Pandora Gets Lazy

by Carolyn Hennesy

  “And you’d like everyone to know?” Hermes replied, also hunched over, but not as badly.

  “She’s here!” Prometheus whispered, shaking his withered, gnarled hands up and down.

  “That’s good.” Hermes concentrated on his wooden pole. “Let everyone see how excited you are about something in this gods-forsaken place. Ixnay on the akingshay. Start stirring.”

  “I’m just so . . . so . . .”

  “Cheese it, the rat!” Hermes spat.

  A guard was swiftly approaching from across the compound, knocking slaves out of his path. He strode directly up to Prometheus, almost knocking him into the mud pit.

  “Where’ve you been, old man? I sent you for my morning meal an hour ago. Your knobby knees so bent you can’t walk faster than this?”

  Prometheus realized he had forgotten his task and looked imploringly at Hermes . . . who just rolled his eyes behind the guard and flicked at his nose as if he were flicking a fly. Immediately, in the sack hanging across one shoulder, Prometheus felt the weight of two apples and a wedge of goat’s-milk cheese.

  “And it had better still be hot, you wretch,” spat the guard, now bearing down on Prometheus, “or you’ll be mixing this mud from the bottom up.”

  In a flash, Prometheus felt the apples and cheese transform into a clay jar full of creamed oats.

  “Here you are, sir.” Prometheus handed the jar to the guard and smiled an absolutely toothless smile. “Nice and hot.”

  “Get back to work.”

  As the guard walked back across the compound and settled himself with his comrades, Hermes flicked his finger again.

  “What did you just do?” asked Prometheus.

  “Not a thing,” Hermes said. “I shall deny any part in turning a pot full of oats into a stomach full of worms.”

  “Okay. Did you hear what I said? She’s—”

  “I have never seen so much dirt in my life,” Hermes said, before Prometheus could say another word. “I have never been so dirty. I have never tasted so much dirt. I have dirt in my eyes, my nose, my ears, my teeth—”

  “You still have teeth.”

  “—I am a god, thank you very much, I get some benefits—my hair, my armpits, under my fingernails, and between my toes. Ah, the joys of friendship. All right, she’s here. Now, what are you going to do?”

  Prometheus sighed.

  “Nothing.”

  “Thaaaat’s right. That’s the deal. Look but don’t hug. She never knows you’re you, even if you have to help her. That way if Zeus ever finds out and asks her, she’ll be able to answer honestly. So, where did you see her?”

  “Oh, Hermes.” Prometheus stopped stirring. He stared into the dawn cutting through the surrounding blackness, illuminating the hectic village. “She was dragging a ladder out of Atlas’s quarters. She was with her friend Iole and from the way they were crying and pinching each other, she must have just arrived. Oh, it was so good to see her! And . . . and . . . she had this air about her, Hermes. She’s changed. It’s like . . . my little girl left home and now there’s this capable, strong, almost . . . mature . . . young woman in her place. You know, I think if I had known what she’d become, what she’s becoming, I might not have pressed so hard to be here. I think she can handle—”

  “Great! We can go!”

  “No,” Prometheus said calmly, not missing a beat, “almost anything. Almost. Except my brother. He had another haircut, by the looks of things. I think Pandora’s been assigned to the barbers. I bumped into them right before I saw her and they were talking about training the new girl and Atlas’s wild nose hair.”

  “And I thought Demeter’s hair was wacky,” Hermes said.

  “My friend, this is the first time in months that I feel anything at all except despair. And you know what that feeling is?”

  “Lay it on me,” Hermes said.

  “I’m starving.”

  “Good sign, I’m happy! Check in your cloth sack.”

  Prometheus felt around and, out of view of the other slaves, pulled out a perfectly roasted piece of lamb.

  “Wonderful!” He smiled. “And for those of us who have to gum our food?”

  “Fine. Put it back.” Hermes sighed.

  In the sack, Prometheus felt the lamb change in his hand to three pitted, overripe apricots.

  “Thank you.”

  “Pleasure,” Hermes answered.

  Gumming the apricots, Prometheus ambled over to two young boys, newly arrived that morning, who were struggling with one mixing stick between them.

  “Hello . . . let me help you,” he said before he realized that they spoke not a word of Greek.

  He patted his chest and introduced himself.

  “I’m Theus . . . Theus.”

  The larger of the two understood.

  “Ismailil,” he said, hitting his own chest, then pointing to the other, smaller boy, “Amri.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Together Again

  Iole kept Pandy silent as the two girls stowed the ladders against the side of a small hut. Then she led Pandy back around several columns and into the main room of the barbers’ lodgings; it was crude, but unlike most of the other structures, it had a roof. Iole bowed, as did Pandy, to the two Persian men, now tending a bronze teapot hanging over a little fire, and ushered Pandy through a privacy curtain and into a small side storeroom. Pandy was about to throw her arms around Iole when Iole motioned to the other assistant, already asleep in a corner. The two girls crept into the opposite corner to sit on a dirty carpet and hugged each other tightly, weeping into their cloaks.

  “When we saw you fall,” Iole sputtered, “we thought you were dead. But then, as the days passed, I was convinced, Pandy—I was convicted—that you were still alive. Alcie, too. We just knew it in our hearts. We knew we would feel differently if you were gone.”

  “Me too,” Pandy whispered. “I had the feeling that somehow you guys were okay. I just don’t think the gods would have let us come this far only to kill us now. Where’s Alcie?”

  “She’s a feeder. But her shift is over at dawn. She should be here any minute.”

  “What’s a feeder?” asked Pandy.

  “They’re the ones who bring water and food, if you can call it that, up to the men bearing the heavens. That’s what they’re doing, you know. They’re doing it, Pandy!”

  “I know.”

  Then Iole’s voice began to tremble.

  “Homer’s up there, Pandy.”

  “So I guessed. But we’ll get him down. Okay, tell me everything you know. Where were you, how did you get here, and are you certain Laziness is in my uncle’s nose?”

  “Oh, Gods.” Iole sighed. “How do I even commence?”

  Iole began the tale of their incredible voyage: Apollo landing the chariot, their kidnap by Atlas’s pirates, the Syracusa, catching and imprisoning Misery . . .

  “What?” Pandy cried. The girl in the opposite corner raised her head and glared at Pandy and Iole.

  “What?” Pandy whispered.

  “We have it,” Iole said, grinning. Quietly, she stood up and pulled her pouch down from a rickety shelf. She withdrew the small wooden box surrounded by the square adamant shackles and gingerly handed it to Pandy.

  “Oh, you would have been so proud of Alcie,” Iole went on. “She was fierce, like an Amazon. She didn’t really have a plan, but she was determined. She just kept saying ‘We’ll figure it out!’ And then, once we had Misery in the box, she remembered that we’d been chained with adamant shackles, so we snuck to the armory and met Hephaestus.”

  “You’re kidding,” Pandy said, taking the box.

  “I’m not. And he created these,” Iole went on, pointing to the bands around the box. “And that’s when we knew. We knew at that point at least you were still alive. Why would anyone help us, without you there, if they didn’t think we’d all meet up again?”

  “Brilliant, as usual. We’ll figure out how to transfer Misery into the main box lat
er.”

  At that moment, a heavy cloth covering an opening at the other end of the little room was thrust aside and a hooded figure stood in the dim morning light.

  “Iole, he doesn’t look good. His skin is turning pink.”

  Alcie threw back her hood and was just about to enter when she saw Pandy.

  In an instant, Pandy was on her feet . . . but Alcie just stared, until her lower lip started to quiver and her eyes filled with tears, blinding her. She clutched at the heavy cloth. When Pandy realized that Alcie couldn’t move, she crossed the room and embraced her other best friend.

  Pandy led Alcie back to the corner, where the other two waited several minutes for Alcie to stop crying and heaving enough to be able to speak.

  “Tangerines,” she joked quietly, gripping Pandy’s hand, “this is such a groovy way to start the day.”

  Pandy and Iole grinned.

  “Okay,” Iole said, “I was just finishing the part where we captured Misery.”

  “Neat, huh?” said Alcie, hiccupping a bit from all the crying.

  “So cool,” agreed Pandy.

  “You know, Homer wasn’t even around; it was just Iole and me. But Homer wrote some amazing stuff during the whole thing. He’s related to the other Homer, the famous one. Oh, Gods, Pandy, do you know what’s happened to Homer? Lemons! He’s been up on a column for three days.”

  “We’ll get him down,” Pandy said. “But first I have so many questions.”

  “Me too,” said Alcie.

  “Okay, did you guys crawl under the heavens?” Pandy asked.

  “Of course, it’s the only way in,” Iole said.

  “Did you lose anyone?” Pandy asked.

  “Lose anyone?” Alcie asked.

  “Did anyone get sucked up inside?”

  “I saw a bird get trapped, but a person?”

  “Moldy apples! No!”

  Pandy recounted the poor woman’s attempted escape from her line and Pandy’s subsequent moments in the black void.

  “Chewed-up olive pits!”

  “Listen, before I ask anything else . . .” Pandy turned to Iole. “Do you have any idea why things were able to be sucked into the void down below and why the men are able to hold it up here?”

  “She does,” Alcie said.

  “I do,” said Iole.

  “She told me the first morning when I snuck in here for some shut-eye. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Homer. So she told me her theory. I went out like a candle flame.”

  “I hypothesize that it’s because the bottom of the heavens is constructed like a netting or webbing of some kind,” Iole began. “Up here, it’s tight as a festival drum, like it’s supposed to be. But down below, it’s completely stretched out, the way a fisherman’s net stretches when it’s full of fish and you can poke your hand through. Close to the earth, the netting is being stretched wide and that’s why things can get sucked up inside.”

  “Yawn. Okay, prunes. Start back at the beginning and then we have to talk about Homer. What happened when you fell?” Alcie cried.

  Pandy told them everything: Dionysus, the pine-nut-cup ride down the mountain, Ismailil and Amri, hiding and being caught, the squirrels, and the journey up Jbel Toubkal.

  “How’d you get assigned here?” Alcie asked Pandy.

  “Because I am incredibly clever,” Iole cut in.

  “Now, about Homer,” Alcie began.

  “Wait, if you’re a feeder, aren’t you in another group? How do you get to come here every morning?” Pandy asked.

  “Puh-leeze!” Alcie said. “I’m supposed to be sleeping, and no one guards a group of passed-out prisoners. I just sneak away. There’s no way any of us are getting off this mountain, and as long as I report tonight, no one cares.”

  “Plus, all I would have to do is say she’s with me and anyone would back off,” Iole said.

  “Oh, and don’t think she doesn’t just love that!” Alcie said, under her breath.

  “What do you mean?” Pandy asked.

  “The barbers are treated like Greek philosophers . . . or even actors! Complete respect. They get meat and wine, a hut with a roof. Unrestricted movement about the compound, and since I’m an assistant—”

  “Constantly reminding me.” Alcie sighed.

  “—I can come and go pretty much as I please with this.”

  Iole tapped a tiny, very dull pair of metal shears hanging around her neck on the same chain as the Eye of Horus.

  “But why?” Pandy asked again.

  “It’s all about the hair,” Alcie said.

  “Atlas’s hair grows so fast that he needs it cut every day.”

  “That’s freaky. He’s Dad’s brother,” Pandy said. “Dad’s hair doesn’t grow that fast.”

  “It has to be part of his enchantment,” Iole said.

  “You saw the hair, right?” Alcie asked.

  Before Pandy could respond, Iole went on.

  “Apparently, he had become quite hirsute—”

  “Hairy,” Alcie interrupted.

  “Thank you,” Pandy said.

  “—when he set down the heavens, so when he started recruiting Roman soldiers in the area to be his henchmen, the first thing he demanded was barbers. He loves to just sit and be snipped.”

  “But you saw the hair, right?” Alcie repeated, dropping her voice.

  “Of course,” said Pandy.

  “It’s Laziness,” said Iole.

  “I think so too. It has to be,” said Pandy. “Laziness is something that would have to be on or in my uncle to make him forget his responsibility and set down the heavens. It’s the only obvious . . . what’s the word?”

  “Transmogrified? Metamorphosed? Mutated?” Iole said.

  “. . . mutated thing about him. He froze up when the barbers got too close to that nose hair.”

  “It’s never been cut,” Iole said. “It’s been nicked twice over the past weeks and both times he’s flown into a rage. It’s the most action anyone’s seen out of him. He picked up his barbers and threw them both off the mountain. The current barbers are replacements for the replacements. But I hear them talking, and they say the longer the hair gets, the lazier he becomes. It’s like a constant dose of lotus leaves.”

  “Well, even if it were to be cut, it would simply grow back. It has to be torn out at the root. Maybe when he’s sleeping,” Pandy mused.

  “Good luck getting around the guards,” Alcie said.

  “We’re pretty good at creating diversions,” Pandy reminded her. “At any rate, we have to get it in the box as fast as possible.”

  “But, Pandy, we’re gonna get Homer down, right?” Alcie said, the worry growing in her voice.

  “Duh! As soon as we get Laziness . . .”

  “NO!” Alcie yelled, and the girl in the corner shifted in her sleep. “Now! Figs. I know this is your quest and you make the decisions, okay? And . . . and we didn’t even know how to do it before you got here, but now, with your powers, we can think of something to get him down first!”

  “Alcie, keep your voice down,” Iole cautioned.

  Alcie went right on in a quieter tone.

  “Pandy, he’s big and strong and the only time I feel super safe, really, is when he’s around! And he’s so cute . . . and he’s the first one in a long time who likes me. A lot. Me! Oh, pears! And he’s smart. And he thinks I’m . . . And he’s, like, gorgeous, and that’s gonna be wrecked if you . . . we . . .”

  Pandy looked at Iole.

  “Long story. Tell you later.”

  “Alcie,” Pandy replied, turning back to her friend, “calm down, okay? As soon as Laziness goes into the box, my uncle will remember his vow and his responsibility and take up the heavens again. I’m sure of it. Then the burden will be lifted off of everyone, including the men on those other mountains.”

  Alcie went white.

  “What? Alcie, what?” Pandy cried.

  “Iole, prunes . . . prunes, Iole. Tell her. I don’t even know how to say it,” Al
cie whimpered.

  “Pandy, we’ve determined from everything we’ve seen and heard that each man lasts only four days on a column. That’s how long it takes for the weight of the heavens to, basically, to crush the bones. It doesn’t kill them, but it compresses them, and, even though the sun is far away, it still hardens the skin and turns it red and—”

  “And turns normal, full-grown men into those tiny, shriveled, reddish creatures,” Pandy finished, grasping the full horror. It would take only a year, maybe less, for Atlas to use up every last man on earth. And then what would happen?

  “Right,” Iole said. “We arrived here three days ago at dawn. Homer was baked into a column almost immediately. Today is his fourth day. That means that even though Homer is stronger than almost anybody we know and he might last a little longer, he really only has until tonight.”

  “And then he’s a ‘used-man,’ ” Alcie whispered. “I’ll love him even if he’s shriveled, by Athena’s teeth, I will! But I’ll have to pick him up and carry him everywhere. I’ll be toting my little red boyfriend under my arm wherever I go!”

  “That’s what you meant when you came in saying that his skin was turning pink,” Pandy said to Alcie.

  Alcie nodded.

  “And he’ll never be the same. At least we don’t think so. Gods, that much weight on a body? The effects must be irreversible,” Iole said. “Look, I know Alcie’s reasoning sounds a little self-centered right now . . .”

  “Hey!”

  “It does. But you have to admit, Pandy,” Iole went on, “Homer’s been invaluable on the quest. And now that you’re here, we have to try.”

  “Oh, Gods, Pandy . . . apples, apples, apples!” Alcie said, the panic creeping back into her voice. “If we don’t do something, we’ll lose him. I’ll lose him. The only guy I will ever love will be half a meter tall. And he’ll be forced into one of those raiding parties. Please . . . please, let’s get him down first? Please?”

  Pandy just turned her head and looked right into Alcie’s green eyes. Then she shook her head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.