Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan, John Rocco Read Free Book Online Page A

his confused siblings. “I’m your brother Zeus. Follow me, and I will give you freedom and revenge. Also honey and goat milk.”
    That was good enough for the gods. While Kronos retched and his fighters fumbled with their weapons, Zeus and his siblings turned into eagles and soared out of the palace.
    “Now what?” Hades asked.
    The six gods had gathered at Zeus’s secret lair on Mount Ida, which his siblings refused to call the Zeus Cave. Zeus had briefed them on what was happening in the world, but they all knew they couldn’t stay on Mount Ida very long. The nymphs had heard rumors whispered through the earth: Kronos was sending his Titans to scour the world for the escapees. He wanted them brought back, either in chains or in small pieces. He wasn’t particular.
    “Now we fight,” Zeus said.
    Poseidon grunted. He’d only been out of Kronos’s gut for a day, but he was already starting to dislike his youngest brother—this upstart Zeus, who thought he should be in charge just because he had rescued them.
    “I’m all for fighting Dad,” Poseidon said, “but that requires weapons. Do you have any?”
    Zeus scratched his ear. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “Well, no….”
    “Perhaps we can make peace,” Hestia suggested.
    The others stared at her as if she were crazy. Hestia was the eldest and gentlest of the gods, but her siblings didn’t take her seriously. You have to wonder how the world might’ve been different if Hestia had been put in charge, but alas, she wasn’t.
    “Uh, no,” said Demeter. “I will never forgive our father. Perhaps we could steal his scythe. We could chop him up like he did Ouranos! Then I could use the scythe for something better—like cutting wheat! Did you see those beautiful fields we flew over?”
    Hera scowled at her sister. “What is it with you and crops? All those years in Kronos’s gut, all you ever talked about was plants, which you never even saw before today!”
    Demeter blushed. “I don’t know. I always dream about green fields. They’re so peaceful and beautiful and—”
    “My children!” said a voice from the woods.
    Mother Rhea stepped into the clearing. She hugged each of her precious sons and daughters, weeping tears of joy over their freedom. Then she drew them together and said, “I know where you can get weapons.”
    She told them the story of the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Elder Cyclopes, whom Kronos had exiled to Tartarus for a second time.
    “The Hundred-Handed Ones are incredible stonemasons,” Rhea said. “They built Kronos’s palace.”
    “Which is pretty awesome,” Zeus admitted.
    “They are strong, and they hate Kronos,” Rhea continued. “They would be good in battle. As for the Cyclopes, they are talented blacksmiths. If anyone can forge weapons more powerful than your father’s scythe, they can.”
    Hades’s dark eyes gleamed. The idea of descending into the most dangerous, vilest part of creation somehow appealed to him. “So we go to Tartarus, and we bring back the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones.”
    “Piece of cake,” said Hera. She knew about cake, because Kronos had eaten lots of it. The crumbs and icing were always getting in her hair. “Let’s go.”
    A Tartarus jailbreak may not sound like an easy thing for you or me, but six gods can accomplish a lot when they put their minds to it. Hades found a cave system that led deep into the Underworld. He seemed to have a knack for navigating the tunnels. He led his siblings along the course of a subterranean river called the Styx until it spilled over a cliff into the void of Tartarus. The gods became bats (you could argue that they were already bats, but you know what I mean) and flew into the abyss.
    At the bottom, they found a gloomy landscape of rock spires, gray wastes, fiery pits, and poisonous fog, with all sorts of nasty monsters and evil spirits roaming about. Apparently Tartarus, the spirit of the pit, had been breeding more primordial gods