Zeus made a small gesture of his own. A crack opened in the tabletop, and the edge caught one of Hebe’s wheels hard. A big piece broke out of the wooden rim, and Hebe’s chariot skidded sideways. The gods roared in either shock or approval, Ganymede couldn’t tell. He cracked his whip, and his own team leaped forward. They passed Hebe, who was already moving. She leaped gracefully from her broken chariot onto the backs of her team. A knife blade flashed, and the harness fell away from the horses. Freed of the chariot, the silver steeds bolted ahead, passed Ganymede, and sped across the finish line.
Abruptly, Ganymede was standing back in the great hall, his normal size restored. Hebe stood beside him.
“Hebe has won,” Artemis declared. Hera cheered.
“She crossed without her chariot,” Zeus protested. He sounded like a little kid. “And it was a chariot race.”
Artemis shrugged perfect shoulders and settled back on her dark throne. “I said that the winner was the first to cross the finish line. That was Hebe.”
“Fine,” Zeus grumbled. “One more contest, then. The judge will be—”
“Me,” Hades interrupted. “As the keeper of the dead, I’m known for being impartial. Does anyone object?”
No one did, though Zeus and Hera both glared thunder and lightning at each other. Ganymede realized that if he weren’t now immortal, he would be dead. The power in their gazes would have killed him.
“Since the winner will be pouring wine for eternity,” Hades said, “the contest will be wine tossing. And I won’t allow interference from either side. Both contestants are on their own.”
Ganymede felt glad about that. No more dirty tricks from Hera, even if it also meant Zeus had to keep his thunderbolts to himself. It was more fair, in any case.
Hades raised his golden goblet, and a silver statue appeared in the center of the grassy ring surrounded by the table. The statue twisted the eye. No matter how Ganymede looked at it, he couldn’t decide whether it was of a man or a woman, even though it was naked. The statue stood in a seashell-shaped basin.
“I like that,” Aphrodite said from her cushions. “It takes me back to my youth.”
“Mother,” whispered the teenaged boy with wings and a quiver on his back. “Quiet! You’re embarrassing me.”
“Pitcher!” Hades called, and suddenly Ganymede and Hebe were each holding a long-necked pitcher filled with purple wine. “Nose.”
The rules of wine-tossing, an ancient Greek game, were simple. The referee called out a target, and the players had to hit the target with a stream of wine. Whoever did the best, scored a point. Only rich people could afford to waste wine like that, but Ganymede had played often enough back in Troy, though sometimes the wine had actually been mostly water when times were thin.
Hebe and Ganymede both tossed. Thin streams of wine shot from their pitchers and hit the statue straight on the nose.
“Tie,” Hades said in a monotone. “Left ear.”
They started to throw again, but just as they were in mid-toss, the statue cocked its head. The movement caught Hebe off-guard, but Ganymede, a trained hunter, was used to a moving target and corrected his aim at the last second. Hebe missed, Ganymede didn’t.
“Point to Ganymede,” Hades said, and everyone except Hera applauded.
The wine pitchers changed into goblets. “Chin,” Hades intoned with all the excitement of a rock on downers.
The tossing continued. They threw wine from cups, saucers, jars, and their own hands. Hades made the statue jump and wiggle and dance and dodge, but Hebe adjusted quickly to the idea of a target that wouldn’t stand still, and Ganymede was still getting used to the idea of being surrounded by gods, and soon the score was tied. Ganymede’s stomach was tight with tension, though he didn’t feel tired—no immortal did.
“Skin,” Hades ordered, and suddenly Ganymede was clutching a sloshing, lopsided leather bag with a spout that folded shut. It was a wineskin, used for rough travel and on hunting trips. “Right knee.”
“Wait!” said Hebe, who had never lived rough in her entire long life. “How does this thing work?”
But Ganymede, heart thudding in his chest, was already aiming. He tucked the bag under his arm, flipped the spout open with his thumb, and squeezed the bag hard. A stream of wine shot out and caught the statue in the right knee before it could dodge aside.
“Point to Ganymede,” Hades said. “He wins the contest.”
The entire hall burst into ear-splitting applause and whistles and cheers. It took Ganymede a second to understand that all of it was for him, that he was the one they all loved, the one they were cheering for. He just stood there, stunned and amazed and thrilled.
Hebe’s eyes filled with tears, but she dashed them away before anyone but Ganymede, who was still close by, could notice. Holding herself proud and erect, she conjured up a golden cup—Zeus’s goblet—out of nothing, slammed it on the table before her father, and strode across the hall without looking back to take up a spot near Hera’s purple throne. Ganymede felt a pang of guilt for her, but there was nothing he could—or would—have done differently. If he had thrown the contest and let her win, Hera would have thrown him off Olympus. Hephaestus, a powerful Olympian, had been permanently crippled by that fall. It would have done worse to a minor immortal like Ganymede. Zeus’s demotion of Hebe was a kiss on the wrist in comparison to what Hera would have done to Ganymede.
“We will have a banquet to celebrate!” Zeus bellowed over the cheering. “Ganymede will serve in his new position.”
Ganymede ducked under the table and came up beside Zeus, the wine skin still in his hand. Zeus reached down from his great throne, squeezed Ganymede’s shoulder, and winked at him. The power and charisma of the god washed over him, and in that moment Ganymede would have done anything for the king. He picked up the golden goblet to fill it for the first time, but it seemed to him that wine from a skin wasn’t proper to serve the king of gods in the hall of Olympus. The moment the thought crossed his mind, he felt a tiny bit of power flare inside him and the skin changed into a golden pitcher brimming with sweetly-scented nectar that made the most wonderful wine smell like garbage water. Ganymede filled Zeus’s cup, and the god drank deeply.
“Wonderful!” Zeus proclaimed. “Now to the others, my boy.”
Ganymede dashed about the hall, filling cups and goblets for all the other gods, except for Aphrodite, who opened her soft red lips and asked him to pour straight into her mouth. This made his hands shake so hard he almost dropped the pitcher. He didn’t go near Hera. The other gods congratulated him with compliments or pats on the back or claps on the shoulder. Aphrodite cupped his ass.
“Mom!” hissed the kid with wings. “Act your age!”
“Grow up, Eros,” she laughed, then raised her voice. “You’ve picked a luscious one, Zeus!”
Zeus merely raised his cup in answer. Hera rose from her purple throne and swept out of the great hall without another word, Hebe on her heels. The girl Ganymede had seen earlier, the one in the multi-colored dress, put a hand on Eros’s shoulder and handed him a bit of ambrosia. A stream of color ghosted after her movements. Ganymede hadn’t noticed that before. She must be Iris, goddess of the rainbow and messenger for the Olympians. Eros took the ambrosia and put his arm around her. Like all the gods, he was awesomely handsome and she was impossibly pretty, but out of all the Olympians, Eros’s shining white wings and Iris’s flashing colors really grabbed Ganymede’s eye, and he found it hard to look away from them. They caught sight of him staring and waved at him. He waved back with a quick, embarrassed movement.
“If this is party, we need more entertainment!” Hermes called. “Ganymede! Show us what else you can do!”
Zeus gave permission, and Ganymede once again found himself the center of attention in the middle of the ring table. His initial clumsiness had worn off, giving him added confidence. He tried a few acrobatic moves, and discovered to his delight that his new body was even more powerful than he had thought.
He could leap higher than the pillars and land with light, airy feet. He could turn double and triple back flips, land on one hand, and touch the soles of his feet to the back of his head. He moved smooth as water, easy as the ocean, and never made a mistake.
The gods applauded his every move, and Ganymede felt like he’d arrived. Here he could be the entertainer, and no one chided him for it. Hell, they encouraged it. Okay, so Hera had a mad-on for him, but you couldn’t please everyone. Olympus was shaping up to be a pretty cool place.
Ganymede finished his routine with a final triple handspring and bowed first to Zeus, then to the rest of the hall. A final burst of applause, and he went back to his place beside Zeus’s throne, not even breathing hard. Some of the gods rose to dance to Apollo’s lyre and Pan’s drum, and Zeus put a finger under Ganymede’s chin.
“I’m glad I chose you, my little prince,” he said with a smile that sent a shiver down Ganymede’s spine. “I think I’ll need some private entertainment later.”
Ganymede opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, Zeus abruptly pulled his hand back and turned to talk to Athene.
It felt like he’d been slapped. Ganymede stood there with his mouth still open. Zeus was deliberately ignoring him. A rock formed in his stomach, and he also got a little ticked off. Without thinking, he raised a hand to touch Zeus’s wrist. Zeus and Athene both turned hard eyes on him.
“Yes?” Zeus rumbled, and suddenly Ganymede felt very small. He was an immortal now, true, but that meant nothing next to Zeus, who was the king of the fucking universe, and he had just interrupted the king’s conversation. A single word from him had reminded Ganymede of his place and position.
“M-more to drink, my lord?” he asked, holding up the pitcher.
“No.” Zeus waved him off. “Keep my goblet with you for when I want more, and don’t interrupt me again.”
Ganymede swallowed hard and, with a nod, lifted Zeus’s golden goblet off the table and slipped it into his belt. His heart was pounding like he’d escaped a pride of lions.
“Don’t mind him,” said a new voice. “He’s always like that.”
Ganymede turned. Redheaded Eros had slipped up behind him, his shimmering wings folded neatly across his back. Ganymede wanted to reach out and touch them, feel the silky feathers slide over his fingers.
“Like what?” Ganymede asked.
“Hot and cold. You just have to be ready when he wants you.”
“How do you—I mean, it isn’t—” Ganymede felt his face grow warm.
Eros laughed. “It’s not a secret, G. We’re worse than a tiny village when it comes to gossip. Everyone eventually learns everything about everybody eventually, so don’t do anything you wouldn’t want us to find out about. We’ll learn all about it within two hundred years, max.”
“Two hundred years,” Ganymede echoed. “Yeah.”
Eros thumped Ganymede on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it. Or go insane. Don’t go insane. Zeus will throw you into Tartarus if you go insane.”
“I’ll try not to,” Ganymede said, feeling a little overwhelmed. Suddenly, the halls of Troy sounded pretty homey. And then a whole mess of thoughts rushed over him.
“Minos! And my brother!”
“What?” Eros said.
“King Minos was trying to kill me,” Ganymede explained. “And my brother Ilos was negotiating a trade agreement with him. Then Zeus brought me up here, and I completely forgot about everything down there. I need to know what happened. Can I find out?”
“Sure,” Eros said. “You’re one of us. You can find out just about anything you want to, once you learn how.”
“How do I?” Ganymede shot a sidelong glance at Zeus, who was still talking to Athene.
“Don’t ask him,” Eros said. “Geez, G. You’re slow on the uptake, aren’t you?”
“So what do I do?” Ganymede was growing a little worried. He wouldn’t put it past Minos to do something awful to Ilos now that Ganymede was gone. The more he thought about it, the more worried he got.
Eros rolled his eyes. “Zeus practically shouted it to you. Weren’t you paying attention?”
Ganymede wrinkled his forehead, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“What did he just give you?”
“Immortality,” Ganymede replied promptly.
Eros thwapped him on the shoulder. “No, dummy. Hebe gave you that. What did Zeus give you? Besides his ‘divine essence’?”
Ganymede rubbed his shoulder. “He … oh! His goblet!”
“You’re his cupbearer now. The goblet makes it official. So use it.”
A little uncertain, Ganymede unhooked the goblet from his belt. The moment he held it level, it filled itself with wine.
“Push,” Eros told him. “You felt yourself change when you became immortal, right? What element did you feel?”
“Water,” Ganymede said.
“That’s because you’re the cup bearer,” Eros said. “So wherever water exists, you can see. If your brother is near water—or any other liquid, I’ll bet—you can find him. Look into the goblet and push.”
Still uncertain, Ganymede did as Eros said. His own reflection, red and distorted, stared up at him. But Ganymede could also feel the liquid in the cup, sense its shape. And then he pushed harder with his mind and he felt more liquid everywhere in the world. It pulled at him, yanked him around, spread his thoughts thin. He felt himself disperse like mist in a wind. He was fading, disappearing.
A sharp, stinging pain cracked over him and abruptly he was standing in the great hall again. The gods continued their party.
“Careful,” Eros cautioned, lowering his hand. “Think about your brother, too.”
Ganymede rubbed his face where Eros had slapped him, then turned back to the goblet. He thought about Ilos and Minos, about his brother and the king.
And then he was looking down through the roof of the palace at Knossos. Minos lay on a luxurious bed, a jeweled wine cup at his side, his leg wrapped in a splint. He seemed pretty out of it—eyes glazed, face pale—and Ganymede figured he must be drunk or on some kind of ancient Greek painkillers or both. Ganymede felt kind of pleased about Minos lying there with a broken leg. The fucker deserved it.
And then he was part of a gentle rain shower, his droplets rushing down from the clouds. On their way to the ground, they passed Ilos, who was staring out of his bedroom window. He looked sad and worried, and Ganymede felt a pang. He knew what Ilos was worrying about.
“Can I look at what happened before this?” he asked aloud. He was still aware of Eros standing beside him, even though he was also part of the rain below.
“Well, yeah,” Eros said. “Just think about what you want to see, and you’ll see it.”
Ganymede did, and suddenly he was back at the rocky hillside where Minos had tried to kill him. It was weird—he was looking at everything from above and seeing it from eye level at the same time, sort of like the way people can see in a dream, but clearer. He saw the eagle fading into the distance, himself a tiny speck hanging from its talons. He watched Minos, who was lying at the bottom of the hill, sit up, dazed, his left leg bent at a nauseating angle. The hunting dogs barked at the sky for a few more seconds, then ran down to their master. Minos tried to stand up, then fainted from the pain when he moved his leg, and Ganymede couldn’t feel bad.
A bit later, some men from the hunting party found him and made a stretcher out of some branches and a tunic. Looking worried, they carried him back to the palace. Ilos was waiting in the courtyard.
“What happened to my brother?” Ilos demanded, completely forgetting all the stuff about being a diplomat. “Where is he?”
Minos lay on the stretcher in the courtyard with several men around him. A healer was already on the way, but someone had given him some strong wine to drink, and his voice was already a little slurred with it.
“Your brother …” Minos began. “I’m sorry, Ilos. We were chasing a stag up the hill, and then light
ning struck the tree up at the top. It threw me back down the way we came, and I broke my leg. But Ganymede … I’m afraid Ganymede went over the cliff and down into the ravine. He’s dead.”
“No,” Ilos whispered. “No, he can’t be.”
“It’s true, young Ilos,” Minos said, all oil and sympathy. “The ravine is deep, and no one has ever managed to climb it. Still, we can send men down to look for his body once the rain has dried, though I’m afraid the river at the bottom may have already washed him out to sea.”
At that moment, the healer arrived. He ordered Minos brought into the palace, and Ilos couldn’t talk to him anymore. Ganymede pulled away from the scene and found himself back on Olympus with Eros still beside him.
“I have to go see my brother,” Ganymede said. “He thinks I’m dead! He’s scared and alone, and I have to tell him I’m all right. How do I do it?”
“I wouldn’t yet,” Eros said. “You’re still new to this. You could get lost.”
Urgency was making Ganymede pace in a little circle. “Can you take me?”
“Do I look like a errand boy? That’s Hermes’s job.”
Ganymede glanced over at Hermes, who was dancing with both Apollo and Aphrodite at the same time. After Zeus’s reaction to being interrupted, Ganymede wasn’t sure he could get away with tapping Hermes on the shoulder right then.
“Nah, he won’t do it now,” Eros said, and Ganymede wondered if the guy was a good guesser or if he was reading Ganymede’s thoughts. “But there is someone else.”
He reached behind himself and pulled a silver arrow from the quiver on his back. In his hands appeared a bow made of light and gold. Eros aimed for a tiny second and let fly. The arrow flicked across the hall and thumped into the ground less than an inch from the foot of Iris, who was nibbling ambrosia and talking to the little demon Phobos. She squeaked and jumped back, then glared across the hall at Eros. He gave her a little finger wave. There was a streak of color, and suddenly she was standing beside him. A rainbow trail faded in the air behind her.
Danny Page 14