and let out a colossal sigh of relief.

Then, as movement caught her eye, she turned and gaped at two little boys standing very close, both of whom threw their hands up in the air and immediately fell to their knees.

CHAPTER FOUR
Captive

There were so many spears, they couldn't count them all. But the spears themselves were very short, almost tiny, as were the creatures holding them.

Alcie, Iole, and Homer were each alternating between fear, repulsion, and tremendous, Pandy-esque curiosity.

Their attackers resembled little men, or boys, with wrinkled blackish skin mottled with cracked patches of red, as if they'd been burned by something, healed, then burned again. And their bodies were horribly distorted; necks seemed to have been jammed between shoulder blades, backs were hunched over and caved in, and spines were twisted at horrible angles.

“It's as if these—
things
—were broken, then shrunk, then reset—by a blind man,” Iole thought.

But no one had time to think anything else, as more tiny creatures that had circled around behind began prodding them up onto the crest of the dune. They were thrown to the ground (ten creatures jabbed Homer in his legs with their spears to get him to comply); individually, their hands and feet were bound in tight shackles. Alcie lifted her head and looked to her right. She only had time to see the first few in a long line of people similarly bound being herded over the crest of the dune and back down toward the edge of the sea. Then a spearhead was driven into the ground right next to her eyes and a tiny foot forced her to bury her face back into the earth.

Unfortunately, no one was really saying anything, so Homer, Alcie, and Iole couldn't get a hint as to what language these creatures spoke.

They waited long minutes, their faces in the ground, before they were forced to their feet and herded to the end of the line of captives, chained four or five together. Reaching the water's edge once more, the entire group was corralled into a tight circle and forced into the sea, guarded by dozens of the small creatures, spears held tight, in a close semicircle.

Squashed together close to an outer edge, Iole could see bits of the beach and dunes in between the mass of bodies.

“I'll be right back,” she whispered to Alcie.

Iole easily slipped her little hands through her manacles, then squirmed and wiggled her thin body in and around other prisoners. She stumbled once and found herself almost underwater. Only by grabbing hold of a long, dirty cloak did she regain her balance.

Making her way to the edge of the crowd of prisoners, she saw the half circle of guards and, beyond them, another, much smaller group huddled around a large metal pot. This group was not only made up of the little creatures, but there were several full-grown adult men, dressed in tattered pieces of battle gear, and one woman. As the grown men spoke to each other, the woman reached into the many sacks and pouches she carried upon herself, bringing out handfuls of various dried powders and tossing them into the cauldron. Once, one of the tiny creatures approached the group of larger men, only to receive a swift kick and a shout. Not many words, but enough that Iole understood: an odd mixture of Latin and Berber dialects.

Unexpectedly, the woman turned back to the larger men.

“Look away!” she screamed, and instantly there was a blinding flash as the contents of the pot exploded, sending a hot orange sphere rocketing into the sky, where it burst apart into a million pieces, each one arcing gracefully, flaring out, and dropping into the sea.

Less than twenty seconds later, the explosion was answered by a similar burst from the giant ship, and Iole saw a modest boat being lowered into the sea, where it moved swiftly away from the prow.

As the half circle of tiny creatures now began to round up the captives, Iole found her way back to Alcie and Homer and quickly slipped back inside her manacles.

“We're going to be taken aboard ship,” she said softly as the entire group of captives moved back again onto the beach.

“Kumquats,” Alcie muttered.

Suddenly, there was a great disturbance behind them and a number of the tiny creatures streamed past them into the sea. Looking over the top of the group, Homer saw that one small group of prisoners had broken away and, even though they were still chained, were heading out to deeper water. The little creatures raced out only so far, where they stood in the surf shouting furiously and shaking their spears, their shriveled bodies making it difficult to swim.

“Let them go,” yelled one of the larger men, “they'll live in the bellies of sharks before the hour is out! Keep the others in line, by Jupiter's teeth, or you'll join those wretches in the sea!”

He posted a few of the creatures as sentries in case the escapees tried to come ashore, then shouted for the rest of the captive group to begin loading into the boat, which was now waiting in shallow water. One by one, the prisoners were roughly hoisted aboard, all the while being prodded and poked by the little spears. Even the youngest children and the elderly could not escape. Many of the creatures then filled the boat, taking any extra space.

When the boat was full, the rowers returned to the ship, deposited the captives, and headed back toward the beach. Twice more the boat made the crossing to ferry everyone. The third time back to the ship, Homer, Alcie, and Iole were among only a very few prisoners; the rest aboard were the full-sized men, the strange sorceress, the pot, and a large number of creatures. Almost halfway across, one creature drove his spear into Homer's leg for no reason at all. Homer, who'd not spoken since their capture, swung his other foot in an arc and kicked the creature high into the air and over the side of the boat. A huge clamor arose from the others, who were about to descend on Homer, when an enormous shark lifted out of the water, caught the airborne creature midfall, and swallowed him whole, spear and all.