"Esther M. Friesner - Chicks 03 - Chicks 'N Chained Males" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

"It won't cut through the manacles on my ankles and wrists," Perseus said.

"Hmm. I suppose not. Sure, go ahead."

Divine swords had a lot going for them. This one neatly removed the manacles without removing the
hands and feet they'd been binding. Thinking about all the times she'd sliced herself carving wild
boarтАФthose visiting Gauls could really put it awayтАФAndromeda wished she owned cutlery like that.

Perseus said, "Can you steer a little more to the left?"

"Sure," Andromeda said, and did. "How come?"

"That's Acrisius' palace down there." Perseus pointed. "Who knows? Maybe I can make a prophecy
come true." He dropped the manacles and the lengths of chain attached to them, one after another. He
and Andromeda both watched them fall.

"I can't tell," Andromeda said at last.

"Neither can I." Perseus made the best of things: "If I did nail the old geezer, Matt Drudge'll have it
online before we get to Olympus."
***

The wedding was the event of the eon. Andromeda's mother and father, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, flew
up from their Ethiopian home in their private Constellation. Acrisius' cranium apparently remained
undented, but nobody sent him an invitation. Dana├л, Perseus' mother, did come. She and Hera spent the
first part of the weekend snubbing each other.

Zeus dishonored two maids of honor and, once in his cups, seemed convinced every cupbearer was
named Ganymede. After he got into the second maid of honor, he also got into a screaming row with
Hera. A couple of thunderbolts flew, but the wedding pavilion, though scorched, survived.

Hera and Dana├л went off in a corner, had a good cry together, and were the best of friends from then on
out. A little later, Zeus sidled up to Andromeda and asked in an anxious voice, "What is thisFirst Wives'
Club my wife keeps talking about? Do you suppose it is as powerful as my sword?"
"Which one, your Godship, sir?" she returned; she was in her cups, too. Zeus didn't answer, but went off
with stormy, and even rather rainy, brow. Before long, he and Hera were screaming at each other again.

And then Andromeda and Perseus were off for their wedding night at the Mount Olympus Holiday Inn.
In her cups or not, Andromeda didn't like the way the limo driver handled the horses. Perseus patted her
knee. "Don't worry, sweetie," he said. "Pha├лthon hasn't burned rubber, or anything else, for quite a while
now."

She might have argued more, but Perseus' hand, instead of stopping at the knee, kept wandering north.
And, with all the gods in the wedding party following the limo, odds were somebody could bring her
back to life even if she did get killed.

AmbrosiaтАФDom Perignon ambrosia, no lessтАФwaited on ice in the honeymoon suite. The bed was as
big as Boeotia, as soft as the sea-foam that spawned Aphrodite. Out in the hallway, the gods and
demigods and mortals with pull who'd been at the wedding made a deityawful racket, waiting for the