by Rick Riordan
A picture of me.
I eat oatmeal. I got into the principia with dead rats. I flew away with a bag of poop. I disappeared while on sentry duty and again during the gladiator games. In their eyes, the connections between me and the bizarre happenings are obvious.
The timeline of the problems points to me too, they said. Before I arrived, Camp Jupiter was running smoothly. Afterward, not so much. And then there was my strange behavior. Laughing hysterically at Frank after leaving Mars’s temple. Holing up in the Fourth’s latrine. Scribbling in a notebook. What was in that notebook, anyway? A list of future pranks? If so, they needed to confiscate it for the sake of the camp.
Then they dropped the final bomb: I was a legacy of Mercury, god of tricksters. Probatios have been known to act out to get their godly ancestors’ attention. It was possible, probable even, that I was pulling increasingly elaborate—and dangerous—pranks to gain Mercury’s blessing.
My heart was thudding so loudly by then I can’t believe they didn’t hear it. I wanted to scale the ladder and burst through the iron grate to tell them they were dead wrong. That I love being at Camp Jupiter and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my place here or the safety of anyone who calls it home.
But I couldn’t. Because there’s no way they’d believe I was innocent. I mean, duh, I’d just made an unauthorized trek through the aqueducts to a secret entrance so I could spy inside the camp’s headquarters for a hidden sacred item! And now I was eavesdropping on the legion’s highest authorities. Couldn’t look guiltier if I’d tried.
Reyna was ready to call me before the Senate then and there. But Frank, gods bless him, argued against confronting me, saying first they needed definite proof that I was behind the pranks. Reyna finally agreed, but I could tell she wasn’t happy about it.
So now I’m hunched in my bunk, trying not to cry. Because it totally sucks that the praetors are suspicious of me. And it sucks that I can’t let them know I know.
No, the only way to earn their trust is to prove my innocence. That means ferreting out the real culprit.
Reyna and Frank haven’t been able to do that. But I’m holding mosaic tiles they don’t know about: those mysterious messages and my dream about a runaway misfit. Unless MV shows up or the ancile falls in my lap, the messages are a dead end for now.
But I know just who to visit to dig up info on the girl of my dreams.
At a time when nearly all the gods have gone silent, there’s one deity you can always get to appear by simply stepping over the line—the Pomerian Line, that is, the invisible boundary that encircles New Rome.
Sure enough, the second I put a sandaled toe over that borderline, Terminus popped up. Behind him was his comrade with arms, an adorable little girl named Julia who handles all matters in need of hands for him. When I told him I wanted to ask him some questions, not cross the line, he flashed me an exasperated look and vanished. (Julia disappeared with him. How that happens is a mystery for another time.)
Undeterred, I took a step back and then a step forward.
Pop! Terminus and Julia reappeared. He took one look at me, yelled “You again?” and disappeared with an irritated huff (and with Julia).
I did the cha-cha to and fro again. “I can do this all day,” I said when he materialized for the third time.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “What do you want to talk about?”
“My dad,” I answered. “And a little girl you didn’t want to let into camp.”
“You didn’t let a little girl into camp?” Julia looked wounded. “Why?”
“Because reasons,” he sniffed. “And I don’t know who your ‘dad’ is.” (Julia supplied the fingers for his air quotes.)
I told him my dad was a centurion here about twenty-five years ago. When that didn’t jog his memory, I mentioned the bleached-blond cowlick. He gave a snort of derision. “That boy became your father? My sympathies.” He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look like him. You look like your mother.”
My jaw dropped. A million questions flooded my brain, like, How does he know my mother? Did my parents meet here? Was my mom a demigod or a legacy or what?
But right then, my focus had to be on my dream girl. “Why did you refuse to let that girl into camp?”
Terminus’s nose wrinkled. “Because she smelled like rotten eggs. Not her fault, I know, given who her godly parent was. But still…” He shuddered in distaste and vanished.
This time, I didn’t summon him back. Instead, I returned to the barracks to think and write down what I’d learned. If the praetors confiscate my journal, well, they’ll see I was only trying to help.
Here’s what I now know: The girl was a demigod, the daughter of a god or goddess associated with the smell of rotten eggs. The stench traveled with her, apparently, and was bad enough to make my dad, the legionnaires, and the aurae steer clear. Even gentle Hannibal couldn’t stand it. The girl’s parent wasn’t an Olympian, because none of them have odoriferous attributes (although some say Juno stinks).
A minor deity, then. I’ve consulted my ID the Deity textbook and come up with a list of two possibilities: Cloacina, the goddess of the cloaca maxima sewer system, and Mefitis, goddess of noxious vapors that emanate from the earth.
There are a couple of Cloacina’s kids here at camp, and I’ve never heard anyone complain about them smelling like rotten eggs or any other bad odor. So my denarius is on Mefitis.
Question: Assuming the malodorous demigod was Mefitis’s daughter, where would she go after she left Camp Jupiter?
Answer: Someplace where her out-of-control body odor wouldn’t offend anyone.
A moment from my dream, when she tipped over the garbage can, points to one such place: the landfill. Can’t do much better than that if you’re looking to disguise your own stench. And I not only think she went there…I think she’s still there.
She’s the worker, the one who stared at me and Aquila. She saw us through the Mist, I’m sure of it. Which means she’s a demigod. But if she’s working and living at the dump, how can she be causing problems here? She can’t be sneaking into camp, not if she’s still as pungent as Terminus says she was. Someone would be sure to notice.
Maybe she has an accomplice in camp, though I don’t know who would help her. From what I saw, she didn’t have much to offer besides recyclables, garbage, and—
Oh. Oh, my gods, I am such an idiot. Because there is someone who would want that stuff. He even bragged about getting the pick of the litter.
Elon.
Later…
Message to whoever left me those notes: Ego inveni MV. Translation: I found MV.
But not Elon. He was gone when I returned to Mars’s temple to look for him. His trash nest was still there, though. Buried beneath it was the glass bottle of swamp scum. Except it wasn’t swamp scum—it was swamp gas.
Mixed with the ghost of Mamurius Veturius.
The smell that came out of that bottle when I opened it…yee-gods. Poor Mamurius was a bilious shade of green when he stagger-floated out. Luckily, once he was in the fresh air again, he returned to his normal off-white and odor-free state. He regained his ghostly strength, too. Then he told me this story:
“Three weeks ago, I was floating around the forges when a young faun—Elon—ran up to me. Ran through me, actually, which I did not appreciate. ‘Praetor Frank needs you!’ he bleated urgently. ‘Said to meet him in the Temple of Mars Ultor right away! Come on!’
“Frank was nowhere in sight when we arrived at the temple. Puzzled, I turned to question the faun. Suddenly, I was overcome by noxious fumes. When I came to, I was trapped inside that bottle with those same fumes. They sapped me of my strength, rendering me powerless to escape.
“The faun promised to free me. But only after I identified the original ancile from among the twelve mounted on the temple ceiling.
“I refused. I knew what would happen if that shield fell into the wrong hands. Better I be trapped in a bottle of stink forever than let the last
outpost of ancient Rome fall.” His vaporous shoulders slumped. “Alas, my refusal only delayed the eventual outcome.”
His story ended then, and with a nod of gratitude for my part in saving him, he vanished. I’ll check the forges later to make sure he’s safe and sound with his brother Blaise. I started down the road out of Temple Hill too. Then I backtracked and refilled Elon’s bottle with scummy green water scoured from the bowl on Neptune’s altar. (You’d think one of the Big Twelve would have something better than that pathetic blue toolshed!) I put the bottle back in the trash nest where I’d found it. I hope it looks enough like Mamurius’s toxic ghost to fool Elon.
Because if he figures out someone’s onto him, Camp Jupiter is going to self-destruct for sure.
According to Mamurius’s story, there should be twelve—XII—shields on the temple ceiling. But when I visited the god-crypt my second day of camp, there were only eleven. Add that fact to Mamurius’s statement about the outcome, and I come up with one conclusion: I was wrong about the original ancile being in the principia. It was in Mars’s temple with the others.
Emphasis on was.
So even without Mamurius’s help, Elon somehow discovered which ancile was the original. By trial and error, maybe, sneaking them out of camp one at a time, waiting to see if anything happened, then moving on to the next one when nothing did.
Until finally…oatmeal. Or, to quote the voice inside the bathroom: Mission accomplished.
Well, there’s a new mission now, called Ancile Recovery. Okay, that’s a terrible name, but it’s the best I’ve got until I think of a new one. And the name doesn’t matter anyway.
Accomplishing the mission does.
Welp, Blaise is in love with me. Ha! JK. But he has sworn to help me with my mission—my quest, he says it should be called—because Mamurius told him all about how I freed him from the gassy bottle.
Having a demigod ally with mad forging skills fits right in with my plan to retrieve the ancile, actually. So does having Janice for a bestie.
I finally confided in her late last night. No surprise, she was more than ready to help save the camp. And New Rome, too, she pointed out, because if Camp Jupiter and the Twelfth Legion fell, the city wouldn’t be far behind. I hadn’t thought of that, but then, my dad is safe in his suburb. Her mom isn’t.
Our only disagreement was over whether to tell the praetors what we’d discovered. After a hot debate (we were meeting in the forges because Mamurius wanted in on the plan and he refused to leave that workspace), I convinced them we should hold off going to Frank and Reyna until all the pieces of my plan were in place. That way, we could present the problem and the solution to them at the same time. When Blaise wondered aloud if my plan would even work, I pointed out that it includes stealth and booby traps, two of my specialties, so it was bound to succeed.
Agreement reached. Work commences after lunch.
After lunch…
Welp, I’m in love with Blaise. Ha! JK. But I am in awe of how fast he crafted the two-scutum garbage can I designed. It’s based on the Janus strategy Janice came up with during deathball. I just added the hinge to connect the two shields on one side and the interior latch to hold the two together. Much easier than trying to keep them in place while shuffling back to back.
In addition to the Janus can, I appropriated—okay, stole—two sacks of deathballs, a retiarius net, and a laquearius lasso from the armory. I retrieved the plumbata I’d launched into the Colosseum stands during my first weapons practice and added it to the other supplies in the compostable poop bag. And finally, Janice, Blaise, and I figured out how to bottle Bombilo’s bakery smell. (I suppose I should thank Elon for proving it’s possible to capture odors that way. And I will…riiiight after I pin him to the wall with my plumbata.)
I’m on sentry duty tonight, so after dinner I’ll stash the bag by the aviary on my way to the watchtower.
After dinner…
Welp, Elon is in love with Mefitis’s smelly daughter. Ha! JK. But he is terrified of Mimi—that’s the demigod’s name: Mimi. I learned all these facts by eavesdropping on their conversation inside the bathroom. I suspect she doesn’t actually show up in there but somehow speaks through the toilet—tapping into the noxious vapors that collect there, or some such. That’s a lovely thought.…
Anyway, after leaving the supply sack hidden at the aviary, I took off for sentry duty. I didn’t want to repeat my previous bladder blunder, so I veered to the bathroom for a quick pit stop.
The same voices were murmuring inside again. I ducked behind a tree to listen in on their cozy toilet-side chat. And was silently freaked out by what I heard.
The day after tomorrow, Mimi is scheduled to work alone at the landfill’s car crusher. She’s going to bring the ancile…and pulverize it in the machine.
I wasn’t the only one pushing the panic button at that news. I thought Elon was going to bleat himself hoarse. With good reason. He’s a mythical creature born of ancient Rome. If ancient Rome ceases to exist, well, my guess is so does he and all his kind. Not sure he thought that one through when he signed on with Mimi. Or the fact that other species will vanish, too, like the friendly dog-headed cynocephali, rowdy centaurs, naiads and dryads, and—OMG! Bombilo, the two-headed baker! Noooooo!
The eradication of ancient Roman beings might not stop with mythical creatures, either. Without the lingering aura of ancient Rome to bolster them, gods and goddesses could fade away too. The Olympians will probably be fine—that lot seems to survive everything thrown at them. It’s the minor deities I’m afraid for. Janice says some of them are already so lost to the modern world’s memory that they’re hanging on by a thread. As usual, when tragedy strikes, the powerless and disenfranchised are the ones who suffer most.
So that seals it. We will succeed in retrieving the ancile if it’s the last thing we do! We must, we can, we will!
Oh, gods. I’m in deep, deep trouble. Like, way far down in Tartarus town deep.
My mind was spinning when I left the bathroom last night. Every nerve in my body screamed, DO SOMETHING! So I found (aka bribed) someone to take my sentry duty and returned to the aviary. My idea? Fly Aquila on a reconnaissance mission over the dump. Specifically, to the car crusher, where I’d look for a way to shut it down or blow it up—okay, not blow it up, but at least clog its works for a few days to buy Janice, Blaise, and me some time to finesse our plan.
Aquila was dozing up in her treetop nest when I slipped inside the eagle enclosure. I tried throwing pebbles at her to wake her up, but as my pitiful plumbata toss demonstrated during weapons practice, my arm and my aim aren’t very good. So I started to climb. I got about halfway up when I heard a voice that chilled me to the bone.
“Not. So. Fast.”
It was Reyna. I learned later that she’d been following me ever since dinner. Watching and waiting to catch me doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Like ditching sentry duty and shinnying up a tree to steal a giant eagle for a joy ride.
I slowly climbed down, fully expecting praetorian guards to clap me in irons when I reached the ground. But Reyna was alone. Alone and very angry.
“Explain yourself, probatio. And know that if I don’t like what I hear, I will drag you before the Senate in chains.”
I don’t know what possessed me, I really don’t. But instead of telling her the full story then and there, I said, “Not here. In the principia. Just you, me, and Praetor Frank.” I swallowed hard. “And your dogs.”
She blinked in surprise. Aurum and Argentum have a special talent: they can sense when someone is lying. (Their other special talent is eating jelly beans.) If their lie detectors go off, they attack the liar. So basically, I’d be a dead probatio if I told even one little fib.
Reyna agreed and ordered me confined to my bunk while she went to look for Frank. When she finds him, she’ll summon me. And then I talk. May the gods bless me with a silver and truthful tongue.
If not…Great-Granddad, if you’re listening, get
this message to my dad, okay? “I love you. And I tried.”
I’m still alive! Well, obviously.
It wasn’t easy telling the praetors about the ancile, Elon, Mimi, and the messages, not with those dogs staring at me hungrily, Reyna’s lips getting tighter and tighter, and Frank looking embarrassed and murmuring, “I never even noticed those shields in Dad’s temple. Never heard of the ancile legend, either.” I got through it, though. Thought I was home free. Then Frank leaned over the desk and asked one question: “Does anyone else know about this?”
My throat closed up with fear. No way was I going to pull Janice and Blaise into this. Or Mamurius, for that matter. I already felt terrible for throwing Elon under the chariot. I mean, sure, the faun has an annoying habit of referring to himself in the third person, and his weakness for trash has brought us to the brink of destruction. Put those things aside, though, and he’s just a scared little kid with a soda-tab necklace.
When I hesitated, Frank repeated his question. I had to choose then: rope my friends into this mess with me, or lie and die.
Reyna saved me. Even as I write those words, I still can’t believe it. But she did. She held up her hand to signal me to stay quiet, then called out, “Bring them in!”
Praetorian guards led Janice and Blaise inside. Mamurius drifted in after them. Frank explained that the three had come to him when they heard I had been confined to my bunk. (Word gets around fast about that sort of stuff, apparently.) They’d told him all they knew before I got there. They’d also outlined the plan I had proposed for dealing with Mimi and getting the ancile back.