‘You are a Hundred-handed One!’ Tyson insisted. ‘You can do anything!’
Briares wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It was amazing to watch. The hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They built a toy boat out of wood, then disassembled it just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissors. A few others were making ducky and doggie shadow puppets against the wall.
‘I cannot,’ Briares moaned. ‘Kampê is back! The Titans will rise and throw us back into Tartarus.’
‘Put on your brave face!’ Tyson said.
Immediately Briares’s face morphed into something else. Same brown eyes, but otherwise totally different features. He had an upturned nose, arched eyebrows and a weird smile, like he was trying to act brave. But then his face turned back to what it had been before.
‘No good,’ he said. ‘My scared face keeps coming back.’
‘How did you do that?’ I asked.
Annabeth elbowed me. ‘Don’t be rude. The Hundred-handed Ones have fifty different faces.’
‘Must make it hard to get a yearbook picture,’ I said.
Tyson was still entranced. ‘It will be okay, Briares! We will help you! Can I have your autograph?’
Briares sniffled. ‘Do you have one hundred pens?’
‘Guys,’ Grover interrupted. ‘We have to get out of here. Kampê will be back. She’ll sense us sooner or later.’
‘Break the bars,’ Annabeth said.
‘Yes!’ Tyson said, smiling proudly. ‘Briares can do it. He is very strong. Stronger than Cyclopes, even! Watch!’
Briares whimpered. A dozen of his hands started playing pat-a-cake, but none of them made any attempt to break the bars.
‘If he’s so strong,’ I said, ‘why is he stuck in jail?’
Annabeth elbowed me again. ‘He’s terrified,’ she whispered. ‘Kampê imprisoned him in Tartarus for thousands of years. How would you feel?’
The Hundred-handed One covered his face again.
‘Briares?’ Tyson asked. ‘What… what is wrong? Show us your great strength!’
‘Tyson,’ Annabeth said, ‘I think you’d better break the bars.’
Tyson’s smile melted slowly.
‘I will break the bars,’ he repeated. He grabbed the cell door and ripped it off its hinges like it was made of wet clay.
‘Come on, Briares,’ Annabeth said. ‘Let’s get you out of here.’
She held out her hand. For a second, Briares’s face morphed to a hopeful expression. Several of his arms reached out, but twice as many slapped them away.
‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘She will punish me.’
‘It’s all right,’ Annabeth promised. ‘You fought the Titans before, and you won, remember?’
‘I remember the war.’ Briares’s face morphed again – furrowed brow and a pouting mouth. His brooding face, I guess. ‘Lightning shook the world. We threw many rocks. The Titans and the monsters almost won. Now they are getting strong again. Kampê said so.’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ I said. ‘Come on!’
He didn’t move. I knew Grover was right. We didn’t have much time before Kampê returned. But I couldn’t just leave him here. Tyson would cry for weeks.
‘One game of rock, paper, scissors,’ I blurted out. ‘If I win, you come with us. If I lose, we’ll leave you in jail.’
Annabeth looked at me like I was crazy.
Briares’s face morphed to doubtful. ‘I always win rock, paper, scissors.’
‘Then let’s do it!’ I pounded my fist in my palm three times.
Briares did the same with all one hundred hands, which sounded like an army marching three steps forward. He came up with a whole avalanche of rocks, a classroom set of scissors and enough paper to make a fleet of aeroplanes.
‘I told you,’ he said sadly. ‘I always –’ His face morphed to confusion. ‘What is that you made?’
‘A gun,’ I told him, showing him my finger gun. It was a trick Paul Blofis had pulled on me, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘A gun beats anything.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘I didn’t say anything about fair. Kampê’s not going to be fair if we hang around. She’s going to blame you for ripping off the bars. Now come on!’
Briares sniffled. ‘Demigods are cheaters.’ But he slowly rose to his feet and followed us out of the cell.
I started to feel hopeful. All we had to do was get downstairs and find the Labyrinth entrance. But then Tyson froze.
On the ground floor right below, Kampê was snarling at us.
‘The other way,’ I said.
We bolted down the catwalk. This time Briares was happy to follow us. In fact he sprinted out front, a hundred arms waving in panic.
Behind us, I heard the sound of giant wings as Kampê took to the air. She hissed and growled in her ancient language, but I didn’t need a translation to know she was planning to kill us.
We scrambled down the stairs, through a corridor and past a guard’s station – out into another block of prison cells.
‘Left,’ Annabeth said. ‘I remember this from the tour.’
We burst outside and found ourselves in the prison yard, ringed by security towers and barbed wire. After being inside so long, the daylight almost blinded me. Tourists were milling around, taking pictures. The wind whipped cold off the bay. In the south, San Francisco gleamed all white and beautiful, but in the north, over Mount Tamalpais, huge storm clouds swirled. The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists couldn’t see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn’t give any hint that anything was wrong.
‘It’s even worse,’ Annabeth said, gazing to the north. ‘The storms have been bad all year, but that –’
‘Keep moving,’ Briares wailed. ‘She is behind us!’
We ran to the far end of the yard, as far from the cell block as possible.
‘Kampê’s too big to get through the doors,’ I said hopefully.
Then the wall exploded.
Tourists screamed as Kampê appeared from the dust and rubble, her wings spread out as wide as the yard. She was holding two swords – long bronze scimitars that glowed with a weird greenish aura, boiling wisps of vapour that smelled sour and hot even across the yard.
‘Poison!’ Grover yelped. ‘Don’t let those things touch you or…’
‘Or we’ll die?’ I guessed.
‘Well… after you shrivel slowly to dust, yes.’
‘Let’s avoid the swords,’ I decided.
‘Briares, fight!’ Tyson urged. ‘Grow to full size!’
Instead, Briares looked like he was trying to shrink even smaller. He appeared to be wearing his ‘absolutely terrified’ face.
Kampê thundered towards us on her dragon legs, hundreds of snakes slithering around her body.
For a second I thought about drawing Riptide and facing her, but my heart crawled into my throat. Then Annabeth said what I was thinking: ‘Run.’
That was the end of the debate. There was no fighting this thing. We ran through the jail yard and out the gates of the prison, the monster right behind us. Mortals screamed and ran. Emergency sirens began to blare.
We hit the wharf just as a tour boat was unloading. The new group of visitors froze as they saw us charging towards them, followed by a mob of frightened tourists, followed by… I don’t know what they saw through the Mist, but it could not have been good.
‘The boat?’ Grover asked.
‘Too slow,’ Tyson said. ‘Back into the maze. Only chance.’
‘We need a diversion,’ Annabeth said.
Tyson ripped a metal lamppost out of the ground. ‘I will distract Kampê. You run around, back to the p
rison.’
‘I’ll help you,’ I said.
‘No,’ Tyson said. ‘You go. Poison will hurt Cyclopes. A lot of pain. But it won’t kill.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Go, brother. I will meet you inside.’
I hated the idea. I’d almost lost Tyson once before, and I didn’t want to ever risk that again. But there was no time to argue, and I had no better idea. Annabeth, Grover and I each took one of Briares’s hands and dragged him towards the concession stands while Tyson bellowed, lowered his pole and charged Kampê like a jousting knight.
She’d been glaring at Briares, but Tyson got her attention as soon as he nailed her in the chest with the pole, pushing her back into the wall. She shrieked and slashed with her swords, slicing the pole to shreds. Poison dripped in pools all around her, sizzling into the cement.
Tyson jumped back as Kampê’s hair lashed and hissed, and the vipers around her legs darted their tongues in every direction. A lion popped out of the weird half-formed faces around her waist and roared.
As we sprinted for the cell blocks, the last thing I saw was Tyson picking up an ice-cream stand and throwing it at Kampê. Ice cream and poison exploded everywhere, all the little snakes in Kampê’s hair dotted with chocolate sauce. We dashed back into the jail yard.
‘Can’t make it,’ Briares huffed.
‘Tyson is risking his life to help you!’ I yelled at him. ‘You will make it.’
As we reached the door of the cell block, I heard an angry roar. I glanced back and saw Tyson running towards us at full speed, Kampê right behind him. She was plastered in ice cream and T-shirts. One of the bear heads on her waist was now wearing a pair of crooked plastic Alcatraz sunglasses.
‘Hurry!’ Annabeth said, like I needed to be told that.
We finally found the cell where we’d come in, but the back wall was completely smooth – no sign of a boulder or anything.
‘Look for the mark!’ Annabeth said.
‘There!’ Grover touched a tiny scratch, and it became a Greek Δ. The mark of Daedalus glowed blue, and the stone wall ground open.
Too slowly. Tyson was coming through the cell block, Kampê’s swords lashing out behind him, slicing indiscriminately through cell bars and stone walls.
I pushed Briares inside the maze, then Annabeth and Grover.
‘You can do it!’ I told Tyson. But immediately I knew he couldn’t. Kampê was gaining. She raised her swords. I needed a distraction – something big. I slapped my wristwatch and it spiralled into a bronze shield. Desperately, I threw it at the monster’s face.
SMACK! The shield hit her in the face and she faltered just long enough for Tyson to dive past me into the maze. I was right behind him.
Kampê charged, but she was too late. The stone door closed and its magic sealed us in. I could feel the whole tunnel shake as Kampê pounded against it, roaring furiously. We didn’t stick around to play knock, knock with her, though. We raced into the darkness, and for the first time (and the last) I was glad to be back in the Labyrinth.
8 We Visit The Demon Dude Ranch
We finally stopped in a room full of waterfalls. The floor was one big pit, ringed by a slippery stone walkway. Around us on all four walls, water tumbled from huge pipes. The water spilled down into the pit, and even when I shone a light, I couldn’t see the bottom.
Briares slumped against the wall. He scooped up water in a dozen hands and washed his face. ‘This pit goes straight to Tartarus,’ he murmured. ‘I should jump in and save you trouble.’
‘Don’t talk that way,’ Annabeth told him. ‘You can come back to camp with us. You can help us prepare. You know more about fighting Titans than anybody.’
‘I have nothing to offer,’ Briares said. ‘I have lost everything.’
‘What about your brothers?’ Tyson asked. ‘The other two must still stand tall as mountains! We can take you to them.’
Briares’s expression morphed to something even sadder: his grieving face. ‘They are no more. They faded.’
The waterfalls thundered. Tyson stared into the pit and blinked tears out of his eye.
‘What exactly do you mean, they faded?’ I asked. ‘I thought monsters were immortal, like the gods.’
‘Percy,’ Grover said weakly. ‘Even immortality has limits. Sometimes… sometimes monsters get forgotten and they lose their will to stay immortal.’
Looking at Grover’s face, I wondered if he were thinking of Pan. I remembered something Medusa had told us once: how her sisters, the other two gorgons, had passed on and left her alone. Then last year Apollo said something about the old god Helios disappearing and leaving him with the duties of the sun god. I’d never thought about it too much, but now, looking at Briares, I realized how terrible it would be to be so old – thousands and thousands of years old – and totally alone.
‘I must go,’ Briares said.
‘Kronos’s army will invade camp,’ Tyson said. ‘We need help.’
Briares hung his head. ‘I cannot, Cyclops.’
‘You are strong.’
‘Not any more.’ Briares rose.
‘Hey.’ I grabbed one of his arms and pulled him aside, where the roar of the water would hide our words. ‘Briares, we need you. In case you haven’t noticed, Tyson believes in you. He risked his life for you.’
I told him about everything – Luke’s invasion plan, the Labyrinth entrance at camp, Daedalus’s workshop, Kronos’s golden coffin.
Briares just shook his head. ‘I cannot, demigod. I do not have a finger gun to win this game.’ To prove his point, he made one hundred finger guns.
‘Maybe that’s why monsters fade,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s not about what the mortals believe. Maybe it’s because you give up on yourself.’
His pure brown eyes regarded me. His face morphed into an expression I recognized – shame. Then he turned and trudged off down the corridor until he was lost in the shadows.
Tyson sobbed.
‘It’s okay.’ Grover hesitantly patted his shoulder, which must’ve taken all his courage.
Tyson sneezed. ‘It is not okay, goat boy. He was my hero.’
I wanted to make him feel better, but I wasn’t sure what to say.
Finally, Annabeth stood and shouldered her backpack. ‘Come on, guys. This pit is making me nervous. Let’s find a better place to camp for the night.’
We settled in a corridor made of huge marble blocks. It looked like it could’ve been part of a Greek tomb, with bronze torch holders fastened to the walls. It had to be an older part of the maze, and Annabeth decided this was a good sign.
‘We must be close to Daedalus’s workshop,’ she said. ‘Get some rest, everybody. We’ll keep going in the morning.’
‘How do we know when it’s morning?’ Grover asked.
‘Just rest,’ she insisted.
Grover didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled a heap of straw out of his pack, ate some of it, made a pillow out of the rest and was snoring in no time. Tyson took longer getting to sleep. He tinkered with some metal scraps from his building kit for a while, but whatever he was making, he wasn’t happy with it. He kept disassembling the pieces.
‘I’m sorry I lost the shield,’ I told him. ‘You worked so hard to repair it.’
Tyson looked up. His eye was bloodshot from crying. ‘Do not worry, brother. You saved me. You wouldn’t have had to if Briares had helped.’
‘He was just scared,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he’ll get over it.’
‘He is not strong,’ Tyson said. ‘He is not important any more.’
He heaved a big sad sigh, then closed his eye. The metal pieces fell out of his hand, still unassembled, and Tyson began to snore.
I tried to fall asleep myself, but I couldn’t. Something about getting chased by a large dragon lady with poison swords made it really hard to relax. I picked up my bedroll and dragged it over to where Annabeth was sitting, keeping watch.
I sat down next to her.
&nbs
p; ‘You should sleep,’ she said.
‘Can’t. You doing all right?’
‘Sure. First day leading the quest. Just great.’
‘We’ll get there,’ I said. ‘We’ll find the workshop before Luke does.’
She brushed her hair out of her face. She had a smudge of dirt on her chin, and I imagined what she must’ve looked like when she was little, wandering around the country with Thalia and Luke. Once she’d saved them from the mansion of the evil Cyclops when she was only seven. Even when she looked scared, like now, I knew she had a lot of guts.
‘I just wish the quest was logical,’ she complained. ‘I mean, we’re travelling but we have no idea where we’ll end up. How can you walk from New York to California in a day?’
‘Space isn’t the same in the maze.’
‘I know, I know. It’s just…’ She looked at me hesitantly. ‘Percy, I was kidding myself. All that planning and reading – I don’t have a clue where we’re going.’
‘You’re doing great. Besides, we never know what we’re doing. It always works out. Remember Circe’s island?’
She snorted. ‘You made a cute guinea pig.’
‘And Waterland, how you got us thrown off that ride?’
‘I got us thrown off? That was totally your fault!’
‘See? It’ll be fine.’
She smiled, which I was glad to see, but the smile faded quickly.
‘Percy, what did Hera mean when she said you knew the way to get through the maze?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Honestly.’
‘You’d tell me if you did?’
‘Sure. Maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’
‘Maybe if you told me the last line of the prophecy, it would help.’
Annabeth shivered. ‘Not here. Not in the dark.’
‘What about the choice Janus mentioned? Hera said –’
‘Stop,’ Annabeth snapped. Then she took a shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry, Percy. I’m just stressed. But I don’t… I’ve got to think about it.’
We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks and groans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together as tunnels changed, grew and expanded. The dark made me think about the visions I’d seen of Nico di Angelo, and suddenly I realized something.