Cronus and the Threads of Dread

by Joan Holub

  Contents

  Dedication

  Greetings, Mortal Readers

  1. Sticky Spidernets!

  2. Goddess of What?

  3. Stuck on Each Other

  4. Nowhere to Hide

  5. Lost and Found

  6. Eye Spy

  7. Turning to Stone

  8. The Thread of Cleverness

  9. Follow the Leader

  10. King Cronus

  About Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

  For our heroic readers:

  Kaitlin S., Eden O., Sven S., Jakob W., Billy F., Lana W., Tiffany W., John K., Kira W., Diamond C., Ariel S., Christine D-H. and Kenzo S., Nikolas M., Robby B., Kameron K., Trey H., Tyler E., Kyle Z., Vivian Z., the Andrade family, Gavin F., Caitlin R., and you!

  —J. H. and S. W.

  Greetings, Mortal Readers,

  I am Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, in Greece. I have the power to see the future. Hear my prophecy:

  Ahead I see dancers lurking. Wait—make that danger lurking. (The future can be blurry, especially when my eyeglasses are foggy.)

  Anyhoo, beware! Titan giants seek to rule all of Earth’s domains—oceans, mountains, forests, and the depths of the Underwear. Oops—make that Underworld. Led by King Cronus, they are out to destroy us all!

  Yet I foresee hope. A band of rightful rulers called Olympians will arise. Though their size and youth are no match for the Titans, they will be giant in heart, mind, and spirit. They now follow their leader—a very special boy. One who is destined to become king of the gods and ruler of the heavens.

  If he is brave enough.

  And if he and his friends work together as one. And if they can learn to use their new amazing flowers—um, amazing powers—in time to save the world!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sticky Spidernets!

  Surrender, Olympians!

  Nine young Olympians—Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, Apollo, Ares, and Athena—stared at the sky in horror. The words appeared in a huge spiderweb that had been spun between the clouds. The web looked like it covered the entire sky!

  Suddenly, sticky strands shot down from the clouds. One of them wrapped around Poseidon’s ankle and yanked him away.

  “Sticky spidernets!” he yelled.

  Zeus, their leader, grabbed the lightning bolt attached to his belt.

  “Bolt, large!” he commanded.

  The magical weapon grew until it was as big as Zeus. Weeks before, he had pulled it from a stone in the Temple of Delphi. It had helped him battle all kinds of monsters, beasts, and the Crony army ever since.

  Zeus ran after Poseidon as another thread shot down and grabbed Hestia’s ankle. Then another thread grabbed Demeter around her waist, and the next one circled Hera’s arm!

  “Help!” they cried as the sticky threads dragged them away.

  “What’s happening?” Hades asked, catching up to Zeus as they chased after the four captured Olympians. Apollo, Ares, and Athena followed at their heels.

  “I don’t know!” Zeus replied. “But I’m not going to lose any more Olympians—not again!”

  As they got closer to the web, they could see a small army of spiders high above them, busy at work. Their round, black bodies were the size of melons. Their hairy legs were twice as long as the Olympians were tall.

  “Spiders!” Apollo yelled.

  “I’ll take care of them!” cried Ares, the god of war. His red eyes flashed with anger. He raised the spear he carried and charged past Zeus.

  “Taste the Spear of Fear!” he yelled, hurling the spear at the web strands. The spear was his own magical object, given to him by a bunch of Amazon warrior girls. The only problem? The spear was not a spear of fear—it was a scaredy-cat spear!

  Whoosh! The spear whizzed toward one of the spiders. The creature swiftly moved out of the way. The spear cut through the sticky strands and got stuck in a tree.

  A small spiderweb rolled down from the larger one. Words woven in it read:

  Ha-ha! You missed!

  “Not funny!” Ares fumed, and he stomped off to get his spear.

  At the same time a thick strand of web reached down to grab Hades. He quickly dodged it. Then he put on his Helm of Darkness. He had found his magical object in the Underworld—the land of the dead, which he ruled. The helmet instantly turned Hades invisible.

  “Can’t catch me if you can’t see me!” he taunted.

  “But they can still hear you,” Zeus pointed out as three spiders skittered toward the place where Hades’s voice had come from.

  Ares pulled his spear out of the tree. “I won’t miss again!” he promised, shaking a fist at the spiders.

  Whack! He slashed at the nearest strand of web. The spear sliced clean through.

  “We have to free Hera, Poseidon, Hestia, and Demeter!” Zeus cried. But the strands were pulling the four captured Olympians higher and higher off the ground. They had to act fast.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!” With a battle cry Zeus jumped up and slashed at the strand holding Poseidon. Bolt sliced right through, and Poseidon fell to the ground with a thump. Apollo raced over and started to pull the sticky strands from him.

  Whack! Ares cut through some strands with his spear to free Hera. She thudded to the ground just like Poseidon. Athena ran to her aid.

  Overhead the spiders began to furiously spin more webs. Zeus lunged at the strand holding Demeter, but the web yanked her out of reach. Then a strand came down to grab Zeus, brushing his leg. He jumped out of the way just in time.

  “They’re everywhere!” Ares yelled, hacking at the strands as they came down to grab him too.

  Ares looks like he has things under control, though, thought Zeus. So he got busy slicing sticky webs between him and Hera and Poseidon. Up ahead he could see Athena rolling Hera out of the way as two strands tried to grab them both.

  Poseidon and Apollo ran up to Zeus, breathless.

  “We need to take shelter in the woods, bro!” Poseidon urged.

  “But Hestia and Demeter . . . ,” Zeus said.

  “They’re up in the clouds, I fear,” said Apollo. “There is no way for us to get near.” He often spoke in rhyme. And he carried a lyre since he was a musician.

  Zeus looked up to see Hestia and Demeter being carried higher and higher, up toward the center of the web. Then he felt Poseidon yank his arm.

  “Watch out!” Poseidon cried, pulling Zeus toward him.

  A strand swung right past Zeus. Poseidon had saved him.

  Zeus sighed. “You’re right. We’ve got to retreat,” he said reluctantly.

  Zeus followed Poseidon and Apollo away from the web, to the safety of nearby trees. Athena and Hera had already taken shelter there. Hera was picking sticky pieces of web from her long, blond hair.

  “Where is Ares?” Zeus asked, looking around. “And Hades?”

  “Hades turned invisible, remember?” Apollo reminded him.

  Zeus cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hades! Hades! Are you here?”

  There was no answer.

  Athena saw something shining in the grass a short distance away. She ran and grabbed it.

  “Here’s that shield Ares wore,” she said, holding it up. The shield was made of tarnished metal. Gold tassels hung from it. “But no Ares.”

  Zeus’s dark eyes flashed with anger and frustration.

  “Rolling thunder!” he cried. “We keep losing Olympians!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Goddess of What?

  Zeus sank down to sit against a tree.

  “What kind of leader keeps losing everybody?” he said. “Sometimes I don’t understand why Pythia said that I’m the leader of the Olympians.”

&nb
sp; “Well, I’ve never understood it either,” said Hera.

  “Ha-ha,” said Zeus flatly, kicking at the dirt with his boot.

  His life had changed overnight. It had started when a bunch of Cronies had captured him. The half-giant soldiers of evil King Cronus had given him to the king himself as a delicious snack!

  Zeus had escaped—along with Hera and Poseidon, who had been trapped inside Cronus’s belly. They had met Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi. She’d told them they were Olympians. It was their destiny to overthrow King Cronus. But first they had to go on a bunch of quests and find more Olympians.

  And that was what they’d been doing ever since. They’d fought monsters and giant half gods called Titans. They’d found out that Zeus, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, and Hestia all had the same mom. Now they should have been nine Olympians strong—except that four were lost.

  “I think you’re a good leader,” Apollo told Zeus. “You got us this far.”

  “Well, I just met you,” Athena said to Zeus, “so I don’t know if you’re a good leader yet.”

  Before coming among the spiders, the Olympians had been trapped in a giant urn carried by the Cronies. Luckily, Rhea, the mother of Zeus and his brothers and sisters, had freed them. When the urn had broken, they’d realized that brown-haired, gray-eyed Athena had been inside with them the whole time.

  Now, Athena held out the aegis to Zeus.

  “Keep it,” he said. “Pythia said it was yours, too. You should wear it.”

  “She also said that Athena was the goddess of cleverness,” said Hera. “Why would such a goddess need a shield?”

  Zeus knew that Hera was jealous. She had waited a long time to find her own magical object. Then after she’d found it—a peacock feather that could spy on things and report back—she’d lost it.

  Athena slipped the aegis over her head. “No idea why I’d need it. But it’s kind of cool, so I might as well wear it,” she said. Then she looked at Zeus. “So, what now?”

  “Pythia said we had to find the center of a ‘trouble spot’ and find the Threads of Dread,” said Poseidon. “So I guess we need to get to the center of that web?”

  Zeus looked up at the sky. The huge web was stretched between the clouds. Getting to the center might take days—days with his friends still in danger!

  He jumped up. “We need to find a path to the center that will let us avoid all those sticky strands,” he said. “Hera, see if Chip can help us.”

  Hera grabbed the oval stone amulet she wore around her neck. Chip was a magical object too. It belonged to Zeus, but he didn’t mind sharing Chip with Hera.

  “Can you find us a path around the sticky spiderwebs, Chip?” Hera asked.

  “I-ip an-cip ry-tip!” the stone answered her.

  Athena’s eyes got wide. “It talks! But what is it saying?”

  “Chip speaks in a special language,” Hera explained. “It’s easy. You move the first letter of the word to the end of the word. Then you add ‘ip.’ Ee-sip?”

  Athena frowned. “Um . . . sippy cup? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Hera rolled her eyes. “No, I said ‘see.’ And Chip said, ‘I can try.’ ‘I-ip an-cip ry-tip.’ Get it?”

  Athena shrugged. “Um, sort of . . . not really.”

  “I thought she was supposed to be the goddess of cleverness,” Poseidon whispered in Zeus’s ear.

  “Well, she was stuck in that urn for a while,” Zeus whispered back. “Maybe she’s just warming up.”

  Hera started marching through the trees. “We should get as far as we can before dark,” she said. “Come on!”

  The four other Olympians followed Hera as they made their way to the center of the web. Zeus kept looking up at the giant words “Surrender, Olympians” woven across the sky.

  “Something must be controlling those spiders,” he said. “Spiders aren’t smart enough to send us a message on their own.”

  “What message?” Athena asked.

  Zeus pointed to the sky. “Uh, that big one there? The one that says ‘Surrender, Olympians’?”

  Athena squinted. “Oh, is that what it says? I thought it said ‘Sugary Octopus.’ ”

  “Seriously?” Poseidon asked, nudging Zeus.

  Athena shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Apollo walked up next to her and strummed on his lyre. “Athena, goddess, you are so new. Please tell us all something about you,” he sang.

  Athena smiled. “Well, I love to weave. I’m a great weaver,” she said. “And I like to invent things.”

  “Like sugary octopuses?” Poseidon asked.

  “Ha! That’s pretty funny,” Athena said cheerfully, and they kept walking.

  As the sun set, Chip led them to a cave in the side of a hill.

  “Nice job, Chip,” Hera said, looking around. “Although I wish there were a stream nearby. I’m so thirsty.”

  “No problem,” Poseidon said. He held up his magical object—a three-pronged trident. He struck it into the ground outside the cave, and clear water bubbled up from the earth.

  “Hooray!” Hera said, and the five Olympians greedily drank the water.

  “Now we just need some food,” Poseidon remarked. “There’s not much left in my pack except some crumbs of bread and cheese.”

  “I picked some wild grapes as we walked,” Apollo said.

  “Hey, my aegis is supposed to be magical, right?” Athena asked. “I’m going to try something.”

  She took off the aegis and placed it on the ground. “Okay, aegis, help me invent something new and delicious to eat!” she said.

  Nobody expected anything to happen. But they all gasped when a small tree burst from the ground outside the cave. Small, oval, black fruit grew from the tree’s gnarled branches.

  “Those ovals look like shrunken plums,” Poseidon remarked, picking one. “Let’s see how they taste.”

  He picked one and bit into it. “Ow! My tooth!”

  He spit out the tiny fruit. “This tastes terrible. And I think the pit inside it broke my tooth!”

  “Well, they’re my invention, so there must be something awesome about them,” said Athena. She looked at the tree. “I shall call you ‘owl love’ because I love owls.”

  She picked up a stick and spelled out the word by scratching in the dirt.

  “O-L-I-V-E,” Hera read the letters out loud. “That’s not how you spell ‘owl love.’ ”

  “Well, that’s how I spell it,” Athena said.

  “So I guess that makes this an olive tree,” said Hera.

  “Yuck. Olives are the pits!” Poseidon complained.

  Athena picked up one of the olives. “Who else wants to try one?”

  The other Olympians looked down at the ground.

  “Um, no thanks,” Zeus said.

  Athena popped one into her mouth. She started to make a face, then forced a smile.

  “It’s, um, good,” she said. But Zeus could tell she was hiding the olive in her cheek.

  Poseidon leaned over to Zeus. “What is up with this girl?” he whispered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Stuck on Each Other

  Well, I’m sorry you guys didn’t like my new food invention,” Athena said.

  The five Olympians were sitting around a campfire outside the cave. They ate a small meal of the wild grapes Apollo had picked, plus whatever food was left in their packs.

  “It’s not so bad,” Poseidon said. “The branches make good firewood.”

  Athena’s gray eyes narrowed, like she wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. “I bet I’m great at inventing musical instruments too. I’ll show you.”

  She stood up and started walking around the camp. A few moments later she came back with a hollow reed and a sharp stick.

  “I just need to poke some holes in this reed,” she said. She got to work, her tongue sticking out in concentration.

  Zeus and Poseidon looked at each other. What was she up to now?

  Then she held up the
reed. “Done!” she said proudly.

  “So, what is it?” Hera asked.

  “I’m . . . I’m not sure,” Athena admitted. “I think you blow into it.”

  She held the reed in one hand and covered one of the ends with her other hand. Then she started to blow into the little holes. Her face turned bright red with effort, but no music came out.

  “Nice try, I guess,” said Poseidon.

  Athena put down the reed. Her face was still red, but Zeus was pretty sure it was because she was embarrassed.

  “I’m going to sleep,” she said.

  Zeus nodded. “Good idea for all of us. I want to leave as soon as the sun’s up. The others are out there somewhere, waiting for us to rescue them.”

  They all headed into the cave to sleep.

  * * *

  Zeus woke up as soon as the first rays of morning sunlight brightened the cave. He stood up, stretched, and walked outside. Right outside the cave something stopped him in his tracks—something that felt very familiar. A web! He knocked it away fast. What in Bolt’s name was going on?

  There were spiderwebs everywhere now! They stretched between trees and rocks and bushes as far as he could see. He looked up at the sky and saw a new message in the web. It read: You can’t escape!

  “Hey, guys, you need to see this!” Zeus called out.

  The others came out of the cave, sleepily rubbing their eyes.

  “No way!” Poseidon cried, staring.

  Hera gasped. “They’re everywhere.”

  Athena turned pale. “Are there lots of spiders out there too?”

  Zeus looked around. “I don’t see any,” he said. He took Bolt from his belt. “Bolt, large!”

  Bolt expanded, and Zeus hacked at the nearest spiderweb, cutting right through it.

  “Poseidon, try your trident,” he said.

  “Sure,” Poseidon said. He started slashing at the webs with it. The trident didn’t cut as cleanly as Bolt, but it chopped through them okay.

  Zeus turned to the other Olympians. “All right. Here’s the plan. Hera, ask Chip to take us to the heart of the web, and fast! Poseidon and I will walk in the front. We’ll cut through the webs, and the rest of you can follow.”