Beast Keeper

by Lucy Coats

  Demon felt guilty immediately. He’d been so busy trying to find a cure for the Hydra that he’d neglected all the actual living beasts in the Stables. He looked at the griffin.

  “Do you think I can leave it on its own?” Demon asked, jerking his thumb at his many-headed patient. He still wondered whether Hera was watching him, somehow, but maybe the beasts could give him some clues about her, and that was more important at the moment. At least he would be doing something useful while he thought.

  “What? Old Nine Heads? Doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon,” said the griffin. “C’mon. Hurry up with that ambrosia cake. I’m hungry enough to eat a half-god human.” It snapped playfully at Demon’s ear, deliberately missing him by a whisker.

  Demon fed all the beasts, then he got his broom and shovel and the wheelbarrow and started to muck out. The familiar routine seemed to clear his head.

  “Does Hera have anything to do with apples?” he asked the griffin as he swept up bits of glittering silver straw and shoveled them into the barrow.

  “Well, she has a tree that produces the golden apples of eternal life, if that’s what you mean,” said the griffin. Demon dropped his broom and stared at the beast.

  “What do you mean, eternal?” he asked. The griffin sighed and looked at him,

  “E-t-e-r-n-a-l,” it said, spelling it out very slowly. “Something that lasts forever. You know the kind of stuff. Immortality and all that. She’s got a whole orchard full of them now.”

  Demon suddenly felt excited for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

  “What exactly do Hera’s apples do?” he asked, crossing his fingers and toes for the answer he wanted.

  “Well,” said the griffin, “according to the stories, if you eat a bit of Hera’s apples, you can be cured of pretty much anything—even being dead.” Its huge eyes widened slightly. “You’re not thinking of going to get one to cure old Nine Heads, are you? Only she keeps her trees at the other end of the world, and they’re guarded by Ladon, the dragon who never sleeps, as well as by endless armies of dryads. You’d never make it in a million years—not a little shrimp like you. Even that beastly Heracles had to lie and cheat to get some, and we all know he’s pretty strong and ruthless.”

  Demon smiled at the griffin smugly. He knew just what the apple seed was now, and where it had come from, or he thought he did. He knew what the bucket was for, too.

  “I don’t need to go and get one,” he said. “I’ll just grow my own.” The griffin gaped at him. It seemed to be speechless for once.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE DRYAD’S MAGIC

  Demon had done enough gardening to know that an apple tree didn’t normally grow and bear fruit in two minutes flat. However, Hera could come back anytime, and his need for a Hydra cure was more urgent than ever.

  But he now had hope.

  This was Olympus. Magical things could and did happen here. He filled the golden bucket with beast poo, grabbed the pot of soil and the apple seed, and went to find Melia the dryad.

  Dryads were nymphs who knew all about trees, and he was pretty sure she’d be able to help him. Demon found her at last in the grove near the Iris Express, singing to some blue lemons. He held out the apple seed, the golden bucket of beast poo, and the pot of cinnamony soil.

  “Do you know how I can grow an apple from this really quickly?” he asked. “If I don’t get one really, really soon, Hera’s going to chuck me down the poo chute to Tartarus.”

  Melia looked at him, her fingers flying up to her mouth. “Ooh, dear!” she said. “I heard she visited the Stables. What did you do to her?”

  Demon explained. Then Melia took the seed, the bucket, and the earth from him. She sniffed at the earth. “Mmm. Very nice. Did you want a ripe apple, or will a green one do?”

  “Ripe, I reckon,” said Demon. “I don’t want to give the poor Hydra a bellyache on top of everything else.”

  Melia blew on a clear patch of ground at the edge of the orchard and dug a hole with her copper trowel. Then she started to hum a vague little tune. A small cone of dust erupted from the hole and hovered over it. Melia poured the bucket of beast poo in first, then added the soil. She mixed them together and finally dropped in the apple seed, which she poked down into the mixture with her finger.

  The dust cone collapsed over it, filling the hole to the brim. Then Demon watched in awe as her humming got louder and deeper and, somehow, richer. A tiny green shoot erupted from the ground, and within seconds a small tree stood there.

  “Wow!” Demon said, leaning forward for a closer look.

  Melia flapped him away crossly with her free hand. She was using the other one to support the tree trunk. In minutes the tree had grown taller than Demon and was covered in golden leaves. One large deep red bud of blossom appeared on a low branch, then changed to an open flower.

  After that, Melia started to dance. Around and around and around she went, humming her deep, rich tune (which now seemed to have dark, earthy words twining through it), until Demon felt as if his own feet were growing roots. The red petals floated to the ground and exploded with small pops as an apple began to form where they had bloomed.

  It was like no apple Demon had ever seen before. It was perfectly round, like a ball, and it was the color of a fiery sunset streaked with gold. Demon closed his eyes and sniffed. The apple smelled of everything delicious and wholesome and desirable, and he suddenly wanted to taste it with every bit of his being.

  “Hey!” said Melia. “Snap out of it!”

  Demon opened his eyes and found that the apple was in his hand and touching his lips. She wrenched his hand away. “If you eat even one bite of that, you’ll be immortal. That sounds good, but trust me, Hera will get Zeus to make you pay, over and over and over. Just think about poor old Prometheus. Do you really want to end up like that or with your brains being chewed by a basilisk for eternity—or something even worse?”

  Demon dropped his hand to his side with an effort. He was clutching the apple so tight that it should have been bruised, but when he looked down at it, it was as perfect as ever.

  “Now,” said Melia. “You’d better get back to that Hydra, and I’ll have a word with this tree. I think it’d be happier as a more normal sort of apple, and a lot less dangerous. There’s a reason Hera has her orchards at the other end of the world, you know.”

  As Demon walked away, she started to hum again, a different sort of tune, and when he glanced back over his shoulder, the tree’s leaves were slowly turning to a greeny-bronze. He forced his hand to stay away from his mouth, but it was really hard. The smell of the apple was driving him crazy, and by the time he got back to the Stables, he was drooling with an impossible longing to taste it.

  Only the thought of Prometheus, chained to his mountain rock, having his liver torn out forever and ever, stopped Demon from stuffing the whole fruit into his mouth and chomping down. He charged into the hospital shed at a run because he knew that if he didn’t get this done, he would give in to the terrible temptation.

  He dodged around the Hydra, slammed the apple down on the counter, pulled out a sharp knife from the drawer, and cut the apple into nine even pieces, which immediately spurted a stream of sticky golden juice onto the knife. Demon didn’t even notice the tiny drip falling onto his little finger as he rammed one segment into each of the Hydra’s nine mouths, carefully avoiding the rows of sharp pointy teeth.

  Almost immediately, eighteen marble-like red eyes, each with a black slit in the middle, opened and began to roll around frantically. Nine throats breathed in nine wheezy breaths.

  “Agghagghah!” said the head with the golden lump, which lay right in the middle of the others. “Gnoink!” said the other eight. Suddenly, the Hydra’s heads all shot upright, its legs began to wave in the air, and it heaved itself over and off the table, which fell with a crash against Demon�
�s hand.

  “Ouch!” he yelled, stuffing his bruised right hand into his mouth. Immediately, he felt a wonderful sensation of warm, succulent coolness traveling over his tongue and down into his body. It was as if heavy golden sunlight had been squeezed over the light of a pure new moon and mixed with concentrated essence of rainbows.

  He snatched his hand out of his mouth at once, but it was too late. He’d had the teeniest, tiniest taste of the juice of Hera’s apple from his little finger. Was he now immortal? It didn’t feel like it. But how could he find out unless he did something really stupid like diving off the Stables roof and seeing if he survived splatting into the ground or not? He felt a twitch around his neck and put his other hand up to touch Offy and Yukus.

  “Am I different?” he asked them in a panicky whisper. “Am I immortal? Can you tell? Quick! Have a look!”

  The two snakes untwined themselves and slithered up and down his body. It tickled, but Demon was too scared to feel anything but panic.

  “Perhapsssss you sssseem a ssssmidgen more magical.” The snaky nostrils sniffed inside his ears. “Yesss. There issss a sssssmall shift.”

  “Will Hera notice?” asked Demon urgently. His poor heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. There was a pause while the snakes did some more sniffing.

  “We sssssssussssspect not,” they hissed as they coiled themselves around his neck again. “The change is infinitessssimally ssssmall.”

  Demon wasn’t entirely sure what “infinitesimally” meant, but his heart slowed down a bit. He just hoped Offy and Yukus were right, otherwise there would be worse than the poo chute in store for him.

  The Hydra was now nuzzling him inquisitively with two of its heads. He noticed that it had very long curly eyelashes. Demon had expected it to be like Hera—bad-tempered and dangerous—but he was very relieved that it wasn’t. He didn’t think that he could have coped with being bitten by nine heads right now—it had been quite a tiring day, all things considered.

  “Hey,” he said, stroking the Hydra. “I’m glad you’re mended—and not just because I didn’t want to go down the poo chute to Tartarus. Now let’s go and find a nice big pen for you to live in. Do you feel up to some ambrosia cake?”

  The Hydra purred and rubbed up against him again, nearly knocking him off his feet.

  Just as Demon was settling the Hydra into its new home, Hera’s peacocks shrieked their way into the Stables again. The Hydra poked its nine heads over the pen fence.

  “Mommmmmy!” it called. This was the first time Demon had heard it say anything at all. It seemed to be a beast of very few words.

  Hera rushed out of her chariot and over to the Hydra, gauzy shawls flying and bracelets rattling.

  “Who’s my little oochie-coochie pet monster?” she crooned to it.

  Demon felt slightly sick. He usually shouted loud insults at anyone who used undignified baby language with animals, but he managed to keep his mouth shut by biting his tongue hard. His mom would have been proud of him, he thought, and anyway, he wasn’t risking Hera getting in a bad mood again. He let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. She didn’t seem to have noticed his slight shift toward immortality.

  “You did well, stable boy,” said Hera. “The hundred-armed monsters will have to do without their treat this time. In fact, I may even reward you. What would you like best? Jewels?” She gestured with her lotus flower staff, and a shower of glittering rubies, sapphires, and emeralds fell at his feet. Demon shook his head and tried to stop the Hydra from eating them. Hera flicked her staff again, and the jewels disappeared. “No jewels? What, then?”

  Demon cleared his throat, wiggling his bitten tongue experimentally to see if it still worked. “I’d like some real food to eat, please, Your Goddessness. If that’s all right,” he added hastily.

  “Oh, very well,” said Hera. “I expect I can manage something. I’ll talk to Aphrodite. She’s in charge of catering this week, so any food you do get is likely to be fluffy and pink and wobbly.” With that, she climbed into her chariot and flew off. Demon just got his fingers into his ears in time to avoid the worst of the peacock shrieking.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE FEAST OF THE GODS

  The next morning, Demon was cleaning up after the Cattle of the Sun. He had a new helper in the Stables. The Hydra was following him around like a large, green nine-headed dog, carrying all his buckets and brooms and rakes in its nine mouths. It seemed to be very grateful to him for saving its life, though it still didn’t say very much other than “nice Demon” and “more ambrosia cake.”

  Demon wondered if it was a bit simple in the head after its ordeal. If so, it was one more thing to add to the long list of gripes and grievances he had to thrash out with horrible Heracles when they finally met. Demon’s hand tightened on his shovel. He might not like eating ambrosia, but his muscles were definitely getting stronger. Maybe quite soon he might get the chance to hit Heracles once or twice before that big beast bully smashed him with that huge ugly club of his . . .

  That was when the cherub arrived.

  It cleared its throat crossly. “Message from Hera, Queen of Olympus,” it said. “You are to present yourself at Zeus’s palace tonight at the third thunderclap, stable boy.” It fumbled in the pouch at its side. “Oh, and clean yourself up a bit before you put this on. You can’t wear a filthy old rag to a feast with the gods, you know.”

  It handed Demon a brand–new white tunic with a band of deep gold-and-purple embroidery at the hem.

  Demon was very nervous as the first of the thunderclaps sounded. He walked hurriedly toward Zeus’s palace, not wanting to be late. Melanie the naiad had let him use a corner of her spring to wash in, and had even lent him some of the shampoo she used on her own blue locks and then brushed the tangles out of his hair for him. Demon wasn’t sure if he liked smelling of watercress and buttercups, but she assured him the goddesses would like it a lot better than his normal Stables smell of straw and poo.

  The white, gold, and purple tunic felt softer than anything he’d ever worn before, and Melanie had found him a pair of new golden sandals from somewhere. They felt strange on his usually bare feet. The doors to Zeus and Hera’s palace were wide open, and there was music and laughter coming from inside.

  As the last thunderclap echoed right above his head, Demon walked in, hoping his stomach wasn’t going to rumble. He was hungry enough to eat anything—even pink food if he really had to.

  The gods and goddesses of Olympus were waiting for him. Zeus sat on a huge throne in the middle of them all, holding a sizzling lightning-bolt scepter. Demon recognized Hera and Hestia, and there was Hephaestus, smiling at him, dressed in white and not sooty for once. Demon dropped to his knees just as he spotted his dad at the end of the table, giving him an encouraging wave.

  “Pandemonius, son of Pan,” said a booming, thundery voice, which could only belong to the king of the gods. “Are you happy in your work?”

  Demon dared to look up. “Yes, Your Great Majesty Godness,” he said. “It’s the best job in the world.” As he said this, he realized it was absolutely true. Without really noticing, he’d grown to love his work in the Stables and the beasts who lived there.

  “Then approach, Pandemonius.”

  Demon got up and walked toward Zeus’s throne. For once he wasn’t scared of being turned into a pile of ash. He kneeled at Zeus’s feet, and the great god placed a wreath of golden laurels on his head.

  “I name you Official Beast Keeper to the gods,” Zeus said, “with responsibility for all the magical beasts in our realms, and those of our brothers and sisters. You will get seven golden Olympus tokens a month to spend as you wish, and you may attend four Olympian feasts a year. Now, let the celebration of our new Beast Keeper begin!”

  As he spoke, lightning flashed all around the room, and several little gold-and-silver carts rolled thr
ough the doors, smelling of the most delicious things imaginable. Nymphs whisked in with pink-covered tables and couches, and several fauns danced about, playing jeweled flutes.

  “Sit by me, son,” said Pan, patting the pink couch beside him. So Demon did, and then Hephaestus came and flopped down on his other side.

  “See,” he said, grinning through his beard. “I knew there was a brain in that head of yours. Hera was amazed you worked her little test out, I can tell you.”

  “He’s not my son for nothing,” said Pan proudly, putting his arm around Demon.

  And then the food arrived. What food it was! Dishes of roasted pigeons with yogurt and almonds, chicken and lemon soup, sweet figs and tart, creamy cheese, Hestia’s delicious honey cakes, apricot tarts, fresh peaches and strawberries, exotic fruits and nuts from the ends of the earth. Some of the carts held food that was pink and wobbly and fluffy, as Hera had predicted, but there was so much else on offer that it was easily avoided. Demon ate and ate and ate till his tummy was like a tight little drum. Tomorrow he might have to go back to horrible old ambrosia again, but tonight . . . tonight he would feast on Olympus as the one and only official Beast Keeper to the gods.

  THE GODS

  Aphrodite (AF-ruh-DY-tee): Goddess of love and beauty and all things pink and fluffy.

  Ares (AIR-eez): God of war. Loves any excuse to pick a fight.

  Artemis (AR-te-miss): Goddess of the hunt. Can’t decide if she wants to protect animals or kill them.

  Athena (a-THEE-na): Goddess of wisdom and defender of pesky, troublesome heroes.

  Dionysus (DY-uh-NY-suss): God of wine. Turns even sensible gods into silly goons.