Pandora Gets Vain (Pandora (Hardback)) (20 page)

“I hate him,” hissed Alcie, walking away.

“I think you should take the little one,” called Abdul-Rashid from a distance. “The one who doesn’t speak much.”

“That does it!” said Iole, whirling around.

Homer caught her with his right hand while still piloting Alcie with his left; forcefully guiding both of them back toward the center of the camp.

“There!” said Pandy, surveying the circle and noticing a wide gap between two tents.

“There’s nothing here,” said Alcie, all four stepping cautiously into the empty clearing. “Unless Wang Chun Lo sleeps on the sand under the stars each night.”

“There’s nobody even walking in this area,” Pandy said. “And it’s the shortest route from the main tent to the rest of the camp.”

At that moment, she toppled face forward onto the ground—and her head completely disappeared.

“Gods!” said Iole, moving forward. “Pandy!”

“I’m fine,” she said, her head reappearing as she sat up, “but there’s something here.”

“Where?” asked Iole.

“Right here, right in front of me.”

“She’s right,” said Iole holding out her hands. “It’s . . . it’s some sort of fabric. It’s a tent.”

“Something else that’s invisible that we have to get around,” scoffed Alcie.

“Or get into,” Pandy replied, grabbing hold of something unseen with her right hand and sticking her left arm through where it vanished. “How about right here?”

She peeled back an invisible fabric flap, revealing the interior of a brilliantly lit pavilion.

Huge red Chinese lanterns hung down from the top of the tent, which was massive in its size. As Pandy peered deep into the recesses, beyond the carved black lacquer chairs and the paper screens, her eye immediately caught sight of the five clear panels, resting on their stands off to one side.

“Excuse me?” she called out. “May I speak to you, please?”

As the four of them entered the tent, Pandy walked slowly to the panels, examining them carefully. As she went behind each, she asked, “Can you see me?”

“Yes,” said Iole.

“Now?”

“Yes,” Homer answered.

“Pandy, what are you thinking?” asked Alcie.

“Do not tell them, little fish.” Wang Chun Lo was standing directly in front of her, hidden from the others behind a large red lacquered cabinet, communicating with his thoughts. “We shall discuss this privately.”

At his motion to follow, Pandy held her hand up as a sign for the others to remain behind.

She followed Wang Chun Lo through a maze of oddly carved furniture, hanging tapestries, cages of small monkeys, and the snow white birds she had seen in his act. He led her to a quiet area with a low table and chairs.

“I have been expecting you,” he said silently. “I have followed your thoughts all over my camp tonight; my apologies for the rudeness of my sentry. I must say, you are an extremely resourceful girl with tremendous abilities. Were it not for your pursuit to rid the world of its evils, I should be happy to find a place for you in my caravan. Tea?”

“No thank you, sir,” she thought. “There isn’t much time . . .”

“I hope you shall discover, as you journey through life, that there is always time . . . for tea.”

He passed his hand over the table and a tiny black teapot instantly appeared along with two of the smallest cups she’d ever seen.

“Thank you.”

“And, if I can truly help you as you wish, then there is no hurry, is there? You could be wherever you’d like in an instant, yes?”

She saw the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

“The panels,” she began, “they’re crystal?”

“Ancient crystal, yes.”

“Can you help me get to Alexandria through the crystals?”

“Of course. But that is not the question.”

Pandy paused.

“Will you help me?”

“Of course. Your quest is righteous and your heart is brave. It would be my honor to assist in whatever small way I can. But that is not the question.”

Pandy stared down at her tea.

“The question is not one you must ask of me, little fish, but of yourself. It is simply this: will I be willing to pay the price?”

“Price?”

“Of course. The use of the crystals for transportation forms a break with both time and space. It is against every known law and is, therefore, extremely powerful magic. The gods would not bestow this magic to anyone wishing to use it, even for a good cause, without expecting tribute.”

“What is the tribute?” she asked.

Wang Chun Lo quieted his mind for a moment.

“Your youth,” he said finally, the smile still hanging at the corners of his mouth.

“My what?”

“Lower your mind’s voice, Pandora, I am right here.”

Wang Chun Lo took a deep breath.

“Let me be more specific. It is the luster and glow of your skin, the proper functioning of your organs, the strength of your bones. The gods demand your most vital years. Look at me, Pandora. Look closely at my face, my hands, and my neck. In actual age I am not that old, and my mind is still that of a young man, yet my skin tells a different story. Each passage through the crystals takes fifteen cycles of twelve moons each off my entire being. Now my body is so old that any passage creates almost no visible difference.”

Pandy wondered what kept Wang Chun Lo alive.

“Very good question, little fish,” he replied. “And although you didn’t actually inquire, I shall tell you. Tea.”

“Tea?”

“This tea. A special restorative blend made by sorcerers in the deepest heart of China. But now you see why there must always be time . . . for tea.”

Pandy drank her tea thoughtfully.

“Now, for myself, I have accepted this price willingly to satisfy my desire to see the world. And, of course, the crystals are a source of amazement to our audiences and a rather lucrative stream of income. But will you pay the price? And, more important, will your friends?”

Pandy was thunderstruck. What would she look like fifteen years older? She would still be thirteen, but she’d have the body and face of a twenty-eight-year-old woman. She had wanted to be older; she’d thought about no longer looking pudgy or getting small blemishes. But she always thought it would happen in the normal way. Gods, she thought, if the girls back at school thought she was weird before . . .

“Of course you may travel with us to Alexandria. The caravan moves slowly, but we will be there in slightly less than two weeks. Perhaps you could wait?”

“No,” Pandy said, not knowing what else Hera might have in store in the coming two weeks. “I’ll do it . . . alone.”

“You will not need your friends, then?”

Of course she needed them. She wouldn’t know what to do or where to go without them. She needed Iole’s brain and Alcie’s courage and loyalty. She even needed Homer. But she couldn’t ask them to give up fifteen years of their lives.

Wang Chun Lo touched the fingers of his hands together delicately.

“I may be able to make you an offer on behalf of the gods.”

Pandy looked at him.

“If you would be willing to accept all of their years onto yourself, I may be able to keep them as they are now. But you would all have to pass through at once.”

Pandy’s jaw dropped. Four times fifteen! She’d take on sixty years—plus her thirteen.

She was going to be seventy-three years old.

Her mind was reeling. Only an hour before, she had first felt comfortable and feminine in her own skin as she danced with Mahfouza. Now, in order to get where she needed to be, she would have to bypass that potentially beautiful part of herself and become an old woman.

She tilted her head back. What about Dido? She turned to look at Wang Chun Lo.

“The gods are not interested in your dog, little fish. Dido will remain as he is.”

“That’s one small consolation,” she thought. Her mind wandered for several minutes more. She had once thought the biggest decision she would ever have to make was to try to save the world. Wrong. This one was right up there.

“Oh well,” she finally thought, resigned. “I’ll probably end up dead before the quest is done anyway.”

“Now, now—where is that indomitable spirit?”

“I won’t tell my friends what’s going to happen,” she replied, dodging his question.

“As you wish, Pandora,” he said. “Now, exactly where in Alexandria do you want to go?”

“I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

“Well then,” Wang Chun Lo thought. “Your use of the crystals might be futile, don’t you think? If you don’t know the precise location, you may waste all the precious time you’ll be saving. I shall assume that you have never been there before and therefore you know no one.”

“That’s not true,” said Pandy, out loud. “Well, it’s true but . . . but I know
of
someone there. I’ll be right back.”

She wound her way back through the maze of furniture, past her startled friends, and dashed out of the tent, throwing the tent flap back on itself, causing the opening to remain visible.

“Pandy!” cried Iole.

“No time. Be right back. Keep the flap open!”

Sprinting through the camp, she burst into the garlic-shaped tent in seconds, startling Usumacinta, who was putting a foul-smelling ointment on a huge purple bruise just above her knee.

“Hello,” said Pandy. “Excuse me.”

Rifling through her leather carrying pouch, she found the note given to her by Ankhele, the acolyte at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, which directed Pandy to seek any assistance in Alexandria from Ankhele’s father, the city tax collector. Clutching it tightly, she thrust her pouch back under the pallet, then thought better of it and hauled out all the girls’ belongings. Checking to be sure that she had everything, she loaded herself down and clucked at Dido.

“Thank you very much for the use of your tent,” she said to Usumacinta, who had been watching in silent surprise. “Your act is really beautiful. Good luck in Athens when you arrive there, it’s a wonderful city. Thanks again. Bye!”

She and Dido rushed out and crossed the camp, stumbling a little from the weight and swing of the pouches.

Ahead she saw the light from the open flap of the invisible tent surrounded by the black desert beyond.

Inside, she quickly dropped the bags and skins on the ground. “Check and see if I got everything. If I didn’t, then go back and get it, but you’ve got to be fast. Really fast. I’ll be right back.”

Disappearing into the furniture maze before anyone had a chance to speak, she reached Wang Chun Lo, still seated at the low table. She held out Ankhele’s note.

“This is the only person I kinda don’t really know in Alexandria.”

Wang Chun Lo studied the note carefully. Then he closed his eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep. He was so still for so long that Pandy thought the sun would come up again before she would be able to cross into the crystal.

“Come,” he said, all at once opening his eyes. He stood and walked back toward the crystal panels. Alcie and Iole had just finished checking their belongings.

“Where’s Homer?” asked Pandy.

“He left a few things by the side of Usumacinta’s tent,” said Iole. “He’ll be right back.” As she finished, Homer stepped inside. Pandy put her finger to her lips.

Wang Chun Lo stepped to the center panel and waved his hand across the surface. Instantly the crystal grew cloudy, then a city scene, at a great height, slowly appeared. Unlike the scenes in the main tent, however, this picture moved, as if it all were being seen through the eyes of a great bird soaring over Alexandria, the lighthouse flashing in the far distance. Wang Chun Lo waved his hand over Ankhele’s note, said something low under his breath and tossed it into the crystal. The note floated on the wind on the other side, bouncing on the air currents, but all the while descending. Lower and lower it fell, over rooftops and darkened streets, until it landed on the doorstep of a large home in the center of the city. A gust of wind scuttled the note through the open door and into the main room, where it finally came to rest at the feet of a distinguished-looking man. The man picked the note off the floor, read it, and began to look rapidly about the room, a look of utter confusion on his face. At this point, Wang Chun Lo himself stepped through the crystal. The startled man had no weapons about him, not expecting an ancient Chinese man to suddenly appear in his home, so he quickly gathered his wife and two small sons behind him and puffed out his chest defiantly.

Wang Chun Lo began to speak, too softly for Pandy to hear, and after some time and with a little hesitation the man relaxed his stance, truly listening to Wang Chun Lo. Every so often the man would look at Pandy through the crystal. She could tell when Wang Chun Lo hit a delicate point or told of something especially incredible, by the man’s expressions of shock or relief. She was alternately wondering what exactly Wang Chun Lo was saying and being grateful that she didn’t have to explain it herself. Finally, the man walked carefully to the panel gateway. Peering into it, he looked back once over his shoulder, nodding in agreement to something. Wang Chun Lo walked past the man and stepped back into his tent.