“Homie?” Iole’s voice was up about an octave. “Who’s Homie?”
“Shhhhh!” Homer whispered as he started up the side of a large dune. Suddenly he stopped and looked back at them.
“Iole, spread your cloak out to your sides.”
Iole cocked her head to one side, looked at her cloak, looked at the ground—then flung her arms wide.
Alcie clenched her hands.
“I so hate it when I don’t know what’s going on!”
“My cloak is the closest to the color of the sand. If they’re looking from the ship, they’ll have a harder time seeing us if we hide under it. Come on!”
The three moved slowly up the dune, with Alcie clinging tightly to Iole so most of Iole’s cloak could be used to shield Homer’s substantial mass. They were almost to the crest, their heads bent low, their eyes on the ground, and their voices stilled.
Alcie dared to break the silence.
“Well,” she whispered, “it’s been over three minutes and nothing. I think we’re probably safe—”
An enormous array of spearheads, some black with dried blood, some still red and shiny, were suddenly thrust under their noses, the tips pointing directly toward their hearts.
CHAPTER THREE
Wake Up
The first thing Pandy thought, even though she was still in that first dozy stage of waking up, was that she’d had quite enough of falling from great heights for the time being, thank you very much. Dropping through the desert floor into the Chamber of Despair in Egypt, terrified into thinking she was plummeting to her death when she woke on Olympus . . . it was all just too much. And now this: flung out of Apollo’s chariot thousands of kilometers above the earth, her friends screaming after her. At least, she now thought, she’d had the good sense to pass out before she’d been smashed to pieces.
But if she’d been broken into five million bits, why was she able to wiggle her toes? And her fingers? And why was she able to feel prickles all over her body?
Opening her eyes, she saw dark, feathery objects directly overhead, and beyond that, the clear, deep blue sky. She slowly realized she was staring at the topmost branches of an enormous pine tree and she was lying, cradled actually, in one of its larger boughs. Pandy turned her head slightly and peered through the clusters of pine needles and cones. The ground was at least one hundred meters below.
“Oh, great,” she thought, “another fall.”
But before she had a chance to see if there might be a way to climb down, the branch began rolling slowly to her left. Panic took over . . . as the branch was obviously dumping her . . . and Pandy began clawing frantically at needles, pinecones, and short twigs—anything! Everything she grabbed at moved itself swiftly out of her reach except for two new shoots of tiny needles. Desperately, Pandy grasped these with all her strength so that when the branch was almost completely overturned, she was simply hanging in midair underneath. Suddenly the branch lifted up and gave a gentle shake, weakening Pandy’s grip and jiggling her loose. With a shriek she dropped off of the branch . . .
And onto the branch below.
The new branch bounced for a bit with her added weight, settled for a moment, and then rolled slowly to the left. Instinctively, Pandy grabbed at anything within reach, but this time, the needles pricked her fingers and the larger twigs rapped her knuckles, batting her hand away. Astonished, she slid awkwardly off the new branch and onto the one below that.
Rolling branch after branch in a descending spiral, the giant tree lowered her to the ground. Toward the end Pandy, who had completely subdued her instinct to grab hold of anything, was experimenting with different sliding and dropping positions: curled up like a ball (her water-skin and carrying pouch in her arms), lying flat with her arms folded in front like a mummy, or holding her arms to her sides and rolling like the chicken legs Sabina would fry in olive oil back home. She had almost perfected the best move (lying on her side, legs tucked, arms folded, which meant she was getting almost no needles sticking to her) when she was deposited, very delicately, on the ground. She stood immediately and faced the pine, aware that, although she was in a part of the world she knew nothing about, it could easily be inhabited by dryads or that the tree could be a conscious or enchanted thing.
“Thank you,” she said loudly.
There was only the rustling of the wind in the branches for an answer.
Pandy turned to survey her surroundings. She was on top of a large, rocky rise ringed by mountains and hills on all sides; she could see a single road winding its way around the base of the hills off in the distance. Although she was standing in the middle of a flat, barren clearing between several trees, when she inched her way over to the edge she was stunned to see a sharp drop of nearly two hundred meters. It wasn’t quite straight down, but it was severe enough that Pandy knew she could never attempt the descent. Walking around the edge of what was, apparently, a large flat spire of rock, she could see only scrubby, uninviting brush dotted with an occasional olive tree clinging desperately to the side. There was no road or walking path off the spire: no way down . . . period. And there were no signs of life in any direction: no smoke from a cooking fire, no dust from a chariot on the road winding through the mountains, no temple pillar rising into the sky. What she did notice, however, to her left, was a darkening of the sky, and it became darker the farther west she looked. She realized it was the same filmy black wall they’d seen while riding the Sun Chariot. But other than that, she saw nothing to get to and, more importantly, no way to get there.
Where were Alcie, Iole, and Homer? Had they survived the chariot ride? Were they hurt? Alive? If so, they were probably frantic with worry.
Without warning, something hit her on top of her head. Instinctively she reached up, but whatever it was had fallen to the ground. She continued to scan the hill for a way down to the road. Something else hit her head, this time with a little more force. She looked into the sky. Nothing. Staring at the ground she saw two little pine nuts lying side by side in the dark brown earth. Another hit her on top of her head and fell alongside the other two.
“I said thank you!” she cried to the pine tree. “Was I supposed to do something . . . ?”
Before she’d even finished her question, she watched in amazement as every branch on the tree began to quiver. Suddenly, Pandy was caught in a downpour of fresh white pine nuts. They rained so hard and so fast that Pandy could only throw her arms over her head for protection. A few seconds later, when the deluge stopped, she was rooted where she stood, knee-deep in a huge mound of nuts. As she tried to step out, every nut on the ground instantly scurried away to form another large pile.
Pandy, unsure of what to do, kept looking from the tree to the pile and back again.
“Okaaay,” she finally said.
Immediately, the pile began to re-form itself. Nuts moving alone or in little groups, left, right, up, and down, stacking themselves on top of each other, forming little shapes that would unite with other little shapes, some balancing precariously on others, until they formed a single recognizable word:
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 were
n’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 the
ir 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.
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