The Son of Neptune hoo-2

by Rick Riordan

  ‘What?’ The giant looked around, as if just noticing that a big portion of his army was missing. ‘Gah! That Cyclops woman will give me an ulcer. Winery tour?’

  ‘I think there was cheese and crackers, too,’ Stheno said helpfully. ‘Though Bargain Mart has a much better deal.’

  Polybotes ripped an oak tree out of the ground and threw it into the valley. ‘Cyclopes! I tell you, Stheno, when I destroy Neptune and take over the oceans, we will renegotiate the Cyclopes’ labour contract. Ma Gasket will learn her place! Now, what news from the north?’

  ‘The demigods have left for Alaska,’ Stheno said. ‘They fly straight to their death. Ah, small “d” death, I mean. Not our prisoner Death. Although, I suppose they’re flying to him, too.’

  Polybotes growled. ‘Alcyoneus had better spare the son of Neptune as he promised. I want that one chained at my feet, so I can kill him when the time is ripe. His blood shall water the stones of Mount Olympus and wake the Earth Mother! What word from the Amazons?’

  ‘Only silence,’ Stheno said. ‘We do not yet know the winner of last night’s duel, but it is only a matter of time before Otrera prevails and comes to our aid.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Polybotes absently scratched some vipers out of his hair. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well we wait, then. Tomorrow at sundown is Fortuna’s Feast. By then, we must invade – Amazons or no. In the meantime, dig in! We set up camp here, on high ground.’

  ‘Yes, great one!’ Stheno announced to the troops: ‘Puppies-in-Blankets for everyone!’

  The monsters cheered.

  Polybotes spread his hands in front of him, taking in the valley like a panoramic picture. ‘Yes, blow your little horns, demigods. Soon, the legacy of Rome will be destroyed for the last time!’

  The dream faded.

  Percy woke with a jolt as the plane started its descent.

  Hazel laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Sleep okay?’

  Percy sat up groggily. ‘How long was I out?’

  Frank stood in the aisle, wrapping his spear and new bow in his ski bag. ‘A few hours,’ he said. ‘We’re almost there.’

  Percy looked out of the window. A glittering inlet of the sea snaked between snowy mountains. In the distance, a city was carved out of the wilderness, surrounded by lush green forests on one side and icy black beaches on the other.

  ‘Welcome to Alaska,’ Hazel said. ‘We’re beyond the help of the gods.’

  XXXVIII

  Percy

  THE PILOT SAID THE PLANE COULDN’T WAIT for them, but that was okay with Percy. If they survived till the next day, he hoped they could find a different way back – anything but a plane.

  He should’ve been depressed. He was stuck in Alaska, the giant’s home territory, out of contact with his old friends just as his memories were coming back. He had seen an image of Polybotes’s army about to invade Camp Jupiter. He’d learned that the giants planned to use him as some kind of blood sacrifice to awaken Gaia. Plus, tomorrow evening was the Feast of Fortuna. He, Frank and Hazel had an impossible task to complete before then. At best, they would unleash Death, who might take Percy’s two friends to the Underworld. Not much to look forward to.

  Still, Percy felt strangely invigorated. His dream of Tyson had lifted his spirits. He remembered Tyson, his brother. They’d fought together, celebrated victories, shared good times at Camp Half-Blood. He remembered his home, and that gave him a new determination to succeed. He was fighting for two camps now – two families.

  Juno had stolen his memory and sent him to Camp Jupiter for a reason. He understood that now. He still wanted to punch her in her godly face, but at least he got her reasoning. If the two camps could work together, they stood a chance of stopping their mutual enemies. Separately, both camps were doomed.

  There were other reasons Percy wanted to save Camp Jupiter. Reasons he didn’t dare put into words – not yet, anyway. Suddenly he saw a future for himself and for Annabeth that he’d never imagined before.

  As they took a taxi into downtown Anchorage, Percy told Frank and Hazel about his dreams. They looked anxious but not surprised when he told them about the giant’s army closing in on camp.

  Frank choked when he heard about Tyson. ‘You have a half-brother who’s a Cyclops?’

  ‘Sure,’ Percy said. ‘Which makes him your great-great-great -’

  ‘Please.’ Frank covered his ears. ‘Enough.’

  ‘As long as he can get Ella to camp,’ Hazel said. ‘I’m worried about her.’

  Percy nodded. He was still thinking about the lines of prophecy the harpy had recited – about the son of Neptune drowning, and the mark of Athena burning through Rome. He wasn’t sure what the first part meant, but he was starting to have an idea about the second. He tried to set the question aside. He had to survive this quest first.

  The taxi turned on Highway One, which looked more like a small street to Percy, and took them north towards downtown. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the sky.

  ‘I can’t believe how much this place has grown,’ Hazel muttered.

  The taxi driver grinned in the rearview mirror. ‘Been a long time since you visited, miss?’

  ‘About seventy years,’ Hazel said.

  The driver slid the glass partition closed and drove on in silence.

  According to Hazel, almost none of the buildings were the same, but she pointed out features of the landscape: the vast forests ringing the city, the cold, grey waters of Cook Inlet tracing the north edge of town, and the Chugach Mountains rising greyish-blue in the distance, capped with snow even in June.

  Percy had never smelled air this clean before. The town itself had a weather-beaten look to it, with closed stores, rusted-out cars and worn apartment complexes lining the road, but it was still beautiful. Lakes and huge stretches of woods cut through the middle. The Arctic sky was an amazing combination of turquoise and gold.

  Then there were the giants. Dozens of bright-blue men, each thirty feet tall with grey frosty hair, were wading through the forests, fishing in the bay and striding across the mountains. The mortals didn’t seem to notice them. The taxi passed within a few yards of one who was sitting at the edge of a lake washing his feet, but the driver didn’t panic.

  ‘Um …’ Frank pointed at the blue guy.

  ‘Hyperboreans,’ Percy said. He was amazed he remembered that name. ‘Northern giants. I fought some when Kronos invaded Manhattan.’

  ‘Wait,’ Frank said. ‘When who did what?’

  ‘Long story. But these guys look … I don’t know, peaceful.’

  ‘They usually are,’ Hazel agreed. ‘I remember them. They’re everywhere in Alaska, like bears.’

  ‘Bears?’ Frank said nervously.

  ‘The giants are invisible to mortals,’ Hazel said. ‘They never bothered me, though one almost stepped on me by accident once.’

  That sounded fairly bothersome to Percy, but the taxi kept driving. None of the giants paid them any attention. One stood right at the intersection of Northern Lights Road, straddling the highway, and they drove between his legs. The Hyperborean was cradling a Native American totem pole wrapped in furs, humming to it like a baby. If the guy hadn’t been the size of a building, he would’ve been almost cute.

  The taxi drove through downtown, past a bunch of tourists’ shops advertising furs, Native American art and gold. Percy hoped Hazel wouldn’t get agitated and make the jewellery shops explode.

  As the driver turned and headed towards the seashore, Hazel knocked on the glass partition. ‘Here is good. Can you let us out?’

  They paid the driver and stepped onto Fourth Street. Compared to Vancouver, downtown Anchorage was tiny – more like a college campus than a city, but Hazel looked amazed.

  ‘It’s huge,’ she said. ‘That – that’s where the Gitchell Hotel used to be. My mom and I stayed there our first week in Alaska. And they’ve moved City Hall. It used to be there.’

  She led them in a daze for a few blocks. They di
dn’t really have a plan beyond finding the fastest way to the Hubbard Glacier, but Percy smelled something cooking nearby – sausage, maybe? He realized he hadn’t eaten since that morning at Grandma Zhang’s.

  ‘Food,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  They found a cafe right by the beach. It was bustling with people, but they scored a table at the window and perused the menus.

  Frank whooped with delight. ‘Twenty-four-hour breakfast!’

  ‘It’s, like, dinnertime,’ Percy said, though he couldn’t tell from looking outside. The sun was so high it could’ve been noon.

  ‘I love breakfast,’ Frank said. ‘I’d eat breakfast, breakfast and breakfast if I could. Though, um, I’m sure the food here isn’t as good as Hazel’s.’

  Hazel elbowed him, but her smile was playful.

  Seeing them like that made Percy happy. Those two definitely needed to get together. But it also made him sad. He thought about Annabeth, and wondered if he’d live long enough to see her again.

  Think positive, he told himself.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘breakfast sounds great.’

  They all ordered massive plates of eggs, pancakes and reindeer sausage, though Frank looked a little worried about the reindeer. ‘You think it’s okay that we’re eating Rudolph?’

  ‘Dude,’ Percy said, ‘I could eat Prancer and Blitzen, too. I’m hungry.’

  The food was excellent. Percy had never seen anyone eat as fast as Frank. The red-nosed reindeer did not stand a chance.

  Between bites of blueberry pancake, Hazel drew a squiggly curve and an X on her napkin. ‘So this is what I’m thinking. We’re here.’ She tapped X. ‘Anchorage.’

  ‘It looks like a seagull’s face,’ Percy said. ‘And we’re the eye.’

  Hazel glared at him. ‘It’s a map, Percy. Anchorage is at the top of this sliver of ocean, Cook Inlet. There’s a big peninsula of land below us, and my old home town, Seward, is at the bottom of the peninsula, here.’ She drew another X at the base of the seagull’s throat. ‘That’s the closest town to the Hubbard Glacier. We could go around by sea, I guess, but it would take forever. We don’t have that kind of time.’

  Frank polished off the last of his Rudolph. ‘But land is dangerous,’ he said. ‘Land means Gaia.’

  Hazel nodded. ‘I don’t see that we’ve got much choice, though. We could have asked our pilot to fly us down, but I don’t know … his plane might be too big for the little Seward airport. And if we chartered another plane -’

  ‘No more planes,’ Percy said. ‘Please.’

  Hazel held up her hand in a placating gesture. ‘It’s okay. There’s a train that goes from here to Seward. We might be able to catch one tonight. It only takes a couple of hours.’

  She drew a dotted line between the two Xs.

  ‘You just cut off the seagull’s head,’ Percy noted.

  Hazel sighed. ‘It’s the train line. Look, from Seward, the Hubbard Glacier is down here somewhere.’ She tapped the lower right corner of her napkin. ‘That’s where Alcyoneus is.’

  ‘But you’re not sure how far?’ Frank asked.

  Hazel frowned and shook her head. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s only accessible by boat or plane.’

  ‘Boat,’ Percy said immediately.

  ‘Fine,’ Hazel said. ‘It shouldn’t be too far from Seward. If we can get to Seward safely.’

  Percy gazed out of the window. So much to do, and only twenty-four hours left. This time tomorrow, the Feast of fortuna would be starting. Unless they unleashed Death and made it back to camp, the giant’s army would flood into the valley. The Romans would be the main course at a monster dinner.

  Across the street, a frosty black sand beach led down to the sea, which was as smooth as steel. The ocean here felt different – still powerful, but freezing, slow and primal. No gods controlled that water, at least no gods Percy knew. Neptune wouldn’t be able to protect him. Percy wondered if he could even manipulate water here, or breathe underwater.

  A Hyperborean giant lumbered across the street. Nobody in the cafe noticed. The giant stepped into the bay, cracking the ice under his sandals, and thrust his hands in the water. He brought out a killer whale in one fist. Apparently that wasn’t what he wanted, because he threw the whale back and kept wading.

  ‘Good breakfast,’ Frank said. ‘Who’s ready for a train ride?’

  The station wasn’t far. They were just in time to buy tickets for the last train south. As his friends climbed on board, Percy said, ‘Be with you in a sec,’ and ran back into the station.

  He got change from the gift shop and stood in front of the pay phone.

  He’d never used a pay phone before. They were strange antiques to him, like his mom’s turntable or his teacher chiron’s Frank Sinatra cassette tapes. He wasn’t sure how many coins it would take, or if he could even make the call go through, assuming he remembered the number correctly.

  Sally Jackson, he thought.

  That was his mom’s name. And he had a stepdad … Paul.

  What did they think had happened to Percy? Maybe they had already held a memorial service. As near as he could figure, he’d lost seven months of his life. Sure, most of that had been during the school year, but still … not cool.

  He picked up the receiver and punched in a New York number – his mom’s apartment.

  Voice mail. Percy should have figured. It would be like, midnight in New York. They wouldn’t recognize this number. Hearing Paul’s voice on the recording hit Percy in the gut so hard, he could barely speak at the tone.

  ‘Mom,’ he said. ‘Hey, I’m alive. Hera put me to sleep for a while, and then she took my memory, and …’ His voice faltered. How he could possibly explain all this? ‘Anyway, I’m okay. I’m sorry. I’m on a quest -’ He winced. He shouldn’t have said that. His mom knew all about quests, and now she’d be worried. ‘I’ll make it home. I promise. Love you.’

  He put down the receiver. He stared at the phone, hoping it would ring back. The train whistle sounded. The conductor shouted, ‘All aboard.’

  Percy ran. He made it just as they were pulling up the steps, then climbed to the top of the double-decker car and slid into his seat.

  Hazel frowned. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he croaked. ‘Just … made a call.’

  She and Frank seemed to get that. They didn’t ask for details.

  Soon they were heading south along the coast, watching the landscape go by. Percy tried to think about the quest, but for an ADHD kid like him the train wasn’t the easiest place to concentrate.

  Cool things kept happening outside. Bald eagles soared overhead. The train raced over bridges and along cliffs where glacial waterfalls tumbled thousands of feet down the rocks. They passed forests buried in snowdrifts, big artillery guns (to set off small avalanches and prevent uncontrolled ones, Hazel explained) and lakes so clear they reflected the mountains like mirrors, so the world looked upside down.

  Brown bears lumbered through the meadows. Hyperborean giants kept appearing in the strangest places. One was lounging in a lake like it was a hot tub. Another was using a pine tree as a toothpick. A third sat in a snowdrift, playing with two live moose like they were action figures. The train was full of tourists ohhing and ahhing and snapping pictures, but Percy felt sorry they couldn’t see the Hyperboreans. They were missing the really good shots.

  Meanwhile, Frank studied a map of Alaska that he’d found in the seat pocket. He located Hubbard Glacier, which looked discouragingly far away from Seward. He kept running his finger along the coastline, frowning with concentration.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Percy asked.

  ‘Just … possibilities,’ Frank said.

  Percy didn’t know what that meant, but he let it go.

  After about an hour, Percy started to relax. They bought hot chocolate from the dining car. The seats were warm and comfortable, and he thought about taking a nap.

  Then a shadow passed overhead. Tourists murmured in excit
ement and started taking pictures.

  ‘Eagle!’ one yelled.

  ‘Eagle?’ said another.

  ‘Huge eagle!’ said a third.

  ‘That’s no eagle,’ Frank said.

  Percy looked up just in time to see the creature make a second pass. It was definitely larger than an eagle, with a sleek black body the size of a Labrador retriever. Its wingspan was at least ten feet across.

  ‘There’s another one!’ Frank pointed. ‘Strike that. Three, four. Okay, we’re in trouble.’

  The creatures circled the train like vultures, delighting the tourists. Percy wasn’t delighted. The monsters had glowing red eyes, sharp beaks and vicious talons.

  Percy felt for his pen in his pocket. ‘Those things look familiar …’

  ‘Seattle,’ Hazel said. ‘The Amazons had one in a cage. They’re -’

  Then several things happened at once. The emergency brake screeched, pitching them forward. Tourists screamed and tumbled through the aisles. The monsters swooped down, shattering the glass roof of the car, and the entire train toppled off the rails.

  XXXIX

  Percy

  PERCY WENT WEIGHTLESS.

  His vision blurred. Claws grabbed his arms and lifted him into the air. Below, train wheels squealed and metal crashed. Glass shattered. Passengers screamed.

  When his eyesight cleared, he saw the beast that was carrying him aloft. It had the body of a panther – sleek, black and feline – with the wings and head of an eagle. Its eyes glowed blood-red.

  Percy squirmed. The monster’s front talons were wrapped round his arms like steel bands. He couldn’t free himself or reach his sword. He rose higher and higher in the cold wind. Percy had no idea where the monster was taking him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it when he got there.

  He yelled – mostly out of frustration. Then something whistled by his ear. An arrow sprouted from the monster’s neck. The creature shrieked and let go.