by Rick Riordan
‘Shut up!’ his left face said. ‘This is serious. One bad choice can ruin your whole life. It can kill you and all your friends. But no pressure, Annabeth. Choose!’
With a sudden chill, I remembered the words of the prophecy: the child of Athena’s final stand.
‘Don’t do it,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid she has to,’ the right face said cheerfully.
Annabeth moistened her lips. ‘I – I choose –’
Before she could point to a door, a brilliant light flooded the room.
Janus raised his hands to either side of his head to cover his eyes. When the light died, a woman was standing at the fountain.
She was tall and graceful, with long hair the colour of chocolate, braided in plaits with gold ribbons. She wore a simple white dress, but when she moved, the fabric shimmered with colours like oil on water.
‘Janus,’ she said. ‘Are we causing trouble again?’
‘N-no, milady!’ Janus’s right face stammered.
‘Yes!’ the left face said.
‘Shut up!’ the right face said.
‘Excuse me?’ the woman asked.
‘Not you, milady! I was talking to myself.’
‘I see,’ the lady said. ‘You know very well your visit is premature. The girl’s time has not yet come. So I give you a choice: leave these heroes to me, or I shall turn you into a door and break you down.’
‘What kind of door?’ the left face asked.
‘Shut up!’ the right face said.
‘Because French doors are nice,’ the left face mused. ‘Lots of natural light.’
‘Shut up!’ the right face wailed. ‘Not you, milady! Of course I’ll leave. I was just having a bit of fun. Doing my job. Offering choices.’
‘Causing indecision,’ the woman corrected. ‘Now begone!’
The left face muttered, ‘Party pooper,’ then he raised his silver key, inserted it into the air and disappeared.
The woman turned towards us, and fear closed around my heart. Her eyes shone with power. Leave these heroes to me. That didn’t sound good. For a second, I almost wished we could’ve taken our chances with Janus. But then the woman smiled.
‘You must be hungry,’ she said. ‘Sit with me and talk.’
She waved her hand, and the old Roman fountain began to flow. Jets of clear water sprayed into the air. A marble table appeared, laden with platters of sandwiches and pitchers of lemonade.
‘Who… who are you?’ I asked.
‘I am Hera.’ The woman smiled. ‘Queen of Heaven.’
∗ ∗ ∗
I’d seen Hera once before, at a council of the gods, but I hadn’t paid much attention to her. At the time I’d been surrounded by a bunch of other gods who were debating whether or not to kill me.
I didn’t remember her looking so normal. Of course, gods are usually seven metres tall when they’re on Olympus, so that makes them look a lot less normal. But, now, Hera looked like a regular mom.
She served us sandwiches and poured lemonade.
‘Grover, dear,’ she said. ‘Use your napkin. Don’t eat it.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Grover said.
‘Tyson, you’re wasting away. Would you like another peanut-butter sandwich?’
Tyson stifled a belch. ‘Yes, nice lady.’
‘Queen Hera,’ Annabeth said. ‘I can’t believe it. What are you doing in the Labyrinth?’
Hera smiled. She flicked one finger and Annabeth’s hair combed itself. All the dirt and grime disappeared from her face.
‘I came to see you, naturally,’ the goddess said.
Grover and I exchanged nervous looks. Usually when gods come looking for you, it’s not out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s because they want something.
Still, that didn’t keep me from chowing down on turkey-and-Swiss-cheese sandwiches and crisps and lemonade. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Tyson was inhaling one peanut-butter sandwich after another, and Grover was loving the lemonade, crunching the Styrofoam cup like an ice-cream cone.
‘I didn’t think –’ Annabeth faltered. ‘Well, I didn’t think you liked heroes.’
Hera smiled indulgently. ‘Because of that little spat I had with Hercules? Honestly, I got so much bad press because of one disagreement.’
‘Didn’t you try to kill him, like, a lot of times?’ Annabeth asked.
Hera waved her hand dismissively. ‘Water under the bridge, my dear. Besides, he was one of my loving husband’s children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I’ll admit it. But Zeus and I have had some excellent marriage counselling sessions since then. We’ve aired our feelings and come to an understanding – especially after that last little incident.’
‘You mean when he sired Thalia?’ I guessed, but immediately wished I hadn’t. As soon as I said the name of our friend, the half-blood daughter of Zeus, Hera’s eyes turned towards me frostily.
‘Percy Jackson, isn’t it? One of Poseidon’s… children.’ I got the feeling she was thinking of another word besides ‘children.’ As I recall, I voted to let you live at the winter solstice. I hope I voted correctly.’
She turned back to Annabeth with a sunny smile. ‘At any rate, I certainly bear you no ill will, my girl. I appreciate the difficulty of your quest. Especially when you have troublemakers like Janus to deal with.’
Annabeth lowered her gaze. ‘Why was he here? He was driving me crazy.’
‘Trying to,’ Hera agreed. ‘You must understand, the minor gods like Janus have always been frustrated by their small parts to play in the universe. Some, I fear, have little love for Olympus, and could easily be swayed to support the rise of my father.’
‘Your father?’ I said. ‘Oh. Right.’
I’d forgotten that Kronos was Hera’s dad, too, along with Zeus, Poseidon and all the eldest Olympians. I guess that made Kronos my grandfather, but that thought was so weird I put it out of my mind.
‘We must watch the minor gods,’ Hera said. ‘Janus. Hecate. Morpheus. They give lip service to Olympus, and yet –’
‘That’s where Dionysus went,’ I remembered. ‘He was checking on the minor gods.’
‘Indeed.’ Hera stared at the fading mosaics of the Olympians. ‘You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things, petty things. They stop looking at the big picture and start being selfish. But I’m the goddess of marriage, you see. I’m used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.’
‘What are your goals?’ Annabeth asked.
She smiled. ‘To keep my family, the Olympians, together, of course. At the moment, the best way I can do that is by helping you. Zeus does not allow me to interfere much, I am afraid. But once every century or so, for a quest I care deeply about, he allows me to grant a wish.’
‘A wish?’
‘Before you ask it, let me give you some advice, which I can do for free. I know you seek Daedalus. His Labyrinth is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But if you want to know his fate, I would visit my son Hephaestus at his forge. Daedalus was a great inventor, a mortal after Hephaestus’s heart. There has never been a mortal Hephaestus admired more. If anyone would have kept up with Daedalus and could tell you his fate, it is Hephaestus.’
‘But how do we get there?’ Annabeth asked. ‘That’s my wish. I want a way to navigate the Labyrinth.’
Hera looked disappointed. ‘So be it. You wish for something, however, that you have already been given.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The means is already within your grasp.’ She looked at me. ‘Percy knows the answer.’
‘I do?’
‘But that’s not fair,’ Annabeth said. ‘You’re not telling us what it is!’
Hera shook her head. ‘Getting something and having the wits to use it… those are two different things. I’m sure your mother, Athena, would agree.’
&nb
sp; The room rumbled like distant thunder. Hera stood. ‘That would be my cue. Zeus grows impatient. Think on what I have said, Annabeth. Seek out Hephaestus. You will have to pass through the ranch, I imagine. But keep going. And use all the means at your disposal, however common they may seem.’
She pointed towards the two doors and they melted away, revealing twin corridors, open and dark. ‘One last thing, Annabeth. I have postponed your day of choice. I have not prevented it. Soon, as Janus said, you will have to make a decision. Farewell!’
She waved a hand and turned into white smoke. So did the food, just as Tyson chomped down on a sandwich that turned to mist in his mouth. The fountain trickled to a stop. The mosaic walls dimmed and turned grungy and faded again. The room was no longer any place you’d want to have a picnic.
Annabeth stamped her foot. ‘What sort of help was that? “Here, have a sandwich. Make a wish. Oops, I can’t help you!” Poof!’
‘Poof,’ Tyson agreed sadly, looking at his empty plate.
‘Well,’ Grover sighed, ‘she said Percy knows the answer. That’s something.’
They all looked at me.
‘But I don’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what she was talking about.’
Annabeth sighed. ‘All right. Then we’ll just keep going.’
‘Which way?’ I asked. I really wanted to ask what Hera had meant – about the choice Annabeth needed to make. But then Grover and Tyson both tensed. They stood up together, like they’d rehearsed it. ‘Left,’ they both said.
Annabeth frowned. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because something is coming from the right,’ Grover said.
‘Something big,’ Tyson agreed. ‘In a hurry.’
‘Left is sounding pretty good,’ I decided. Together we plunged into the dark corridor.
7 Tyson Leads a Jailbreak
The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists or turns. The bad news: it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred metres, we ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked our path. Behind us, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something – definitely not human – was on our trail.
‘Tyson,’ I said, ‘can you –’
‘Yes!’ He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling.
‘Hurry!’ Grover said. ‘Don’t bring the roof down, but hurry!’
The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room, and we dashed through behind it.
‘Close the entrance!’ Annabeth said.
We all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing us wailed in frustration as we heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.
‘We trapped it,’ I said.
‘Or trapped ourselves,’ Grover said.
I turned. We were in a six-metre-square cement room, and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. We’d tunnelled straight into a cell.
‘What in Hades?’ Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn’t budge. Through the bars we could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard – at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.
‘A prison,’ I said. ‘Maybe Tyson can break –’
‘Shh,’ said Grover. ‘Listen.’
Somewhere above us, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too – a raspy voice muttering something that I couldn’t make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.
‘What’s that language?’ I whispered.
Tyson’s eye widened. ‘Can’t be.’
‘What?’ I asked.
He grabbed two bars on our cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.
‘Wait!’ Grover called.
But Tyson wasn’t about to wait. We ran after him. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.
‘I know this place,’ Annabeth told me. ‘This is Alcatraz.’
‘You mean that island near San Francisco?’
She nodded. ‘My school took a field trip here. It’s like a museum.’
It didn’t seem possible that we could’ve popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country, but Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais, just across the bay. She probably knew what she was talking about.
‘Freeze,’ Grover warned.
But Tyson kept going. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. ‘Stop, Tyson!’ he whispered. ‘Can’t you see it?’
I looked where he was pointing, and my stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything I’d ever seen before.
It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman’s body from the waist up. But instead of a horse’s lower body, it had the body of a dragon – at least seven metres long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then I realized they were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite. The woman’s hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa’s. Weirdest of all, around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals – a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures. I got the feeling I was looking at something half formed, a monster so old it was from the beginning of time, before shapes had been fully defined.
‘It’s her,’ Tyson whimpered.
‘Get down!’ Grover said.
We crouched in the shadows, but the monster wasn’t paying us any attention. It seemed to be talking to someone inside a cell on the second floor. That’s where the sobbing was coming from. The dragon woman said something in her weird rumbling language.
‘What’s she saying?’ I muttered. ‘What’s that language?’
‘The tongue of the old times.’ Tyson shivered. ‘What Mother Earth spoke to Titans and… her other children. Before the gods.’
‘You understand it?’ I asked. ‘Can you translate?’
Tyson closed his eyes and began to speak in a horrible, raspy woman’s voice. ‘You will work for the master or suffer.’
Annabeth shuddered. ‘I hate it when he does that.’
Like all Cyclopes, Tyson had superhuman hearing and an uncanny ability to mimic voices. It was almost like he entered a trance when he spoke in other voices.
‘I will not serve,’ Tyson said in a deep, wounded voice.
He switched to the monster’s voice: ‘Then I shall enjoy your pain, Briares.’ Tyson faltered when he said that name. I’d never heard him break character when he was mimicking somebody, but he let out a strangled gulp. Then he continued in the monster‘s voice. ‘If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you have yet to feel true torment. Think on this until I return.’
The dragon lady tromped towards the stairwell, vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts. She spread wings that I hadn’t noticed before – huge bat wings she kept folded against her dragon back. She leaped off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard. We crouched lower in the shadows. A hot sulphurous wind blasted my face as the monster flew over. Then she disappeared around the corner.
‘H-h-horrible,’ Grover said. ‘I’ve never smelled any monster that strong.’
‘Cyclopes’ worst nightmare,’ Tyson murmured. ‘Kampê.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
Tyson swallowed. ‘Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we’re babies. She was our jailer in the bad years.’
Annabeth nodded. ‘I remember now. When the Titans ruled, they imprisoned Gaia and Ouranos’s earlier children – the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires.’
‘The Heka-what?’ I asked.
‘The Hundred-handed Ones,’ she said. ‘They called them that because… well,
they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclopes.’
‘Very powerful,’ Tyson said. ‘Wonderful! As tall as the sky. So strong they could break mountains!’
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Unless you’re a mountain.’
‘Kampê was the jailer,’ he said. ‘She worked for Kronos. She kept our brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cyclopes and Hundred-handed Ones to help fight against the Titans in the big war.’
‘And now Kampê is back,’ I said.
‘Bad,’ Tyson summed up.
‘So who’s in that cell?’ I asked. ‘You said a name –’
‘Briares!’ Tyson perked up. ‘He is a Hundred-handed One. They are as tall as the sky and –’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘They break mountains.’
I looked up at the cells above us, wondering how something as tall as the sky could fit in a tiny cell, and why he was crying.
‘I guess we should check it out,’ Annabeth said, ‘before Kampê comes back.’
As we approached the cell, the weeping got louder. When I first saw the creature inside, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. He was human-size and his skin was very pale, the colour of milk. He wore a loincloth like a big diaper. His feet seemed too big for his body, with cracked dirty toenails, eight toes on each foot. But the top half of his body was the weird part. He made Janus look downright normal. His chest sprouted more arms than I could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked kind of like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together. Several of his hands were covering his face as he sobbed.
‘Either the sky isn’t as tall as it used to be,’ I muttered, ‘or he’s short.’
Tyson didn’t pay any attention. He fell to his knees.
‘Briares!’ he called.
The sobbing stopped.
‘Great Hundred-handed One!’ Tyson said. ‘Help us!’
Briares looked up. His face was long and sad, with a crooked nose and bad teeth. He had deep brown eyes – I mean completely brown with no whites or black pupils, like eyes formed out of clay.
‘Run while you can, Cyclops,’ Briares said miserably. ‘I cannot even help myself.’