by Rick Riordan
Seeing all that sparkling clear water reminded me of how grubby I felt.
When Sam produced two swimsuits from his backpack, I could have kissed him. (FYI, I didn’t.)
“If you want to meet a god,” Sam said, “you’ve gotta swim where the gods are.”
Five minutes later we were splashing in the pool. The water felt so wonderful that for a moment I forgot everything else. Then reality bit me on the butt.
“See Barton anywhere?” Sam asked.
“What’s he look like?”
“Sort of…godly.”
“Oh, that’s helpful.”
But the next second, I spotted a guy who did, in fact, look godly. Lounging at the water’s edge was a muscular, tanned twenty-something man with slick black hair, aviator sunglasses, and a teeny Speedo that seemed molded to his body. His skin positively glowed in the sunlight. While Sam was underwater, having what looked like an intense conversation with a guppy, I waded over to the sunbather guy.
“Hi, um, are you a god?”
The man smiled smugly. “I’ve been told so many times.”
“Great. Listen, if you could just tell me about my mom or dad, I’ll be on my way.”
The river god yawned, then tilted his perfect face to the sun liked he’d already forgotten about me.
Okay, I thought, now what?
Then I remembered the respectful way Sam had addressed Mnemosyne. Maybe that’s what I needed to do to get Barton’s attention.
I bowed. “O mighty one, I—I beg you to answer my query. I plead with you to bestow upon me the information I seek. I beseech you to—”
“Kid,” the god interrupted, “I don’t know nothing about your mom or dad. Now beat it. You’re blocking the sun.”
“But—but—”
“Hey, Zane!” Sam called.
Sam had surfaced on the opposite side of the pool. He was now standing in the shallows with a guy who looked like an aging hippie. Sam beckoned to me with a mortified expression, like What are you doing? Get over here!
I swam over.
The hippie was chuckling and shaking his head. “Did you just beseech that guy? ‘O mighty one’? Who talks like that?” His voice was low and rumbling, like boulders rolling in a deep current.
“Who—? Wait.” I looked at Sam. “Why did you call me over? Who is this old guy?”
Sam winced. “Zane, Speedo-man over there isn’t Barton.” He jerked his thumb at the hippie. “This is.”
My throat felt like several guppies were wriggling around in it.
The river god was…underwhelming. His hair hung in two skinny gray braids under a battered black cowboy hat. His crooked teeth were about as mossy as the bottom of the pool. His tie-dyed KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD T-shirt barely covered his potbelly, and his baggy green shorts were decorated with tiny pictures of aquatic creatures.
“Um…” I tried to swallow. “You’re Barton?”
“Actually, it’s Brykhon,” the river god corrected. “Son of the Titan Oceanus. Ally of the Giants in the war against the gods. Picked the wrong side, as it turns out, but that’s all water under the bridge.” He smiled at me. “Howdy, hero! You and your friend come with me so we can have us a private chat.”
He dissolved into the water, then reappeared at the base of an oak tree near the far end of the pool. Normally I wouldn’t follow a stranger, especially not one who dissolved into liquid, but Sam said, “Come on, let’s go!”
I figured Barton/Brykhon couldn’t be too bad, what with the smile and the potbelly and the little aquatic creatures on his shorts.
Sam and I swam after him. Brykhon had made himself comfortable between the roots of the tree, dangling his feet in the water. “Hot today, eh?”
Then he took off his hat and I just about leaped out of my swimsuit.
“Yikes!”
Two pointed horns sprouted from his thinning gray hair.
“Relax,” Sam said. “He’s a potamus, a river god. Check out his lower half.”
My eyes widened. I was sure I’d seen human legs a moment before, but now Brykhon’s lower half was all fish—a scaly trunk with a huge green tail fin flopping around in the pool.
“How—” I faltered. “You weren’t a merman a second ago, were you?”
“It’s the Mist, little hero.” Brykhon gave me another mossy grin. “There’s a magical veil that disguises the true appearance of gods and monsters and stuff. Now that you’re starting to accept the fact that you’re a demigod, you’ll be able to see through it more and more often. Most of the time, anyway.”
“But—”
Brykhon suddenly lunged toward the water and snatched up a half-empty bag of Doritos that was floating by.
“Humans,” Brykhon said with disgust. “They’ve made such a mess of my water. See these little pictures on my shorts?”
“Um, you don’t have shorts anymore. You turned into a fish person.”
Brykhon frowned. “Oh, right. Well, if you could see them, you’d see the Barton Springs salamander. Endangered species! My spring is the only place in the world where they live. Used to be tons of them. Now…?”
He made a strange burbling sound. A tiny speckled salamander leaped out of the water and into his hand. “Now, because of pollution, the species is nearly extinct. I do what I can to save them, but…” He shook his head wearily. The salamander skittered off into the water.
We were all quiet for a moment. I felt bad about being part of a species that killed endangered salamanders with Nacho-flavored Doritos, but I wasn’t sure what to say.
Finally Brykhon sighed. “Enough about that. I’m guessing Mnemosyne sent you here to learn about your parentage, not about my salamander.”
A thrill shot up my spine. This was the moment of truth! I was about to discover the facts about my birth—what powers I might have, what my future might hold, what my destiny—
“I’m afraid the old girl steered you in the wrong direction,” said Brykhon.
Know that sound a car makes when it comes to a screeching halt? That’s what I heard in my head.
Sam bleated in protest. “What do you mean? Mnemosyne said you had answers!”
Brykhon arched his eyebrows. “Did she? What exactly did she say?”
The goddess’s words came back to me. “Go to Austin,” I repeated. “Seek out the river god Barton.”
The god inspected his grimy fingernails. “Nothing about me telling you about your godly parent?”
Sam and I exchanged looks.
“Well, no,” I admitted. “But if you don’t have the answers, why’d we come to Austin in the first place?”
“Because Austin is the hiding place of a powerful magic item,” Brykhon said. “And I know where it is. Long ago, the gods decreed that only the next great hero could obtain this item. Succeed in retrieving it, and you’ll receive a clue to your parentage.” He turned his gaze to Sam. “Unfortunately, getting the item involves risk to you, my satyr friend.”
Sam turned white. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Brykhon nodded grimly. “The item lies in the lair of the demon satyrs. And they’re not likely to give it up without a fight.”
Sam and I made our way back to the Littlefield Fountain, our damp swimsuits and the bag of Dorito dust (“I might get hungry later,” Sam said defensively) stowed in his backpack. Brykhon hadn’t offered any clues about how to defeat the demon satyrs. He wouldn’t even tell us exactly what this mysterious magic item was. He claimed not to know. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but what I believed didn’t matter. We were on our own.
“Let’s think this through,” I said. “What do we know about the demon satyrs?”
“Well,” Sam mused, “they’re demons. And they’re satyrs. Oh, and they eat other satyrs, did I mention that?”
I began pacing. “What else do you remember from the time you saw one?”
“You mean besides abject terror?”
I stared at him, thinking hard. “You said the demon satyr bellowed and then va
nished after you collided with a street vendor. Sam, what was that guy selling?”
“Sweet tea. It splashed everywhere, and…” Sam’s eyes widened. “You think the tea did something to—”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But if it did—”
“What are we waiting for?” Sam shot to his hooves. “Let’s get some tea and waste some demons!”
“Sam, hold up! We can’t just waltz in and start emptying tea bottles on them.”
“Why not?”
“What if it doesn’t work? You really want to be surrounded by a pack of wet, angry cannibal satyrs?”
He sat down with a thud. “Well, when you put it that way…”
“We don’t know for sure whether the tea killed the demon satyr or just scared it away or—”
“I know,” trilled a female voice behind me.
I whirled, but no one was there.
“Yoo-hoo! Up here, silly.” The statue of Columbia waved her frond at me. Her bronze face creaked as she smiled. “Hello!”
I resisted the urge to run away screaming. “Um, hi?”
Sam rose to his hooves again. He bowed deeply to the statue. “Goddess, forgive us for not acknowledging you sooner!”
“You said she wasn’t a goddess,” I whispered.
He elbowed me. “Just follow my lead, will you?” He straightened and folded his hands over his heart, “Please, Goddess, I beseech you to share your wisdom!”
“Oh, so it’s okay for you to use beseech?” I muttered under my breath. But I figured I’d better go along with it. I bowed. “Yeah, um, I beseech you, too.”
A couple of students passed by, but they didn’t seem to notice the living statue. They just smirked at Sam and me and kept walking. Maybe Austin had a lot of crazy people who talked to statues.
“Sam Greenwood.” Columbia said his name like it was the most beautiful phrase in the world. “It is so good to see you again. I remember your first visit to Austin well!”
“Um, you do?” Sam asked.
“Of course! I was out for a quick fly with the bats that night.”
“You…fly with the bats?” I asked. “Never mind. Of course you do.”
“Yes!” said the statue. “That wingless old biddy Libertas can’t fly, you know. Hmph! At any rate, I was circling over the Congress Avenue Bridge when I saw the handsomest satyr—I mean you, of course—being chased by one of those bloodthirsty Aethiopian satyrs!”
“A what now?” I asked.
“That’s the technical term for them,” Sam said. “Now ssshhh. Please, great goddess, go on!”
“Well, of course I would have intervened, but I didn’t have time!” Columbia said. “The demonic beast had his mouth wide open, ready to take a bite out of your cute little furry behind when you bravely tripped over that vendor’s cart, and the monster got a big mouthful of tea. Poof! Bye-bye, demon!” She waved her frond again. “I was delighted to see him destroyed. One less evil goat-man to sully the waters of my fountain. One much more adorable satyr to visit me.” She fluttered her eyelids and giggled.
“Dude,” I whispered, trying not to laugh. “She likes you.”
“She does not!” Sam blushed to the tips of his horns. “Listen, Columbia just gave us the break we need. Sweet tea vaporizes Aethiopian satyrs! Now all we have to do is get some and waste them!”
Columbia cleared her bronze throat. “Ah, but they must drink it, my very handsome goat-man. Dousing them with tea is not enough.”
“Then we get squirt guns,” Sam said confidently. He pretended to shoot. “Pew! Pew! Pew! Right between their lips!”
“No good,” I said. “You’d have to be a perfect shot, and then they’d have to swallow the tea. Besides, you said there was a whole colony of these things. Even if you dissolved one or two satyrs, the others would figure out what was up. They’d just keep their mouths shut and slaughter us.”
Sam lowered his finger gun. “So…what do we do?”
I reached into my left front pocket and removed the gift I’d gotten from Mnemosyne. “Maybe this can help us?” I said.
“Do you know what it does?” asked Sam.
“Not a clue,” I said, then raised the library card and swiped it in the air like a credit card.
Nothing happened.
I sort of waved it around. “Alakazam.”
Zip.
“Is there anything written on it?” asked Sam.
I examined it again. “Nothing helpful.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe we’re not supposed to use it yet.”
“Maybe not.” I shoved the card back into my pocket, then turned to Columbia.
“Goddess, what did you mean about the evil goat-men sullying your waters? Do they come here to drink?”
“To drink. To bathe. To scrub their nasty feet! Every night when the bats fly. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I stared at the water gushing from the fountain, splashing over the snouts of the bronze horses.
“Why here?” I asked. “Don’t they live under a bridge next to a river? Why not bathe and drink there?”
Sam shuddered. “You don’t want to drink from that river, Zane.”
“No, indeed,” Columbia agreed. “This water is pure and sanctified by my presence. Also, it’s fluorinated to prevent cavities.”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s the answer, then!”
“Fluorination?” asked Sam.
“No! We mix iced tea into the fountain water!”
Sam glanced nervously at the bronze horses. “I don’t know if the hippocampi will go for that. They already look pretty angry to me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about my horses,” Columbia said. “Your idea has merit! A few gallons of sweet tea should do it, if they are dumped in just before sunset.”
I bowed again to Columbia. “So we have your permission, O Goddess?”
“On one condition. If you ever get to New York City, promise to go to the Statue of Liberty and yell Columbia Rules! as loud as you can. She hates that.”
I was a little concerned about what Libertas might do to me, but I nodded. “Promise. Once the satyrs are destroyed, they’ll never sully your waters again. Then Sam and I can find the magic item we need from their lair.”
Sam rubbed his hands together. “Great. Now, where should we get that tea?”
I grinned. “I happen to know a place that offers free refills.”
“The Xenia Diner? You think B will help us?”
“Worth a shot!”
“I hope this works,” Sam whispered.
It was almost sunset. The area around the fountain had cleared out. I guess most of the UT students were back in their dorms. Armed with a pitcher provided by B and Phil, we began pouring sweet iced tea into the fountain. Sure enough, no matter how long we poured, the pitcher never went empty. We could easily have overflowed the fountain, but then the bronze hippocampi gave a snort, which was our warning signal.
I stirred the water with my hand, hoping the demon satyrs wouldn’t notice the ice cubes floating around the horses’ hooves. Then Sam and I hunkered down behind a bench to wait.
“Let’s go over the plan again,” I whispered. “One: demon satyrs drink from the fountain. Two: we make sure they all get vaporized. Three: we head to the bridge to find the magic item. Four…”
My voice trailed off. Sam bit his lip. Neither of us knew what would happen at step four. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any satyrs left back at demon satyr headquarters. Hopefully we’d find the magic item, and it would give me some answers.
“When we get to the bridge,” Sam said, “be sure to stick close to me. There could be hundreds of people there. We don’t want to get separated.”
Warning bells went off in my head. “Sam…if there’s a crowd of mortals like that at the bridge every night, how did the demon satyr zero in on you?”
“He probably smelled me. Monsters can smell satyrs, and demigods, and—”
“Sam, if the demon satyr could
smell you in a huge crowd, won’t they pick up your scent here tonight?”
Sam’s eyes widened with panic. “I didn’t think—it never occurred to me—blah-ah-ah! Blah-ah-ah!” He bleated in terror.
“We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Too late!” he moaned. “Look!”
In the growing gloom, a dozen shadowy figures crept toward the fountain. They walked hunched over, sort of like gorillas, except gorillas didn’t have cloven feet—or glowing red eyes. The biggest demon satyr straightened and sniffed the air. His head swiveled in our direction, his slitted ruby eyes searching the dark.
Next to me, Sam shivered. “All my fault,” he whimpered, his tone anguished. “I should’ve known.” He tensed, ready to flee.
“Don’t move,” I hissed. “You run and they’ll get you!”
Sam stayed put, but I could sense his terror growing.
Another demon lifted its head and sniffed.
Sam looked at me, eyes wide. “If we don’t run,” he whispered, “you’ll have to either fight them or outsmart them.”
Do you have any ideas?”
“None,” whispered Sam. “Zero. And you gotta decide now.”
I peeked over the bench and saw the hulking monsters all raising their heads now, all sniffing the air. Time was up.
I went with my gut.
Select a choice:
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“We take the bus.” I held up my hand to stop him before he protested. “The bus goes over the bridge, and we’ll be surrounded by other people at all times. Plus, we don’t know if there are more demon satyrs in Austin, and I really don’t want to accidentally stumble on another lair. This way, we get in and out as fast as possible.”
