“What is going on that you don’t want any part of?”
Pan blew another trill of high wavering notes. He was silent for a while. “I don’t know. Zeus, and the earth shaker, and Hermes . . . they’ve all been very odd. Very odd indeed. And something has been happening. Our histories are being . . . reenacted. I have been chasing the nymph Syrinx. But it felt to me as if I had done that before. And the more I thought, the surer I was, that I had chased her before, and that Ladon had transformed her into a reed. I played the pipes I made from the river reeds . . . and my mouth and hands knew how to do this. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it, but I do know you are a thorn in the flesh of whatever is causing this. Therefore I am determined to help you.”
He scowled. “Word is out from Olympus that you must be slain. So: how can I help you? I have soothed the terrible man-eating Cyclops to sleep with sweet music. What other help can I offer?”
“Send us home? Even the U.S.A. would do,” begged the hopeful Henri, treading American sensibilities like grapes.
Pan knitted his brow. Danced a few steps. Which brought him closer to Liz, Jerry was not pleased to notice. The goat-god’s reputation for lasciviousness was notorious.
“I would . . . if I could. But I don’t even know where your home is. It must be a place that is incredibly far from here. Tell me how you came here?”
Jerry explained. Pan looked puzzled. “Do the herdsmen of your country, those who tend the sheep and the goats in the high and lonely meadows, still worship great Pan?”
Jerry swallowed. “Er. Not much.”
Pan trilled his pipes sadly. “You mean ‘not at all.’ Alas, then I have no presence there, and no influence.”
“Well, what about some advice?” asked Lamont. “We were heading for Egypt. Is that worth doing?”
Pan wrinkled his long goaty nose. “I don’t know. But in the realm of Egypt you would at least be beyond the hand of Olympus. Nowhere here would be beyond the Olympians. I would go there. The wind is set fair for the coast of Africa.”
“We’d be going just as fast as it would carry us, if it wasn’t for the Tritons.”
Pan pulled a face. He seemed to like doing that. “Their idea of music is abominable. Unfortunately, sweet music has no charms to drive them off.”
“Does bad music?” asked Lamont.
The idea seemed to shock Pan. “It is possible. It would have to be both louder and worse than their cacophony.”
Lamont looked at the group of moderns. “I think we’ve possibly got a really talented group of failed musicians right here. If we had or could make some instruments . . . ”
The goaty god jigged. “The making of musical instruments is my attribute. Allow me.”
* * *
Pan worked with small pieces of metal or wood. He could, by what to Jerry appeared to be principles of cohesion, create larger things. Sprites and spirits of trees and waters danced at his command, hammering out bizarre shapes. The bagpipes and the drums were almost recognizable as such. Bagpipes were after all a shepherd’s instrument, and the drum was another familiar concept. The guitar was not too wild an idea, although the device was more like a lute. However the attempts at the magical construction of a violin would have had Stradivari turning in his grave. At about 9000 rpm, at a guess. The brass instruments had totally flummoxed Pan’s magical construction skills, until Jerry had mentioned a salpinx, a Greek trumpet.
The work would have gone faster, Jerry noted sourly, if Liz hadn’t been there. Pan spent more time ogling her than he did assembling the instruments. It didn’t help any that Liz was making no effort to make herself less visible. Rather the opposite, actually. She almost seemed to be displaying herself for the goaty creature, in a demure sort of way.
The extent to which that aroused his jealousy came as a bit of a shock to Jerry. He was even more shocked when Liz came up to him, after Pan was finally done, and chucked him lightly under the chin. “Oh, relax,” she murmured. “I’m really not attracted to hairy types, Jerry, especially when they smell that much. Just keeping the help happy at their work, that’s all.”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156