“Riiiiiight,” Pandy exhaled, picking herself up off the floor. “Thanks for that. So what have we learned here, besides the fact that the hourglass is running out?”
“Any great weight or pressure on the chain and the eagle thinks it’s feeding time,” Iole said.
“Which means,” Homer furthered, “that we cannot bring it down.”
“Nope,” Pandy said. “We have to go up. Actually, I have to go up.”
“I’ll do it,” said Homer.
“Too heavy,” Pandy countered, then, when she saw Iole about to speak, “And you’re afraid of heights. And no, Alce, you can’t do it. I was the best rock and tree climber of any of us. And this is the bird that tormented my dad; he’s mine. And maybe I’ll pluck a couple of tail feathers while I’m up there … bring ’em home. Show Dad.”
She removed her leather carrying pouch and her water-skin and handed them to Alcie. Then she unlaced her sandals and kicked them off, climbing to stand on Homer’s shoulders as he knelt. Wrapping the chain around one foot, she then stepped on that foot with her other foot and let the chain fall away. Rewrapping the chain on the second foot and repeating the process, she climbed ever so slowly, foot over foot and hand over hand.
Ten meters off the ground, she realized that all the tree and rock climbing hadn’t even begun to prepare her for this. With the fourth step, she knew her feet couldn’t possibly hold out; the chain was already beginning to cut into her flesh. Her palms were sweating, making each grasp a little less sure. At fifteen meters, she undid her cloak and, as subtly as she could, let it slide down the chain to the ground where Homer caught it. She refused to look down; not because she feared heights—any fear she’d once had had been lost after hanging over the impaling poles in the Chamber of Despair or when she’d been swung wide off the edge of Jbel Toubkal clinging to her uncle Atlas’s overgrown nose hair. She didn’t want to look down now because she didn’t want the further frustration and disappointment of seeing just how far she hadn’t climbed. She tried to think of other things. She forced herself to remember walking through the Agora back home and rummaging through the remnants box of the silk trader, trying to find any pretty scrap with which to tie up her plain brown hair. She thought of her favorite fast-falafel shop and how the first thing she was going to do when she got home was get one … no, two smeared with tahini paste. She thought of her little brother and how she was going to hug him so hard she’d probably make him cry.
Then her foot slipped and she grabbed the chain as tight as she could, hanging in midair. From far below, she heard someone—Alcie?—gasp.
Slowly she found the chain and wrapped it around her foot again. The pain went through her almost as sharply as when Lucius Valerius had plunged his knife into her shoulder. Fifty meters above the floor, she realized that the entire hall had gone silent as a tomb. For the first time, she dared to look down: every head was turned toward her, eyes wide, mouths closed. Then she focused on the tops of her feet; the thin bronze coating curling and chipping away in tiny flecks. The flesh shredded—gone in some places. Maybe. She couldn’t tell: there was too much blood.
There was also nothing she could do about it. She would, of course, if she lived, use this as lesson to always keep the Eye of Horus around her neck and not in her carrying pouch where it wasn’t doing any good! But for now, she knew she couldn’t climb solely hand over hand; this was the safest, the best—the only—way.
Her eyes went instinctively to the spots of color in an otherwise gray wash. The wall of orange flame, Persephone’s pink robes, and Alcie’s copper-red hair. Then, across the throne room, she saw a teensy speck of red—the apple still firmly ensconced in the mouth of Master Epeus.
Whatever fear she had of falling or failing vanished.
“You wanna see potential, you bully? I’ll show you potential,” she thought, and kept climbing.
Twenty meters higher—and two near slips off the chain—the four differing views of the underworld began to fade into the bleak, gray stone. The eagle was still oblivious to anything or anyone tampering with his long leash; Pandy’s weight was obviously not enough to make any kind of a difference.
But, he was close now. Really close. Two meters at most. One meter. A half. The eagle’s silver talons were almost within her arm’s reach; all she needed to do was turn the key in the lock, unlock the chain, and the chain would fall away.
Pandy froze.
The chain would fall away.
The chain that connected her to the bird, the only thing holding her up and keeping her from plummeting to her death, was going to drop, with her on it, like a stone.
She paused for a moment to reflect on how none of them, neither her, nor Alcie, Homer, or Iole with her gigo-brain and all her new confidence, foresaw that this was going to happen. She had no way to get down!
As soon as the bird was released, she realized, it would sail high into the farthest unseen reaches of the throne room while she would land in a shallow sea of souls and crack her head on the tiles below.
And then, nearly seventy-five meters in the air, Pandy began to think. Methodically. If a, then b, then c … then, with any luck, d …
A, with one hand she reached for the shackle around the eagle’s feet. B, holding fast to it, she reached with her other hand for the golden key and turned it, opening the lock and slipping the key deep into a pocket in the folds of her toga. C, she pried the chain out of the lock while still holding fast to the end of the chain and the eagle’s shackle.
“Timing, Pandy,” she whispered to herself. “It’s all in the …”
D, she let go of the chain with her hand while still keeping it wrapped around her feet.
“PULL!” she yelled down at the top of her lungs.
“What?” cried Alcie.
“She wants us to pull on the chain,” said Homer, not even bothering to wait for Alcie and Iole. He gave a tremendous yank and instantly realized what was coming.
“Under my cloak!” he commanded, spreading the fabric wide as Alcie and Iole rushed underneath, all of them protecting Persephone’s face and torso.
The chain was ripped away from Pandy’s feet, and the pain was so shocking it was all she could do to keep from losing her grip on the shackle. But the force of the pull was enough to signal meal time to the eagle, and swiftly it began its downward descent.
“What’s happening?” Alcie asked, clinging to Homer.
“She released the chain,” Homer said. “I pulled and felt it give. It’s heading down and I have no idea where it will land.”
But after at least a full minute had passed with no feeling or sound of the chain hitting anywhere, Homer dared to poke his head out from underneath his cloak. There was no chain plummeting through the air; instead he saw bits of crumbling adamantine and metal dust where the chain should have been, the chain disintegrating link by link as it fell. Within moments the chain had started crumbling around Persephone’s throne, eating itself into nothingness.
“Gods!” cried Alcie, now out from underneath Homer’s cloak and pointing across the room.
The eagle was still a good fifty meters high, but swooping toward the front of the room. With all her might, Pandy swung herself up and plucked the first silver tail feather that she grabbed. The eagle screamed hideously and, thinking it was being attacked from behind, instantly changed direction and headed for the back wall.
Directly over the wall of souls.
“Good girl!” Iole said, understanding instantly.
But the eagle, seeing no attacker, began to turn away.
“Here!” screamed Iole, jumping up and down “Here! Take my liver!”
Alcie had no idea why Iole had gone insane, only that it must have had something to do with Pandy—and that was good enough for her.
“Over here! My liver’s great … and it’s alive!”
“Here, you overgrown chicken!” yelled Homer, waving his arms furiously.
The eagle spotted the three living bodies and swung
back around, flying in low.
“Think fast,” Pandy said to herself.
“Calculate, calculate,” Iole prayed.
“Concentrate,” Pandy murmured, beginning to lose her grip on the shackle.
“Now!” screamed Iole at the exact moment Pandy let go of the shackle and dropped into the wall of souls.
“DUCK!” yelled Homer, pushing Alcie and Iole down as the eagle, unable to pull up quickly, sailed over their heads and slammed into the back wall and the orange-and-yellow vision of Tartarus, rendering it completely unconscious.
Pandy hit hard; her speed and weight carrying her through the opaque bodies like she were a knife cutting into goat butter. She emerged out the other side, but she’d been slowed enough that she simply rolled down into the sea of spirits covering the floor at the foot of Persephone’s throne. She lay there for a moment, her eyes closed, feeling cushioned, kinda warm, and extremely guilty that she might be smothering someone, all at the same time.
Suddenly, several pairs of hands were lifting her up, tugging gently on her arms and hands, pulling her into a standing position. Pandy opened her eyes and saw those shades closest to the throne now upright and dropping their shackles. A few spirits embraced her and thanked her for her courage. She looked up at Iole as Homer and Alcie were helping—delicately and slowly—the freed Persephone to stand. Iole pointed to the chain and Pandy watched it disintegrate, freeing spirit after spirit from bondage and enslavement.
The key!
Pandy fumbled in the pocket of her toga and sighed deeply when she wrapped her fingers around the golden key. She took one step toward Alcie and her own carrying pouch, then fell to her knees.
Like lightning, Alcie was by her side.
“What?” she said, then she saw Pandy’s feet and tried to stifle a scream.
“The eye, Alce,” Pandy moaned, her mind now allowing the full effect of the pain to register. “I need the eye.”
“One eye, coming up,” Alcie said, rifling through Pandy’s bag until she found the Eye of Horus on its chain. She slipped the amulet over Pandy’s head and watched as Pandy’s whole body visibly unclenched. Homer, Iole, and Persephone hurried over, through the throng of spirits joyfully milling about, and Iole crouched down beside Pandy.
“What can we do?”
Pandy was watching the flesh on the tops of her feet slowly knit itself back together, the blood drying and flaking away, the exposed bones disappearing, the bronze coating covering again—the pain receding.
“Pandy?”
“Huh? Oh. The box,” Pandy said.
Alcie fished it out of Pandy’s carrying pouch, then she handed the adamantine net to Iole.
“Ready?” Pandy asked.
Iole readied the net, just in case, as Alcie removed the hairpin from the lock, nodding.
“Now,” Pandy said.
Alcie flipped the clasp and opened the lid. Pandy tossed the key inside and Alcie closed the lid, flipped the clasp, slid the hairpin back in the lock and put the box back in Pandy’s bag.
“It’s almost becoming too easy,” Alcie said. “Is that horrible to say?”
Pandy looked around, confused, as she laced her up her sandals.
“I don’t get it,” she said, trying to keep her eyes on the chain and follow the progress of the disintegration. “I thought the key was the evil. Why was everyone being freed if the key wasn’t in the box yet?”
“We’ve had slaves for years,” Iole answered. “No one ever thought of it as evil—just normal, because most households treat their slaves fairly decently. Doesn’t matter though. Hera needed something to bind the lesser evil which was—is—the key. We weren’t going to be able to put the entire chain or all the dust in the box. The key represents everything: the bondage and the solution. We just have a new perception of it; after all, no one could look at what’s been going on here and not think it’s wrong.”
“I’m gonna free our house slaves when I get home,” Alcie said. “And Homie, when we’re married, I’m gonna do all the housework myself!”
That stunned everyone into silence.
“You know you’re gonna have to pay people just to hang up her robes, right?” Pandy said quietly to Homer.
“Way ahead of you,” Homer answered softly.
“Heard it,” Alcie said.
“Well, it’s going to be up to us to spread the word, either way,” Iole said.
“I’ll have a talk with all the immortals about it,” Persephone added. “Even though we don’t have slaves down here, this has shaken me something awful.”
“This will be a tough battle back home and we’ll probably come up against a lot of resistance,” Iole furthered.
“We won’t be battling anything back home if we don’t get going,” Pandy said, rising to her feet and looking at Persephone. “Who do we get?”
“Huh?”
“The hero,” Pandy said impatiently. “You said we could have a hero to guide us.”
“Oh, right! Of course! Hero,” Persephone said with a start. “C’mon, let’s see who’s available and not hacking up anyone at the moment, ’cause I have a feeling they’re all pretty angry.”
Many of the spirits in the throne room, almost all now standing, were trying to realign various organs and body parts that had shifted due to their prolonged cramped and odd positions, but as the goddess of springtime pressed forward through the throng, they parted instantly, providing a clear path to the doorway. Dido jumped on his mistress as soon as Pandy stepped back into the hallway, overjoyed that she hadn’t been smashed into bits and wanting now to follow. But Pandy instinctively knew that what lay ahead, whatever it was, would be far too dangerous for her beloved dog.
“Dido—Dido, listen to me,” she said, kneeling and taking his face in her hands. “Back to Cyrene, hear me? Go back to Cyrene and wait. Wait in the food-preparation room. I’ll find you. Listen, boy, I’ll find you. Now go.”
Pandy and Dido both knew this might be the only lie she’d ever told him. It wasn’t really a lie, she thought, kissing him on his nose; if she were alive at the end of all this, she would find him. With only one backward glance and a short yelp, he trotted away through the crowded corridor. As she watched him go, praying she would see him again, Pandy let her focus be drawn to several groups of once-enslaved spirits disarming, battling, and overpowering their spirit captors … those who had worked in alliance with Hera.
“Well,” Persephone sighed, moving forward through the hallways at a brisk pace but glancing at the combatants. “I’m going to have to put out some fires, I see. Persephone Peacemaker, that’s me. But later, am I right? First things first.”
“I know,” Pandy said.
“I know!”
Chapter Seventeen
Achilles
“And may I just say, Pandy,” Persephone went on as she expertly negotiated the labyrinth, “that was some seriously fancy-schmancy bravery I saw back there.”
“Thanks,” Pandy said, feeling the straps of her sandals scraping against the tops of her feet where the skin hadn’t yet completely healed, and privately vowing to never again take off the eye. Ever.
“I’m only saying that I’ve seen full-grown men playing bladder toss in the Elysian Fields for doing far less. Armory … armory? Ah, here we are …”
But no sooner had she pulled aside the privacy curtain, than two of the spirits Homer had seen guarding the captive heroes earlier, two who’d been allied with Hera, came flying through the entryway and crashed into the opposite wall. Then the spirit of Hector, eldest son of the royal house of Troy and one of the greatest warriors of the Trojan War, strode out of the room. He picked up the two spirits by their hair and began dragging them down the hallway.
“Back to your mothers with you!” he bellowed.
The two struggling spirits screamed in agony, and Alcie looked at Persephone.
“Hera let all of them loose?” she asked.
“Of course,” Persephone said.
�
��‘Them’ whom?” asked Pandy.
“Remember how I told you that if you were really, really bad in life, you didn’t get sent to Tartarus when you died; you were sent here to the palace and locked in a little room with your mother nagging at you for eternity?” Alcie replied.
“Oh, right!” Pandy responded.
“Hera opened every single one of those doors, and they’re the ones who’ve been doing her down-and-dirty work around here,” Persephone sighed.
“Makes perfect sense, if you think about it,” Iole said. “Hera probably promised them freedom, authority, you name it, if they helped her. And she knew they’d have no trouble abusing their fellow spirits.”
“Persephone? Hero?” Pandy said, thinking she was once again feeling the passing of every remaining moment.
“I have just the man,” Persephone said, ushering them all into the armory.
Which was now very tidy: chairs and tables upright, knives in their cases, larger weapons neatly stacked and hung. And it was also empty.
Or so it seemed.
“Achilles? Oh, please be here and not off impaling someone,” Persephone called. “Achilles?”
“Be with you in just a second!” came a voice from behind them. An impossibly high-pitched voice. The voice of a child … or a woman. Before she turned around, Pandy had a wild thought that her little brother, Xander, had somehow been transported to Hades and was talking to her now. Then she turned and looked up. On a small ledge off the wall, Achilles—every inch the hero: tall, muscular, and handsome—was doing the last little bits of straightening on several shields that he’d recently re-hung.
“There! That should be perfect!” he said, leaning back just a little to admire his work. Then the second-most famous hero in all of Greece (Hercules would always retain the honor of being the best) jumped the three or so meters down to the floor and landed without so much as a wobble.
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 14