Steeds of the Gods

by Lucy Coats

  Demon smiled gratefully at Eunice. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re a … a … real starfish. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Now that he had the box, he was sure he really could cure Helios’s horse—maybe things would be okay after all.

  “Hello, box,” he said, helping it unravel itself completely and lifting it into his arms as soon as the scissors had retracted. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.” The silver box snarled a cross metallic snarl as Demon ran, bobbing and bumping over the short, springy grass toward the god of the sun. He sighed. The box was clearly in a temper again.

  Demon stumbled at the god’s heels as they went through Helios’s midair door. He felt like he was being bathed in warm spring sunshine. On the other side was a gleaming stable block. Its roof was held up on towering ivory columns. The walls were scattered with glittering flakes of gold and were built of fire-colored marble. The door to each stall was marked with a big bronze flame. Beside the stable, a big flat pasture filled with waving grass and flocks of silvery sheep and goats stretched as far as the eye could see. A truly massive golden chariot was parked by one of the many open barns. Six huge horses had their heads down in the meadow nearby, grazing hungrily, as nymphs bathed the steeds’ sweaty sides with water from crystal basins.

  “Hey, ’Petia,” called Helios. “Bring Abraxas over here, will you?” One of the nymphs set down her basin and led her charge toward Demon and the sun god. Demon could see the big stallion limping badly.

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “That must hurt.”

  “It does,” whinnied Abraxas pitifully. “A lot.”

  “Put him in a stall,” Helios commanded. “I just need to have another quick word with young Pandemonius here.” Demon looked at him nervously. What did Helios want now? The god gripped him by the elbow again, and bent in close. “How are my friends the Cattle of the Sun doing?” the god asked unexpectedly. “Enjoying the nice bales of hay I send up from my fields, are they? Free of stomach gas? Keeping the goddesses happy at the lack of SMELL?”

  “Y-y-yes, Your Sparkling Sunniness. Th-th-they’re f-fine,” Demon stammered, wondering what in Zeus’s underpants the Cattle of the Sun had to do with anything. He soon found out.

  “Glad to hear it,” said Helios. “Now, here’s the thing. I might find I have a bit of a problem getting that hay up to Olympus, say, if I heard that old Fish Father’s Hippocamps were in tip-top condition for the race. On the other hand, if I heard that they’d had a recurrence of that nasty scale condition—been slowed down a bit by it, if you get my meaning—then I might find that the hay problem disappeared.” His grip tightened, and he swung Demon around to face him, piercing him with a bright golden glare. “You understand me, young stable boy?” The god let him go and strode off around the corner of the stables. The nymphs followed. Demon thought he understood only too well. It didn’t matter what he did now—whichever god won, he was either fated to be turned into a Demon-size smoking pile of charcoal by goddesses complaining about the terrible smell of gas coming from the Cattle of the Sun’s bellies, or doomed to spend the next hundred years scrubbing salt off of seaweed.

  CHAPTER 7

  DEMON’S DREADFUL DILEMMA

  Demon’s feet dragged as he slowly approached the lame Abraxas. ’Petia the nymph had left with her sisters, and he was alone with the enormous stallion. “What am I going to do, box?” he asked quietly. The box whirred and flashed blue.

  “Random inquiry matrix not enabled,” said the box in its normal tinny tones. “Questions of a medical nature only accepted at the present time.”

  “Some help you are,” Demon growled as he flipped the catch on the stall and went inside. Bending down, he dumped the box on the golden straw and put his hand on Abraxas’s lame leg. It was very hot, and the fetlock had swollen up. “Help me with a cure for this, then,” he said crossly. The box clicked and whirred as blue symbols flashed on its lid, and then it shot open with a clang, making the stallion back up nervously, half rearing. Demon just barely managed to roll out of the way as a pair of enormous gold-shod hooves clattered past his face.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” he said in his most soothing voice, grabbing at the halter. “Calm down, Abraxas. It’s only my silly old box having a look at your sick foot. It didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Well, it did,” whinnied a horsey voice high above Demon’s head. “Nasty blue thing. I shall kick it, if it does it again.” The box scuttled out of the way like a crab, hurriedly dumping a bowl, a pair of tweezers, a big bunch of green bandages, and a large packet of what looked like pink mud at Demon’s feet.

  “Analysis implemented. Foreign stellar object detected in equine subject. Initiate interactive solution immediately,” it said in a snarky metallic gabble. Then it squeezed out of the stall and shut itself down in a sulk. Luckily, Demon had been with the box long enough to understand its strange language.

  “You’ve got a bit of star stuck in your foot, I think,” he said, picking up the huge hoof to inspect it underneath. Sure enough, there was something sparkling caught there. Working quickly, he pulled the dazzling fragment of star out gently with the tweezers. He then put a pink mud poultice on the sore part before winding some of the cooling green bandages around the hot fetlock. A large, soft muzzle snorted fragrant hay-scented air down the neck of his tunic.

  “Thank you, Demon,” Abraxas snuffled. “That feels much better. I must have stepped on a pointy bit of the Milky Way by mistake. Now I shall be able to race perfectly against Poseidon’s Hippocamps.”

  Demon sighed. He’d forgotten about the race for a second.

  As Demon led Abraxas slowly into his pasture, the other horses all crowded around.

  “We’ve heard good things about you from our friends the winged horses!” they neighed. “They say you’re the best stable boy they’ve ever had! Can’t you come and live with us for a bit? It’s boring having no one but the nymphs to talk to. No one ever comes to visit us here. All we ever get to do is pull the sun across the sky—and that’s hard work!”

  Demon smiled. “I’d love to,” he said, “but the gods keep me very busy, you know, and I’ve got to get back to Poseidon’s stables soon.” His face fell as he thought about his problem. “And now your master has asked me to do something awful to the Hippocamps.”

  “What? What?” they whinnied.

  “If I make the Hippocamps ill again,” Demon explained, “well … I’ll … I’ll be as bad as that horrible Heracles!”

  The huge horses began to swish their tails angrily. “Helios can’t make you do that,” they neighed. “Making beasts sick is wrong.”

  “I KNOW!” Demon groaned. “But how do I get out of it?”

  The horses went into a huddle, nickering softly to one another. Then Abraxas raised his head. “We’ll help you stand up to our master, Demon,” he whinnied. “But you’ll have to be clever. You’ll have to trick a god, and so will we.”

  “I can be clever,” said Demon, crossing his fingers in hope that he could. As Abraxas quietly explained their plan, his whiskery muzzle tickled Demon’s ear. Maybe this could work. By the time Helios came striding across the pasture, Demon knew exactly what he had to do. He walked forward to meet the sun god, with the six white horses making a solid, comforting line behind him.

  “What’s this?” said Helios. “You horses all look very serious for this time of night!” He frowned, bright sparks flashing from his eyebrows. “And so do you, young Pandemonius.” Demon took a deep breath. Maybe it would be his last, if Helios didn’t buy his story. But somehow he didn’t care. He’d do what was right, even if he did end up as a pile of ash.

  “Well, it’s like this, Your Solar Godnificence,” he said in a rush. “Your horses and I don’t think I should do what you asked. M-my job is making beasts well, not ill. Poseidon would suspect you immediately. B-b-but I think m-maybe I can help you win in another way.” He stepped backward into the line of horses and crossed his fingers tightly.

  But Helios was looking at his horses. />
  “Well, my celestial steeds!” he snarled. “And what will you do if I say no to this son of Pan?”

  “Then the sun’s chariot will not run across the sky till you agree,” neighed all six horses together.

  “So! Even YOU betray me!” shouted the sun god angrily.

  There was a sudden blast of heat, and Demon smelled burning as the edges of his tunic begin to singe and smolder. He began to talk very fast.

  “There’s a magic herb,” he gabbled, batting at the sparks frantically. “It makes beasts run faster than the North Wind if you paint the juice of it on their hooves. I-I can get it for you.”

  Helios grabbed him and lifted him up by the front of his tunic, leaving his bare legs kicking and dangling. “What is this herb?” he growled. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “I-i-it’s c-called G-gorgos Anemos, and it c-comes from the kingdom of the Old Man of the Sea.”

  Helios threw him down in the grass. “Very well,” he growled. “But mark me well, stable boy. If my horses don’t run faster than light itself in that race, I will personally see to it that you are set as a spot in the heart of the sun to burn for all eternity!” With that, Helios opened another door in the air and shoved Demon through to Poseidon’s island. The silver box came tumbling after him.

  Demon gulped and gasped, scrambling and stumbling back down the narrow, rocky path to the stables. The first part of the plan had worked. Now he just had to persuade Eunice to help him with the second, but it would have to wait till the morning. He was too tired to do anything but lie down on his pallet and go to sleep.

  A strong smell of seaweed met him as he woke up the next morning. Yawning, he rolled out of bed and jumped down into the stables. The Hippocamps all had their noses buried in their mangers, and Eunice was perched on a rock, playing a little flute crusted with shells.

  “Goodness,” she gasped, dropping the flute with a crunch. “Whatever happened to your tunic?”

  Demon glanced down. There were a few big burn holes in it, and some finger-shaped scorch marks. “Helios got a bit angry with me,” he said. “I’ve sort of played a trick on him, and I need you to help me with the next part of it.”

  Eunice turned pale green. “Me?” she asked nervously. “Why me? What can I do?”

  “Well,” he said, taking a deep breath and hoping. “Do you by any chance know where the Old Man of the Sea lives?”

  Then Eunice did the last thing he expected. She laughed. “Well, of course I do, silly,” she said. “He’s my dad.”

  Demon goggled at her. “But … but … I thought your father was called Nereus!”

  “He is. But because he’s so ancient and wise, lots of people call him the Old Man of the Sea, too. What do you need him for?”

  “Helios’s horses told me that a magic herb called Gorgos Anemos grows in his kingdom, and I need it for my trick to work.”

  Eunice’s mouth fell open in shock. “Gorgos Anemos?” Eunice shrieked. “B-but that’s our swiftweed flower. No one’s supposed to know about that but my family. NO ONE! How did those wretched celestial horses find out about it, by Hades’s toenails?” She dived off the rock and swam over to him. “I think you’d better tell me all about this trick you’ve come up with at ONCE,” she said. So Demon explained.

  “The horses want it to be a fair race with no cheating,” he said. “So although I’m going to paint their hooves with the magic liquid and they’ll do what Helios wants and gallop faster than ever before, I’m also going to put it on the Hippocamps’ hooves and flippers—only Helios won’t know that. So I won’t have to make the Hippocamps ill again, and whichever god wins will truly have the honestly fastest team.”

  “It’s still very dangerous,” said Eunice. “What if Helios finds out about the family secret? Even worse, if he loses, he’s bound to be furious, anyway, and turn you into a sunspot.”

  Demon thought it was best not to mention at this point that he’d already told Helios about the magic herb—well, how was he to have known it was a secret?

  “The thing is,” he said instead, “Zeus will be at the race, and everyone knows he hates cheating. If Helios loses and comes after me, the horses have promised to threaten him with Zeus’s wrath. I-I just have to take the risk. It’s only a stupid race, and I won’t hurt a beast deliberately, not for any god!”

  Eunice sighed. “All right, then. Let’s hitch up the Hippocamps and find my dad,” she said. “Though if he ever finds out that I’m using the swiftweed for anyone other than family, I’ll probably be shut in a cave for a million years and have to marry the giant squid.”

  CHAPTER 8

  THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

  Demon and Eunice harnessed all nine Hippocamps to the chariot. It was the perfect excuse to exercise them, just as Poseidon had instructed.

  They squashed in, with Demon at the reins, then shot out of the stables and into the open air, splishing and sploshing over the crests of the waves. It was very strange being in the driver’s seat, but Demon soon got used to it, though he didn’t dare go as fast as Poseidon.

  “Which way?” he yelled, spitting out a mouthful of seawater.

  “Straight on!” Eunice yelled over his shoulder, her dark-green hair flying in the breeze. Soon Demon began to enjoy himself, and as he got more confident, they went faster and faster, zipping past islands and racing dolphins and sea-skimming seagulls. Then, just as they reached two huge red spires of rock sticking up out of the ocean, Eunice shouted, “Dive!”

  They shot downward, then leveled out and began cantering along a white, sandy road at the bottom of the sea. Demon held the mass of reins tightly and kept the Hippocamps going straight. Looking out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a tall green forest of kelp trees, their trunks wavering in the current, and colorful rippling anemones set in clumps at their roots. Small sea horses, like living jewels, flitted through the branches. They came to perch on Demon’s head and shoulders, making tiny shrill squeaks of joy. Then the forest thinned, turning into a series of large meadows of sea grass where herds of strange-looking sea monsters with hairy nostrils, crayfish tails, and rows of neat webbed feet were grazing. Then Demon saw a large cave ahead.

  “That’s my dad’s house,” said Eunice.

  “What should I say?” he asked.

  “Leave it to me,” said Eunice. “My dad can be a bit funny sometimes. The only thing you have to remember is never to accept his challenge to a wrestling contest. He always wins—and he always cheats!” Demon would have liked to hear more, but Eunice was already slipping out of the chariot and tying the Hippocamps up to a barnacle-encrusted ring.

  “Stay there!” Demon said to them sternly as he scrambled out after her. The Hippocamps looked at him sideways, put their heads down, and started tearing up sea grass.

  “Hey, Dad! Where are you? It’s me, Eunice! I’ve brought a friend to visit,” she called, swimming into the cave. Demon followed clumsily after her. The cave was dimly lit by angler fish set in niches in the walls. It had a far more homey feel than Poseidon’s palace. There were bits of wrecked ships serving as chairs and tables, and some rather rickety shell ornaments—clearly made by Eunice and her sisters—dotted the floor and the driftwood shelves.

  “In here,” came a booming voice.

  “This way,” Eunice hissed, beckoning Demon into a smaller cave. Stooped over a pile of black horned objects was the Old Man of the Sea. His long hair was tied back with a string of bladder wrack, and his beard was knotted with shells and small starfish. In his hand he had a large needle threaded with an array of sparkling jewels. Eunice grinned.

  “Decorating purses for the mermaids again, Dad?” she asked. Nereus grunted.

  “Careless girls are always losing ’em,” he said. “I never have enough in stock.” He looked up at Demon. “Who’s this, then? Some young whippersnapper come to challenge me, I suppose.”

  “No! Of course not, Dad. This is Demon, Pan’s son. He’s looking after Poseidon’s Hippocamps for no
w, but he’s really the stable boy to Olympus. He’s a great healer, too.”

  Nereus looked at Demon from under bushy eyebrows. “You sure you don’t want to wrestle me, son?”

  Demon shook his head, remembering what Eunice had told him. “Not really, thank you very much, Your Ancientness. I’m a bit short for it.”

  “Well, you’re no Heracles, that’s for sure. Wretched heroes—I hate ’em. Always wanting something for nothing. Suppose you want something, too, do you?” Demon was about to answer when Eunice trod hard on his toe with one of her flipper feet.

  “No, no,” she said airily. “Demon just wanted to see where I used to live. We were exercising the Hippocamps and thought we’d drop by for a visit. But now that you mention it, I could do with a bit of swiftweed juice for my dolphin. Poor old Seapetal’s fins are getting a bit creaky. We can’t keep up with my sisters anymore, so I want to rub some on him before we go for our next ride.” She beamed up at her father lovingly. “I know you don’t give it out to just anybody, but surely I can have some. I am your favorite daughter, after all!” Nereus stared at her suspiciously.

  “Swiftweed juice, eh? Dangerous stuff, that. You be careful with it. Use a seagull-feather brush to put it on like I taught you, and don’t use too much, or the poor beast will take off like a rocket.” He glared ferociously at Demon. “And don’t you go telling anyone about it, either, young Demon. It’s meant to be a family secret, that juice is, and Eunice here had no business talking about it in front of you. If that wretched Heracles or any of the other heroes get to hear about it, I’ll have them tromping down here in droves, wanting some to make their stupid arrows fly faster, or something.”

  “Don’t worry, I’d never tell anyone. I don’t like Heracles, either,” said Demon. “He’s always bashing up my beasts.”

  “Well, see that you don’t. Or I’ll turn you into a clam.” The Old Man of the Sea moved across to a large alcove set in the rock and picked up a crystal jug full of bright orange liquid.