‘Monkey bars,’ Annabeth said. ‘I’m great at these.’
She leaped onto the first rung and started swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure.
Annabeth got to the opposite side and ran after the spider. I followed. When I got across, I looked back and saw Tyson giving Grover a piggyback ride (or was it a goatyback ride?). The big guy made it across in three swings, which was a good thing since, just as he landed, the last iron bar ripped free under his weight.
We kept moving and passed a skeleton crumpled in the tunnel. It wore the remains of a dress shirt, trousers and a tie. The spider didn’t slow down. I slipped on a pile of wood scraps, but when I shone a light on them I realized they were pencils – hundreds of them, all broken in half.
The tunnel opened up into a large room. A blazing light hit us. Once my eyes adjusted, the first thing I noticed were the skeletons. Dozens littered the floor around us. Some were old and bleached white. Others were more recent and a lot grosser. They didn’t smell quite as bad as Geryon’s stables, but almost.
Then I saw the monster. She stood on a glittery dais on the opposite side of the room. She had the body of a huge lion and the head of a woman. She would’ve been pretty, but her hair was tied back in a tight bun and she wore too much makeup, so she kind of reminded me of my third-grade choir teacher. She had a blue ribbon badge pinned to her chest that took me a moment to read: THIS MONSTER HAS BEEN RATED EXEMPLARY!
Tyson whimpered. ‘Sphinx.’
I knew exactly why he was scared. When he was small, Tyson had been attacked by a Sphinx in New York. He still had the scars on his back to prove it.
Spotlights blazed on either side of the creature. The only exit was a tunnel right behind the dais. The mechanical spider scuttled between the Sphinx’s paws and disappeared.
Annabeth started forward, but the Sphinx roared, showing fangs in her otherwise human face. Bars came down on both tunnel exits, behind us and in front.
Immediately the monster’s snarl turned into a brilliant smile.
‘Welcome, lucky contestants!’ she announced. ‘Get ready to play… ANSWER THAT RIDDLE!’
Canned applause blasted from the ceiling, as if there were invisible loudspeakers. Spotlights swept across the room and reflected off the dais, throwing disco glitter over the skeletons on the floor.
‘Fabulous prizes!’ the Sphinx said. ‘Pass the test, and you get to advance! Fail, and I get to eat you! Who will be our contestant?’
Annabeth grabbed my arm. ‘I’ve got this,’ she whispered. ‘I know what she’s going to ask.’
I didn’t argue too hard. I didn’t want Annabeth getting devoured by a monster, but I figured if the Sphinx were going to ask riddles, Annabeth was the best one of us to try.
She stepped forward to the contestant’s podium, which had a skeleton in a school uniform hunched over it. She pushed the skeleton out of the way, and it clattered to the floor.
‘Sorry,’ Annabeth told it.
‘Welcome, Annabeth Chase!’ the monster cried, though Annabeth hadn’t said her name. ‘Are you ready for your test?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ask your riddle.’
‘Twenty riddles, actually!’ the Sphinx said gleefully.
‘What? But back in the old days –’
‘Oh, we’ve raised our standards! To pass, you must show proficiency in all twenty. Isn’t that great?’
Applause switched on and off like somebody turning a faucet.
Annabeth glanced at me nervously. I gave her an encouraging nod.
‘Okay,’ she told the Sphinx. ‘I’m ready.’
A drumroll sounded from above. The Sphinx’s eyes glittered with excitement. ‘What… is the capital of Bulgaria?’
Annabeth frowned. For a terrible moment, I thought she was stumped.
‘Sofia,’ she said, ‘but –’
‘Correct!’ More canned applause. The Sphinx smiled so wide her fangs showed. ‘Please be sure to mark your answer clearly on your test sheet with a 2B pencil.’
‘What?’ Annabeth looked mystified. Then a test booklet appeared on the podium in front of her, along with a sharpened pencil.
‘Make sure you bubble each answer clearly and stay inside the circle,’ the Sphinx said. ‘If you have to erase, erase completely or the machine will not be able to read your answers.’
‘What machine?’ Annabeth asked.
The Sphinx pointed with her paw. Over by the spotlight was a bronze box with a bunch of gears and levers and a big Greek letter H, Êta, on the side, the mark of Hephaestus.
‘Now,’ said the Sphinx, ‘next question –’
‘Wait a second,’ Annabeth protested. ‘What about “What walks on four legs in the morning?” ’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the Sphinx said, clearly annoyed now.
‘The riddle about man. He walks on four legs in morning, like a baby, two legs in the afternoon, like an adult, and three legs in the evening, as an old man with a cane. That’s the riddle you used to ask.’
‘Exactly why we changed the test!’ the Sphinx exclaimed. ‘You already knew the answer. Now, second question, what is the square root of sixteen?’
‘Four,’ Annabeth said, ‘but –’
‘Correct! Which US president signed the Emancipation Proclamation?’
‘Abraham Lincoln, but –’
‘Correct! Riddle number four. How much –’
‘Hold up!’ Annabeth shouted.
I wanted to tell her to stop complaining. She was doing great! She should just answer the questions so we could leave.
‘These aren’t riddles,’ Annabeth said.
‘What do you mean?’ the Sphinx snapped. ‘Of course they are. This test material is specially designed –’
‘It’s just a bunch of dumb, random facts,’ Annabeth insisted. ‘Riddles are supposed to make you think.’
‘Think?’ The Sphinx frowned. ‘How am I supposed to test whether you can think? That’s ridiculous! Now, how much force is required –’
‘Stop!’ Annabeth insisted. ‘This is a stupid test.’
‘Um, Annabeth,’ Grover cut in nervously. ‘Maybe you should just, you know, finish first and complain later?’
‘I’m a child of Athena,’ she insisted. ‘And this is an insult to my intelligence. I won’t answer these questions.’
Part of me was impressed with her for standing up like that. But part of me thought her pride was going to get us all killed.
The spotlights glared. The Sphinx’s eyes glittered pure black.
‘Why then, my dear,’ the monster said calmly. ‘If you won’t pass, you fail. And since we can’t allow any children to be held back, you’ll be EATEN!’
The Sphinx bared her claws, which gleamed like stainless steel. She pounced at the podium.
‘No!’ Tyson charged. He hates it when people threaten Annabeth, but I couldn’t believe he was being so brave, especially since he’d had such a bad experience with a Sphinx before.
He tackled the Sphinx midair and they crashed sideways into a pile of bones. This gave Annabeth just enough time to gather her wits and draw her knife. Tyson got up, his shirt clawed to shreds. The Sphinx growled, looking for an opening.
I drew Riptide and stepped in front of Annabeth.
‘Turn invisible,’ I told her.
‘I can fight!’
‘No!’ I yelled. ‘The Sphinx is after you! Let us get it.’
As if to prove my point, the Sphinx knocked Tyson aside and tried to charge past me. Grover poked her in the eye with somebody’s leg bone. She screeched in pain. Annabeth put on her cap and vanished. The Sphinx pounced right where she’d been standing, but came up with empty paws.
‘No fair!’ the Sphinx wailed. ‘Cheater!’
With Annabeth no longer in sight, the Sphinx turned on me. I raised my sword but, before I could strike, Tyson ripped the monster’s grading machine out of the floor and
threw it at the monster’s head, ruining her hair bun. It landed in pieces all around her.
‘My grading machine!’ she cried. ‘I can’t be exemplary without my test scores!’
The bars lifted from the exits. We all dashed for the far tunnel. I could only hope Annabeth was doing the same.
The Sphinx started to follow, but Grover raised his reed pipes and began to play. Suddenly the pencils remembered they used to be parts of trees. They collected around the Sphinx’s paws, grew roots and branches, and began wrapping around the monster’s legs. The Sphinx ripped through them, but it bought us just enough time.
Tyson pulled Grover into the tunnel, and the bars slammed shut behind us.
‘Annabeth!’ I yelled.
‘Here!’ she said, right next to me. ‘Keep moving!’
We ran through the dark tunnels, listening to the roar of the Sphinx behind us as she complained about all the tests she would have to grade by hand.
11 I Set Myself on Fire
I thought we’d lost the spider until Tyson heard a faint pinging sound. We made a few turns, backtracked a few times and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door.
The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches – oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should’ve been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Êta inscribed in the middle.
We all looked at each other.
‘Ready to meet Hephaestus?’ Grover said nervously.
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘Yes!’ Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of us followed, not quite as anxious.
The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic’s garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out of its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames.
Smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. Tools hung along the walls. Each had its own outline on a peg-board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.
Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a ’98 Toyota Corolla, a pair of legs stuck out – the lower half of a huge man in grubby grey overalls and shoes even bigger than Tyson’s. One leg was in a metal brace.
The spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped.
‘Well, well,’ a deep voice boomed from under the Corolla. ‘What have we here?’
The mechanic pushed out on a back trolley and sat up. I’d seen Hephaestus once before, briefly, on Olympus, so I thought I was prepared, but his appearance made me gulp.
I guess he’d cleaned up when I saw him on Olympus, or used magic to make his form seem a little less hideous. Here in his own workshop, he apparently didn’t care how he looked. He wore overalls smeared with oil and grime. Hephaestus was embroidered over the chest pocket. His leg creaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was lower than his right, so he seemed to be leaning even when he was standing up straight. His head was misshapen and bulging. He wore a permanent scowl. His black beard smoked and hissed. Every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt in his whiskers then die out. His hands were the size of catcher’s mitts, but he handled the spider with amazing skill. He disassembled it in two seconds, then put it back together.
‘There,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Much better.’
The spider did a happy flip in his palm, shot a metallic web at the ceiling, and went swinging away.
Hephaestus glowered up at us. ‘I didn’t make you, did I?’
‘Uh,’ Annabeth said, ‘no, sir.’
‘Good,’ the god grumbled. ‘Shoddy workmanship.’
He studied Annabeth and me. ‘Half-bloods,’ he grunted. ‘Could be automatons, of course, but probably not.’
‘We’ve met, sir,’ I told him.
‘Have we?’ the god asked absently. I got the feeling he didn’t care one way or the other. He was just trying to figure out how my jaw worked, whether it was a hinge or lever or what. ‘Well then, if I didn’t smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won’t have to do it now.’
He looked at Grover and frowned. ‘Satyr.’ Then he looked at Tyson, and his eyes twinkled. ‘Well, a Cyclops. Good, good. What are you doing travelling with this lot?’
‘Uh…’ said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god.
‘Yes, well said,’ Hephaestus agreed. ‘So, there’d better be a good reason you’re disturbing me. The suspension on this Corolla is no small matter, you know.’
‘Sir,’ Annabeth said hesitantly, ‘we’re looking for Daedalus. We thought –’
‘Daedalus?’ the god roared. ‘You want that old scoundrel? You dare to seek him out!’
His beard burst into flames and his black eyes glowed.
‘Uh, yes, sir, please,’ Annabeth said.
‘Humph. You’re wasting your time.’ He frowned at something on his worktable and limped over to it. He picked up a lump of springs and metal plates and tinkered with them. In a few seconds, he was holding a bronze and silver falcon. It spread its metal wings, blinked its obsidian eyes and flew around the room.
Tyson laughed and clapped his hands. The bird landed on Tyson’s shoulder and nipped his ear affectionately.
Hephaestus regarded him. The god’s scowl didn’t change, but I thought I saw a kinder twinkle in his eyes. ‘I sense you have something to tell me, Cyclops.’
Tyson’s smile faded. ‘Y-yes, lord. We met a Hundred-handed One.’
Hephaestus nodded, looking unsurprised. ‘Briares?’
‘Yes. He – he was scared. He would not help us.’
‘And that bothered you.’
‘Yes!’ Tyson’s voice wavered. ‘Briares should be strong! He is older and greater than Cyclopes. But he ran away.’
Hephaestus grunted. ‘There was a time I admired the Hundred-handed Ones. Back in the days of the first war. But people, monsters, even gods change, young Cyclops. You can’t trust’ em. Look at my loving mother, Hera. You met her, didn’t you? She’ll smile to your face and talk about how important family is, eh? Didn’t stop her from pitching me off Mount Olympus when she saw my ugly face.’
‘But I thought Zeus did that to you,’ I said.
Hephaestus cleared his throat and spat into a bronze spittoon. He snapped his fingers, and the robotic falcon flew back to the worktable.
‘Mother likes telling that version of the story,’ he grumbled. ‘Makes her seem more likeable, doesn’t it? Blaming it all on my dad. The truth is, my mother likes families, but she likes a certain kind of family. Perfect families. She took one look at me and… well, I don’t fit the image, do I?’
He pulled a feather from the falcon’s back, and the whole automaton fell apart.
‘Believe me, young Cyclops,’ Hephaestus said, ‘you can’t trust others. All you can trust is the work of your own hands.’
It seemed like a pretty lonely way to live. Plus, I didn’t exactly trust the work of Hephaestus. One time in Denver, his mechanical spiders had almost killed Annabeth and me. And last year it had been a defective Talos statue that cost Bianca her life – another one of Hephaestus’s little projects.
He focused on me and narrowed his eyes, as if he were reading my thoughts. ‘Oh, this one doesn’t like me,’ he mused. ‘No worries, I’m used to that. What would you ask of me, little demigod?’
‘We told you,’ I said. ‘We need to find Daedalus. There’s this guy Luke, and he’s working for Kronos. He’s trying to find a way to navigate the Labyrinth so he can invade our camp. If we don’t get to Daedalus first –’
‘And I told you, boy. Looking for Daedalus is a waste of ti
me. He won’t help you.’
‘Why not?’
Hephaestus shrugged. ‘Some of us get thrown off mountainsides. Some of us… the way we learn not to trust people is even more painful. Ask me for gold. Or a flaming sword. Or a magical steed. These I can grant you easily. But a way to Daedalus? That’s an expensive favour.’
‘You know where he is, then,’ Annabeth pressed.
‘It isn’t wise to go looking, girl.’
‘My mother says looking is the nature of wisdom.’
Hephaestus narrowed his eyes. ‘Who’s your mother, then?’
‘Athena.’
‘Figures.’ He sighed. ‘Fine goddess, Athena. A shame she pledged never to marry. All right, half-blood. I can tell you what you want to know. But there is a price. I need a favour done.’
‘Name it,’ Annabeth said.
Hephaestus actually laughed – a booming sound like a huge bellows stoking a fire. ‘You heroes,’ he said, ‘always making rash promises. How refreshing!’
He pressed a button on his workbench, and metal shutters opened along the wall. It was either a huge window or a big-screen TV, I couldn’t tell which. We were looking at a grey mountain ringed in forests. It must’ve been a volcano, because smoke rose from its crest.
‘One of my forges,’ Hephaestus said. ‘I have many, but that used to be my favourite.’
‘That’s Mount St Helens,’ Grover said. ‘Great forests around there.’
‘You’ve been there?’ I asked.
‘Looking for… you know. Pan.’
‘Wait,’ Annabeth said, looking at Hephaestus. ‘You said it used to be your favourite. What happened?’
Hephaestus scratched his smouldering beard. ‘Well, that’s where the monster Typhon is trapped, you know. Used to be under Mount Etna, but when we moved to America, his force got pinned under Mount St Helens instead. Great source of fire, but a bit dangerous. There’s always a chance he will escape. Lots of eruptions these days, smouldering all the time. He’s restless with the Titan rebellion.’