Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 1

Karl crouched in the emerald gloom, silently preparing to sprint. Twenty feet of grass and bracken separated the boy from instant death-or instant glory. He could spot the armored ridge of the dragon's backbone through a gap in the fronds of the fern trees, and he could hear the dreadful thunder of its snore. From here (if he were incredibly lucky), one perfectly placed lunge could pierce the creature's heart. But luck is scarce in Olympus.

Seven days of cunning and patience had led him to this forested glade on the hillside. He had no time to gaze at the island spread out below him like a patchwork quilt of farms and forests, nor to appreciate the breathtaking view of the wine-dark sea, the dimmer green of the mainland beyond, or the brooding, eternal presence of the Mountain above it all. He had to strike the dragon while it slept. He waited for the next snore, then eased the metal gauntlet off his battle-hand. Stealth must be his armor, not jingling mail. One clink of metal on metal, and he would have more flame than steel could stop.

He licked his lips and flexed his fingers, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his sword-fist as he awaited the next rumbling peal from the sleeping beast. His fingers tiptoed down the golden haft of his sword, gripped it, and eased it out an inch-no, half an inch. Half a whisper sighed out of the scabbard. Karl froze. Had the serpent heard it?

He crouched, ears strained to hear any hesitation, any acceleration, in the beast's breathing. Then, suddenly, he heard a bang of wood on wood-above him, behind him, and to his right. He swiveled on one heel and looked up. There was nothing there, nothing but the oddly geometrical green of trees on Olympus. But from inside that green leafiness he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps: the thump, thump of sneakers on wood; the clack, clack of heels descending a staircase. His ears led his eyes after the invisible footsteps, half expecting feet and legs to emerge from the bottom of the branches. But none came.

Instead, about three feet above the ground, the footsteps stopped, and he heard one word. "There!" It was his brother Jacob's voice.

"What in the world!?" The second voice, higher-pitched and incredulous, still seemed to come from the depths of the tree. Oh, great. A girl.

"He's been doing this for weeks," asserted the disembodied voice of Jacob.

Jacob, Karl's younger brother (by about ten minutes, Jacob always stressed), was hardly an identical twin. Where Karl was proud and brave, Jacob was intelligent and sly. He hovered about the edges of Karl's life, looking for the chance to show him up. Such chances rarely came. But this was his perfect moment. Jacob stood on the stairs of his suburban basement and surveyed the scene. There, kneeling on the concrete floor, was his brother Karl in his cybersuit; and here, leaning over his shoulder, was this girl who, for some strange reason, had never seen such a thing before.

Any of Jacob's classmates, of course, would have known the cybersuit in a flash-half the ads on MTV these days were pushing it. ("Olympus-it's not just a game. It's the new reality!") But to someone who wasn't up on modern teen culture, it must look pretty bizarre, especially in the dim light of a single red light bulb hanging from a rafter. Would a healthy American teenager strap himself into mechanized body armor dangling from an overhead boom? Would a normal kid writhe and twist on the floor, struggling with invisible enemies?

Back in Olympus, Karl frantically tried to get rid of Jacob. If the dragon overheard his voice, it was all over-and there was nowhere for him to hide this time! He waved his hand furiously at the trees and bushes, motioning for silence. The female voice floated out of the greenery. "Is he having a fit?"

Desperate, Karl remembered sign language. He and Jacob shared a grandfather who could only talk through signs. Slowly and deliberately, he spelled out D-R-A-G-O-N. Then he added, rapidly and rudely, "Shut up!"

Jacob announced a little pompously, "That's sign language." Then he asked, "Do you know sign language?"

"A little-just from watching the interpreters at our church."

Interpreters? Karl wondered. Church? Who was this girl? What was she doing in his basement?

She continued. "But I couldn't follow that. What did he say?"

Jacob weighed this new opportunity. This was too rich! "Well, you see," he began, "He thinks he's a dragon. That's why he's not saying any words."

Enraged, Karl signed, "Not!" Then he slashed his finger across his throat.

The girl asked, "Does he want us to be quiet?"

"Oh, no," Jacob said. "He's afraid we want to cut his head off. It's a very advanced case of paranoia."

The girl sounded concerned. "Paranoia? That sounds serious! What are your parents doing about this?"

"Dad can't do much about it," Jacob said, with a fair imitation of a heart breaking. "The doctors say it is curable, but the therapy is terribly, terribly expensive."

Seething with fury, Karl turned his back on the ghostly voice of his maddening brother, who lectured on about diagnoses and prescriptions. The dragon snored on-but then the dragon, unlike Karl, was completely in Olympus.

Steeling himself, Karl slid his blade from its sheath. Even in the green darkness beneath the trees, the sword shone. After so many days of stalking the quarry, he would not let his brother's taunts distract him. Maybe he could even profit from the situation-his microphone had to be picking up some of this chatter, and the beast was still sleeping soundly. Perhaps he could risk moving a little closer. Success, and he would be one of the heroes of Olympus. He would collect everything this dragon had taken from other, less skillful, players. Failure, and he would be dead-and after that, Dad would kill him when he found out what happened to the lawnmower money.

He parted the underbrush with his blade and tiptoed toward the monster. "Now what's he up to? He's walking, but he isn't going anywhere," the girl noted. "And what is that thing he's strapped into?"

"Well, you see," said Jacob, "that harness he is wearing is for his own protection. His convulsions get so violent that if he weren't strapped into that mechanical suit, he would have slammed right into a concrete wall."

Karl threaded his way between the tall grass and the fern trees. It was eerie to have two bodiless voices trailing after him. They bobbed along behind him, passing harmlessly through tree branches. He was close enough now that the hot breath from the dragon's mouth bent the tall grasses in front of him. He stopped and thought.

He couldn't be more than six feet from the dragon's mouth. With a beast this size, there had to be a better place to be six feet away from. He turned right and worked his way through the grasses along what should be the flank of the creature. The female voice broke in. "He turned around! What's he doing now?"

Jacob said, "Disorientation. It's a side effect of the medication, they say."

He had gone about half the distance he judged to be safe (if anything can be called safe when you are sneaking up on a dragon). He was debating how much further he should go when the question was suddenly decided for him. He stumbled over the dragon's tail. The rumbling roar of the dragon's snore ended in a startled (and unexpectedly shrill) yelp. Karl would have frozen in surprise if he hadn't been so busy falling down.

It was the fall that saved him. Had he hesitated-even half a second-that first bolt of flame would have fried him. As it was, he tucked himself into an ungainly somersault and rolled back up on his feet. By this time, his mind was back in gear and he flung himself through the air in the general direction of the beast's hide. He half saw the tail, thick as a cedar trunk, lashing through the grasses where he had been standing. One touch of that and his legs would have been pulp. A bolt of sulfur-yellow flame sizzled through the air where he wasn't. A tree took the blast head on, exploding into a fireball.

His body was still hurtling through the air, but Karl's blade seemed to have a mind of its own. The tip carved a deadly curve through the air. The great green belly of the beast took the point, and then Karl landed, head and shoulders first, on the sword hilt. The blade went home. The creature shrieked, wrenching its body in a great arc of agony that hurled Karl through the air. He smashed into the brush, still clutching his sword. Trees were snapping left and right as the lashing tail splintered the forest. Bursts of flame set the underbrush on fire.

The girl shrieked. "Something's wrong!"

"It's the convulsions-sometimes they last for hours."

He had wounded the monster, but how badly? Should he run for it, hoping the creature was too weak to fly? He forced himself to think, pushing through his fear. If he had wounded it severely, he should stay to finish it off. You don't get drachmas for leaving a sick beast to die by itself. But what if it wasn't mortally injured? Then there was even more reason to go for the deathblow. Dragons were notorious for keeping a grudge!

The blasts of flame were losing their force. Was that weakness, or was it a trick? Dragons were clever. He tried to remember what he had heard about dragon flame. It was hard to concentrate with the trees crashing around him and the flames roaring overhead.

He uprooted a tuft of grass and hurled it into the fern-trees to his left. The dragon went for it, rearing up to send a blast into the ferns that turned them into an instant bonfire. So it had been faking! But now the chest and belly of the beast were exposed for a moment. This part he did remember-the old man at the weapon shop had said the heart lay just above and just between those powerful forelimbs. He had paid good money for that tip. He hoped it was worth it. He lunged across the open space, eyes fixed on that one vulnerable spot. Again, the blade did its work. The heart, powerful enough to drive so great a beast, practically exploded as the sword pierced it. Karl was blasted backwards into the ferns. The tail lashed just over his head in the death-throes of the mighty serpent.

As Karl lay on his back in the brush, Jacob's continuing chatter penetrated his consciousness. "He's resting peacefully now. They say that's a good sign-but it hardly ever lasts." The girl timidly stepped out into the basement and peered down at Karl.

Karl reached up and loosened the chinstrap on his helmet. He pulled it from his head. As he did so, Olympus vanished from view. Inside the visor of the helmet, two tiny video screens still showed the green forest and the twitching dragon. From two earpieces one could hear the faint sounds of burning trees. He set the helmet carefully to his side. For the first time, he realized that he was lying flat on his back in his basement, looking up at Jacob and a girl. "You cockroach!" he roared.

Jacob squeaked out a laugh, of sorts. "I think I hear my homework calling." He scrambled up the basement stairs with remarkable speed.

With Jacob gone, Karl found himself staring up into the wide blue eyes of the girl. "Hi," he said.

"Hello," she replied, cautiously. She waited to see whether he would begin to hiss or merely start chewing the furniture. After an uncomfortable pause, she asked, "What on earth is going on?"

"Who cares about Earth?" he asked, eyes glowing.

She bolted for the stairs.