Hyperion and the Great Balls of Fire Read online

  Hyperion smirked at Zeus. “And I suppose you know where that certain torch can be found?”

  “Maybe,” Zeus said. He had to keep Hyperion talking so he wouldn’t notice the trident wiggling. “If I could get a look at the flame, I might be able to tell you if the torch I know about is the one you need.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure,” Hyperion said sarcastically. “Pull the other leg.” Looking skeptical, he started to stand.

  Just then the trident rolled off the table. Bam! “Ow! Ow!” Hyperion yelled. The trident had hit his toe. He hopped around in pain, then bent and grabbed one end of the trident.

  It jerked, trying to get away from him. “What the—,” he said in surprise. He pulled it closer. It jerked away again. It was a trident tug-of-war!

  Hyperion eyed Zeus and Poseidon suspiciously. “I don’t know how you’re making it move, but you’re not getting it back.”

  Yanking hard on the trident, he managed to take it from the invisible Hades. He lifted it in his fist and then shook it in triumph at the two Olympians he could see.

  “This trident is mine now. As are you. King Cronus will be very pleased at your capture.” Glancing over his shoulder, Hyperion called out, “Guards! Come take them away!”

  “Run!” shouted Zeus. He and Poseidon made a dash for the door. Too late. The three oddball creatures who’d brought them inside were blocking the exit.

  “Call off the guards!” yelled a voice. It was Hades!

  A look of confusion stole over Hyperion’s face. “Who said that?” He glanced around the room. “Show yourself!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  Call off the guards,” Hades repeated. He was still invisible.

  “What magic is this?” Hyperion demanded, looking a little nervous.

  He motioned for the guards to draw back. The Hippalectryon, Onocentaur, and Manticore moved away from the boys. But they continued to stand at the ready. Their wings, arms, and paws were flexed at their sides.

  Hyperion’s glowing eyes swept the room. “I did what you asked. Now show yourself, whoever you are.”

  “First you must return the trident to Poseidon,” Hades ordered. Since the last quest, when he’d found out he was lord of the Underworld, he’d become quite bold. Especially when he was invisible.

  “Oh, all right,” muttered Hyperion. With an annoyed expression he tossed the trident back to Poseidon.

  The minute Poseidon touched it, it shrank back to a size he could handle. But that didn’t mean he should handle it right then. Because it was still hot.

  “Yeowch!” yelled Poseidon. He tossed the trident from hand to hand as he waited for it to cool.

  Meanwhile Hades removed the helm and became visible. He was standing right beside Hyperion’s throne.

  “The Helm of  Darkness!” Hyperion exclaimed. His hands twitched as he stared at the glittering jeweled crown Hades held. “I thought it was hidden in the Underworld.”

  “It was,” said Hades. “I found it there. Now it’s mine.” He stuck out his chest proudly. “Because I’m lord of the Underworld.”

  “Underworld, Schmunderworld,” Hyperion scoffed. Without warning he made a lunge for the jeweled helm. “Give me that thing!”

  “No! Toss it here!” Zeus called out to Hades.

  Wasting no time, Hades pitched the crown toward him.

  Zeus raised his arms to catch it. But as the helm sailed his way, the Manticore swung its scorpion tail high. The tail snagged the helm in midair!

  “Thief! Give it back!” Hades commanded.

  Poseidon thrust out his now cool trident. He tried to use it to hook the helm off the Manticore’s tail. But the Manticore flipped the helm to the Onocentaur, and then wrapped its tail around the trident. It yanked. Hard.

  The trident slipped from Poseidon’s hands. Now the Manticore had it!

  The Onocentaur brayed with laughter. The half man, half donkey set the helm on top of its head. “How do I look?” it asked its friends.

  “Better than ever,” the Manticore replied. “Because I can’t see your ugly mug anymore.”

  The Hippalectryon flapped its wings and grinned. “Or the rest of youdle-doodle either.”

  “Stop goofing around, idiots! Hand those things to me this instant!” roared Hyperion.

  The Onocentaur reappeared at once. Then it and the Manticore sheepishly handed over the helm and the trident. Both objects enlarged and glowed red in Hyperion’s hands.

  “Including these I now have three magical objects,” he gloated.

  “Well, two and a half, anyway,” Zeus corrected.

  “Whatever.” Hyperion hooked his thumb toward the enormous statue behind him. “As I said before, King Cronus will be very glad to see them. And you three as well.”

  “Get them!” he ordered the guards.

  “Do something!” Hades hissed at Zeus.

  Left no other choice, Zeus whipped the thunderbolt dagger out from under his tunic and belt.

  “Large!” he commanded. A sound like the cracking of a glacier rang through the room. Sparking with electricity, Bolt expanded to its full length of five feet.

  Zeus stared Hyperion down. “Return the trident and helm!” Holding the thunderbolt, he drew back his arm. He was poised to hurl the bolt right at the fiery Titan.

  “Looks like your lost thunderbolt just turned up,” Hyperion said sarcastically.

  Before Zeus could reply, Bolt was smacked from his hand. Whap!

  “Yow!” the Onocentaur yelped as the bolt spiraled up into the air. The creature had kicked out with its donkey hind legs and knocked the thunderbolt away! But its legs had received quite a nasty electric shock in the process.

  As luck would have it, Bolt went whirling up toward King Cronus’s statue. Thunk! The thunderbolt stuck point-first in the marble king’s open mouth. It lost its sizzle and glow the minute it lodged in the statue.

  “Well, well, well,” Hyperion said, chortling. “And they say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. King Cronus—the real one—wasn’t too happy when your thunderbolt went down his throat the first time. You escaped punishment then. But this time you won’t be so lucky.”

  Turning his back to the boys and the guards, Hyperion stepped up to the statue. His eyes glowed as he reached for the bolt. “Now I’ll have this magical object to add to my collection too! And once I have the torch, I’ll deliver everything to King Cronus.”

  Hyperion gave the bolt a tug. Nothing happened. He tried again, tugging harder. But still the thunderbolt stayed stubbornly stuck.

  “What’s the matter, Your Brilliance?” taunted Zeus. “Not strong enough for the job?”

  Hyperion pulled as hard as he could, muscles bulging. Still the bolt didn’t budge. Because there was something “The High One” didn’t know that Zeus did. Bolt couldn’t be freed from stone—any kind of stone—without Zeus’s help.

  “Maybe you need to start doing push-ups,” Poseidon chimed in.

  “Better watch it or you’ll soon be too weak to throw your fireballs,” Hades teased.

  Hyperion whirled toward them. His eyes went flat and hard. “Take them to the globe of destruction!” he ordered the guards.

  The creature-guards surrounded the three Olympians again. “Don’t even think about trying to make a run for it,” the Manticore warned them. It gave its scorpion tail a rattle.

  Zeus glared at Hyperion. “Let us go, you . . . you, glowworm! You can’t keep us here. We’re Olympians!”

  “Olympians, Schmolympians,” Hyperion sneered. “You’re all a bit on the scrawny side for my taste, but Olympians are the king’s favorite snack. As you well know. Take them away!” he ordered the guards.

  Immediately the boys were rounded up and marched out of the room. “Down the stairs!” ordered the Manticore when they came to a set of steps. The boys stumbled down them as the three creature-guards followed behind.

  The bottom of the steps opened up into another room underground.
The boys’ eyes widened when they saw what was inside: a huge flaming globe. It was about three times as tall as they were.

  Zeus gulped. This had to be the globe of destruction Hyperion had mentioned.

  With its back to the globe, the Onocentaur kicked at it three times with one of its hooves. Kick! Kick! Kick! A door appeared. The globe was hollow inside!

  “In you go!” said the half man, half donkey.

  Wings, arms, and paws herded the three boys inside. The fiery door slid shut behind them. The guards stomped away up the stairs again.

  The boys were trapped. In a fiery prison!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Global Warming

  Zeus slipped off a sandal. Thwack! Thwack! He hit at the place where the globe had opened. But nothing happened. Except that his sandal began to smoke from the heat. At least the floor under their feet wasn’t fiery. Only the walls of the globe were.

  “It’s as hot as the Underworld in here,” Poseidon complained.

  “Seems just right to me,” said Hades. “Nice and toasty.” Cold bothered him, but heat never did. “And anyway, we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t lost your trident to Hyperion. Twice.”

  “I was thirsty,” Poseidon whined. “Besides, this is just as much your fault as mine. Why did you have to play the hero and take off your helm?”

  Hades frowned. “Duh. To keep those guards from taking you and Zeus away.”

  “But if you’d stayed invisible, you could’ve followed when the guards brought us down here,” Poseidon argued. “Then, when they left, you could’ve opened the door of this globe from the outside and—”

  “We all made mistakes,” Zeus interrupted. “I was dumb not to keep my thunderbolt hidden. Now none of us has a weapon!”

  Pythia’s prophecy said Zeus was the leader of the Olympians. But sometimes he doubted himself when he made mistakes like that. Did he truly have what it took to be a good leader? he wondered.

  “What’s done is done,” he told his companions. “Arguing won’t help. The thing now is to think of an escape plan.”

  “You’re right,” said Hades.

  Poseidon nodded.

  The three boys began pacing circles inside the flaming globe while trying to think up a plan.

  “Maybe we could run from one side to the other superfast and ram through the globe door,” Poseidon suggested.

  Hades snorted. “Okay. You can be the first to try it. Zeus and I will scoop up your ashes afterward.”

  “You got a better idea?” Poseidon said with a scowl.

  “Not yet,” said Hades. “But any idea would be better than yours.”

  “I know!” said Zeus. Poseidon and Hades stopped arguing and turned to look at him. “The guards will return with food and drink eventually. After all, Hyperion needs to keep us alive.”

  “True,” said Hades. “Till he can turn us over to the king.”

  “And so?” Poseidon asked.

  Zeus grinned. “So when the guards open the globe, we’ll trick them somehow and escape!” Abruptly his grin evaporated. “I haven’t quite yet worked out the somehow part,” he admitted.

  Just then a tiny voice piped up. “Et-lip e-mip elp-hip.”

  “Chip?” Zeus had almost forgotten about the amulet. It didn’t speak often, but when it did, it spoke Chip Latin. Which was like Pig Latin. Except that you moved the first letter of a word to the end of it and then added an ip sound, as in “chip.”

  Zeus lifted the amulet from around his neck. “Did you just say ‘Let me help?’ ” he asked it.

  “Es-yip,” said Chip.

  Poseidon and Hades came closer. The three Olympians gazed at the amulet with hope in their eyes.

  “How can you help?” Zeus asked. “Do you have a plan? ’Cause we could really use one.”

  “E-bip ilent-sip,” Chip said.

  “Be silent?” Zeus glanced up at Hades and Poseidon. He put his finger to his lips. “Shh,” Zeus whispered. “Chip needs quiet time to think of a plan.”

  “O-nip!” squeaked Chip. “Ilence-sip is-ip e-thip an-plip.”

  “ ‘Silence is the plan,’ ” translated Hades. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Zeus thought for a minute. Finally he snapped his fingers. “I think Chip wants us to be quiet when the guards come back!” He stared at the amulet. “Right, Chip? Is that what you want us to do?”

  “Ight-rip,” said Chip.

  “And then what?” asked Poseidon. “What’s the rest of the plan?”

  But now Chip clammed up and wouldn’t say.

  “Maybe Chip doesn’t know the rest of the plan,” said Zeus. He slipped the amulet back inside the neck of his tunic. “Maybe we’ll just have to wing it when the time comes.”

  “We winged it before,” Hades said glumly. “That’s how we wound up here.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Zeus. “But—”

  “Shh!” hissed Poseidon. “I hear something.”

  Sure enough they could hear hooves trotting down the stairs. The Onocentaur, Zeus guessed. Good. One guard would be much easier to deal with than all three.

  “Lunchtime!” brayed the Onocentaur. Seconds later the door to the globe slid partway open. The half man, half donkey tossed a leather water pouch inside. Poseidon caught it before it could hit the floor.

  With one swift motion he pulled out the cork plug. He tipped the pouch toward him and drank, then passed it to the others.

  The Onocentaur laughed. “Heat making you thirsty, huh?” The creature pulled a loaf of bread and a big chunk of cheese from a bag slung over its shoulder. It tossed those in too.

  Hades caught the bread. Zeus caught the cheese. Holding on to the food, they stared at the Onocentaur but said nothing.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to say ‘thank you’?” it demanded.

  All three boys kept stubbornly silent. Suddenly Chip piped up. “Ank-thip ou-yip,” it said in its squeaky little voice.

  “Huh?” The Onocentaur looked from one boy to the other. “Who said that?”

  The boys didn’t reply. Their lips were zipped.

  But Chip’s weren’t. “Ust-jip e-mip,” it said.

  The creature scowled at the boys. “I was watching all of you. How come no one’s lips moved?”

  The Onocentaur kicked at the fiery door with one of its hooves, opening it wider. It took a step inside the globe. “Is someone else in here, hiding behind you?” It tried to peer around the boys.

  Staying silent, they scooted closer together, standing all in a row. The Onocentaur got even more suspicious. It rushed to the boys and pushed behind them to look for the source of the squeaky voice.

  Catching Poseidon’s and Hades’ eyes, Zeus nodded toward the door. The creature was behind them and the door was open in front of them. This was their chance to escape!

  Without a word the three boys leaped from the globe faster than even Zeus’s thunderbolt could have flashed. The minute they were out, Zeus threw the hunk of cheese at the fiery door. It slammed shut, trapping the Onocentaur inside.

  Bam! Bam! The creature brayed and kicked at the door, but to no avail.

  “Yes! Trapped!” yelled Poseidon. “See how you like it in there, Your Donkeyship.”

  The heat from the door had melted the cheese. Before it could glop onto the floor, Hades reached toward it with the bread loaf. The cheese fell on top.

  “Mmm, toasted cheese sandwich,” he said, taking a bite. He broke off cheesy chunks and handed them to the others.

  “Let’s go!” Zeus called over his shoulder as he made for the stairs. Only it sounded more like, “Mesh gor,” since his mouth was full of food. Hades and Poseidon understood, though. They followed right on his heels.

  Hyperion was nowhere in sight as the boys entered the upstairs room.

  “Where do you think he is?” Hades whispered.

  Poseidon pointed toward a window. “Sun’s high. So he’s probably off throwing fireballs at unlucky villagers. What I want to know is, where’s my trid
ent?”

  While Poseidon and Hades began looking around for their stolen magical objects, Zeus ran to the gigantic statue. Quickly he shimmied up it.

  Once he reached the top, he plucked his thunderbolt from the marble King Cronus’s open mouth, as easy as pulling a knife from butter. Just in time too.

  “You there! Halt!” The Manticore and the Hippalectryon padded and trot-strutted into the room to confront them.

  Zing! Zing! From his perch on the statue, Zeus whipped his five-foot-long thunderbolt back and forth in great swishes at them. They turned pale at the sight of the sizzling, sparking thunderbolt.

  “He pulled it out!” cried the Manticore.

  “Not even the great Hyperion was able to doodle-do that!” said the Hippalectryon. “We must inform him.” With that, the two creatures turned tail and ran out of the room.

  “Go get ’em, Bolt!” Zeus commanded. He released the thunderbolt. Happy to be free again, Bolt chased after the guards. Zeus scrambled down from the statue.

  “Ow! Ouch! Yikes!” Zeus could hear the creatures yelling as his thunderbolt chased them, zapping them with glee.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Theia

  I bet my trident’s in here,” said Poseidon. He thumped on a humongous wooden chest sitting in a corner of the room.

  Well, it looked humongous to the Olympians, anyway. To Hyperion it probably looked the size of a jewelry box, thought Zeus. And maybe that’s what it was. Or maybe it held the flame! Unfortunately, it was locked.

  Getting an idea, Zeus whistled toward the doorway. “Bolt! Come back, boy!” he called out. A few seconds later the thunderbolt zipped back to him.

  “Can you cut through this lock?” Zeus asked the bolt.

  Bolt reared back as if doubtful. Then, ignoring the lock, it sliced the top off the wooden chest instead.

  After a stunned moment Hades said, “Good thinking, Bolt!”

  Sparking with pride, the thunderbolt hovered nearby, waiting. Together the boys heaved the chest’s sliced-off lid onto the floor.

  When Hades and Zeus boosted Poseidon up to look inside, he gave a whoop. “Yes! I was right! The trident and helm are in there. Nothing else, though.”