Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

“What for?” demanded Lamont.

Zeus-Krim looked puzzled. “Because we are Krim. We find intelligent species and do this. We always have.”

Typhoeus loosened a coil slightly. “They like power. Like little Zeus. That’s probably why the toad got involved with this Krim stuff in the first place. Only these ones like pain and misery even more than Zeus did.”

Typhoeus had slackened his grip on Zeus’ hand for an instant. And Zeus-Krim ripped his hand through the teeth, tearing through the flesh, regardless of the damage. He did not fling thunderbolts. Instead he snatched up the pyramid.

“You cannot hold the Krim!” he shrieked.

There was a brief purple discharge. The Krim device in the god’s hand suddenly disappeared. The change in Zeus was immediately apparent.

* * *

Zeus seemed to crumple. He looked older. Looser in flesh and possessed of bloodshot eyes streaming tears.

“Thank you,” he said weakly. “I was disappearing into it. It’s terrible! It feeds on pain. And it loved having a body. That’s what those Krim are doing here. It’s their main form of entertainment.”

Typhoeus looked at Zeus. “You are in dire trouble with Mother Gaea.”

Zeus began to sob again. “I just wanted to have fun!”

* * *

Liz was exhausted. What was worse, her mount was showing no sign of exhaustion. And they must have traveled hundreds of miles in the huge bounds and at the terrific speeds they were doing.

Weird. She could have sworn that she had caught sight of Jerry and that sphinx earlier. She was going to fall. And she was going to die. It was a pity she’d not have a chance to see what might happen with Jerry. It could—just maybe—have worked out better than her past choices.

But it was too late to think about that now. Her hands just couldn’t hold on much longer.

* * *

“Physical contact seems to work,” said Bes. “If we can touch it and you jump from this Egypt in Ur-Greece to Ur-Egypt itself—then I can have my true godlike powers. And the mule will no longer have his. So use your hunting spells, Jerry. And try to touch her when we dive.”

Throttler folded her wings and dove down to the mule. As they came near, Jerry called to the spirits of the hunt for aid. He leaned out and grabbed with all his strength. As his hand closed on Liz’s hair there was the sudden zip of sphinx transposition. And then the mule, Liz, sphinx and Jerry were falling, tangled together. Bes wasn’t. Jerry saw him deliberately dive off the sphinx’s back.

“Bes! Protector!” Jerry’s shriek was overridden by the bray of a giant mule that has suddenly found that it is falling.

Jerry managed to transfer his hand from Liz’s hair to her arm. He tried to pull her onto the sphinx. A mule hoof, fortunately at the end of its travel, nearly sent him spinning. It did send the mule spinning. Jerry clung desperately to Liz. She clung weakly to him. But a last mule kick ripped her out of his gasp. She was falling.

Jerry did the craziest thing he’d ever done in his life. He dived after her.

It was only when he was also falling that he realized how insane that was. Looking down he realized they were still at least a hundred feet above the ground. And there, clear in the moonlight for an instant, was Bes. The dwarf had somehow landed safely and was waving his arms as if trying to catch their attention.

“BEEEESSSS!” yelled Jerry.

He tried to reach for Liz. The moon was darkened by a diving sphinx. A claw closed on his jacket, which mercifully ripped as it was about to throttle him and pull his arms off at the same time.

Impact.

Soft impact.

* * *

After a few seconds Jerry sat up. Or tried to. He was alive. Somehow he was alive. Alive and lying in some soft stuff. Which was getting up his nose…

He sneezed. Somebody groaned.

Something akin to a small hurricane pulled the soft stuff aside. “I wish you’d stayed on the sphinx,” grumbled Bes. “Do you know what trouble I had moving this stuff around to catch you both?”