by Anne Ursu
Then Zee heard the laughter again, the same laughter he’d heard on the school bus. But this time he knew it couldn’t have come from Jack. Jack was long gone, sitting happily on the school bus, still waxing enthusiastically about three pointers and fast breaks. Anyway, the laughter wasn’t coming from someone next to him, but rather from inside his head. And it was not laughter so much as a cackle—a very gleeful cackle.
Philonecron.
As Zee’s stomach turned and his skin crawled, the old man disappeared behind the oak tree.
Eight months before, Zee had seen some extremely creepy and not very human-like creatures in tuxedos steal a boy’s shadow, and he had done what anyone would have done in that situation—which was turn in the other direction and run as fast as he could. But now everything had changed, Philonecron was laughing, there was a not entirely human-like man lingering by his house, and so, finally, Zee jumped off his exercise wheel.
“Hey,” he called. “HEY!” And then, without a thought, he took off across the street.
CHAPTER 10
A Friendly Chat with Poseidon, the Second Most Powerful God in the Whole Universe
ONCE UPON A TIME, IT USED TO BE THAT ANY SANE person who ventured out on the seas would, before he embarked on his journey, make a sacrifice to Poseidon. It was only sensible. Since Poseidon is the second most powerful god in the whole Universe, you want to be as respectful to him as you possibly can be. Because you, after all, are a lowly mortal, no greater than sea scum on the tooth of a snaggle-toothed snake eel, of no more significance than a scale on the butt of a bottom-feeding dwarf suckermouth catfish—except the scum on the snake eel and the scale on the catfish butt both have the blessed privilege of being of the sea and therefore created by Poseidon himself, whereas you were made by Prometheus, a mortal-loving Titan freak, and nobody asked Poseidon whether we needed humans anyway, and you’re lucky he doesn’t drown you when you take a bath. Because he could, you know. And then you’d be sorry.
The point is, if you had lived once upon a time and if you weren’t a moron with a major nautically related death wish, every time you even got near the sea—every time you even thought about the sea—you would drown your best horse or sacrifice your most prized bull in honor of Poseidon, in which case he might—just might—let you live.
Maybe.
One thing you could be sure of: If you chose to set out on the water making nary an offering to the great god of the realm, you could be pretty confident that that sea journey was going to be your last. For the seas are treacherous, and there are so many unfortunate things that can happen to a person on them—a sudden squall, an errant wave, a vicious attack by a flesh-eating giant squid. After all, there are so many humans out on the waters at any given time, and so very many dangers that they face, Poseidon can’t possibly be expected to keep track of all of them.
All he wants is a little respect. You can’t blame Poseidon; if you were the second most powerful god in the whole Universe (which you’re not, obviously, because Poseidon is. And you’re clearly not the first most, because then you’d be Zeus, and that guy has never read a book in his life) you’d want a little reverence and fear too.
And if you didn’t get it, you’d be angry.
Really angry.
Take, say, Minos. He wanted to prove his right to rule Crete, so he asked Poseidon to send a bull out from the sea at his command, and all the townspeople would be like, “Ooh, bull!” and make him king. Minos promised Poseidon he’d then sacrifice the bull, so Poseidon did it, he made a bull come out of the sea, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. Giving. But Minos liked the bull so much he decided to keep it, so Poseidon had Eros make Minos’s wife fall in love with the bull. She had a hideous little half-bull baby and everything. It was pretty hilarious.
Or the king of Troy. Once, for kicks, Poseidon decided to disguise himself as a man and help build the walls of Troy. But when he was done, the king wouldn’t pay him. So, he sent a Ketos to terrorize the town and eat all the inhabitants. That was pretty funny too.
There’s a lot you can do when you’re the God of the Seas. Sea monsters are just the beginning. You can flood a town, like Poseidon did with Athens when they picked Athena to be their patron instead of him. (Why would anyone do that? Athena can’t do anything cool, like flooding towns or sending sea monsters after people.) You can dry up all the springs in the area so everyone dies from thirst, which he did with Argos after they chose Hera to be their patron. You can make mountains grow around a seafaring town so they can’t fish anymore and everyone starves to death horribly, which he wanted to do when the Phaeacians tried to help someone who had crossed him. But Zeus went on a big power trip and wouldn’t let him. The big ninny.
It makes him so mad thinking about it, even now. Mortals just don’t have any respect. They act like Poseidon’s some minor god, some wimp, some puddle god or something. He’s not. He’s the second most powerful god in the whole Universe, and he is Not to Be Messed With.
And then, they don’t just disrespect him, but they mess with his children, too! Disrespect him all you want, really—he’ll only make your whole town die horribly—but what really ticks him off, what you really should never, ever, ever do, is disrespect his offspring. Because that’s just like disrespecting him, and that’s a good way to get yourself eaten by a sea monster.
Like that guy Odysseus. On the way home from the Trojan War, he and his crew got trapped in a cave that happened to be the lair of Poseidon’s son, a Cyclops named Polyphemos. Now, Polyphemos certainly had his quirks, one of them being that he really really liked to eat humans. Preferably raw.
And after the Cyclops swallowed a few crew members whole and washed them down with milk, Odysseus stuck a hot poker in his eye and blinded him. Blinded him! Poseidon’s son!
Well, Poseidon was not going to stand for that, and it took Odysseus a little longer to sail home than it otherwise might have. Like, ten years longer. Take that, Mr. Blindy Man.
The thing is, if one of Poseidon’s sons wants to eat you, you let him eat you. You’re grateful. As you’re being slowly digested in his stomach, you look up to the heavens—well, no, you can’t really do that inside his stomach, but you can look up mentally—and say, Thank you, Poseidon, Great God of the Seas, for bestowing upon me the honor of being eaten by one of your descendants, and I can only hope that I am succulent enough to please the sanctified taste buds of your offspring.
And if you do that, see, you’re home free! Poseidon will leave you alone, no problem. You’re always welcome on his seas then—or at least you would be if you hadn’t been eaten.
Well, anyway, things are different now. The gods have gone Deep Undercover. Nothing to See Here, Folks. Move Along. Stay Behind the Yellow Line. You’re Right, It’s All Myth, Now Shut Up and Have a Cookie. So, if you’ve been to the sea, it’s quite doubtful you made any sort of sacrifice to Poseidon. And you can’t be blamed. You don’t know any better. You can’t be in abject terror of a god you don’t know about. Poseidon understands, he does. He’s not some kind of demon; he’s a god—wise and beneficent. So he’s not going to send a sea monster after you.
Probably.
Though a little more respect wouldn’t hurt.
Like he said, no one asked him if he wanted there to be humans in the first place. Sure, when the Olympians took power after they defeated Cronus, everyone thought Earth should be repopulated; mortal creatures were amusing diversions, and one did want to be the god of something. Poseidon himself created all the creatures of the sea, which is why they’re so great.
But the whole human thing was pretty much a big accident. Zeus gave the task of repopulating Earth to Prometheus and his brother, since they’d helped in the war—Zeus acted like it was this big honor, but really he was just farming out the labor. Zeus never does anything himself if he can help it. Not like Poseidon, who rules the seas single-handedly, and it’s not an easy job, you know.
Anyway, Prometheus made his creatures—hum
ans—in the shape of the gods, which was a nice idea, though kind of creepy. Looking down at Earth and seeing miniature versions of yourself walking around scratching themselves all the time is a little weird.
Well, the humans all started freezing and starving to death, and Prometheus felt sorry for them and stole fire from Olympus to keep them alive, like anyone cared about them. The fire caused humans to look up to the heavens and see the gods, and suddenly everyone whose fishing boat got stuck in a storm was like, “Oh, Poseidon, save me! Save me!”
It wasn’t really the plan.
At the same time, it was nice to be worshipped. You know, you can get out of bed in the morning and have thousands of little beings praying for your mercy and extolling your supreme greatness, or you can not. It’s not a tough choice.
All in all, though, it did get tiring—no, no, not the worship, but the other stuff. You’re just minding your own business, trying to woo some beautiful sea goddess, and some mortal starts whining, “Oh, Poseidon, my family’s starving, please send me some fish! Oh, Poseidon, I’m drowning, help me!” Come on, learn to swim. It all got so old. He wants to be worshipped, not bothered.
So the whole we’re-all-just-a-bunch-of-myths-let’s-forget-it-ever-happened thing wasn’t his idea—like Zeus would ever adopt one of his ideas. But for a Zeus idea, it was a pretty good one. Without mortals nagging him all the time, it gave Poseidon a chance to focus on what’s really important. Which is being a god. There’s no reason to spend your time waiting on needy mortals hand and foot when you can be cruising the Mediterranean on the greatest luxury yacht the Universe has ever seen.
Zeus doesn’t have a yacht.
Olympus is fine, really, if you like that kind of thing. But Poseidon is glad that when he, Zeus, and Hades drew lots for the Universe, he ended up with the sea. He wouldn’t have wanted Olympus, anyway.
Really.
Well, anyway, the moral of this story is Poseidon and mortals have been staying out of each other’s way for some time, and Poseidon is totally fine with that. He won’t bother them as long as no one bothers him. As long as no puny, insignificant, worthless, sniveling, pathetic mortal does anything to disrespect him, everything’s going to be just fine.
And for the longest time, no one did.
He’d heard about the events in the Underworld, of course. Everyone had. There was the attempted coup, the shadow army, the destruction of Hades’s Palace—ha! That he would have liked to see! All of that was interesting, certainly, but nothing like the news that two mortal children had thwarted an Immortal. The incident sparked the whole Mortal Question debate all over the realms once again; gods were yammering about it all the time now, even at his parties, where they were supposed to be having a good time and basking in the glory of being so close to Poseidon, Lord of the Seas. Even Zeus had taken notice, and he wouldn’t notice a Chimera if it belched fire right in his face. Poseidon doesn’t care what happens to mortals—wipe ’em off the Earth or don’t—as long as they stay the heck out of his way.
At first Poseidon had had no idea that Philonecron was his grandson. Such a handsome and powerful god as Poseidon will be very attractive to the ladies, and Poseidon had more children than he could count. And he can count pretty high. He’s a god, you know.
So he was on the sundeck lifting weights one afternoon, as he is on so many afternoons. He has to cast a small spell on his skin to give himself a sheen of perspiration; gods, of course, do not perspire, but one’s muscles do gleam so in the sunshine. As always, lots of Immortals of the fairer sex were sunbathing around him, but Poseidon knew it wasn’t the sun’s rays they were after. They might pretend to sleep or read or listen to music, but he knew they were there to watch him. Why else would they be there if not to check out the huge, rippling muscles of Poseidon, Lord of the Seas, eh?
So there he was, in the middle of doing some major reps on the bench press, with his personal assistant Delphin spotting him—not that he really needed spotting, but it looked cool—and he’d just caught the eye of a sweet young thing with big purple eyes, long black hair, and eight tentacles for arms, when Triton came prancing up to him, blowing on his conch shell as if Cronus himself had come to take his Universe back.
Triton was Poseidon’s son, and if you wanted to do something to him, that would be okay with Poseidon. (Not really.) Because there’s a pattern to life—you have kids, it’s a beautiful thing, they grow up, they move out of the house and have kids of their own. Or not, but at least they move out of the house. Not Triton, though. No, he wanted to stay home with Mom and Dad and run around blowing on his stupid conch shell, which was cute when he was three, but not so cute at three millennia.
“Must you?” Poseidon said wearily, as Delphin added weights to his bar.
Triton put his hand to his chest and tried valiantly to catch his breath. His long fish tail flapped in his agita. “Dad,” he breathed, “there’s a letter for you.” With a portentous look, he produced a rolled-up piece of parchment tied ceremoniously with a black silk ribbon.
Poseidon looked around. All the pretty young things on the sundeck were eyeing him with curiosity. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” he said through clenched teeth.
“I think you should read it,” said Triton in a grave whisper.
Well, he did, and he almost dropped the weights on Triton’s hoof. The Immortal who had been humiliated and mutilated was the son of Cynara, who in turn was the daughter of the nymph Galatea (ah, what soft green skin she had!) and Poseidon, Lord of the Sea.
Quickly he summoned the dishonored pathetic wretch to his yacht, to his protective bosom, and the wretch told him everything that had happened. It was not two mortal children who had had the temerity to offend Poseidon, but just one. The girl! The girl had thwarted his plans, the girl had turned the boy against him, the girl caused Philonecron’s disgrace, his banishment, his hideous dismemberment. And she had laughed in his face! She said the mortals would bring the gods down! She called Poseidon a pantywaist. Poseidon! The second most powerful god in the whole Universe!
This could not stand.
They were all laughing at him, he was sure. Zeus and everyone up on their precious Olympus were pointing and giggling at him. Well, not for long! Soon mortals would see what happens when you mess with Poseidon, the Earth Shaker!
It took him some time to come up with an appropriate retaliation. He couldn’t send a Ketos to destroy her town; she lived in the middle of a continent, and sending a lake monster wouldn’t really do the trick. He tried it once in Scotland, and the darn thing ended up settling down in the middle of the lake and raising a family.
But then the idea came to him. So beautiful, so simple. And full of entertainment value for his guests. Divine retribution and an excuse to throw a fabulous party. What could be better? Now, all he had to do was sit and wait. She would be there soon enough.
CHAPTER 11
Mirror, Mirror
HEY!” ZEE SHOUTED AGAIN AS HE TORE ACROSS THE street. He didn’t have a plan, really—he was chasing down someone who might well be a henchman of Philonecron’s and he didn’t have a plan, which maybe wasn’t the best idea. The old man could have any kind of powers—he could freeze Zee in place, blast him down the block, turn him into a tree, turn him into a common gray squirrel, and Zee would spend his days trying to convince people that he was not a squirrel but a boy, a real boy, and they would laugh and feed him bread crumbs and say, “Sometimes that squirrel seems almost to be trying to communicate with us,” and then they would chuckle and shake their heads and fold up their picnic blankets and leave, and then a stray dog would come by and eat him.
But there was no time for a plan, no time to even think about trees or the life expectancy of a common gray squirrel, no time for anything but running toward the oak tree. Somewhere in Zee’s mind a fantasy played out—he tackles the old man, pins him down, gets him to take him to Philonecron, and then Zee defeats Philonecron and traps him forever in a jar of very stinky olives.
&
nbsp; But when Zee reached the oak tree, there was no sign of the man in the aqua-colored suit. Quickly he scanned the street. Nothing. He turned around slowly, trying to find some evidence of an escape route—but there was no way the man could have disappeared from sight in the time it took Zee to run down the street. Anyway, Zee had had his eyes fixed on the tree the whole time; he would have seen the man if he’d moved from behind it. Unless he’d stayed out of Zee’s sight line and disappeared behind the nearest house—but no, there wasn’t time.
Or, unless the man had simply disappeared. Poof!
Zee let out a gargled scream and kicked a large rock that lay under the big oak tree. He exhaled heavily, kicked the rock one more time for good measure, then, after scanning the horizon fruitlessly one more time, began to walk slowly home. Whoever the old man was, he would be back—Zee knew that for sure.
When Zee walked through the back door of his house, his mother was sitting at the kitchen computer. She had been a kindergarten teacher in London and had been working substitute jobs since they came over, so she was often home when Zee got home. Which would have been completely fine if his parents hadn’t decided to go mental and treat him like he was made of glass.
“Zachary,” she exclaimed as he walked in the door. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” Zee said.
“You look flushed. Zee, are you shaking? What happened?”
