Pyramid Scheme Read online

  "These gods-bedamned fleas are driving me demented," said the right hand head, obviously ordering a scratch of the ear.

  "So how do we get out of here, Doc?" asked Cruz in an undervoice.

  Jerry looked worried. "Honey cakes can distract him."

  "Damn. I knew I'd forgotten something. What about half a transformed Hershey bar?" volunteered Liz, digging in her bag.

  They broke the sticky honey-scented papyrus-wrapped thing in three.

  "Right, guys." McKenna and Cruz and Lamont had been given the task of throwing. "On the count of three . . . "

  Four seconds later it was painfully obvious that they'd need a whole crate of mythworld-type Hershey bars.

  "Okay, Doc," grumbled McKenna. "Next?"

  "Hermes' caduceus and Orpheus' sweet music on the lyre were supposed to soothe him," said Jerry doubtfully.

  Liz looked at the big dog. "Well, Hermes seems to be involved with who or whatever is trying to capture or kill us. So I don't think that likely. What about music?"

  "How do you feel about Tina Turner, dog?" asked Lamont, grinning.

  The music played. The dog appeared no less vigilant. "Don't like singing," said the central head.

  "Got anything instrumental?" asked the left head.

  "Strings are good. Damn these fleas."

  "You got anything else, Lamont?" asked McKenna.

  Lamont was staring at the air where the shade of Tina Turner had appeared. "Tina doesn't do it, I don't imagine Donna Summers will either," he mused. Doubtfully: "I could try some Miles Davis . . . "

  Cruz looked at the dog, weighing chances. "Doc?"

  He shook his head. "I'm fresh out of ideas, Anibal."

  Liz cleared her throat loudly. "What about something for those fleas? I happen to be an expert on fleas."

  She had all three heads' focused attention. "If you can do something about these fleas, you can go," said the central head.

  "You personally, that is," said the head on the right.

  "More than our job is worth to let all of you go," added the left head, wrinkling its nose.

  "Very well," Liz said, calmly. "Fleabane. Some advice and a good long scratch in all those hard to reach spots."

  She turned to look in her bag. "You guys make like a banana, while I deal with this," she said in an undervoice.

  "What?" asked a puzzled Jerry.

  "Make like a banana," she said urgently. "Split. South African idiom. Our canine acquaintance is aurally sensitive but a trifle microcephalic."

  "What are you talking about, flea-girl?" demanded Cerberus.

  "My friends want to know if I have your promise to let me go," said Liz, without a quaver.

  "Promise."

  "Swear to the gods."

  "By the Styx."

  "Oaths sworn on the Styx are binding," said Jerry.

  Liz walked forward calmly. "Very well. This will drive the fleas off and kill them on contact. But it is important that you break the life cycle of the flea. Now, I wonder if you know . . . " She continued to speak softly while rubbing the fleabane, wormwood and rue mixture into the huge dog's rough fur.

  Cerberus gradually subsided into a catatonic state of bliss, grunting occasionally. "A bit more to the left . . . ooh."

  "We must get someone to sweep around here . . . "

  "The fleas sound worse than humans, the way they breed."

  Liz went right on scratching with both hands while gesturing furiously with her head for the rest of them to go.

  * * *

  Halfway back to the ship and they could still hear the angry baying of the tricked Cerberus.

  "Mademoiselle. That was très magnifique." Henri made her an elegant Gallic bow, when the panting Liz joined them.

  "Yes, Sir!" said McKenna. "That was slick."

  She beamed. "It was nothing, really. It's just a pity that we didn't succeed in getting home."

  "Well, at least we learned something," said Lamont.

  "Yes," agreed Jerry forcefully. "We have learned that the gods, or at least Hermes, are out to kill or capture us. That something weird is happening here—wherever `here' is—involving the myths themselves." He frowned. "As if something long moribund was being brought back to life, but all jumbled up."

  "And," said Henri, cheerfully, "I have also some interesting botanical material which will make for a wonderful publication if I can get back to civilization, although I could probably manage in America."

  "Jeez, you're an arrogant French prick," snapped McKenna, when this had sunk in.

  Henri twitched his mustachios. "At least I have something to be arrogant about."

  "I'll—"

  "Will you two stop snapping at each other?" snapped Liz. "We want to get back to where we left Odysseus and see if he's abandoned us here."

  "And then we can do some thinking about where we should go next," said Lamont in a depressed tone. "I really hoped we'd find some way out of here."

  Medea pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Persephone mentioned the land of Egypt. And pyramids. I have been told that those are a feature of that land."

  "We're chasing straws," said Jerry in a flat voice. "But we've got to try. Oh, well. If Ody's there we'll go for a quick trip to see the pyramids."

  * * *

  There was something to be said for landing on a full tide. By the time Odysseus and his crew had talked themselves into sneaking away . . . they'd had to wait for the tide to turn, in order to launch. Even if they'd done the long portage to the water, there was still the river bar of the Acheron. So the modern folk returned to find the ship nearly floating.

  "We heard you coming, and wished to be ready," said Odysseus. He projected all the integrity at his command. Lamont muttered something about used car salesmen.

  Jerry was just too keen to be away and to see the sun again to argue—or to even to tell the ass what he thought of his lies. They just climbed on board and slept in the bow, as the black ship made its way back across the river ocean to the Enchanted Isle.

  Odysseus woke them when Aeaea was again in sight.

  Jerry shook his head. Oh, for coffee! "Provisions, and then we're away."

  "And I must say farewell to my children for a while," said Medea in a subdued tone.

  "Where will we sail to next? Will my oath have fulfillment then?" Odysseus enquired.

  "Egypt, Odysseus. And maybe."

  26

  Wind instruments,

  percussion and strings . . .

  Their stay in Aeaea lasted only a day. Just long enough to take on provisions for the voyage to Egypt. On the morning after their departure, Odysseus came forward, wringing his hands.

  "Alas, good Americans. If I am to go to Egypt I will need more wind."

  "Wind is the one thing you're not short of, Ody," sneered Liz.

  Odysseus' face registered protest at misunderstanding. The more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger expression, thought Jerry, was about as convincing as it would have been coming from a wolf.

  "We do not have enough food or water for such a journey without favorable winds." Odysseus pointed somewhere in the distance. "But help is at hand. Yonder lies the Isle of Aeolus, keeper of winds. He is a generous man. He will help us."

  * * *

  "I wouldn't trust that son of a bitch to speak my weight," said Liz, looking at the flapping sail. "He's right, though. Without a favorable wind, undertaking that voyage in this tub is a hopeless cause."

  "What he's talking about is a visit to the island of Aeolia," explained Jerry. "You can see the sun gleaming on the `unbroken wall of bronze.' Aeolus is the `Warden of the Gales' in the Odyssey. He gave Odysseus a fair wind for Ithaca and imprisoned the other winds in a sack. In the gospel according to the ever-truthful Odysseus, his foolish men thought it was treasure and let the winds out, which blew them all over the place. Aeolus crops up again in the Aeneid."

  "Lucky old Aeolus," said Liz sourly.

  Jerry's snort was every bit as sour. "Lucky, my ass. Nobody's too lucky whenever
they run across Odysseus. When Odysseus' fleet visited him, Aeolus was forced to wine and dine them at his expense. He was foolish enough to let ten ships into his harbor and disgorge their crews before getting the measure of the commander. After a month of that, the keeper of the winds handed over the windsack just to see them out of there. And he was careful not to let them disembark when they came back the second time."

  * * *

  It was a superlative natural harbor set in an inlet in the cliff wall that surrounded the island. The island was, however, relatively stark and stony compared to the shores of Thrinicia or Circe's wooded home.

  "Good defensive spot," said Cruz, giving it a professional once-over.

  "According to the book," said Jerry, "it has Aeolus and his six sons and six daughters on it. That seems a small group to defend an island of this size. But perhaps there were more. It wouldn't have seemed so, because the six sons were married to the six daughters. That kind of counts out too much other available nobility, although peasants and slaves wouldn't have been part of that number."

  Liz made a face. "Yuck. Nice people. Founts of modern morality."

  Lamont grinned at Liz. "You don't know half of it. The ancient Greek gods were always so busy doing something nasty, or screwing around with someone, I'm surprised they had any time for blessing wombs and crops. I was quite shocked by it all."

  Jerry chuckled. "True. Not to mention the Heroes. Anything you can think of from cannibalism to killing their fathers to marry their mothers, eh? But what about this place? Do you think we'll be attacked, or helped?"

  Cruz looked thoughtful. "It's a good position for defense. But they're not above the ships. They can't really attack us, but they could hold out for months. Tough to hold with a handful of men though, especially if they rely on some trading. Like—who do you let in?"

  Jerry shrugged. "Yeah. And I don't know what sort of welcome we'll get. Odysseus was here with the better part of five hundred men last time." Jerry looked up at the bronze walls. They appeared impenetrable.

  * * *

  Aeolus was there to meet them on the shore. He scowled ferociously at Odysseus. But he studied the modern folk with interest.

  "Greetings, newcomers. What is it that you have done to get Zeus so spitting mad at you? Hermes has come to tell me that I am ordered to keep you here. Feed you royally and fill you with strong wine, while Olympus prepares to loose its might against you."

  Four young men were staggering down to the stone quay with an enormous leather bag. Aeolus pointed to it. "Stow it carefully and row your way out before the tide changes. I'm not having that damned freebooter inside my walls again," he said, pointing at Odysseus, "and Zeus doesn't have much regard for other people's property when he tosses his thunderbolts. Get you gone. Where do you want a fair wind for?"

  "Egypt. Thank you," said Jerry.

  Aeolus smiled. "How fortunate. It is my gift to you. Speed you swiftly, and keep all the contrary winds trapped in the bag. I do not like whatever is afoot with Olympus."

  "What? I mean, what is happening?"

  Aeolus shook his head. "I do not know. But I was once a god . . . I do not like this. I will thwart it with my small power. Now go. And take care with that bag."

  "I'll look after it for you," offered Odysseus. "I'll see it safely stowed. You can trust me. I'm a prince."

  "You're enough of a bag of wind, without adding this one to your responsibilities," snapped Medea. "Typical damned Hellene."

  "I'm an Achaean!" protested Odysseus.

  Aeolus had provided the wind he'd promised, and had also provided Jerry with further food for thought.

  He sat with Lamont, watching over the windsack. "Look. Every step we take we learn a fraction more. We've just got to put the pieces together. Then somehow we can break out of here, I'm sure."

  Lamont pulled a face. "And we've got to stay alive. Obviously whatever the thing is, it's manipulating this place and its gods as if they were puppets."

  Jerry nodded. "Rather disobedient and inefficient puppets. But still dancing according to strings that something is pulling somewhere."

  "So what do we do about it?" asked Lamont.

  Jerry ran his fingers through his hair. "Brace ourselves. The next problem's coming. The ancient Greek gods tended to work through intermediaries, but Zeus, for example, was quite capable of tossing thunderbolts. We've got problems, if they've got it in for us."

  * * *

  And problems weren't long in coming. Poseidon's minions found them at about two in the morning. It was a very rude awakening from sweet dreams.

  The noise was reminiscent of a hippopotamus being sick into the big end of a tuba, which was, at the same time, being played by a very inept player. Only that description is really too mild. It sat every person on the ship bolt upright. Bolt upright and reaching for weapons in most cases. Which was just as well.

  Triton was leading the charge himself, in a chariot drawn by pincer-footed white-foam horses. He was blowing like fury on an enormous trumpetlike shell. His look-alike minions showed that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. The half-human Triton-genii were very like their master. From the chest up they were human enough. Below this they were scaled and finned, the sinuous sea monster bodies ending in a predator's narrow-forked caudal fin. They carried a variety of tridents and barbed harpoons. Their musical skill carried "bad" to new depths.

  Odysseus and his men had other faults, but a lack of courage in a fight for their lives wasn't one of them. The Tritons had expected panic. Instead they were thrust off. Speared. Shot. Attacked by dragons. And all the while Medea calmly walked along the central passage between the rowing benches and anointed the oars with a potion of her own. When she'd finished, she walked up to Odysseus and told him to get the oars into the water.

  Medea was a former princess and a person of power. When she told Odysseus to tell the men to get the oars out, he jumped to it.

  The Tritons backed off.

  "They will not dare to come within twenty cubits of those oars," said Medea calmly.

  * * *

  The men found this comforting. Unfortunately it didn't keep the Tritons out of earshot. The Tritons took it in turns to "accompany" the ship with the blaring of their conches. And by midmorning it was painfully apparent that the Tritons weren't going to give up easily. Beeswax might shut out sirens but, for sheer volume and terrible low-frequency noise that penetrated to the very marrow of their bones, this was unbeatable. Tina Turner in competition just increased their volume.

  "Merde." Henri shook a plump fist at the Tritons, who may have included a raspberry in their next arpeggio. "This is worse than German music! I think at least I should attempt to teach them some Ravel."

  "How many more days to Egypt?" yelled Liz, having to bellow to make herself heard above the cacophony.

  Odysseus simply held up seven fingers. And pointed to an island on the starboard horizon. He shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands.

  Liz nodded. The noise was simply insupportable.

  As they came inshore and water shifted from wine-dark to azure the Tritons drew off a bit, but not completely. The water was less than three fathoms deep. Dangerous sailing in uncharted waters. Hell, it wasn't even something you wanted to attempt in waters you were even slightly unfamiliar with, as Aeolus' fair wind for Egypt was moving the ship on at a good clip.

  "We'll have to make a landfall and see if they'll go away."

  The coastline did not look promising. There were smoke trails from distant hearth fires in the hills. But the verdant coastline, thick with wild vines and stands of poplar and pine, bore the look of a land ravaged by some mighty destructive force—as if a sequence of small cyclones had windrowed through them.

  Odysseus was looking about like a cat in a dog pound. "Cyclops country," he said nervously, as they pulled the ship up. The sound of the dreadful conch was now distant enough to make speech plausible.

  "Oh, great!" said Liz. "I presume the one-eyed giants w
on't be pleased to see you back."

  "We'd better get out there again," said Mac.

  Liz pulled a face. "I don't know if a blind one-eyed giant isn't better than that racket. Doesn't it bother you?"

  McKenna shrugged. "I guess my ears are toughened. The volume is a bit much, but it reminds me of myself trying to play the bugle. Ma used to make me go and practice at the far side of the south forty. She said I was putting the cows off their milk."

  Lamont snorted and nodded in sympathy. "Yeah. I tried the sax for a bit."

  "I always wanted to be one of those really wild drummers," said Jerry with a grin. "Of course, I haven't got any sense of rhythm."

  Henri looked regretfully at the ground. "It was the wish of my mother that I should become a great violinist." He shrugged. "She ran out of teachers prepared to attempt this labor, and became tired of the complaint about the mistreatment of the cat. I remain devoted to classical music, of course. But alas, I cannot play."

  Cruz allowed a slight smile to crack his impassive countenance. He looked at his thick stubby fingers. "Me, I decided I was Carlos Santana's natural heir. Or Jimi Hendrix."

  Jerry looked at the thick fingers and wondered how they'd ever managed to press chords. "Well, it's a good thing one of us has got some musical talent."

  There was a flash of teeth. "Hey, I said I thought I was. Not like anyone else did."

  Lamont looked pensive. "Do you think all of us taken are bad musicians?"

  "Nah. I think the world has a lot more failed musico-wannabees than anything else," answered Cruz.

  Liz stuck her nose in the air and said, in a lofty tone. "Ha. I wasn't about to tell you guys this, but seeing as you're all such musical geniuses, I was lead singer for an all-girl group at high school. We called ourselves `The Supremes.' "

  There was a moment of silence. Lamont looked at Jerry. Jerry looked at Lamont.

  "And what did everyone else call you?" they asked together.

  Liz pursed her lips. Her shoulders were shaking. " `The Sub-standards.' They said they even preferred my attempt to play the bagpipes."

  The laughter was stilled by a running trill of notes, liquid and gentle, yet with enormous depth and power. Goat-footed and shaggy Pan arrived, playing his syrinx. He stepped around the grape-laden wild vines. The still-green grapes darkened and swelled. They were silent as the god continued to play. Haunting and bittersweet . . . then abruptly the music shifted to a quick leaping of notes, and the shaggy Pan began to dance. Then he lowered his pipes. Looked the group over carefully.