Zeus's Eagle Read online

  Demon got his dad’s silver pipes out from his tunic, and stood just outside the pen door, which he locked firmly. He didn’t know how Griffin was going to react when it woke up, and he definitely didn’t want another finger bitten off—let alone anything else. Cautiously, he put the pipes to his lips and blew the wake-up call. First one golden griffin eye opened, and then another. Then Griffin’s eagle beak gaped wide and it let out a deafening screech that set Demon’s teeth on edge and made the pen rattle. All in a minute, it hopped upright, whipped around, and fell on the meat, gobbets of blood and flesh splatting on the sides of the pen as the griffin galloped down its meal faster than Zeus could throw a lightning bolt. Soon the whole big pile was gone. The griffin let out an enormous burp, sat down, and began to groom itself.

  “I see you put my feathers back, Pan’s scrawny kid,” it said. “Can I come out now? I’d like to stretch my wings.”

  “Oh thank goodness,” Demon said. “You’re all right.” He opened the pen door and rushed in, so relieved that he gave the griffin’s big lion body a hug before he thought what he was doing.

  “Ugh!” said Griffin, batting him away with a huge paw. “That’s quite enough of that.” It stalked out of the pen and spread its wings, flapping them so hard that the straw in the pen rose in a silvery cloud, making Demon cough and choke.

  “I’ll be needing more of that delicious lamb, Pan’s scrawny kid,” it called as it flew toward Hephaestus’s mountain. “I’m still feeling a bit weak.”

  Demon smiled. The griffin was definitely back to its old self.

  CHAPTER 3

  PEGASUS

  After the griffin had flown out of sight, Demon went to find Endeis. She was with her friend, the nymph Althea, sharing the latest gossip about Zeus.

  “He’s spending all his time as a big, fat pigeon, cooing at some pretty princess down on earth. Zeusie’s Eagle has got his feathers all in a twist about it. He’s been forbidden to go anywhere near his master, in case he makes a mistake and eats him. I hear he’s so angry that he’s pecked holes in all Zeusie’s best sky robes.”

  “Poor Eagle,” said Demon. “It sounds like he needs cheering up.”

  Althea sniggered.

  “Well, if you really fancy getting your head bitten off,” she said. “And Hera’s on the rampage, too. She turned all the beautiful passionflowers I brought her yesterday into little balls of flaming charcoal and threw them at the wall. She nearly set the whole palace on fire. I’d keep away from both of them, if I were you.”

  “Good advice,” said Demon. He’d seen Hera in a temper before. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and he had no wish to tempt the queen of the gods into turning him into charcoal.

  After he’d explained about baby Hygeia, Endeis smiled.

  “Dad loves babies, though he’d never admit it, and he always grumbles about the crying,” she said. “He was forever stealing Peleus away from me when he was tiny. I don’t mind staying up here for a bit longer if you like, Pandemonius. Even with looking after the stables, it’s a nice rest for me. Being queen of Aegina is a tiring job, and my crown gets heavy sometimes.”

  Demon thanked her and stumbled off to his bed above the stables. Within a minute of pulling his spider-silk blanket over him, he was asleep, tired out. His dreams were a confused whirl of maenads, babies, and griffins.

  The next morning, he was down at Chiron’s cave almost before Eos had flung back the pink curtains of the dawn. A sleepy and rather grumpy centaur god greeted him.

  “No wonder Asclepius and his wife wanted a rest,” he grumbled. “Hygeia cried all night. She’s only just stopped, and she still won’t eat properly, either.” He rubbed one large, hairy hand over his red-rimmed eyes. Demon tried not to smile. Endeis had been right. It seemed a crying human baby could defeat even a god.

  “I need you to go and gather some more bruise-flower blossoms,” Chiron said. “Cut them while the dew is still on them, mind. You can take Hygeia with you. I’m going back to bed.” He thrust the baby into Demon’s arms, and went into the very back of the cave.

  “How am I supposed to cut flowers and carry you?” Demon muttered. He looked around the cave and spotted a big piece of linen that Chiron used for slings.

  “Aha!” he said, wrapping her up in it and tying her to his front as he’d seen the women in his home village do.

  Hygeia’s blue eyes went very round and she stuck her fist in her mouth, gnawing furiously.

  Bleb! Gah! she chortled as they set off up the mountain.

  A little while later, Hygeia was finally asleep in her cradle and Demon was tiptoeing around, putting the last of the bruise-flowers out to dry on racks, when he heard the whoosh of wings and urgent whinnying. He turned around to see the whole herd of winged horses swooping down outside the cave.

  “Dehehehemon!” neighed Keith. “On my back! Quick!”

  Demon rushed outside, flapping his hands frantically.

  “Shh!” he whispered. “Sleeping baby!” Then he looked about nervously. Had the maenads returned? He relaxed a little as he saw nothing.

  “What’s the matter, Keith?”

  “Hurry, you’ll seeheehee! Bring your medicine sack!”

  Demon ran to the back of the cave. Chiron’s eyes flickered open as Demon knocked gently on the rocky wall.

  “There’s something wrong,” he said. “But . . . Hygeia . . .”

  “I heard,” said the centaur god—and Demon remembered with relief that he could understand horse talk. “Go quickly. It sounds urgent. I’ll take care of the baby.”

  Grabbing his emergency supplies, Demon sped out and vaulted onto Keith’s back. With a rush of wings, they took off, swerving through the trees so that Demon had to duck or be swept off by slashing branches. A short time later, they landed by the waterfall where Demon had last met his dad, Pan. Standing right in the middle of the sunny glade was a gigantic white winged horse, breathing hard, ears flat back against his skull, with terrible stripes of burned flesh underneath his belly and along his flanks. His head hung low, and he was clearly in great distress. As Demon got off Keith’s back, the small winged horses crowded around their big cousin, making unhappy little whinnies.

  “Oh, you poor thing! Whatever happened?” Demon asked.

  “Chimera,” neighed Pegasus. “Bellerophon made me fly down so he could attack it. It burned me. I don’t blame it, poor thing. I’d have breathed fire if someone had been trying to shove burning lead down my throat! But it hurts!”

  “Let me help,” said Demon, calmly, though he wanted to scream at the thought of yet another horrible hero hurting one of the immortal beasts. He knew just what to do for burns. Pulling a big bundle of green, fleshy leaves out of his bag, he slit them lengthways and laid them over the burns, rubbing in the sticky, soothing sap. Pegasus nuzzled him with his velvety muzzle in thanks.

  “That should help for now,” Demon said. “Let’s go back to the cave, so we can put some proper dressings on them.”

  “Just a moment!” said Pegasus. He craned his neck around, getting hold of his long, flowing tail with his teeth and pulling. He spat several shining white hairs at Demon’s feet. “A small thank-you, for your help. Tie those around your wrist, young healer. If you are ever in real danger, call me three times. I will know it, and come to your aid if I can.” He breathed on the tail hairs as Demon wound them around and around. They glowed slightly gold and knotted themselves together.

  Just as they were all setting off for the cave, they heard a shout behind them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Demon looked up to see a fair-haired young man appear out of the trees. He was dressed in a leather breastplate decorated with gold, and in one hand he held the remains of a spear, half burned away. In the other he held a silver bridle.

  Rage rose within Demon like a tidal wave.

  “Bellerophon, I supp
ose,” he hissed through his teeth. “The chimera-killer.”

  “You’ve heard of my amazing prowess already,” Bellerophon said, clearly delighted. “Word does travel fast. But I can’t stay to be admired. I need to get another spear, and then old Peggy and I have orders to go and fight some Amazons. No time to lose.”

  “I’m not admiring you, and you are NOT taking Pegasus!” Demon said, stepping forward and pushing Bellerophon in the chest. “He needs rest and healing. Go away, you big beast-hurting bully!”

  Bellerophon just laughed scornfully, throwing away his broken spear and picking Demon up by the front of his tunic so his toes dangled.

  “Don’t be silly, little boy, I have his magic bridle,” he said, waving it in front of Demon’s nose as he kicked and struggled to get free. “Peggy has to come with me, whether he wants to or not, don’t you, my winged wonder?”

  Already, Pegasus was coming toward them on reluctant hooves. With a snarl, Bellerophon flung Demon into the middle of the herd of winged horses, who scattered as he fell to the ground with a thump, winded for the second time in two days.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Pegasus neighed as Bellerophon quickly bridled him and swung onto his back. “It doesn’t hurt a bit now.” As they soared up into the sunlight, one tiny, white wing feather drifted down through the air. Demon picked it up and tucked it into his horsehair bracelet. It felt warm, almost alive against his skin.

  “I’ll get you for this, Bellerophon,” he yelled when he had his breath back. But, as another scornful laugh floated down from the heavens, he had no idea how. What he did know, though, was that Pegasus had lied to make him feel better. Those burns were never going to heal if they weren’t taken care of properly.

  When he got back to Chiron’s cave, still fuming, Hygeia was wailing again, and a harassed Chiron was trotting up and down, trying to soothe her. He looked worried.

  “She won’t drink sheep or cow milk, and I can’t get much goat milk into her, either,” he said. “She keeps on spitting it up. I’m trying her on chamomile water now.”

  “Maybe she needs something different?” Demon hesitated. He didn’t really know much about babies. “Maybe unicorn milk? Or I could ask the Cattle of the Sun.”

  “Good thinking, Pandemonius,” said Chiron as Hygeia let out a scream worthy of one of the Furies and threw up on Chiron’s shoulder.

  “IRIS!” he bellowed. “One for Olympus! NOW!”

  A rainbow thumped into the grass at Demon’s feet.

  “No need to shout,” said Iris. “I was coming to get Pandemonius, anyway. I’ve just dumped a badly injured beast up on Olympus, and Endeis doesn’t know what to do with it.”

  “It must be the chimera,” said Demon, grabbing his medical bag again. “We’d better hurry.”

  “Bring back that milk, and don’t forget to write up your notes,” came a last shout from below as they shot up into the sky, leaving the wailing behind. Demon quickly looked in his bag. Yes! The beautiful red leather and gold book Athena had given him was there. Pegasus and the chimera would be the first cases in it!

  When they arrived on Olympus, Endeis had got the chimera onto the trolley from the hospital shed with the help of some of the nymphs. It was a strange-looking creature. It had a lion’s head and body, with a goat’s head set right in the middle of its back, huge udders, and a patterned snake’s tail. It was lying entirely still, except for a wisp of greenish-yellow smoke coming from the lion part’s mouth, out of which stuck the other half of beastly Bellerophon’s spear.

  It looked very sick indeed.

  CHAPTER 4

  CHIMERA CAPERS

  The unconscious beast lay on the table in the hospital shed as Demon tried to peer past the spear and into its smoking lion jaws. Its eyelids were twitching, and it was dribbling and shaking all over.

  “It’s no good,” he said to Endeis. “That spear has to come out before I can do anything.”

  Very gently, he took hold of the haft and began to pull. Nothing happened, so he pulled a little harder. With an ominous sucking noise, the spear came free all in a rush, and Demon sat down hard on his bottom as it flew out of his hand and thumped down on the floor. The sharp end was encased in a red-hot ball of boiling lead, and almost immediately, tiny flames began to rise from it. Endeis grabbed it and ran out of the shed.

  “OI!” came a shout from outside, along with a loud splash. “What are you putting in my nice clean spring, Queenie?” Melanie the naiad didn’t seem very pleased, but Demon couldn’t worry about her. He had bigger problems. Lead was a poison, and the chimera had just swallowed a lot. What should he do next? He tried to remember Chiron’s lessons.

  In cases of poisoning, make the patient vomit. He heard the centaur god’s voice in his memory. Working fast, he rummaged in his medicine bag and on the shelves of the hospital shed, grabbing salt, chalk, and some oatmeal. Then he frowned. There was something missing. What was it? A small pot of brownish powder caught his eye—that was it. Dried mushrooms! Quickly, he mixed them all together with water and tipped the whole mess down the poor chimera’s lion throat.

  “Sorry,” he said, stroking both its heads gently as two pairs of eyes, one tawny gold, one slit orange, glared at him.

  All at once there was a terrible stench of scorched porridge.

  HOICK HOICK HACK went the beast, and then it threw up spectacularly, all over Demon. Bits of scorching oatmeal, smelly foam, and burning bits of lead spattered him from head to toe.

  “OUCH!” Demon screamed and ran outside. He jumped straight into Melanie’s spring, batting at himself frantically to get the burning bits off. Why oh why hadn’t he put on his pyro-protection suit?

  “Out! Out! Out!” cried the angry naiad, lifting him with surprisingly strong arms and flinging him onto the grass before retreating into the water, snarling insults.

  “Oh dear,” said Endeis. “I’ll try and calm her down. You see to that poor creature.”

  Offy and Yukus were already attending to the many blisters on Demon’s body. Limping back to the hospital shed, he saw ominous streamers of smoke pouring out of the door.

  “Oh no!” he said, starting to run.

  As he entered, the chimera gave one last HOICK and rolled off the table with a thud. Demon ran over to it as it got to its feet, wobbling slightly.

  “Thanks,” said the goat’s head. “That feels much better.” But the lion’s head just growled and hiccupped and dripped chalky, mushroomy foam on the smoldering floor.

  By the time Demon had put out about twenty tiny fires and got the chimera settled in a pen with two buckets of ambrosia cake gruel, he was exhausted. But there was no time to rest. He filled a couple of large flasks with milk from the unicorn and the Cattle of the Sun, and trudged back wearily to summon the Iris Express to take him back to earth. Hygeia was still crying fretfully when he got there, and Chiron grabbed the two flasks from him eagerly.

  “This’ll do the trick,” he said, trotting back into the cave.

  A little while later, as Demon was writing up his patient notes in Athena’s beautiful new book, the silver pipes in the front of Demon’s tunic began to vibrate. Then they began to emit a strident ringing sound. Demon dropped his quill, splattering ink everywhere, and clapped a hand to them quickly. A voice sounded in his head. It almost blew his ears off.

  PANDEMONIUS! PANDEMONIUS! He recognized it at once. It was his father, the forest god, Pan.

  “I-I’m here, your Dadness,” he said. What was going on? His dad had never summoned him like this before.

  Come at once to your mother’s house. She needs you to take care of some man-eating horses. There was an irritated grunt. By Zeus’s left eyeball, these satyrs are annoying. I must go and sort out another battle. Don’t let me down, son. And hurry! Iris is on her way.

  The pipes lay still and quiet again. Demon rubbed his ears, which were still ringing
. Man-eating horses? Where had they come from? And why were they anywhere near his mom? A baby’s wail came to his ears just as the Iris Express thudded down outside the cave entrance.

  “I’m sorry, Chiron,” he called desperately. “My mom needs me. I’ve got to go!” And he stepped onto the rainbow and was whisked away from Mount Pelion with a whoosh.

  “W-what’s happening, Iris?” he asked as terrible visions of his mom being torn apart by mad mares filled his head.

  “No idea,” said Iris in a sulky voice. “Anyone would think I’m your own personal transport. Pan’s got no right to shout for me like that. I am a goddess, you know!”

  “I know,” said Demon in his most deity-soothing voice. “And you do a brilliant job. It’s just . . . I haven’t seen my mom since I went to Olympus and now my dad says there are man-eating—”

  “Fine son you are,” Iris interrupted. “Leaving your poor old mother to cope on her own.” Demon went bright red and stamped his foot.

  “That’s not FAIR!” he shouted as it went right through Iris’s wispy floor, making him lose his balance and fall down with a thump. Rainbow-colored wisps whipped around him at once, tying him in place, including one over his mouth.

  “Be quiet, Pandemonius, or I’ll drop you into a wet cloud and leave you there,” said the rainbow goddess. “I’ve had quite enough of your chattering.”

  “Mmmmph! MMMMPH!” Demon spluttered, struggling furiously, but he couldn’t move or say a word. It’s not my fault, he thought, furious. The gods have kept me so busy I haven’t had a chance to visit home. But a tiny, guilty part of his brain wondered if he should have tried harder. How long had it been? He couldn’t quite remember. Time on Olympus was strangely hard to pin down.