The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, Book Three) Read online

  “I’ll just…” She swallowed, pointed weakly down the passageway, and ran off.

  Jason and Piper stayed below as the ship rocked back and forth. For a hero, Piper felt pretty useless. Waves crashed against the hull as angry voices came from above deck—Percy shouting, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake. Festus the figurehead breathed fire several times. Down the hall, Hazel moaned miserably in her cabin. In the engine room below, it sounded like Leo and the others were doing an Irish line dance with anvils tied to their feet. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and Piper felt the ship lift into the air.

  The rocking and shaking stopped. The ship became quiet except for the drone of machinery. Finally Leo emerged from the engine room. He was caked in sweat, lime dust, and tar. His T-shirt looked like it had been caught in an escalator and chewed to shreds. The TEAM LEO on his chest now read: AM LEO. But he grinned like a madman and announced that they were safely under way.

  “Meeting in the mess hall, one hour,” he said. “Crazy day, huh?”

  After everyone had cleaned up, Coach Hedge took the helm and the demigods gathered below for dinner. It was the first time they’d all sat down together—just the seven of them. Maybe their presence should’ve reassured Piper, but seeing all of them in one place only reminded her that the Prophecy of Seven was unfolding at last. No more waiting for Leo to finish the ship. No more easy days at Camp Half-Blood, pretending the future was still a long way off. They were under way, with a bunch of angry Romans behind them and the ancient lands ahead. The giants would be waiting. Gaea was rising. And unless they succeeded in this quest, the world would be destroyed.

  The others must’ve felt it too. The tension in the mess hall was like an electrical storm brewing, which was totally possible, considering Percy’s and Jason’s powers. In an awkward moment, the two boys tried to sit in the same chair at the head of the table. Sparks literally flew from Jason’s hands. After a brief silent standoff, like they were both thinking, Seriously, dude?, they ceded the chair to Annabeth and sat at opposite sides of the table.

  The crew compared notes on what had happened in Salt Lake City, but even Leo’s ridiculous story about how he tricked Narcissus wasn’t enough to cheer up the group.

  “So where to now?” Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. “I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there’s still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic.”

  Percy was eating a piece of pie, which for some reason was completely blue—filling, crust, even the whipped cream. “We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter,” he said. “Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren’t far behind us.”

  That didn’t improve the mood around the table. Piper didn’t want to say anything, but she felt obliged…and a little guilty. “I don’t suppose we should go back and try to reason with the Romans? Maybe—maybe I didn’t try hard enough with the charmspeak.”

  Jason took her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Pipes. Or Leo’s,” he added quickly. “Whatever happened, it was Gaea’s doing, to drive the two camps apart.”

  Piper was grateful for his support, but she still felt uneasy. “Maybe if we could explain that, though—”

  “With no proof?” Annabeth asked. “And no idea what really happened? I appreciate what you’re saying, Piper. I don’t want the Romans on our bad side, but until we understand what Gaea’s up to, going back is suicide.”

  “She’s right,” Hazel said. She still looked a little queasy from seasickness, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. The rim of her plate was embedded with rubies, and Piper was pretty sure they hadn’t been there at the beginning of the meal. “Reyna might listen, but Octavian won’t. The Romans have honor to think about. They’ve been attacked. They’ll shoot first and ask questions post hac.”

  Piper stared at her own dinner. The magical plates could conjure up a great selection of vegetarian stuff. She especially liked the avocado and grilled pepper quesadilla, but tonight she didn’t have much of an appetite.

  She thought about the visions she’d seen in her knife: Jason with golden eyes; the bull with the human head; the two giants in yellow togas hoisting a bronze jar from a pit. Worst of all, she remembered herself drowning in black water.

  Piper had always liked the water. She had good memories of surfing with her dad. But since she’d started seeing that vision in Katoptris, she’d been thinking more and more of an old Cherokee story her granddad used to tell to keep her away from the river near his cabin. He told her the Cherokees believed in good water spirits, like the naiads of the Greeks; but they also believed in evil water spirits, the water cannibals, who hunted mortals with invisible arrows and were especially fond of drowning small children.

  “You’re right,” she decided. “We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry.”

  Hazel nodded. “Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed.”

  Jason frowned. “You mean Rome Rome, not New Rome?”

  “I think,” Hazel said. “But if so, that’s not much time.”

  “Why six days?” Percy wondered. “And how are they going to destroy Rome?”

  No one answered. Piper didn’t want to add further bad news, but she felt she had to.

  “There’s more,” she said. “I’ve been seeing some things in my knife.”

  The big kid, Frank, froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “Things such as… ?”

  “They don’t really make sense,” Piper said, “just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins.”

  Annabeth stared at the magical video feed from Camp Half-Blood on the wall. Right now it showed the living room in the Big House: a cozy fire on the hearth and Seymour, the stuffed leopard head, snoring contentedly above the mantel.

  “Twins, like in Ella’s prophecy,” Annabeth said. “If we could figure out those lines, it might help.”

  “Wisdom’s daughter walks alone,” Percy said. “The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Annabeth, that’s got to mean you. Juno told me…well, she said you had a hard task ahead of you in Rome. She said she doubted you could do it. But I know she’s wrong.”

  Annabeth took a long breath. “Reyna was about to tell me something right before the ship fired on us. She said there was an old legend among the Roman praetors—something that had to do with Athena. She said it might be the reason Greeks and Romans could never get along.”

  Leo and Hazel exchanged nervous looks.

  “Nemesis mentioned something similar,” Leo said. “She talked about an old score that had to be settled—”

  “The one thing that might bring the gods’ two natures into harmony,” Hazel recalled. “‘An old wrong finally avenged.’”

  Percy drew a frowny face in his blue whipped cream. “I was only a praetor for about two hours. Jason, you ever hear a legend like that?”

  Jason was still holding Piper’s hand. His fingers had turned clammy.

  “I…uh, I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  Percy narrowed his eyes. “You’re not sure?”

  Jason didn’t respond. Piper wanted to ask him what was wrong. She could tell he didn’t want to discuss this old legend. She caught his eye, and he pleaded silently, Later.

  Hazel broke the silence. “What about the other lines?” She turned her ruby-encrusted plate. “Twins snuff out the angel’s breath, Who holds the key to endless death.”

  “Giants’ bane stands gold and pale,” Frank added, “Won through pain from a woven jail.”

  “Giants’ bane,” Leo said. “Anything that’s a giants’ bane is good for us, right? That’s probably what we need to find. If it can help the gods get their schizophrenic act together, that’s good.”

  Percy nodded. “We can’t kill the giants without the help of the gods.”

/>   Jason turned to Frank and Hazel. “I thought you guys killed that one giant in Alaska without a god’s help, just the two of you.”

  “Alcyoneus was a special case,” Frank said. “He was only immortal in the territory where he was reborn—Alaska. But not in Canada. I wish I could kill all the giants by dragging them across the border from Alaska into Canada, but…” He shrugged. “Percy’s right, we’ll need the gods.”

  Piper gazed at the walls. She really wished Leo hadn’t enchanted them with images of Camp Half-Blood. It was like a doorway to home that she could never go through. She watched the hearth of Hestia burning in the middle of the green as the cabins turned off their lights for curfew.

  She wondered how the Roman demigods, Frank and Hazel, felt about those images. They’d never even been to Camp Half-Blood. Did it seem alien to them, or unfair that Camp Jupiter wasn’t represented? Did it make them miss their own home?

  The other lines of the prophecy turned in Piper’s mind. What was a woven jail? How could twins snuff out an angel’s breath? The key to endless death didn’t sound very cheerful, either.

  “So…” Leo pushed his chair away from the table. “First things first, I guess. We’ll have to put down in the morning to finish repairs.”

  “Someplace close to a city,” Annabeth suggested, “in case we need supplies. But somewhere out of the way, so the Romans will have trouble finding us. Any ideas?”

  No one spoke. Piper remembered her vision in the knife: the strange man in purple, holding out a goblet and beckoning to her. He’d been standing in front of a sign that read TOPEKA 32.

  “Well,” she ventured, “how do you guys feel about Kansas?”

  PIPER HAD TROUBLE FALLING ASLEEP.

  Coach Hedge spent the first hour after curfew doing his nightly duty, walking up and down the passageway yelling, “Lights out! Settle down! Try to sneak out, and I’ll smack you back to Long Island!”

  He banged his baseball bat against a cabin door whenever he heard a noise, shouting at everyone to go to sleep, which made it impossible for anyone to go to sleep. Piper figured this was the most fun the satyr had had since he’d pretended to be a gym teacher at the Wilderness School.

  She stared at the bronze beams on the ceiling. Her cabin was pretty cozy. Leo had programmed their quarters to adjust automatically to the occupant’s preferred temperature, so it was never too cold or too hot. The mattress and the pillows were stuffed with pegasus down (no pegasi were harmed in the making of these products, Leo had assured her), so they were über-comfortable. A bronze lantern hung from the ceiling, glowing at whatever brightness Piper wished. The lantern’s sides were perforated with pinholes, so at night glimmering constellations drifted across her walls.

  Piper had so many things on her mind, she thought she’d never sleep. But there was something peaceful about the rocking of the boat and the drone of the aerial oars as they scooped through the sky.

  Finally her eyelids got heavy, and she drifted off.

  It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before she woke to the breakfast bell.

  “Yo, Piper!” Leo knocked on her door. “We’re landing!”

  “Landing?” She sat up groggily.

  Leo opened her door and poked his head in. He had his hand over his eyes, which would’ve been a nice gesture if he hadn’t been peeking through his fingers. “You decent?”

  “Leo!”

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “Hey, nice Power Ranger jammies.”

  “They are not Power Rangers! They’re Cherokee eagles!”

  “Yeah, sure. Anyway, we’re setting down a few miles outside Topeka, as requested. And, um…” He glanced out in the passageway, then leaned inside again. “Thanks for not hating me, about blowing up the Romans yesterday.”

  Piper rubbed her eyes. The feast in New Rome had been only yesterday? “That’s okay, Leo. You weren’t in control of yourself.”

  “Yeah, but still…you didn’t have to stick up for me.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re like the annoying little brother I never had. Of course I’ll stick up for you.”

  “Uh…thanks?”

  From above, Coach Hedge yelled, “Thar she blows! Kansas, ahoy!”

  “Holy Hephaestus,” Leo muttered. “He really needs to work on his shipspeak. I’d better get above deck.”

  By the time Piper had showered, changed, and grabbed a bagel from the mess hall, she could hear the ship’s landing gear extending. She climbed on deck and joined the others as the Argo II settled in the middle of a field of sunflowers. The oars retracted. The gangplank lowered itself.

  The morning air smelled of irrigation, warm plants, and fertilized earth. Not a bad smell. It reminded Piper of Grandpa Tom’s place in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, back on the reservation.

  Percy was the first to notice her. He smiled in greeting, which for some reason surprised Piper. He was wearing faded jeans and a fresh orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, as if he’d never been away from the Greek side. The new clothes had probably helped his mood—and of course the fact that he was standing at the rail with his arm around Annabeth.

  Piper was happy to see Annabeth with a sparkle in her eyes, because Piper had never had a better friend. For months, Annabeth had been tormenting herself, her every waking moment consumed with the search for Percy. Now, despite the dangerous quest they were facing, at least she had her boyfriend back.

  “So!” Annabeth plucked the bagel out of Piper’s hand and took a bite, but that didn’t bother Piper. Back at camp, they’d had a running joke about stealing each other’s breakfast. “Here we are. What’s the plan?”

  “I want to check out the highway,” Piper said. “Find the sign that says Topeka 32.”

  Leo spun his Wii controller in a circle, and the sails lowered themselves. “We shouldn’t be far,” he said. “Festus and I calculated the landing as best we could. What do you expect to find at the mile marker?”

  Piper explained what she’d seen in the knife—the man in purple with a goblet. She kept quiet about the other images, though, like the vision of Percy, Jason, and herself drowning. She wasn’t sure what it meant, anyway; and everyone seemed in such better spirits this morning, she didn’t want to ruin the mood.

  “Purple shirt?” Jason asked. “Vines on his hat? Sounds like Bacchus.”

  “Dionysus,” Percy muttered. “If we came all the way to Kansas to see Mr. D—”

  “Bacchus isn’t so bad,” Jason said. “I don’t like his followers much.…”

  Piper shuddered. Jason, Leo, and she had had an encounter with the maenads a few months ago and almost gotten torn to pieces.

  “But the god himself is okay,” Jason continued. “I did him a favor once up in the wine country.”

  Percy looked appalled. “Whatever, man. Maybe he’s better on the Roman side. But why would he be hanging around in Kansas? Didn’t Zeus order the gods to cease all contact with mortals?”

  Frank grunted. The big guy was wearing a blue tracksuit this morning, like he was ready to go for a jog in the sunflowers.

  “The gods haven’t been very good at following that order,” he noted. “Besides, if the gods have gone schizophrenic like Hazel said—”

  “And Leo said,” added Leo.

  Frank scowled at him. “Then who knows what’s going on with the Olympians? Could be some pretty bad stuff out there.”

  “Sounds dangerous!” Leo agreed cheerfully. “Well…you guys have fun. I’ve got to finish repairs on the hull. Coach Hedge is gonna work on the broken crossbows. And, uh, Annabeth—I could really use your help. You’re the only other person who even sort of understands engineering.”

  Annabeth looked apologetically at Percy. “He’s right. I should stay and help.”

  “I’ll come back to you.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Promise.”

  They were so easy together, it made Piper’s heart ache.

  Jason was great, of course. But sometimes he acted so distant, like last night, when he’d been reluct
ant to talk about that old Roman legend. So often he seemed to be thinking of his old life at Camp Jupiter. Piper wondered if she would ever be able to break through that barrier.

  The trip to Camp Jupiter, seeing Reyna in person, hadn’t helped. Neither did the fact that Jason had chosen to wear a purple shirt today—the color of the Romans.

  Frank slid his bow off his shoulder and propped it against the rail. “I think I should turn into a crow or something and fly around, keep an eye out for Roman eagles.”

  “Why a crow?” Leo asked. “Man, if you can turn into a dragon, why don’t you just turn into a dragon every time? That’s the coolest.”

  Frank’s face looked like it was being infused with cranberry juice. “That’s like asking why you don’t bench-press your maximum weight every time you lift. Because it’s hard, and you’d hurt yourself. Turning into a dragon isn’t easy.”

  “Oh.” Leo nodded. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t lift weights.”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe you should consider it, Mr.—”

  Hazel stepped between them.

  “I’ll help you, Frank,” she said, shooting Leo an evil look. “I can summon Arion and scout around below.”

  “Sure,” Frank said, still glaring at Leo. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Piper wondered what was going on with those three. The boys showing off for Hazel and razzing each other—that she understood. But it almost seemed like Hazel and Leo had a history. So far as she knew, they’d met for the first time just yesterday. She wondered if something else had happened on their trip to the Great Salt Lake—something they hadn’t mentioned.

  Hazel turned to Percy. “Just be careful when you go out there. Lots of fields, lots of crops. Could be karpoi on the loose.”

  “Karpoi?” Piper asked.

  “Grain spirits,” Hazel said. “You don’t want to meet them.”

  Piper didn’t see how a grain spirit could be so bad, but Hazel’s tone convinced her not to ask.

  “That leaves three of us to check on the mile marker,” Percy said. “Me, Jason, Piper. I’m not psyched about seeing Mr. D again. That guy is a pain. But, Jason, if you’re on better terms with him—”