Pyramid Scheme

by Eric Flint

  But at least it had stopped the advancing Anubis. "Wizards!" The jackal-headed god stepped back a pace. "Your business, Thoth."

  Thoth eyed them with beady ibis eyes. "KarrrK?"

  Whatever that meant, it wasn't "welcome home, dearly beloved." Jerry knew that Thoth, the grand vizier to Osiris, was a stickler for absolute precision. He probably didn't approve of their word-mangling.

  "My vocabulary is a bit limited," he whispered to Liz. "Try this." He hissed a few words. "And don't suppress that accent of yours." He added another phrase full of as many names as he could recall.

  Liz took a deep breath and orated.

  She was nearly knocked off her feet by the large wooden platter of results. Sliced as well as whole . . .

  "Let's guess," she said through clenched teeth. "You got me to ask for the gift of tongues."

  "Try this instead." Hurriedly, Jerry rattled off another phrase.

  This time the effect was even more startling and unexpected. However, it did enhance communication.

  Having baboon barks issue from your mouth doesn't usually do that, true. But Jerry knew that in ancient Egyptian parlance, speaking the tongue of animals was considered a particular virtue. And Thoth was known to assume the form of the wise dog-headed ape.

  * * *

  Being addressed in his native tongue was a good move for Thoth, that most precise of Egyptian gods. He was also known as the master of truth. And as such, addressed in his own language, he was able to ascertain that, far from being villains, the foreigners were actually the heroes of the piece. He soon established that they had indeed rescued Osiris' remains from the water and the crabs. He also found out that having done so was likely to cost Cruz his leg, and possibly his life.

  The Egyptian gods offered help, and a form of speech easier on the vocal chords.

  "Please!" barked Liz.

  * * *

  "Keep the pressure on. There's some arterial bleeding," said McKenna.

  Isis loomed over him. Then pushed him away. "You look too much like Set for you to be trusted."

  "At least I have first aid training . . . " began McKenna, anxiety flaring his temper.

  Lamont restrained him. "Leave her, Mac. She's kind of famous for gathering up the pieces of her husband, sewing them together and bringing him back to life."

  Isis paused in her recital of magical formulae. Already the blood was no longer spurting, but trickling. "Cushite, you say it is famous? But . . . I haven't done that yet . . . have I?"

  Thoth stopped his chanting. "To be precise, you have only begun to do so," he said pedantically. "I, Thoth, the sacred scribe of Osiris, will record the deed." He paused. "I have. It is in the Book of the Pyramids."

  "Fix the leg," commanded Anubis. "We don't want to be here if monstrous Set returns."

  Isis bent to her sewing and chanting, stitching Cruz's leg back together. Anesthetic was no part of the chanting magic. Cruz held Medea's hand. His teeth were set, but when Medea gave a low moan he realized he was nearly crushing her hand.

  "Sorry. Didn't realize I was squeezing so hard," he said.

  "You are very strong. You are also very stupid. How dare you nearly get yourself killed by that water dragon? You knew the water here was infested with them." Her voice cracked slightly. And she sniffed, swallowed and continued to chew him out. "And you can be lucky that I am not sewing you up! I would hurt you much more. Much. Idiot American!"

  Mac turned to Lamont. "I think he was better off with the croc."

  Lamont smiled slightly, but made no reply. The look on Medea's face reminded him of the time Marie had spent sitting by his hospital bed after he'd been in a car accident. The memory was a fond one. And heartbreaking.

  God, I miss her. And my kids.

  * * *

  Isis was a fast worker. After she finished, Anubis began to wrap the leg in a linen strip. McKenna began to mutter something about unsterilized bandages, but the glares of his companions shut him up.

  Cruz moved his toes experimentally. "I don't believe this. I thought I'd lost that leg."

  McKenna grinned widely enough to endanger his ears. "I thought you were going to die on me."

  "Indeed, this leg has passed through death," said Isis calmly.

  "To be precise, the Sa had departed the leg." Thoth was nothing if not a pedant. "It was necessary to allow the Sa from Isis into the limb."

  "What does all that mean, Jerry?" Cruz flexed the leg experimentally.

  "Sa is vital fluid. Life-force, for want of a better term. Um. I think you may have an immortal leg."

  Thoth nodded his long beak in agreement. "Now that the leg has passed beyond death it cannot be killed again."

  "The stuff of Leg-ends," whispered Lamont.

  Jerry laughed so much he nearly fell into the water and got himself eaten by the next crocodile.

  * * *

  Their stolen vessel made a good funerary barge. But they didn't row across to the other world. Instead they poled it along winding channels between the tall papyrus, deeper and deeper into the marshes of Buto.

  "It is to be hoped we do not . . . how do you say, `piss these people off,' " said Henri, looking at the endless reeds. "I have no idea in the least where we are."

  "Egypt," said Mac, yawning. The stress of dealing with Cruz's injury, and the sudden realization that if the sergeant bought it . . . he'd be left as the only military defense of this bunch, had taken it out of him. For the first time in his twenty-one years, he was realizing a few things about responsibility and mortality.

  Henri eyed him in a jaundiced fashion. "It is to be hoped that you can cure yourself of this gaucherie. But considering your American origins, that hope is in vain."

  Mac yawned again. "Oh, give it a rest. I don't want to toss you overboard. I'd give some poor croc heartburn and cholesterol problems."

  Henri moved off, muttering.

  "That's the way to deal with him, y'know," said Lamont quietly. "The more you rise to his bait, the more he throws."

  Jim McKenna looked at Lamont. The guy must be what . . . Forty? Fifty, even? He'd kind of written him off at that first meeting. He'd been reassessing the man ever since. He'd come to realize that Lamont Jackson was no pushover. He never even mentioned the subject, but the way he fitted into any combat said: military experience. If Cruz wasn't around . . . of all the people here, he'd be the one to take over the sergeant's role.

  "You were in the service, Lamont?"

  Lamont smiled. "I forget. It was a long time ago." Something about the way he said it indicated: subject closed.

  Jim McKenna was learning to grow up at last. He changed the subject. "Well, you obviously know how to deal with that goddamn anti-American bigot."

  Lamont smiled again. "You should try being black for a while. Eventually you learn to fight hard when it's worth fighting for, and to ignore assholes otherwise."

  The boat juddered slightly as they brushed another mud bank.

  * * *

  "I hope like hell we don't have to get out and push," said Jerry, nervously looking at the dark water. The moon was down, and sunrise was not yet due. It was actually pretty cold. No time was a good time to go wading around here, but somehow the dark water in the predawn was even less appealing. But Thoth and Anubis thrust them forward with poles instead. And it was apparent that they'd reached their destination. A fire burned on the low island between the acacias.

  Well, Henri said that they were acacias. They were thorny enough. That figured.

  32

  A sew-sew job.

  "What happens now?" Liz asked Jerry.

  Jerry tugged his goatee. "Well, according to the myth, Isis will sew the bits together, and Osiris will be reanimated. He will answer Set's accusations and vindicate himself before the tribunal of gods. Then he'll go off to become lord of the dead."

  "I meant: what are we going to do? I want to go home, Jerry. Lamont needs to go home. Medea also wants to get back to her kids."

  "Yeah. Well, I was g
etting to that. Isis and Thoth both seem to believe that if anyone can help us, it will be Osiris. He's a pretty major ancient Egyptian god. You don't go much higher except for Ra . . . or perhaps Amon, although the two get confused and once again we are dealing with a mishmash mythworld . . . "

  Liz stamped her foot. "I wish you'd stop lecturing and just get to the point, Jerry. Do I need to know all this stuff?"

  "He only lectures when he gets nervous," said Lamont.

  Liz shook her head. "So what's spooking him now?"

  Lamont's shoulders shook slightly. "You, at a guess."

  Liz raised her eyes to heaven. "Oh, for goodness sake, Jerry. You can tell Odysseus off, come up with spells under pressure, you even give a surprisingly good account of yourself in a fight. Why should I frighten you?"

  Jerry wisely did not answer that all women made him nervous and the more attractive he found them, the more nervous he got. He was fine with Liz most of the time, just so long as he wasn't thinking about it. "Sorry. Habit," was all he said.

  "Well, break it!" she snapped.

  "How many smokes have you got left in that packet?" asked Lamont dryly.

  Liz sighed. "Touché. So you reckon we are stuck here until Isis gets through with sewing up her husband."

  Jerry decided that monosyllables couldn't be construed as lecturing. "Yes."

  "Then I'm off to help with the sewing," said Liz.

  "Bully them, you mean?" Lamont asked.

  She smiled. "Something like that."

  Jerry found his eyes tracking the sway of her hips as she walked away. He shook his head. "I didn't know I was that obvious. Life's complicated, Lamont."

  The older man leaned back against the bank. "And then you die."

  * * *

  The early morning sun sent streamers of mist rising smokelike from the limitless green extent of the marsh. The birds raised a paean to the dawn. Anibal Cruz sat looking out across the limpid water of one of the channels. He felt kind of like singing himself. He'd known last night, when that crocodile had seized his leg, that he was dead. The beast must have been at least fourteen feet long and immensely powerful. It had already begun to pull him into the murky depths when he'd hit out at it, and he'd known that blow was totally ineffectual. A severed arm in mummy wrappings is no sort of weapon to fend off a giant reptile.

  Or shouldn't be. This place was weird. He couldn't accept it. Except . . . that it would also mean not accepting Medea. And that woman was really getting to him. He dug out his poker dice, and began to toss them idly.

  A pair of cool hands came to rest on his shoulders. Cruz felt a thrill jolt through his spine.

  "How do you feel?" asked Medea.

  He smiled up at her. "Just fine. Glad to be able to talk with you again."

  She looked down at him, thoughtfully. "I have decided to ask you to teach me to speak American. I might also find myself deprived of my powers when we get there. But I also need to get back to my children."

  Cruz sighed. "If Jerry can work out how to get back to the States, he can figure out how to get back to . . . to . . . the place you came from. And I guess learning to speak English could be pretty useful. But with this translation stuff . . . how could you do it?"

  Medea shrugged. "We'll just have to take the spells off. I have been learning some of the names and spells of power from Doc Jerry."

  Anibal grinned. "Given Jerry's luck with spells so far . . . "

  Medea dimpled. "Ah. But I have more practice than he has. He has the knowledge, without an understanding of the rhythms and cadences." She sat on the soft grass next to him. "What is that that you are fiddling with?"

  "Poker dice. It's a game."

  "Oh? How do you play?" She took the well-worn ivories from his hand.

  "Well, I'll show you, but I'm really not too sure of the rules."

  "Then we can be two amateurs together," she said, smiling cheerfully.

  "Well, this is a straight . . . " He explained, and rapidly began to realize that the girl of his fancy was smart as well as gorgeous. "Here, let me hold your hand and show you how to throw."

  The dice landed on the grass, cocked.

  "We need somewhere flat. There is a better spot back there in the thicket. Come, I will show you." Medea took Cruz by the arm and led him back into the trees.

  * * *

  It was as secluded as you could get on a relatively small swamp island. There was still a view out over the water, through a gap in the trees, but it was a narrow window onto the world. Flattening a sand ring was easy enough, as the grass was thin and scattered under the spiky trees.

  "A pair." She leaned forward. Cruz found concentrating on the pair . . . of dice difficult.

  "Now, I throw the other dice again . . . " She threw a trey, and clapped in delight. She tilted her head and lifted her aristocratic nose. "Beat that!"

  "I'll do my best." Old habits die hard. "Hmm. Shall we liven this game up with a small bet or two?"

  "I don't have any money," she said demurely.

  "We could play for other stakes," he said idly, as if it was a totally unimportant suggestion.

  She raised an eyebrow. "That sounds interesting. Are you not playing some sort of trick on me?"

  "Me?" Butter would not only not have melted in Anibal Cruz's mouth, it might actually have unchurned itself and gone back to being cream. "Never. Now what I suggest is that the loser takes off an item of clothing. Just to keep score."

  A small smile teased the edges of her mouth. "Very well. Just to keep score."

  * * *

  The sun shone down through the angular branches onto Anibal's bare back. His face was exceedingly red. And it wasn't only his back that was bare.

  He consoled himself with the thought that he'd learned a really valuable lesson: NEVER play strip poker with a sorceress. Even in the wrong universe. So far she'd only taken off her sandals. She had very pretty feet . . .

  He was buck-naked.

  "This is a fun game!" Medea's smile was extremely wicked, as she examined the discomfited and naked paratrooper. It was not a brief examination. "Why are you so red in the face?" she asked innocently.

  "This grass is tickling my bare . . . " choked Cruz.

  "Why don't you spread some of those clothes of yours out. Then I could come and sit on them too. It would be a gentlemanly thing to do. Sitting on the grass is terribly undignified for a princess." She was looking a little flushed now, and she pushed away an errant curl from her forehead. "My, but it is hot this morning."

  "I've got nothing more to lose," he growled.

  "Tch." She fluttered her long eyelashes at him. "Then I'll just have to play to lose."

  Anibal Cruz choked.

  She cocked her head to one side and smiled provocatively. "That is what I was supposed to do, wasn't it?"

  Cruz choked again.

  * * *

  Medea, the sorceress of Colchis, twined her fingers through the hair on his chest. Her eyes were soft. "I can tell you're not a Hellene," she said with a small, satisfied, secretive smile.

  "Why?" he asked warily. "Did I do something wrong?"

  "No. You did everything right. But so gentle . . . and you were trying to please me. Jason never bothered to. I know: That is only a small sample of one. But Absyrtus was like that too."

  "Absyrtus?"

  "My half brother. I killed him."

  Cruz swallowed. Medea was nothing if not to the point. But if he understood what she was saying . . . Well, maybe the guy was just lucky Anibal Cruz hadn't gotten to him first. Very lucky.

  She nibbled at his jawline. "It's a pity that Isis made the wrong leg immortal."

  "Er. I think that some of the magic may have affected that limb too. It's certainly feeling like it may have died anyway."

  She looked slightly alarmed. "Have we hurt your leg?"

  "No . . . It's the one you were concerned about a few moments ago. The middle one. I'm sure it has died. I can feel rigor mortis setting in."

  She
rolled on top of him and began punching him in the ribs. Well, that's how it started anyway. Unfortunately, it wasn't that big an island. Fortunately, some of the marsh birds make just that kind of shriek.

  * * *

  It was a good thing that she'd gone to assist with the sewing up, thought Liz. There must be physiological limits on what magic could do. And there were certainly limits on Isis' knowledge of basic internal anatomy.

  No matter what spells are uttered, a liver is a prerequisite for a decent afterlife and connecting the bile duct to the heart is almost certain to cause problems. Anubis was all for removing the whole lot, and simply substituting jewels or suitable scrolls of papyrus. Or filling the space with bitumen. He'd even brought suitable canopic jars and hooks.

  "I can clean out his sinuses properly once and for all," he offered in a gravelly semi-growl. Liz did not take to Anubis. Not that she had anything against jackals. Very useful at waste disposal, scavengers were. Liz just found his drooling a bit off-putting.

  Isis' twin sister, Nepthys, was also "helping." She combined being a terrible seamstress, with being Anubis' mother (by Osiris, to boot), and the murderer Set's wife. It seemed like a very complicated arrangement, added to Osiris being both Isis' husband and brother. Incest was one thing, but this!

  Talk about keeping it all in the family . . .

  Liz felt she had enough to contend with, dealing with the gory sewing-up task. But she also had to listen to the ceaseless lamentations of Isis, Nepthys, and the doleful chanting of Thoth, who ritually cleansed each piece before the sewing team was allowed loose. However, she soon found there was something further required of her. "You must either lament, chant or leave, sorceress," demanded Thoth.

  Liz sighed. "Fine! But don't complain . . . "

  The island and the reconstruction of Osiris echoed to ancient Egyptian funerary chants. And to: "de-hip-bone, connected-to-de-thigh-bone . . . "

  Well, perhaps that too was a powerful spell in this universe. In the end, Osiris went together in more or less the right order, and with all the right bits connected to the right bits.

  And then to Liz's alarm . . . he stirred. Liz had done more dissections than most people had had hot breakfasts. She was normally as squeamish as lead, but this was asking a bit much.