by Rick Riordan
“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.
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 pon
ies.”
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?”
&n
bsp; 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!