"They hit us in the morning while we were yet at our rest. We were woken by the terrible rumble of the bronze-tired chariots of the gods of Olympus and the thunder of the hooves of their great horses. War was joined, and we were all unprepared. Apollo, Athena and Ares scythed through our camp. Our heroes fell like corn before the reapers, before their cruel stabbing spears and arrows with heads of wrought iron. But Orpheus took up his lyre and played. The magic of his music would have stilled the wolves of battle—as he soothed even the terrible sirens. But then Apollo cast his bright spear. It struck Orpheus between the shoulder blades and pierced him through."
Pan burst into tears again. Gradually the story emerged. The army at Lesbos, small, and still arguing about what course to take against Olympus, was no more. And with the death of Orpheus, Pan had no more heart for the fight.
Cruz took a deep breath. "Well. We'll have to raise another army. One that understands 'sentries.' "
"I don't think that's worth doing," said Jerry with a sigh. "We're not going to beat the Olympian gods at a straight slugging match."
"So what do you want to do now, Doc?" demanded McKenna hotly. "Give up? Run away?"
The sneering undertone made Liz snap. "Mac, you better hope for bloody cold weather so that your head can contract and the two brain cells in there can make contact with each other. What Jerry is saying is that a dumb-ox-brute-force solution isn't going to work. We've got to out-think the bastards."
"Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that . . . " said Jerry, pacifically.
Liz snorted. "No, you're too polite, except when you've eaten lotus-cookies."
Jerry winced, acknowledging a hit. "But in a nutshell, that's right. We've got to either out-think or out-modern them. Look . . . "
"So all we need now are a couple of Blackhawks," said Mac, sarcastically. "Brilliant, Doc. Brilliant—Sir. Only we've lost most of our gear and the only things that work are primitive stuff."
Lamont stood up. "That's enough, Mac. Liz, settle down. There's no point in fighting each other. Let's think of things and ways they didn't have in ancient Greece. Mac, you came up with that brandy. That was a winner and it didn't take stuff we haven't got."
"He's right," said Cruz.
Jerry nodded. "In a way, Mac's right too. We're still going to have to do some fighting. But mano-a-mano against an Olympian we're going to lose. So I think we need to look at two things. Allies. And something Olympus won't have heard of. Or, at least, something they think they've got the monopoly on."
Jerry smiled at Cruz and McKenna. "Your field of expertise, not mine. Airborne assault."
McKenna scratched his head. "I suppose, even without 'chutes we could use the sphinx and the dragons. But, well, how many of these gods are there?"
"Many, and they're enormous, and immortal," Jerry said quietly.
Cruz tensed his massive forearm. "Yeah. Look, I'm not washing the idea out, but what advantage does it give us to attack them? If we take the fight to them, and let it be on their home ground, we're worse off, Doc."
Jerry smiled. "I want to get some allies. Or at least one. A big one."
Liz chuckled. "Besides, we've already got a lot of allies. Expert parachutists, too. Spiders."
Cruz shrugged. "Liz, I suppose the spiders can bite a few of these gods . . . but they're supposed to be immortals. Gonna take more than spider bites."
Liz smiled. "Even immortals got taken captive, didn't they? Arachne. Show him just how strong spider silk is."
Arachne smiled sweetly. "I just have. Try to free your legs."
Cruz hadn't even noticed the silken strands going round his legs. Try as he might he couldn't pull them apart.
"Let me try," said Bes.
He snapped the web like a rotten carrot. "Strong."
Cruz took a deep breath and said to McKenna: "Remind me not to wrestle with that guy, Mac."
Liz shrugged and Arachne looked totally taken aback. "Oh well. So much for that idea," she said, looking regretful.
"But it is very strong," said Bes with a chuckle.
"So is he," said Medea.
"That's the point. If Bes can break free, then indeed, the Olympians can," said Jerry.
Liz looked at the three-foot-six hell-raiser. "You've just acquired a job in destructive testing of materials, Bes."
The dwarf looked suspicious. "What does that mean?"
She smiled at him. "It means you get to try and break things, Bes dear."
He grinned broadly back at her. "Oh, good. Fun."
Jerry grinned. Bes was infectious. Even Pan was looking a little less down in the mouth. "Test them quickly," said Jerry. "I want to go and break some unbreakable chains, and I reckon you're the Bes't breaker around. I think it's time we went to free Prometheus."
"Who is this Prometheus guy, anyway?" asked McKenna.
"A Titan. He's called 'the friend of mankind.' He took the side of man against Olympus. I'm hoping he's still inclined that way, even though it got him in trouble. How do you feel about visiting Colchis again, Medea?"
Cruz had more of a grasp of the geography than anyone else there. "Doc. That's about a thousand miles away."
Jerry took a deep breath. "Yes. It's going to take some time. And I want us to split up. Some of us have to stay here and prepare some kind of glider. Something we can pack ourselves, a Titan, and about a million spiders into, to tow behind Throttler. Or am I asking the impossible?"
There was a silence. "Build a plane? I don't think so," said Mac, shaking his head.
Liz narrowed her eyes. "What about a hot-air balloon?"
Mac nodded. "Yeah, could do. But what can we use for material?"
"Talk to your spider girlfriend about silk," said Liz.
Arachne looked startled. Whether it was at the idea of her providing silk, or of the girlfriend comment, was uncertain.
Medea sighed. "My father Aeëtes will not be glad to see me back. In fact, he will do his best to kill you. He is a magician of note. He draws his powers from Helios. My own, as high priestess of Hecate, are small by comparison."
Lamont snorted. "Back down to magic. Pan, you don't feel like endowing me with some powers over your secondary sprites, do you?"
Pan looked up. "No. You are already in the service of another. But I will place my blessing on one of you."
Liz shook her head. "Better be you, Doc. I don't understand this stuff."
Lamont snorted again. "You can say that again."
"Anyway the magic of Pan-Priapus sits ill with a female votary," said Goat-features.
Jerry hastily changed the subject. "Where is Throttler, by the way?"
"She said she was just nipping out for a quick riddling," said Bes cheerfully. The dwarf was striking up quite a warm relationship with the sphinx.
Jerry looked alarmed. Throttler seemed quite content, indeed pleased, to eat cooked food with them. Her dietary history hadn't worried him. "But she said she was stuffed."
Bes shrugged. "She wanted to test her riddling. Even when she can't eat them, she likes to practice. Catch and release, she calls it."
Sitting on the high gray-white stone outcrop beneath whispering pines, Jerry listened to Pan play his pipes, bittersweet and full of mourning. Jerry spent the better part of the night being introduced to the mysteries. More precisely, the names of the myriad sprites and lesser genii that owed fealty to Pan. His hand ached. He'd written as phonetically as possible, but why the hell did it have to be by moonlight? The moon was nearly down, but Pan was finished.
Well. It was magic of a sort. If Jerry ever got back, he'd be able to make a fortune out of curing erectile dysfunction for starters. And then he could make himself a fortune as a trophy-hunter guide . . . if that was his scene. Not to mention the stuff about sheep. And sudden and illogical alarums. And it was great for musical instruments, and employing the principles of contagion and sympathy . . . Which were not infectious diseases and grapes and cards for the poor victims.
Contagion meant things which were once in contact remained in contact and could be drawn together again. Sympathy meant that like produced like.
He looked at the list. Well, at a guess he'd have five or six days' flying time to the Caucasus in which to memorize all this stuff.
Mac smiled, with a confidence he was far from feeling. "You worry too much, Doc. I'll be fine. And I won't lose it with Henri. The guy is sick."
It was true. Henri had developed a hacking cough, either from the water inhaled in the lake of Sebek or the high flying. He was pale and even turning down food—a sure sign of extreme unwellness for the French gourmand.
Arachne produced a small, golden, silken parcel. "Do you think this will do?"
It was a perfect miniature balloon, complete to the basket underneath, woven from grass stems. "It flies," said McKenna proudly. "We tested it."
"Well done," said Jerry. "If I recall correctly, the silk used to be varnished."
"What is 'varnished'?" asked Arachne.
"Hey, Lamont! What goes into varnish?" asked Jerry.
"Spirit varnish is resin and spirits," replied that repository of miscellaneous information.
Arachne looked a little puzzled. "Spirits? A magical compound?"
Mac chuckled. "No. Alcohol. I can do a bit of distilling and we'll cook some up. If you've got resin?"
Arachne looked a trifle put out. "Colophon is famous for it. Our Colophonium is known throughout the Hellenic world. Which barbarian land do you hail from, that you have not heard of Colophon's resin?"
Medea raised her aristocratic nose. "They come from the distant island of America. It is a wondrous place. The men there all cook and wait on the women." She sniffed. "Although I notice that lately the local habits are starting to infect them."
The diminished party drifted on a fine following wind across the Anatolian Plateau. The comfort of the net-nest of the twin-dragon dirigible was somewhat enhanced with some fine woven blankets and two light struts with padded ends, to keep the dragons apart. The few support ropes also meant that they didn't all end up lying on top of each other as they used to.
The dragons complained about it. "It makefs ufs look like beafstfs of burden," muttered Smitar.
"Yefs. Beafstfs," agreed Bitar.
They were also laden with the gastronomic delights that Colophon had been famed for. But the dragons didn't moan about that at all.
Medea stretched. In-flight movies consisted of the occasional bird going by. There was nothing to do but relax and enjoy the view. And talk. But learning Cruz's language was more fun with privacy and tickling. She felt the fabric of the garment that Cruz had traded for with Arachne. The spiderwoman had a peasant's interests in money. She, Medea, loved fine things. But this money-grubbing was all a little sordid. She sighed. Her princess upbringing had not couched her in habits of economy. She'd tried with Jason, when they'd lived at Ephyra. But he'd been more spendthrift than she was, and had found it even more irksome than she had. The metal Anibal carried suggested that he was a wealthy man. But he didn't behave like one. . . .
She sighed again. She was getting used to the way he behaved. It was different but nice. Actually, very nice. He cared about her . . . first. Maybe that was worth more than all the rich estates he must have.
"What's up, beautiful?" he asked, smiling at her.
"Just thinking about the future. How big are your estates and how many serfs are there to call you master back on your America?"
Cruz swallowed. She was a damn princess, according to the Doc. She obviously put him fairly high up the ladder. Well, given the way she misinterpreted the U.S. that wasn't really surprising. But what princess would want anything to do with a lifer with years to go? Shit. Best to tell the truth, even if he wanted to lie, really badly. But he got the feeling Medea had been lied to quite enough.
"I don't have any estates," he said abruptly. "And there are no serfs in the U.S. Not officially, anyway."
Medea looked dumbfounded. "But—you carry arms. You are a warrior."
"I'm a soldier, yes." He floundered, mostly at the hurt in her eyes.
"But . . . but . . . all the cunningly wrought metal, the fine-woven cloth . . . "
"Belong to Uncle Sam," said Cruz, determined to leave no stone unturned in his attempt to bury himself.
Medea smiled dazzlingly. Cruz felt himself melt. She twined her fingers in his. "Ah. Then we will kill this wicked uncle together. He must have usurped your lands and even your throne, no?"
Anibal Cruz began to realize that being eaten by crocodiles might just have been the soft option compared to taking Medea back home. "No. It, um . . . doesn't quite work like that."