Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

Henri looked up from where he was gloomily inspecting his ruined shoes, and saw the group advancing out of Crocodilopolis. “Merde. Let the big sphinx go and walk on them.”

Cruz shook his head. “There is one thing you’ve gotta learn, Frenchy. About as dumb as you can get is to think you’ve always got the upper hand ’cause you’re bigger than the other guy. I’ll bet the locals have got an ‘equalizer’ or they wouldn’t be coming after us.”

Mac looked up at the sphinx. Even reclining it was about sixty feet tall. “Self-propelled howitzers?”

“In local terms, spells,” said Jerry. His voice was faint, but he sounded like he was feeling better.

Mac slapped him on the back. “Well, we’ve got our own magician.”

“Yes. And we have our own Cushite sorceress,” said Medea.

The “Cushite sorceress” looked at the advancing mob. “I think it’s time to run like hell. There are some eunuchs in that bunch.”

* * *

Traveling on sphinx-back had numerous disadvantages and extreme discomforts. There was absolutely no give in Harmakhis. Stone surfaces, even living stone, are just plain hard. But there was one huge advantage. Distance. They’d outpaced the pursuing chariots in minutes. Now, sitting in a bleak desert valley, they were as safe as possible in the Mythworlds. Needless to say, among the pleasures of life that they didn’t have were food and water. Still, they were all alive and intact, which had seemed unlikely earlier.

They sat in the shade of Harmakhis and compared notes. Jerry peered at the Greek sphinx, who was fanning herself with her wings. “There’s just one thing I’d like to know, Throttler. What are you doing here? This is a world of Egyptian myth. You’re a Greek sphinx.”

Throttler shrugged. Having wings really helps you to do that expressively. “I can go anywhere that has those that believe in the sphinx. Almost all sphinxes are linked in origin. Once we were desert genii. Some of those powers remain wherever there is a sphinx statue. I wasn’t sure that I’d find you here, but with those two dragons making so much fuss about Egypt, I thought it worth trying.”

“Not me,” Harmakhis rumbled. “I can’t go outside of Egypt, I don’t think.”

Bes chortled. “I can! I can go to Punt, where I came from. Or anywhere within the Phoenician world. Carthage too. But it’s a dump.”

Jerry sighed. “I’m just trying to work out what’s going on. We got whisked from our lives into a world or . . . or . . . a universe or something, which only exists in hoary old legends back home.”

The dwarf wasn’t grinning for once. Instead he was looking intent. “And just how did this happen?”

How did you explain space-time-travel to a primitive god? Simple: by skipping most of it. “This pyramid appeared. And it started snatching people.”

Bes’ eyes narrowed. “A five-sided pyramid?”

That much Jerry had learned from Halstrom. “Yes. Five sides.”

Bes nodded. “The same device is corrupting the gods. It has come promising a new and powerful time in what it calls our ‘Ur-universe.’ It has come to prepare the way for its masters, the Krim. As soon as there are enough new believers, it will begin the great revival. At present only parts of Ur-Egypt are existent. Old legends are being reenacted with these new ones.”

Throttler shook his head. “Whatever you do, don’t go along with it. This Krim-master has arrived in the universe of the Hellenes. Things are going back to the bad old days of human sacrifice and cannibalism. War is raging. Ares rides out in his chariot spreading devastation. I have seen just such a pyramid on a pendant around his neck.”

“Your warning is too late,” Bes growled sourly. “Set, and some of the others, like Sekmet, have already gone in with this pyramid scheme. They say it will make them rich and powerful. Ha. Each of them gives a small portion of their powers and self-control to this Krim device. I’ll bet who or whatever is at the head of it will become the new power, not the old gods. They’re a lot of fools . . . even if the old places were falling apart.”