Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (16 page)

“I’ve got to get back to Erebos,” Hades said. “Enjoy the upper world.”

“You’re coming back, right?” Minthe demanded.

“Um…” Hades chickened out and dissolved into shadows.

Minthe should’ve forgotten him. She’d made it to the mortal world! She could’ve found a new river to bind her life force to. She could’ve lived forever in the beautiful forests and hills of Greece.

But nope. Too easy!

Being dumped on the hillside made her angry. It dawned on her that she’d wrapped the god Hades around her little finger without even trying. She really
must
be beautiful. And she did smell great. She deserved to be a queen.

“Hades loves
me
!” she shouted to the wind. “He’s going to come back and get me and make
me
the queen of the Underworld! I am more beautiful than Persephone, and more wonderful, and I smell better, and—”

The hillside rumbled. Grass and flowers swirled into a massive funnel cloud of petals. The goddess Persephone appeared as a fifty-foot-tall colossus.

At that point, Minthe realized she’d made a mistake.

“YOU, PRETTIER THAN ME?” Persephone boomed. “YEAH, RIGHT! YOU DO SMELL GOOD, THOUGH. PERHAPS I CAN FIND A USE FOR YOU AMONG THE PLANTS!”

Persephone raised her giant sandaled foot and squashed Minthe flat. When she smeared her foot across the hillside, tiny green plants sprang up. Their leaves smelled wonderful whenever they were crushed. Persephone decided to call them
mint
plants, and the hill near Pylos where they first grew is still called Mount Minthe.

So next time you have mint chocolate chip ice cream, you can thank Persephone, though it can be a little hard to eat the stuff when you realize it’s made from smashed river nymph.

After that, Hades didn’t have many affairs. He mostly stayed in his palace and minded his own business.

Mortal heroes didn’t always leave
him
alone, though. They kept popping down, demanding things. One hero wanted his dog, Cerberus. Another hero wanted Hades to return his dead sweetheart to life. Another hero even tried to abduct Persephone. Maybe I’ll tell you those stories another time, but all this gloomy Underworld stuff is making me claustrophobic.

I need some fresh sea air. Let’s pop over to the Mediterranean, and I’ll introduce you to my dad—the one and only Poseidon.

POSEIDON GETS SALTY

I
’
M BIASED
.

But if you’re going to have a Greek god for a parent, you couldn’t do better than Poseidon. Sure, I’ve had my problems with him. He’s not the most attentive dad. But, hey, none of the Greek gods is.

At least Poseidon has awesome powers and a laid-back attitude (most of the time).

He’s amazingly cool, considering how hard it was for him as a young god. He was the middle boy. He was always being compared to his brothers, like:
Wow, you’re almost as handsome as Zeus! You’re almost as powerful as Zeus!
Or sometimes:
You’re not as much of a loser as Hades!

That can really grate on a guy after a few centuries.

Back when Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades threw dice to divide up the world, Poseidon got the
second
-best roll. He had to accept his brother Zeus’s becoming lord of the universe and telling him what to do for all eternity, but Poseidon didn’t complain. He’d won the sea. That was fine with him. He liked the beach. He liked swimming. He liked seafood.

True, Poseidon wasn’t as flashy or powerful as Zeus. He didn’t have lightning bolts, which were like the nuclear arsenal of Mount Olympus. But Poseidon
did
have his magical trident. He could stir up hurricanes, summon tidal waves, and make a
mean
smoothie. Since the seas wrapped around the earth, Poseidon could also cause earthquakes. If he was in a bad mood, he could level whole cities or make islands sink beneath the waves.

The Greeks called him the Earthshaker, and they went to a lot of trouble to keep him happy, because no matter whether you were on land or at sea, you
didn’t
want Poseidon mad at you.

Fortunately, Poseidon was usually calm. His mood reflected the Mediterranean
Sea, where he lived, and most of the time the Mediterranean was smooth sailing. Poseidon would let the ships travel where they wanted. He’d bless fishermen with good catches. He’d chill on the beach, sip his umbrella drink from a coconut shell, and not sweat the small stuff.

On nice days, Poseidon would ride his golden chariot across the waves, pulled by a team of white hippocampi, which were horses with golden manes, bronze hooves, and fish tails. Everywhere he went, the sea creatures would come out to play around his chariot, so you’d see sharks and killer whales and giant squids all frolicking together, gurgling, “Hooray, Poseidon is in the house!” or whatever.

But sometimes the sea got angry, and Poseidon was the same way. When that happened, he was a totally different dude.

If you were a ship’s captain and you forgot to sacrifice to Poseidon before you set sail, you were a major-league
derp
.
Poseidon liked at least one bull sacrificed in his honor per ship. Don’t ask me why. Maybe at one point Poseidon had told the Greeks,
Just pour me a Red Bull and we’ll call it even,
and the Greeks thought he wanted an actual red bull.

If you forgot to sacrifice, there was a good chance your ship would get smashed on the rocks, or eaten by a sea monster, or captured by pirates with bad personal hygiene.

Even if you never traveled by sea, that didn’t mean you were safe. If your town somehow offended Poseidon…well, say hello to Hurricane Derp.

Still, Poseidon kept it together most of the time. He tried to follow Zeus’s orders, though Zeus annoyed him constantly. Whenever those two started arguing, the other gods buckled their seat belts, because a fight between the sky and the sea could rip the world apart.

Mother Rhea must’ve sensed the tension early on. Shortly after the gods took over the world, she suggested that Poseidon get out of Olympus and explore his new domain. She sent him to live on the ocean floor with a tribe of aquatic weirdos called the telkhines
.

This was a strange suggestion, since the telkhines were twisted little dudes. They’d once been land dwellers, until they did something to anger Zeus; so he tossed the worst ones into Tartarus and exiled the rest to the bottom of the sea.

What did they do? Not sure; but the telkhines were known for sorcery and crafting dangerous stuff. They could summon sleet, rain, or even snow (which you don’t get much in Greece), and call down sulfurous rain that destroyed plants and burned flesh, which was kind of cool in a gross, smelly way.

Some stories say that the telkhines invented metalworking, and even made Kronos’s scythe at Gaea’s request. Could be true. They were greedy, and would do anything for the right price.

After Zeus threw them into the ocean, their forms changed so that they looked like a cross between dogs, seals, and humans, with canine faces, stunted little legs, and half-flipper hands that were nimble enough for metalwork but still made great Ping-Pong paddles.

When Poseidon came to live with them, the telkhines
showed him around and taught him the ways of the ocean:
These are fish! This is coral!
One especially nasty trick they taught him was how to use his trident as a lever. Poseidon learned how to wedge the trident’s points under the base of an island and flip it so that the whole landmass disappeared under the sea. In combat, he could do this with mountains on dry land. A couple of times he flipped mountains right on top of his enemies, crushing them flat. See, I told you he was a boss.

Eventually, Poseidon got tired of the
telkhines
and decided to build his own palace.
(Good move, Dad.)

He went to the bottom of the Aegean Sea and used his earthshaking, wave-making powers to raise a big mansion made of pearl, sea stone, and abalone shell. His gardens were full of exotic sea plants, with luminescent jellyfish drifting around like Christmas lights. He had great white sharks for guard dogs and mermen for servants; and his doorways were huge, because every once in a while the whales and sea monsters would float through to pay their respects.

If you ask me, Poseidon’s crib was
way
cooler than Hades’s or Zeus’s, and when Poseidon was sitting on his polished coral throne, he felt pretty good about himself. The entire sea was under his control. The fish adored him. All the sailors in the Mediterranean made offerings to him and prayed for safe passage. Everybody seemed to love him.

So Poseidon thought, Hey, I should go up top and offer to be the patron for one of the mortal cities!

Like I mentioned earlier, this was a big deal for gods. The more mortals who prayed to you, the stronger you got. If you could get a whole city dedicated to you—with statues, and temples, and souvenir T-shirts in all the tourist shops—that was the ultimate in bragging rights.

Poseidon decided to try for the capital of Attica on the Greek mainland, which was one of the biggest and most important cities in Greece. Hey, go big or go home, right?

He showed up at the city’s acropolis, which was the main fortress on the top of the tallest hill. The earth shook. Poseidon appeared in a swirling column of salt and mist. He struck his trident against the nearest rock, splitting it open and creating a geyser of salt water.

“Behold!” he shouted to the crowds. “I am Poseidon, here to become patron of your city!”

Pretty good entrance. Unfortunately, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, had shown up a few seconds before with the exact same offer. She was standing nearby in her gray robes, her battle helmet tucked under her arm, conducting negotiations with the city elders.

“Ah,” Poseidon muttered. “Awkward.”

The city elders gaped at the sea god with his glowing trident, and at the massive geyser of salt water that now spouted from the hilltop.

“Lord Poseidon!” one said. “Oh…um…”

The poor mortals looked back and forth between the two gods. I can’t blame them for being nervous. You never want to be forced to choose between gods. No matter which you pick, the other one is likely to stomp you as if you were a cockroach.

Poseidon wasn’t sure what to do either. How dare this upstart goddess Athena, this second-generation Olympian, steal his idea? He was tempted to chase her off with his trident; but before he could, Athena cried, “I know how we can settle this peacefully!”

Typical. Athena
always
had some sneaky idea. Poseidon wasn’t interested in peace at the moment, but the mortals all looked very relieved, and he didn’t want to act like a bad sport in front of his future followers.

“Well?” he grumbled. “What is your plan?”

“A contest,” Athena said. “You and I will each create one gift for the city. The elders will judge between them. Whichever god gives the city the most
valuable
gift will be its patron. The other god will accept the elders’ judgment and leave in peace. Agreed?”

Thousands of mortal eyes turned to Poseidon. He still wanted to smack Athena into the sea, but she had put him on the spot. He couldn’t exactly say no.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Okay.”

Athena gestured to him courteously. “Gentlemen first.”

Poseidon frowned. What would be a valuable gift for these mortals? A box of pearls? Some pet jellyfish? Perhaps a stable of trained whales they could ride? Hmm. Parking the whales downtown might be a problem.

Perhaps another form of animal…something strong and fast, but adapted to land-dwelling humans?

Poseidon gazed at the waves breaking on the beach far below. As the whitecaps raced and crashed, he got an idea. He began to smile.

“Watch this,” he said.

He pointed his trident, and the waves began to take shape. When they reached the shore, they became majestic animals with four long legs and flowing manes. They ran straight onto the beach, whinnying and prancing.

“I call them
horses
!” Poseidon shouted. “They are fast and strong. You can ride them anywhere. They carry heavy stuff, pull plows or wagons. You can even ride them into war and trample your enemies. Plus, they just look really cool.”

The mortals murmured and clapped politely. Horses were obviously a valuable gift, though a few of the townspeople looked disappointed, like maybe they’d been hoping for pet jellyfish.

Everyone turned to Athena.

The goddess raised her hand. A sickly-looking shrub broke through the nearby rocks. It had gray-green leaves and green knobby fruits the size of warts.

Poseidon couldn’t help laughing. “What the spume is that?”

“It’s an olive tree,” Athena said.

The mortals shifted uneasily. The olive tree didn’t look very impressive, but nobody wanted to say that to Athena.

Poseidon chuckled. “Okay, well, nice try. I guess we know who won
this
contest!”

“Not so fast,” Athena said. “The olive tree may not look like much, but you can grow it with very little effort. It will spread across the countryside until olives are the most important food in Greece.”

“Those knobby black things?” Poseidon protested. “They’re tiny!”

“But they will grow by the thousands,” Athena said. “And they’re tasty on pizza! The mortals of this city will export olives across the world and become rich! You can use olive oil for cooking and lighting lamps. You can even add perfume to the oil and use it for bathing, or moisturizing, or cleaning those hard-to-get-out stains on your kitchen counters.”

She turned to the crowd of mortals. “How much would you pay for it now? But don’t answer! It’s my gift to you, free of charge. And if you order today, you’ll also get my patronage for your city, which includes tons of wisdom, advice about warfare, and all sorts of helpful crafts. You will be the richest and most important city in Greece! All I ask is that you name your city after me and build me a temple, which can be done in three easy installments.”

Poseidon’s confidence started to crumble. “But wait…my horses…”

The mortals were no longer listening. They were much more interested in making money, and while the countryside around their city was great for growing olives, it was too hilly and rocky for horses to be much use.

It was kind of ironic. The people of the city would eventually become famous sea traders, exporting their olive oil; but they turned down the sea god Poseidon’s patronage. He might’ve done better if he’d offered them trained whales.

So Athena won the contest, and that’s why the city is named Athens, after her, when it could have been named something cool like Poseidonopolis
.

Poseidon stormed off, literally. He forgot his promise not to take revenge and almost destroyed the lower part of the city with a huge flood, until finally the Athenians agreed to build a temple on the acropolis honoring both Athena
and
Poseidon.

The temple is still there. If you go, you can see the marks left by Poseidon’s trident where he struck the rock to make the saltwater spring. There are probably still olive trees around, too. But I doubt you’ll see any horses.

After that, Poseidon got a little obsessed with finding a city to sponsor, but he didn’t have any luck. He fought with Hera for the city of Argos. Hera won. He fought with Zeus for the island of Aegina. Zeus won. He fought with Helios for the city of Corinth and almost won, but Zeus said, “No, you guys split it. Helios, you can have the main city and the acropolis. Poseidon—you see that little skinny strip of land next to the city? You can have that.”

Poseidon just kept getting shafted—or lightning-bolted, or olive-treed. The more times it happened, the crankier he got.

This was bad, because when Poseidon got touchy, he was more likely to punish whoever he thought was insulting him.

For instance, he was very proud of these fifty sea spirits called the Nereids, whose beauty was known throughout the world. They had long, flowing hair as dark as midnight, sea-green eyes, and gossamer white dresses that billowed around them in the water. Everyone knew they were absolute knockouts, and having them in
his
domain was something that delighted Poseidon, kind of like living in a town with a championship football team.

Anyway, this mortal queen named Cassiopeia down in North Africa—she started bragging about how she was
way
more beautiful than the Nereids.

Poseidon had no patience for that nonsense. He summoned up a flesh-eating, blood-drinking sea serpent about a thousand feet long, with a mouth that could swallow a mountain, and he sent it to terrorize the coast of Africa. The monster raged up and down, devouring ships, making waves that sank villages, and bellowing so loudly no one could get any sleep.

Finally, to stop the attacks, Cassiopeia agreed to sacrifice her own daughter, Andromeda, to the sea monster. Like,
Oh, yeah, my bad. I shouldn’t have bragged. Here, you can kill my innocent daughter!

In case you’re worried, my dad didn’t actually let that happen. He allowed a hero to rescue Andromeda and kill the sea monster (which is a whole other story), but even after Cassiopeia died, Poseidon never forgot her insult. He put her in the night sky as a constellation, and because she had lied about being more beautiful than the Nereids, she always appeared to be spinning backward.

She’s a stupid-looking constellation, too.

After that, the Nereids were grateful to Poseidon for upholding their honor. Maybe that was his plan all along. You can’t beat having fifty beautiful women thinking you’re awesome.

Most of the Nereids would’ve been happy to marry Poseidon, but one Nereid avoided him, because she was shy and didn’t ever want to get hitched. Naturally,
she
was the one who caught Poseidon’s eye.

Her name was Amphitrite, and her idea of paradise was living a quiet life at the bottom of the sea with no gods calling her up for dates or trying their cheesy pickup lines on her when she went to the underwater mall.

Unfortunately, Amphitrite was gorgeous. The more she tried to avoid the gods, the more they pursued her. Her black hair was pinned back in a net of pearls and silk. Her eyes were as dark as mocha. She had a kind smile and a beautiful laugh. Usually she dressed in a simple white gown, her only piece of jewelry a circlet of polished red crab claws across her brow—which doesn’t strike me as very attractive, but I guess it was fashionable among the Nereids.

Poseidon tried everything to win her heart: saltwater taffy, a serenade of whale songs, a bouquet of sea cucumbers, a Portuguese man-of-war festooned with pretty red ribbons.
Amphitrite refused all his advances. Whenever he got too close, she blushed and swam away.

Finally she got so spooked that she fled for good. Poseidon searched for her everywhere, with no luck. He began to think that he’d never see her again. His heart sank deeper than a navy submersible. He moped around his palace, crying like a humpback whale, confusing all the sea mammals, and giving the giant squids migraines.

Eventually the sea creatures elected this god named Delphin to go talk to Poseidon and see what was wrong. Delphin was the immortal king of dolphins and a good friend of the sea god’s. What did Delphin look like? A dolphin. Duh.

So Delphin swam into the throne room and chattered in Dolphinese: “What’s up, P-man? Why the face?”

“Oh, it’s Amphitrite.” Poseidon heaved a sigh. “I love her, but she ran away!”

“Huh.” Delphin thought that was a pretty stupid reason to mope around. “You do realize there are forty-nine other Nereids, right?”

“I don’t care!” Poseidon sobbed. “I want Amphitrite!”

“Yeah, well, that’s a bummer,” Delphin said. “Look, your moaning and groaning is messing up everybody’s sonar. Just this morning two blue whales got in a head-on collision and backed up the Aegean morning commute for miles. So how about I find this lady Amphitrite and convince her to marry you?”

Poseidon’s tears dried immediately, which was impressive since he was underwater. “You could do that for me?”

“I’m a dolphin,” Delphin chattered. “I have a huge brain. Back soon.”

It took Delphin a while, but he finally located Amphitrite at the western edge of the Mediterranean, near where the Titan Atlas held up the sky.

Amphitrite sat on a coral ledge, watching the sunset filter through the deep water and make rosy streaks in the seaweed forests. A seabass lay in her open palm, all blissed out, because Amphitrite really had a way with fish. Normally I don’t think of sea bass as cuddly, but they
loved
her.

Delphin could see why Poseidon liked her. She radiated a sort of kindness and gentleness that you don’t see in a lot of immortals. Usually with gods, the longer they lived, the more they acted like spoiled children. Delphin wasn’t sure why, but that whole thing about getting wiser as you got older? Not so much.

Delphin floated up to Amphitrite. “Hey, what’s up?”

Amphitrite didn’t try to flee. She had never felt threatened by Delphin, maybe because of his dolphin smile.

“Oh, Poseidon keeps bothering me.” Amphitrite sighed. “He wants me to marry him.”

The seabass swam in a lazy circle around Amphitrite’s hand, then settled back into her palm. Delphin had to resist the urge to snap up the fish. Seabass were tasty.

“Poseidon’s not a bad guy,” Delphin offered. “You could do a lot worse.”

“But I don’t want to get married to anyone!” Amphitrite protested. “It’s too much trouble, and it’s scary. I’ve heard stories about the gods, the way they treat their wives….”

“Most of the gods are jerks,” Delphin agreed. “And they have a lot of girlfriends even after they get married—”

“Gah!” Amphitrite said. “I wouldn’t care about
that.
I’m not the jealous type. I just don’t want to be mistreated. I want to be my own person, do my own thing, without some
man
lording over me!”

“Oh, is that all?” Delphin chittered with relief. “Because Poseidon is easygoing. I can’t guarantee he’d be faithful to you forever, but he would totally treat you well and let you do whatever you wanted. I can talk to him, make him promise. If he breaks his word, he’ll have to deal with Mr. Dolphin.”

Delphin flexed his flippers, which he thought made him look intimidating.

“You would do that for me?” Amphitrite asked.

“Sure!” Delphin said. “And the best thing: if you married Poseidon, none of the
other
gods could flirt with you or pester you anymore. They’d have to leave you alone, because Poseidon is so powerful. You could have kids, too. Kids are awesome. Even better than seabass.”

“Really?” Amphitrite studied the seabass flopping around in her hand, as if she had trouble believing anything could be better than that. “Well…I suppose if you talked to Poseidon first, and he promised…”

“Trust me,” Delphin said. “The dolphin god’s got your back!”

So Delphin returned to Poseidon and explained the deal. Poseidon was overjoyed. He agreed immediately. His marriage to Amphitrite was the biggest party ever held under the ocean. Gods, sea monsters, all forty-nine of Amphitrite’s Nereid sisters…everybody was on the guest list. Whales swam overhead, spitting glowing clouds of krill that spelled out,
CONGRATULATIONS, POSEIDON
+
AMPHITRITE
, which was no easy task since whales can’t spell very well. The dolphins put on an acrobatics show. The jellyfish glowed above the palace courtyards as the sea nymphs and merpeople danced the night away.

Poseidon and Amphitrite made a good couple. They were happy together and had three godly children. The first was Triton, who looked like a merman but had two fish tails instead of one. He served as Poseidon’s herald. Whenever Poseidon was on the move, Triton swam in front, blowing his conch horn to clear the way, like
The
boss is coming! Everybody look busy!

Poseidon and Amphitrite’s second kid was Rhode, a sea nymph who became the patron goddess of the island Rhodes (named after her, of course). She ended up marrying the sun Titan Helios.

Their third kid, a daughter named Kymopoleia, was big and clumsy and
loud, and just never got as much love as her siblings. I always felt sorry for her. Her name meant
the Wave Ranger
, which makes her sound like a sports utility vehicle, but she looked more like a monster truck. Eventually she found happiness. She became the goddess of violent sea storms and married Briares, one of the Hundred-Handed Ones, who was also big and loud and didn’t mind a monster-truck wife.

As the years went by, Amphitrite discovered that Delphin was right. She
did
love her children even more than seabass, and most of the time Poseidon was a very good husband. He did have a lot of affairs with nymphs and mortals and whatnot, but strangely that didn’t bother Amphitrite so much. As long as Poseidon didn’t try to
own
her and tell her what to do, and as long as he was good to their three children, Amphitrite was cool.

She was even nice to Poseidon’s demigod children, unlike some other goddesses I could name. (
Cough,
Hera,
cough
.) One time the hero Theseus came to visit, and Amphitrite treated him like an honored guest. She even gave him a purple cloak to wear, which was a sign of kingship.

She’s been pretty cool to me, too. She doesn’t freak out when I leave my dirty laundry in the guest room. She makes cookies for me. She’s never tried to kill me that I know of. Pretty much all you could ask of an immortal stepmom.

As for Poseidon, it’s a good thing he had an easygoing wife, because he had so many girlfriends and kids from other relationships….I mean, you think Zeus was busy? Poseidon holds the record for the most demigod children.

If I tried to tell you about all the ladies he dated, we’d need an extra three hundred pages with a separate index and table of contents. We’d call it
Poseidon’s Little Black Book.
But it would be too weird for me to talk about
all
my dad’s girlfriends, so I’m just going to hit the highlights.