ii. the oldest flame
.
" Prometheus went up to Olympus, took a glowing ember from the sacred hearth, and hid it in a hollow stalk of fennel. He carried it down to earth, gave it to mankind, and told them never to let the light from Olympus die out…" (Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire)
.
Percy scavenges a scuttled plastic canoe from the bottom of the lake. Here and there are strings of fresh-water pearls that naiads used to wear, but the naiads, it seems, have abandoned the place. He can't blame them.
"We're going to take this to Greece?" groans Clio, helping him carry it to the shore. "The only place this thing is going is the bottom of the ocean."
"I'm the son of Poseidon," he says. It feels strange to say so, but he presses on. "I could get you to Greece on a plank of wood, but this will be a little more comfortable."
She makes an indeterminate noise. "Never seen Poseidon powers before," she said. "Plant powers, death powers, war powers, love powers, sky powers, but never any water powers."
Because there was no way for Nico to get to me, he thinks, but doesn't say it. "Whose daughter are you?"
"Phaedra and Dictys."
"I mean, whose divine daughter? Or great-granddaughter."
She shrugs under the canoe. "Most of them, probably. Not counting the virgins. No one kept track that well." They reach the shore and set the canoe down. Clio stares across the big blue expanse and her stomach growls audibly. "So are we fishing our way through this odyssey or what?"
Percy smiles, and sets down the backpack he found in Hermes cabin. He shows her the thermoses, the squished mess of plastic baggies, and the little bottle of vitamins.
"Expiration date, 2107," she reads. "Nice find."
"They'll still be good," he promises. "And the rest… well, have you ever tried ambrosia?"
*
With Percy calling the tides to them, it takes six days to cross the ocean to Greece, and they're the best six days Percy has had in years. Sometimes he jumps out of the canoe and swims alongside it, letting the fish nibble his toes and racing the dolphins and hippocampi over the waves. He convinces one hippocampi to let Clio ride her for a ways, pulling her over the sea with the ocean air ruffling her short brown hair.
"They're amazing," she laughs, as her ride helps her back into the canoe. "I'd never even heard of them, but they're beautiful."
"If you like them," says Percy, "you've got to see a pegasus."
And when Percy isn't swimming and Clio isn't sleeping, he tells her stories. He's pretty sure he's getting some of them wrong, but she barely knows any of them. When he runs out of myths, he shares movies and television shows and comic books, and basic things about the world that was. Policemen eating donuts. The unnamable vegetables in Chinatown. Christmas trees. Final exams. Blue birthday cake.
"And we'll get all that back if we save the gods?" she asks, as they watch the sunset and he tells her about the lunar landing, and how miffed Artemis had been that the mission had been named after her brother.
"Well," he says, "it will be a start."
*
True to his word, Luke appears on the shore beside them the night they reach Greece. Clio is asleep, but Percy is sitting in the surf as the low tide bounces playfully at his waist. "Come to the dunes," he says, running his fingers through Percy's hair. "I can't spread maps out down here."
Percy bats Luke's hand away but follows him past Clio's sleeping form to the little grassy hills. Luke has a small sheaf of papers and a few maps that look torn out of an atlas; covered in circles and names. Mount Ida for Zeus. Nysa for Hades. Rhodes for Poseidon. Argos for Hera. Eleusis for Demeter. Delphi for Apollo and Delos for Artemis. Sparta for Ares. Mount Etna for Hephaestus and Cyprus for Aphrodite. Pheneos for Hermes. Delos again, on the second of the two hills, for Dionysus.
"Wow," says Percy, really glad that someone else has done the research for him. "And Hestia?"
Luke waves a hand. "Who cares about Hestia? She couldn't lift a finger against Kronos."
"I do," Percy frowns. "Everything Clio wants – I mean, getting a hearth and home back is a big part of it."
He leans back on the dunes, stargazing. "She doesn't have a sacred site, or a symbol of power. Her power is just everywhere there's a flame." He clicks his fingers and an old lighter appears in his hand. When he flicks it on, the shadows on his face make him look even older than the two-hundred-something years he is. "Here's your first symbol of power."
"Great. The ancient and mystic power of a Zippo."
Luke lobs it over, and Percy pockets it with a grumble. "Read up on Prometheus and Epimetheus when you're back in New York. The fire Prometheus gave to man was stolen from the hearth of Olympus. Any fire down here is supposed to be a product of that first fire."
"But it's not really special. It' just – um – a simile."
"A metaphor," Luke corrects. "A symbol. Like a symbol of power."
He blinks. "Oh."
"One down, twelve to go."
Percy pockets the lighter; it something better comes up, he'll take it, but for now it's the best lead on Hestia they have, and it makes sense, sort of. The lighter, that is. The rest of it… "Why are you helping so much?"
"Maybe I like watching you do the hero thing again. It's fun when you're not ruining my great plans for a new world order."
Luke reaches out a hand to Percy, but he recoils, still uncomfortable with the way Luke's obsession with reclaiming the old West has been transposed squarely onto him. "Don't joke about it."
"Fine," says Luke, sitting up again. "Why are you helping her so much?"
Percy scowls. "I'm fixing a mistake."
He spreads his hands. "And so am I."
*
"Okay," admits Clio, "maybe this prophecy won't be too rough."
They're standing at the top of the first hill on the little island of Delos, in the shade of an old tree. Gleaming in the highest branches is a hint of something metallic – if it were still the 1990s, Percy would have thought it was an old CD strung up to keep bugs off tomatoes, except he's pretty sure no one put their internet company junk discs at the top of three-story trees.
"Depressing, but accurate," Percy agrees.
Clio squints up at the bow and arrows tied in the high branches. "You want to grab it?"
Percy shakes his head. "immortals can't take each others' symbols of power," he frowns. "Besides, Artemis doesn't really like guys."
"The gods have so many weird rules," she complains, but pulls off her backpack and rummages around it until she pulls out something that looks like the clipping from some sort of vine. "Rope ivy," she explains, noticing his bemused look. "Grow it up and tie it off over whatever you want to climb, and you've got an easy lift anywhere you need." She leans against the tree, reaching up with the vine –
And the tiny island rumbles.
Both of them have their swords out in a flash, scanning the area. Something dark is rushing out of the sea towards them, faster than anything should be able to rush.
"Is that a… pig?" Clio frowns.
Percy realizes what it is it is a second later. "The Calydonian Boar."
"The wha–"
"I'll tell you the story later, just climb!"
She stuffs Riptide back in her pocket and starts scrambling up the big old tree without another word. Percy hefts his unfamiliar sword and stands between the boar and the tree, waiting for it to crash against him – but it changes course at the last instant, leaving Percy slashing at thin air while the boar swerves around him and runs straight into the tree.
The old thing's trunk groans audibly, and the boar's impact sends a flurry of green leaves raining to the grass. Clio screams, but when Percy looks up, she's still gripping her homegrown rope in her gloved hands.
"Keep going!" shouts Percy, chasing after the boar, but it doesn't seem to care about him at all. It avoids his sword, yes, but it never turns to face him. It's just fixated on the tree and – "It's guarding the bow!"
"It's -- aaaaugh!" The boar impacts against the tree again, and she slides down her rope, smacking into a branch below.
"It's one of Artemis's monsters," calls Percy. He manages to intercept the boar in its next charge, but it doesn't even slow down when the celestial bronze slices a shallow gash across its back. "It doesn't want you to get the bow!"
"Then maybe we should just – back off…!"
"You can't!" Percy dives after the boar again, trying to herd it downhill, but the monster won't be deterred, and the huge thing is faster than Percy can make himself move. "We need their symbols of power!"
That's when the boar hits the tree harder than ever, splitting the air – and presumably some of the tree – with a massive crack. The impact makes Clio lose her grip; she starts tumbling down, where the boar is foaming eagerly.
"No!" Percy points his sword at Clio, and a wave of saltwater rushes to catch her, propelling her somewhere into the highest branches and out of sight. The water seems to get the boar's attention for the first time; it turns its back on Clio and the tree and lowers its tusks, rushing for Percy –
And then a silver arrow sprouts in its back, and it disappears.
Percy's brain doesn't really register what just happened at first. He stands there, ready to chop a boar's head off, but the boar isn't there. In its place is a shaft of pure silver, fletched with something that shifts like moonlight.
"Wow," says Clio, and Percy's fairly certain that it's not just the distance that's making her sound faint. "Uh. So much for 'not too rough'." She rappels carefully down the tree, the symbols of Artemis strapped to her back and glowing faintly, even in the afternoon sun. Up close, Percy can see that the bow's curve is almost a perfect crescent moon, long and slender and covered in old magic symbols. "Any more monsters running up here?" When Percy shakes his head, she collapses against the tree trunk, flushed and wide-eyed. "I have no idea what just happened."
"It must have kept people away from the bow," offers Percy, flopping next to her. "So no random travelers grabbed it."
"I thought you said Artemis didn't like guys," she groans. "Why couldn't it have run into you a few times?"
He thinks it over and says, finally, "It must have known I couldn't take the bow. I don't think it even realized I was helping you until the water caught you."
"Shout 'I'm with Clio' on the next one," she grumbles.
"Up for the next one already?"
"Haha." She unstraps the bow and quiver and lays them across her lap; they shimmer and shrink into a small hairclip, which she holds up with a grin. "I just recovered a goddess's weapon. Don't I get the rest of the day off?"
He smiles. "I think we can fit a break in."
*
They cross the small island to search for Dionysus's symbol of power the next day, and spend hours trying to figure out what they're even looking for until Clio finds a golden vine hidden in a bramble. Percy spends the rest of that evening chasing her around Delos, trying to stop her from chirping like a dolphin, drinking out of ominous-looking fountains, and generally going crazy. He only manages calm her down when he dunks her underwater; she comes up spluttering, and lets one last dolphin-noise, but when she steps out of his fresh-made tidal pool, there's a slender golden bracelet wrapped around her arm, embellished with little shimmering grape leaves.
"Sorry," Percy says, a little sheepishly. "I forgot about the madness part."
"Lucky you," she says, still hacking up a bit of saltwater. "I don't think I'll ever be able to."
*
Most of the rest of the gods' symbols are equally well-guarded. The two of them battle a few legions of zombies at Nysa and a horde of dead warriors at Sparta and the world's hungriest Venus fly-traps at Eleusis – though both battles turn into a game of Percy plowing down as many enemies as possible while the forces of dead angry godliness chase after Clio. Still, Clio is one of the toughest demigods Percy has ever met, and with every symbol of power they recover, she becomes even more powerful. She uses Hades's Helm of Terror (which, on her, strangely, becomes a floppy knitted cap) to sneak around the ghost of the Python at Delphi and shoot the shade with a solid volley of Apollo's arrows before it even realizes she was there, and kills a sea serpent the size of a subway train off the coast of Rhodes.
"I don't think it likes me much," she says, when she picks up Poseidon's trident.
"What?" he frowns.
"I mean, it just doesn't like me. The rest of them adjusted for me, but this won't budge."
It's true. Both Artemis and Apollo's bows are the perfect size for her, and have shrunk down to curved hairpins that glitter in her dark hair. Ares's giant sword reduced itself to a much more manageable one-and-a-half hander that hangs, feather-light, at her waist, while Dionysus's grape-vine bracelet, Demeter's wheat-charm necklace, and the Floppy Knitted Thing of Terror look perfectly inconspicuous until she calls them into use against their monster of the week. But Poseidon's trident remains stubbornly… a trident. "Maybe it needs to get used to you."
"I don't think so," she says. "I think… it doesn't want me to have it."
"Uh."
"I mean, it's a god's symbol of power, right? It can probably pick up stuff like 'hey you, you're not one of Poseidon's kids'."
"Wait." He blinks. "You want me to have it?"
"Sure," she says, "I mean, you're the son of the sea god, right? You're probably the best candidate to swing his trident around."
"But this is your quest," he protests, "and you beat the serpent for it."
She holds it out, looking determined. "And now I'm giving it to you. That's not against the rules, right?"
"I…" He takes it from her slowly; in his hands, it glows an even brighter green, and shrinks to a more comfortable height for Percy to wield. "I guess not."
And so he keeps the trident and the lighter. It's not the same as Riptide, but using it comes naturally enough to him, and his control over the seas and waters becomes stronger than ever.
*
"You move too fast with that thing," grumbles Luke, appearing the next night while Clio is asleep and Percy is listening to the waves.
"That's a good thing," he points out. "We'll get the symbols of power back faster."
"I know," says Luke, sighing. "And that's for the best. Prometheus has a sense that something is coming."
Percy sits up bolt upright. "He what?"
"He's just picking up that the demigods are about to do something. He doesn't suspect that you're gone, so he's complaining to Kronos that there's probably a bunch of them wandering around the Midwest planning a campaign against Orthys."
"What did you tell him?"
"I didn't tell him anything. I swore on the Styx."
Percy says something impolite.
"Percy," glares Luke, "as nice as it is that you're recovering the symbols of power this fast, you need to trust me."
"Not going to happen," he glowers.
"We'll see."
And he leaves.
*
That morning, Percy and Clio go after the girdle of Aphrodite, which turns out to be defended by a gaggle of beautiful, apparently-invulnerable men who try to distract Clio from the gem-wrought belt by stripping and mobbing her. Their only weakness turns out to be a jab with the arrows of Artemis.
"Really," grumbles Clio, buckling on the girdle, which adjusts itself for her to do double-duty as an elaborately bejeweled sword-belt, "what kind of protection is shirtless men?"
"They almost stopped you," Percy notes. Clio blushes, which Percy thinks is the most beautiful thing he's seen until he realizes what she just put on. "Could you, um, make that not work?"
"What?"
"Love magic."
She goes redder than ever, but she squeezes her eyes in concentration, and when she opens them again, she just looks really red instead of like the most stunning woman in the world. Percy sighs with relief.
*
Hephaestus's challenge is less embarrassing – there's a dozen automatons patrolling the mountain, which Clio ends up hotwiring rather than fighting, so they take a sort of drilling submarine down to the jewel-studded cavern where the god's hammer waits.
"I don't actually know how to fight with a hammer," frowns Clio, but no sooner are the words out of her mouth then the hammer poofs into a ruby-fronted approximation of a Swiss army knife, bristling with miniature versions of every tool Percy has ever seen and some he's never even imagined.
"It's perfect!" gasps Clio, flipping a full-sized power drill out of her newest symbol of power. Percy would have said "bizarre," but in this case he defers to the several-generations-removed daughter of Hephaestus and nods agreeably as she clips it to her belt.
*
Recovering Hermes's caduceus proves to be quite simple. It comes to life – quite literally – as soon as Clio picks it up, and George and Martha blink their reptilian eyes in Percy's direction.
Is that Percy Jackson?
George, don't forget about the girl--
Did you bring me a rat?
Clio fumbles and almost drops the caduceus to the floor, and looks at Percy disbelievingly.
Of course he hasn't got a rat.
But we've been starving in here for centuries!
"They're George and Martha," grins Percy. "Say hello to Clio, George and Martha."
Hello to Clio, George and Martha, echoes George.
Not that again! says Martha, chasing him around the caduceus.
"Hello, George and Martha," says Clio tentatively. "Um, are there any monsters waiting for us?"
Oh, yes, slithers George.
There were, Martha corrects. But since you're with him, Hermes probably doesn't want you enslaved in a Monster Donut for a hundred years.
"Thanks," says Clio, giving Percy a you'd-better-explain-that-later look. "So you don't mind coming with me?"
We'd be glad to, rustles Martha, child of the gods.
Yes, adds George, if you give us rats.
And indeed, after Percy and Clio hunt down a few rats, George and Martha twine placidly around the caduceus, which shrinks to the size of a smartphone on a clip and fits snuggly onto the girdle of Aphrodite with Clio's other prizes.
*
Much to Percy's surprise, taking Hera's symbol of power is just as easy. Outside a cave nestled between pastures of cows is a sleeping man – at least, a sort-of sleeping man. Half his hundred eyes are closed, and half of them are open, which makes all of Percy's eyes blink in surprised recognition. "Argus?"
The fifty closed eyes open wide, and Argus gives Percy a winking thumbs up.
"Hey," Percy waves back, a little feebly.
"You know him?" squeaks Clio.
"Argus was the security guard at Camp Half-Blood," Percy explains. "And he works for – you're still working for Hera, right?"
Argus nods.
"This is Clio," says Percy, by way of belated introduction. "She's a demigod."
The ensuing duh look from Argus is pretty epic. Percy thinks it's the hundred eyes.
"And she's reclaiming the gods' symbols of power."
Argus shrugs.
"I know Hera isn't big on Zeus's kids," says Percy, "but we're trying to break her out of Tartarus. That's a good reason to let Clio borrow her symbol, right?"
Argus considers, narrowing his many eyes, then nods and steps aside.
"Thanks," says Percy, as Clio walks into the cave. "And, uh, good to see you again."
The hundred eyes roll. Even if Argus doesn't talk, Percy knows he's heard enough sight-jokes to last another four thousand years.
Clio manages to wake up the sleeping peacock in the cave, which runs around for a bit until Clio can tackle it, at which point it gives up a resigned sigh and puffs into an braided ribbon of blue and green and purple feathers that curls around Clio's ankle.
"What does it do?" asks Clio, looking from Percy to Argus.
Argus shrugs. Percy ventures, "Makes you get married?"
When neither of them can figure it out, they say their goodbyes to Argus and set off for Mount Ida.
*
The mountain is blanketed in near-black clouds; from the sea, they make the landscape look like a poorly done watercolor, too dark for the clear blue sky that surrounds them in all directions.
"Like Olympus," Clio frowns. "A really depressing Olympus."
"Being thrown into Tartarus is pretty depressing," Percy points out.
Both of them are anticipating danger, but instead they find a gaggle of nymphs, who stand a bow when Percy and Clio walk into their clearing.
"Hi guys?" Clio offers tentatively. "Uh, are you going to turn into monsters?"
Percy kicks her unsubtlely. "They're the nymphs who raised Zeus," he hisses.
"Oh!" Clio looks stricken. "I – I'm sorry. I'm Clio, and I'm Zeus's lots-of-greats granddaughter and we're…"
"Here for the Master Bolt," says one of the nymphs, smiling. "Yes, we're quite aware."
"You are?" asks Clio suspiciously.
Another nymph nods. "The gods rose to fight the Titans before," she offers, "we expected one of mighty Zeus's descendents to come for the Master Bolt in time."
"Sure took you long enough," mutters a third.
The first nymph gives the complainer a stern glance. "Just for that, you can go get the Bolt."
"But—"
"Now." The whining nymph flounces off, leaving the first (and the rest, but they seem less interested in talking, thinks Percy) gazing at Clio. "Still, there is one symbol of power you have yet to reclaim."
"Aegis," nods Clio. "I know, we'll get it next—"
"Why have you waited?" asks the nymph. This time, she's looking directly at Percy.
"Athena never really liked me," says Percy, which is true but not the truth.
"Son of Poseidon," she says sternly, "you cannot avoid that knowledge for much longer."
"I know," he says, a lump in his throat, and blissfully, the nymph turns her attention back to Clio.
*
"What can't you avoid?" asks Clio, as they climb the steps to the Parthenon.
"Nothing."
She stops dead in her tracks, blocking his way up the narrow road. "You're lying."
"Nothing I want to talk about."
"Why doesn't Athena like you?"
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"Unless we get attacked by killer owls in the Parthen—"
"Clio." He feels bad about cutting her off, but this is one subject he doesn't feel like talking about with her. "It'll be okay."
And it is – recovering Aegis is, anyway. It takes the better part of the day – a day filled with awkward silences and a feeling of lingering unhappiness – but eventually Clio spots a pattern in the old marble. Percy moves blocks of stone at her direction to "solve" the puzzle until the moon is high in the sky, but when he's finally rearranged the ruins to her liking, a round shield shimmers into being above the entrance to the temple, adorned with a familiar head cast in bronze.
"Like the Shield of Thalia," gasps Clio.
"Not exactly," says Percy, as she uses Dionysus's vine to unhook Aegis from its lofty perch. "Thalia's was a model of this one."
"You knew Thalia Grace?" frowns Clio, distracted from the glory of retrieving the final item of power.
"She was a few years older than I was."
"And Nico di Angelo?"
"Sure, we met when he was ten—"
"Then you must have fought in the last battle! What was it like? How many monsters were there? How were you captured?"
His heart is beating too fast, and his hands are shaking. "I can't talk about it," he says.
"But—"
"Clio!"
"— oh. It must have been pretty traumatic."
"It's just…"
"Or it's the thing you're avoiding."
"Which I said I don't want to talk about."
She studies him intently, and maybe it's the setting, but right then she has the Athena-look, sizing him up. "Fine," she says at last, strapping Aegis to her arm and not even registering her old amazement as the shield snaps down to the size of a large wrist-bangle and clamps onto her wrist. "Then I'm going to bed. We've got a long trip back to the States tomorrow."
*
"Walk with me," says Luke, appearing on a chunk of marble.
"Clio's sleeping."
Luke draws Annabeth's dagger and paints a complicated looking symbol in the air. Every stroke calls up a glowing sigil from the old pillars of the Parthenon, until the whole place is bathed in dim blue light light. "She'll be safe." And so Percy goes.
"Walk" turns out to be "run." At first, Percy wants to protest that Luke is going too fast, but then he realizes his immortal body keeps up easily, dashing at superhuman speeds and leaping broken old fences with barely any effort. The rush of the wind in his hair and against his skin is exhilarating; he realizes that this is the first time he's really pressed this changed body to its limits on Earth. It's a strange feeling, but not an entirely uncomfortable one.
So they lope across the countryside. When Percy asks where they're going, Luke says they're following the way where the Long Wall once stood, down to the old harbor, but won't say anything more until the clean, tangy smell of the sea hits Percy and the air cools all around them. They slow, just a little, through a cluster of ruins that must once have been a town, until they come to a half-standing house so close to the sea that Percy feels the pull of the tides. It's a lonely little building, sitting wearily against the starry sky, and it's that thought that helps Percy realize where they are.
"This is where you brought her."
Luke nods.
"This is where she died."
His face is hard. "That's not how it was supposed to happen. I promised her."
"But it happened anyway."
He wheels on Percy, his blond hair almost silver-gray in the moonlight. "Because of you. If you'd given me her dagger in the throne room – if she hadn't kept pining after you–"
Percy punches him in the face, hard, which doesn't hurt either of them because both of them still bear the curse of Achilles and they're both immortal, but it does send Luke sprawling into the coarse grasses that grow on the dunes, and at least that gives Percy a tiny flicker of satisfaction. "Then maybe you shouldn't have joined up with the let's-wreck-civilization Titans in the first place!"
Slowly, Luke stands. "I told you before," he says coldly, "this world isn't what I wanted. I haven't wanted it since she died."
"It's a little late to say 'oops, my bad'!"
Luke flashes that half-cocky, half-deranged smile. "I heard you talking to Clio. It's what you're doing. Oops, my bad, I didn't mean to help Kronos win." Percy tries to hit him again, but Luke catches his swinging fist and pins Percy against the rough sand.
"Don't even think about it," Percy grits, and the waves rage against the sand.
"I know where not to pick a fight," he says, letting Percy up. "I only wanted you to see this place."
"To mess with me."
"So you'd know exactly why I'm fighting Kronos now. No one questions why you're trying to save the Olympians, but at least one of you has to understand why I am."
"Then you should have sweet-talked Clio."
Luke looks out to the choppy waters. "Clio wouldn't understand. You're the only one who remembers the old world or her."
The sea flares up again. "You don't even deserve to talk about Annabeth."
Luke steps back, eyes flinty. "Maybe not. But I've done what I came here to do. I'm not going to stand around waiting for you to get mad and dump me in the Aegean."
Percy springs up. "Don't run away, you–"
But he disappears, leaving Percy alone with the broken old house and the drum of the surf.
*
After lingering in the ruins, he calls the sea over the sand and the grass and the tangled weeds of the overgrown garden. He calls it in through the broken windows and the door and the cracks in the walls. He calls it and the water rushes in, through every hole in the little house, and as it pours in, it erodes the windows and the door and the walls, tearing away bits of wood and stucco. And then it pounds the little house with stormy intensity, until the weakened building creaks and groans and bows before him with an unsatisfying thump of masonry.
When it collapses, he lets the sea slide back down the hill, leaving behind a pile of rubble, and he lets the sea carry him with it, too, down to the beach with the pale, fine sand. He stands there facing west, at the shifting line where the ocean meets the shore, and tries to follow her into the surf, but even the fiercest currents won't carry him to the Underworld. And so, in the moonlit depths, he calls out to her, weary and heartsick.
Annabeth.
They come from miles and miles to listen to him: the largest and smallest creatures of the sea, the newborn and the wizened. But they can only question, Annabeth? Annabeth? What's an Annabeth?
They are all very young, and he feels so very, very old.