From Percy Jackson_Camp Half-Blood Confidential

by Rick Riordan

  KOPIS—a three-foot-long sword with a forward-curving blade

  KRONOS—the youngest of the twelve Titans; the son of Ouranos and Gaea; the father of Zeus; he killed his father at his mother’s bidding; Titan lord of fate, harvest, justice, and time

  LABYRINTH—an underground maze originally built on the island of Crete by the craftsman Daedalus to hold the Minotaur

  LYRE—a string instrument, similar to a small harp, used in ancient Greece

  MANTICORE—a creature with a human head, a lion’s body, and a scorpion’s tail

  MINOTAUR—the half-man, half-bull son of King Minos of Crete; the Minotaur was kept in the Labyrinth, where he killed people who were sent in; he was finally defeated by Theseus

  MIST—a magic force that disguises things from mortals

  MOUNT OLYMPUS—home of the Twelve Olympians

  MOUNT PELION—a mountain in the southeastern part of Thessaly in central Greece; the homeland of Chiron the centaur, tutor of many ancient Greek heroes

  MYCENAE—the capital city that Perseus and Andromeda founded

  MYRMEKE—a giant antlike creature that poisons and paralyzes its prey before eating it; known for protecting various metals, particularly gold

  NAIAD—a water nymph

  NEMEAN LION—a lion that ravaged the area of Nemea; its fur was impervious to human weapons; slain by Heracles

  NEMESIS—the Greek goddess of revenge

  NEREIDS—water nymphs

  NIKE—the Greek goddess of strength, speed, and victory

  NYMPH—a female deity who animates nature

  OMPHALUS—stone used to mark the center—or navel—of the world

  ORACLE OF DELPHI—a speaker of the prophecies of Apollo

  OURANOS—the Greek personification of the sky; father of the Titans

  PALAESTRA—the Greek goddess of wrestling

  PALIKOI (PALIKOS, sing.)—twin sons of Zeus and Thaleia; the gods of geysers and thermal springs

  PANATHENAIA—an ancient religious festival in Athens; the Athenians went in procession to the Acropolis, sacrificed one hundred oxen, and gave offerings, including a richly embroidered cloth, to the goddess Athena in the Parthenon temple

  PARTY PONIES—groups of centaurs that are wild and drink root beer; known for attaching boxing gloves to the tips of their arrows and using paintball guns with Celestial bronze dust mixed into the paint

  PEGASUS (PEGASI, pl.)—a winged divine horse, sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god

  PEPLOS—an outer robe or shawl worn by women in ancient Greece, hanging in loose folds and sometimes drawn over the head

  PERSEUS—a Greek hero; one of his many feats of bravery was rescuing Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus

  POSEIDON—the Greek god of the sea and of horses; son of the Titans Kronos and Rhea, and brother of Zeus and Hades

  PYTHON—a monstrous serpent that Gaea appointed to guard the Oracle at Delphi

  RIVER STYX—the river that forms the boundary between earth and the Underworld

  SATYR—a Greek forest god, part goat and part man

  SHADOW-TRAVEL—a form of transportation that allows creatures of the Underworld and children of Hades to use shadows to leap to any desired place on earth or in the Underworld, although it makes the user extremely fatigued

  STROPHION—a garment worn by females in ancient Greece; a soft band placed underneath the breasts to give them support

  TARTARUS—lowest part of the Underworld

  TITAN WAR—the epic ten-year battle between the Titans and the Olympians that resulted in the Olympians taking the throne

  TITANS—a race of powerful Greek deities, descendants of Gaea and Ouranos, that ruled during the Golden Age and were overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Olympians

  TROJAN—of Troy

  TROJAN WAR—According to legend, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband, Menelaus, king of Sparta

  TROY—a city situated in modern-day Turkey; site of the Trojan War

  TYCHE—the Greek goddess of good fortune; daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite

  UNDERWORLD—the kingdom of the dead, where souls go for eternity; ruled by Hades

  URSA MAJOR—the Great Bear, the constellation form of Callisto, whom Hera turned into a bear in a fit of jealousy and Zeus made eternal by making her a cluster of stars

  URSA MINOR—the Little Bear, the constellation form of Arcas, Zeus’s son with Callisto

  ZEUS—the Greek god of the sky and the king of the gods

  Endnotes

  The Magical Border

  * Some restrictions apply. With invading armies and giant, hostile animated statues, results may vary.

  Thalia’s Pine and the Golden Fleece*

  * Approach at your own risk. Peleus the guardian dragon only appears to be sleeping.

  The Athena Parthenos

  * chryselephantine: sculpted of gold and ivory

  Also by Rick Riordan

  PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS

  Book One: The Lightning Thief

  Book Two: The Sea of Monsters

  Book Three: The Titan’s Curse

  Book Four: The Battle of the Labyrinth

  Book Five: The Last Olympian

  The Demigod Files

  The Lightning Thief: The Graphic Novel

  The Sea of Monsters: The Graphic Novel

  The Titan’s Curse: The Graphic Novel

  Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods

  Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes

  THE KANE CHRONICLES

  Book One: The Red Pyramid

  Book Two: The Throne of Fire

  Book Three: The Serpent’s Shadow

  The Red Pyramid: The Graphic Novel

  The Throne of Fire: The Graphic Novel

  THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS

  Book One: The Lost Hero

  Book Two: The Son of Neptune

  Book Three: The Mark of Athena

  Book Four: The House of Hades

  Book Five: The Blood of Olympus

  The Demigod Diaries

  The Lost Hero: The Graphic Novel

  The Son of Neptune: The Graphic Novel

  MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD

  Book One: The Sword of Summer

  Book Two: The Hammer of Thor

  For Magnus Chase:

  Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse Worlds

  THE TRIALS OF APOLLO

  Book One: The Hidden Oracle

  Book Two: The Dark Prophecy

  CRAVING MORE APOLLO?

  (And honestly, who wouldn’t?)

  Fall into

  THE DARK PROPHECY,

  BOOK TWO

  in Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo Series.

  Here’s a preview….

  WHEN OUR DRAGON declared war on Indiana, I knew it was going to be a bad day.

  We’d been traveling west for six weeks, and Festus had never shown such hostility toward a state. New Jersey he ignored. Pennsylvania he seemed to enjoy, despite our battle with the Cyclopes of Pittsburgh. Ohio he tolerated, even after our encounter with Potina, the Roman goddess of childhood drinks, who pursued us in the form of a giant red pitcher emblazoned with a smiley face.

  Yet for some reason, Festus decided he did not like Indiana. He landed on the cupola of the Indiana Statehouse, flapped his metallic wings, and blew a cone of fire that incinerated the state flag right off the flagpole.

  “Whoa, buddy!” Leo Valdez pulled the dragon’s reins. “We’ve talked about this. No blowtorching public monuments!”

  Behind him on the dragon’s spine, Calypso gripped Festus’s scales for balance. “Could we please get to the ground? Gently this time?”

  For a formerly immortal sorceress who once controlled air spirits, Calypso was not a fan of flying. Cold wind blew her chestnut hair into my face, making me blink and spit.

  That’s right, dear reader.

  I, the most important passenger, the yo
uth who had once been the glorious god Apollo, was forced to sit in the back of the dragon. Oh, the indignities I had suffered since Zeus stripped me of my divine powers! It wasn’t enough that I was now a sixteen-year-old mortal with the ghastly alias Lester Papadopoulos. It wasn’t enough that I had to toil upon the earth doing (ugh) heroic quests until I could find a way back into my father’s good graces, or that I had a case of acne which simply would not respond to over-the-counter zit medicine. Despite my New York State junior driver’s license, Leo Valdez didn’t trust me to operate his aerial bronze steed!

  Festus’s claws scrabbled for a hold on the green copper dome, which was much too small for a dragon his size. I had a flashback to the time I installed a life-size statue of the muse Calliope on my sun chariot and the extra weight of the hood ornament made me nosedive into China and create the Gobi Desert.

  Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. “Apollo, you sense anything?”

  “Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy—”

  “You’re the one who’s been having visions,” Calypso reminded me. “You said your friend Meg would be here.”

  Just hearing Meg’s name gave me a twinge of pain. “That doesn’t mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind! Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!”

  “GPS?” Calypso asked.

  “Godly positioning systems.”

  “That’s not a real thing!”

  “Guys, cool it.” Leo patted the dragon’s neck. “Apollo, just try, will you? Does this look like the city you dreamed about or not?”

  I scanned the horizon.

  Indiana was flat country—highways crisscrossing scrubby brown plains, shadows of winter clouds floating above urban sprawl. Around us rose a meager cluster of downtown high-rises—stacks of stone and glass like layered wedges of black and white licorice. (Not the yummy kind of licorice, either; the nasty variety that sits for eons in your stepmother’s candy bowl on the coffee table. And no, Hera, why would I be talking about you?)

  After falling to earth in New York City, I found Indianapolis desolate and uninspiring, as if one proper New York neighborhood—Midtown, perhaps—had been stretched out to encompass the entire area of Manhattan, then relieved of two-thirds of its population and vigorously power-washed.

  I could think of no reason why an evil triumvirate of ancient Roman emperors would take interest in such a location. Nor could I imagine why Meg McCaffrey would be sent here to capture me. Yet my visions had been clear. I had seen this skyline. I had heard my old enemy Nero give orders to Meg: Go west. Capture Apollo before he can find the next Oracle. If you cannot bring him to me alive, kill him.

  The truly sad thing about this? Meg was one of my better friends. She also happened to be my demigod master, thanks to Zeus’s twisted sense of humor. As long as I remained mortal, Meg could order me to do anything, even kill myself….No. Better not to think of such possibilities.

  I shifted in my metal seat. After so many weeks of travel, I was tired and saddle sore. I wanted to find a safe place to rest. This was not such a city. Something about the landscape below made me as restless as Festus.

  Alas, I was sure this was where we were meant to be. Despite the danger, if I had a chance of seeing Meg McCaffrey again, of prying her away from her villainous stepfather’s grasp, I had to try.

  “This is the spot,” I said. “Before this dome collapses under us, I suggest we get to the ground.”

  Calypso grumbled in ancient Minoan, “I already said that.”

  “Well, excuse me, sorceress!” I replied in the same language. “Perhaps if you had helpful visions, I’d listen to you more often!”

  Calypso called me a few names that reminded me how colorful the Minoan language had been before it went extinct.

  “Hey, you two,” Leo said. “No ancient dialects. Spanish or English, please. Or machine.”

  Festus creaked in agreement.

  “It’s okay, boy,” Leo said. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to exclude us. Now let’s fly down to street level, huh?”

  Festus’s ruby eyes glowed. His metal teeth spun like drill bits. I imagined him thinking, Illinois is sounding pretty good right about now.

  But he flapped his wings and leaped from the dome. We hurtled downward, landing in front of the statehouse with enough force to crack the sidewalk. My eyeballs jiggled like water balloons.

  Festus whipped his head from side to side, steam curling from his nostrils.

  I saw no immediate threats. Cars drove leisurely down West Washington Street. Pedestrians strolled by: a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress, a heavyset policeman carrying a paper coffee cup labeled CAFÉ PATACHOU, a clean-cut man in a blue seersucker suit.

  The man in blue waved politely as he passed. “Morning.”

  “’Sup, dude,” Leo called.

  Calypso tilted her head. “Why was he so friendly? Does he not see that we’re sitting atop a fifty-ton metal dragon?”

  Leo grinned. “It’s the Mist, babe—messes with mortal eyes. Makes monsters look like stray dogs. Makes swords look like umbrellas. Makes me look even more handsome than usual!”

  Calypso jabbed her thumbs into Leo’s kidneys.

  “Ow!” he complained.

  “I know what the Mist is, Leonidas—”

  “Hey, I told you never to call me that.”

  “—but the Mist must be very strong here if it can hide a monster of Festus’s size at such close range. Apollo, don’t you find that a little odd?”

  I studied the passing pedestrians.

  True, I had seen places where the Mist was particularly heavy. At Troy, the sky above the battlefield had been so thick with gods you couldn’t turn your chariot without running into another deity, yet the Trojans and Greeks saw only hints of our presence. At Three Mile Island in 1979, the mortals somehow failed to realize that their nuclear meltdown was caused by an epic chainsaw fight between Ares and Hephaestus. (As I recall, Hephaestus had insulted Ares’s bell-bottom jeans.)

  Still, I did not think heavy Mist was the problem here. Something about these locals bothered me. Their faces were too placid. Their dazed smiles reminded me of ancient Athenians just before the Dionysus Festival—everyone in a good mood, distracted, thinking about the drunken riots and debauchery to come.

  “We should get out of the public eye,” I suggested. “Perhaps—”

  Festus stumbled, shaking like a wet dog. From inside his chest came a noise like a loose bicycle chain.

  “Aw, not again,” Leo said. “Everybody off!”

  Calypso and I quickly dismounted.

  Leo ran in front of Festus and held out his arms in a classic dragon-wrangler’s stance. “Hey, buddy, it’s fine! I’m just going to switch you off for a while, okay? A little downtime to—”

  Festus projectile-vomited a column of flames that engulfed Leo. Fortunately, Valdez was fireproof. His clothes were not. From what Leo had told me, he could generally prevent his outfits from burning up simply by concentrating. If he were caught by surprise, however, it didn’t always work.

  When the flames dissipated, Leo stood before us wearing nothing but his asbestos boxer shorts, his magical tool belt, and a pair of smoking, partially melted sneakers.

  “Dang it!” he complained. “Festus, it’s cold out here!”

  The dragon stumbled. Leo lunged and flipped the lever behind the dragon’s left foreleg. Festus began to collapse. His wings, limbs, neck, and tail contracted into his body, his bronze plates overlapping and folding inward. In a matter of seconds, our robotic friend had been reduced to a large bronze suitcase.

  That should have been physically impossible, of course, but like any decent god, demigod, or engineer, Leo Valdez refused to be stopped by the laws of physics.

  He scowled at his new piece of luggage. “Man…I thought I fixed his gyro-capacitor. Guess we’re stuck here until I can find a machine shop.”

  Calypso grimaced. Her pink ski jacket glistened with condensat
ion from our flight through the clouds. “And if we find such a shop, how long will it take to repair Festus?”

  Leo shrugged. “Twelve hours? Fifteen?” He pushed a button on the side of the suitcase. A handle popped up. “Also, if we see a men’s clothing store, that might be good.”

  I imagined walking into a T.J. Maxx, Leo in boxer shorts and melted sneakers, rolling a bronze suitcase behind him. I did not relish the idea.

  Then, from the direction of the sidewalk, a voice called, “Hello!”

  The woman in the flowery dress had returned. At least she looked like the same woman. Either that or lots of ladies in Indianapolis wore purple-and-yellow honeysuckle-pattern dresses and had 1950s bouffant hairstyles.

  She smiled vacantly. “Beautiful morning!”

  It was in fact a miserable morning—cold and cloudy with a smell of impending snow—but I felt it would be rude to ignore her completely.

  I gave her a little parade wave—the sort of gesture I used to give my worshippers when they came to grovel at my altar. To me, the message was clear enough: I see you, puny mortal; now run along. The gods are talking.

  The woman did not take the hint. She strolled forward and planted herself in front of us. She wasn’t particularly large, but something about her proportions seemed off. Her shoulders were too wide for her head. Her chest and belly protruded in a lumpy mass, as if she’d stuffed a sack of mangos down the front of her dress. With her spindly arms and legs, she reminded me of some sort of giant beetle. If she ever tipped over, I doubted she could easily get back up.

  “Oh, my!” She gripped her purse with both hands. “Aren’t you children cute!”

  Her lipstick and eye shadow were both a violent shade of purple. I wondered if she were getting enough oxygen to her brain.

  “Madam,” I said, “we are not children.” I could have added that I was over four thousand years old, and Calypso was even older, but I decided not to get into that. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a suitcase to repair and my friend is in dire need of a pair of pants.”

  I tried to step around her. She blocked my path.

  “You can’t go yet, dear! We haven’t welcomed you to Indiana!” From her purse, she drew a smartphone. The screen glowed as if a call were already in progress.