Pandora Gets Greedy (24 page)

“I do,” said Jupiter. “And first on the list …”

He waved his hand and the entire room, except Alcie, Crispus, Varinia, Lucius, Caesar, and their guards, fell into a deep sleep.

“When they wake, they'll only remember a grand feast with some exceptionally bad entertainment.”

Zeus then waved his hand in a wide arc in front of his body.

“Brother?” asked Jupiter.

“Something we should never have let get out of hand in the first place,” Zeus said, crossing the room and reaching down to pluck a stolen aureus from the pocket of a quivering guard. Tossing it to Jupiter, Jupiter could see the likeness of Caesar engraved in the gold.

“Back to the original,” Zeus said. “Clear up that mess once and for all.”

Lucius groaned and slumped where he stood.

“Sorry, Senator,” Zeus said. “No ruler of Rome for you. You're just going to have to content yourself with being an extremely powerful personage in one of the
greatest societies in the world. Deal with it, my good man.”

“Which puts me in mind of two lovely bovine-figured goddesses we should seek out,” said Jupiter.

“Hera?” called Zeus. “My precocious little pork patty! I'd like a word, please!”

“Come to me, my gorgeous gobbling goat,” Jupiter said loudly. “Juno? Don't make me come to you. Won't turn out well.”

Neither Juno nor Hera appeared.

“Good,” said Zeus. “I'm in the mood to hunt some big game.”

With that, the Sky-Lords vanished.

Pandy tried to sit up, but the pain was still so great that she fell back again, beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead.

“Morpheus,” she mumbled, closing her eyes. “Take me back.”

“Now, now,” his voice called from somewhere deep in her mind. “We had a lovely visit, but you made your choice and it was the right one.”

“But it hurts,” she whispered. “It hurts
so
much.”

“You can't make an oatie cake without cracking a few eggs,” she heard him say. Then his laughter faded into silence and she opened her eyes.

“I don't even know what that
means
,” she said absently, staring up at the ceiling. Then Alcie's face loomed over her and behind Alcie, Apollo, and Phoebus.

“Pandy?” Alcie said. “Pandy, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I can. I can hear you.”

“Oh, blessed Athena, blessed Zeus, blessed everyone else who I can't remember right now. I thought you were gone. I mean really, really gone.”

“I was,” Pandy said, trying again to sit only this time Apollo and Phoebus moved to help her. “I
was
gone.” Pandy looked down and saw that her injured shoulder was heavily bandaged and her arm was in a sling. Immediately, she thought of the Eye of Horus; she didn't even know where it was and couldn't remember the last time she'd seen it.

“Are you thinking of this?” Apollo said, holding up the amulet.

“I was,” Pandy said, looking at the two identical gods. “I am, Great … uh …”

“Apollo.”

“Thank you,” she said reaching for the Eye. “Where did you find it?”

“Who cares?” said Phoebus. “I think one of your little friends had it in her pouch—or maybe it was you. No matter. I wouldn't give you a drachma for it; silly Egyptian hoop-de-doo. It won't help you really.”

“We have something much better for you,” said Apollo.

“All you need to do is apply a special poultice three times a day under clean bandages; we've added
supplies of both to your pouch. In a few weeks, you'll never know the knife had been there.”

“Thank you,” said Pandy, gently taking the amulet from Apollo. “But I'd like to hang on to this, if you don't mind.”

“Tell me she's not being ungrateful, Brother,” said Apollo, closing his eyes and turning his head dramatically. “Tell me she's not rejecting the medical advice of the two greatest physicians in the universe.”

“I wish I could.” Phoebus sighed. “I wish I could.”

“No!” Pandy said. “I'll do exactly as you suggest. I'll follow your instructions, I promise. I just want to hold on to this as a—a reminder of everything that's happened. You know …”

She was about to tell them of the all the healing the little amulet had done in the past months, but quickly decided against it. Instead, she casually slipped it around her neck and instantly felt the pain in her shoulder subside.

“Thank you, mighty gods,” she said. “Thank you for bringing me back. Thank you for saving me.”

“Oh, apparently
we
didn't actually,” said Phoebus in a mocking tone. “Apparently, our little nieces, Persephone and Proser …”

“Ahem!” coughed Apollo. “Hmmm … ahemmm. You're very welcome, Pandora. You might remember us
especially when next you're trying to decide who to worship first on a feast day.”

“I will,” she answered. “I will.”

“Then let us be off, Brother,” Apollo said, rising. “I feel the need to heal some more. Let's see if there's anyone who's lost a limb or two.”

“Sounds grand!” said Phoebus. “Maybe a complete dismemberment! After all, this was one wild night.”

The gods vanished in a shower of gold dust and Pandy looked up to find Alcie sitting next to her on the floor.

“Hi,” Alcie said.

“
Hi
.” Pandy sighed. She went to hug Alcie, but the residual pain in her arm caused her to wince.

“Easy.”

“What did I miss?” Pandy asked.

“Too much to tell you now.”

“Iole? Homer?”

“Don't know. The last I saw, Homer was scoopin' dirt into the pit. Then you handed the pitcher to me, then you got …”

“
Greed!
” Pandy exclaimed. “What happened to it? Where is it?”

“Right here,” Alcie said, pulling the pitcher from where she'd been hiding it with her cloak against the wall. “And I have the box right here.”

“Give me that pitcher!” screamed Lucius Valerius
from across the room. “Give it to me or I will see you both devoured by lions!”

Alcie filled her lungs with air as she turned.

“
Shut up!
”

Varinia gasped, but Lucius closed his mouth.

“Alce!” said Pandora.

“I don't care. Respecting elders is one thing and normally I do, really, but this whole family just bugs me.”

“Thank you for saving it,” Pandy said, nodding toward the pitcher.

“It's box time!”

“Got that right,” Pandy said, moving to slide the pin out of the lock on the box. “Then we have to find Iole and—ow! Ow … okay. Okay. Alcie, I can't move fast enough. Not fast enough to toss it in without anything else escaping. I can't even get the pin out. There's still a lot of pain. Ow! This is worse than when Giondar dislocated my left shoulder. Much worse. You're gonna have to put Greed in the box.”

“Uh…. Uh-huh, yes. And would that be … by myself?”

“You can do it.”

“I can?”

“Alcie,” Pandy said, looking straight into her friend's eyes. “I trust you more than anyone I know. You can do it.”

Alcie sighed deeply and Pandy could tell her friend was terribly nervous.

“You got this,” Pandy said.

“Yeah,” Alcie smiled quickly. “Well, sure. Yeah.”

Then she slid the box in front of her and, with a little side coaching from Pandy, withdrew the hairpin and flipped the clasp. She grabbed the pitcher and went to open the lid, then she paused.

“You trust
me
more than Iole?”

“Hermes' helmet! Put. The. Evil … inthebox,” Pandy said through gritted teeth.

“Right.”

In one fluid motion, Alcie raised the lid and stuck the pitcher inside. But even though the pitcher immediately began to bubble and steam away, it was still too large for the lid to close. Within moments, Pandy and Alcie saw a red streak of thick smoke snaking it's way from the back toward the front. Then a brown streak. Pandy began pounding on the lid of the box with her good arm, sending white-hot pain into her upper-right side as she tried to force the pitcher to sizzle away faster, but to no avail. Alcie began blowing on the ugly streaks of smoke, now four of them, trying to drive them back, but they were moving steadily toward the opening.

In her mind, Pandy saw all the misery, the frustration, the loss, the death as well as the triumphs, the
joys, the bonds, and the love they'd experienced in the last several moons—in short, all their hard work—evaporate as the streaks began to rise into the air. It was all going to be for nothing, because everything was getting out again. Evil was being loosed on the world once more and she didn't even have the strength to scream.

Out of nowhere, a glint caught her eye. Then two familiar forms came into focus just before Pandy's eyes were diverted by a spinning whirl of metal seemingly heading straight at her. In the next second, before she or Alcie had a chance to breathe, the adamant net dropped with precision and settled over the rising streaks of smoke, pushing them back down toward the box. Suddenly, a sandaled foot was stomping on the evils.

“A little help here?” said Iole, kicking the net.

“Hah!” said Alcie staring up at Iole then shaking off her momentary shock. She began pushing the evils back inside the box with the flat of her hand as Pandy feebly pounded on the top trying to force the lid down. Homer joined Pandy and pressed down hard, but they stopped when it sounded like the wooden top was starting to crack.

Finally, the pitcher sizzled away enough that Alcie was able to close the lid, flip the clasp over the lock, and slide the hairpin through once more. Homer and Iole sunk to the floor beside Alcie and Pandy. Everyone was breathing as if their lungs were losing more air than
they were taking in, and no one said anything for ages. Alcie gently slid her hand over Homer's.

“Why are you breathing hard, Homie?” she asked, her eyes closed, but a smile on her lips. “I mean, it's not like you were in a fight or anything.”

“Scared,” Homer said.

Suddenly, everyone heard a thud against the far wall as Lucius Valerius slid down onto the floor. His body was completely limp and droplets of Greed-sweat began beading up and pouring off his skin.

“That's gonna be some headache,” said Alcie.

“May I be the first to say, Homer,” said Iole, her breath coming a little more evenly. “Painstakingly perfect throw of the net.”

“You know it,” Pandy agreed. “Nice going, everyone. Alcie, you were fantastic!”

“Yep,” Alcie said, opening her eyes. “Well, it was easy. I was confident, y'know? Now that I know you trust me more than—”

“
Iole!
” Pandy cut in, glaring at Alcie who just grinned. “How did you find us?”

“There are three entryways into that room,” Iole said, pointing toward the great hall. “One was sealed. Two originate from this locale. We knew we had to start here.”

“We were by the stairs when we saw the flash and then the doors closed,” said Homer. “We saw water
seeping from the room. We heard screaming. What happened in there?”

“We'll fill you in on all the gory details later,” Alcie said.

“How did you know to get all our stuff?” asked Pandy, seeing her and Alcie's pouches slung around Homer's neck.

“We were on our way out of town,” Homer answered. “I made Iole come with me, and Crispus promised to get you two.”

“Crispus!” Iole said, looking around. “Is he all right?”

“He was a while ago,” Alcie said. “He floated in here with me. We'll find him. Go on, Homie.”

“Anyway,” Homer began.

“Anyway,” Iole interrupted, “we were halfway along the eastern road out of the city when we both stopped at exactly the same moment, looked at each other, then raced back here.”

“I was crazy to think I could just go and calmly wait outside the city for everyone to, like, show up,” Homer said.

“We didn't know what was going on,” Iole said. “But we knew we'd probably need to make a speedy departure. So I grabbed all our stuff and we came here.”

“Good thing,” Pandy said. “Okay, Homie, help me up please?”

“Hey!” squealed Alcie.

“I'm sorry,” said Pandy. “Hom-
er
, will you help me up?”

“So,” Alcie said, getting to her feet. “What now?”

“Now, we get out of this rat trap,” Pandy said, motioning for Homer to drape her pouch across her good shoulder. “Would someone hand me the net and the box please?”

“Allow me to put these inside for you, Pandy,” said Alcie. “Trusted friends should be able to do—ow!”

“Thank you very much,” Pandy said, retracting her foot from having kicked Alcie in the shins. “And because I trust the two of you so much—as in equally—Iole, would you open my pouch and get out the map while Alcie puts the other stuff in and keeps quiet?”

“Certainly,” Iole said, retrieving the blue bowl. “Alcie, did you concuss yourself? A possible head trauma? Because you're behaving even more oddly than normal.”

“Just get Pandy's vial of tears, brainiac,” said Alcie, rubbing her shins.

As Alcie held the glass bowl level and Homer poured in a little water, Iole uncorked the vial and added a single teardrop. As the concentric rings began to spin, Pandy looked at everyone. The rush of emotion caught her completely off guard.

“Guys? Do you realize,” she said, as tears welled up in her eyes, “that this is the last time we'll ever have to do this?”

“Then I don't need to catch any more of those,” said Iole, holding the vial at her side, watching a rivulet streak down Pandy's face.

“Nope,” Pandy said. “No more.”

“Six down,” Alcie said, getting a little misty herself. “One to go.”