Chapter One: A Friend Pays Me a Visit

Nico had been sitting on a chair in the corner of my room only yesterday, finishing off the last blue mound of frosting from the birthday cake I'd given him. It felt like it had been years since the night of my fifteenth birthday. Between bites, he had explained what he'd been up to lately, what he'd discovered about his past, what his plan was now. Nico said that he had been down to the Underworld to see his dad, and that Daedalus was fairly happy, able to continue building highways and such in Asphodel as his punishment. After the first few topics of conversation though, we moved onto some heavier subjects.

First of all, after Nico had met with his dad, Hades explained how he had been the lawyer who told Nico and his sister to leave the Lotus hotel all those years ago. So I guess Hades wasn't as heartless and cruel as everyone accused him of being.

Second, Hades had stated that in the collapse of the Labyrinth, Kronos's army had been killed for the most part (besides, of course, the immortal gods who had joined forces with Kronos), but that with Kronos's returned power, the monsters would come quickly if they hadn't already. You know, being the Lord of Time and all, I doubt he's going to sit around waiting for his army to reform. So yeah, I feel so-o-o much better about our situation now.

Then there was the final piece of information Nico had shared with me: the prophecy. Nico said that Hades had hinted that he wasn't interfering; he was just sharing a piece of godly gossip with his son. And technically Nico wasn't forbidden to tell me the prophecy, just the gods and Chiron. The prophecy was this:

A demigod child of the Big Three must

On his sixteenth birthday burn the bull-serpent's entrails thus

They will overthrow or save Olympus

Against or for the cause of Kronos

The King of Heaven's golden age

Lies in the power of the original Sage

The Seven Sages, or the Seven Wise Men of Greece, were the first philosophers in the Ancient times. The legend of the Sages says that Thales of Miletus, the first Sage, was awarded the prize of wisdom, a golden tripod created by Hephaestus with a bloody history. After the next six Sages gained the tripod, it was earned by Thales again, who gave it as tribute to Apollo, "the wisest of them all". As you can imagine, Athena wasn't too happy about that (I bet Apollo loved it).

Though Thales didn't know it, he was the demigod son of Apollo and Cleobuline. Apollo had been disguised as a man named Examyes. One thing that happened that proves this is his correct prediction of an eclipse. Apparently, he inherited some Oracle from Apollo. Apollo never claimed him though, and there was some scandalous rumor that Thales was really the result of a secret romance between Athena and Apollo (of course started by Aphrodite).

And now, since apparently Thales is the key to defeating Kronos, Nico's plan is to find Thales and convince him to help us. But there's a problem: Thales has supposedly been dead for about two and a half thousand years. Our only chance of finding him depends on the theory that he can't die unless he's killed. The reason we think this is because of his belief that he wouldn't die because there was no difference between life and death (whatever that means).

So now I'm in mom's car (which I still can't drive since lessons aren't until school starts) on my way back to Camp Half-Blood. I'd sent Chiron a message this morning to tell him I was coming and he seemed kind of confused, but then I recounted Nico's visit (he got kind of fidgety and snorted quite a bit when I told him about the prophecy) and he agreed to grant me a quest.

I was wondering if my mom would finally have to tell Paul Blofis the truth to explain yet another absence, when we pulled up to Farm Road 3.141. Peleus, guardian of the Golden Fleece, examined our car minutely with narrowed slits for eyes, smoke billowing out of his nostrils in tight furls. I immediately ran up the hill. "Bye, Mom!" I yelled. Hopefully that wasn't my permanent goodbye.