Athena's Son

by Jeryl Schoenbeck

  Archimedes took inventory of the clues. Twelve bodies, no wounds, and animal tracks. But the bodies had already been prepared for the afterlife, the wounds never existed, and the dog tracks were trampled over. There was nothing here except nervous workers waiting for the next retribution of Anubis. The grit was grinding in his teeth and he spit to clear it from his mouth. He wasn’t sure where to start, but one thing he knew from his experience building machines: Don’t recreate the wheel, use it.

  Archimedes began to walk around the base of the lighthouse. He was trying to get a grasp of the layout. Use the wheel. If these murders were by a god, it made no sense trying to find out how it was done. It just was.

  If, however, the crimes were by a mortal, which they probably were, he wanted to study the only constant there was—the crime scene.

  Pharos Island was long, almost 2 miles, but thin. On the east end, where the lighthouse was being built, Archimedes could have walked from shore to shore in less than 5 minutes. There were few trees or natural barriers to allow anyone to sneak up on someone.

  He was standing near the spot where the latest victim was found. One of the immense blocks had been dragged across the sand, obliterating any prints from yesterday. Archimedes was watching a pair of the Medjay guards patrolling the area when he noticed a man hiding behind a copse of palm trees.

  The man was also watching Archimedes, so he thought it might be Remus Decimus following him again. Archimedes began walking toward the man when he realized this man was larger than Remus and the sun sparkled off a breast plate. Archimedes started to jog toward the man, when he was suddenly stung on the back of his head.

  He put his hand to the back of his head and looked back. He noticed a boy a couple years older than himself a stone’s throw away with a guilty look on his face. The boy was nonchalantly looking around.

  Archimedes began walking back toward the man, who now turned and started to quickly walk away from Archimedes. Archimedes got no farther than a few more steps when he felt a sting on his shoulder. He turned around and the boy was now bent over laughing. Archimedes looked around as if he were confused about what was happening and turned to continue walking, but then spun around.

  The boy was in the process of bringing a wooden tube to his mouth and was astonished to be caught in the act. When Archimedes began stomping toward him, the boy straightened, jutted his chin out and blurted, “I am Kleitos. My father is Sostratus, the architect building the lighthouse. What are you doing snooping around here anyway?”

  “My name is Archimedes, and I was ordered by Pharaoh Ptolemy to come out here and investigate the murders. So far, the only problem I have found is a delinquent boy.”

  Kleitos’ mouth curled to a sneer. “The Pharaoh asked you to help? Ha, next he’ll ask monkeys to build the lighthouse!”

  “Apparently the first one has arrived,” Archimedes said.

  “You watch your mouth, you, you…” Kleitos seemed to have run out of insults. “Watch your mouth before I start using this peashooter at close range.” He shook the wooden tube in Archimedes’ face. “Except next time I’ll load it with the dart!”

  For the first time Archimedes looked closely at the tube. It was a wooden pipe nearly two feet long. It was too finely crafted to have been thrown together by this oaf.

  “Where did you get that, and what do you mean a dart?” Archimedes tried to put some authority in his voice.

  “You better watch who you give orders to, runt. My father is in charge of this whole project. Get outta here,” Kleitos said. His authority came through without trying.

  Archimedes couldn’t match muscle with this brute, so he would have to try a different tack and match wits.

  “Never mind,” Archimedes snickered. “That paltry peashooter you made couldn’t knock a flea off a frog. I thought it might be something dangerous. I’d better leave and let you find some little girls to scare.” He waved his hand at the blowgun and began walking away.

  A bully never wants his quarry to escape further punishment, so Kleitos followed him.

  “This blowgun and dart are very dangerous weapons and I didn’t make them. I found them both over there by those acacia bushes. They were underneath the branches and I even got a few scratches from the thorns while I was reaching in to get them. This is the dart.” He briefly held out a narrow, wooden dart about three inches long. Half of the length of the dart was a thin, bronze needle with feathers on the other end. Kleitos quickly put it back behind his back. He knew it was not something he should be caught with.

  “Don’t waste my time Kleitos,” Archimedes acted annoyed. “I do really have to find clues to the murders. That thing,” Archimedes threw his chin toward the blowgun, “is too cheaply made to be lethal. I was hoping to take something back to the school to examine. I have more important things to do than look at your toys.” He turned and continued walking away.

  Kleitos ran and stepped in front of Archimedes. “Oh, so you’re one of those arrogant scholars who walk around thinking you’re better than us. I’ll tell you what, book boy; I’ll let you have this if you can beat me in a contest. Tomorrow you bring your peashooter and match it against mine. Whoever gets closer to the target gets the blowgun and dart,” Kleitos said.

  “I don’t have a peashooter…” Archimedes protested, but was met with a sudden jolt in his chest. It felt like a mallet struck him. Kleitos, a bulk of a boy toughened by living around worksites all his life, violently punched Archimedes in his chest. Archimedes was knocked to the ground and he rolled to his side, trying to catch his breath.

  “You’re not a good student, schoolboy. It looks like I have to teach you some manners. Be back here tomorrow at the same time, runt, or I’ll just throw this blowgun in the harbor and you’ll never see it! Bring something that shoots air, like your big mouth.” He started laughing and ran away.

  It felt like his ribs were cracked, but Archimedes was finally able to take some shallow breaths. He realized most of the pain radiated from his sternum because Kleitos inadvertently rammed Archimedes’ owl amulet into his chest. Great Zeus, that kid was a horse. How could Archimedes possibly blow hard enough to beat him at anything?

  Archimedes remembered Herophilos explaining the human bellows and pump. Kleitos definitely had a better air supply than Archimedes could hope to muster. He got up, brushed himself off, and went to get his alchemy kit.

  Chapter 20

  A crude circle about the size of a boy’s head was painted in red on the limestone wall. Various small holes were chipped in the wall, both inside and outside of the circle. Suddenly in quick succession came a hiss of air, a small explosion, and another chunk flew out of the wall.

  As described by Callimachus, the school was like a giant arachnid and the second leg of the fat spider held the physics room. It was the perfect place to build a better peashooter because physics is the study of force and resistance in nature.

  Right now, Archimedes could not force nature to work because of some resistance. He looked at the splinters of wood lying at his feet. His peashooter was hitting the target, but the wooden tubes could not handle the pressure created. Because Kleitos had better lungs and a good blowgun, Archimedes was not content to simply build a schoolboy’s weapon. His would utilize the force of a machine.

  On the table next to him was a copper kettle of boiling water with several metal containers scattered around. He was using the kettle to heat the bitumen he bought for his new machine. The muggy room was filled with the competing noxious odors of bitumen and sulfur. The rotten egg smell of sulfur was from two professors who were working on creating a feasible imitation of gold using silver and sulfur. At the present, he was alone in the lab because the two scholars found the noise from his machine distracting.

  He sat down on a stool and squeezed a three foot piece of cane tight between his legs. He was boring out the soft inside with the same drill he used to build the cart for Ankhef. Although Archimedes was disappointed he did not find out who the blonde man
was, he was happy to have discovered the blowgun Kleitos possessed because there was a good chance something that unusual was a clue in the murders.

  The idea for his new machine came to him from the autopsy demonstration. The heart and lungs were both pumps and Archimedes was creating a machine that would replicate the capabilities of both organs. He built a simple bellows out of leather to pump air into a wooden box. The box, roughly a foot square, was lined with bitumen to keep it airtight.

  The bellows alone couldn’t shoot his weapon; there was no mechanical advantage there. Archimedes solved that by designing a valve like the one Herophilos described in the human heart. The valve would open to let the air in and close to keep air from coming out, allowing his weapon to build up pressure.

  So far, everything was working out as he envisioned, except for one glitch. The wooden tubes kept exploding from the force of the compressed air and the drag of the wooden ball he carved for the projectile. The wooden ball wasn’t a perfect sphere and it added strain on the demands of the tube.

  Next to his alchemy kit was the scroll Callimachus awarded him upon his awkward entrance into the school. Archimedes was using the scroll as a prototype for how wide to carve the tube to fit the peashooter and ball. He picked up the scroll, rolled it slightly tighter and gauged the ball’s fit again.

  The rapid slap of leather sandals, like rain drops, alerted Archimedes that someone was running down the hallway. The sandals raced down the hall, sliding up and slamming into the door of the physics lab. The door flew open and Berenike burst in the room.

  “Archimedes, I think I solved the murder!” She had two yellowed scrolls tucked under her arm and went straight to the table Archimedes was working on. She cleared a space by sweeping aside any tools, shavings, and useless scrolls that were in her way.

  “Wait!” Archimedes yelled as he tried to keep more pieces of his project from falling on the floor. “What are you doing? You solved the murders at the lighthouse?”

  Berenike was already unrolling the smaller scroll and allowed Archimedes a brief smile. “Lighthouse? No, gifted one. The murder of Alexander the Great. I found the piece of missing scroll.” The melodious jingle of bracelets accompanied her hurried movements to unroll the scrolls. “Remember? The scroll I showed you in the library had a section torn off. I brought the original we were looking at—and the missing piece! It was tucked away in some obscure area. Savas helped me find it. Take a look at this.”

  “Berenike, I am really busy right now.” He was under the table picking up some small drills and pieces of bitumen. “I only have an hour to finish this machine so I can get a clue for the murders your father ordered me to work on. I really haven’t much time. Can’t it wait?”

  The peaceful green seas became turbulent. Her soft brows curled down like storm clouds. She bent down to look under the table at him. “You think this isn’t important? Alexandria would not even exist if not for Alexander. This is the biggest murder conspiracy in history, and you want to make some toy!”

  Sweet Persephone! She reminds me of your pomegranate. Sweet as nectar on the inside; tough as leather on the outside.

  The door to the lab opened and one of the teachers walked in. He was appalled to see someone as young as Archimedes in the lab and he was just about to tell him that. Berenike turned and her withering gaze was enough send him back out the same door he came in.

  “Of course I think it is important, Berenike.” Archimedes hoped he could brave these troubled waters better than the woeful teacher. “I still intend to help you. But Alexander has been dead for 50 years, and your father’s workers are alive and still in danger.” Her expression remained unchanged. At least the tempest did not get worse. “I said I would help you and I meant it. But there is a clue I need and this machine is the only way to get it.”

  Her eyebrows relaxed slightly and she tilted her head up, as she did when she first inspected him. “What clue?”

  “There is a blowgun that could be the weapon used to murder the workmen. If I can beat some kid with a peashooter, he will give me the blowgun.”

  “Why don’t we just take it?” she asked.

  “He threatened to throw it in the sea if anyone tries to take it.”

  Berenike looked around the physics lab for the first time and sat down at one of the stools. “So if I help you with this machine, you will help me with my murder?”

  “As I promised you in the library. I know this is important to you, so it is important to me too, princess.”

  She jumped up from the stool and put her finger in his face. “I thought I told you never to call me princess?” She kept her finger in his startled face for a moment before flicking the end of his nose. She giggled and sat down. “Thank you, Archimedes, I remember your promise.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “What is that horrible smell? It smells like someone spilled a chamber pot.”

  “Sulfur, also known as brimstone, because it is found around the brim of volcanoes,” Archimedes said.

  “Well hurry and explain this machine to me so we can finish it and get out of this cesspit.” She slid off the stool and walked around the worktable to Archimedes.

  Archimedes turned the back of the box with the bellows toward Berenike. Beads of shiny bitumen seeped through the seams and smelled oily. It looked to Berenike like a giant bat got stuck in a wooden trap.

  “It is a box that holds air under pressure,” Archimedes said. “I pump air in with this bellows and release it with this valve.” he pointed to a metal valve attached to the one inch hole bored into the side.

  “How can trapped air have any power?” Berenike asked. “The wind is powerful because it is not shut in a box.”

  Archimedes was looking down the hole of the new cane. “Compacted air can have some force, but steam is much more powerful.”

  “Steam? Like water in a heated pot?” Berenike asked.

  “Yes. If you trap the steam, if you don’t let it escape, it creates a powerful force—much more powerful than air.” He went over to the next table and placed a metal funnel over the rim of the kettle of boiling water.

  “In physics, there is force and resistance. The steam has little resistance because the kettle is wide open. When I place this funnel over the top, it increases the resistance.” The steam began to spurt out of the upturned funnel like a screaming ghost. “The force is the same, but it has to fight through more resistance.” He set down the funnel and went back to Berenike.

  “My problem is I don’t have anything that can withstand the pressure of the air, much less the increased power of steam. Every tube I use explodes from the force of the compressed air and the lopsided wooden ball.”

  “What you seem to need,” she said as she tilted up the box to peer inside, “is a metal tube and a true sphere.” She set the box back down and looked at Archimedes.

  “Well, yes,” Archimedes said, “but I only have about an hour left.” He looked over at a water clock.

  Berenike went to her scrolls and began unrolling the larger one until she came to the end, revealing a bronze tube. It was the same bronze tube that held the scroll in the library when he first met Berenike. She brought it over and handed it to him.

  “Will this do?” Berenike said with a suggestion of sarcasm.

  “It’s perfect,” Archimedes said. The tube was slightly wider than the canes, but he could easily bore the hole in the box wider to accommodate it. “Now all I have to do is carve a new ball to fit the width of this tube.”

  Berenike held up her hand. “I’m not done.” She reached up and pulled the necklace off her slender neck. At first Archimedes thought they were a string of copper beads, but when the light glowed through them, it revealed a string of amber beads varying from about a quarter inch to an inch in diameter. “They’re amber, a gift from my father. Since he gave them to me, I am sure he would not mind that they are used to help solve his murders.” She held out the necklace to Archimedes.

  He reached out timidly, not because of any value h
e placed on them, but because just moments ago they were around the slim neck of this beautiful Muse. They were still warm when he held them. He knew the Greeks also called amber electron and if they were rubbed together they can pick up small metal shavings, similar to a magnet. He took a knife and cut the bronze wire, causing the beads to roll around the table like grapes. He picked up a handful and passed them to Berenike. “Would you find which beads fit the new tube?” Archimedes curled his entrance scroll so it was the same gauge as the bronze tube. “Use this scroll to measure them while I drill a wider hole in the box for the bronze tube.”

  Berenike was dropping different beads down the inverted scroll and the ones that were too small made a ringing sound as they bounced on the marble floor. “Do you have a name for this contraption?”

  “I call it the pneumatic kannē. Pneumatic means wind and kannē is a reed. A windy cane,” he proudly announced.

  “Hmm,” Berenike looked at it skeptically. “Windy cane, kannē, or cannon, or whatever you want to call it doesn’t really describe it accurately. I’d call it dead bat in a box.”

  Archimedes laughed. “OK, from now on it will simply be called the dead bat.”

  Kleitos was waiting just as he promised. The smirk that smeared across his face showed a self-assurance that he would put this arrogant schoolboy in his place. Kleitos had chosen a spot away from the lighthouse because he didn’t want to get caught with the blowgun. A stand of palm trees and scrub brush growing on a low mound hid them from view. Several Medjay were patrolling nearby and Archimedes was concerned they would detain a group of children walking around with a blowgun and a strange box. So he carried the pneumatic cannon concealed under a cloth.

  “Who’s the girl?” Kleitos pointed at Berenike with the blowgun. She insisted on coming along to see the dead bat in action and to get a look at the clue that Archimedes thought so vital to the murders. Archimedes didn’t want Berenike to come for fear the pharaoh’s daughter would scare off Kleitos and the blowgun along with him. Archimedes finally relented when she agreed to dress like a common child.