The Battle of the Labyrinth pjato-4 Page 3

  “Well, see you,” I told Quintus.

  As we were walking away, I whispered to Chiron, “Quintus seemed kind of—”

  “Mysterious?” Chiron suggested. “Hard to read?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chiron nodded. “A very qualified half-blood. Excellent swordsman, I just wish I understood…”

  Whatever he was going to say, he apparently changed his mind. “First things first, Percy. Annabeth told me you met some empousai.”

  “Yeah.” I told him about the fight at Goode, and how Kelli had exploded into flames.

  “Mm,” Chiron said. “The more powerful ones can do that. She did not die, Percy. She simply escaped. It is not good that the she-demons are stirring.”

  “What were they doing there?” I asked. “Waiting for me?”

  “Possibly,” Chiron frowned. “It is amazing you survived. Their powers of deception…almost any male hero would’ve fallen under their spell and been devoured.”

  “I would’ve been,” I admitted. “Except for Rachel.”

  Chiron nodded. “Ironic to be saved by a mortal, yet we owe her a debt. What the empousa said about an attack on camp—we must speak of this further. But for now, come, we should get to the woods. Grover will want you there.”

  “Where?”

  “At his formal hearing,” Chiron said grimly. “The Council of Cloven Elders is meeting now to decide his fate.”

  * * *

  Chiron said we needed to hurry, so I let him give me a ride on his back. As we galloped past the cabins, I glanced at the dining hall—an open-air Greek pavilion on a hill overlooking the sea. It was the first time I’d seen the place since last summer, and it brought back bad memories. Chiron plunged into the woods. Nymphs peeked out of the trees to watch us pass. Large shapes rustled in the shadows—monsters that were stocked in here as a challenge to the campers.

  I thought I knew the forest pretty well after playing capture the flag here for two summers, but Chiron took me a way I didn’t recognize, through a tunnel of old willow trees, past a little waterfall, and into a glade blanketed with wildflowers.

  A bunch of satyrs were sitting in a circle in the grass. Grover stood in the middle, facing three really old, really fat satyrs who sat on topiary thrones shaped out of rose bushes. I’d never seen the three old satyrs before, but I guessed they must be the Council of Cloven Elders.

  Grover seemed to be telling them a story. He twisted the bottom of his Tshirt, shifting nervously on his goat hooves. He hadn’t changed much since last winter, maybe because satyrs age half as fast as humans. His acne had flared up. His horns had gotten a little bigger so they just stuck out over his curly hair. I realized with a start that I was taller than he was now. Standing off to one side of the circle were Annabeth, another girl I’d never seen before, and Clarisse. Chiron dropped me next to them. Clarisse’s stringy brown hair was tied back with a camouflage bandanna. If possible, she looked even buffer, like she’d been working out. She glared at me and muttered, “Punk,” which must’ve meant she was in a good mood. Usually she says hello by trying to kill me.

  Annabeth had her arm around the other girl, who looked like she’d been crying. She was small—petite, I guess you’d call it—with wispy hair the color of amber and a pretty, elfish face. She wore a green chiton and laced sandals, and she was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “It’s going terribly,” she sniffled.

  “No, no,” Annabeth patted her shoulders. “He’ll be fine, Juniper.”

  Annabeth looked at me and mouthed the words Grover’s girlfriend. At least I thought that’s what she said, but that didn’t make any sense. Grover with a girlfriend? Then I looked at Juniper more closely, and I realized her ears were slightly pointed. Her eyes, instead of being red from crying, were tinged green, the color of chlorophyll. She was a tree nymph—

  a dryad.

  “Master Underwood!” the council member on the right shouted, cutting off whatever Grover was trying to say. “Do you seriously expect us to believe this?”

  “B-but Silenus,” Grover stammered. “It’s the truth!”

  The Council guy, Silenus, turned to his colleagues and muttered something. Chiron cantered up to the front and stood next to them. I remembered he was an honorary member of the council, but I’d never thought about it much. The elders didn’t look very impressive. They reminded me of the goats in a petting zoo—huge bellies, sleepy expressions, and glazed eyes that couldn’t see past the next handful of goat chow. I wasn’t sure why Grover seemed so nervous.

  Silenus tugged his yellow polo shirt over his belly and adjusted himself on his rosebush throne. “Master Underwood, for six months— six months—

  we have been hearing these scandalous claims that you heard the wild god Pan speak.”

  “But I did!”

  “Impudence!” said the elder on the left.

  “Now, Maron,” Chiron said. “Patience.”

  “Patience, indeed!” Maron said. “I’ve had it up to my horns with this nonsense. As if the wild god would speak to…to him.”

  Juniper looked like she wanted to charge the old satyr and beat him up, but Annabeth and Clarisse held her back. “Wrong fight, girlie,” Clarisse muttered. “Wait.”

  I don’t know what surprised me more: Clarisse holding someone back from a fight, or the fact that she and Annabeth, who despised each other, almost seemed like they were working together.

  “For six months,” Silenus continued, “we have indulged you, Master Underwood. We let you travel. We allowed you to keep your searcher’s license. We waited for you to bring proof of your preposterous claim. And what have you found in six months of travel?”

  “I just need more time,” Grover pleaded.

  “Nothing!” the elder in the middle chimed in. “You have found nothing.”

  “But, Leneus—”

  Silenus raised his hand. Chiron leaned in and said something to the satyrs. The satyrs didn’t look happy. They muttered and argued among themselves, but Chiron said something else, and Silenus sighed. He nodded reluctantly.

  “Master Underwood,” Silenus announced, “we will give you one more chance.”

  Grover brightened. “Thank you!”

  “One more week.”

  “What? But sir! That’s impossible!”

  “One more week, Master Underwood. And then, if you cannot prove your claims, it will be time for you to pursue another career. Something to suit your dramatic talents. Puppet theater, perhaps. Or tap dancing.”

  “But sir, I—I can’t lose my searcher’s license. My whole life—”

  “This meeting of the council is adjourned,” Silenus said. “And now let us enjoy our noonday meal!”

  The old satyr clapped his hands, and a bunch of nymphs melted out of the trees with platters of vegetables, fruits, tin cans, and other goat delicacies. The circle of satyrs broke and charged the food. Grover walked dejectedly toward us. His faded blue T-shirt had a picture of a satyr on it. It read GOT HOOVES?

  “Hi, Percy,” he said, so depressed he didn’t even offer to shake my hand.

  “That went well, huh?”

  “Those old goats!” Juniper said. “Oh, Grover, they don’t know how hard you’ve tried!”

  “There is another option,” Clarisse said darkly.

  “No. No.” Juniper shook her head. “Grover, I won’t let you.”

  His face was ashen. “I—I’ll have to think about it. But we don’t even know where to look.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  In the distance, a conch horn sounded.

  Annabeth pursed her lips. “I’ll fill you in later, Percy. We’d better get back to our cabins. Inspection is starting.”

  * * *

  It didn’t seem fair that I’d have to do cabin inspection when I just got to camp, but that’s the way it worked. Every afternoon, one of the senior counselors came around with a papyrus scroll checklist. Best cabin got first shower hour, which meant hot water guaranteed.
Worst cabin got kitchen patrol after dinner.

  The problem for me: I was usually the only one in the Poseidon cabin, and I’m not exactly what you would call neat. The cleaning harpies only came through on the last day of summer, so my cabin was probably just the way I’d left it on winter break: my candy wrappers and chip bags still on my bunk, my armor for capture the flag lying in pieces all around the cabin. I raced toward the commons area, where the twelve cabins—one for each Olympian god—made a U around the central green. The Demeter kids were sweeping out theirs and making fresh flowers grow in their window boxes. Just by snapping their fingers they could make honeysuckle vines bloom over their doorway and daisies cover their roof, which was totally unfair. I don’t think they ever got last place in inspection. The guys in the Hermes cabin were scrambling around in a panic, stashing dirty laundry under their beds and accusing each other of taking stuff. They were slobs, but they still had a head start on me.

  Over at the Aphrodite cabin, Silena Beauregard was just coming out, checking items off the inspection scroll. I cursed under my breath. Silena was nice, but she was an absolute neat freak, the worst inspector. She liked things to be pretty. I didn’t do “pretty.” I could almost feel my arms getting heavy from all the dishes I would have to scrub tonight.

  The Poseidon cabin was at the end of the row of “male god” cabins on the right side of the green. It was made of gray shell-encrusted sea rock, long and low like a bunker, but it had windows that faced the sea and it always had a good breeze blowing through it.

  I dashed inside, wondering if maybe I could do a quick under-the-bed cleaning job like the Hermes guys, and I found my half-brother Tyson sweeping the floor.

  “Percy!” he bellowed. He dropped his broom and ran at me. If you’ve never been charged by an enthusiastic Cyclops wearing a flowered apron and rubber cleaning gloves, I’m telling you, it’ll wake you up quick.

  “Hey, big guy!” I said. “Ow, watch the ribs. The ribs.”

  I managed to survive his bear hug. He put me down, grinning like crazy, his single calf-brown eye full of excitement. His teeth were as yellow and crooked as ever, and his hair was a rat’s nest. He wore ragged XXXL jeans and a tattered flannel shirt under his flowered apron, but he was still a sight for sore eyes. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, since he’d gone under the sea to work at the Cyclopes’ forges.

  “You are okay?” he asked. “Not eaten by monsters?”

  “Not even a little bit.” I showed him that I still had both arms and both legs, and Tyson clapped happily.

  “Yay!” he said. “Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!”

  I hoped he didn’t mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely, we’d have a lot of fun this summer. I couldn’t help smiling, he was so enthusiastic about everything.

  “But first,” I said, “we’ve gotta worry about inspection. We should…”

  Then I looked around and realized Tyson had been busy. The floor was swept. The bunk beds were made. The saltwater fountain in the corner had been freshly scrubbed so the coral gleamed. On the windowsills, Tyson had set out water-filled vases with sea anemones and strange glowing plants from the bottom of the ocean, more beautiful than any flower bouquets the Demeter kids could whip up.

  “Tyson, the cabin looks…amazing!”

  He beamed. “See the fish ponies? I put them on the ceiling!”

  A herd of miniature bronze hippocampi hung on wires from the ceiling, so it looked like they were swimming through the air. I couldn’t believe Tyson, with his huge hands, could make things so delicate. Then I looked over at my bunk, and I saw my old shield hanging on the wall.

  “You fixed it!”

  The shield had been badly damaged in a manticore attack last winter. But now it was perfect again—not a scratch. All the bronze pictures of my adventures with Tyson and Annabeth in the Sea of Monsters were polished and gleaming.

  I looked at Tyson. I didn’t know how to thank him.

  Then somebody behind me said, “Oh, my.”

  Silena Beauregard was standing in the doorway with her inspection scroll. She stepped into the cabin, did a quick twirl, then raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Well, I had my doubts. But you clean up nicely, Percy. I’ll remember that.”

  She winked at me and left the room.

  * * *

  Tyson and I spent the afternoon catching up and just hanging out, which was nice after a morning of getting attacked by demon cheerleaders. We went down to the forge and helped Beckendorf from the Hephaestus cabin with his metalworking. Tyson showed us how he’d learned to craft magic weapons. He fashioned a flaming double-bladed war axe so fast even Beckendorf was impressed.

  While he worked, Tyson told us about his year under the sea. His eye lit up when he described the Cyclopes’ forges and the palace of Poseidon, but he also told us how tense things were. The old gods of the sea, who’d ruled during Titan times, were starting to make war on our father. When Tyson had left, battles had been raging all over the Atlantic. Hearing that made me feel anxious, like I should be helping out, but Tyson assured me that Dad wanted us both at camp.

  “Lots of bad people above the sea, too,” Tyson said. “We can make them go boom.”

  After the forges, we spent some time at the canoe lake with Annabeth. She was really glad to see Tyson, but I could tell she was distracted. She kept looking over at the forest, like she was thinking about Grover’s problem with the council. I couldn’t blame her. Grover was nowhere to be seen, and I felt really bad for him. Finding the lost god Pan had been his lifelong goal. His father and his uncle had both disappeared following the same dream. Last winter, Grover had heard a voice in his head: I await you— a voice he was sure belonged to Pan—but apparently his search had led nowhere. If the council took away his searcher’s license now, it would crush him.

  “What’s this ‘other way’?” I asked Annabeth. “The thing Clarisse mentioned?”

  She picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake. “Something Clarisse scouted out. I helped her a little this spring. But it would be dangerous. Especially for Grover.”

  “Goat boy scares me,” Tyson murmured.

  I stared at him. Tyson had faced down fire-breathing bulls and sea monsters and cannibal giants. “Why would you be scared of Grover?”

  “Hooves and horns,” Tyson muttered nervously. “And goat fur makes my nose itchy.”

  And that pretty much ended our Grover conversation.

  * * *

  Before dinner, Tyson and I went down to the sword arena. Quintus was glad to have company. He still wouldn’t tell me what was in the wooden crates, but he did teach me a few sword moves. The guy was good. He fought the way some people play chess—like he was putting all the moves together and you couldn’t see the pattern until he made the last stroke and won with a sword at your throat.

  “Good try,” he told me. “But your guard is too low.”

  He lunged and I blocked.

  “Have you always been a swordsman?” I asked.

  He parried my overhead cut. “I’ve been many things.”

  He jabbed and I sidestepped. His shoulder strap slipped down, and I saw that mark on his neck—the purple blotch. But it wasn’t a random mark. It had a definite shape—a bird with folded wings, like a quail or something.

  “What’s that on your neck?” I asked, which was probably a rude question, but you can blame my ADHD. I tend to just blurt things out. Quintus lost his rhythm. I hit his sword hilt and knocked the blade out of his hand.

  He rubbed his fingers. Then he shifted his armor to hide the mark. It wasn’t a tattoo, I realized. It was an old burn…like he’d been branded.

  “A reminder.” He picked up his sword and forced a smile. “Now, shall we go again?”

  He pressed me hard, not giving me time for any more questions. While he and I fought, Tyson played with Mrs. O’Leary, who he called the
“little doggie.” They had a great time wrestling for the bronze shield and playing Get the Greek. By sunset, Quintus hadn’t even broken a sweat, which seemed kind of strange; but Tyson and I were hot and sticky, so we hit the showers and got ready for dinner.

  I was feeling good. It was almost like a normal day at camp. Then dinner came, and all the campers lined up by cabin and marched into the dining pavilion. Most of them ignored the sealed fissure in the marble floor at the entrance—a ten-foot-long jagged scar that hadn’t been there last summer—

  but I was careful to step over it.

  “Big crack,” Tyson said when we were at our table. “Earthquake, maybe?”

  “No,” I said. “Not an earthquake.”

  I wasn’t sure I should tell him. It was a secret only Annabeth and Grover and I knew. But looking in Tyson’s big eye, I knew I couldn’t hide it from him.

  “Nico di Angelo,” I said, lowering my voice. “He’s this half-blood kid we brought to camp last winter. He, uh…he asked me to guard his sister on a quest, and I failed. She died. Now he blames me.”

  Tyson frowned. “So he put a crack in the floor?”

  “These skeletons attacked us,” I said. “Nico told them to go away, and the ground just opened up and swallowed them. Nico…” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Nico is a son of Hades.”

  Tyson nodded thoughtfully. “The god of dead people.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So the Nico boy is gone now?”

  “I—I guess. I tried to search for him this spring. So did Annabeth. But we didn’t have any luck. This is secret, Tyson. Okay? If anyone found out he was a son of Hades, he would be in danger. You can’t even tell Chiron.”

  “The bad prophecy,” Tyson said. “Titans might use him if they knew.”

  I stared at him. Sometimes it was easy to forget that as big and childlike as he was, Tyson was pretty smart. He knew that the next child of the Big Three gods—Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades—who turned sixteen was prophesied to either save or destroy Mount Olympus. Most people assumed that meant me, but if I died before I turned sixteen, the prophecy could just as easily apply to Nico.