The Tower of Nero

by Rick Riordan

  Her arms trembled. “I—no. You cut off—” She gagged, clearly unable to say the words. She stared down at her own fists, clenched as if they might fly off her wrists if left unattended.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Nero said in a tone that somehow implied, This is all your fault.

  “Luguselwa made the wrong choice. You know that. You must have understood what would happen. You are too smart to be blind. We’ve talked about consequences so often.” He sighed with regret. “Perhaps Cassius was too harsh, taking her hands.” He tilted his head. “If you like, I can punish him for that.”

  “What?” Meg was shaking, as if no longer sure where to direct the giant cannon of her anger. “No! It wasn’t him. It was—”

  She choked on the obvious answer: YOU.

  With Nero sitting right in front of her, talking in gentle tones, giving her his full attention, she faltered.

  Meg! I shouted, but no sound came forth. Meg, keep smashing things!

  “You have a kind heart,” Nero said with another sigh. “You care about Apollo. About Lu. I understand that. And when you unleash the Beast…” He spread his hands. “I know that is unsettling. But it isn’t over, Meg. Will you sit with me? I’m not asking for a hug, or for you to stop being angry. But I have some news that may make you feel better.”

  He patted the mattress again. The maid wrung her hands. The Germanus picked his teeth.

  Meg wavered. I could imagine the thoughts racing through her head: Is the news about Apollo? Will you offer to let him go if I cooperate? Is Lu still alive? Will she be released? And if I don’t play along with your wishes, will I be endangering them?

  Nero’s unspoken message seemed to hang in the air: This is all your fault, but you can still make it right.

  Slowly, Meg moved to the bed. She sat, her posture stiff and guarded. I wanted to lunge between her and Nero, to insert myself in the gap and make sure he could not get any closer, but I feared his influence was worse than physical.…He was worming his way into her mind.

  “Here is the good news, Meg,” he said. “We will always have each other. I will never abandon you. You can never make a mistake so great I will not take you back. Lu betrayed you when she betrayed me. Apollo was unreliable, selfish, and—dare I say—a narcissist. But I know you. I have raised you. This is your home.”

  Oh, gods, I thought. Nero was so good at being evil, and so evil at being good, he made the words lose their meaning. He could tell you the floor was the ceiling with such conviction you might start believing it, especially since any disagreement would unleash the Beast.

  I marveled how such a man could rise to be emperor of Rome. Then I marveled how such a man could ever lose control of Rome. It was easy to see how he’d gotten the mobs on his side.

  Meg shivered, but whether from rage or despair, I couldn’t be sure.

  “There, there.” Nero put an arm around her shoulders. “You can cry. It’s all right. I’m here.”

  A cold knot formed in my gut. I suspected that as soon as Meg’s tears fell, the game would be over. All the independence she’d built and fought so hard to maintain would crumble. She would fold herself against Nero’s chest, just as she’d done as a little girl, after Nero killed her real father. The Meg I knew would disappear under the twisted, tortured mess Nero had spent years cultivating.

  The scene lost cohesion—perhaps because I was too upset to control my dream. Or perhaps I simply couldn’t bear to watch what happened next. I tumbled down through the tower, floor after floor, trying to regain the reins.

  I’m not done, I insisted. I need more information!

  Unfortunately, I got it.

  I stopped in front of a golden door—never a good sign, golden doors. The dream swept me inside a small vault. I felt as if I’d entered a reactor core. Intense heat threatened to burn my dream-self into a cloud of dream-ashes. The air smelled heavy and toxic. Before me, floating above a pedestal of Stygian iron, was the fasces of Nero—a five-foot-tall golden ax, bundled with wooden rods and lashed together by gold cords. The ceremonial weapon pulsed with power—exponentially more than the two fasces Meg and I had destroyed at Sutro Tower.

  The meaning of this dawned on me…whispered into my brain like a line of Python’s poisoned prophecy. The three emperors of the Triumvirate hadn’t just linked themselves through a corporation. Their life forces, their ambitions, their greed and malice, had entwined over the centuries. By killing Commodus and Caligula, I had consolidated all the power of the Triumvirate into the fasces of Nero. I had made the surviving emperor three times as powerful and harder to kill. Even if the fasces were unguarded, destroying it would be difficult.

  And the fasces was not unguarded.

  Behind the glowing ax, his hands spread as if in benediction, the guardian stood. His body was humanoid, seven feet tall. Patches of gold fur covered his muscular chest, arms, and legs. His feathery white wings reminded me of one of Zeus’s wind spirits, or the angels that Christians liked to paint.

  His face, however, was not angelic. He had the shaggy-maned visage of a lion, ears rimmed with black fur, mouth open to reveal fangs and a panting red tongue. His huge golden eyes radiated a sort of sleepy, self-confident strength.

  But the strangest thing about the guardian was the serpent that encircled his body from ankles to neck—a slithering spiral of green flesh that corkscrewed around him like an endless escalator—a snake with no head or tail.

  The lion man saw me. My dream state was nothing to him. Those gold eyes locked onto me and would not let me go. They turned me and examined me as if I were a trog boy’s crystal sphere.

  He communicated wordlessly. He told me he was the leontocephaline, a creation of Mithras, a Persian god so secretive even we Olympians had never really understood him. In Mithras’s name, the leontocephaline had overseen the movement of the stars and the phases of the zodiac. He had also been the keeper of Mithras’s great specter of immortality, but that had been lost eons ago. Now the leontocephaline had been given a new job, a new symbol of power to guard.

  Just looking at him threatened to tear my mind apart. I tried to ask him questions. I understood that fighting him was impossible. He was eternal. He could no more be killed than one could kill time. He guarded the immortality of Nero, but wasn’t there any way…?

  Oh, yes. He could be bargained with. I saw what he wanted. The realization made my soul curl up like a squashed spider.

  Nero was clever. Horribly, evilly clever. He had set a trap with his own symbol of power. He was cynically betting that I would never pay the price.

  At last, his point made, the leontocephaline released me. My dream-self snapped back into my body.

  I sat up in bed, gasping and soaked in sweat.

  “About time,” Lu said.

  Incredibly, she was on her feet, pacing the cell. My healing power must have done more than just soothe her amputation wounds. She wobbled a bit, but she did not look like someone who’d been using crutches and leg braces just a day ago. Even the bruises on her face had faded.

  “You…You look better,” I noted. “How long was I out?”

  “Too long. Gunther brought dinner an hour ago.” She nodded to a new platter of food on the floor. “He said he’d be back soon to get us for the party. But the fool was careless. He left us silverware!”

  She brandished her stumps.

  Oh, gods. What had she done? Somehow, she had managed to attach a fork to one stump and a knife to the other. She had inserted the handles into the folds of her bandages, then fastened them in place with…Wait. Was that my surgical tape?

  I looked at the foot of my bed. Sure enough, my pack was open, the contents scattered about.

  I tried to ask how and why at the same time, so it came out as “Hawhy?”

  “If you have enough time, some tape, and a set of working teeth, you can do a lot,” Lu said proudly. “I couldn’t wait for you to wake up. Didn’t know when Gunther would be back. Sorry about the mess.”

&n
bsp; “I—”

  “You can help.” She tested her silverware attachments with a few kung fu jabs. “I tied these babies on as tight as I could, but you can wrap them one more time. I have to be able to use them in combat.”

  “Er—”

  She plopped down on the sofa next to me. “While you work, you can tell me what you learned.”

  I was not about to argue with someone who could poke me in the eye with a fork. I was dubious about the effectiveness of her new combat attachments, but I didn’t say anything. I understood that this was about Luguselwa taking charge of her situation, not giving up, doing what she could with what she had. When you’ve gone through a life-changing shock, positive thinking is the most effective weapon you can wield.

  I wrapped her utensils more tightly in place while explaining what I’d seen in my dream drive: Meg trying not to crumble under the influence of Nero, the emperor’s fasces floating in its radioactive room, and the leontocephaline, waiting for us to try and take it.

  “We’d best hurry, then.” Lu grimaced. “Tighter with that tape.”

  My efforts obviously hurt her, judging from the crinkles around her eyes, but I did as she asked.

  “Right,” she said, swiping the air with her utensils. “That’ll have to do.”

  I tried for a supportive smile. I wasn’t sure Captain Fork and Knife would have much luck against Gunther or the leontocephaline, but if we met a hostile rib-eye steak, Lu would be queen of the combat.

  “And no sign of the other thing?” she asked.

  I wished I could’ve told her yes. I had wanted so badly to see visions of the entire troglodyte corporation digging into Nero’s basement and disabling his fire vats. I would have settled for a dream of Nico, Will, and Rachel charging to our rescue, yelling loudly and waving noisemakers.

  “Nothing,” I said. “But we still have time.”

  “Yeah,” Lu agreed. “Minutes and minutes. Then the party starts and the city burns. But, okay. Let’s concentrate on what we can do. I have a plan to get us out of here.”

  A cold shiver ran down my neck as I thought about my silent conversation with the guardian of the fasces. “And I have a plan for what to do when we get out.”

  Then we both said together, “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Oh, joy.” I sighed. “Let’s hear yours first.”

  LU WAS RIGHT.

  I hated her plan, but since time was short and Gunther might show up any minute with our party hats and various torture devices, I agreed to do my part.

  Full disclosure: I also hated my plan. I explained to Lu what the leontocephaline would demand in exchange for the fasces.

  Lu glowered like an angry water buffalo. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m afraid so. He guards immortality, so—”

  “He expects a sacrifice of immortality.”

  The words hung in the air like cigar smoke—cloying and suffocating. This was what all my trials had led to—this choice. This was why Python had been laughing at me for months in my dreams. Nero had made the cost of his destruction giving up the one thing I wanted most. To destroy him, I’d have to forfeit my own godhood forever.

  Lu scratched her chin with her fork hand. “We must help Meg, whatever the cost.”

  “Agreed.”

  She nodded grimly. “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.”

  I swallowed the coppery taste in my mouth. I was ready to pay the price. If it meant freeing Meg from the Beast, freeing the world, freeing Delphi…then I would. But it would’ve been nice if Lu had protested just a little on my behalf. Oh, no, Apollo! You can’t!

  I suppose our relationship was past the point of sugarcoating, though. Lu was too practical for that. She was the sort of woman who didn’t whine about getting her hands cut off. She just taped silverware to her stumps and got on with business. She wasn’t going to give me a pat on the back for doing the right thing, however painful it was.

  Still…I wondered if I was missing something. I wondered if we were really on the same page. Lu had a faraway look in her eyes, like she was calculating losses on a battlefield.

  Maybe what I sensed was her worry about Meg.

  We both knew that, under most circumstances, Meg was fully capable of rescuing herself. But with Nero…I suspected Lu, like me, wanted Meg to be strong enough to save herself. We couldn’t make the hard choices for her. Yet it was excruciating to stand by while Meg’s sense of independence was tested. Lu and I were like nervous parents leaving our child at school for the first day of kindergarten…except in this case the kindergarten teacher was a homicidal megalomaniac emperor. Call us crazy, but we didn’t trust what Meg might learn in that classroom.

  Lu met my eyes one last time. I imagined her packing away her doubts and fears in her mental saddlebags for later, when she had time for them, along with her cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwiches.

  “Let’s get to work,” she told me.

  It wasn’t long before we heard the hallway door bang open and heavy footsteps approaching the cell.

  “Look casual,” Lu ordered, reclining on her couch.

  I leaned against the wall and whistled the tune to “Maneater.” Gunther appeared, a batch of neon-yellow zip-tie restraints in his hand.

  I pointed a finger gun at him. “Hey, what’s up?”

  He scowled. Then he looked at Lu with her new silverware attachments, and his face split into a grin. “What are you supposed to be? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

  Lu raised her fork and knife. “Thought I’d carve you up like the turkey you are.”

  Gunther started to giggle, which was disturbing in a man of his size. “Stupid Lu. You have fork-and-knife hands.…HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” He tossed the zip-ties through the cell’s bars. “You, ugly boy, tie her arms behind her back. Then I tie you.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  His mirth dissipated like foam on skink soup. “What you say?”

  “You want to tie us up,” I said very slowly, “you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  He frowned, trying to make sense of the fact that a teenaged boy was telling him what to do. Clearly, he’d never had children.

  “I will call other guards.”

  Lu snorted. “You do that. Can’t handle us yourself. I’m too dangerous.” She held up her knife hand in what could have been taken as a rude gesture.

  Gunther’s face turned a mottled red. “You’re not the boss of me no more, Luguselwa.”

  “Not the boss of me,” Lu mimicked. “Go on, get help. Tell them you couldn’t tie up a weakling boy and a no-handed woman by yourself. Or come in here, and I will tie you up.”

  Her plan depended on Gunther taking the bait. He needed to come inside. With his barbarian manhood in question, and his honor insulted by a rude piece of silverware, he did not disappoint. The middle bars of the cell retracted into the floor. Gunther strode through. He didn’t notice the salve I’d slathered across the threshold—and let me assure you, Will Solace’s burn ointment is slippery stuff.

  I’d been wondering which direction Gunther might fall. Turns out, backward. His heel shot out from under him, his legs crumpled, and his head slammed hard against the marble floor, leaving him flat on his back and groaning halfway inside the cell.

  “Now!” Lu yelled.

  I charged the door.

  Lu had told me that the cell bars were motion sensitive. They snapped upward, determined to stop my escape, but they had not been designed to compensate for the weight of a Germanus lying across the threshold.

  The bars smashed Gunther against the ceiling like a hyperactive forklift, then lowered him again, their hidden mechanisms whirring and creaking in protest. Gunther gurgled in pain. His eyes crossed. His armor was thoroughly crushed. His ribs probably weren’t in much better shape, but at least the bars hadn’t gone straight through him. I did not want to witness that kind of mess, nor step through it.

  “Get his sword,” Lu ordered.

  I did. Then, using Gu
nther’s body as a bridge across the slippery salve, we escaped into the hall, the eye of the security camera watching as we fled.

  “Here.” Lu gestured to what appeared to be a closet door.

  I kicked it in, realizing only afterward that 1) I had no idea why, and 2) I trusted Lu enough not to ask.

  Inside were shelves stacked with personal possessions—packs, clothes, weapons, shields. I wondered what unfortunate prisoners they had once belonged to. Leaning against a back corner were my bow and quivers.

  “Aha!” I grabbed them. With amazement, I drew the Arrow of Dodona from my otherwise empty quivers. “Thank the gods. How are you still here?”

  THOU ART PLEASED TO SEE ME, the arrow noted.

  “Well, I thought the emperor would have taken you. Or turned you into kindling!”

  NERO IS NOT WORTH A FIG, said the arrow. HE SEES NOT MY BRILLIANCE.

  Somewhere down the hall, an alarm began to blare. The overhead lighting changed from white to red.

  “Could you talk with your projectile later?” Lu suggested. “We have to move!”

  “Right,” I said. “Which way to the fasces?”

  “Left,” Lu said. “So you go right.”

  “Wait, what? You said it’s left.”

  “Right.”

  “Right?”

  ODS BODKINS! The arrow vibrated in my hand. JUST LISTEN TO THE GAUL!

  “I’m going after the fasces,” Lu explained. “You’re going to find Meg.”

  “But…” My head spun. Was this a trick? Hadn’t we agreed? I was ready for my close-up, my big heroic sacrifice. “The leontocephaline demands immortality for immortality. I have to—”

  “I’ve got it covered,” Lu said. “Don’t worry. Besides, we Celts lost most of our gods long ago. I’m not going to stand by while another deity dies.”

  “But you’re not—”

  I stopped myself. I was about to say immortal. Then I considered how many centuries Lu had been alive. Would the leontocephaline accept her life as payment?

  My eyes filled with tears. “No,” I said. “Meg can’t lose you.”

  Lu snorted. “I won’t get myself killed if I can help it. I have a plan, but you need to move. Meg is in danger. Her room is six floors up. Southeast corner. Follow the stairs at the end of the hall.”