will release my remaining followers immediately,” said Dionysus.
Lycurgus laughed. “Or what?”
“Or your kingdom will turn barren. No vines will grow. No fruit will ripen. No plants of any kind will bloom.”
“Ha! Is that all?”
“No,” Dionysus said coldly. “Also, you will be afflicted with madness. Do you refuse?”
“I refuse!” Lycurgus grinned. “So where is this madness—ACK!”
Lycurgus doubled over in pain. Then he stood bolt upright and screamed in falsetto.
His son Dryas grabbed his arm in concern. “Dad! Are you okay?”
Lycurgus looked at the prince, but all he saw was a writhing pillar of grapevines. The king stumbled back in horror. “The grapes! They’re everywhere! The grapes are taking over!”
Lycurgus snatched a double-bladed ax from the nearest guard and chopped at the pillar of vines.
“Dad!” the vines wailed.
“Die, grapes!” Lycurgus chopped and hacked until the wailing stopped. The grapevines lay in pieces all around his feet.
The king’s vision cleared, and he saw what he had done. Lycurgus sobbed in misery and fell to his knees, the blood of his dead son glistening on his ax.
If Dionysus felt any regret, he didn’t show it. After all, Hera had taught him how to use madness to punish his foes. Dionysus had learned from the best.
“Lycurgus, this is the price of your insolence,” said the wine god. “Until you free my followers and recognize me as a god, your entire kingdom will suffer.”
“Kill him!” the king screamed.
The guards surged forward, but Dionysus simply looked at them and they backed away. They could see the power and divine anger in his eyes.
“Your king will never bow to me,” Dionysus told them. “Your land will suffer until he is…removed. Think on this.”
Dionysus strode out of the palace.
In the following days, the countryside withered. In the city and the fields, every plant shriveled up. Fruit rotted. Bread turned to mold. The water in the wells turned warm and scummy. The farmers couldn’t grow anything. The townspeople couldn’t feed their families.
Finally, after two weeks, the royal guards stormed the palace and captured King Lycurgus. Nobody protested. Nobody had liked the king much anyway. The guards dragged him kicking and screaming into the town square. They tied his limbs to four horses, then thwacked the horses’ rumps and set them running in four different directions.
Yeah. The king’s death was messy.
The people of the town released Dionysus’s followers. Immediately the plants began to grow again. Flowers bloomed. Grapevines overtook the palace walls and bore juicy bunches of grapes.
The townspeople learned to make wine. They started building Dionysus’s first temple. And that’s how Dionysus won his first victory.
After that, he decided to take his show on the road. He gathered his followers and began the Dionysus Grand World Tour of Madness and Wine-Tasting. (Mr. D won’t admit it, but he’s still got some unsold event T-shirts in a box in his closet—all size adult small.)
Some towns accepted Dionysus and his army of drunken bacchae without a fight. When that happened, everything was sunshine and smiley faces. The town got free wine and the knowledge of how to make it. The bacchae threw a big party. Everybody honored Dionysus, and the next morning the army moved on, leaving a bunch of broken glasses, crushed party hats, and people with hangovers.
Not everybody liked this new god and his followers, though. King Pentheus of Thebes distrusted Dionysus. The god’s army of drunks seemed dangerous and barely under control. But Pentheus had heard what happened to Lycurgus, so he played it cool when Dionysus came to visit.
“Give me some time to think about your offer,” the king said.
Dionysus bowed. “No problem. We’ll be in the woods to the east, holding our nightly revels. I would invite you to join us, but…” The god smiled mysteriously. “They are not open to unbelievers. Trust me, though. You’re missing quite a party! We’ll come back tomorrow to get your answer.”
The army left in peace and made camp in the woods.
King Pentheus was burning with curiosity. What was this new god about? Did he have secret weapons? Why were his revels closed to outsiders?
The king’s spies reported that many of his own townspeople had already accepted Dionysus as a god without waiting for the king’s permission. Hundreds were planning to sneak out of the city and join the revels in the woods tonight.
“I have to know more about this new threat,” Pentheus grumbled. “And I can’t trust secondhand reports. Too many of my own people already believe in this new god! I need to spy on Dionysus’s camp myself.”
His guards