Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

And then to Liz’s alarm . . . he stirred. Liz had done more dissections than most people had had hot breakfasts. She was normally as squeamish as lead, but this was asking a bit much.

Osiris groaned. Liz, stepping back, took a very deep, deep breath and wondered if now was not the perfect time for that second-to-last cigarette.

He sat up. This, thought Liz, is where I get the hell out of here.

But the small island glade was too full of chanting Egyptian deities to let her just slip away.

“Ohhh. Well, it’s a better job than last time.” Osiris croaked and felt his groin.

“Thank Ra for that. That desert jackass won’t be able to call me ‘dickless’ again.” He massaged his throat. “Isis, my queen, you wouldn’t have something to drink, would you?”

“No, my lord brother-husband. We came in haste.”

Liz had some of Mac’s “brandy” in her bag, in a small wineskin. It was all that she had, besides river water. “Here, Isis. It’s pretty strong.”

She passed it over. Osiris struggled with the cork and then gratefully swallowed some.

The mummy-man’s greenish pallor flushed. His eyes bulged. He sprayed the liquor out. “Gah! Kehaph!! Eheh!”

Strong, rough hands seized Liz.

And Osiris took another pull at the skin. This time he swallowed it. He shuddered. Then he took a deep breath and smiled beatifically. “By Ra, Nut, Geb and even my brother Set—now that’s what I call embalming fluid! Here, my good vizier! Try this. Make sure that you write down the recipe.”

He passed the skin to a doubtful-looking Thoth. “Chug it, old birdbrain!”

The rough hands ceased holding Liz in a grip of iron, as the pedantic grand vizier spluttered but did not die. Indeed, even Osiris was looking remarkably lively for a fairly ripe corpse that had just been sewed up by a bunch that would have been rejected by most sewing circles, never mind med schools.

Osiris turned to Liz. “Tell me, she who brings Sa, that which warms the very cockles of the Ka—who are you? How do you come to the land of the Nile?”

“We were kind of hoping you could tell us how we got here. But what we’re really interested in is how we could get home.”

Osiris shook his head vigorously. It was a good thing, thought Liz, that she and Isis had done most of that section of the sewing. If it had been Nepthys, it could easily have just fallen off again.

* * *

Liz was the noticing kind. But you could hardly help noticing the looks on Cruz and Medea’s faces, even if they hadn’t been leaning against each other. She couldn’t help feeling a little envious, if pleased for Medea’s sake. The broad sergeant was a nice guy. Heh. He was looking a bit bemused. That was good.

“Basically,” she said, flopping onto the bank, “Osiris has no trouble remembering that this was a decaying Mythworld. He says even now things are barely beginning to change. There are large tracts of upper Egypt where the desert just disappears into nothingness.”

Jerry studied her intently. “He seems very cheerful. If a bit unsteady on his feet.”

She chuckled. “He’s dead drunk. Which is not bad seeing that he was just plain dead, earlier. I think any favors we want to ask had better be soon and not tomorrow. Still, he and Isis are very obliged to us right now. He says he can feel the Ka of this universe being drawn into the naos of a dark force that sucks out its Sa. Whatever that means.”

“Better than it sounds, I hope,” said Mac with a grin, looking at Medea and Cruz. “I wonder if it’s infectious.”

“I’ll thump you,” growled Cruz, without any signs of a deep desire to do so. Actually, he was looking very relaxed. Almost as if, were he to relax any more, he’d be asleep. “So what does it mean, Doc?”

“Ka is soul, Sa is life-force. Naos is the inner sanctuary of the temple.”

Cruz’s expression showed that Jerry’s explanation was as clear as mud. “So . . . can we go home? Or even back to—to—the Olympians’ universe?”