At least we salvaged the blade,’ one said. ‘The master will still reward us.’
‘Yes! Yes!’ a second shrieked. ‘Rewards beyond measure!’
Another voice, this one more human, said: ‘Um, yeah, well that’s great. Now, if you’re done with me –’
‘No, half-blood!’ a telekhine said. ‘You must help us make the presentation. It is a great honour!’
‘Gee, thanks,’ the half-blood said, and I realized it was Ethan Nakamura, the guy who’d run away after I’d saved his sorry life in the arena.
I crept towards the end of the tunnel. I had to remind myself I was invisible. They shouldn’t be able to see me.
A blast of cold air hit me as I emerged. I was standing near the top of Mount Tam. The Pacific Ocean spread out below, grey under a cloudy sky. About six metres downhill, two telekhines were placing something on a big rock – something long and thin and wrapped in black cloth. Ethan was helping them open it.
‘Careful, fool,’ the telekhine scolded. ‘One touch, and the blade will sever your soul from your body.’
Ethan swallowed nervously. ‘Maybe I’ll let you unwrap it, then.’
I glanced up at the mountain’s peak, where a black marble fortress loomed, just like I’d seen in my dreams. It reminded me of an oversized mausoleum, with walls fifteen metres high. I had no idea how mortals could miss the fact that it was here. But, then again, everything below the summit seemed fuzzy to me, as if there were a thick veil between me and the lower half of the mountain. There was magic going on here – really powerful Mist. Above me, the sky swirled into a huge funnel cloud. I couldn’t see Atlas, but I could hear him groaning in the distance, still labouring under the weight of the sky, just beyond the fortress.
‘There!’ the telekhine said. Reverently, he lifted the weapon, and my blood turned to ice.
It was a scythe – a two-metre-long blade curved like a crescent moon, with a wooden handle wrapped in leather. The blade glinted two different colours – steel and bronze. It was the weapon of Kronos, the one he’d used to slice up his father, Ouranos, before the gods had taken it away from him and cut Kronos to pieces, casting him into Tartarus. Now the weapon was reforged.
‘We must sanctify it in blood,’ the telekhine said. ‘Then you, half-blood, shall help present it when the lord awakes.’
I ran towards the fortress, my pulse pounding in my ears. I didn’t want to get anywhere close to that horrible black mausoleum, but I knew what I had to do. I had to stop Kronos from rising. This might be my only chance.
I dashed through a dark foyer and into the main hall. The floor shone like a mahogany piano – pure black and yet full of light. Black marble statues lined the walls. I didn’t recognize the faces, but I knew I was looking at images of the Titans who’d ruled before the gods. At the end of the room, between two bronze braziers, was a dais. And on the dais, the golden sarcophagus.
The room was silent except for the crackle of the fires. Luke wasn’t here. No guards. Nothing.
It was too easy, but I approached the dais.
The sarcophagus was just like I remembered – about three metres long, much too big for a human. It was carved with elaborate scenes of death and destruction, pictures of the gods being trampled under chariots, temples and famous world landmarks being smashed and burned. The whole coffin gave off an aura of extreme cold, like I was walking into a freezer. My breath began to steam.
I drew Riptide and took a little comfort from the familiar weight of the sword in my hand.
Whenever I’d approached Kronos before, his evil voice had spoken in my mind. Why was he silent now? He’d been shredded into a thousand pieces, cut with his own scythe. What would I find if I opened that lid? How could they make a new body for him?
I had no answers. I just knew that if he was about to rise, I had to strike him down before he got his scythe. I had to figure out a way to stop him.
I stood over the coffin. The lid was decorated even more intricately than the sides – with scenes of carnage and power. In the middle was an inscription carved in letters even older than Greek, a language of magic. I couldn’t read it, exactly, but I knew what it said: KRONOS, LORD OF TIME.
My hand touched the lid. My fingertips turned blue. Frost gathered on my sword.
Then I heard noises behind me – voices approaching. It was now or never. I pushed back the golden lid and it fell to the floor with a huge WHOOOOM!
I lifted my sword, ready to strike. But when I looked inside I didn’t comprehend what I was seeing. Mortal legs, dressed in grey trousers. A white T-shirt, hands folded over his stomach. One piece of his chest was missing – a clean black hole about the size of a bullet wound, right where his heart shouldVe been. His eyes were closed. His skin was pale. Blond hair… and a scar running along the left side of his face.
The body in the coffin was Luke’s.
I should have stabbed him right then. I shouldVe brought the point of Riptide down with all my strength.
But I was too stunned. I didn’t understand. As much as I hated Luke, as much as he had betrayed me, I just didn’t get why he was in the coffin, and why he looked so very, very dead.
Then the voices of the telekhines were right beh mo me.
‘What has happened!’ one of the demons screamed when he saw the lid. I stumbled away from the dais, forgetting that I was invisible, and hid behind a column as they approached.
‘Careful!’ the other demon warned. ‘Perhaps he stirs. We must present the gifts now. Immediately!’
The two telekhines shuffled forward and knelt, holding up the scythe on its wrapping cloth. ‘My lord,’ one said. ‘Your symbol of power is remade.’
Silence. Nothing happened in the coffin.
‘You fool,’ the other telekhine muttered. ‘He requires the half-blood first.’
Ethan stepped back. ‘Whoa, what do you mean, he requires me?’
‘Don’t be a coward!’ the first telekhine hissed. ‘He does not require your death. Only your allegiance. Pledge him your service. Renounce the gods. That is all.’
‘No!’ I yelled. It was a stupid thing to do, but I charged into the room and took off the cap. ‘Ethan, don’t!’
‘Trespasser!’ The telekhines bared their seal teeth. ‘The master will deal with you soon enough. Hurry, boy!’
‘Ethan,’ I pleaded, ‘don’t listen to them. Help me destroy it.’
Ethan turned towards me, his eye patch blending in with the shadows on his face. His expression was something like pity. ‘I told you not to spare me, Percy. “An eye for an eye.” You ever hear that saying? I learned what it means the hard way – when I discovered my godly parent. I’m the child of Nemesis, Goddess of Revenge. And this is what I was made to do.’
He turned towards the dais. ‘I renounce the gods! What have they ever done for me? I will see them destroyed. I will serve Kronos.’
The building rumbled. A wisp of blue light rose from the floor at Ethan Nakamura’s feet. It drifted towards the coffin and began to shimmer, like a cloud of pure energy. Then it descended into the sarcophagus.
Luke sat bolt upright. His eyes opened, and they were no longer blue. They were golden, the same colour as the coffin. The hole in his chest was gone. He was complete. He leaped out of the coffin with ease, and where his feet touched the floor, the marble froze like craters of ice.
He looked at Ethan and the telekhines with those horrible golden eyes, as if he were a newborn baby, not sure what he was seeing. Then he looked at me, and a smile of recognition crept across his mouth.
‘This body has been well prepared.’ His voice was like a razor blade running over my skin. It was Luke’s, but not Luke’s. Underneath his voice was another, more horrible sound – an ancient, cold sound like metal scraping against rock. ‘Don’t you think so, Percy Jackson?’
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t answer.
Kronos threw back his head and laughed. The scar on his face rippled.
‘Luke feared you,’
the Titan’s voice said. ‘His jealousy and hatred have been powerful tools. It has kept him obedient. For that I thank you.’
Ethan collapsed in terror. He covered his face with his hands. The telekhines trembled, holding up the scythe.
Finally I found my nerve. I lunged at the thing that used to be Luke, thrusting my blade straight at his chest, but his skin deflected the blow like he was made of pure steel. He looked at me with amusement. Then he flicked his hand, and I flew across the room.
I slammed against a pillar. I struggled to my feet, blinking the stars out of my eyes, but Kronos had already grasped the handle of his scythe.
‘Ah… much better,’ he said. ‘Backbiter, Luke called it. An appropriate name. Now that it is reforged completely, it shall indeed bite back’
‘What have you done to Luke?’ I groaned.
Kronos raised his scythe. ‘He serves me with his whole being, as I require. The difference is, he feared you, Percy Jackson. I do not.’
That’s when I ran. There wasn’t even any thought to it. No debate in my mind about – gee, should I stand up to him and try to fight again? Nope. I simply ran.
But my feet felt like lead. Time slowed down around me, like the world was turning to Jell-O. I’d had this feeling once before, and I knew it was the power of Kronos. His presence was so strong it could bend time itself.
‘Run, little hero,’ he laughed. ‘Run!’
I glanced back and saw him approaching leisurely, swinging his scythe as if he were enjoying the feel of having it in his hands again. No weapon in the world could stop him. No amount of celestial bronze.
He was three metres away when I heard, ‘PERCY!’
Rachel’s voice.
Something flew past me, and a blue plastic hairbrush hit Kronos in the eye.
Owl’ he yelled. For a moment it was only Luke’s voice, full of surprise and pain. My limbs were freed and I ran straight into Rachel, Nico and Annabeth, who were standing in the entry hall, their eyes wide with dismay.
‘Luke?’ Annabeth called. ‘What –’
I grabbed her by the shirt and hauled her after me. I ran as fast as I’ve ever run, straight out of the fortress. We were almost back to the Labyrinth entrance when I heard the loudest bellow in the world – the voice of Kronos, coming back into control. AFTER THEM!’
‘No!’ Nico yelled. He clapped his hands together, and a jagged spire of rock the size of an eighteen-wheeler erupted from the ground right in front of the fortress. The tremor it caused was so powerful, the front columns of the building came crashing down. I heard muffled screams from the telekhines inside. Dust billowed everywhere.
We plunged into the Labyrinth and kept running, the howl of the Titan lord shaking the entire world behind us.
17 THE LOST GOD SPEAKS
We ran until we were exhausted. Rachel steered us away from traps, but we had no destination in mind – only away from that dark mountain and the roar of Kronos.
We stopped in a tunnel of wet white rock, like part of a natural cave. I couldn’t hear anything behind us, but I didn’t feel any safer. I could still remember those unnatural golden eyes staring out of Luke’s face, and the feeling that my limbs were slowly turning to stone.
‘I can’t go any further,’ Rachel gasped, hugging her chest.
Annabeth had been crying the entire time we’d been running. Now she collapsed and put her head between her knees. Her sobs echoed in the tunnel. Nico and I sat next to each other. He dropped his sword next to mine and took a shaky breath.
‘That sucked,’ he said, which I thought summed things up pretty well.
‘You saved our lives,’ I said.
Nico wiped the dust off his face. ‘Blame the girls for dragging me along. That’s the only thing they could agree on. We needed to help you or you’d mess things up.’
‘Nice that they trust me so much.’ I shone my flashlight across the cavern. Water dripped from the stalactites like a slow-motion rain. ‘Nico… you, uh, kind of gave yourself away.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That wall of black stone? That was pretty impressive. If Kronos didn’t know who you were before, he does now – a child of the Underworld.’
Nico frowned. ‘Big deal.’
I let it drop. I figured he was just trying to hide how scared he was, and I couldn’t blame him.
Annabeth lifted her head. Her eyes were red from crying. ‘What… what was wrong with Luke? What did they do to him?’
I told her what I’d seen in the coffin, the way the last piece of Kronoss spirit had entered Luke’s body when Ethan Nakamura pledged his service.
‘No,’ Annabeth said. ‘That can’t be true. He couldn’t –’
‘He gave himself over to Kronos,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Annabeth. But Luke is gone.’
‘No!’ she insisted. ‘You saw when Rachel hit him.’
I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. ‘You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.’
Rachel looked embarrassed. ‘It was the only thing I had.’
‘But you saw,’ Annabeth insisted. ‘When it hit him, just for a second, he was dazed. He came back to his senses.’
‘So maybe Kronos wasn’t completely settled in the body, or whatever,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t mean Luke was in control.’
‘You want him to be evil, is that it?’ Annabeth yelled. ‘You didn’t know him before, Percy. I did!’
‘What is it with you?’ I snapped. ‘Why do you keep defending him?’
‘Whoa, you two,’ Rachel said. ‘Knock it off.’
Annabeth turned on her. ‘Stay out of it, mortal girl! If it wasn’t for you…’
Whatever she was going to say, her voice broke. She put her head down again and sobbed miserably. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how. I still felt stunned, like Kronoss time-slowing effect had affected my brain. I just couldn’t comprehend what I’d seen. Kronos was alive. He was armed. And the end of the world was probably close at hand.
‘We have to keep moving,’ Nico said. ‘He’ll send monsters after us.’
Nobody was in any shape to run, but Nico was right. I hauled myself up and helped Rachel to her feet.
‘You were great back there,’ I told her.
She managed a weak smile. ‘Yeah, well. I didn’t want you to die.’ She blushed. ‘I mean… just because, you know. You owe me too many favours. How am I going to collect if you die?’
I knelt next to Annabeth. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. We need to move.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m… I’m all right.’
She was clearly not all right. But she got to her feet, and we started straggling through the Labyrinth again.
‘Back to New York,’ I said. ‘Rachel, can you –’
I froze. A few metres in front of us, my flashlight beam fixed on a trampled clump of red fabric lying on the ground. It was a Rasta cap: the one Grover always wore.
∗ ∗ ∗
My hands shook as I picked up the cap. It looked like it had been stepped on by a huge muddy boot. After all that I’d gone through today, I couldn’t stand the thought that something might’ve happened to Grover, too.
Then I noticed something else. The cave floor was mushy and wet from the water dripping off the stalactites. There were large footprints like Tyson’s, and smaller ones – goat hooves – leading off to the left.
‘We have to follow them,’ I said. ‘They went that way. It must have been recently.’
‘What about Camp Half-Blood?’ Nico said. ‘There’s no time.’
‘We have to find them,’ Annabeth insisted. ‘They’re our friends.’
She picked up Grover’s smashed cap and forged ahead.
I followed, bracing myself for the worst. The tunnel was treacherous. It sloped at weird angles and was slimy with moisture. Half the time we were slipping and sliding rather than walking.
Finally we got to the bottom of a slope and found ourselves in a large cave with
huge stalagmite columns. Through the centre of the room ran an underground river, and Tyson was sitting by the bank, cradling Grover in his lap. Grover’s eyes were closed. He wasn’t moving.
‘Tyson!’ I yelled.
‘Percy! Come quick!’
We ran over to him. Grover wasn’t dead, thank the gods, but his whole body trembled like he was freezing to death.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘So many things,’ Tyson murmured. ‘Large snake. Large dogs. Men with swords. But then… we got close to here. Grover was excited. He ran. Then we reached this room, and he fell. Like this.’
‘Did he say anything?’ I asked.
‘He said, ‘We’re close.’ Then he hit his head on rocks.’
I knelt next to him. The only other time I’d seen Grover pass out was in New Mexico, when he’d felt the presence of Pan.
I shone my flashlight around the cavern. The rocks glittered. At the far end was the entrance to another cave, flanked by gigantic columns of crystal that looked like diamonds. And beyond that entrance…
‘Grover,’ I said. ‘Wake up.’
‘Uhhhhhhhh.’
Annabeth knelt next to him and splashed icy cold river water in his face.
‘Splurg!’ His eyelids fluttered. ‘Percy? Annabeth? Where…’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You passed out. The presence was too much for you.’
‘I – I remember. Pan.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Something powerful is just beyond that doorway.’
I made quick introductions, since Tyson and Grover had never met Rachel. Tyson told Rachel she was pretty, which made Annabeths nostrils flare like she was going to blow fire.
Anyway,’ I said. ‘Come on, Grover. Lean on me.’
Annabeth and I helped him up, and together we waded across the underground river. The current was strong. The water came up to our waists. I willed myself to stay dry, which is a handy little ability, but that didn’t help the others, and I could still feel the cold, like wading through a snowdrift.
‘I think we’re in Carlsbad Caverns,’ Annabeth said, her teeth chattering. ‘Maybe an unexplored section.’