by Rick Riordan
The mobster giant Hippolytos kneeled. ‘My king, I bring word of the enemy!’
Porphyrion took his throne. ‘Speak.’
‘The demigod ship sails around the Peloponnese. Already they have destroyed the ghosts at Ithaca and captured the goddess Nike in Olympia!’
The crowd of monsters stirred uneasily. A Cyclops chewed his fingernails. Two dracaenae exchanged coins like they were taking bets for the End-of-the-World office sweepstake.
Porphyrion just laughed. ‘Hippolytos, do you wish to kill your enemy Hermes and become the messenger of the giants?’
‘Yes, my king!’
‘Then you will have to bring fresher news. I know all this already. None of it matters! The demigods have taken the route we expected them to take. They would have been fools to go any other way.’
‘But, sire, they will arrive at Sparta by morning! If they manage to unleash the makhai –’
‘Idiot!’ Porphyrion’s voice shook the ruins. ‘Our brother Mimas awaits them at Sparta. You need not worry. The demigods cannot change their fate. One way or another, their blood shall be spilled upon these stones and wake the Earth Mother!’
The crowd roared approval and brandished their weapons. Hippolytos bowed and retreated, but another giant approached the throne.
With a start, Piper realized this one was female. Not that it was easy to tell. The giantess had the same dragon-like legs and the same long braided hair. She was just as tall and burly as the males, but her breastplate was definitely fashioned for a woman. Her voice was higher and reedier.
‘Father!’ she cried. ‘I ask again: Why here, in this place? Why not on the slopes of Mount Olympus itself? Surely –’
‘Periboia,’ the king growled, ‘the matter is settled. The original Mount Olympus is now a barren peak. It offers us no glory. Here, in the centre of the Greek world, the roots of the gods truly run deep. There may be older temples, but this Parthenon holds their memory best. In the minds of mortals, it is the most powerful symbol of the Olympians. When the blood of the last heroes is spilled here, the Acropolis shall be razed. This hill shall crumble, and the entire city shall be consumed by the Earth Mother. We will be the masters of Creation!’
The crowd hollered and howled, but the giantess Periboia didn’t look convinced.
‘You tempt fate, Father,’ she said. ‘The demigods have friends here as well as enemies. It is not wise –’
‘WISE?’ Porphyrion rose from his throne. All the giants took a step back. ‘Enceladus, my counsellor, explain to my daughter what wisdom is!’
The fiery giant came forward. His eyes glowed like diamonds. Piper loathed his face. She’d seen it too many times in her dreams when her father was held captive.
‘You need not worry, princess,’ Enceladus said. ‘We have taken Delphi. Apollo was driven out of Olympus in shame. The future is closed to the gods. They stumble forward blindly. As for tempting fate …’ He gestured to his left, and a smaller giant shuffled forward. He had ratty grey hair, a wrinkled face and eyes that were milky with cataracts. Instead of armour, he wore a tattered sackcloth tunic. His dragon-scale legs were as white as frost.
He didn’t look like much, but Piper noticed that the other monsters kept their distance. Even Porphyrion leaned away from the old giant.
‘This is Thoon,’ Enceladus said. ‘Just as many of us were born to kill certain gods, Thoon was born to kill the Three Fates. He will strangle the old ladies with his bare hands. He will shred their yarn and destroy their loom. He will destroy Fate itself!’
King Porphyrion rose and spread his arms in triumph. ‘No more prophecies, my friends! No more futures foretold! The time of Gaia shall be our era, and we will make our own destiny!’
The crowd cheered so loudly that Piper felt as if she were crumbling to pieces.
Then she realized someone was shaking her awake.
‘Hey,’ Annabeth said. ‘We made it to Sparta. Can you get ready?’
Piper sat up groggily, her heart still pounding.
‘Yeah …’ She gripped Annabeth’s arm. ‘But first there’s something you need to hear.’
XIX
Piper
When she recounted her dream for Percy, the ship’s toilets exploded.
‘No way are you two going down there alone,’ Percy said.
Leo ran down the hall waving a wrench. ‘Man, did you have to destroy the plumbing?’
Percy ignored him. Water ran down the gangway. The hull rumbled as more pipes burst and sinks overflowed. Piper guessed that Percy hadn’t meant to cause so much damage, but his glowering expression made her want to leave the ship as soon as possible.
‘We’ll be all right,’ Annabeth told him. ‘Piper foresaw the two of us going down there, so that’s what needs to happen.’
Percy glared at Piper like it was all her fault. ‘And this Mimas dude? I’m guessing he’s a giant?’
‘Probably,’ she said. ‘Porphyrion called him our brother.’
‘And a bronze statue surrounded by fire,’ Percy said. ‘And those … other things you mentioned. Mackies?’
‘Makhai,’ Piper said. ‘I think the word means battles in Greek, but I don’t know how that applies, exactly.’
‘That’s my point!’ Percy said. ‘We don’t know what’s down there. I’m going with you.’
‘No.’ Annabeth put her hand on his arm. ‘If the giants want our blood, the last thing we need is a boy and a girl going down there together. Remember? They want one of each for their big sacrifice.’
‘Then I’ll get Jason,’ Percy said. ‘And the two of us –’
‘Seaweed Brain, are you implying that two boys can handle this better than two girls?’
‘No. I mean … no. But –’
Annabeth kissed him. ‘We’ll be back before you know it.’
Piper followed her upstairs before the whole lower deck could flood with toilet water.
An hour later, the two of them stood on a hill overlooking the ruins of Ancient Sparta. They’d already scouted the modern city, which, strangely, reminded Piper of Albuquerque – a bunch of low, boxy, whitewashed buildings sprawled across a plain at the foot of some purplish mountains. Annabeth had insisted on checking the archaeology museum, then the giant metal statue of the Spartan warrior in the public square, then the National Museum of Olives and Olive Oil (yes, that was a real thing). Piper had learned more about olive oil than she ever wanted to know, but no giants attacked them. They found no statues of chained gods.
Annabeth seemed reluctant to check the ruins on the edge of town, but finally they ran out of other places to look.
There wasn’t much to see. According to Annabeth, the hill they stood on had once been Sparta’s acropolis – its highest point and main fortress – but it was nothing like the massive Athenian acropolis Piper had seen in her dreams.
The weathered slope was covered with dead grass, rocks and stunted olive trees. Below, ruins stretched out for maybe a quarter of a mile: limestone blocks, a few broken walls and some tiled holes in the ground like wells.
Piper thought about her dad’s most famous movie, King of Sparta, and how the Spartans were portrayed as invincible supermen. She found it sad that their legacy had been reduced to a field of rubble and a small modern town with an olive-oil museum.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead. ‘You’d think if there was a thirty-foot-tall giant around we’d see him.’
Annabeth stared at the distant shape of the Argo II floating above downtown Sparta. She fingered the red coral pendant on her necklace – a gift from Percy when they started dating.
‘You’re thinking about Percy,’ Piper guessed.
Annabeth nodded.
Since she’d come back from Tartarus, Annabeth had told Piper a lot of scary things that had happened down there. At the top of her list: Percy controlling a tide of poison and suffocating the goddess Akhlys.
‘He seems to be adjusting,’ Piper said. ‘He’s smiling more often. You know he c
ares about you more than ever.’
Annabeth sat, her face suddenly pale. ‘I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard all of a sudden. I can’t quite get that memory out of my head … how Percy looked when he was standing at the edge of Chaos.’
Maybe Piper was just picking up on Annabeth’s uneasiness, but she started to feel agitated as well.
She thought about what Jason had said last night: Part of me wanted to close my eyes and stop fighting.
She had tried her best to reassure him, but still she worried. Like that Cherokee hunter who changed into a serpent, all demigods had their share of bad spirits inside. Fatal flaws. Some crises brought them out. Some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
If that was true for Jason, how could it not be true for Percy? The guy had literally been through hell and back. Even when he wasn’t trying, he made the toilets explode. What would Percy be like if he wanted to act scary?
‘Give him time.’ She sat next to Annabeth. ‘The guy is crazy about you. You’ve been through so much together.’
‘I know …’ Annabeth’s grey eyes reflected the green of the olive trees. ‘It’s just … Bob the Titan, he warned me there would be more sacrifices ahead. I want to believe we can have a normal life someday … But I allowed myself to hope for that last summer, after the Titan War. Then Percy disappeared for months. Then we fell into that pit …’ A tear traced its way down her cheek. ‘Piper, if you’d seen the face of the god Tartarus, all swirling darkness, devouring monsters and vaporizing them – I’ve never felt so helpless. I try not to think about it …’
Piper took her friend’s hands. They were trembling badly. She remembered her first day at Camp Half-Blood, when Annabeth had given her a tour. Annabeth had been shaken up about Percy’s disappearance and, though Piper was pretty disoriented and scared herself, comforting Annabeth had made her feel needed, like she might actually have a place among these crazy-powerful demigods.
Annabeth Chase was the bravest person she knew. If even she needed a shoulder to cry on once in a while … well, Piper was glad to offer hers.
‘Hey,’ she said gently. ‘Don’t try to shut out the feelings. You won’t be able to. Just let them wash over you and drain out again. You’re scared.’
‘Gods, yes, I’m scared.’
‘You’re angry.’
‘At Percy for frightening me,’ she said. ‘At my mom for sending me on that horrible quest in Rome. At … well, pretty much everybody. Gaia. The giants. The gods for being jerks.’
‘At me?’ Piper asked.
Annabeth managed a shaky laugh. ‘Yes, for being so annoyingly calm.’
‘It’s all a lie.’
‘And for being a good friend.’
‘Ha!’
‘And for having your head on straight about guys and relationships and –’
‘I’m sorry. Have you met me?’
Annabeth punched her arm, but there was no force to it. ‘I’m stupid, sitting here talking about my feelings when we have a quest to finish.’
‘The chained god’s heartbeat can wait.’ Piper tried for a smile, but her own fears welled up inside her – for Jason and her friends on the Argo II, for herself, if she wasn’t able to do what Aphrodite had advised. In the end, you will only have the power for one word. It must be the right word, or you will lose everything.
‘Whatever happens,’ she told Annabeth, ‘I’m your friend. Just … remember that, okay?’
Especially if I’m not around to remind you, Piper thought.
Annabeth started to say something. Suddenly a roaring sound came from the ruins. One of the stone-lined pits, which Piper had mistaken for wells, spewed out a three-storey geyser of flames and shut off just as quickly.
‘What the heck?’ Piper asked.
Annabeth sighed. ‘I don’t know, but I have a feeling it’s something we should check out.’
Three pits lay side by side like finger holes on a recorder. Each one was perfectly round, two feet in diameter, tiled around the rim with limestone; each one plunged straight into darkness. Every few seconds, seemingly at random, one of the three pits shot a column of fire into the sky. Each time, the colour and intensity of the flames were different.
‘They weren’t doing this before.’ Annabeth walked a wide arc around the pits. She still looked shaky and pale, but her mind was now obviously engaged in the problem at hand. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any pattern. The timing, the colour, the height of the fire … I don’t get it.’
‘Did we activate them somehow?’ Piper wondered. ‘Maybe that surge of fear you felt on the hill … Uh, I mean we both felt.’
Annabeth didn’t seem to hear her. ‘There must be some kind of mechanism … a pressure plate, a proximity alarm.’
Flames shot from the middle pit. Annabeth counted silently. The next time, a geyser erupted on the left. She frowned. ‘That’s not right. It’s inconsistent. It has to follow some kind of logic.’
Piper’s ears started to ring. Something about these pits …
Each time one ignited, a horrible thrill went through her – fear, panic, but also a strong desire to get closer to the flames.
‘It isn’t rational,’ she said. ‘It’s emotional.’
‘How can fire pits be emotional?’
Piper held her hand over the pit on the right. Instantly, flames leaped up. Piper barely had time to withdraw her fingers. Her nails steamed.
‘Piper!’ Annabeth ran over. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘I wasn’t. I was feeling. What we want is down there. These pits are the way in. I’ll have to jump.’
‘Are you crazy? Even if you don’t get stuck in the tube, you have no idea how deep it is.’
‘You’re right.’
‘You’ll be burned alive!’
‘Possibly.’ Piper unbuckled her sword and tossed it into the pit on the right. ‘I’ll let you know if it’s safe. Wait for my word.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Annabeth warned.
Piper jumped.
For a moment she was weightless in the dark, the sides of the hot stone pit burning her arms. Then the space opened up around her. Instinctively she tucked and rolled, absorbing most of the impact as she hit the stone floor.
Flames shot up in front of her, singeing her eyebrows, but Piper snatched up her sword, unsheathed it and swung before she’d even stopped rolling. A bronze dragonhead, neatly decapitated, wobbled across the floor.
Piper stood, trying to get her bearings. She looked down at the fallen dragonhead and felt a moment of guilt, as if she’d killed Festus. But this wasn’t Festus.
Three bronze dragon statues stood in a row, aligned with the holes in the roof. Piper had decapitated the middle one. The two intact dragons were each three feet tall, their snouts pointed upward and their steaming mouths open. They were clearly the source of the flames, but they didn’t seem to be automatons. They didn’t move or try to attack her. Piper calmly sliced off the heads of the other two.
She waited. No more flames shot upward.
‘Piper?’ Annabeth’s voice echoed from far above like she was yelling down a chimney.
‘Yeah!’ Piper shouted.
‘Thank the gods! You okay?’
‘Yeah. Hold on a sec.’
Her eyesight adjusted to the dark. She scanned the chamber. The only light came from her glowing blade and the openings above. The ceiling was about thirty feet high. By all rights, Piper should’ve broken both legs in the fall, but she wasn’t going to complain.
The chamber itself was round, about the size of a helicopter pad. The walls were made of rough-hewn stone blocks chiselled with Greek inscriptions – thousands and thousands of them, like graffiti.
At the far end of the room, on a stone dais, stood the human-sized bronze statue of a warrior – the god Ares, Piper guessed – with heavy bronze chains wrapped around his body, anchoring him to the floor.
On either side of the statue loomed two dark doorways, ten feet high, with a gruesome stone f
ace carved over each archway. The faces reminded Piper of gorgons, except they had lions’ manes instead of snakes for hair.
Piper suddenly felt very much alone.
‘Annabeth!’ she called. ‘It’s a long drop, but it’s safe to come down. Maybe … uh, you have a rope you could fasten so we can get back up?’
‘On it!’
A few minutes later a rope dropped from the centre pit. Annabeth shinned down.
‘Piper McLean,’ she grumbled, ‘that was without a doubt the dumbest risk I’ve ever seen anyone take, and I date a dumb risk-taker.’
‘Thank you.’ Piper nudged the nearest decapitated dragon-head with her foot. ‘I’m guessing these are the dragons of Ares. That’s one of his sacred animals, right?’
‘And there’s the chained god himself. Where do you think those doorways –’
Piper held up her hand. ‘Do you hear that?’
The sound was like a drumbeat … with a metallic echo.
‘It’s coming from inside the statue,’ Piper decided. ‘The heartbeat of the chained god.’
Annabeth unsheathed her drakon-bone sword. In the dim light, her face was ghostly pale, her eyes colourless. ‘I – I don’t like this, Piper. We need to leave.’
The rational part of Piper agreed. Her skin crawled. Her legs ached to run. But something about this room felt strangely familiar …
‘The shrine is ramping up our emotions,’ she said. ‘It’s like being around my mom, except this place radiates fear, not love. That’s why you started feeling overwhelmed on the hill. Down here, it’s a thousand times stronger.’
Annabeth scanned the walls. ‘Okay … we need a plan to get the statue out. Maybe haul it up with the rope, but –’
‘Wait.’ Piper glanced at the snarling stone faces above the doorways. ‘A shrine that radiates fear. Ares had two divine sons, didn’t he?’