Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,130

pay for damages. OW! OW!”

It made his audiences go much more quickly.

Dionysus and his followers didn’t know this. They spent all their time partying on Mount Nysa. They marched into town in a happy parade, handing out free grapes, grapevines, and glasses of wine, clanging cymbals, singing songs, and stumbling into pedestrians. Dionysus noted the nervous faces of the townspeople. Many of them bore scars from whippings. Dionysus didn’t like that, but his followers were announcing him as a god, singing his praises, and dancing around him. They’d dressed him in expensive purple robes and put a crown of ivy leaves on his head. He was supposed to be the newest Olympian, master of wine and lord of parties. If he ran away, it would probably ruin the effect.

They made their way into the royal palace.

Lycurgus didn’t normally get hundreds of satyrs and nymphs bursting into his house in a party mood. For a few moments, he was too stunned to act.

Dionysus approached the throne, mentally rehearsing his lines.

“King Lycurgus,” he said. “I am Dionysus, the god of wine, and these are my followers.”

The king stared at him. The boy looked no more than fourteen or fifteen, with long dark hair and a pretty face—almost girlish, Lycurgus thought.

“You’re a god,” the king said flatly. “I see. And what exactly is wine?”

Dionysus’s followers raised their cups in salute. Some laid potted grapevines and bottles of wine at the steps of the throne.

“Wine is a new drink,” Dionysus explained. “But it’s more than just a drink. It’s a religious experience!”

Dionysus began to explain wine’s other virtues, but Lycurgus held up his hand for silence.

“Why are you here?” he demanded. “What do you want from me?”

“We simply want to share knowledge about wine,” Dionysus said. “If you allow your people to learn the arts of grape harvesting and wine making, your kingdom will flourish. Also, I will be your city’s patron god. All I ask is that you build me a temple.”

Lycurgus’s mouth twitched. It had been a long time since he’d been tempted to laugh. “A temple. Is that all?”

Dionysus shuffled from foot to foot. “Erm. Yes.”

“Well, young god, I invented something too. Would you like to see it? I call it the new and improved whip. I use it to get rid of PEOPLE WHO WASTE MY TIME!”

King Lycurgus started whipping everyone. If he saw it, he whipped it. He whipped it good.

Dionysus’s followers scattered. They hadn’t expected a fight, and they couldn’t defend themselves with grapes and glasses. Many wore only scanty tunics, so the whip really hurt. Dionysus’s foster mother Ambrosia got struck in the face and fell down dead at Dionysus’s feet.

“NOOOOO!” Dionysus wailed.

Palace guards closed in on all sides, rounding up the satyrs and nymphs and arresting them.

Dionysus fled, pursued by guards. He was almost captured but jumped from a balcony into the ocean, where the Nereid Thetis conveniently came to his rescue. She allowed Dionysus to breathe underwater and bound his wounds while he waited for the king’s soldiers to give up the search.

Dionysus cried bitterly as the sea nymph held him. “Thetis, I can’t do anything right! Everyone who gets close to me dies or gets punished for believing in me!”

Thetis stroked his hair soothingly. “Don’t give up, Dionysus. You will be a god, but you can’t let jealous mortals stand in your way. Go back to Lycurgus and teach him that he cannot disrespect you like this.”

“He’s got a whip!”

“You have weapons too.”

Dionysus thought about that. A fire began to burn in his stomach, as it had when he took his first gulp of wine. “You’re right. Thanks, Thetis.”

“Go get ’em, champ.”

Dionysus marched out of the sea and straight back to Lycurgus’s palace.

Was that the moment when Dionysus changed from a demigod into a full god? Nobody really knows. His evolution was gradual, but definitely he got more powerful as his followers increased, and when he decided to confront Lycurgus, I think that was the first time he believed in himself as much as the bacchae believed in him.

King Lycurgus was sitting on his throne, talking to his eldest son, Prince Dryas, who had just arrived and was wondering why there were a bunch of dead nymphs and satyrs on the floor.

Dionysus stormed in, soaking wet and with a steely gleam in his eyes.

Lycurgus was even more surprised than he had been the first time. “You again?” asked the king. “All your followers are dead or in prison. Do you wish to join them?”

“You