標題: Rick Riordan-The Battle of the Labyrinth[Percy Jackson 4] --END [打印本頁] 作者: koko 時間: 2010-3-17 19:39 標題: Rick Riordan-The Battle of the Labyrinth[Percy Jackson 4] --END
本帖最後由 koko 於 2010-3-20 02:03 編輯
The Battle of the Labyrinth, released on May 8, 2008, is the fourth book in the series.
After being attacked by monster cheerleaders at his new school, Percy returns to Camp Half-Blood and learns about "The Labyrinth", part of the palace of King Minos in Crete that, according to Greek mythology, was designed by Daedalus. During a game/battle with giant scorpions, Annabeth and Percy find an entrance into the Labyrinth. Percy soon learns that Luke had used the entrance and will lead his army through the Labyrinth straight into the heart of camp. To get into the Labyrinth, Percy has to find the Delta Symbol (Δ) on a passageway, touch it, and then enter the Labyrinth to find Daedalus.
Using the Labyrinth, Percy tries to find Daedalus so Luke cannot get Ariadne's string, thereby foiling Luke's invasion. He gets the help he needs from a mortal girl named Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who can also see a path in the Labyrinth leading to Daedalus. During their adventure she hits Kronos in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush. Kronos finds out that Nico di Angelo is a son of Hades and also could be the child of the prophecy. Luke reaches Daedalus and gets Adriadne's string which he uses to lead his army to attack Camp Half-Blood. Grover comes to the rescue and causes a Panic (a scream that symbolizes the wild god Pan) to scare away the enemy. After the battle, Daedalus sacrifices himself to close the Labyrinth, which is tied to his life.作者: koko 時間: 2010-3-17 19:40
The Battle of the Labyrinth
Book Four of Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rick Riordan
ONE
I BATTLE THE
CHEERLEADING SQUAD
The last thing I wanted to do on my summer break was blow up another
school. But there I was Monday morning, the first week of June, sitting in
my mom’s car in front of Goode High School on East 81st.
Goode was this big brownstone building overlooking the East River. A
bunch of BMWs and Lincoln Town Cars were parked out front. Staring up
at the fancy stone archway, I wondered how long it would take me to get
kicked out of this place.
“Just relax.” My mom didn’t sound relaxed. “It’s only an orientation tour.
And remember, dear, this is Paul’s school. So try not to…you know.”
“Destroy it?”
“Yes.”
Paul Blofis, my mom’s boyfriend, was standing out front, greeting future
ninth graders as they came up the steps. With his salt-and-pepper hair, denim
clothes, and leather jacket, he reminded me of a TV actor, but he was just an
English teacher. He’d managed to convince Goode High School to accept
me for ninth grade, despite the fact that I’d gotten kicked out of every school
I’d ever attended. I’d tried to warn him it wasn’t a good idea, but he
wouldn’t listen.
I looked at my mom. “You haven’t told him the truth about me, have you?
She tapped her fingers nervously on the wheel. She was dressed up for a
job interview-her best blue dress and high-heeled shoes.
“I thought we should wait,” she admitted.
“So we don’t scare him away.”
“I’m sure orientation will be fine, Percy, It’s only one morning.”
“Great,” I mumbled. “I can get expelled before I start the school year.”
“Think positive. Tomorrow you’re off to camp! After orientation, you’ve
got your date-”
“It’s not a date!” I protested. “It’s just Annabeth, Mom. Jeez!”
“She’s coming all the way from camp to meet you.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You’re going to the movies.”
“Yeah.”
“Just the two of you.”
“Mom!”
She held up her hands in surrender, but I could tell she was trying hard not
to smile. “You’d better get inside, dear. I’ll see you tonight.”
I was about to get out of the car when I looked over the steps of the school.
Paul Blofis was greeting a girl with frizzy red hair. She wore a maroon Tshirt
and ratty jeans decorated with marker drawings. When she turned, I
caught a glimpse of her face, and the hairs on my arms stood straight up.
“Percy?” my mom asked. “What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing,” I stammered. “Does the school have a side entrance?”
“Down the block on the right. Why?”
“I’ll see you later.”
My mom started to say something, but I got out of the car and ran, hoping
the redheaded girl wouldn’t see me.
What was she doing here? Not even my luck could be this bad.
Yeah, right. I was about to find out my luck could get a lot worse.
* * *
Sneaking into orientation didn’t work out too well. Two cheerleaders in
purple-and-white uniforms were standing at the side entrance, waiting to
ambush freshmen.
“Hi!” They smiled, which I figured was the first and last time any
cheerleaders would be that friendly to me. One was blond with icy blue eyes.
The other was African American with dark curly hair like Medusa’s (and
believe me, I know what I’m talking about). Both girls had their names
stitched in cursive on their uniforms, but with my dyslexia, the words looked
like meaningless spaghetti.
“Welcome to Goode,” the blond girl said. “You are so going to love it.”
But as she looked me up and down, her expression said something more
like, Eww, who is this loser?
The other girl stepped uncomfortably close to me. I studied the stitching
on her uniform and made out Kelli. She smelled like roses and something
else I recognized from riding lessons at camp-the scent of freshly washed
horses. It was a weird smell for a cheerleader. Maybe she owned a horse or
something. Anyway, she stood so close I got the feeling she was going to try
to push me down the steps. “What’s your name, fish?”
“Fish?”
“Freshman.”
“Uh, Percy.”
The girls exchanged looks.
“Oh, Percy Jackson,” the blond one said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
That sent a major Uh-oh chill down my back. They were blocking the
entrance, smiling in a not-very-friendly way. My hand crept instinctively
toward my pocket, where I kept my lethal ballpoint pen, Riptide.
Then another voice came from inside the building. “Percy?” It was Paul
Blofis, somewhere down the hallway. I’d never been so glad to hear his
voice.
The cheerleaders backed off. I was so anxious to get past them I
accidentally kneed Kelli in the thigh.
Clang.
Her leg made a hollow, metallic sound, like I’d just hit a flagpole.
“Ow,” she muttered. “Watch it, fish.”
I glanced down, but her leg looked like a regular old leg. I was too
freaked out to ask questions. I dashed into the hall, the cheerleaders laughing
behind me.
“There you are!” Paul told me. “Welcome to Goode!”
“Hey, Paul-uh, Mr. Blofis.” I glanced back, but the weird cheerleaders
had disappeared.
“Percy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Yeah, uh-”
Paul clapped me on the back. “Listen, I know you’re nervous, but don’t
worry. We get a lot of kids here with ADHD and dyslexia. The teachers
know how to help.”
I almost wanted to laugh. If only ADHD and dyslexia were my biggest
worries. I mean, I knew Paul was trying to help, but if I told him the truth
about me, he’d either think I was crazy or he’d run away screaming. Those
cheerleaders, for instance. I had a bad feeling about them….
Then I looked down the hall, and I remembered I had another problem.
The redheaded girl I’d seen on the front steps was just coming in the main
entrance.
Don’t notice me, I prayed.
She noticed me. Her eyes widened.
“Where’s the orientation?” I asked Paul.
“The gym. That way. But-”
“Bye.”
“Percy?” he called, but I was already running.
* * *
I thought I’d lost her.
A bunch of kids were heading for the gym, and soon I was just one of
three hundred fourteen-year-olds all crammed into the bleachers. A
marching band played an out-of-tune fight song that sounded like somebody
hitting a bag of cats with a metal baseball bat. Older kids, probably student
council members, stood up front modeling the Goode school uniform and
looking all, Hey, we’re cool. Teachers milled around, smiling and shaking
hands with students. The walls of the gym were plastered with big purple-
and-white banners that said WELCOME FUTURE FRESHMEN, GOODE
IS GOOD, WE’RE ALL FAMILY, and a bunch of other happy slogans that
pretty much made me want to throw up.
None of the other freshmen looked thrilled to be here, either. I mean,
coming to orientation in June, when school doesn’t even start until
September, is not cool. But at Goode, “We prepare to excel early!” At least
that’s what the brochure said.
The marching band stopped playing. A guy in a pinstripe suit came to the
microphone and started talking, but the sound echoed around the gym so I
had no idea what he was saying. He might’ve been gargling.
Someone grabbed my shoulder,” What are you doing here?”
It was her: my redheaded nightmare.
“Rachel Elizabeth Dare,” I said.
Her jaw dropped like she couldn’t believe I had the nerve to remember
her name. “And you’re Percy somebody. I didn’t get your full name last
December when you tried to kill me.”
“Look, I wasn’t-I didn’t-What are you doing here?”
“Same as you, I guess. Orientation.”
“You live in New York?”
“What, you thought I lived at the Hoover Dam?”
It had never occurred to me. Whenever I thought about her (and I’m not
saying I thought about her; she just like crossed my mind from time to time,
okay?), I always figured she lived in the Hoover Dam area, since that’s
where I’d met her. We’d spent maybe ten minutes together, during which
time I’d accidentally swung a sword at her, she’d saved my life, and I’d run
away chased by a band of supernatural killing machines. You know, your
typical chance meeting.
Some guy behind us whispered, “Hey, shut up. The cheerleaders are
talking!”
“Hi, guys!” a girl bubbled into the microphone. It was the blonde I’d seen
at the entrance. “My name is Tammi, and this is like, Kelli.” Kelli did a
cartwheel.
Next to me, Rachel yelped like someone had stuck her with a pin. A few
kids looked over and snickered, but Rachel just stared at the cheerleaders in
horror. Tammi didn’t seem to notice the outburst. She started talking about
all the great ways we could get involved during our freshman year.
“Run,” Rachel told me. “Now.”
“Why?”
Rachel didn’t explain. She pushed her way to the edge of the bleachers,
ignoring the frowning teachers and grumbling kids she was stepping on.
I hesitated. Tammi was explaining how we were about to break into small
groups and tour the school. Kelli caught my eye and gave me an amused
smile, like she was waiting to see what I’d do. It would look bad if I left
right now. Paul Blofis was down there with the rest of the teachers. He’d
wonder what was wrong.
Then I thought about Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and the special ability she’d
shown last winter at Hoover Dam. She’d been able to see a group of security
guards who weren’t guards at all, who weren’t even human. My heart
pounding, I got up and followed her out of the gym.
* * *
I found Rachel in the band room. She was hiding behind a bass drum in
the percussion section.
“Get over here!” she said. “Keep your head down!”
I felt pretty silly hiding behind a bunch of bongos, but I crouched down
beside her.
“Did they follow you?” Rachel asked.
“You mean the cheerleaders?”
She nodded nervously.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “What are they? What did you see?”
Her green eyes were bright with fear. She had a sprinkle of freckles on her
face that reminded me of constellations. Her maroon T-shirt read
HARVARD ART DEPT. “You…you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Oh, yeah, I would,” I promised. “I know you can see through the Mist.”
“The what?”
“The Mist. It’s…well, it’s like this veil that hides the way things really are.
Some mortals are born with the ability to see through it. Like you.”
She studied me carefully. “You did that at Hoover Dam. You called me a
mortal. Like you’re not.”
I felt like punching a bongo. What was I thinking? I could never explain. I
shouldn’t even try.
“Tell me,” she begged. “You know what it means. All these horrible
things I see?”
“Look, this is going to sound weird. Do you know anything about Greek
myths?”
“Like…the Minotaur and the Hydra?”
“Yeah, just try not to say those names when I’m around, okay?”
“And the Furies,” she said, warming up. “And the Sirens, and-”
“Okay!” I looked around the band hall, sure that Rachel was going to
make a bunch of bloodthirsty nasties pop out of the walls; but we were still
alone. Down the hallway, I heard a mob of kids coming out of the
gymnasium. They were starting the group tours. We didn’t have long to talk.
“All those monsters,” I said, “all the Greek gods-they’re real.”
“I knew it!”
I would’ve been more comfortable if she’d called me a liar, but Rachel
looked like I’d just confirmed her worst suspicion.
“You don’t know how hard it’s been,” she said. “For years I thought I was
going crazy. I couldn’t tell anybody. I couldn’t-” Her eyes narrowed.
“Wait. Who are you? I mean really?”
“I’m not a monster.”
“Well, I know that. I could see if you were. You look like…you. But
you’re not human, are you?”
I swallowed. Even though I’d had three years to get used to who I was, I’d
never talked about it with a regular mortal before-I mean, except for my
mom, but she already knew. I don’t know why, but I took the plunge.
“I’m a half-blood,” I said. “I’m half human.”
“And half what?”
Just then Tammi and Kelli stepped into the band room. The doors
slammed shut behind them.
“There you are, Percy Jackson,” Tammi said. “It’s time for your
orientation.”
* * *
“They’re horrible!” Rachel gasped.
Tammi and Kelli were still wearing their purple-and-white cheerleader
costumes, holding pom-poms from the rally.
“What do they really look like?” I asked, but Rachel seemed too stunned
to answer.
“Oh, forget her.” Tammi gave me a brilliant smile and started walking
toward us. Kelli stayed by the doors, blocking our exit.
They’d trapped us. I knew we’d have to fight our way out, but Tammi’s
smile was so dazzling it distracted me. Her blue eyes were beautiful, and the
way her hair swept over her shoulders…
“Percy,” Rachel warned.
I said something really intelligent like, “Uhhh?”
Tammi was getting closer. She held out her pom-poms.
“Percy!” Rachel’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.
“Snap out of it!”
It took all my willpower, but I got my pen out of my pocket and uncapped
it. Riptide grew into a three-foot-long bronze sword, its blade glowing with a
faint golden light. Tammi’s smile turned to a sneer.
“Oh, come on,” she protested. “You don’t need that. How about a kiss
instead?”
She smelled like roses and clean animal fur-a weird but somehow
intoxicating smell.
Rachel pinched my arm, hard. “Percy, she wants to bite you! Look at
her!”
She’s just jealous,” Tammi looked back at Kelli. “May I, mistress?”
Kelli was still blocking the door, licking her lips hungrily. “Go ahead,
Tammi. You’re doing fine.”
Tammi took another step forward, but I leveled the tip of my sword at her
chest. “Get back.”
She snarled. “Freshmen,” she said with disgust. “This is our school, halfblood.
We feed on whom we choose!”
Then she began to change. The color drained out of her face and arms.
Her skin turned as white as chalk, her eyes completely red. Her teeth grew
into fangs.
“A vampire!” I stammered. Then I noticed her legs. Below the
cheerleader skirt, her left leg was brown and shaggy with a donkey’s hoof.
Her right leg was shaped like a human leg, but it was made of bronze. “Uhh,
a vampire with-”
“Don’t mention the legs!” Tammi snapped. “It’s rude to make fun!”
She advanced on her weird, mismatched legs. She looked totally bizarre,
especially with the pom-poms, but I couldn’t laugh-not facing those red
eyes and sharp fangs.
“A vampire, you say?” Kelli laughed. “That silly legend was based on us,
you fool. We are empousai, servants of Hecate.”
“Mmmm.” Tammi edged closer to me. “Dark magic formed us from
animal, bronze, and ghost! We exist to feed on the blood of young men.
Now come, give me that kiss!”
She bared her fangs. I was so paralyzed I couldn’t move, but Rachel threw
a snare drum at the empousa’s head.
The demon hissed and batted the drum away. It went rolling along the
aisles between music stands, its springs rattling against the drumhead.
Rachel threw a xylophone, but the demon just swatted that away, too.
“I don’t usually kill girls,” Tammi growled. “But for you, mortal, I’ll
make an exception. Your eyesight is a little too good!”
She lunged at Rachel.
“No!” I slashed with Riptide. Tammi tried to dodge my blade, but I sliced
straight through her cheerleader uniform, and with a horrible wail she
exploded into dust all over Rachel.
Rachel coughed. She looked like she’d just had a sack of flour dumped on
her head. “Gross!”
“Monsters do that,” I said. “Sorry.”
“You killed my trainee!” Kelli yelled. “You need a lesson in school spirit,
half-blood!”
Then she too began to change. Her wiry hair turned into flickering flames.
Her eyes turned red. She grew fangs. She loped toward us, her brass foot and
hoof clopping unevenly on the band-room floor.
“I am senior empousa,” she growled. “No hero has bested me in a
thousand years.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Then you’re overdue!”
Kelli was a lot faster than Tammi. She dodged my first strike and rolled
into the brass section, knocking over a row of trombones with a mighty
crash. Rachel scrambled out of the way. I put myself between her and the
empousa. Kelli circled us, her eyes going from me to the sword.
“Such a pretty little blade,” she said. “What a shame it stands between
us.”
Her form shimmered-sometimes a demon, sometimes a pretty
cheerleader. I tried to keep my mind focused, but it was really distracting.
“Poor dear.” Kelli chuckled. “You don’t even know what’s happening, do
you? Soon, your pretty little camp in flames, your friends made slaves to the
Lord of Time, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It would be merciful
to end your life now, before you have to see that.”
From down the hall, I heard voices. A tour group was approaching. A man
was saying something about locker combinations.
The empousa’s eyes lit up. “Excellent! We’re about to have company!”
She picked up a tuba and threw it at me. Rachel and I ducked. The tuba
sailed over our heads and crashed through the window.
The voices in the hall died down.
“Percy!” Kelli shouted, pretending to be scared, “why did you throw
that?”
I was too surprised to answer. Kelli picked up a music stand and swiped a
row of clarinets and flutes. Chairs and musical instruments crashed to the
floor.
“Stop it!” I said.
People were tromping down the hall now, coming in our direction.
“Time to greet our visitors!” Kelli bared her fangs and ran for the doors. I
charged after her with Riptide. I had to stop her from hurting the mortals.
“Percy, don’t!” Rachel shouted. But I hadn’t realized what Kelli was up to
until it was too late.
Kelli flung open the doors. Paul Blofis and a bunch of freshmen stepped
back in shock. I raised my sword.
At the last second, the empousa turned toward me like a cowering victim.
“Oh no, please!” she cried. I couldn’t stop my blade. It was already in
motion.
Just before the celestial bronze hit her, Kelli exploded into flames like a
Molotov cocktail. Waves of fire splashed over everything. I’d never seen a
monster do that before, but I didn’t have time to wonder about it. I backed
into the band room as the flames engulfed the doorway.
“Percy?” Paul Blofis looked completely stunned, staring at me from
across the fire. “What have you done?”
Kids screamed and ran down the hall. The fire alarm wailed. Ceiling
sprinklers hissed to life.
In the chaos, Rachel tugged on my sleeve. “You have to get out of here!”
She was right. The school was in flames and I’d be held responsible.
Mortals couldn’t see through the Mist properly. To them it would look like
I’d just attacked a helpless cheerleader in front of a group of witnesses.
There was no way I could explain it. I turned from Paul and sprinted for the
broken band room window.
* * *
I burst out of the alley onto East 81st and ran straight into Annabeth.
“Hey, you’re out early!” she laughed, grabbing my shoulders to keep me
from tumbling into the street. “Watch where you’re going, Seaweed Brain.”
For a split second she was in a good mood and everything was fine. She
was wearing jeans and an orange camp T-shirt and her clay bead necklace.
Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her gray eyes sparkled. She
looked like she was ready to catch a movie, have a cool afternoon hanging
out together.
Then Rachel Elizabeth Dare, still covered in monster dust, came charging
out of the alley, yelling, “Percy, wait up!”
Annabeth’s smile melted. She stared at Rachel, then at the school. For the
first time, she seemed to notice the black smoke and ringing fire alarms.
She frowned at me. “What did you do this time? And who is this?”
“Oh, Rachel-Annabeth. Annabeth-Rachel. Um, she’s a friend,
guess.”
I wasn’t sure what else to call Rachel. I mean, I barely knew her, but after
being in two life-or-death situations together, I couldn’t just call her nobody.
“Hi,” Rachel said. Then she turned to me. “You are in so much trouble.
And you still owe me an explanation!”
Police sirens wailed on FDR Drive.
“Percy,” Annabeth said coldly. “We should go.”
“I want to know more about half-bloods,” Rachel insisted. “And monsters.
And this stuff about the gods.” She grabbed my arm, whipped out a
permanent marker, and wrote a phone number on my hand. “You’re going to
call me and explain, okay? You owe me that. Now get going.”
“But-”
“I’ll make up some story,” Rachel said. “I’ll tell them it wasn’t your fault.
Just go!”
She ran back toward the school, leaving Annabeth and me in the street.
“Hey!” I jogged after her. “There were these two empousai,” I tried to
explain. “They were cheerleaders, see, and they said camp was going to burn,
and-”
“You told a mortal girl about half-bloods?”
“She can see through the Mist. She saw the monsters before I did.”
“So you told her the truth?”
“She recognized me from Hoover Dam, so-”
“You’ve met her before?”
“Um, last winter. But seriously, I barely know her.”
“She’s kind of cute.”
“I-I never thought about it.”
Annabeth kept walking toward York Avenue.
“I’ll deal with the school,” I promised, anxious to change the subject.
“Honest, it’ll be fine.”
Annabeth wouldn’t even look at me. “I guess our afternoon is off. We
should get you out of here, now that the police will be searching for you.”
Behind us, smoke billowed up from Goode High School. In the dark
column of ashes, I thought I could almost see a face-a she-demon with red
eyes, laughing at me.
Your pretty little camp in flames, Kelli had said. Your friends made slaves
to the Lord of Time.
“You’re right,” I told Annabeth, my heart sinking. “We have to get to
Camp Half-Blood. Now.”作者: koko 時間: 2010-3-17 19:40
TWO
THE UNDERWORLD SENDS
ME A PRANK CALL
Nothing caps off the perfect morning like a long taxi ride with an angry
girl.
I tried to talk to Annabeth, but she was acting like I’d just punched her
grandmother. All I managed to get out of her was that she’d had a monsterinfested
spring in San Francisco; she’d come back to camp twice since
Christmas but wouldn’t tell me why (which kind of ticked me off, because
she hadn’t even told me she was in New York); and she’d learned nothing
about the whereabouts of Nico di Angelo (long story).
“Any word on Luke?” I asked.
She shook her head. I knew this was a touchy subject for her. Annabeth
had always admired Luke, the former head counselor for Hermes who had
betrayed us and joined the evil Titan Lord Kronos. She wouldn’t admit it,
but I knew she still liked him. When we’d fought Luke on Mount Tamalpais
last winter, he’d somehow survived a fifty-foot fall off a cliff. Now, as far as
I knew, he was still sailing around on his demon-infested cruise ship while
his chopped-up Lord Kronos re-formed, bit by bit, in a golden sarcophagus,
biding his time until he had enough power to challenge the Olympian gods.
In demigod-speak, we call this a “problem.”
“Mount Tam is still overrun with monsters,” Annabeth said. “I didn’t dare
go close, but I don’t think Luke is up there. I think I would know if he was.”
That didn’t make me feel much better. “What about Grover?”
“He’s at camp,” she said. “We’ll see him today.”
“Did he have any luck? I mean, with the search for Pan?”
Annabeth fingered her bead necklace, the way she does when she’s
worried.
“You’ll see,” she said. But she didn’t explain.
As we headed through Brooklyn, I used Annabeth’s phone to call my
mom. Half-bloods try not to use cell phones if we can avoid it, because
broadcasting our voices is like sending up a flare to the monsters: Here I am!
Please eat me now! But I figured this call was important. I left a message on
our home voice mail, trying to explain what had happened at Goode. I
probably didn’t do a very good job. I told my mom I was fine, she shouldn’t
worry, but I was going to stay at camp until things cooled down. I asked her
to tell Paul Blofis I was sorry.
We rode in silence after that. The city melted away until we were off the
expressway and rolling through the countryside of northern Long Island,
past orchards and wineries and fresh produce stands.
I stared at the phone number Rachel Elizabeth Dare had scrawled on my
hand. I knew it was crazy, but I was tempted to call her. Maybe she could
help me understand what the empousa had been talking about-the camp
burning, my friends imprisoned. And why had Kelli exploded into flames?
I knew monsters never truly died. Eventually-maybe weeks, months, or
years from now-Kelli would re-form out of the primordial nastiness
seething in the Underworld. But still, monsters didn’t usually let themselves
get destroyed so easily. If she really was destroyed.
The taxi exited on Route 25A. We headed through the woods along the
North Shore until a low ridge of hills appeared on our left. Annabeth told the
driver to pull over on Farm Road 3.141, at the base of Half-Blood Hill.
The driver frowned. “There ain’t nothing here, miss. You sure you want
out?”
“Yes, please,” Annabeth handed him a roll of mortal cash, and the driver
decided not to argue.
Annabeth and I hiked to the crest of the hill. The young guardian dragon
was dozing, coiled around the pine tree, but he lifted his coppery head as we
approached and let Annabeth scratch under his chin. Steam hissed out his
nostrils like from a teakettle, and he went cross-eyed with pleasure.
“Hey, Peleus,” Annabeth said. “Keeping everything safe?”
The last time I’d seen the dragon he’d been six feet long. Now he was at
least twice that, and as thick around as the tree itself. Above his head, on the
lowest branch of the pine tree, the Golden Fleece shimmered, its magic
protecting the camp’s borders from invasion. The dragon seemed relaxed,
like everything was okay. Below us, Camp Half-Blood looked peaceful-
green fields, forest, shiny white Greek buildings. The four-story farmhouse
we called the Big House sat proudly in the midst of the strawberry fields. To
the north, past the beach, the Long Island Sound glittered in the sunlight.
Still…something felt wrong. There was tension in the air, as if the hill
itself were holding its breath, waiting for something bad to happen.
We walked down into the valley and found the summer session in full
swing. Most of the campers had arrived last Friday, so I already felt out of it.
The satyrs were playing their pipes in the strawberry fields, making the
plants grow with woodland magic. Campers were having flying horseback
lessons, swooping over the woods on their pegasi. Smoke rose from the
forges, and hammers rang as kids made their own weapons for Arts & Crafts.
The Athena and Demeter teams were having a chariot race around the track,
and over at the canoe lake some kids in a Greek trireme were fighting a large
orange sea serpent. A typical day at camp.
“I need to talk to Clarisse,” Annabeth said.
I stared at her as if she’d just said I need to eat a large, smelly boot.
“What for?”
Clarisse from the Ares cabin was one of my least favorite people. She was
a mean, ungrateful bully. Her dad, the war god, wanted to kill me. She tried
to beat me to a pulp on a regular basis. Other than that, she was just great.
“We’ve been working on something,” Annabeth said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Working on what?”
Annabeth glanced toward the forest.
“I’ll tell Chiron you’re here,” she said. “He’ll want to talk to you before
the hearing.”
“What hearing?”
But she jogged down the path toward the archery field without looking
back.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Great talking with you, too.”
* * *
As I made my way through camp, I said hi to some of my friends. In the
Big House’s driveway, Connor and Travis Stoll from the Hermes cabin were
hot-wiring the camps SUV. Silena Beauregard, the head counselor for
Aphrodite, waved at me from her Pegasus as she flew past. I looked for
Grover, but I didn’t see him. Finally I wandered into the sword arena, where
I usually go when I’m in a bad mood. Practicing always calms me down.
Maybe that’s because swordplay is one thing I can actually understand.
I walked into the amphitheater and my heart almost stopped. In the middle
of the arena floor, with its back to me, was the biggest hellhound I’d ever
seen.
I mean, I’ve seen some pretty big hellhounds. One the size of a rhino tried
to kill me when I was twelve. But this hellhound was bigger than a tank. I
had no idea how it had gotten past the camp’s magic boundaries. It looked
right at home, lying on its belly, growling contentedly as it chewed the head
off a combat dummy. It hadn’t noticed me yet, but if I made a sound, I knew
it would sense me. There was no time to go for help. I pulled out Riptide and
uncapped it.
“Yaaaaah!” I charged. I brought down the blade on the monster’s
enormous backside when out of nowhere another sword blocked my strike.
CLANG!
The hellhound pricked up its ears. “WOOF!”
I jumped back and instinctively struck at the swordsman-a gray-haired
man in Greek armor. He parried my attack with no problem.
“Whoa there!” he said. “Truce!”
“WOOF!” The hellhound’s bark shook the arena.
“That’s a hellhound!” I shouted.
“She’s harmless,” the man said. “That’s Mrs. O’Leary.”
I blinked. “Mrs. O’Leary?”
At the sound of her name, the hellhound barked again. I realized she
wasn’t angry. She was excited. She nudged the soggy, badly chewed target
dummy toward the swordsman.
“Good girl,” the man said. With his free hand he grabbed the armored
manikin by the neck and heaved it toward the bleachers. “Get the Greek! Get
the Greek!”
Mrs. O’Leary bounded after her prey and pounced on the dummy,
flattening its armor. She began chewing on its helmet.
The swordsman smiled dryly. He was in his fifties. I guess, with short
gray hair and a clipped gray beard. He was in good shape for an older guy.
He wore black mountain-climbing pants and a bronze breastplate strapped
over an orange camp T-shirt. At the base of his neck was a strange mark, a
purplish blotch like a birthmark or a tattoo, but before I could make out what
it was, he shifted his armor straps and the mark disappeared under his collar.
“Mrs. O’Leary is my pet,” he explained. “I couldn’t let you stick a sword
in her rump, now, could I? That might have scared her.”
“Who are you?”
Promise not to kill me if I put my sword away?”
“I guess.”
He sheathed his sword and held out his hand. “Quintus.”
I shook his hand. It was as rough as a sandpaper.
“Percy Jackson,” I said. “Sorry about-How did you, um-”
“Get a hellhound for a pet? Long story, involving many close calls with a
death and quite a few giant chew toys. I’m the new sword instructor, by the
way. Helping out Chiron while Mr. D is away.”
“Oh.” I tried not to stare as Mrs. O’Leary ripped off the target dummy’s
shield with the arm still attached and shook it like a Frisbee. “Wait, Mr. D is
away?”
“Yes, well…busy times. Even Dionysus must help out. He’s gone to visit
some old friends. Make sure they’re on the right side. I probably shouldn’t
say more than that.”
If Dionysus was gone, that was the best news I’d had all day. He was only
our camp director because Zeus had sent him here as a punishment for
chasing some off-limits wood nymph. He hated the campers and tried to
make our lives miserable. With him away, this summer might actually be
cool. On the other hand, if Dionysus had gotten off his butt and actually
started helping the gods recruit against the Titan threat, things must be
looking pretty bad.
Off to my left, there was a loud BUMP. Six wooden crates the size of
picnic tables were stacked nearby, and they were rattling. Mrs. O’Leary
cocked her head and bounded toward them.
“Whoa, girl!” Quintus said. “Those aren’t for you.” He distracted her with
the bronze shield Frisbee.
The crates thumped and shook. There were words printed on the sides, but
with my dyslexia they took me a few minutes to decipher:
TRIPLE G RANCH
FRAGILE
THIS END UP
Along the bottom, in smaller letters: OPEN WITH CARE. TRIPLE G
RANCH IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE,
MAIMING, OR EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL DEATHS.
“What’s in the boxes?” I asked.
“A little surprise,” Quintus said. “Training activity for tomorrow night.
You’ll love it.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, though I wasn’t sure about the “excruciatingly painful
death” part.
Quintus threw the bronze shield, and Mrs. O’Leary lumbered after it.
“You young ones need more challenges. They didn’t have camps like this
when I was a boy.”
“You-you’re a half-blood?” I didn’t mean to sound surprised, but I’d
never seen an old demigod before.
Quintus chuckled. “Some of us do survive into adulthood, you know. Not
all of us are the subject of terrible prophecies.”
“You know about my prophecy?”
“I’ve heard a few things.”
I wanted to ask what few things, but just then Chiron clip-clopped into the
arena. “Percy, there you are!”
He must’ve just come from teaching archery. He had a quiver and bow
slung over his #1 CENTAUR T-shirt. He’d trimmed his curly brown hair
and beard for the summer, and his lower half, which was a white stallion,
was flecked with mud and grass.
“I see you’ve met our new instructor.” Chiron’s tone was light, but there
was an uneasy look in his eyes. “Quintus, do you mind if I borrow Percy?”
“Not at all, Master Chiron.”
“No need to call me ‘Master’,” Chiron said, though he sounded sort of
pleased. “Come, Percy. We have much to discuss.”
I took one more glance at Mrs. O’Leary, who was now chewing off the
target dummy’s legs.
“Well, see you,” I told Quintus.
As we were walking away, I whispered to Chiron, “Quintus seemed kind
of-”
“Mysterious?” Chiron suggested. “Hard to read?”
“Yeah.”
Chiron nodded. “A very qualified half-blood. Excellent swordsman, I just
wish I understood…”
Whatever he was going to say, he apparently changed his mind. “First
things first, Percy. Annabeth told me you met some empousai.”
“Yeah.” I told him about the fight at Goode, and how Kelli had exploded
into flames.
“Mm,” Chiron said. “The more powerful ones can do that. She did not die,
Percy. She simply escaped. It is not good that the she-demons are stirring.”
“What were they doing there?” I asked. “Waiting for me?”
“Possibly,” Chiron frowned. “It is amazing you survived. Their powers of
deception…almost any male hero would’ve fallen under their spell and been
devoured.”
“I would’ve been,” I admitted. “Except for Rachel.”
Chiron nodded. “Ironic to be saved by a mortal, yet we owe her a debt.
What the empousa said about an attack on camp-we must speak of this
further. But for now, come, we should get to the woods. Grover will want
you there.”
“Where?”
“At his formal hearing,” Chiron said grimly. “The Council of Cloven
Elders is meeting now to decide his fate.”
* * *
Chiron said we needed to hurry, so I let him give me a ride on his back.
As we galloped past the cabins, I glanced at the dining hall-an open-air
Greek pavilion on a hill overlooking the sea. It was the first time I’d seen the
place since last summer, and it brought back bad memories.
Chiron plunged into the woods. Nymphs peeked out of the trees to watch
us pass. Large shapes rustled in the shadows-monsters that were stocked in
here as a challenge to the campers.
I thought I knew the forest pretty well after playing capture the flag here
for two summers, but Chiron took me a way I didn’t recognize, through a
tunnel of old willow trees, past a little waterfall, and into a glade blanketed
with wildflowers.
A bunch of satyrs were sitting in a circle in the grass. Grover stood in the
middle, facing three really old, really fat satyrs who sat on topiary thrones
shaped out of rose bushes. I’d never seen the three old satyrs before, but I
guessed they must be the Council of Cloven Elders.
Grover seemed to be telling them a story. He twisted the bottom of his Tshirt,
shifting nervously on his goat hooves. He hadn’t changed much since
last winter, maybe because satyrs age half as fast as humans. His acne had
flared up. His horns had gotten a little bigger so they just stuck out over his
curly hair. I realized with a start that I was taller than he was now.
Standing off to one side of the circle were Annabeth, another girl I’d
never seen before, and Clarisse. Chiron dropped me next to them.
Clarisse’s stringy brown hair was tied back with a camouflage bandanna.
If possible, she looked even buffer, like she’d been working out. She glared
at me and muttered, “Punk,” which must’ve meant she was in a good mood.
Usually she says hello by trying to kill me.
Annabeth had her arm around the other girl, who looked like she’d been
crying. She was small-petite, I guess you’d call it-with wispy hair the
color of amber and a pretty, elfish face. She wore a green chiton and laced
sandals, and she was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “It’s going
terribly,” she sniffled.
“No, no,” Annabeth patted her shoulders. “He’ll be fine, Juniper.”
Annabeth looked at me and mouthed the words Grover’s girlfriend.
At least I thought that’s what she said, but that didn’t make any sense.
Grover with a girlfriend? Then I looked at Juniper more closely, and I
realized her ears were slightly pointed. Her eyes, instead of being red from
crying, were tinged green, the color of chlorophyll. She was a tree nymph-
a dryad.
“Master Underwood!” the council member on the right shouted, cutting
off whatever Grover was trying to say. “Do you seriously expect us to
believe this?”
“B-but Silenus,” Grover stammered. “It’s the truth!”
The Council guy, Silenus, turned to his colleagues and muttered
something. Chiron cantered up to the front and stood next to them. I
remembered he was an honorary member of the council, but I’d never
thought about it much. The elders didn’t look very impressive. They
reminded me of the goats in a petting zoo-huge bellies, sleepy expressions,
and glazed eyes that couldn’t see past the next handful of goat chow. I
wasn’t sure why Grover seemed so nervous.
Silenus tugged his yellow polo shirt over his belly and adjusted himself
on his rosebush throne. “Master Underwood, for six months-six months-
we have been hearing these scandalous claims that you heard the wild god
Pan speak.”
“But I did!”
“Impudence!” said the elder on the left.
“Now, Maron,” Chiron said. “Patience.”
“Patience, indeed!” Maron said. “I’ve had it up to my horns with this
nonsense. As if the wild god would speak to…to him.”
Juniper looked like she wanted to charge the old satyr and beat him up,
but Annabeth and Clarisse held her back. “Wrong fight, girlie,” Clarisse
muttered. “Wait.”
I don’t know what surprised me more: Clarisse holding someone back
from a fight, or the fact that she and Annabeth, who despised each other,
almost seemed like they were working together.
“For six months,” Silenus continued, “we have indulged you, Master
Underwood. We let you travel. We allowed you to keep your searcher’s
license. We waited for you to bring proof of your preposterous claim. And
what have you found in six months of travel?”
“I just need more time,” Grover pleaded.
“Nothing!” the elder in the middle chimed in. “You have found nothing.”
“But, Leneus-”
Silenus raised his hand. Chiron leaned in and said something to the satyrs.
The satyrs didn’t look happy. They muttered and argued among themselves,
but Chiron said something else, and Silenus sighed. He nodded reluctantly.
“Master Underwood,” Silenus announced, “we will give you one more
chance.”
Grover brightened. “Thank you!”
“One more week.”
“What? But sir! That’s impossible!”
“One more week, Master Underwood. And then, if you cannot prove your
claims, it will be time for you to pursue another career. Something to suit
your dramatic talents. Puppet theater, perhaps. Or tap dancing.”
“But sir, I-I can’t lose my searcher’s license. My whole life-”
“This meeting of the council is adjourned,” Silenus said. “And now let us
enjoy our noonday meal!”
The old satyr clapped his hands, and a bunch of nymphs melted out of the
trees with platters of vegetables, fruits, tin cans, and other goat delicacies.
The circle of satyrs broke and charged the food. Grover walked dejectedly
toward us. His faded blue T-shirt had a picture of a satyr on it. It read GOT
HOOVES?
“Hi, Percy,” he said, so depressed he didn’t even offer to shake my hand.
“That went well, huh?”
“Those old goats!” Juniper said. “Oh, Grover, they don’t know how hard
you’ve tried!”
“There is another option,” Clarisse said darkly.
“No. No.” Juniper shook her head. “Grover, I won’t let you.”
His face was ashen. “I-I’ll have to think about it. But we don’t even
know where to look.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
In the distance, a conch horn sounded.
Annabeth pursed her lips. “I’ll fill you in later, Percy. We’d better get
back to our cabins. Inspection is starting.”
* * *
It didn’t seem fair that I’d have to do cabin inspection when I just got to
camp, but that’s the way it worked. Every afternoon, one of the senior
counselors came around with a papyrus scroll checklist. Best cabin got first
shower hour, which meant hot water guaranteed. Worst cabin got kitchen
patrol after dinner.
The problem for me: I was usually the only one in the Poseidon cabin, and
I’m not exactly what you would call neat. The cleaning harpies only came
through on the last day of summer, so my cabin was probably just the way
I’d left it on winter break: my candy wrappers and chip bags still on my
bunk, my armor for capture the flag lying in pieces all around the cabin.
I raced toward the commons area, where the twelve cabins-one for each
Olympian god-made a U around the central green. The Demeter kids were
sweeping out theirs and making fresh flowers grow in their window boxes.
Just by snapping their fingers they could make honeysuckle vines bloom
over their doorway and daisies cover their roof, which was totally unfair. I
don’t think they ever got last place in inspection. The guys in the Hermes
cabin were scrambling around in a panic, stashing dirty laundry under their
beds and accusing each other of taking stuff. They were slobs, but they still
had a head start on me.
Over at the Aphrodite cabin, Silena Beauregard was just coming out,
checking items off the inspection scroll. I cursed under my breath. Silena
was nice, but she was an absolute neat freak, the worst inspector. She liked
things to be pretty. I didn’t do “pretty.” I could almost feel my arms getting
heavy from all the dishes I would have to scrub tonight.
The Poseidon cabin was at the end of the row of “male god” cabins on the
right side of the green. It was made of gray shell-encrusted sea rock, long
and low like a bunker, but it had windows that faced the sea and it always
had a good breeze blowing through it.
I dashed inside, wondering if maybe I could do a quick under-the-bed
cleaning job like the Hermes guys, and I found my half-brother Tyson
sweeping the floor.
“Percy!” he bellowed. He dropped his broom and ran at me. If you’ve
never been charged by an enthusiastic Cyclops wearing a flowered apron
and rubber cleaning gloves, I’m telling you, it’ll wake you up quick.
“Hey, big guy!” I said. “Ow, watch the ribs. The ribs.”
I managed to survive his bear hug. He put me down, grinning like crazy,
his single calf-brown eye full of excitement. His teeth were as yellow and
crooked as ever, and his hair was a rat’s nest. He wore ragged XXXL jeans
and a tattered flannel shirt under his flowered apron, but he was still a sight
for sore eyes. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, since he’d gone under the
sea to work at the Cyclopes’ forges.
“You are okay?” he asked. “Not eaten by monsters?”
“Not even a little bit.” I showed him that I still had both arms and both
legs, and Tyson clapped happily.
“Yay!” he said. “Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish
ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go
BOOM!”
I hoped he didn’t mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely,
we’d have a lot of fun this summer. I couldn’t help smiling, he was so
enthusiastic about everything.
“But first,” I said, “we’ve gotta worry about inspection. We should…”
Then I looked around and realized Tyson had been busy. The floor was
swept. The bunk beds were made. The saltwater fountain in the corner had
been freshly scrubbed so the coral gleamed. On the windowsills, Tyson had
set out water-filled vases with sea anemones and strange glowing plants
from the bottom of the ocean, more beautiful than any flower bouquets the
Demeter kids could whip up.
“Tyson, the cabin looks…amazing!”
He beamed. “See the fish ponies? I put them on the ceiling!”
A herd of miniature bronze hippocampi hung on wires from the ceiling, so
it looked like they were swimming through the air. I couldn’t believe Tyson,
with his huge hands, could make things so delicate. Then I looked over at
my bunk, and I saw my old shield hanging on the wall.
“You fixed it!”
The shield had been badly damaged in a manticore attack last winter. But
now it was perfect again-not a scratch. All the bronze pictures of my
adventures with Tyson and Annabeth in the Sea of Monsters were polished
and gleaming.
I looked at Tyson. I didn’t know how to thank him.
Then somebody behind me said, “Oh, my.”
Silena Beauregard was standing in the doorway with her inspection scroll.
She stepped into the cabin, did a quick twirl, then raised her eyebrows at me.
“Well, I had my doubts. But you clean up nicely, Percy. I’ll remember that.”
She winked at me and left the room.
* * *
Tyson and I spent the afternoon catching up and just hanging out, which
was nice after a morning of getting attacked by demon cheerleaders.
We went down to the forge and helped Beckendorf from the Hephaestus
cabin with his metalworking. Tyson showed us how he’d learned to craft
magic weapons. He fashioned a flaming double-bladed war axe so fast even
Beckendorf was impressed.
While he worked, Tyson told us about his year under the sea. His eye lit
up when he described the Cyclopes’ forges and the palace of Poseidon, but
he also told us how tense things were. The old gods of the sea, who’d ruled
during Titan times, were starting to make war on our father. When Tyson
had left, battles had been raging all over the Atlantic. Hearing that made me
feel anxious, like I should be helping out, but Tyson assured me that Dad
wanted us both at camp.
“Lots of bad people above the sea, too,” Tyson said. “We can make them
go boom.”
After the forges, we spent some time at the canoe lake with Annabeth.
She was really glad to see Tyson, but I could tell she was distracted. She
kept looking over at the forest, like she was thinking about Grover’s problem
with the council. I couldn’t blame her. Grover was nowhere to be seen, and I
felt really bad for him. Finding the lost god Pan had been his lifelong goal.
His father and his uncle had both disappeared following the same dream.
Last winter, Grover had heard a voice in his head: I await you-a voice he
was sure belonged to Pan-but apparently his search had led nowhere. If the
council took away his searcher’s license now, it would crush him.
“What’s this ‘other way’?” I asked Annabeth. “The thing Clarisse
mentioned?”
She picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake. “Something Clarisse
scouted out. I helped her a little this spring. But it would be dangerous.
Especially for Grover.”
“Goat boy scares me,” Tyson murmured.
I stared at him. Tyson had faced down fire-breathing bulls and sea
monsters and cannibal giants. “Why would you be scared of Grover?”
“Hooves and horns,” Tyson muttered nervously. “And goat fur makes my
nose itchy.”
And that pretty much ended our Grover conversation.
* * *
Before dinner, Tyson and I went down to the sword arena. Quintus was
glad to have company. He still wouldn’t tell me what was in the wooden
crates, but he did teach me a few sword moves. The guy was good. He
fought the way some people play chess-like he was putting all the moves
together and you couldn’t see the pattern until he made the last stroke and
won with a sword at your throat.
“Good try,” he told me. “But your guard is too low.”
He lunged and I blocked.
“Have you always been a swordsman?” I asked.
He parried my overhead cut. “I’ve been many things.”
He jabbed and I sidestepped. His shoulder strap slipped down, and I saw
that mark on his neck-the purple blotch. But it wasn’t a random mark. It
had a definite shape-a bird with folded wings, like a quail or something.
“What’s that on your neck?” I asked, which was probably a rude question,
but you can blame my ADHD. I tend to just blurt things out.
Quintus lost his rhythm. I hit his sword hilt and knocked the blade out of
his hand.
He rubbed his fingers. Then he shifted his armor to hide the mark. It
wasn’t a tattoo, I realized. It was an old burn…like he’d been branded.
“A reminder.” He picked up his sword and forced a smile. “Now, shall we
go again?”
He pressed me hard, not giving me time for any more questions.
While he and I fought, Tyson played with Mrs. O’Leary, who he called
the “little doggie.” They had a great time wrestling for the bronze shield and
playing Get the Greek. By sunset, Quintus hadn’t even broken a sweat,
which seemed kind of strange; but Tyson and I were hot and stick, so we hit
the showers and got ready for dinner.
I was feeling good. It was almost like a normal day at camp. Then dinner
came, and all the campers lined up by cabin and marched into the dining
pavilion. Most of them ignored the sealed fissure in the marble floor at the
entrance-a ten-foot-long jagged scar that hadn’t been there last summer-
but I was careful to step over it.
“Big crack,” Tyson said when we were at our table. “Earthquake,
maybe?”
“No,” I said. “Not an earthquake.”
I wasn’t sure I should tell him. It was a secret only Annabeth and Grover
and I knew. But looking in Tyson’s big eye, I knew I couldn’t hide it from
him.
“Nico di Angelo,” I said, lowering my voice. “He’s this half-blood kid we
brought to camp last winter. He, uh…he asked me to guard his sister on a
quest, and I failed. She died. Now he blames me.”
Tyson frowned. “So he put a crack in the floor?”
“These skeletons attacked us,” I said. “Nico told them to go away, and the
ground just opened up and swallowed them. Nico…” I looked around to
make sure no one was listening. “Nico is a son of Hades.”
Tyson nodded thoughtfully. “The god of dead people.”
“Yeah.”
“So the Nico boy is gone now?”
“I-I guess. I tried to search for him this spring. So did Annabeth. But we
didn’t have any luck. This is secret, Tyson. Okay? If anyone found out he
was a son of Hades, he would be in danger. You can’t even tell Chiron.”
“The bad prophecy,” Tyson said. “Titans might use him if they knew.”
I stared at him. Sometimes it was easy to forget that as big and childlike
as he was, Tyson was pretty smart. He knew that the next child of the Big
Three gods-Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades-who turned sixteen was prophesied
to either save or destroy Mount Olympus. Most people assumed that meant
me, but if I died before I turned sixteen, the prophecy could just as easily
apply to Nico.
“Exactly,” I said. “So-”
“Mouth sealed,” Tyson promised. “Like the crack in the ground.”
* * *
I had trouble falling asleep that night. I lay in bed listening to the waves
on the beach, and the owls and monsters in the woods. I was afraid once I
drifted off I’d have nightmares.
See, for half-bloods, dreams are hardly ever just dreams. We get messages.
We glimpse things that are happening to our friends or enemies. Sometimes
we even glimpse the past or the future. And at camp, my dreams were
always more frequent and vivid.
So I was still awake around midnight, staring at the bunk bed mattress
above me, when I realized there was a strange light in the room. The
saltwater fountain was glowing.
I threw off the covers and walked cautiously toward it. Steam rose from
the hot salt water. Rainbow colors shimmered through it, though there was
no light in the room except for the moon outside. Then a pleasant female
voice spoke from the steam: Please deposit one drachma.
I looked over at Tyson, but he was still snoring. He sleeps about as
heavily as a tranquilized elephant.
I didn’t know what to think. I’d never gotten a collect Iris-message before.
One golden drachma gleamed at the bottom of the fountain. I scooped it up
and tossed it through the mist. The coin vanished.
“O, Iris, Goddess of the rainbow,” I whispered. “Show me…Uh, whatever
you need to show me.”
The mist shimmered. I saw the dark shore of a river. Wisps of fog drifted
across black water. The beach was strewn with jagged volcanic rock. A
young boy squatted at the riverbank, tending a campfire. The flames burned
an unnatural blue color. Then I saw the boy’s face. It was Nico di Angelo.
He was throwing pieces of paper into the fire-Mythomagic trading cards,
part of the game he’d been obsessed with last winter.
Nico was only ten, or maybe eleven by now, but he looked older. His hair
had grown longer. It was shaggy and almost touched his shoulders. His eyes
were dark. His olive skin had turned paler. He wore ripped black jeans and a
battered aviator’s jacket that was several sizes too big, unzipped over a black
shirt. His face was grimy, his eyes a little wild. He looked like a kid who’d
been living on the streets.
I waited for him to look at me. No doubt he’d get crazy angry, start
accusing me of letting his sister die. But he didn’t seem to notice me.
I stayed quiet, not daring to move. If he hadn’t sent this Iris-message, who
had?
Nico tossed another trading card into the blue flames. “Useless,” he
muttered. “I can’t believe I ever liked this stuff.”
“A childish game, master,” another voice agreed. It seemed to come from
near the fire, but I couldn’t see who was talking.
Nico stared across the river. On the far shore was black beach shrouded in
haze. I recognized it: the Underworld. Nico was camping at the edge of the
river Styx.
“I’ve failed,” he muttered. “There’s no way to get her back.”
The other voice kept silent.
Nico turned toward it doubtfully. “Is there? Speak.”
Something shimmered. I thought it was just firelight. Then I realized it
was the form of a man-a wisp of blue smoke, a shadow. If you looked at
him head-on, he wasn’t there. But if you looked out of the corner of your eye,
you could make out his shape. A ghost.
“It has never been done,” the ghost said. “But there may be a way.”
“Tell me,” Nico commanded. His eyes shined with a fierce light.
“An exchange,” the ghost said. “A soul for a soul.”
“I’ve offered!”
“Not yours,” the ghost said. “You cannot offer your father a soul he will
eventually collect anyway. Nor will he be anxious for the death of his son. I
mean a soul that should have died already. Someone who has cheated
death.”
Nico’s face darkened. “Not that again. You’re talking about murder.”
“I’m talking about justice,” the ghost said. “Vengeance.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
The ghost laughed dryly. “You will learn differently as you get older.”
Nico stared at the flames. “Why can’t I at least summon her? I want to
talk to her. She would…she would help me.”
“I will help you,” the ghost promised. “Have I not saved you many times?
Did I not lead you through the maze and teach you to use your powers? Do
you want revenge for your sister or not?”
I didn’t like the ghost’s tone of voice. He reminded me of a kid at my old
school, a bully who used to convince other kids to do stupid things like steal
lab equipment and vandalize the teachers’ cars. The bully never got in
trouble himself, but he got tons of other kids suspended.
Nico turned from the fire so the ghost couldn’t see him, but I could. A tear
traced its way down his face. “Very well. You have a plan?”
“Oh, yes,” the ghost said, sounding quite pleased. “We have many dark
roads to travel. We must start-”
The image shimmered. Nico vanished. The woman’s voice from the mist
said, Please deposit one drachma for another five minutes.
There were no other coins in the fountain. I grabbed for my pockets, but I
was wearing pajamas. I lunged for the nightstand to check for spare change,
but the Iris-message had already blinked out, and the room went dark again.
The connection was broken.
I stood in the middle of the cabin, listening to the gurgle of the saltwater
fountain and the ocean waves outside.
Nico was alive. He was trying to bring his sister back from the dead. And
I had a feeling I knew what soul he wanted to exchange-someone who had
cheated death. Vengeance.
Nico di Angelo would come looking for me.作者: koko 時間: 2010-3-17 19:41
THREE
WE PLAY TAG WITH
SCORPIONS
The next morning there was a lot of excitement at breakfast.
Apparently around three in the morning an Aethiopian drakon had been
spotted at the borders of camp. I was so exhausted I slept right through the
noise. The magical boundaries had kept the monster out, but it prowled the
hills, looking for weak spots in our defenses, and it didn’t seem anxious to
go away until Lee Fletcher from Apollo’s cabin led a couple of his siblings
in pursuit. After a few dozen arrows lodged in the chinks of the drakon’s
armor, it got the message and withdrew.
“It’s still out there,” Lee warned us during announcements. “Twenty
arrows in its hide, and we just made it mad. The thing was thirty feet long
and bright green. It’s eyes-” he shuddered.
“You did well, Lee,” Chiron patted him on the shoulder. “Everyone stay
alert, but stay calm. This has happened before.”
“Aye,” Quintus said from the head table. “And it will happen again. More
and more frequently.”
The campers murmured among themselves.
Everyone knew the rumors: Luke and his army of monsters were planning
an invasion of the camp. Most of us expected it to happen this summer, but
no one knew how or when. It didn’t help that our attendance was down. We
only had about eighty campers. Three years ago, when I’d started, there had
been more than a hundred. Some had died. Some had joined Luke. Some had
just disappeared.
“This is a good reason for new war games, “Quintus continued, a glint in
his eyes. “We’ll see how you all do with that tonight.”
“Yes…” Chiron said. “Well, enough announcements. Let us bless this
meal and eat.” He raised his goblet. “To the gods.”
We all raised our glasses and repeated the blessing.
Tyson and I took our plates to the bronze brazier and scraped a portion of
our food into the flames. I hoped the gods liked raisin toast and Froot Loops.
“Poseidon,” I said. Then I whispered, “Help me with Nico, and Luke, and
Grover’s problem…”
There was so much to worry about I could’ve stood there all morning, but
I headed back to the table.
Once everyone was eating, Chiron and Grover came over to visit. Grover
was bleary-eyed. His shirt was inside out. He slid his plate onto the table and
slumped next to me.
Tyson shifted uncomfortably. “I will go…um…polish my fish ponies.”
He lumbered off, leaving his breakfast half-eaten.
Chiron tried for a smile. He probably wanted to look reassuring, but in
centaur form he towered over me, casting a shadow across the table. “Well,
Percy, how did you sleep?”
“Uh, fine.” I wondered why he asked that. Was it possible he knew
something about the weird Iris-message I’d gotten?
“I brought Grover over,” Chiron said, “because I thought you two might
want to, ah, discuss matters. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Irismessages
to send. I’ll see you later in the day.” He gave Grover a
meaningful look, then trotted out of the pavilion.”
“What’s he talking about?” I asked Grover.
Grover chewed his eggs. I could tell he was distracted, because he bit the
tines of his fork and chewed those down, too. “He wants you to convince
me,” he mumbled.
Somebody else slid next to me on the bench: Annabeth.
“I’ll tell you what it’s about,” she said. “The Labyrinth.”
It was hard to concentrate on what she was saying, because everybody in
the dining pavilion was stealing glances at us and whispering. And Annabeth
was right next to me. I mean right next to me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said.
“We need to talk,” she insisted.
“But the rules…”
She knew as well as I did that campers weren’t allowed to switch tables.
Satyrs were different. They weren’t really demigods. But the half-bloods had
to sit with their cabins. I wasn’t even sure what the punishment was for
switching tables. I’d never seen it happen. If Mr. D had been here, he
probably would’ve strangled Annabeth with magical grapevines or
something, but Mr. D wasn’t here. Chiron had already left the pavilion.
Quintus looked over and raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Annabeth said, “Grover is in trouble. There’s only one way we
can figure to help him. It’s the Labyrinth. That’s what Clarisse and I have
been investigating.”
I shifted my weight, trying to think clearly. “You mean the maze where
they kept the Minotaur, back in the old days?”
“Exactly,” Annabeth said.
“So…it’s not under the king’s palace in Crete anymore,” I guessed. “The
Labyrinth is under some building in America.”
See? It only took me a few years to figure things out. I knew that
important places moved around with Western Civilization, like Mount
Olympus being over the Empire State building, and the Underworld entrance
being in Los Angeles. I was feeling pretty proud of myself.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Under a building? Please, Percy. The
Labyrinth is huge. It wouldn’t fit under a single city, much less a single
building.”
I thought about my dream of Nico at the River Styx. “So…is the
Labyrinth part of the Underworld?”
“No.” Annabeth frowned. “Well, there may be passages from the
Labyrinth down into the Underworld. I’m not sure. But the Underworld is
way, way down. The Labyrinth is right under the surface of the mortal world,
kind of like a second skin. It’s been growing for thousands of years, lacing
its way under Western cities, connecting everything together underground.
You can get anywhere through the Labyrinth.”
“If you don’t get lost,” Grover muttered. “And die a horrible death.”
“Grover, there has to be a way,” Annabeth said. I got the feeling they’d
had this conversation before. “Clarisse lived.”
“Barely!” Grover said. “And the other guy-”
“He was driven insane. He didn’t die.”
“Oh, joy.” Grover’s lower lip quivered. “That makes me feel much
better.”
“Whoa,” I said. “Back up. What’s this about Clarisse and a crazy guy?”
Annabeth glanced over toward the Ares table. Clarisse was watching us
like she knew what we were talking about, but then she fixed her eyes on her
breakfast plate.
“Last year,” Annabeth said, lowering her voice, “Clarisse went on a
mission for Chiron.”
“I remember,” I said. “It was secret.”
Annabeth nodded. Despite how serious she was acting, I was happy she
wasn’t mad at me anymore. And I kind of liked the fact that she’d broken
the rules to come sit next to me.
“It was secret,” Annabeth agreed, “because she found Chris Rodriguez.”
“The guy from the Hermes cabin?” I remembered him from two years ago.
We’d eavesdropped on Chris Rodriguez aboard Luke’s ship, the Princess
Andromeda. Chris was one of the half-bloods who’d abandoned camp and
joined the Titan Army.
“Yeah,” Annabeth said. “Last summer he just appeared in Phoenix,
Arizona, near Clarisse’s mom’s house.”
“What do you mean he just appeared?”
“He was wandering around the desert, in a hundred and twenty degrees, in
full Greek armor, babbling about string.”
“String,” I said.
“He’d been driven completely insane. Clarisse brought him back to her
mom’s house so the mortals wouldn’t institutionalize him. She tried to nurse
him back to health. Chiron came out and interviewed him, but it wasn’t
much good. The only thing they got out of him: Luke’s men have been
exploring the Labyrinth.”
I shivered, though I wasn’t exactly sure why. Poor Chris…he hadn’t been
a bad guy. What could’ve driven him mad? I looked at Grover, who was
chewing up the rest of his fork.
“Okay,” I asked. “Why were they exploring the Labyrinth?”
“We weren’t sure,” Annabeth said. “That’s why Clarisse went on a
scouting expedition. Chiron kept things hushed up because he didn’t want
anyone panicking. He got me involved because…well, the Labyrinth has
always been one of my favorite subjects. The architecture involved-” Her
expression turned a little dreamy. “The builder, Daedalus, was a genius. But
the point is, the Labyrinth has entrances everywhere. If Luke could figure
out how to navigate it, he could move his army around with incredible
speed.”
“Except it’s a maze, right?”
“Full of horrible traps,” Grover agreed. “Dead ends. Illusions. Psychotic
goat-killing monsters.”
“But not if you had Ariadne’s string,” Annabeth said. “In the old days,
Ariadne’s string guided Theseus out of the maze. It was a navigation
instrument of some kind, invented by Daedalus. And Chris Rodriguez was
mumbling about string.”
“So Luke is trying to find Ariadne’s string,” I said. “Why? What’s he
planning?”
Annabeth shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought maybe he wanted to
invade camp through the maze, but that doesn’t make any sense. The closest
entrances Clarisse found were in Manhattan, which wouldn’t help Luke get
past our borders. Clarisse explored a little way into the tunnels, but…it was
very dangerous. She had some close calls. I researched everything I could
find about Daedalus. I’m afraid it didn’t help much. I don’t understand
exactly what Luke’s planning, but I do know this: the Labyrinth might be the
key to Grover’s problem.”
I blinked. “You think Pan is underground?”
“It would explain why he’s been impossible to find.”
Grover shuddered. “Satyrs hate going underground. No searcher would
ever try going in that place. No flowers. No sunshine. No coffee shops!”
“But,” Annabeth said, “the Labyrinth can lead you almost anywhere. It
reads your thoughts. It was designed to fool you, trick you and kill you; but
if you can make the Labyrinth work for you-”
“It could lead you to the wild god,” I said.
“I can’t do it.” Grover hugged his stomach. “Just thinking about it makes
me want to throw up my silverware.”
“Grover, it may be your last chance,” Annabeth said. “The council is
serious. One week or you learn to tap dance!”
Over at the head table, Quintus cleared his throat. I got the feeling he
didn’t want to make a scene, but Annabeth was really pushing it, sitting at
my table so long.
“We’ll talk later,” Annabeth squeezed my arm a little too hard. “Convince
him, will you?”
She returned to the Athena table, ignoring all the people who were staring
at her.
Grover buried his head in his hands. “I can’t do it, Percy. My searcher’s
license. Pan. I’m going to lose it all. I’ll have to start a puppet theater.”
“Don’t say that! We’ll figure something out.”
He looked at me teary-eyed. “Percy, you’re my best friend. You’ve seen
me underground. In that Cyclops’s cave. Do you really think I could…”
His voice faltered. I remembered the Sea of Monsters, when he’d been
stuck in a Cyclops’s cave. He’d never liked underground places to begin
with, but now Grover really hated them. Cyclopes gave him the creeps, too.
Even Tyson…Grover tried to hide it, but Grover and I could sort of read
each other’s emotions because of this empathy link between us. I knew how
he felt. Grover was terrified of the big guy.
“I have to leave,” Grover said miserably. “Juniper’s waiting for me. It’s a
good thing she finds cowards attractive.”
After he was gone, I looked over at Quintus. He nodded gravely, like we
were sharing some dark secret. Then he went back to cutting his sausage
with a dagger.
* * *
In the afternoon, I went down to the Pegasus stables to visit my friend
Blackjack.
Yo, boss! He capered around in his stall, his black wings buffeting the air.
Ya bring me some sugar cubes?
“You know those aren’t good for you, Blackjack.”
Yeah, so you brought me some, huh?
I smiled and fed him a handful. Blackjack and I went back a long way. I
sort of helped rescue him from Luke’s demon cruise ship a few years ago,
and ever since, he insisted on repaying me with favors.
So we got any quests coming up? Blackjack asked. I’m ready to fly, boss!
I patted his nose. “Not sure, man. Everybody keeps talking about
underground mazes.”
Blackjack whinnied nervously. Nuh-uh. Not for this horse! You aint
gonna be crazy enough to go in no maze, boss. Are ya? You’ll end up in the
glue factory!
“You may be right, Blackjack. We’ll see.”
Blackjack crunched down his sugar cubes. He shook his mane like he was
having a sugar seizure. Whoa! Good stuff! Well, boss, you come to your
senses and want to fly somewhere, just give a whistle. Ole Blackjack and his
buddies, we’ll stampede anybody for ya!
I told him I’d keep it in mind. Then a group of younger campers came into
the stables to start their riding lessons, and I decided it was time to leave. I
had a bad feeling I wasn’t going to see Blackjack for a long time.
* * *
That night after dinner, Quintus had us suit up in combat armor like we
were getting ready for capture the flag, but the mood among the campers
was a lot more serious. Sometime during the day the crates in the arena had
disappeared, and I had a feeling whatever was in them had been emptied into
the woods.
“Right,” Quintus said, standing on the head dining table. “Gather ’round.”
He was dressed in black leather and bronze. In the torchlight, his gray hair
made him look like a ghost. Mrs. O’Leary bounded happily around him,
foraging for dinner scraps.
“You will be in teams of two,” Quintus announced. When everybody
started talking and trying to grab their friends, he yelled: “Which have
already been chosen!”
“AWWWWW!” everybody complained.
“Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is
wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are
six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must
find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course…you will have to
slay the monster to get it, and stay alive.”
The crowd started murmuring excitedly. The task sounded pretty
straightforward. Hey, we’d all slain monsters before. That’s what we trained
for.
“I will now announce your partners,” Quintus said. “There will be no
trading. No switching. No complaining.”
“Aroooof!” Mrs. O’Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza.
Quintus produced a big scroll and started reading off names. Beckendorf
would be with Silena Beauregard, which Beckendorf looked pretty happy
about. The Stoll brothers, Travis and Connor, would be together. No surprise.
They did everything together. Clarisse was with Lee Fletcher from the
Apollo cabin-melee and ranged combat combined, they would be a tough
combo to beat. Quintus kept rattling off the names until he said, “Percy
Jackson with Annabeth Chase.”
“Nice.” I grinned at Annabeth.
“Your armor is crooked” was her only comment, and she redid my straps
for me.
“Grover Underwood,” Quintus said, “with Tyson.”
Grover just about jumped out of his goat fur. “What? B-but-”
“No, no,” Tyson whimpered. “Must be a mistake. Goat boy-”
“No complaining!” Quintus ordered. “Get with your partner. You have
two minutes to prepare!”
Tyson and Grover both looked at me pleadingly. I tried to give them an
encouraging nod, and gestured that they should move together. Tyson
sneezed. Grover started chewing nervously on his wooden club.
“They’ll be fine,” Annabeth said. “Come on. Let’s worry about how we’re
going to stay alive.”
* * *
It was still light when we got into the woods, but the shadows from the
trees made it feel like midnight. It was cold, too, even in summer. Annabeth
and I found tracks almost immediately-scuttling marks made by something
with a lot of legs. We began to follow the trail.
We jumped a creek and heard some twigs snapping nearby. We crouched
behind a boulder, but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the
woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as
stealthy as buffaloes.
Once the Stolls had passed, we forged deeper into the west woods where
the monsters were wilder. We were standing on a ledge overlooking a
marshy pond when Annabeth tensed. “This is where we stopped looking.”
It took me a second to realize what she meant. Last winter, when we’d
given up hope of finding him, Grover, Annabeth, and I had stood on this
rock, and I’d convinced them not to tell Chiron the truth: that Nico was a son
of Hades. At the time it seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to protect his
identity. I wanted to be the one to find him and make things right for what
had happened to his sister. Now, six months later, I hadn’t even come close
to finding him. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“I saw him last night,” I said.
Annabeth knit her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
I told her about the Iris-message. When I was done, she stared into the
shadows of the woods. “He’s summoning the dead? That’s not good.”
“The ghost was giving him bad advice,” I said. “Telling him to take
revenge.”
“Yeah…spirits are never good advisers they’ve got their own agendas.
Old grudges. And they resent the living.”
“He’s going to come after me,” I said. “The spirit mentioned a maze.”
She nodded. “That settles it. We have to figure out the Labyrinth.”
“Maybe,” I said uncomfortably. “But who sent the Iris-message? If Nico
didn’t know I was there-”
A branch snapped in the woods. Dry leaves rustled. Something large was
moving in the trees, just beyond the ridge.
“That’s not the Stoll brothers,” Annabeth whispered.
Together we drew our swords.
* * *
We got to Zeus’s Fist, a huge pile of boulders in the middle of the west
woods. It was a natural landmark where campers often rendezvoused on
hunting expeditions, but now there was nobody around.
“Over there,” Annabeth whispered.
“No, wait,” I said. “Behind us.”
It was weird. Scuttling noises seemed to be coming from several different
directions. We were circling the boulders, our swords drawn, when someone
right behind us said, “Hi.”
We whirled around, and the tree nymph Juniper yelped.
“Put those down!” she protested. “Dryads don’t like sharp blades, okay?”
“Juniper,” Annabeth exhaled. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
I lowered my sword. “In the boulders?”
She pointed toward the edge of the clearing. “In the juniper. Duh.”
It made sense, and I felt kind of stupid. I’d been hanging around dryads
for years, but I never really talked to them much. I knew they couldn’t go
very far away from their tree, which was the source of life. But I didn’t
know much else.
“Are you guys busy?” Juniper asked.
“Well,” I said, “we’re in the middle of this game against a bunch of
monsters and we’re trying not to die.”
“We’re not busy,” Annabeth said. “What’s wrong, Juniper?”
Junper sniffled. She wiped her silky sleeve under her eyes. “It’s Grover.
He seems so distraught. All year he’s been out looking for Pan. And every
time he comes back, its worse. I thought maybe, at first, he was seeing
another tree.”
“No,” Annabeth said as Juniper started crying. “I’m sure that’s not it.”
“He had a crush on a blueberry bush once,” Juniper said miserably.
“Juniper,” Annabeth said, “Grover would never even look at another tree.
He’s just stressed out about his searcher’s license.”
“He can’t go underground!” she protested. “You can’t let him.”
Annabeth looked uncomfortable. “It might be the only way to help him; if
we just knew where to start.”
“Ah.” Juniper wiped a green tear off her cheek. “About that…”
Another rustle in the woods, and Juniper yelled, “Hide!”
Before I could ask why, she went poof into green mist.
Annabeth and I turned. Coming out of the woods was a glistening amber
insect, ten feet long, with jagged pincers, an armored tail, and a stinger as
long as my sword. A scorpion. Tied to its back was a red silk package.
“One of us gets behind it,” Annabeth said, as the thing clattered toward us.
“Cuts off its tail while the other distracts it in front.”
“I’ll take point,” I said. “You’ve got the invisibility hat.”
She nodded. We’d fought together so many times we knew each other’s
moves. We could do this, easy. But it all went wrong when the other two
scorpions appeared from the woods.
“Three?” Annabeth said. “That’s not possible! The whole woods, and
half the monsters come at us?”
I swallowed. One, we could take. Two, with a little luck. Three? Doubtful.
The scorpions scurried toward us, whipping their barbed tails like they’d
come here just to kill us. Annabeth and I put our backs against the nearest
boulder.
“Climb?” I said.
“No time,” she said.
She was right. The scorpions were already surrounding us. They were so
close I could see their hideous mouths foaming, anticipating an ice juicy
meal of demigods.
“Look out!” Annabeth parried away a stinger with the flat of her blade. I
stabbed with Riptide, but the scorpion backed out of range. We clambered
sideways along the boulders, but the scorpions followed us. I slashed at
another one, but going on the offensive was too dangerous. If I went for the
body, the tail stabbed downward. If I went for the tail, the thing’s pincers
came from either side and tried to grab me. All we could do was defend, and
we wouldn’t be able to keep that up for very long.
I took another step sideways, and suddenly there was nothing behind me.
It was a crack between two of the largest boulders, something I’d passed by
a million times, but…
“In here,” I said.
Annabeth sliced at a scorpion then looked at me like I was crazy. “In
there? It’s too narrow.”
“I’ll cover you. Go!”
She ducked behind me and started squeezing between the two boulders.
Then she yelped and grabbed my armor straps, and suddenly I was tumbling
into a pit that hadn’t been there a moment before. I could see the scorpions
above us, the purple evening sky and the trees, and then the hole shut like
the lens of a camera, and we were in complete darkness.
Our breathing echoed against stone. It was wet and cold. I was sitting on a
bumpy floor that seemed to be made of bricks.
I lifted Riptide. The faint glow of the blade was just enough to illuminate
Annabeth’s frightened face and the mossy stone walls on either side of us.
“Wh-where are we?” Annabeth said.
“Safe from the scorpions, anyway,” I tried to sound calm, but I was
freaking out. The crack between the boulders couldn’t have led into a cave. I
would’ve known if there was a cave here; I was sure of it. It was like the
ground had opened up and swallowed us. All I could think of was the fissure
in the dining room pavilion, where those skeletons had been consumed last
summer. I wondered if the same thing had happened to us.
I lifted my sword again for light.
“It’s a long room,” I muttered.
Annabeth gripped my arm. “It’s not a room. It’s a corridor.”
She was right the darkness felt…emptier in front of us. There was a warm
breeze, like in subway tunnels, only it felt older, more dangerous somehow.
I started forward, but Annabeth stopped me. “Don’t take another step,”
she warned. “We need to find the exit.”
She sounded really scared now.
“It’s okay,” I promised. “It’s right-”
I looked up and realized I couldn’t see where we’d fallen in. The ceiling
was solid stone. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.
Annabeth’s hand slipped into mine. Under different circumstances I
would’ve been embarrassed, but here in the dark I was glad to know where
she was. It was about the only thing I was sure of.
“Two steps back,” she advised.
We stepped backward together like we were in a minefield.
“Okay,” she said. “Help me examine the walls.”
“What for?”
“The mark of Daedalus,” she said, as if that was supposed to make sense.
“Uh, okay. What kind of-”
“Got it!” she said with relief. She set her hand on the wall and pressed
against a tiny fissure, which began to glow blue. A Greek symbol appeared:
, the Ancient Greek Delta.
The roof slid open and we saw night sky, stars blazing. It was a lot darker
than it should’ve been. Metal ladder rungs appeared in the side of the wall,
leading up, and I could hear people yelling our names.
“Percy! Annabeth!” Tyson’s voice bellowed the loudest, but others were
calling out too.
I looked nervously at Annabeth. Then we began to climb.
* * *
We made our way around the rocks and ran into Clarisse and a bunch of
other campers carrying torches.
“Where have you two been?” Clarisse demanded.
“We’ve been looking forever.”
“But we were gone only a few minutes,” I said.
Chiron trotted up, followed by Tyson and Grover.
“Percy!” Tyson said. “You are okay?”
“We’re fine,” I said. “We fell in a hole.”
The others looked at me skeptically, then at Annabeth.
“Honest!” I said. “There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid
in the rocks. But we were only gone a minute.”
“You’ve been missing for almost an hour,” Chiron said. “The game is
over.”
“Yeah,” Grover muttered. “We would’ve won, but a Cyclops sat on me.”
“Was an accident!” Tyson protested, and then he sneezed.
Clarisse was wearing the gold laurels, but she didn’t even brag about
winning them, which wasn’t like her. “A hole?” she said suspiciously.
Annabeth took a deep breath. She looked around at the other campers.
“Chiron…maybe we should talk about this at the Big House.”
Clarisse gasped. “You found it, didn’t you?”
Annabeth bit her lip. “I-Yeah. Yeah, we did.”
A bunch of campers started asking questions, looking about as confused
as I was, but Chiron raised his hand for silence. “Tonight is not the right
time, and this is not the right place.” He stared at boulders as if he’d just
noticed how dangerous they were. “All of you, back to your cabins. Get
some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!”
There was a lot of mumbling and complaints, but the campers drifted off,
talking among themselves and giving me suspicious looks.
“This explains a lot,” Clarisse said. “It explains what Luke is after.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “What do you mean? What did we find?”
Annabeth turned toward me, her eyes dark with worry. “An entrance to
the Labyrinth. An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp.”作者: koko 時間: 2010-3-17 19:44
