Odysseus in the Serpent Maze Read Online Free PDF

princeling.”
    “You will indeed—or have me to answer to!” Autolycus warned.
    Odysseus made a face.
    “Try not to be too disappointed, grandson,” said Autolycus.
    Two days later, as Mentor bent over the side of the ship, the last of his breakfast disappearing into the white-capped waves, Odysseus laughed. “So much for Grandfather’s soothsayer.”
    Mentor groaned in response. “I’ve nothing left in my belly.”
    Black clouds scudded across the sky. Cold winds from the north blown by the god Boreas filled the sail, but the water had turned a dark, forbidding green. Riding high on the waves, the little ship lurched alarmingly.
    “Of course,” Odysseus continued, soothsayers only tell people what they want to hear; otherwise who’d pay them?”
    Mentor moaned again. He was wrong. There was still some bit of breakfast left, and it too, was threatening a return.
    Odysseus patted him on the back. “As I remember, you were the one looking forward to this voyage.”
    Mentor’s groan had turned to a constant low moaning.
    “Try to enjoy it.”
    Odysseus left Mentor to his complaints and found Captain Tros standing with one hand braced against the mast. The sail had long since been hauled down and stowed away, safe from the storm, and the oarsmen strained at their work. The broad-bladed oars knifed into the water in powerful, rhythmic strokes.
    “How bad is it really?” Odysseus asked.
    Tros looked up into the wind, squinting. “Hard to tell. We could turn back and beach her till the storm passes. On the other hand, we’re only a day’s sail from Ithaca, and we could head there. But that would mean going into the teeth of this wind.”
    He saw the alarm in Odysseus’ eyes and misread it. “All will be fine, Prince Odysseus, trust me. She’s a sturdy ship.”
    “I’m not afraid,” said Odysseus. He did not add that his alarm was at ending the voyage too soon in Ithaca, where his mother and father would fuss over him and keep him from any more adventures. Till I am an old man , he thought. As old as Tros here .
    “All the omens were good when we left,” Tros said. Then he turned and—more to himself than Odysseus—murmured, “Perhaps we can make harbour at Zacynthus.”
    For the first time, Odysseus actually smiled and touched a hand to the spearhead amulet around his neck. “The Argo came through worse than this.”
    “That it did, Prince Odysseus,” said Tros. Then he turned to shout at the oarsmen. “Put your backs to it, boys! Let me see those muscles rip!”
    Odysseus looked for a moment at the straining oarsmen, then he returned to where Mentor was emptying his stomach once again, this time of nothing more than bile.
    The storm got worse, not better, with waves breaking over the ship and landing each time with the force of a club on bare skin. Tros ordered the oars drawn in since there was little the oarsmen could do in such a turbulent sea.
    All around Odysseus and Mentor, the men began to pray.
    “Poseidon, save us,” cried a sailor not much older than Mentor, but well muscled from his time at the oars.
    “Triton, hear our prayers,” sang out another.
    Either the gods weren’t listening or they weren’t in the mood to grant wishes. Hour after hour, the ship was driven helplessly beneath an olive-black sky. Each new wave lifted her up, then slammed her down again with an impact that made the planks shudder and the men cry out anew.
    “Poseidon!”
    “Triton!”
    “Nereus!”
    “Save us!”
    Mentor let go of the side of the boat long enough to turn to Odysseus. “This is your fault, you know.”
    “My fault?”
    A wave splashed between them.
    “You forgot to give thanks to Athena.”
    “When?” Odysseus asked. “I always remember Athena. I was dedicated to her as an infant.” He started to slip on the wet deck and grabbed on to the railing.
    “Well, you forgot this time,” Mentor insisted. “Back at the feast. When you were telling everyone what great heroes we were. You