Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

“This grass is tickling my bare . . . ” choked Cruz.

“Why don’t you spread some of those clothes of yours out. Then I could come and sit on them too. It would be a gentlemanly thing to do. Sitting on the grass is terribly undignified for a princess.” She was looking a little flushed now, and she pushed away an errant curl from her forehead. “My, but it is hot this morning.”

“I’ve got nothing more to lose,” he growled.

“Tch.” She fluttered her long eyelashes at him. “Then I’ll just have to play to lose.”

Anibal Cruz choked.

She cocked her head to one side and smiled provocatively. “That is what I was supposed to do, wasn’t it?”

Cruz choked again.

* * *

Medea, the sorceress of Colchis, twined her fingers through the hair on his chest. Her eyes were soft. “I can tell you’re not a Hellene,” she said with a small, satisfied, secretive smile.

“Why?” he asked warily. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. You did everything right. But so gentle . . . and you were trying to please me. Jason never bothered to. I know: That is only a small sample of one. But Absyrtus was like that too.”

“Absyrtus?”

“My half brother. I killed him.”

Cruz swallowed. Medea was nothing if not to the point. But if he understood what she was saying . . . Well, maybe the guy was just lucky Anibal Cruz hadn’t gotten to him first. Very lucky.

She nibbled at his jawline. “It’s a pity that Isis made the wrong leg immortal.”

“Er. I think that some of the magic may have affected that limb too. It’s certainly feeling like it may have died anyway.”

She looked slightly alarmed. “Have we hurt your leg?”

“No . . . It’s the one you were concerned about a few moments ago. The middle one. I’m sure it has died. I can feel rigor mortis setting in.”

She rolled on top of him and began punching him in the ribs. Well, that’s how it started anyway. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that big an island. Fortunately, some of the marsh birds make just that kind of shriek.

* * *

It was a good thing that she’d gone to assist with the sewing up, thought Liz. There must be physiological limits on what magic could do. And there were certainly limits on Isis’ knowledge of basic internal anatomy.

No matter what spells are uttered, a liver is a prerequisite for a decent afterlife and connecting the bile duct to the heart is almost certain to cause problems. Anubis was all for removing the whole lot, and simply substituting jewels or suitable scrolls of papyrus. Or filling the space with bitumen. He’d even brought suitable canopic jars and hooks.

“I can clean out his sinuses properly once and for all,” he offered in a gravelly semi-growl. Liz did not take to Anubis. Not that she had anything against jackals. Very useful at waste disposal, scavengers were. Liz just found his drooling a bit off-putting.

Isis’ twin sister, Nepthys, was also “helping.” She combined being a terrible seamstress, with being Anubis’ mother (by Osiris, to boot), and the murderer Set’s wife. It seemed like a very complicated arrangement, added to Osiris being both Isis’ husband and brother. Incest was one thing, but this!

Talk about keeping it all in the family . . .

Liz felt she had enough to contend with, dealing with the gory sewing-up task. But she also had to listen to the ceaseless lamentations of Isis, Nepthys, and the doleful chanting of Thoth, who ritually cleansed each piece before the sewing team was allowed loose. However, she soon found there was something further required of her. “You must either lament, chant or leave, sorceress,” demanded Thoth.

Liz sighed. “Fine! But don’t complain . . . ”

The island and the reconstruction of Osiris echoed to ancient Egyptian funerary chants. And to: “de-hip-bone, connected-to-de-thigh-bone . . . ”

Well, perhaps that too was a powerful spell in this universe. In the end, Osiris went together in more or less the right order, and with all the right bits connected to the right bits.