by Rick Riordan
Sometimes it worked, but it was exhausting and unreliable. Aphrodite wasn’t about head-on confrontation. Aphrodite was about subtlety and guile and charm. Piper decided she shouldn’t focus on making people do what she wanted. She needed to push them to do the things they wanted.
A great theory, if she could make it work …
She stopped at the foremast and faced Khione. ‘Wow, I just realized why you hate us so much,’ she said, filling her voice with pity. ‘We humiliated you pretty badly in Sonoma.’
Khione’s eyes glinted like iced espresso. She shot an uneasy look at her brothers.
Piper laughed. ‘Oh, you didn’t tell them!’ she guessed. ‘I don’t blame you. You had a giant king on your side, plus an army of wolves and Earthborn, and you still couldn’t beat us.’
‘Silence!’ the goddess hissed.
The air turned misty. Piper felt frost gathering on her eyebrows and freezing her ear canals, but she feigned a smile.
‘Whatever.’ She winked at Zethes. ‘But it was pretty funny.’
‘The beautiful girl must be lying,’ Zethes said. ‘Khione was not beaten at the Wolf House. She said it was a … ah, what is the term? A tactical retreat.’
‘Treats?’ Cal asked. ‘Treats are good.’
Piper pushed the big guy’s chest playfully. ‘No, Cal. He means that your sister ran away.’
‘I did not!’ Khione shrieked.
‘What did Hera call you?’ Piper mused. ‘Right – a D-list goddess!’
She burst out laughing again, and her amusement was so genuine that Zethes and Cal started laughing, too.
‘That is très bon!’ Zethes said. ‘A D-list goddess. Ha!’
‘Ha!’ Cal said. ‘Sister ran away! Ha!’
Khione’s white dress began to steam. Ice formed over Zethes’s and Cal’s mouths, plugging them up.
‘Show us this secret of yours, Piper McLean,’ Khione growled. ‘Then pray I leave you on this ship intact. If you are toying with us, I will show you the horrors of frostbite. I doubt Zethes will still want you if you have no fingers or toes … perhaps no nose or ears.’
Zethes and Cal spat the ice plugs out of their mouths.
‘The pretty girl would look less pretty without a nose,’ Zethes admitted.
Piper had seen pictures of frostbite victims. The threat terrified her, but she didn’t let it show.
‘Come on, then.’ She led the way to the prow, humming one of her dad’s favourite songs – ‘Summertime’.
When she got to the figurehead, she put her hand on Festus’s neck. His bronze scales were cold. There was no hum of machinery. His ruby eyes were dull and dark.
‘You remember our dragon?’ Piper asked.
Khione scoffed. ‘This cannot be your secret. The dragon is broken. Its fire is gone.’
‘Well, yes …’ Piper stroked the dragon’s snout.
She didn’t have Leo’s power to make gears turn or circuits spark. She couldn’t sense anything about the workings of a machine. All she could do was speak her heart and tell the dragon what he most wanted to hear. ‘But Festus is more than a machine. He’s a living creature.’
‘Ridiculous,’ the goddess spat. ‘Zethes, Cal – gather the frozen demigods from below. Then we shall break open the sphere of winds.’
‘You could do that, boys,’ Piper agreed. ‘But then you wouldn’t see Khione humiliated. I know you’d like that.’
The Boreads hesitated.
‘Hockey?’ Cal asked.
‘Almost as good,’ Piper promised. ‘You fought at the side of Jason and the Argonauts, didn’t you? On a ship like this, the first Argo.’
‘Yes,’ Zethes agreed. ‘The Argo. Much like this, but we did not have a dragon.’
‘Don’t listen to her!’ Khione snapped.
Piper felt ice forming on her lips.
‘You could shut me up,’ she said quickly. ‘But you want to know my secret power – how I will destroy you, and Gaia, and the giants.’
Hatred seethed in Khione’s eyes, but she withheld her frost.
‘You – have – no – power,’ she insisted.
‘Spoken like a D-list goddess,’ Piper said. ‘One who never gets taken seriously, who always wants more power.’
She turned to Festus and ran her hand behind his metal ears. ‘You’re a good friend, Festus. No one can truly deactivate you. You’re more than a machine. Khione doesn’t understand that.’
She turned to the Boreads. ‘She doesn’t value you, either, you know. She thinks she can boss you around because you’re demigods, not full-fledged gods. She doesn’t understand that you’re a powerful team.’
‘A team,’ Cal grunted. ‘Like the Ca-na-di-ens.’
He had to struggle with the word since it was more than two syllables. He grinned and looked very pleased with himself.
‘Exactly,’ Piper said. ‘Just like a hockey team. The whole is greater than the parts.’
‘Like a pizza,’ Cal added.
Piper laughed. ‘You are smart, Cal! Even I underestimated you.’
‘Wait, now,’ Zethes protested. ‘I am smart also. And good-looking.’
‘Very smart,’ Piper agreed, ignoring the good-looking part. ‘So put down the wind bomb and watch Khione get humiliated.’
Zethes grinned. He crouched and rolled the ice sphere across the deck.
‘You fool!’ Khione yelled.
Before the goddess could go after the sphere, Piper cried, ‘Our secret weapon, Khione! We’re not just a bunch of demigods. We’re a team. Just like Festus isn’t only a collection of parts. He’s alive. He’s my friend. And when his friends are in trouble, especially Leo, he can wake up on his own.’
She willed all her confidence into her voice – all her love for the metal dragon and everything he’d done for them.
The rational part of her knew this was hopeless. How could you start a machine with emotions?
But Aphrodite wasn’t rational. She ruled through emotions. She was the oldest and most primordial of the Olympians, born from the blood of Ouranos churning in the sea. Her power was more ancient than that of Hephaestus or Athena or even Zeus.
For a terrible moment, nothing happened. Khione glared at her. The Boreads began to come out of their daze, looking disappointed.
‘Never mind our plan,’ Khione snarled. ‘Kill her!’
As the Boreads raised their swords, the dragon’s metal skin grew warm under Piper’s hand. She dived out of the way, tackling the snow goddess, as Festus turned his head one hundred and eighty degrees and blasted the Boreads, vaporizing them on the spot. For some reason, Zethes’s sword was spared. It clunked to the deck, still steaming.
Piper scrambled to her feet. She spotted the sphere of winds at the base of the foremast. She ran for it, but before she could get close Khione materialized in front of her in a swirl of frost. Her skin glowed bright enough to cause snow blindness.
‘You miserable girl,’ she hissed. ‘You think you can defeat me – a goddess?’
At Piper’s back, Festus roared and blew steam, but Piper knew he couldn’t breathe fire again without hitting her, too.
About twenty feet behind the goddess, the ice sphere began to crack and hiss.
Piper was out of time for subtlety. She yelled and raised her dagger, charging the goddess.
Khione grabbed her wrist. Ice spread over Piper’s arm. The blade of Katoptris turned white.
The goddess’s face was only six inches from hers. Khione smiled, knowing she had won.
‘A child of Aphrodite,’ she chided. ‘You are nothing.’
Festus creaked again. Piper could swear he was trying to shout encouragement.
Suddenly her chest grew warm – not with anger or fear but with love for that dragon; and Jason, who was depending on her; and her friends trapped below; and Leo, who was lost and would need her help.
Maybe love was no match for ice … but Piper had used it to wake a metal dragon. Mortals did superhuman feats in the name o
f love all the time. Mothers lifted cars to save their children. And Piper was more than just mortal. She was a demigod. A hero.
The ice melted on her blade. Her arm steamed under Khione’s grip.
‘Still underestimating me,’ Piper told the goddess. ‘You really need to work on that.’
Khione’s smug expression faltered as Piper drove her dagger straight down.
The blade touched Khione’s chest, and the goddess exploded in a miniature blizzard. Piper collapsed, dazed from the cold. She heard Festus clacking and whirring, the reactivated alarm bells ringing.
The bomb.
Piper struggled to rise. The sphere was ten feet away, hissing and spinning as the winds inside began to stir.
Piper dived for it.
Her fingers closed around the bomb just as the ice shattered and the winds exploded.
XLV
PERCY
Percy felt homesick for the swamp.
He never thought he’d miss sleeping in a giant’s leather bed in a drakon-bone hut in a festering cesspool, but right now that sounded like Elysium.
He and Annabeth and Bob stumbled along in the darkness, the air thick and cold, the ground alternating patches of pointy rocks and pools of muck. The terrain seemed to be designed so that Percy could never let his guard down. Even walking ten feet was exhausting.
Percy had started out from the giant’s hut feeling strong again, his head clear, his belly full of drakon jerky from their packs of provisions. Now his legs were sore. Every muscle ached. He pulled a makeshift tunic of drakon leather over his shredded T-shirt, but it did nothing to keep out the chill.
His focus narrowed to the ground in front of him. Nothing existed except for that and Annabeth at his side.
Whenever he felt like giving up, plopping himself down, and dying (which was, like, every ten minutes), he reached over and took her hand, just to remember there was warmth in the world.
After Annabeth’s talk with Damasen, Percy was worried about her. Annabeth didn’t give in to despair easily, but as they walked she wiped tears from her eyes, trying not to let Percy see. He knew she hated it when her plans didn’t work out. She was convinced they needed Damasen’s help, but the giant had turned them down.
Part of Percy was relieved. He was concerned enough about Bob staying on their side once they reached the Doors of Death. He wasn’t sure he wanted a giant as his wingman, even if that giant could cook a mean bowl of stew.
He wondered what had happened after they left Damasen’s hut. He hadn’t heard their pursuers in hours, but he could sense their hatred … especially Polybotes’s. That giant was back there somewhere, following, pushing them deeper into Tartarus.
Percy tried to think of good things to keep his spirits up – the lake at Camp Half-Blood; the time he’d kissed Annabeth underwater. He tried to imagine the two of them at New Rome together, walking through the hills and holding hands. But Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood both seemed like dreams. He felt as if only Tartarus existed. This was the real world – death, darkness, cold, pain. He’d been imagining all the rest.
He shivered. No. That was the pit speaking to him, sapping his resolve. He wondered how Nico had survived down here alone without going insane. That kid had more strength than Percy had given him credit for. The deeper they travelled, the harder it became to stay focused.
‘This place is worse than the River Cocytus,’ he muttered.
‘Yes,’ Bob called back happily. ‘Much worse! It means we are close.’
Close to what? Percy wondered. But he didn’t have the strength to ask. He noticed Small Bob the cat had hidden himself in Bob’s coveralls again, which reinforced Percy’s opinion that the kitten was the smartest one in their group.
Annabeth laced her fingers through his. In the light of his bronze sword, her face was beautiful.
‘We’re together,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ll get through this.’
He’d been so worried about lifting her spirits, and here she was reassuring him.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Piece of cake.’
‘But next time,’ she said, ‘I want to go somewhere different on a date.’
‘Paris was nice,’ he recalled.
She managed a smile. Months ago, before Percy got amnesia, they’d had dinner in Paris one night, compliments of Hermes. That seemed like another lifetime.
‘I’d settle for New Rome,’ she offered. ‘As long as you’re there with me.’
Man, Annabeth was awesome. For a moment, Percy actually remembered what it was like to feel happy. He had an amazing girlfriend. They could have a future together.
Then the darkness dispersed with a massive sigh, like the last breath of a dying god. In front of them was a clearing – a barren field of dust and stones. In the centre, about twenty yards away, knelt the gruesome figure of a woman, her clothes tattered, her limbs emaciated, her skin leathery green. Her head was bent as she sobbed quietly, and the sound shattered all Percy’s hopes.
He realized that life was pointless. His struggles were for nothing. This woman cried as if mourning the death of the entire world.
‘We’re here,’ Bob announced. ‘Akhlys can help.’
XLVI
PERCY
If the sobbing ghoul was Bob’s idea of help, Percy was pretty sure he didn’t want it.
Nevertheless, Bob trudged forward. Percy felt obliged to follow. If nothing else, this area was less dark – not exactly light, but with more of a soupy white fog.
‘Akhlys!’ Bob called.
The creature raised her head, and Percy’s stomach screamed, Help me!
Her body was bad enough. She looked like the victim of a famine – limbs like sticks, swollen knees and knobby elbows, rags for clothes, broken fingernails and toenails. Dust was caked on her skin and piled on her shoulders as if she’d taken a shower at the bottom of an hourglass.
Her face was utter desolation. Her eyes were sunken and rheumy, pouring out tears. Her nose dripped like a waterfall. Her stringy grey hair was matted to her skull in greasy tufts, and her cheeks were raked and bleeding as if she’d been clawing herself.
Percy couldn’t stand to meet her eyes, so he lowered his gaze. Across her knees lay an ancient shield – a battered circle of wood and bronze, painted with the likeness of Akhlys herself holding a shield, so the image seemed to go on forever, smaller and smaller.
‘That shield,’ Annabeth murmured. ‘That’s his. I thought it was just a story.’
‘Oh, no,’ the old hag wailed. ‘The shield of Hercules. He painted me on its surface, so his enemies would see me in their final moments – the goddess of misery.’ She coughed so hard it made Percy’s chest hurt. ‘As if Hercules knew true misery. It’s not even a good likeness!’
Percy gulped. When he and his friends had encountered Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar, it hadn’t gone well. The exchange had involved a lot of yelling, death threats and high-velocity pineapples.
‘What’s his shield doing here?’ Percy asked.
The goddess stared at him with her wet milky eyes. Her cheeks dripped blood, making red polka dots on her tattered dress. ‘He doesn’t need it any more, does he? It came here when his mortal body was burned. A reminder, I suppose, that no shield is sufficient. In the end, misery overtakes all of you. Even Hercules.’
Percy inched closer to Annabeth. He tried to remember why they were here, but the sense of despair made it difficult to think. Hearing Akhlys speak, he no longer found it strange that she had clawed her own cheeks. The goddess radiated pure pain.
‘Bob,’ Percy said, ‘we shouldn’t have come here.’
From somewhere inside Bob’s uniform, the skeleton kitten mewled in agreement.
The Titan shifted and winced as if Small Bob was clawing his armpit. ‘Akhlys controls the Death Mist,’ he insisted. ‘She can hide you.’
‘Hide them?’ Akhlys made a gurgling sound. She was either laughing or choking to death. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘They mu
st reach the Doors of Death,’ Bob said. ‘To return to the mortal world.’
‘Impossible!’ Akhlys said. ‘The armies of Tartarus will find you. They will kill you.’
Annabeth turned the blade of her drakon-bone sword, which Percy had to admit made her look pretty intimidating and hot in a ‘Barbarian Princess’ kind of way. ‘So I guess your Death Mist is pretty useless, then,’ she said.
The goddess bared her broken yellow teeth. ‘Useless? Who are you?’
‘A daughter of Athena.’ Annabeth’s voice sounded brave – though how she did it, Percy didn’t know. ‘I didn’t walk halfway across Tartarus to be told what’s impossible by some minor goddess.’
The dust quivered at their feet. Fog swirled around them with a sound like agonized wailing.
‘Minor goddess?’ Akhlys’s gnarled fingernails dug into Hercules’s shield, gouging the metal. ‘I was old before the Titans were born, you ignorant girl. I was old when Gaia first woke. Misery is eternal. Existence is misery. I was born of the eldest ones – of Chaos and Night. I was –’
‘Yes, yes,’ Annabeth said. ‘Sadness and misery, blah blah blah. But you still don’t have enough power to hide two demigods with your Death Mist. Like I said: useless.’
Percy cleared his throat. ‘Uh, Annabeth –’
She flashed him a warning look: Work with me. He realized how terrified she was, but she had no choice. This was their best shot at stirring the goddess into action.
‘I mean … Annabeth is right!’ Percy volunteered. ‘Bob brought us all this way because he thought you could help. But I guess you’re too busy staring at that shield and crying. I can’t blame you. It looks just like you.’
Akhlys wailed and glared at the Titan. ‘Why did you inflict these annoying children on me?’
Bob made a sound somewhere between a rumble and a whimper. ‘I thought – I thought –’