by Rick Riordan
“I beg your pardon?” the Sphinx said, clearly annoyed now.
“The riddle about the man. He walks on four legs in the morning, like a baby, two legs in the afternoon, like an adult, and three legs in the evening, as an old man with a cane. That’s the riddle you used to ask.”
“Exactly why we changed the test!” the Sphinx exclaimed. “You already knew the answer. Now second question, what is the square root of sixteen?”
“Four,” Annabeth said, “but—”
“Correct! Which U.S. president signed the Emancipation Proclamation?”
“Abraham Lincoln, but—”
“Correct! Riddle number four. How much—”
“Hold up!” Annabeth shouted.
I wanted to tell her to stop complaining. She was doing great! She should just answer the questions so we could leave.
“These aren’t riddles,” Annabeth said.
“What do you mean?” the sphinx snapped. “Of course they are. This test material is specially designed—”
“It’s just a bunch of dumb, random facts,” Annabeth insisted. “Riddles are supposed to make you think.”
“Think?” The Sphinx frowned. “How am I supposed to test whether you can think? That’s ridiculous! Now, how much force is required—”
“Stop!” Annabeth insisted. “This is a stupid test.”
“Um, Annabeth,” Grover cut in nervously. “Maybe you should just, you know, finish first and complain later?”
“I’m a child of Athena,” she insisted. “And this is an insult to my intelligence. I won’t answer these questions.”
Part of me wsa impressed with her for standing up like that. But part of me thought her pride was going to get us all killed.
The spotlights glared. The Sphinx’s eyes glittered pure black.
“Why then, my dear,” the monster said calmly. “If you won’t pass, you fail. And since we can’t allow any children to be held back, you’ll be EATEN!”
The Sphinx bared her claws, which gleamed like stainless steel. She pounced at the podium.
“No!” Tyson charged. He hates it when people threaten Annabeth, but I couldn’t believe he was being so brave, especially since he’d had such a bad experience with a Sphinx before.
He tackled the Sphinx in midair and they crashed sideways into a pile of bones. This gave Annabeth just enough time to gather her wits and draw her knife. Tyson got up, his shirt clawed to shreds. The Sphinx growled, looking for an opening.
I drew Riptide and stepped in front of Annabeth.
“Turn invisible,” I told her.
“I can fight!”
“No!” I yelled. “The Sphinx is after you! Let us get it.”
As if to prove my point, the Sphinx knocked Tyson aside and tried to charge past me. Grover poked her in the eye with somebody’s leg bone. She screeched in pain. Annabeth put on her cap and vanished. The Sphinx pounced right were she’d been standing, but came up with empty paws.
“No fair!” the Sphinx wailed. “Cheater!”
With Annabeth no longer in sight, the Sphinx turned on me. I raised my sword, but before I could strike, Tyson ripped the monster’s grading machine out of the floor and threw it at the Sphinx’s head, ruining her hair bun. It landed in pieces all around her.
“My grading machine!” she cried. “I can’t be exemplary without my test scores!”
The bars lifted from the exits. We all dashed for the far tunnel. I could only hope Annabeth was doing the same.
The Sphinx started to follow, but Grover raised his reed pipes and began to play. Suddenly the pencils remembered they used to be parts of trees. They collected around the Sphinx’s paws, grew roots and branches, and began wrapping around the monster’s legs. The Sphinx ripped through them, but it brought us just enough time.
Tyson pulled Grover into the tunnel, and the bars slammed shut behind us.
“Annabeth!” I yelled.
“Here!” she said, right next to me. “Keep moving!”
We ran through the dark tunnels, listening to the roar of the Sphinx behind us as she complained about all the tests she would have to grade by hand.
ELEVEN
I SET MYSELF ON FIRE
I thought we’d lost the spider until Tyson heard a faint pinging sound. We made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door.
The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should’ve been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Ȇta inscribed in the middle.
We all looked at each other.
“Ready to meet Hephaestus?” Grover said nervously.
“No,” I admitted.
“Yes!” Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of us followed, not quite as anxious. The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic’s garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames. Smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. Tools hung along the walls. Each had its own outline on a Peg-Board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.
Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a ’98 Toyota Corolla, a pair of legs stuck out—the lower half of a huge man in grubby gray pants and shoes even bigger than Tyson’s. one leg was in a metal brace. The spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped.
“Well, well,” a deep voice boomed from under the Corolla. “What have we here?”
The mechanic pushed out on a back trolley and sat up. I’d seen Hephaestus once before, briefly on Olympus, so I thought I was prepared, but his appearance made me gulp.
I guess he’d cleaned up when I saw him on Olympus, or used magic to make his form seem a little less hideous. Here in his own workshop, he apparently didn’t care how he looked. He work a jumpsuit smeared with oil and grime. Hephaestus, was embroidered over the chest pocket. His leg creaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was lower than his right, so he seemed to be leaning even when he was standing up straight. His head was misshapen and bulging. He wore a permanent scowl. His black beard smoked and hissed. Every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt in his whiskers then die out. His hands were the size of catcher’s mitts, but he handled the spider with amazing skill. He disassembled it in two seconds, then put it back together.
“There,” he muttered to himself. “Much better.”
The spider did a happy flip in his palm, shot a metallic web at the ceiling, and went swinging away.
Hephaestus glowered up at us. “I didn’t make you, did I?”
“Uh,” Annabeth said, “no, sir.”
“Good,” the god grumbled. “Shoddy workmanship.”
He studied Annabeth and me. “Half-bloods,” he grunted. “Could be automatons, of course, but probably not.”
“We’ve met, sir,” I told him.
“Have we?” the god asked absently. I got the feeling he didn’t care one way or the other. he was just trying to figure out how my jaw worked, whether it was a hinge or a lever or what. “Well then, if I didn’t smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won’t have to do it now.”
He looked at Grover and frowned. “Satyr.” Then he looked at Tyson, and his eyes twinkled. “Well, a Cyclops. Good, good. What are you doing traveling with this lot?”
“Uh…” said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god.
“Yes, well said,” Hephaestus agreed. “So, there’d better be a good reason you’re disturbing me. The suspension on this Corolla is no small matt
er, you know.”
“Sir,” Annabeth said hesitantly, “we’re looking for Daedalus. We thought—”
“Daedalus?” the god roared. “You want that old scoundrel? You dare to seek him out!”
His beard burst into flames and his black eyes glowed.
“Uh, yes, sir, please,” Annabeth said.
“Humph. You’re wasting your time.” He frowned at something on his worktable and limped over to it. He picked up a lump of springs and metal plates and tinkered with them. In a few seconds he was holding a bronze and silver falcon. It spread its metal wings, blinked its obsidian eyes, and flew around the room.
Tyson laughed and clapped his hands. The bird landed on Tyson’s shoulder and nipped his ear affectionately.
Hephaestus regarded him. The god’s scowl didn’t change, but I thought I saw a kinder twinkle in his eyes. “I sense you have something to tell me, Cyclops.”
Tyson’s smile faded. “Y-yes, lord. We met a Hundred-Handed One.”
Hephaestus nodded, looking unsurprised. “Briares?”
“Yes. He—he was scared. He would not help us.”
“And that bothered you.”
“Yes!” Tyson’s voice wavered. “Briares should be strong! He is older and greater than Cyclopes. But he ran away.”
Hephaestus grunted. “There was a time I admired the Hundred-Handed Ones. Back in the days of the first war. But people, monsters, even gods change, young Cyclops. You can’t trust ’em. Look at my loving mother, Hera. You met her, didn’t you? She’ll smile to your face and talk about how important family is, eh? Didn’t stop her from pitching me off Mount Olympus when she saw my ugly face.”
“But I thought Zeus did that to you,” I said.
Hephaestus cleared his throat and spat into a bronze spittoon. He snapped his fingers, and the robotic falcon flew back to the worktable.
“Mother likes telling that version of the story,” he grumbled. “Makes her seem more likeable, doesn’t it? Blaming it all on my dad. The truth is, my mother likes families, but she likes a certain kind of family. Perfect families. She took one look at me and…well, I don’t fit the image, do I?”
He pulled a feather from the falcon’s back, and the whole automaton fell apart.
“Believe me, young Cyclops,” Hephaestus said, “you can’t trust others. All you can trust is the work of your own hands.”
It seemed like a pretty lonely way to live. Plus, I didn’t exactly trust the work of Hephaestus. One time in Denver, his mechanical spiders had almost killed Annabeth and me. And last year, it had been a defective Talos statue that cost Bianca her life—another one of Hephaestus’s little projects. He focused on me and narrowed his eyes, as if he were reading my thoughts. “Oh, this one doesn’t like me,” he mused. “No worries, I’m used to that. What would you ask of me, little demigod?”
“We told you,” I said. “We need to find Daedalus. There’s this guy, Luke, and he’s working for Kronos. He’s trying to find a way to navigate the Labyrinth so he can invade our camp. If we don’t get to Daedalus first—”
“And I told you, boy. Looking for Daedalus is a waste of time. He won’t help you.”
“Why not?”
Hephaestus shrugged. “Some of us get thrown off mountainsides. Some of us…the way we learn not to trust people is more painful. Ask me for gold. Or a flaming sword. Or a magical steed. These I can grant you easily. But a way to Daedalus? That’s an expensive favor.”
“You know where he is, then,” Annabeth pressed.
“It isn’t wise to go looking, girl.”
“My mother says looking is the nature of wisdom.”
Hephaestus narrowed his eyes. “Who’s your mother, then?”
“Athena.”
“Figures.” He sighed. “Fine goddess, Athena. A shame she pledged never to marry. All right, half-blood. I can tell you what you want to know. But there is a price. I need a favor done.
“Name it,” Annabeth said.
Hephaestus actually laughed—a booming sound like a huge bellows stoking a fire. “You heroes,” he said, “always making rash promises. How refreshing!”
He pressed a button on his workbench, and metal shutters opened along the wall. It was either a huge window or a big-screen TV, I couldn’t tell which. We were looking at a gray mountain ringed in forests. It must’ve been a volcano, because smoke rose from its crest.
“One of my forges,” Hephaestus said. “I have many, but that used to be my favorite.”
“That’s Mount St. Helens,” Grover said. “Great forests around there.”
“You’ve been there?” I asked.
“Looking for…you know, Pan.”
“Wait,” Annabeth said, looking at Hephaestus. “You said it used to be your favorite. What happened?”
Hephaestus scratched his smoldering beard. “Well, that’s where the monster Typhon is trapped, you know. Used to be under Mount Etna, but when we moved to America, his force got pinned under Mount St. Helens instead. Great source of fire, but a bit dangerous. There’s always a chance he will escape. Lots of eruptions these days, smoldering all the time. He’s restless with the Titan rebellion.”
“What do you want us to do?” I said, “Fight him?”
Hephaestus snorted. “That would be suicide. The gods themselves ran from Typhon when he was free. No, pray you never have to see him, much less fight him. But lately I have sensed intruders in my mountain. Someone or something is using my forges. When I go there, it is empty, but I can tell it is being used. They sense me coming, and they disappear. I send my automatons to investigate, but they do not return. Something…ancient is there. Evil. I want to know who dates invade my territory, and if they mean to loose Typhon.”
“You want us to find out who it is,” I said.
“Aye,” Hephaestus said. “Go there. They may not sense you coming. You are not gods.”
“Glad you noticed,” I muttered.
“Go and find out what you can,” Hephaestus said. “Report back to me, and I will tell you what you need to know about Daedalus.”
“All right,” Annabeth said. “How do we get there?”
Hephaestus clapped his hands. The spider came swinging down from the rafters. Annabeth flinched when it landed at her feet.
“My creation will show you the way,” Hephaestus said. “It is not far through the Labyrinth. And try to stay alive, will you? Humans are much more fragile than automatons.”
* * *
We were doing okay until we hit the tree roots. The spider raced along and we were keeping up, but then we spotted a tunnel off to the side that was dug from raw earth, and wrapped in thick roots. Grover stopped dead in his tracks.
“What is it?” I said.
He didn’t move. He stared openmouthed into the dark tunnel. His curly hair rustled in the breeze.
“Come on!” Annabeth said. “We have to keep moving.”
“This is the way,” Grover muttered in awe. “This is it.”
“What way?” I asked. “You mean…to Pan?”
Grover looked at Tyson. “Don’t you smell it?”
“Dirt,” Tyson said. “And plants.”
“Yes! This is the way. I’m sure of it!”
Up ahead, the spider was getting farther down the stone corridor. A few more seconds and we’d lose it.
“Well come back,” Annabeth promised. “On our way back to Hephaestus.”
“The tunnel will be gone by then,” Grover said. “I have to follow it. A door like this won’t stay open!”
“But we can’t,” Annabeth said. “The forges!”
Grover looked at her sadly. “I have to, Annabeth. Don’t you understand?”
She looked desperate, like she didn’t understand at all. The spider was almost out of sight. But I thought about my conversation with Grover last night, and I knew what we had to do.
“We’ll split up,” I said.
“No!” Annabeth said. “That’s way too dangerous. How will we ever find ea
ch other again? And Grover can’t go alone.”
Tyson put his hand on Grover’s shoulder. “I—I will go with him.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “Tyson, are you sure?”
The big guy nodded. “Goat boy needs help. We will find the god person. I am not like Hephaestus. I trust friends.”
Grover took a deep breath. “Percy, we’ll find each other again. We’ve still got the empathy link. I just…have to.”
I didn’t blame him. This was his life’s goal. If he didn’t find Pan on this journey, the council would never give him another chance.
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“I know I am.” I’d never heard him sound so confident about anything, except maybe that cheese enchiladas were better than chicken enchiladas.
“Be careful,” I told him. Then I looked at Tyson. He gulped back a sob and gave me a hug that just about squeezed my eyes out of their sockets. Then he and Grover disappeared through the tunnel of tree roots and were lost in the darkness.
“This is bad,” Annabeth said. “Splitting up is a really, really bad idea.”
“We’ll see them again,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Now come on. The spider is getting away!”
* * *
It wasn’t long before the tunnel started to get hot.
The stone walls glowed. The air felt as if we were walking through an oven. The tunnel sloped down and I could hear a loud roar, like a river of metal. The spider skittered along, with Annabeth right behind.
“Hey, wait up,” I called to her.
She glanced back at me. “Yeah?”
“Something Hephaestus said back there…about Athena.”
“She swore never to marry,” Annabeth said. “Like Artemis and Hestia. She’s one of the maiden goddesses.”
I blinked. I’d never heard that about Athena before. “But then—”
“How come she has demigod children?”
I nodded. I was probably blushing, but hopefully it was so hot anyway that Annabeth didn’t notice.
“Percy, you know how Athena was born?”
“She sprung from the head of Zeus in full battle armor or something.”
“Exactly. She wasn’t born in the normal way. She was literally born from thoughts. Her children are born the same way. When Athena falls in love with a mortal man, it’s purely intellectual, the way she loved Odysseus in the old stories. It’s a meeting of minds. She would tell you that’s the purest kind of love.”