Pandora Gets Vain (Pandora (Hardback)) (10 page)

“They pray?” cried Alcie, now hitting the barrier with her pouch while Iole was smashing it with a rock and Dido was pawing at the ground, trying to tunnel underneath.

“They want to be safe in the realm of the dead! I don’t know. It’s just what I learned at . . .”

“Gladiator school!” they all cried together.

Suddenly Iole stood very still and looked straight up.

“Homer—put me on Alcie’s shoulders!”

“Huh?”

“Put me on Alcie’s shoulders!” said Iole again. “I want to see how high this wall goes. Maybe that
thing
out there didn’t make the wall quite as high as it should have. If I can get over, I’m gonna try to get around behind the eye . . . and . . . disturb it . . . distract it somehow. Maybe it will be enough to rescue Pandy.”

“Or send us into a fiery death,” said Alcie.

“Yes, fine! Maybe! Whatever! Homer, now . . . please?” said Iole, looking at Homer, who was staring at Pandy flopping wildly.

“Oh . . . yeah, got it,” he said, turning back.

Over and over, Pandy was being forced by some power to bow and scrape. With each thrust forward, her face was scratched by shards of bone and small rocks. She lost track of how many times she bowed; lost track of time, lost track of her friends. She tried to keep her eyes open, but the alternating between light and dark made her nauseated. She was on the verge of passing out when, suddenly, the flopping stopped. She was bent over forward and her legs shot out from underneath. Lying facedown in the dirt, her mouth filling with dust, her body was as inflexible as a piece of marble. The chanting, she realized, had never ceased. But now it had altered. It didn’t matter, because she still had no idea what it meant.

And then she was off the floor.

She felt herself lifted into the air, her limbs now limp and dangling. She was being raised as if she were on an invisible platform. Pandy opened her eyes and saw the ground fading away. She didn’t think to scream, but she was vaguely aware of her stomach making small gurgling noises. She drifted past the skeletons hanging on the poles, rising above them and seeing just how sharp and fine the pole points were. Now she saw the entire chamber. In the dim light, surrounded by long-unused oil lamps, were enormous colored murals on three of the walls. Strange figures with arms at sharp angles seemed to be walking in a line toward a large figure seated on a chair. Their hands held plates of food stacked like little pyramids. There were hundreds of bizarre bird profiles and dozens of eyes, including a symbol that resembled the terrible eye now far below her.

Suddenly she was being pushed backward. She looked underneath her as best she could.

“Oh no!” she cried.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Aloft

5:11 p.m.

“I can’t even stand up straight as it is. How am I gonna carry—oof,” said Alcie, as Homer, as if he were picking up a kitten, scooped Iole off the ground and sat her square on Alcie’s shoulders.

“Now, Homer, put Alcie—”

“I know, I know. I’m not . . . like . . . totally without brains, okay?” said Homer, who lifted Alcie by her knees and placed her two left feet on his shoulders. He locked his hands around the backs of her knees to hold her in place.

“Now walk forward slowly,” said Iole, her arms in front of her.

Homer inched his way toward the invisible wall, balancing the two girls as if they were a basket of feathers on top of his head.

“I’m not even gonna ask where you learned to do this,” said Alcie, her arms tightly gripping Iole’s legs.

“Take a guess,” said Homer, stepping forward on his right foot. “Ow!” he cried, “I hit something . . . and I stubbed my toe.”

“Oh,
puh-leeze
,” said Alcie.

“Did you hit the wall?” asked Iole.

“I guess so.”

“It’s there! It’s right in front of me,” said Alcie, extending her hand.

“I don’t feel anything,” said Iole, excitedly, wiggling her fingers. “I’ve got nothing up here! It doesn’t go all the way up!”

She felt around the space in front of her, finally locating the top of the invisible wall. From touching it at every possible angle, she determined that it was about one meter in width; enough room to sit on comfortably before she dropped to the other side.

“Okay, I’m going over!” Iole said, pulling herself onto the wall and accidentally kneeing Alcie in the neck.

“Ow! Apricots. Wait!”

“Yeah, wait,” said Homer.

“Why?” Iole asked.

Homer and Alcie paused.

“I’ve got nothing,” said Alcie.

“Me neither,” replied Homer.

“I’m gone!” and Iole sat on the wall for only a moment before she lowered herself down, coming face-to-face with Alcie on the other side. Their eyes locked and Iole saw Alcie mouth the words, “good luck.” But knowing Alcie, Iole thought, she probably yelled it at the top of her lungs.

“So,” Iole mused, “the wall is a sound barrier from
this
side.”

She dropped easily to the main floor of the chamber just as Alcie began to pummel Homer to put her down again.

As she turned and looked up, Iole’s heart dropped into her stomach. While they had been focused on getting over the invisible wall, no one noticed Pandy being hoisted fifty meters into the air.

The razor-sharp point of the nearest pole was coming into view underneath her, perhaps only five meters below.

When the point was aimed directly up at Pandy’s stomach, she stopped. And hovered.

For a second.

And then she felt herself descend. Very, very slowly.

She wanted to flail wildly but her body was still rigid and out of her control. She could only watch as the pole grew closer. She was going to be pushed onto the point and left there until she was nothing but a pile of bones crashing to the floor.

And there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it.

Homer had tried to put Alcie down as swiftly and gently as he could. He used a right-handed, right-footed dismount assist, standard when undoing a human ladder, and it had always worked back in school. Unfortunately he hadn’t ever used it on someone with two left feet. Alcie had toppled backward on Homer and was now hanging upside down with Homer’s huge hands trying to get a firm grip on her two left ankles.

But even hanging upside down and furious as a sea nymph on dry land, she still managed to take in what was happening beyond the wall.

“Homer . . . looook!”

The fear Pandy felt was unbearable. However, as soon as she realized what was in store for her, she became aware of something behind the fear.

Anger.

Back home in Greece she had understood all that had happened to her and her friends. At the Temple of Apollo, when Callisto, the high priestess, had been about to roast Iole over the great altar fire, Pandy understood that Callisto thought they were thieves. And Callisto had been driven to insanity by the Jealousy she was carrying inside. Pandy had at least been able to talk to, if not reason with, the high priestess. Now, here in Egypt, she had no idea why any of this was happening. And her fear turned into rage and frustration.

At least when Callisto had ordered Iole’s death, it was in plain Greek and Pandy could do something about it. She could put out the flames underneath Iole using her newly discovered power over fire.

She was now only two meters above the top of the wooden pole.

The wooden pole.

Wood.

Which burns.

Could she do it?

She could flash small, cold embers into tiny fires back in her own room, but could she . . . ?

The point was now only one meter away.

Pandy concentrated all her thought and energy, focusing everything she had on the pole.

“Send the force down,” she thought. “Shatter and burn. Shatter and burn. Shatter and burn.”

And, like that day in the temple, she again went deaf. The world around her was utterly silent and she no longer heard the chanting or the shattering of bones dropping off the mounds.

But this time she knew exactly what was happening and her heart gave a little leap in her chest.

Her nose caught a small whiff of smoke. Something burning! Something on fire! She had no time to rejoice, though, and started concentrating even harder.

The point of the pole, so close now, began to glow a dull red, then brightened into an incandescent orange. Pandy forced her chin into her neck as she struggled to keep the point in sight below her. Suddenly the point flared into flame and Pandy felt the heat on her belly through her silver girdle; not painful in the least, more like the gentle caress of fine silk blowing in a breeze.

The fiery pole was now piercing the folds of her toga and pressing against her belly button. And still she was being lowered.

She allowed herself a small, fierce smile and focused with every ounce of strength in her mind.

Then the razor point pricked her stomach. Pandy closed her eyes and gave a yelp. Then she felt a vibration in her belly as the pole began to shake violently. Her eyes flew open and she watched in astonishment as a streak of white-hot fire split the entire shaft neatly down the middle. Her hearing returned just in time to hear the pole crash into piles of bone at either end of the chamber, sending hunks of ancient wood flying in every direction.