Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

“The point is I’d rather not have the bird carrying word back to Zeus. We would like as much of a break as possible from foes that could be sent against us. The same goes for the dragons and Throttler. Eagles are fast and maneuverable.”

Medea produced a small bottle. “I have a potion here that will silence that eagle forever.”

Everyone stared at her. The woman from Colchis had become so much a part of the group that they tended to forget that she was a mistress of poisons.

Cruz nodded. “But how do we get it into the eagle?”

“I’ll sort it out,” said Bes easily. “I’ll sneak up and get it down his gullet before he realizes it.”

They also tended to forget how quietly the rambunctious dwarf-god could move when he wanted to. They watched from behind a small spur as Bes ghosted forward. Then, when he was just next to the Titan, he stood up and yelled. “Here, birdy, birdy, birdy. Here, birdy, birdy, dinner. Dinner!”

The huge eagle, startled from its gory feasting, looked up and spotted Bes. With a squawk it dived onto the small piece of new prey.

“Bloody lunatic!” yelled Liz. She broke from cover along with the rest of them, sprinting toward the wild flurry of wings, claws and flying feathers.

By the time they got there, Bes was sitting astride the eagle with the bird flat on its back. Bes’ feet were holding the wings down, with the bird’s talons immobilized with one hand while he wrestled with the beak with the other. “Ah. Glad you came. I can’t work out how to get the stopper out of this bottle, and I haven’t got another hand to pour with.”

“You’re a maniac,” growled Cruz, cutting the eagle’s throat hastily.

Bes shook his leonine head. “What’s the point of doing that, Cruz? Not worth giving it poison now.”

And Prometheus laughed. “Well done, mortals! Well done indeed. I have watched long for your coming.” His voice was like low thunder.

* * *

Jerry had had several vague ideas about how to defeat the chain that bound Prometheus to that pinnacle. Unfortunately, he’d failed to consider the size of the Titan or the quality of the chains.

The Titan stood at least forty feet high and the chains that bound him were welded around each wrist and ankle, and then around the basalt plug. If the chains couldn’t be broken, then the plug would have to be moved—and it was a pillar at least twice as big as the Titan. It had to weigh at least ten or twelve hundred tons.

Prometheus’ head stood just below the top of the rock plug. Jerry thought frantically about the limited magic powers at his disposal. “If we made your chains longer, could we get them up and over the top?”

Prometheus wrinkled his shaggy frosted brow. “You could try,” he said.

So Jerry and Medea got to work. They started on the chain between his arms, climbing up a pile of ice-shattered rocks to where they could reach it. The chain grew without becoming broken. Soon Prometheus could move his arms.

“Bless you, mortals! Do you know how good that feels? Just to be able to move my arms. Ah, that was a fine job you did on that eagle, but I wish I could have done it myself.”

Next they climbed to the top of the rock pillar and stood on the very summit, hauling on the spiderweave rope. It took all of them, sphinx, dragons and Bes too, to haul the chain up, and over. Dropping it over the other side, they nearly brained Prometheus.

The Titan bellowed his delight at his new freedom of movement.

“The legs will be worse,” said Jerry grimly.

“Why?” asked Cruz.

“For starters, there are several tons of rocks on top of the chain from that rockfall. Then, to get it over the top, we’ll have to make it much longer. And I don’t know if you worked out that we were changing the size of the links to get the chain bigger. They’ll have to be bigger and heavier by far, to get them over the top of the pinnacle.”