by Rick Riordan
Meg had so many new cuts on her face it was difficult to tell whether or not she was frowning. “And if I can’t get those seeds to grow?”
I didn’t hazard an answer. I could not handle any more thoughts of failure tonight.
Crest poked his head between the seats. “Can you show me the C minor six tri-chord now?”
Our reunion in Palm Springs was not a happy one.
Just from our condition, the dryads on duty could tell we brought bad news. It was two in the morning, but they gathered the entire population of the greenhouses in the Cistern, along with Grover, Coach Hedge, Mellie, and Baby Chuck.
When Joshua Tree saw Crest, the dryad scowled. “Why have you brought this creature into our midst?”
“More importantly,” Grover said, “where are Piper and Jason?”
He met my gaze, and his composure collapsed like a tower of cards. “Oh, no. No.”
We told them our story. Or rather, I did. Meg sat at the edge of the pond and stared desolately into the water. Crest crawled into one of the niches and wrapped his ears around himself like a blanket, cradling my ukulele the same way Mellie cradled Baby Chuck.
My voice broke several times as I described Jason’s final battle. His death finally became real to me. I gave up any hope that I would wake from this nightmare.
I expected Gleeson Hedge to explode, to start swinging his bat at everything and everyone. But like Tristan McLean, he surprised me. The satyr became still and calm, his voice unnervingly even.
“I was the kid’s protector,” he said. “I should’ve been there.”
Grover tried to console him, but Hedge raised a hand. “Don’t. Just don’t.” He faced Mellie. “Piper’s gonna need us.”
The cloud nymph brushed away a tear. “Yes. Of course.”
Aloe Vera wrung her hands. “Should I go, too? Maybe there’s something I can do.” She looked at me suspiciously. “Did you try aloe vera on this Grace boy?”
“I fear he is truly dead,” I said, “beyond even the powers of aloe.”
She looked unconvinced, but Mellie squeezed her shoulder. “You’re needed here, Aloe. Heal Apollo and Meg. Gleeson, get the diaper bag. I’ll meet you at the car.”
With Baby Chuck in her arms, she floated up and out of the Cistern.
Hedge snapped his fingers at me. “Pinto keys.”
I tossed them. “Please don’t do anything rash. Caligula is…You can’t—”
Hedge stopped me with a cold stare. “I’ve got Piper to take care of. That’s my priority. I’ll leave the rash stuff to other people.”
I heard the bitter accusation in his voice. Coming from Coach Hedge, that seemed deeply unfair, but I didn’t have the heart to protest.
Once the Hedge family was gone, Aloe Vera fussed over Meg and me, smearing goo on our injuries. She tutted at the red plug in my chest and replaced it with a lovely green spike from her hair.
The other dryads seemed at a loss for what to do or say. They stood around the pond, waiting and thinking. I supposed, as plants, they were comfortable with long silences.
Grover Underwood sat down heavily next to Meg. He moved his fingers over the holes of his reed pipes.
“Losing a demigod…” He shook his head. “That’s the worst thing that can happen to a protector. Years ago, when I thought I’d lost Thalia Grace…” He stopped himself, then slumped under the weight of despair. “Oh, Thalia. When she hears about this…”
I didn’t think I could feel any worse, but this idea sent a few more razor blades circulating through my chest. Thalia Grace had saved my life in Indianapolis. Her fury in combat had been rivaled only by the tenderness with which she spoke of her brother. I felt that I should be the one to break the news to her. On the other hand, I did not want to be in the same state when she heard it.
I looked around at my dejected comrades. I remembered the Sibyl’s words in my dream: It won’t seem worth it to you. I’m not sure it is myself. But you must come. You must hold them together in their grief. Now I understood. I wished I didn’t. How could I hold together a whole Cistern full of prickly dryads when I couldn’t even hold myself together?
Nevertheless, I lifted the ancient pair of caligae we’d retrieved from the yachts. “At least we have these. Jason gave his life for us to have a chance at stopping Caligula’s plans. Tomorrow, I’ll wear these into the Burning Maze. I’ll find a way to free the Oracle and stop the fires of Helios.”
I thought that was a pretty good pep talk—designed to restore confidence and reassure my friends. I left out the part about not having a clue how to accomplish any of it.
Prickly Pear bristled, which she did with consummate skill. “You’re in no shape to do anything. Besides, Caligula will know what you’re planning. He’ll be waiting and ready this time.”
“She’s right,” Crest said from his niche.
The dryads frowned at him.
“Why is he even here?” Cholla demanded.
“Music lessons,” I said.
That earned me several dozen confused looks.
“Long story,” I said. “But Crest risked his life for us on the yachts. He saved Meg. We can trust him.” I looked at the young pandos and hoped my assessment was correct. “Crest, is there anything you can tell us that might help?”
Crest wrinkled his fuzzy white nose (which did not at all make him look cute or make me want to cuddle him). “You cannot use the main entrance downtown. They will be waiting.”
“We got past you,” Meg said.
Crest’s giant ears turned pink around the edges. “That was different,” he muttered. “My uncle was punishing me. It was the lunch shift. No one ever attacks during the lunch shift.”
He glared at me like I should’ve known this. “They will have more fighters now. And traps. The horse might even be there. He can move very fast. Just one phone call and he can arrive.”
I remembered how quickly Incitatus had shown up at Macro’s Military Madness, and how viciously he’d fought aboard the shoe ship. I was not anxious to face him again.
“Is there another way in?” I asked. “Something, I don’t know, less dangerous and conveniently close to the Oracle’s room?”
Crest hugged his ukulele (my ukulele) tighter. “There is one. I know it. Others don’t.”
Grover tilted his head. “I have to say, that sounds a little too convenient.”
Crest made a sour face. “I like exploring. Nobody else does. Uncle Amax—he always said I was a daydreamer. But when you explore, you find things.”
I couldn’t argue with that. When I explored, I tended to find dangerous things that wanted to kill me. I doubted tomorrow would be any different.
“Could you lead us to this secret entrance?” I asked.
Crest nodded. “Then you will have a chance. You can sneak in, get to the Oracle before the guards find you. Then you can come out and give me music lessons.”
The dryads stared at me, their expressions unhelpfully blank, as if thinking Hey, we can’t tell you how to die. That’s your choice.
“We’ll do it,” Meg decided for me. “Grover, you in?”
Grover sighed. “Of course. But first, you two need sleep.”
“And healing,” Aloe added.
“And enchiladas?” I requested. “For breakfast?”
On that point, we reached consensus.
So, having enchiladas to look forward to—and also a likely fatal trip through the Burning Maze—I curled up in my sleeping bag and passed out.
I woke covered in goo and with aloe spikes (yet again) in my nostrils.
On the bright side, my ribs no longer felt like they were filled with lava. My chest had healed, leaving only a puckered scar where I’d impaled myself. I’d never had a scar before. I wished I could see it as a badge of honor. Instead, I feared that now, whenever I looked down, I would remember the worst night of my life.
At least I had slept deeply with no dreams. That aloe vera was good stuff.
The sun blaz
ed directly above. The Cistern was empty except for me and Crest, who snored in his niche, clutching his ukulele teddy bear. Someone, probably hours ago, had left a breakfast enchilada plate with a Big Hombre soda next to my sleeping bag. The food had cooled to lukewarm. The ice in the soda had melted. I didn’t care. I ate and drank ravenously. I was grateful for the hot salsa that cleared the smell of burning yachts out of my sinuses.
Once I de-slimed myself and washed in the pond, I dressed in a fresh set of Macro’s camouflage—arctic white, because there was such a demand for that in the Mojave Desert.
I shouldered my quiver and bow. I tied Caligula’s shoes to my belt. I considered trying to take the ukulele from Crest but decided to let him keep it for now, since I did not want to get my hands bitten off.
Finally, I climbed into the oppressive Palm Springs heat.
Judging from the angle of the sun, it must have been about three in the afternoon. I wondered why Meg had let me sleep so late. I scanned the hillside and saw no one. For a guilty moment, I imagined that Meg and Grover had been unable to wake me and had gone by themselves to take care of the maze.
Darn it! I could say when they returned. Sorry, guys! And I was all ready too!
But no. Caligula’s sandals dangled from my belt. They wouldn’t have left without those. I also doubted they’d have forgotten Crest, since he was the only one who knew the supersecret entrance to the maze.
I caught a flicker of movement—two shadows moving behind the nearest greenhouse. I approached and heard voices in earnest conversation: Meg and Joshua.
I wasn’t sure whether to let them be or to march over and shout Meg, this is no time to flirt with your yucca boyfriend!
Then I realized they were talking about climates and growing seasons. Ugh. I stepped into view and found them studying a line of seven young saplings that had sprouted from the rocky soil…in the exact spots where Meg had planted her seeds only yesterday.
Joshua spied me immediately, a sure sign that my arctic camouflage was working.
“Well. He’s alive.” He didn’t sound particularly thrilled about this. “We were just discussing the new arrivals.”
Each sapling rose about three feet high, its branches white, its leaves pale-green diamonds that looked much too delicate for the desert heat.
“Those are ash trees,” I said, dumbfounded.
I knew a lot about ash trees….Well, more than I knew about most trees, anyway. Long ago, I had been called Apollo Meliai, Apollo of the Ash Trees, because of a sacred grove I owned in…oh, where was it? Back then I had so many vacation properties I couldn’t keep them all straight.
My mind began to whirl. The word meliai meant something besides just ash trees. It had special significance. Despite being planted in a completely hostile climate, these young plants radiated strength and energy even I could sense. They’d grown overnight into healthy saplings. I wondered what they might look like tomorrow.
Meliai…I turned the word over in my mind. What had Caligula said? Blood-born. Silver wives.
Meg frowned. She looked much better this morning—back in her stoplight-colored clothes that had been miraculously patched and laundered. (I suspected the dryads, who are great with fabrics.) Her cat-eye glasses had been repaired with blue electrical tape. The scars on her arms and face had faded into faint white streaks like meteor trails across the sky.
“I still don’t get it,” she said. “Ash trees don’t grow in the desert. Why was my dad experimenting with ash?”
“The Meliai,” I said.
Joshua’s eyes glittered. “That was my thought, too.”
“The who?” Meg asked.
“I believe,” I said, “that your father was doing more than simply researching a new, hardy plant strain. He was trying to re-create…or rather reincarnate an ancient species of dryad.”
Was it my imagination, or did the young trees rustle? I restrained the urge to step back and run away. They were only saplings, I reminded myself. Nice, harmless baby plants that did not have any intention of murdering me.
Joshua knelt. In his khaki safari clothes, with his tousled gray-green hair, he looked like a wild-animal expert who was about to point out some deadly species of scorpion for the TV audience. Instead he touched the branches of the nearest sapling, then quickly removed his hand.
“Could it be?” he mused. “They’re not conscious yet, but the power I sense…”
Meg crossed her arms and pouted. “Well, I wouldn’t have planted them here if I’d known they were important ash trees or whatever. Nobody told me.”
Joshua gave her a dry smile. “Meg McCaffrey, if these are the Meliai, they will survive even in this harsh climate. They were the very first dryads—seven sisters born when the blood of murdered Ouranos fell upon the soil of Gaea. They were created at the same time as the Furies, and with the same great strength.”
I shuddered. I did not like the Furies. They were ugly, ill-tempered, and had bad taste in music. “The blood-born,” I said. “That’s what Caligula called them. And the silver wives.”
“Mmm.” Joshua nodded. “According to legend, the Meliai married humans who lived during the Silver Age, and gave birth to the race of the Bronze Age. But we all make mistakes.”
I studied the saplings. They didn’t look much like the mothers of Bronze Age humanity. They didn’t look like the Furies, either.
“Even for a skilled botanist like Dr. McCaffrey,” I said, “even with the blessing of Demeter…is reincarnating such powerful beings possible?”
Joshua swayed pensively. “Who can say? It seems the family of Plemnaeus was pursuing this goal for millennia. No one would be better suited. Dr. McCaffrey perfected the seeds. His daughter planted them.”
Meg blushed. “I don’t know. Whatever. Seems weird.”
Joshua regarded the young ash trees. “We will have to wait and see. But imagine seven primordial dryads, beings of great power, bent on the preservation of nature and the destruction of any who would threaten it.” His expression turned unusually warlike for a flowering plant. “Surely Caligula would see that as a major threat.”
I couldn’t argue. Enough of a threat to burn down a botanist’s house and send him and his daughter straight into the arms of Nero? Probably.
Joshua rose. “Well, I must go dormant. Even for me, the daylight hours are taxing. We will keep an eye on our seven new friends. Good luck on your quest!”
He burst into a cloud of yucca fiber.
Meg looked disgruntled, probably because I had interrupted their flirty talk about climate zones.
“Ash trees,” she grumbled. “And I planted them in the desert.”
“You planted them where they needed to be,” I said. “If these truly are the Meliai”—I shook my head in amazement—“they responded to you, Meg. You brought back a life force that has been absent for millennia. That is awe-inspiring.”
She looked over. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No,” I assured her. “You are your mother’s child, Meg McCaffrey. You are quite impressive.”
“Hmph.”
I understood her skepticism.
Demeter was rarely described as impressive. Too often, the goddess got ridiculed for not being interesting or powerful enough. Like plants, Demeter worked slowly and quietly. Her designs grew over the course of centuries. But when those designs came to fruition (bad fruit pun, sorry), they could be extraordinary. Like Meg McCaffrey.
“Go wake up Crest,” Meg told me. “I’ll meet you down at the road. Grover’s getting us a car.”
Grover was almost as good as Piper McLean at procuring luxury vehicles. He had found us a red Mercedes XLS, which I normally would not have complained about—except it was the exact same make and model that Meg and I had driven from Indianapolis to the Cave of Trophonius.
I’d like to tell you I didn’t believe in bad omens. But since I was the god of omens…
At least Grover agreed to drive. The winds had shifted south, filling the Mor
ongo Valley with wildfire smoke and clogging traffic even more than usual. The afternoon sun filtered through the red sky like a baleful eye.
I feared the sun might look that hostile for the rest of eternity if Caligula became the new solar god…but no, I couldn’t think like that.
If Caligula came into possession of the sun chariot, there was no telling what horrible things he would do to trick out his new ride: sequencers, under-carriage lighting, a horn that played the riff from “Low Rider”…Some things could not be tolerated.
I sat in the backseat with Crest and did my best to teach him basic ukulele chords. He was a quick learner, despite the size of his hands, but he grew impatient with the major chords and wanted to learn more exotic combinations.
“Show me the suspended fourth again,” he said. “I like that.”
Of course he would like the most unresolved chords.
“We should buy you a large guitar,” I urged once more. “Or even a lute.”
“You play ukulele,” he said. “I will play ukulele.”
Why did I always attract such stubborn companions? Was it my winning, easygoing personality? I didn’t know.
When Crest concentrated, his expression reminded me strangely of Meg’s—such a young face, yet so intent and serious, as if the fate of the world depended on this chord being played correctly, this packet of seeds being planted, this bag of rotten produce being thrown into the face of this particular street thug.
Why that similarity should make me fond of Crest, I wasn’t sure, but it struck me how much he had lost since yesterday—his job, his uncle, almost his life—and how much he had risked coming with us.
“I never said how sorry I was,” I ventured, “about your Uncle Amax.”
Crest sniffed the ukulele fret board. “Why would you be sorry? Why would I?”
“Uh…It’s just, you know, an expression of courtesy…when you kill someone’s relatives.”
“I never liked him,” Crest said. “My mother sent me to him, said he would make me a real pandos warrior.” He strummed his chord but got a diminished seventh by mistake. He looked pleased with himself. “I do not want to be a warrior. What is your job?”