by Rick Riordan
She stared at the remains of the scarlet evening dress. “For the Cherokee, like traditionally speaking? Your heritage comes from your mom’s side. The clan she comes from is the clan you come from. The dad’s side doesn’t really count.” She let out a brittle laugh. “Which means, technically, I’m not Cherokee. I don’t belong to any of the seven main clans, because my mom is a Greek goddess.”
“Ah.”
“So, I mean, do I even have that to define myself? The last few months I’ve been trying to learn more about my heritage. Picking up my granddad’s blowgun, talking to my dad about family history to take his mind off stuff. But what if I’m not any of the things I’ve been told I am? I have to figure out who I am.”
“Have you come to any conclusions?”
She brushed her hair behind her ear. “I’m in process.”
I could appreciate that. I, too, was in process. It was painful.
A line from the Joe Walsh song reverberated in my head. “‘Nature loves her little surprises,’” I said.
Piper snorted. “She sure does.”
I stared at the rows of Caligula’s outfits—everything from wedding gowns to Armani suits to gladiator armor.
“It’s been my observation,” I said, “that you humans are more than the sum of your history. You can choose how much of your ancestry to embrace. You can overcome the expectations of your family and your society. What you cannot do, and should never do, is try to be someone other than yourself—Piper McLean.”
She gave me a wry smile. “That’s nice. I like that. You’re sure you’re not the god of wisdom?”
“I applied for the job,” I said, “but they gave it to someone else. Something about inventing olives.” I rolled my eyes.
Piper burst out laughing, which made me feel as if a good strong wind had finally blown all the wildfire smoke out of California. I grinned in response. When was the last time I’d had such a positive exchange with an equal, a friend, a kindred soul? I could not recall.
“All right, O Wise One.” Piper struggled to her feet. “We’d better go. We’ve got a lot more boats to trespass on.”
Boat forty-one: Lingerie department. I will spare you the frilly details.
Boat forty-two: a regular super-yacht, with a few crew members who ignored us, two mercenaries whom Piper charmed into jumping overboard, and a two-headed man whom I shot in the groin (by pure luck) and made disintegrate.
“Why would you put a regular boat between your clothes boats and your shoe boat?” Piper wondered. “That’s just bad organization.”
She sounded remarkably calm. My own nerves were starting to fray. I felt like I was splitting into pieces, the way I used to when several dozen Greek cities all prayed for me to manifest my glorious self at the same time in different places. It’s so annoying when cities don’t coordinate their holy days.
We crossed the port side, and I caught a glimpse of movement in the sky above us—a pale gliding shape much too big to be a seagull. When I looked again, it was gone.
“I think we’re being followed,” I said. “Our friend Crest.”
Piper scanned the night sky. “What do we do about it?”
“I’d recommend nothing,” I said. “If he wanted to attack us or raise the alarm, he could’ve already done it.”
Piper did not look happy about our big-eared stalker, but we kept moving.
At last we reached Julia Drusilla XLIII, the fabled ship of shoes.
This time, thanks to the tip-off from Amax and his men, we expected pandai guards, led by the fearsome Wah-Wah. We were better prepared to deal with them.
As soon as we stepped onto the foredeck, I readied my ukulele. Piper said very quietly, “Wow, I hope nobody overhears our secrets!”
Instantly, four pandai came running—two from the port side and two from starboard, all stumbling over each other to get to us first.
As soon as I could see the whites of their tragi, I strummed a C minor 6 tritone chord at top volume, which to creatures with such exquisite hearing must have felt like getting Q-tipped with live electric wires.
The pandai screeched and fell to their knees, giving Piper time to disarm them and zip-tie them thoroughly. Once they were properly hog-tied, I stopped my torturous ukulele assault.
“Which of you is Wah-Wah?” I demanded.
The pandos on the far left snarled, “Who wants to know?”
“Hello, Wah-Wah,” I said. “We’re looking for the emperor’s magical shoes—you know, the ones that let him navigate the Burning Maze. You could save us a lot of time by telling us where they are on board.”
He thrashed and cursed. “Never!”
“Or,” I said, “I’ll let my friend Piper do the searching, while I stay here and serenade you with my out-of-tune ukulele. Are you familiar with ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips’ by Tiny Tim?”
Wah-Wah spasmed with terror. “Deck two, port side, third door!” he spluttered. “Please, no Tiny Tim! No Tiny Tim!”
“Enjoy your evening,” I said.
We left them in peace and went to find some footwear.
A floating mansion full of shoes. Hermes would have been in paradise.
Not that he was the official god of shoes, mind you, but as patron deity of travelers, he was the closest thing we Olympians had. Hermes’s collection of Air Jordans was unrivaled. He had closets full of winged sandals, rows of patent leather, racks of blue suede, and don’t get me started on his roller skates. I still have nightmares about him skating through Olympus with his big hair and gym shorts and high striped socks, listening to Donna Summer on his Walkman.
As Piper and I made our way to deck two, port side, we passed illuminated podiums displaying designer pumps, a hallway lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves of red leather boots, and one room with nothing but soccer cleats, for reasons I couldn’t fathom.
The room Wah-Wah had directed us to seemed to be more about quality than quantity.
It was the size of a goodly apartment, with windows that overlooked the sea so the emperor’s prize shoes could have a nice view. In the middle of the room, a comfortable pair of couches faced a coffee table with a collection of exotic bottled waters, just in case you got thirsty and needed to rehydrate between putting on the left shoe and the right.
As for the shoes themselves, along the fore and aft walls were rows of…
“Whoa,” Piper said.
I thought that summed it up rather well: rows of whoa.
On one pedestal sat a pair of Hephaestus’s battle boots—huge contraptions with spiked heels and toes, built-in chain-mail socks, and laces that were tiny bronze automaton serpents to prevent unauthorized wearers.
On another pedestal, in a clear acrylic box, a pair of winged sandals fluttered around, trying to escape.
“Could those be the ones we need?” Piper asked. “We could fly right through the maze.”
The idea was appealing, but I shook my head. “Winged shoes are tricky. If we put them on and they’re enchanted to take us to the wrong place—”
“Oh, right,” Piper said. “Percy told me about a pair that almost…uh, never mind.”
We examined the other pedestals. Some held shoes that were merely one-of-a-kind: platform boots studded with diamonds, dress shoes made from the skin of the now extinct Dodo (rude!), or a pair of Adidas signed by all the players of the 1987 LA Lakers.
Other shoes were magical, and labeled as such: a pair of slippers woven by Hypnos to give pleasant dreams and deep sleep; a pair of dancing shoes fashioned by my old friend Terpsichore, the Muse of dance. I’d only seen a few of those over the years. Astaire and Rogers both had a pair. So did Baryshnikov. Then there was a pair of Poseidon’s old loafers, which would ensure perfect beach weather, good fishing, gnarly waves, and excellent tanning. Those loafers sounded pretty good to me.
“There.” Piper pointed to an old pair of leather sandals casually tossed in the corner of the room. “Can we assume the least likely shoes are actually the most likely?”
I didn’t like that assumption. I preferred it when the most likely to be popular or wonderful or talented turned out to be the one who was the most popular, wonderful, or talented, because that was normally me. Still, in this case, I thought Piper might be right.
I knelt next to the sandals. “These are caligae. Legionnaire’s shoes.”
I hooked one finger and lifted the shoes by the straps. There wasn’t much to them—just leather soles and laces, worn soft and darkened with age. They looked like they’d seen many marches, but they’d been kept well-oiled and lovingly maintained through the centuries.
“Caligae,” Piper said. “Like Caligula.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “These are the adult version of the little booties that gave Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus his childhood nickname.”
Piper wrinkled her nose. “Can you sense any magic?”
“Well, they’re not buzzing with energy,” I said. “Or giving me flashbacks of stinky feet, or compelling me to put them on. But I think they’re the right shoes. These are his namesake. They carry his power.”
“Hmm. I suppose if you can talk to an arrow, you can read a pair of sandals.”
“It’s a gift,” I agreed.
She knelt next to me and took one of the sandals. “This won’t fit me. Way too big. They look about your size.”
“Are you implying I have big feet?”
Her smile flickered. “These look almost as uncomfortable as the shoes of shame—this horrible white pair of nurse’s shoes we had back in the Aphrodite cabin. You’d have to wear them as punishment if you did something bad.”
“That sounds like Aphrodite.”
“I got rid of them,” she said. “But these…I suppose as long as you don’t mind putting your feet where Caligula’s feet have been—”
“DANGER!” cried a voice behind us.
Sneaking up behind someone and yelling danger is an excellent way to make them simultaneously leap, spin, and fall on their butts, which is what Piper and I did.
In the doorway stood Crest, his white fur matted and dripping as if he’d flown through Caligula’s swimming pool. His eight-fingered hands wrapped around the door frame on either side. His chest heaved. His black suit was torn to pieces.
“Strixes,” he panted.
My heart leaped into my nasal cavity. “Are they following you?”
He shook his head, his ears rippling like startled squids. “I think I evaded them, but—”
“Why are you here?” Piper demanded, her hand going to her dagger.
The look in Crest’s eyes was a mixture of panic and hunger. He pointed to my ukulele. “You can show me how to play?”
“I…yes,” I said. “Though a guitar might be better, given the size of your hands.”
“That chord,” he said. “The one that made Wah-Wah screech. I want it.”
I rose slowly, so as not to startle him further. “Knowledge of the C minor 6 tri-chord is an awesome responsibility. But, yes, I could show you.”
“And you.” He looked at Piper. “The way you sing. Can you teach me?”
Piper’s hand dropped from her hilt. “I—I guess I could try, but—”
“Then we must leave now!” Crest said. “They have already captured your friends!”
“What?” Piper got to her feet. “Are you sure?”
“The scary girl. The lightning boy. Yes.”
I swallowed back my despair. Crest had given a flawless description of Meg and Jason. “Where?” I asked. “Who has them?”
“Him,” Crest said. “The emperor. His people will be here soon. We must fly! Be the musicians in the world!”
Under different circumstances, I would have considered this excellent advice, but not with our friends captured. I wrapped up the emperor’s sandals and stuffed them into the bottom of my quiver. “Can you take us to our friends?”
“No!” Crest wailed. “You will die! The sorceress—”
Why did Crest not hear the enemies sneaking up behind him? I don’t know. Perhaps Jason’s lightning had left a ringing in his ears. Perhaps he was too distressed, too focused on us to guard his own back.
Whatever the case, Crest hurtled forward, crashing face-first into the box with the winged sandals. He collapsed on the carpet, the freed flying shoes kicking him repeatedly about the head. On his back glistened two deep impressions in the shape of horse hooves.
In the doorway stood a majestic white stallion, his head just clearing the top of the frame. In a flash, I realized why the emperor’s yachts had such tall ceilings, wide hallways and doorways: they were designed to accommodate this horse.
“Incitatus,” I said.
He locked eyes with me as no horse should be able to do—his huge brown pupils glinting with malicious awareness. “Apollo.”
Piper looked stunned, as one does when encountering a talking horse on a shoe yacht.
She began to say, “What the—?”
Incitatus charged. He trampled straight over the coffee table and head-butted Piper against the wall with a sickening crunch. Piper dropped to the carpet.
I rushed toward her, but the horse slammed me away. I landed on the nearest sofa.
“Well, now.” Incitatus surveyed the damage—the overturned pedestals and destroyed coffee table; broken bottles of exotic spring water seeping into the carpet; Crest groaning on the floor, the flying shoes still kicking him; Piper unmoving, blood trickling from her nose; and me on the sofa, cradling my bruised ribs.
“Sorry to intrude on your intrusion,” he said. “I had to knock the girl out quickly, you understand. I don’t like charmspeak.”
His voice was the same as I’d heard while hiding in the dumpster behind Macro’s Military Madness—deep and world-weary, tinged with annoyance, as if he’d seen every possible stupid thing bipeds could do.
I stared in horror at Piper McLean. She didn’t appear to be breathing. I remembered the words of the Sibyl…especially that terrible word that began with D.
“You—you killed her,” I stammered.
“Did I?” Incitatus nuzzled Piper’s chest. “Nah. Not yet, but soon enough. Now come along. The emperor wants to see you.”
SOME of my best friends are magic horses.
Arion, the swiftest steed in the world, is my cousin, though he rarely comes to family dinners. The famous winged Pegasus is also a cousin—once removed, I think, since his mother was a gorgon. I’m not sure how that works. And, of course, the sun horses were my favorite steeds—though, thankfully, none of them talked.
Incitatus, however?
I didn’t like him much.
He was a beautiful animal—tall and muscular, his coat gleaming like a sunlit cloud. His silky white tail swished behind him as if daring any flies, demigods, or other pests to approach his hindquarters. He wore neither tack nor saddle, though golden horseshoes gleamed on his hooves.
His very majesty grated on me. His jaded voice made me feel small and unimportant. But what I really hated were his eyes. Horse eyes should not be so cold and intelligent.
“Climb on,” he said. “My boy is waiting.”
“Your boy?”
He bared his marble-white teeth. “You know who I mean. Big C. Caligula. The New Sun who’s gonna eat you for breakfast.”
I sank deeper into the sofa cushions. My heart pounded. I had seen how fast Incitatus could move. I didn’t like my chances against him alone. I would never be able to fire an arrow or strum a tune before he kicked my face in.
This would have been an excellent time for a surge of godly strength, so I could throw the horse out the window. Alas, I felt no such energy within me.
Nor could I expect any backup. Piper groaned, twitching her fingers. She looked half-conscious at best. Crest whimpered and tried to curl into a ball to escape the bullying of the winged shoes.
I rose from the couch, clenched my hands into fists, and forced myself to look Incitatus in the eye.
“I’m still the god Apollo,” I warned.
“I’ve faced two emperors already. I beat them both. Don’t test me, horse.”
Incitatus snorted. “Whatever, Lester. You’re getting weaker. We’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’ve got hardly anything left. Now quit stalling.”
“And how will you force me to come with you?” I demanded. “You can’t pick me up and throw me on your back. You have no hands! No opposable thumbs! That was your fatal mistake!”
“Yeah, well, I could just kick you in the face. Or…” Incitatus nickered—a sound like someone calling their dog.
Wah-Wah and two of his guards slunk into the room. “You called, Lord Stallion?”
The horse grinned at me. “I don’t need opposable thumbs when I’ve got servants. Granted, they’re lame servants that I had to chew free from their own zip ties—”
“Lord Stallion,” Wah-Wah protested. “It was the ukulele! We couldn’t—”
“Load ’em up,” Incitatus ordered, “before you put me in a bad mood.”
Wah-Wah and his helpers threw Piper across the horse’s back. They forced me to climb up behind her, then they bound my hands once again—this time in front, at least, so I could better keep my balance.
Finally, they pulled Crest to his feet. They wrangled the physically abusive winged shoes back into their box, zip-tied Crest’s hands, and force-marched him in front of our grim little parade. We made our way up to the deck, me ducking under every lintel, and retraced our path across the floating bridge of super-yachts.
Incitatus trotted along at an easy pace. Whenever we passed mercenaries or crew members, they knelt and lowered their heads. I wanted to believe they were honoring me, but I suspected they were honoring the horse’s ability to bash their heads in if they didn’t show proper respect.
Crest stumbled. The other pandai hauled him to his feet and prodded him along. Piper kept slipping off the stallion’s back, but I did my best to keep her in place.
Once she muttered, “Uhn-fu.”
Which might have meant Thank you or Untie me or Why does my mouth taste like a horseshoe?
Her dagger, Katoptris, was in easy reach. I stared at the hilt, wondering if I could draw it quickly enough to cut myself free, or plunge it into the horse’s neck.
