by Rick Riordan
“Architecture,” Percy murmured. The fog started to clear from his eyes. “Thought you’d like the houses, the parks. There’s one street with all these cool fountains.”
Annabeth started making progress against the current. Her limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping her now. She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone’s throw away.
“College,” she gasped. “Could we go there together?”
“Y-yeah,” he agreed, a little more confidently.
“What would you study, Percy?”
“Dunno,” he admitted.
“Marine science,” she suggested. “Oceanography?”
“Surfing?” he asked.
She laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Annabeth wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before—just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.
She used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank. Her feet dug into the sandy bottom. She and Percy hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.
Annabeth wanted to curl up next to Percy and go to sleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream, and wake up to find herself back on the Argo II, safe with her friends (well…as safe as a demigod can ever be).
But, no. They were really in Tartarus. At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulfurous air stung Annabeth’s lungs and prickled her skin. When she looked at her arms, she saw they were already covered with an angry rash. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.
The beach wasn’t sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Annabeth’s palms.
So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Annabeth took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.
Next to her, Percy coughed. “This place smells like my ex-stepfather.”
Annabeth managed a weak smile. She’d never met Smelly Gabe, but she’d heard enough stories. She loved Percy for trying to lift her spirits.
If she’d fallen into Tartarus by herself, Annabeth thought, she would have been doomed. After all she’d been through beneath Rome, finding the Athena Parthenos, this was simply too much. She would’ve curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus.
But she wasn’t alone. She had Percy. And that meant she couldn’t give up.
She forced herself to take stock. Her foot was still wrapped in its makeshift cast of board and Bubble Wrap, still tangled in cobwebs. But when she moved it, it didn’t hurt. The ambrosia she’d eaten in the tunnels under Rome must have finally mended her bones.
Her backpack was gone—lost during the fall, or maybe washed away in the river. She hated losing Daedalus’s laptop, with all its fantastic programs and data, but she had worse problems. Her Celestial bronze dagger was missing—the weapon she’d carried since she was seven years old.
The realization almost broke her, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on it. Time to grieve later. What else did they have?
No food, no water…basically no supplies at all.
Yep. Off to a promising start.
Annabeth glanced at Percy. He looked pretty bad. His dark hair was plastered across his forehead, his T-shirt ripped to shreds. His fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before they fell. Most worrisome of all, he was shivering and his lips were blue.
“We should keep moving or we’ll get hypothermia,” Annabeth said. “Can you stand?”
He nodded. They both struggled to their feet.
Annabeth put her arm around his waist, though she wasn’t sure who was supporting whom. She scanned their surroundings. Above, she saw no sign of the tunnel they’d fallen down. She couldn’t even see the cavern roof—just blood-colored clouds floating in the hazy gray air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.
The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where she stood, Annabeth couldn’t see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.
A distant memory tugged at her—something about Tartarus and fire. Before she could think too much about it, Percy inhaled sharply.
“Look.” He pointed downstream.
A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit.
Annabeth hoped she was wrong, but how many Italian sports cars could there be in Tartarus? Part of her didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but she had to find out. She gripped Percy’s hand, and they stumbled toward the wreckage. One of the car’s tires had come off and was floating in a backwater eddy of the Cocytus. The Fiat’s windows had shattered, sending brighter glass like frosting across the dark beach. Under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon—the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty. Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver…as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.
“She’s alive.” Annabeth was so horrified, so outraged by the unfairness of it all, she had to suppress the urge to throw up.
“It’s Tartarus,” Percy said. “Monster home court. Down here, maybe they can’t be killed.”
He gave Annabeth an embarrassed look, as if realizing he wasn’t helping team morale. “Or maybe she’s badly wounded, and she crawled away to die.”
“Let’s go with that,” Annabeth agreed.
Percy was still shivering. Annabeth wasn’t feeling any warmer either, despite the hot, sticky air. The glass cuts on her hands were still bleeding, which was unusual for her. Normally, she healed fast. Her breathing got more and more labored.
“This place is killing us,” she said. “I mean, it’s literally going to kill us, unless…”
Tartarus. Fire. That distant memory came into focus. She gazed inland toward the cliff, illuminated by flames from below.
It was an absolutely crazy idea. But it might be their only chance.
“Unless what?” Percy prompted. “You’ve got a brilliant plan, haven’t you?”
“It’s a plan,” Annabeth murmured. “I don’t know about brilliant. We need to find the River of Fire.”
WHEN THEY REACHED THE LEDGE, Annabeth was sure she’d signed their death warrants.
The cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces.
Even from the top of the canyon, the heat was intense. The chill of the River Cocytus hadn’t left Annabeth’s bones, but now her face felt raw and sunburned. Every breath took more effort, as if her chest was filled with Styrofoam peanuts. The cuts on her hands bled more rather than less. Annabeth’s foot, which had been almost healed, seemed to be reinjuring itself. She’d taken off her makeshift cast, but now she regretted it. Each step made her wince.
Assuming they could make it down to the fiery river, which she doubted, her plan seemed certifiably insane.
“Uh…” Percy examined the cliff. He pointed to a tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. “We can try that ledge there. Might be able to climb down.”
He didn’t say they’d be crazy to try. He managed to sound hopeful. Annabeth was grateful for that, but she also worried that she was leading him to his doom.
Of course if they stayed here, they would die anyway. Blisters had started to form on their arms from exposure to the Tartarus air. The whole environment was about as healthy as a nuclear blast zone.
Percy went first. The ledge
was barely wide enough to allow a toehold. Their hands clawed for any crack in the glassy rock. Every time Annabeth put pressure on her bad foot, she wanted to yelp. She’d ripped off the sleeves of her T-shirt and used the cloth to wrap her bloody palms, but her fingers were still slippery and weak.
A few steps below her, Percy grunted as he reached for another handhold. “So…what is this fire river called?”
“The Phlegethon,” she said. “You should concentrate on going down.”
“The Phlegethon?” He shinnied along the ledge. They’d made it roughly a third of the way down the cliff—still high enough up to die if they fell. “Sounds like a marathon for hawking spitballs.”
“Please don’t make me laugh,” she said.
“Just trying to keep things light.”
“Thanks,” she grunted, nearly missing the ledge with her bad foot. “I’ll have a smile on my face as I plummet to my death.”
They kept going, one step at a time. Annabeth’s eyes stung with sweat. Her arms trembled. But to her amazement, they finally made it to the bottom of the cliff.
When she reached the ground, she stumbled. Percy caught her. She was alarmed by how feverish his skin felt. Red boils had erupted on his face, so he looked like a smallpox victim.
Her own vision was blurry. Her throat felt blistered, and her stomach was clenched tighter than a fist.
We have to hurry, she thought.
“Just to the river,” she told Percy, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “We can do this.”
They staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that would’ve impaled them with any slip of the foot. Their tattered clothes steamed from the heat of the river, but they kept going until they crumpled to their knees at the banks of the Phlegethon.
“We have to drink,” Annabeth said.
Percy swayed, his eyes half-closed. It took him a three-count to respond. “Uh…drink fire?”
“The Phlegethon flows from Hades’s realm down into Tartarus.” Annabeth could barely talk. Her throat was closing up from the heat and the acidic air. “The river is used to punish the wicked. But also…some legends call it the River of Healing.”
“Some legends?”
Annabeth swallowed, trying to stay conscious. “The Phlegethon keeps the wicked in one piece so that they can endure the torments of the Fields of Punishment. I think…it might be the Underworld equivalent of ambrosia and nectar.”
Percy winced as cinders sprayed from the river, curling around his face. “But it’s fire. How can we—”
“Like this.” Annabeth thrust her hands into the river.
Stupid? Yes, but she was convinced they had no choice. If they waited any longer, they would pass out and die. Better to try something foolish and hope it worked.
On first contact, the fire wasn’t painful. It felt cold, which probably meant it was so hot it was overloading Annabeth’s nerves. Before she could change her mind, she cupped the fiery liquid in her palms and raised it to her mouth.
She expected a taste like gasoline. It was so much worse. Once, at a restaurant back in San Francisco, she’d made the mistake of tasting a ghost chili pepper that came with a plate of Indian food. After barely nibbling it, she thought her respiratory system was going to implode. Drinking from the Phlegethon was like gulping down a ghost chili smoothie. Her sinuses filled with liquid flame. Her mouth felt like it was being deep-fried. Her eyes shed boiling tears, and every pore on her face popped. She collapsed, gagging and retching, her whole body shaking violently.
“Annabeth!” Percy grabbed her arms and just managed to stop her from rolling into the river.
The convulsions passed. She took a ragged breath and managed to sit up. She felt horribly weak and nauseous, but her next breath came more easily. The blisters on her arms were starting to fade.
“It worked,” she croaked. “Percy, you’ve got to drink.”
“I…” His eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped against her.
Desperately, she cupped more fire in her palm. Ignoring the pain, she dripped the liquid into Percy’s mouth. He didn’t respond.
She tried again, pouring a whole handful down his throat. This time he spluttered and coughed. Annabeth held him as he trembled, the magical fire coursing through his system. His fever disappeared. His boils faded. He managed to sit up and smack his lips.
“Ugh,” he said. “Spicy, yet disgusting.”
Annabeth laughed weakly. She was so relieved, she felt light-headed. “Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.”
“You saved us.”
“For now,” she said. “The problem is, we’re still in Tartarus.”
Percy blinked. He looked around as if just coming to terms with where they were. “Holy Hera. I never thought…well, I’m not sure what I thought. Maybe that Tartarus was empty space, a pit with no bottom. But this is a real place.”
Annabeth recalled the landscape she’d seen while they fell—a series of plateaus leading ever downward into the gloom.
“We haven’t seen all of it,” she warned. “This could be just the first tiny part of the abyss, like the front steps.”
“The welcome mat,” Percy muttered.
They both gazed up at the blood-colored clouds swirling in the gray haze. No way would they have the strength to climb back up that cliff, even if they wanted to. Now there were only two choices: downriver or upriver, skirting the banks of the Phlegethon.
“We’ll find a way out,” Percy said. “The Doors of Death.”
Annabeth shuddered. She remembered what Percy had said just before they fell into Tartarus. He’d made Nico di Angelo promise to lead the Argo II to Epirus, to the mortal side of the Doors of Death.
We’ll see you there, Percy had said.
That idea seemed even crazier than drinking fire. How could the two of them wander through Tartarus and find the Doors of Death? They’d barely been able to stumble a hundred yards in this poisonous place without dying.
“We have to,” Percy said. “Not just for us. For everybody we love. The Doors have to be closed on both sides, or the monsters will just keep coming through. Gaea’s forces will overrun the world.”
Annabeth knew he was right. Still…when she tried to imagine a plan that could succeed, the logistics overwhelmed her. They had no way of locating the Doors. They didn’t know how much time it would take, or even if time flowed at the same speed in Tartarus. How could they possibly synchronize a meeting with their friends? And Nico had mentioned a legion of Gaea’s strongest monsters guarding the Doors on the Tartarus side. Annabeth and Percy couldn’t exactly launch a frontal assault.
She decided not to mention any of that. They both knew the odds were bad. Besides, after swimming in the River Cocytus, Annabeth had heard enough whining and moaning to last a lifetime. She promised herself never to complain again.
“Well.” She took a deep breath, grateful at least that her lungs didn’t hurt. “If we stay close to the river, we’ll have a way to heal ourselves. If we go downstream—”
It happened so fast, Annabeth would have been dead if she’d been on her own.
Percy’s eyes locked on something behind her. Annabeth spun as a massive dark shape hurtled down at her—a snarling, monstrous blob with spindly barbed legs and glinting eyes.
She had time to think: Arachne. But she was frozen in terror, her senses smothered by the sickly sweet smell.
Then she heard the familiar SHINK of Percy’s ballpoint pen transforming into a sword. His blade swept over her head in a glowing bronze arc. A horrible wail echoed through the canyon.
Annabeth stood there, stunned, as yellow dust—the remains of Arachne—rained around her like tree pollen.
“You okay?” Percy scanned the cliffs and boulders, alert for more monsters, but nothing else appeared. The golden dust of the spider settled on the obsidian rocks.
Annabeth stared at her boyfriend in amazement. Riptide’s Celestial bronze blade glowed even brighter
in the gloom of Tartarus. As it passed through the thick hot air, it made a defiant hiss like a riled snake.
“She…she would’ve killed me,” Annabeth stammered.
Percy kicked the dust on the rocks, his expression grim and dissatisfied. “She died too easily, considering how much torture she put you through. She deserved worse.”
Annabeth couldn’t argue with that, but the hard edge in Percy’s voice made her unsettled. She’d never seen someone get so angry or vengeful on her behalf. It almost made her glad Arachne had died quickly. “How did you move so fast?”
Percy shrugged. “Gotta watch each other’s backs, right? Now, you were saying…downstream?”
Annabeth nodded, still in a daze. The yellow dust dissipated on the rocky shore, turning to steam. At least now they knew monsters could be killed in Tartarus…though she had no idea how long Arachne would remain dead. Annabeth didn’t plan on staying long enough to find out.
“Yeah, downstream,” she managed. “If the river comes from the upper levels of the Underworld, it should flow deeper into Tartarus—”
“So it leads into more dangerous territory,” Percy finished. “Which is probably where the Doors are. Lucky us.”
THEY’D ONLY TRAVELED a few hundred yards when Annabeth heard voices.
Annabeth plodded along, half in a stupor, trying to form a plan. Since she was a daughter of Athena, plans were supposed to be her specialty; but it was hard to strategize with her stomach growling and her throat baking. The fiery water of the Phlegethon may have healed her and given her strength, but it didn’t do anything for her hunger or thirst. The river wasn’t about making you feel good, Annabeth guessed. It just kept you going so you could experience more excruciating pain.
Her head started to droop with exhaustion. Then she heard them—female voices having some sort of argument—and she was instantly alert.
She whispered, “Percy, down!”
She pulled him behind the nearest boulder, wedging herself so close against the riverbank that her shoes almost touched the river’s fire. On the other side, in the narrow path between the river and the cliffs, voices snarled, getting louder as they approached from upstream.