by Rick Riordan
Before them stretched a valley big enough to hold the San Francisco Bay. The booming noise came from the entire landscape, as if thunder were echoing from beneath the ground. Under poisonous clouds, the rolling terrain glistened purple with dark red and blue scar lines.
‘It looks like …’ Annabeth fought down her revulsion. ‘Like a giant heart.’
‘The heart of Tartarus,’ Percy murmured.
The centre of the valley was covered with a fine black fuzz of peppery dots. They were so far away, it took Annabeth a moment to realize she was looking at an army – thousands, maybe tens of thousands of monsters, gathered around a central pinpoint of darkness. It was too far to see any details, but Annabeth had no doubt what the pinpoint was. Even from the edge of the valley, Annabeth could feel its power tugging at her soul.
‘The Doors of Death.’
‘Yeah.’ Percy’s voice was hoarse. He still had the pale, wasted complexion of a corpse … which meant he looked about as good as Annabeth felt.
She realized she’d forgotten all about their pursuers. ‘What happened to Nyx …?’
She turned. Somehow they’d landed several hundred yards from the banks of Acheron, which flowed through a channel cut into black volcanic hills. Beyond that was nothing but darkness.
No sign of anyone coming after them. Apparently even the minions of Night didn’t like to cross the Acheron.
She was about to ask Percy how he had jumped so far when she heard the skittering of a rockslide in the hills to their left. She drew her drakon-bone sword. Percy raised Riptide.
A patch of glowing white hair appeared over the ridge, then a familiar grinning face with pure silver eyes.
‘Bob?’ Annabeth was so happy she actually jumped. ‘Oh my gods!’
‘Friends!’ The Titan lumbered towards them. The bristles of his broom had been burned off. His janitor’s uniform was slashed with new claw marks, but he looked delighted. On his shoulder, Small Bob the kitten purred almost as loudly as the pulsing heart of Tartarus.
‘I found you!’ Bob gathered them both in a rib-crushing hug. ‘You look like smoking dead people. That is good!’
‘Urf,’ Percy said. ‘How did you get here? Through the Mansion of Night?’
‘No, no.’ Bob shook his head adamantly. ‘That place is too scary. Another way – only good for Titans and such.’
‘Let me guess,’ Annabeth said. ‘You went sideways.’
Bob scratched his chin, evidently at a loss for words. ‘Hmm. No. More … diagonal.’
Annabeth laughed. Here they were at the heart of Tartarus, facing an impossible army – she would take any comfort she could get. She was ridiculously glad to have Bob the Titan with them again.
She kissed his immortal nose, which made him blink.
‘We stay together now?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Annabeth agreed. ‘Time to see if this Death Mist works.’
‘And if it doesn’t …’ Percy stopped himself.
There was no point in wondering about that. They were about to march into the middle of an enemy army. If they were spotted, they were dead.
Despite that, Annabeth managed a smile. Their goal was in sight. They had a Titan with a broom and a very loud kitten on their side. That had to count for something.
‘Doors of Death,’ she said, ‘here we come.’
LVII
JASON
Jason wasn’t sure what to hope for: storm or fire.
As he waited for his daily audience with the lord of the South Wind, he tried to decide which of the god’s personalities, Roman or Greek, was worse. But after five days in the palace he was only certain about one thing: he and his crew were unlikely to get out of here alive.
He leaned against the balcony rail. The air was so hot and dry it sucked the moisture right out of his lungs. Over the last week, his skin had got darker. His hair had turned as white as corn silk. Whenever he glanced in the mirror, he was startled by the wild, empty look in his eyes, as if he’d gone blind wandering in the desert.
A hundred feet below, the bay glittered against a crescent of red sand beach. They were somewhere on the northern coast of Africa. That’s as much as the wind spirits would tell him.
The palace itself stretched out on either side of him – a honeycomb of halls and tunnels, balconies, colonnades and cavernous rooms carved into the sandstone cliffs, all designed for the wind to blow through and make as much noise as possible. The constant pipe-organ sounds reminded Jason of the floating lair of Aeolus, back in Colorado, except here the winds seemed in no hurry.
Which was part of the problem.
On their best days, the southern venti were slow and lazy. On their worst days, they were gusty and angry. They’d initially welcomed the Argo II, since any enemy of Boreas was a friend of the South Wind, but they seemed to have forgotten that the demigods were their guests. The venti had quickly lost interest in helping to repair the ship. Their king’s mood got worse every day.
Down at the dock, Jason’s friends were working on the Argo II. The main sail had been repaired, the rigging replaced. Now they were mending the oars. Without Leo, none of them knew how to repair the more complicated parts of the ship, even with the help of Buford the table and Festus (who was now permanently activated thanks to Piper’s charmspeak – and none of them understood that). But they kept trying.
Hazel and Frank stood at the helm, tinkering with the controls. Piper relayed their commands to Coach Hedge, who was hanging over the side of the ship, banging out dents in the oars. Hedge was well suited for banging on things.
They didn’t seem to be making much progress, but, considering what they’d been through, it was a miracle the ship was in one piece.
Jason shivered when he thought about Khione’s attack. He’d been rendered helpless – frozen solid not once but twice, while Leo was blasted into the sky and Piper was forced to save them all single-handedly.
Thank the gods for Piper. She considered herself a failure for not having stopped the wind bomb from exploding, but the truth was she’d saved the entire crew from becoming ice sculptures in Quebec.
She’d also managed to direct the explosion of the icy sphere so, even though the ship had been pushed halfway across the Mediterranean, it had sustained relatively minor damage.
Down at the dock, Hedge yelled, ‘Try it now!’
Hazel and Frank pulled some the levers. The port oars went crazy, chopping up and down and doing the wave. Coach Hedge tried to dodge, but one smacked him in the rear and launched him into the air. He came down screaming and splashed into the bay.
Jason sighed. At this rate, they’d never be able to sail, even if the southern venti allowed them to. Somewhere in the north, Reyna was flying towards Epirus, assuming she’d got his note at Diocletian’s Palace. Leo was lost and in trouble. Percy and Annabeth … well, best-case scenario they were still alive, making their way to the Doors of Death. Jason couldn’t let them down.
A rustling sound made him turn. Nico di Angelo stood in the shadow of the nearest column. He’d shed his jacket. Now he just wore his black T-shirt and black jeans. His sword and the sceptre of Diocletian hung on either side of his belt.
Days in the hot sun hadn’t tanned his skin. If anything, he looked paler. His dark hair fell over his eyes. His face was still gaunt, but he was definitely in better shape than when they’d left Croatia. He had regained enough weight not to look starved. His arms were surprisingly taut with muscles, as if he’d spent the past week sword fighting. For all Jason knew, he’d been slipping off to practise raising spirits with Diocletian’s sceptre, then sparring with them. After their expedition in Split, nothing would surprise him.
‘Any word from the king?’ Nico asked.
Jason shook his head. ‘Every day, he calls for me later and later.’
‘We need to leave,’ Nico said. ‘Soon.’
Jason had been having the same feeling, but hearing Nico say it made him even edgier. ‘You sense something?’
<
br /> ‘Percy is close to the Doors,’ Nico said. ‘He’ll need us if he’s going to make it through alive.’
Jason noticed that he didn’t mention Annabeth. He decided not to bring that up.
‘All right,’ Jason said. ‘But if we can’t repair the ship –’
‘I promised I’d lead you to the House of Hades,’ Nico said. ‘One way or another, I will.’
‘You can’t shadow-travel with all of us. And it will take all of us to reach the Doors of Death.’
The orb at the end of Diocletian’s sceptre glowed purple. Over the past week, it seemed to have aligned itself to Nico di Angelo’s moods. Jason wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
‘Then you’ve got to convince the king of the South Wind to help.’ Nico’s voice seethed with anger. ‘I didn’t come all this way, suffer so many humiliations …’
Jason had to make a conscious effort not to reach for his sword. Whenever Nico got angry, all of Jason’s instincts screamed Danger!
‘Look, Nico,’ he said, ‘I’m here if you want to talk about, you know, what happened in Croatia. I get how difficult –’
‘You don’t get anything.’
‘Nobody’s going to judge you.’
Nico’s mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘Really? That would be a first. I’m the son of Hades, Jason. I might as well be covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me. I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not even from this century. But even that’s not enough to set me apart. I’ve got to be – to be –’
‘Dude! It’s not like you’ve got a choice. It’s just who you are.’
‘Just who I am …’ The balcony trembled. Patterns shifted in the stone floor, like bones coming to the surface. ‘Easy for you to say. You’re everybody’s golden boy, the son of Jupiter. The only person who ever accepted me was Bianca, and she died! I didn’t choose any of this. My father, my feelings …’
Jason tried to think of something to say. He wanted to be Nico’s friend. He knew that was the only way to help. But Nico wasn’t making it easy.
He raised his hands in submission. ‘Yeah, okay. But, Nico, you do choose how to live your life. You want to trust somebody? Maybe take a risk that I’m really your friend and I’ll accept you. It’s better than hiding.’
The floor cracked between them. The crevice hissed. The air around Nico shimmered with spectral light.
‘Hiding?’ Nico’s voice was deadly quiet.
Jason’s fingers itched to draw his sword. He’d met plenty of scary demigods, but he was starting to realize that Nico di Angelo – as pale and gaunt as he looked – might be more than he could handle.
Nevertheless, he held Nico’s gaze. ‘Yes, hiding. You’ve run away from both camps. You’re so afraid you’ll get rejected that you won’t even try. Maybe it’s time you came out of the shadows.’
Just when the tension became unbearable, Nico dropped his eyes. The fissure closed in the balcony floor. The ghostly light faded.
‘I’m going to honour my promise,’ Nico said, not much louder than a whisper. ‘I’ll take you to Epirus. I’ll help you close the Doors of Death. Then that’s it. I’m leaving – forever.’
Behind them, the doors of the throne room blasted open with a gust of scorching air.
A disembodied voice said: Lord Auster will see you now.
As much as he dreaded this meeting, Jason felt relieved. At the moment, arguing with a crazy wind god seemed safer than befriending an angry son of Hades. He turned to tell Nico goodbye, but Nico had disappeared – melting back into the darkness.
LVIII
JASON
So it was a storm day. Auster, the Roman version of the South Wind, was holding court.
The two previous days, Jason had dealt with Notus. While the god’s Greek version was fiery and quick to anger, at least he was quick. Auster … well, not so much.
White and red marble columns lined the throne room. The rough sandstone floor smoked under Jason’s shoes. Steam hung in the air, like the bathhouse back at Camp Jupiter, except bathhouses usually didn’t have thunderstorms crackling across the ceiling, lighting the room in disorienting flashes.
Southern venti swirled through the hall in clouds of red dust and superheated air. Jason was careful to stay away from them. On his first day here, he’d accidentally brushed his hand through one. He’d got so many blisters his fingers looked like tentacles.
At the end of the room was the strangest throne Jason had ever seen – made of equal parts fire and water. The dais was a bonfire. Flames and smoke curled up to form a seat. The back of the chair was a churning storm cloud. The armrests sizzled where moisture met fire. It didn’t look very comfortable, but the god Auster lounged on it like he was ready for an easy afternoon of watching football.
Standing up, he would have been about ten feet tall. A crown of steam wreathed his shaggy white hair. His beard was made of clouds, constantly popping with lightning and raining down on the god’s chest, soaking his sand-coloured toga. Jason wondered if you could shave a thundercloud beard. He thought it might be annoying to rain on yourself all the time, but Auster didn’t seem to care. He reminded Jason of a soggy Santa Claus, but more lazy than jolly.
‘So …’ The god’s voice rumbled like an oncoming front. ‘The son of Jupiter returns.’
Auster made it sound like Jason was late. Jason was tempted to remind the stupid wind god that he had spent hours outside every day waiting to be called, but he just bowed.
‘My lord,’ he said. ‘Have you received any news of my friend?’
‘Friend?’
‘Leo Valdez.’ Jason tried to stay patient. ‘The one who was taken by the winds.’
‘Oh … yes. Or rather, no. We have had no word. He was not taken by my winds. No doubt this was the work of Boreas or his spawn.’
‘Uh, yes. We knew that.’
‘That is the only reason I took you in, of course.’ Auster’s eyebrows rose into his wreath of steam. ‘Boreas must be opposed! The north winds must be driven back!’
‘Yes, my lord. But to oppose Boreas we really need to get our ship out of the harbour.’
‘Ship in the harbour!’ The god leaned back and chuckled, rain pouring out of his beard. ‘You know the last time mortal ships came into my harbour? A king of Libya … Psyollos was his name. He blamed me for the scorching winds that burned his crops. Can you believe it?’
Jason gritted his teeth. He’d learned that Auster couldn’t be rushed. In his rainy form, he was sluggish and warm and random.
‘And did you burn those crops, my lord?’
‘Of course!’ Auster smiled good-naturedly. ‘But what did Psyollos expect, planting crops at the edge of the Sahara? The fool launched his entire fleet against me. He intended to destroy my stronghold so the south wind could never blow again. I destroyed his fleet, of course.’
‘Of course.’
Auster narrowed his eyes. ‘You aren’t with Psyollos, are you?’
‘No, Lord Auster. I’m Jason Grace, son of –’
‘Jupiter! Yes, of course. I like sons of Jupiter. But why are you still in my harbour?’
Jason suppressed a sigh. ‘We don’t have your permission to leave, my lord. Also, our ship is damaged. We need our mechanic, Leo Valdez, to repair the engine, unless you know of another way.’
‘Hmm.’ Auster held up his fingers and let a dust devil swirl between them like a baton. ‘You know, people accuse me of being fickle. Some days I am the scorching wind, the destroyer of crops, the sirocco from Africa! Other days I am gentle, heralding the warm summer rains and cooling fogs of the southern Mediterranean. And in the off-season I have a lovely place in Cancun! At any rate, in ancient times, mortals both feared me and loved me. For a god, unpredictability can be a strength.’
‘Then you are truly strong,’ Jason said.
‘Thank you! Yes! But the same is not true of demigods.’ Auster leaned forward, close enough so that Jason could smell rain-soaked fields and hot sandy beaches. ‘You remi
nd me of my own children, Jason Grace. You have blown from place to place. You are undecided. You change day to day. If you could turn the wind sock, which way would it blow?’
Sweat trickled between Jason’s shoulder blades. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You say you need a navigator. You need my permission. I say you need neither. It is time to choose a direction. A wind that blows aimlessly is of no use to anyone.’
‘I don’t … I don’t understand.’
Even as he said it, he did understand. Nico had talked about not belonging anywhere. At least Nico was free of attachments. He could go wherever he chose.
For months, Jason had been wrestling with the question of where he belonged. He’d always chafed against the traditions of Camp Jupiter, the power plays, the infighting. But Reyna was a good person. She needed his help. If he turned his back on her … someone like Octavian could take over and ruin everything Jason did love about New Rome. Could he be so selfish as to leave? The very idea crushed him with guilt.
But in his heart he wanted to be at Camp Half-Blood. The months he’d spent there with Piper and Leo had felt more satisfying, more right than all his years at Camp Jupiter. Besides, at Camp Half-Blood, there was at least a chance he might meet his father some day. The gods hardly ever stopped by Camp Jupiter to say hello.
Jason took a shaky breath. ‘Yes. I know the direction I want to take.’
‘Good! And?’
‘Uh, we still need a way to fix the ship. Is there –’
Auster raised an index finger. ‘Still expecting guidance from the wind lords? A son of Jupiter should know better.’
Jason hesitated. ‘We’re leaving, Lord Auster. Today.’
The wind god grinned and spread his hands. ‘At last, you announce your purpose! Then you have my permission to go, though you do not need it. And how will you sail without your engineer, without your engines fixed?’
Jason felt the south winds zipping around him, whinnying in challenge like headstrong mustangs, testing his will.
All week he had been waiting, hoping Auster would decide to help. For months he had worried about his obligations to Camp Jupiter, hoping his path would become clear. Now, he realized, he simply had to take what he wanted. He had to control the winds, not the other way around.