Pantheon (The Tamar Black Saga)

by Nicola Rhodes

  A sharpened spoon was submitted to his brain for consideration.

  * * *

  It was a pretty ordinary belt really, apart from the stars still twinkling along its length.

  Tamar put it on. It seemed the thing to do. Nothing happened, except her chiton bunched unflatteringly.

  She would have to ask Nemesis.

  ‘I’m not sure it suits me,’ she said landing back on the earth and giving a twirl. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Is that …?’ began Aphrodite. ‘Is that really it? You really did it?’

  ‘Piece of ca… Er, it was easy,’ Tamar amended.

  ‘Amazing!’ said Hecate.

  And then suddenly she was getting a round of applause. Nemesis was looking sour.

  ‘I told you she’d do it,’ said Denny.

  ‘Shame it’s not working,’ said Nemesis.

  Tamar whipped round. ‘What’s not working?’ she demanded, before Denny could even open his mouth.

  ‘Er …’ Denny pointed with his mouth open. ‘I think actually it is working.’

  Tamar was being transformed. Into a hunter. The greatest hunter in the world as it goes.

  Gone was the flowing chiton, and in its place was a short toga-like arrangement, in a supple soft suede-like material that draped like silk. The costume of the Amazon warriors. The bow arm was bare. On her head was a silver helmet adorned with wings at either side. Leather gauntlets covered her arms to the elbow. A quiver full of arrows was hung across her back, and a large hunting knife was in the belt. She looked fearsome. And very, very sexy – to Denny anyway.

  ‘I had to be dead,’ he mourned. ‘I had to be dead now.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Nemesis. ‘Why is being dead now, suddenly any worse than it was before?’

  ‘She didn’t look like that before,’ said Denny plaintively.

  ‘She looks the same as she always did to me,’ sniffed Nemesis. ‘Fierce.’

  Tamar was indeed looking fierce. Frighteningly so. She stalked over to Nemesis and barked. ‘What do I have to kill?’

  ‘The Manticore,’ said Nemesis backing away involuntarily.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ said Tamar, looking disappointed.

  ‘The Manticore has the reputation of being the fiercest and most dangerous …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Tamar cut her off. ‘Whatever. The Manticore it is then. So, that’d be Persia right?’

  ‘So rumour has it,’ said Nemesis.

  ‘You’ve never actually seen one, have you?’ said Tamar.

  ‘No, I have not.’

  ‘Have you?’ Denny asked Tamar.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And so have you.’

  ‘I have?’ Denny scratched his (technically) nonexistent head. ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘They’re doing it again,’ said Aphrodite.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hephaestus. ‘But it’s getting easier to fill in the empty parts of the conversation, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not really,’ Aphrodite sniffed. ‘Harder really, since Nemesis joined them.’

  ‘It is perfectly obvious that Tamar has become a hunter with the donning of the belt of Orion, and the next part of her task is to hunt down the Manticore of terrible reputation,’ said Hecate.

  ‘Oh, yes, I got that much,’ said Aphrodite.

  Hecate rolled her eyes. ‘What more do you need to know?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll know it when you see it,’ said Tamar to the empty air. ‘I guarantee it.’

  The empty air shrugged.

  ‘Hey, did you see that?’ cried Aphrodite.

  ‘See what?’ said Proteus.

  ‘I thought I saw… I saw… something,’ she said lamely.

  ‘There,’ said Hecate suddenly. ‘It’s looking at me.’

  ‘What is?’ said Hephaestus.

  ‘I – I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I think it’s him.’

  They all peered hard at the empty space where she was looking.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Proteus eventually.

  ‘No, nor can I, now,’ said Hecate. ‘But it was there. Just a suggestion in the air. He was smiling, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Grinning,’ corrected Aphrodite. ‘I think he’s amused by us.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was,’ said Hephaestus. ‘All straining our eyes at nothing but empty air.’

  ‘Boo!’ said Denny into his ear and Hephaestus jumped suddenly.

  Tamar covered her mouth to hide a smile.

  Then she was all business again. ‘Right.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Persia it is then. Come along then, hurry up last train leaving now.’

  ‘Surely we don’t all have to go?’ said Aphrodite.

  Tamar looked at her sternly. ‘If you think I’m letting any of you out of my sight – Denny, stop pulling faces – then you’ve got another think coming.’

  Denny stuck his tongue out at her.

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘You’re being a bit …’

  A bit what?’

  ‘Keen?’ he tried. ‘Bossy? Try and calm down, will you. You’ll have an aneurysm.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ muttered Nemesis.

  ‘I just want to get this over with,’ stormed Tamar. ‘And if you …’

  She stopped. ‘Have I been making a fool of myself?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not … exactly. You just seem a bit… I was getting a bit worried that’s all,’ he said.

  ‘I’m, fine,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not exactly yourself, though, are you?’ he said quietly. ‘That’s more than a costume, isn’t it?’

  Either Tamar didn’t hear him, or she chose to ignore this.

  She was not worried. She was fine. Absolutely fine. Absolutely.

  Next stop Persia.

  * * *

  It was hot and stinking in the jungle, but Tamar walked coolly through the trees as if she were on an afternoon stroll. She looked alert but relaxed.

  ‘We should be careful,’ said Aphrodite, apparently forgetting that she was a god and therefore, immortal. ‘There could be something dangerous in here.’

  ‘There is,’ said Tamar. ‘Me.’

  ‘We need a kid,’ she added.

  ‘Why?’ said Denny. ‘Whose kid?’

  ‘As in a baby goat,’ said Tamar, who was sure he knew this and was just being silly, ‘to tether to a tree.’

  ‘And that’s how we hunt a Manticore is it?’ he said.

  ‘That’s how we hunt anything,’ she said. ‘No point chasing it all over the place when we can get it to come to us.’

  ‘Well,’ said Denny taking in her new attire. ‘I guess you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said curtly. ‘We need to be downwind,’ she added. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it matters in your case, but the rest of us, need to be downwind. All right you lot – move it, over here.’

  ‘And now what?’ asked Proteus.

  Tamar gave him an evil smile. ‘I’m glad you asked,’ she said.

  Proteus, in the form of a kid, allowed himself, under heavy protest, to be tethered to the tree. And the rest of them moved downwind to wait.

  ‘How long is this going to take?’ said Aphrodite grumpily.

  ‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ said Tamar calmly. ‘Keep quiet.’

  Aphrodite shifted restlessly, and Tamar glared at her. Aphrodite froze. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  Several hours went by. Apparently the Manticore was busy elsewhere and had not had time to fit them into his schedule yet. The gods found this extremely irritating. They were used to people waiting on them, not the other way around.

  ‘Do them good,’ thought Tamar callously. She was not bored at all. The suspense was building in her; the longer they waited, the more excited she became. She was tensed, ready to spring, and she knew that she was invisible, blended into the jungle in a way that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the hunter’s i
nstinct for camouflage.

  It happened suddenly. One minute nothing but the rustling of some trees and the next, it seemed, Tamar threw her spear with unerring accuracy at the movement There was a howl in the bushes and Tamar leapt into the undergrowth and emerged carrying the hide of a …

  ‘That’s a tiger,’ said Denny in disappointment.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tamar tipping him a wink and feeling extremely grateful that only she could hear him.

  ‘That’s the Manticore?’ said Denny aghast. ‘But it hasn’t got spikes on its tail or anything.’

  ‘Oh, all that stuff about spiked missiles on its tail and scorpion stings on its head and all that, was just exaggeration,’ she said. ‘I told you you’d seen one before,’ she added.

  ‘The body of a lion and the head of man,’ mused Denny. ‘I can sort of see that I guess.’

  ‘So, you have captured the Manticore,’ said Hephaestus trying not to seem too impressed. ‘What is the next task?’

  ‘Good point,’ said Tamar. ‘Nemesis?’

  ‘You must go to the kingdom of –— in Arabia.’

  ‘And do what?’ asked Tamar, who did not like the sound of this.’

  ‘Steal the Djinn from the sultan, who is not a true sultan but only an ordinary thief who has become a tyrant overlord.’

  Tamar was silent for a moment. ‘His name isn’t Aladdin is it?’ she said. ‘That’d be just typical.’

  ‘It is,’ said Nemesis.

  ‘It would be,’ sighed Tamar. ‘It bloody well, would be.’

  * * *

  ‘I know who that Djinn is,’ said Tamar gloomily to Denny. ‘I mean it just would be, wouldn’t it? A bloody Djinn. The one thing I’ll have a real problem with.’

  Denny said nothing. It was better just to let her rant.

  ‘I mean, technically, he’ll have a lot more power than me. If Aladdin tells him to kill me, he will.’

  ‘Then that’ll make two of us,’ said Denny.

  Tamar ignored him. ‘And Old Jham Bhutti’s got more power than I ever had anyway,’ she resumed. ‘He’s one of the old ones.’

  ‘Jam butty?’ said Denny in disbelief. Then he shook his head. After Slammer Lung, he was prepared to believe just about anything. He realised to the full for the first time that they were both lucky that Tamar had kept her real name – more or less. Imagine being married to a girl named … He hesitated. Well something really silly anyway.

  ‘What do you mean – old ones?’ he asked.

  ‘In the olden times, before humanity reigned, the Djinn were free,’ she said. ‘And they used to take each other’s powers. There were epic battles. Jham Bhutti took the power of a lot of Djinn. Much more than Askphrit.’

  ‘Well, he’s not free now,’ said Denny comfortingly. ‘And you are.’

  ‘How is that going to help?’ said Tamar testily. ‘Aladdin’s not just going to hand him over, is he?’

  ‘Steal the bottle …’

  ‘Lamp.’

  ‘Lamp then – really? I thought that was just in the stories. I’ve never come across a real Djinn in a lamp.’

  ‘Lamps are metal,’ said Tamar as if this was some kind of explanation.

  ‘And …?’ queried Denny patiently.

  ‘Metal is stronger than glass,’ she said. ‘More powerful Djinn need stronger prisons. It’s all symbolic really.’

  ‘How come you’ve never told me all this before?’ he asked.

  ‘Before my time,’ she said vaguely. She was clearly fretting; her mind was miles away.

  ‘I’ve never seen you beaten by anything,’ he said encouragingly.

  ‘Well, you’re about to have a front row seat to the first time,’ she said. ‘I can’t beat Jham, and that’s flat.’

  ‘But …’ he began.

  ‘Just … leave me alone for a while,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  Of course, she did not have to say please. He had to obey anyway. But when she had been his slave, he had always been careful not to give orders to her. Some things were important. Denny drifted away into the ether.

  ‘Denny’s right,’ she thought. There had to be a way. There was always a way. She began to think about possible strategies.

  ‘Well, whatever I do, I’m not dressing up as a harem girl again,’ she decided. ‘This isn’t a bloody “Carry On” film.’

  The trouble was it was beginning to feel like a “Carry On” film.

  ‘My whole bloody life is a “Carry On film”,’ she thought. ‘Or at least a right carry on.’

  * * *

  ‘He isn’t really a tyrant,’ said Tamar as they approached a palace of unparalleled tastelessness. ‘It’s just that the gods don’t like people getting above their station. What if one of them suddenly decided to try for a godhood? It’s pretty crowded up there already.’

  ‘It’s very … glittery, isn’t it?’ said Denny.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You can see what the gods mean really. He’s already thinking like they do.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ said Aphrodite who had detected the criticism in the tone, if not the words.’

  Denny and Tamar laughed, although the others could only hear her laughing, of course.

  ‘Okay, shhh now,’ hissed Tamar as they got nearer. But it was pointless. A gargantuan Djinn manifested at the palace gates.

  ‘Tamar the Black?’ said Jham Bhutti peering down at her in surprise. ‘Is that you?’

  Tamar sighed. ‘Hey,’ she said, and gave a languid wave.

  ‘So it is you?’ he said and roared with unflattering laughter.

  ‘What is me?’ she said with rather overdone innocence.

  Jham roared with laughter again. If only they had a human handy, she thought. A bunch of gods and two spirits. You would think they could have picked up at least one human along the way somewhere; the world was teeming with them after all. One human to trap the Djinn in a handy lamp and this would be so easy. Was it really too much to ask?

  Apparently.

  ‘If it was easy, we wouldn’t have to do it,’ said Denny divining her thoughts.

  ‘I don’t suppose we could borrow you for a while?’ Tamar tried. ‘We’d bring you back, when we were finished.’

  ‘Now, now Tamar the Black,’ Jham shook his head. ‘It’s no skin off my nose you know that. But it’s not my choice to make. And you know that very well too. I don’t want to pound you into mush, but I have to.’

  Tamar sighed. You do, don’t you?’ she said.

  Tamar matched her height to his – about twelve feet – and rolled her head as if loosening up. ‘Let’s get on with it then,’ she said.

  She held a hand up suddenly. ‘Just one thing,’ she said. ‘How did you know we were coming?’

  ‘My master has me on constant alert,’ said Jham. ‘I’m under standing orders to scan for threats to the kingdom and the king himself. You did come here to steal his Djinn didn’t you? Can’t say I’d be sorry if you did,’ he muttered. ‘Do this do that … An extra wing on the palace please Djinn. A feast for a thousand nobles … I don’t know …’

  Tamar was nodding sympathetically as a great fist suddenly slammed down on her head.

  ‘Damn!’ she said bouncing back up again. ‘That hurt!’

  ‘Sorry, said Jham and he sounded as if he meant it too. It did not stop him from doing it again, though, but Tamar was too quick for him this time.

  This was the Denny school of fighting, keep dodging until you get a chance to stick the knife in. Tamar had learned a lot from watching him over the years. Speed was her only advantage here anyway.

  Speed and – she threw a lightning bolt with unerring accuracy – a lot more experience in fighting for her life.

  Jham roared and charged at her, and she flipped easily over his head.

  He vanished and reappeared behind her grabbing her in a headlock. She vanished.

  She reappeared suddenly, running through his legs and grabbing his ankles on the way tipping him over.

&nbs
p; Then she ran up his fallen body and grabbed his head and began banging it on the ground. He reached up and grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her angrily over his head. She careered into the gates with a crash. ‘Bastard,’ she muttered, picking herself up. She bristled like an angry cat and grew several feet taller.

  The gods were watching impassively. It may have been an epic battle between two Djinn, the most powerful creatures in the world, but there had not even been any blood yet. They had all seen worse. And as for Denny, he knew his Tamar. This battle was only the warm up. She definitely had something else in mind. Tamar never got her hair messed up for nothing.

  On the surface, they seemed equally matched. One could get the impression that this could continue pretty much indefinitely. But Denny could see the difference. With each blow, Tamar was hurting more and more. She had been right; this Djinn was more powerful than her. So what did she think she was doing?

  He winced as Jham threw a bridge at Tamar. She fielded it with a tower uprooted from the palace. This was getting out of hand.

  And the Djinn were getting bigger and bigger.

  Pretty soon they would be using the planets as bowling balls. Denny had had no idea that Tamar was capable of this.

  What the hell was she doing anyway? It was not as if the Djinn could die.

  What he was forgetting, and what Aladdin had never known, was that Tamar knew every line of the Djinn charter by heart. Every rule and every addendum. And there was one very interesting one. Tamar knew what she was doing.

  Tamar was down, finally, irremediably. She seemed to have suddenly run out of steam, and the vengeful bulk of Jham was bearing down on her like an unstoppable stream train.

  ‘Why doesn’t she do something?’ shrieked Aphrodite in terror.

  Tamar just waited; a slight smile on her face that Denny recognised. He relaxed.

  ‘I just hope this works,’ she thought as she braced herself for the last blow.

  Then suddenly everything changed. Jham’s lamp came spinning through the air and landed by Tamar’s feet. With a hideous shriek, Jham was sucked back inside.

  Tamar picked up the lamp with a grin. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘That’s that sorted out then.’

  Rule nine: A Djinn may not, even under the orders of his/her master, mortally wound or kill a human. In such an instance said Djinn will immediately become the property of the injured party in order to make reparation.