The Tyrant's Tomb Page 4

  Hazel pressed her fingers against the coffin lid. “I’m so angry at you. Doing this to Piper. To us. Not letting us be there for you. What were you thinking?”

  It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t talking to us. She was speaking to Jason.

  Slowly, she stood. Her mouth trembled. She straightened, as if summoning internal columns of quartz to brace her skeletal system.

  “Let me carry one side,” she said. “Let’s bring him home.”

  We trudged along in silence, the sorriest pallbearers ever. All of us were covered in dust and monster ash. At the front of the coffin, Lavinia squirmed in her armor, occasionally glancing over at Hazel, who walked with her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t even seem to notice the random vulture feather fluttering from her shirtsleeve.

  Meg and Don carried the back of the casket. Meg’s eyes were bruising up nicely from the car crash, making her look like a large, badly dressed raccoon. Don kept twitching, tilting his head to the left as if he wanted to hear what his shoulder was saying.

  I stumbled after them, Meg’s spare dress pressed against my gut. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but the cut still burned and needled. I hoped Hazel was right about her healers being able to fix me. I did not relish the idea of becoming an extra for The Walking Dead.

  Hazel’s calmness made me uneasy. I almost would’ve preferred it if she screamed and threw things at me. Her misery was like the cold gravity of a mountain. You could stand next to that mountain and close your eyes, and even if you couldn’t see it or hear it, you knew it was there—unspeakably heavy and powerful, a geological force so ancient it made even immortal gods feel like gnats. I feared what would happen if Hazel’s emotions turned volcanically active.

  At last we emerged into the open air. We stood on a rock promontory about halfway up a hillside, with the valley of New Rome spread out below. In the twilight, the hills had turned violet. The cool breeze smelled of woodsmoke and lilacs.

  “Wow,” said Meg, taking in the view.

  Just as I remembered, the Little Tiber wended across the valley floor, making a glittering curlicue that emptied into a blue lake where the camp’s belly button might have been. On the north shore of that lake rose New Rome itself, a smaller version of the original imperial city.

  From what Leo had said about the recent battle, I’d expected to see the place leveled. At this distance, though, in the waning light, everything looked normal—the gleaming white buildings with red-tiled roofs, the domed Senate House, the Circus Maximus, and the Colosseum.

  The lake’s south shore was the site of Temple Hill, with its chaotic assortment of shrines and monuments. On the summit, overshadowing everything else, was my father’s impressively ego-tastic Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. If possible, his Roman incarnation, Jupiter, was even more insufferable than his original Greek personality of Zeus. (And, yes, we gods have multiple personalities, because you mortals keep changing your minds about what we’re like. It’s exasperating.)

  In the past, I’d always hated looking at Temple Hill, because my shrine wasn’t the largest. Obviously, it should have been the largest. Now I hated looking at the place for a different reason. All I could think of was the diorama Meg was carrying, and the sketchbooks in her backpack—the designs for Temple Hill as Jason Grace had reimagined it. Compared to Jason’s foam-core display, with its handwritten notes and glued-on Monopoly tokens, the real Temple Hill seemed an unworthy tribute to the gods. It could never mean as much as Jason’s goodness, his fervent desire to honor every god and leave no one out.

  I forced myself to look away.

  Directly below, about half a mile from our ledge, stood Camp Jupiter itself. With its picketed walls, watchtowers, and trenches, its neat rows of barracks lining two principal streets, it could have been any Roman legion camp, anywhere in the old empire, at any time during Rome’s many centuries of rule. Romans were so consistent about how they built their forts—whether they meant to stay there for a night or a decade—that if you knew one camp, you knew them all. You could wake up in the dead of night, stumble around in total darkness, and know exactly where everything was. Of course, when I visited Roman camps, I usually spent all my time in the commander’s tent, lounging and eating grapes like I used to do with Commodus…. Oh, gods, why was I torturing myself with such thoughts?

  “Okay.” Hazel’s voice shook me out of my reverie. “When we get to camp, here’s the story: Lavinia, you went to Temescal on my orders, because you saw the hearse go over the railing. I stayed on duty until the next shift arrived, then I rushed down to help you, because I thought you might be in danger. We fought the ghouls, saved these guys, et cetera. Got it?”

  “So, about that…” Don interrupted, “I’m sure you guys can manage from here, right? Seeing as you might get in trouble or whatever. I’ll just be slipping off—”

  Lavinia gave him a hard stare.

  “Or I can stick around,” he said hastily. “You know, happy to help.”

  Hazel shifted her grip on the coffin’s handle. “Remember, we’re an honor guard. No matter how bedraggled we look, we have a duty. We’re bringing home a fallen comrade. Understood?”

  “Yes, Centurion,” Lavinia said sheepishly. “And, Hazel? Thanks.”

  Hazel winced, as if regretting her soft heart. “Once we get to the principia”—her eyes settled on me—“our visiting god can explain to the leadership what happened to Jason Grace.”

  Hi, everybody,

  Here’s a little tune I call

  “All the Ways I Suck”

  THE LEGION SENTRIES SPOTTED us from a long way off, as legion sentries are supposed to do.

  By the time our small band arrived at the fort’s main gates, a crowd had gathered. Demigods lined either side of the street and watched in curious silence as we carried Jason’s coffin through the camp. No one questioned us. No one tried to stop us. The weight of all those eyes was oppressive.

  Hazel led us straight down the Via Praetoria.

  Some legionnaires stood on the porches of their barracks—their half-polished armor temporarily forgotten, guitars set aside, card games unfinished. Glowing purple Lares, the house gods of the legion, milled about, drifting through walls or people with little regard for personal space. Giant eagles whirled overhead, eyeing us like potentially tasty rodents.

  I began to realize how sparse the crowd was. The camp seemed…not deserted, exactly, but only half full. A few young heroes walked on crutches. Others had arms in casts. Perhaps some of them were just in their barracks, or in the sick bay, or on an extended march, but I didn’t like the haunted, grief-stricken expressions of the legionnaires who watched us.

  I remembered the gloating words of the eurynomos at Lake Temescal: I HAVE ALREADY TASTED THE FLESH OF YOUR COMRADES! AT THE BLOOD MOON, YOU WILL JOIN THEM.

  I wasn’t sure what a blood moon was. Lunar things were more my sister’s department. But I didn’t like the sound of it. I’d had quite enough of blood. From the looks of the legionnaires, so had they.

  Then I thought about something else the ghoul had said: YOU WILL ALL JOIN THE KING’S DEAD. I thought about the words of the prophecy we’d received in the Burning Maze, and a troubling realization started to form in my head. I did my best to suppress it. I’d already had my full day’s quota of terror.

  We passed the storefronts of merchants who were allowed to operate inside the fort’s walls—only the most essential services, like a chariot dealership, an armory, a gladiator supply store, and a coffee bar. In front of the coffee place stood a two-headed barista, glowering at us with both faces, his green apron stained with latte foam.

  Finally we reached the main intersection, where two roads came to a T in front of the principia. On the steps of the gleaming white headquarters building, the legion’s praetors waited for us.

  I almost didn’t recognize Frank Zhang. The first time I’d seen him, back when I was a god and he was a legion newbie, Frank had been a baby-faced, heavyset boy with dark fl
attop hair and an adorable fixation on archery. He’d had this idea that I might be his father. He prayed to me all the time. Honestly, he was so cute I would’ve been happy to adopt him, but alas, he was one of Mars’s.

  The second time I saw Frank, during his voyage on the Argo II, he’d had a growth spurt or a magical testosterone injection or something. He’d grown taller, stronger, more imposing—though still in an adorable, cuddly, grizzly-bear sort of way.

  Now, as I’d often noticed happening with young men still coming into their own, Frank’s weight had begun to catch up to his growth spurt. He was once again a big, girthy guy with baby cheeks you just wanted to pinch, only now he was larger and more muscular. He’d apparently fallen out of bed and scrambled to meet us, despite it being just early evening. His hair stuck up on top like a breaking wave. One of his jean cuffs was tucked into his sock. His top was a yellow silk nightshirt decorated with eagles and bears—a fashion statement he was doing his best to cover with his purple praetor’s cloak.

  One thing that hadn’t changed was his bearing—that slightly awkward stance, that faint perplexed frown, as if he were constantly thinking, Am I really supposed to be here?

  That feeling was understandable. Frank had climbed the ranks from probatio to centurion to praetor in record time. Not since Julius Caesar had a Roman officer risen so rapidly and brightly. That wasn’t a comparison I would have shared with Frank, though, given what happened to my man Julius.

  My gaze drifted to the young woman at Frank’s side: Praetor Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano…and I remembered.

  A bowling ball of panic formed in my heart and rolled into my lower intestines. It was a good thing I wasn’t carrying Jason’s coffin or I would have dropped it.

  How can I explain this to you?

  Have you ever had an experience so painful or embarrassing you literally forgot it happened? Your mind disassociates, scuttles away from the incident yelling Nope, nope, nope, and refuses to acknowledge the memory ever again?

  That was me with Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.

  Oh, yes, I knew who she was. I was familiar with her name and reputation. I was fully aware we were destined to run into her at Camp Jupiter. The prophecy we’d deciphered in the Burning Maze had told me as much.

  But my fuzzy mortal brain had completely refused to make the most important connection: that this Reyna was that Reyna, the one whose face I had been shown long ago by a certain annoying goddess of love.

  That’s her! my brain screamed at me, as I stood before her in my flabby and acne-spotted glory, clutching a bloody dress to my gut. Oh, wow, she’s beautiful!

  Now you recognize her? I mentally screamed back. Now you want to talk about her? Can’t you please forget again?

  But, like, remember what Venus said? my brain insisted. You’re supposed to stay away from Reyna or—

  Yes, I remember! Shut up!

  You have conversations like this with your brain, don’t you? It’s completely normal, right?

  Reyna was indeed beautiful and imposing. Her Imperial gold armor was cloaked in a mantle of purple. Military medals twinkled on her chest. Her dark ponytail swept over her shoulder like a horsewhip, and her obsidian eyes were every bit as piercing as those of the eagles that circled above us.

  I managed to wrest my eyes from her. My face burned with humiliation. I could still hear the other gods laughing after Venus made her proclamation to me, her dire warnings if I should ever dare—

  PING! Lavinia’s manubalista chose that moment to crank itself another half notch, mercifully diverting everyone’s attention to her.

  “Uh, s-so,” she stammered, “we were on duty when I saw this hearse go flying over the guardrail—”

  Reyna raised her hand for silence.

  “Centurion Levesque.” Reyna’s tone was guarded and weary, as if we weren’t the first battered procession to tote a coffin into camp. “Your report, please.”

  Hazel glanced at the other pallbearers. Together, they gently lowered the casket.

  “Praetors,” Hazel said, “we rescued these travelers at the borders of camp. This is Meg.”

  “Hi,” said Meg. “Is there a bathroom? I need to pee.”

  Hazel looked flustered. “Er, in a sec, Meg. And this…” She hesitated, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “This is Apollo.”

  The crowd murmured uneasily. I caught snatches of their conversations:

  “Did she say—?”

  “Not actually—”

  “Dude, obviously not—”

  “Named after—?”

  “In his dreams—”

  “Settle down,” Frank Zhang ordered, pulling his purple mantle tighter around his jammie top. He studied me, perhaps looking for any sign that I was in fact Apollo, the god he’d always admired. He blinked as if the concept had short-circuited his brain.

  “Hazel, can you…explain that?” he pleaded. “And, erm, the coffin?”

  Hazel locked her golden eyes on me, giving me a silent command: Tell them.

  I didn’t know how to start.

  I was not a great orator like Julius or Cicero. I wasn’t a weaver of tall tales like Hermes. (Boy, that guy can tell some whoppers.) How could I explain the many months of horrifying experiences that had led to Meg and me standing here, with the body of our heroic friend?

  I looked down at my ukulele.

  I thought of Piper McLean aboard Caligula’s yachts—how she’d burst into singing “Life of Illusion” in the midst of a gang of hardened mercenaries. She had rendered them helpless, entranced by her serenade about melancholy and regret.

  I wasn’t a charmspeaker like Piper. But I was a musician, and surely Jason deserved a tribute.

  After what had happened with the eurynomoi, I felt skittish of my ukulele, so I began to sing a cappella.

  For the first few bars, my voice quavered. I had no idea what I was doing. The words simply billowed up from deep inside me like the clouds of debris from Hazel’s collapsed tunnel.

  I sang of my fall from Olympus—how I had landed in New York and become bound to Meg McCaffrey. I sang of our time at Camp Half-Blood, where we’d discovered the Triumvirate’s plot to control the great Oracles and thus the future of the world. I sang of Meg’s childhood, her terrible years of mental abuse in the household of Nero, and how we’d finally driven that emperor from the Grove of Dodona. I sang of our battle against Commodus at the Waystation in Indianapolis, of our harrowing journey into Caligula’s Burning Maze to free the Sibyl of Erythraea.

  After each verse, I sang a refrain about Jason: his final stand on Caligula’s yacht, courageously facing death so that we could survive and continue our quest. Everything we had been through led to Jason’s sacrifice. Everything that might come next, if we were lucky enough to defeat the Triumvirate and Python at Delphi, would be possible because of him.

  The song really wasn’t about me at all. (I know. I could hardly believe it, either.) It was “The Fall of Jason Grace.” In the last verses, I sang of Jason’s dream for Temple Hill, his plan to add shrines until every god and goddess, no matter how obscure, was properly honored.

  I took the diorama from Meg, lifted it to show the assembled demigods, then set it on Jason’s coffin like a soldier’s flag.

  I’m not sure how long I sang. When I finished the last line, the sky was fully dark. My throat felt as hot and dry as a spent bullet cartridge.

  The giant eagles had gathered on the nearby rooftops. They stared at me with something like respect.

  The legionnaires’ faces were streaked with tears. Some sniffled and wiped their noses. Others embraced and wept silently.

  I realized they weren’t just grieving for Jason. The song had unleashed their collective sorrow about the recent battle, their losses, which—given the sparseness of the crowd—must have been extreme. Jason’s song became their song. By honoring him, we honored all the fallen.

  On the steps of the principia, the praetors stirred from their private anguis
h. Reyna took a long, shaky breath. She exchanged a look with Frank, who was having difficulty controlling the tremble of his lower lip. The two leaders seemed to come to silent agreement.

  “We will have a state funeral,” Reyna announced.

  “And we’ll realize Jason’s dream,” Frank added. “Those temples and—everything Ja—” His voice caught on Jason’s name. He needed a count of five to compose himself. “Everything he envisioned. We’ll build it all in one weekend.”

  I could feel the mood of the crowd change, as palpably as a weather front, their grief hardening into steely determination.

  Some nodded and murmured assent. A few shouted Ave! Hail! The rest of the crowd picked up the chant. Javelins pounded against shields.

  No one balked at the idea of rebuilding Temple Hill in a weekend. A task like that would’ve been impossible even for the most skilled engineering corps. But this was a Roman legion.

  “Apollo and Meg will be guests of Camp Jupiter,” Reyna said. “We will find them a place to stay—”

  “And a bathroom?” Meg pleaded, dancing with her knees crossed.

  Reyna managed a faint smile. “Of course. Together, we’ll mourn and honor our dead. Afterward, we will discuss our plan of war.”

  The legionnaires cheered and banged their shields.

  I opened my mouth to say something eloquent, to thank Reyna and Frank for their hospitality.

  But all my remaining energy had been expended on my song. My gut wound burned. My head twirled on my neck like a carousel.

  I fell face-first and bit the dirt.

  Sailing north to war

  With my Shirley Temple and

  Three cherries. Fear me.

  OH, THE DREAMS.

  Dear reader, if you are tired of hearing about my awful prophetic nightmares, I don’t blame you. Just think how I felt experiencing them firsthand. It was like having the Pythia of Delphi butt-call me all night long, mumbling lines of prophecy I hadn’t asked for and didn’t want to hear.

  I saw a line of luxury yachts cutting through moonlit waves off the California coast—fifty boats in a tight chevron formation, strings of lights gleaming along their bows, purple pennants snapping in the wind on illuminated com towers. The decks were crawling with all manner of monsters—Cyclopes, wild centaurs, big-eared pandai, and chest-headed blemmyae. On the aft deck of each yacht, a mob of the creatures seemed to be constructing something like a shed or…or some sort of siege weapon.