Chapter 1

Author’s note: [ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, accepted the invitation from Herakles to join him aboard his ship. I don’t know all of the details, but she spent the night with him in his bed. The next morning when she dressed to leave, she left her magic belt with him so that he could complete his ninth labor. She admitted to me that she was much taken with him and his male appendage.

When she returned to the Amazon camp, there was considerable consternation among the other women about Hippolyte leaving her magic belt behind. Since this belt was accepted as the symbol of being the ruler of the Amazons, most of the women were highly incensed over this action of their queen and a civil war resulted.

Of course, this was not what Hippolyte wanted, but she could not stop the carnage by any means other than by renouncing her position and fleeing the camp. She told me that she had no specific place she wanted to run to, but she had to get away from the other Amazons before any more were killed in this senseless war.

That was why she was sleeping in a solo camp well hidden in the woods, and that was where I met her.

My name is Jane Woods, and I am, or was, a perfectly normal woman of 21 years of age who lived out in the boondocks of Wyoming during the early part of the 21^st Century. On second thought, what part of Wyoming is not in the boondocks? Oh, well, forget I said that. I was the assistant manager of my father’s cattle and horse ranch, but I was not thinking about that when IT happened.

I was scheduled to meet George, the light of my life, that evening for a trip into Cheyenne for a big date. I was sure that he was going to pop the question that evening, and I was very excited about the whole thing. That morning, I had an appointment for a full treatment at the best beauty parlor in the state, and I was running a little bit late because of a problem at the ranch.

Anyway, I was driving at close to 100 MPH (Miles per Hour) in Pop’s brand new pickup. This was a long straight stretch of highway, and there was not another soul to be seen in either direction. I can’t imagine what happened exactly, but my left front tire blew out while I had the accelerator pressed to the floorboard. All I can remember of the resulting accident was that the pickup swerved off the road, hit some bump beside the road, and flipped into the air. Everything after that is a complete blank until I woke up sometime later; how much later, I have no idea.

[Who is that inside my head? Dammit, by what foul magic did you manage to befoul my brain?]

[Huh!? What the hell is going on? Where am I? Is this some sort of crazy hospital new-age therapy?]

[Are you a demon sent by Tartarus to torment me? What is your name? What are you doing inside my mind?]

[Look, we may be able to work this out if you will just calm down. What is your name and what are you doing here?]

[I am Hippolyte, the erstwhile queen of the Amazons. I have abdicated and am running away from Amazonia to try to stop a civil war. Now, tell me who you are.]

[I am Jane Woods from Wyoming, USA. I help manage a cattle and horse ranch with my father. Where are we, and how do I get home?]

[I never heard of WyomingUSA. This is Hellene (Greece), but I don’t know the year in your terms. Also, I don’t know how to send you back to wherever you came from. I suppose that we will have to find someone skilled in the magical arts to return you to wherever WyomingUSA might be.]

[Okay, that sounds good to me, but what should I do in the meantime?]

[One of the things that you can do is to stop bothering me. I guess that I am stuck with you inside my head for now, but please try to stay quiet as much as possible. I am beginning to get some hint of your way of living, and it is not conducive to a long life around here. Just let me be in control, and we may survive long enough to send you home.]

That was when I began to get some of Hippolyte’s memories filtering into my brain, and, believe me, I was scared shitless! Talk about a war-like culture, this may well have put all others to shame. In general, any stranger you might meet had to be considered a mortal enemy until proven otherwise. Anyone who could not use a weapon was either dead or a slave, and there were no exceptions among the common folk.

Sure, I could use a rifle, shotgun, or pistol, but those things did not exist in this world. I would have to start from scratch to learn how to use a knife or a sword or a bow or any of the multitude of other weapons common to this era. Hell, I was as helpless as it was possible to get. Damned right, I was going to stay out of Hippolyte’s way when it came time to fight! I could tell from her few memories that I could access that she was an expert in all of the weapons to be found in this world, and she just might be able to keep us alive until I could return to my home. Right now, it was important for us to stay well away from any Amazons.

The morning looked reasonably safe, so Hippolyte dug some trail rations out of her pack and ate them for breakfast. They did not especially appeal to me, but, hell, it was her body, so I was not going to interfere. Hippolyte packed up and policed (cleaned up) the camp before mounting her horse and looking for a convenient trail.

I was amazed that she did not use a saddle or stirrups. All she had was a pad made of a folded blanket to sit on and nowhere to put her feet. She gripped the horse’s sides with her knees, but it seemed to me that we could be unseated very easily. I wondered how she would react if I offered to show her how to construct a Western saddle. She had a lance that she normally used to fight with when she was mounted, but I could see that she would be a hell of a lot safer with a saddle and stirrups.

[Janewoods, what is this thing you keep thinking about that you call a saddle? We Amazons have gotten by for years with the pad that I am currently using. Why should I change?]

I said, [Just call me Jane. Woods is a second name that I will drop for now. In answer to your question, the saddle is firmly fastened to the horse’s body and cannot slip or slide. If you have a firm seat in the saddle and correctly use your stirrups, you cannot be knocked from the horse as long as you have control of your body. This is what a saddle looks like, and this is how it is constructed.]

I called up a series of pictures in my mind to show Hippolyte the details of a saddle, and she was impressed. [Jane, we must find a carpenter and a leather worker to make us a saddle. I have enough silvers to pay for it, I think. Perhaps, it was the will of the gods that you were transported to my skull.]

Well, it sounded like Hippolyte was finding a good use for what I knew, and that was a relief to me. I didn’t want to be a parasite who simply took advantage of my host, and it looked like I may have some useful ideas to offer as my side of the pairing.

It was a relief to both of us when we finally came to a path through the forest. It was a bit more developed than a simple game trail, though it probably started out that way. Hippolyte chose to ride in an easterly direction, and I assumed that it was an educated guess. She didn’t comment, and it was probably no more than half an hour before we came to a small village. There was a tavern and a blacksmith, so there was likely to be a carpenter and a leather worker in residence.