A/N: Sorry it's been such a long time since I updated! I've been on holidays and couldn't use my computer to write my story. Plus the internet kept dropping out today! I'm so sorry!
Disclaimer: I unfortunately don't own Percy Jackson.
Chapter 3- The Labyrinth
Last night I was one of the only people who were still asleep when the sun came up, because an Aethiopian Dragon was creeping around the camp borders. My whole cabin, along with many others, had been awoken by the noise. Luckily Apollo's cabin scared it away by firing arrows at it.
'It's still out there,' Lee cautioned us, during morning announcements at breakfast. 'Twenty arrows in its hide, and we just made it mad. The thing was ten metres long and had bright green eyes. Its eyes –' He shivered. I knew that the Aethiopian Dragon had terrifying eyes from reading about it, but I'd never seen one up close.
'You did well, Lee,' Chiron said, as he patted him on the shoulder. 'Everyone stay alert, but stay calm. This has happened before.'
'Aye,' Quintus said. 'And it will happen again. More and more frequently.'
Quintus was the new sword instructor. He was very skilled, but he seemed quite mysterious. I wanted to know more about him. His name was strange as well, it means five in Greek. But his mortal parent would have named him, so I wondered how they could possibly know anything in Ancient Greek, unless his godly parent told them they wanted that name for him. But 5 isn't a sacred number to any god, so they wouldn't have had any reason to. It's all very strange.
Everyone was muttering amongst themselves. They all knew an attack from Kronos' army was going to happen, but no one was sure when. The campers all seemed to think it would be this summer, and I was pretty sure that if Luke learnt how to navigate the Labyrinth by then, it would be. But if we could beat him to it, then he would have to mount an attack by getting here on foot, and there was no way he could get the upper hand if his army had to make their own way here from San Francisco.
'This is a good reason for new war games,' Quintus announced, excitedly. 'We'll see how you all do with that tonight.'
'Yes...' Chiron said. 'Well, enough announcements. Let us bless this meal and eat.' He held his goblet above his head. 'To the gods!'
I raised my goblet and said the blessing.
Together, my cabin and I walked over to the bronze brazier and tipped some of our food into the fire.
'Athena.' I said. Inside my head I prayed she would help me with the Labyrinth problem and saving the camp.
I sat down at my table and started to eat my food when I noticed Chiron and Grover go over to Percy's table. Grover sat down next to him, and Tyson muttered something and left.
'Well, Percy how did you sleep?' I heard Chiron ask. I scooted closer so I could hear the conversation properly.
'Uh, fine,' Percy said. He sounded a little confused.
'I brought Grover over, because I thought you two might want to, ah, discuss matters,' Chiron said. He must mean Grover going into the Labyrinth. 'Now if you'll excuse me I have some Iris-messages to send. I'll see you later in the day.'
'What's he talking about?' Percy asked Grover. He still didn't know anything about the Labyrinth. I was going to have to tell him before Grover did, because he would get the facts wrong. After all, Clarisse and I are the ones investigating it.
'He wants you to convince me,' muttered Grover.
I decided that because Chiron wasn't here, and Mr D was away, I could break the rules a little. After all, this is important, and I doubt Quintus would punish me. So I got up off my bench, and slid onto Percy's with Grover.
'I'll tell you what it's about,' I said. 'The Labyrinth.'
Percy looked stunned that I was here, and I think everyone else in the hall was as well. People were whispering and looking at us.
'You're not supposed to be here,' he said.
'We need to talk,' I replied firmly.
'But the rules...' he said, looking unsure.
'Look, Grover is in trouble and there is only one way we can figure out to help him. It's the Labyrinth. That's what Clarisse and I have been investigating.'
'You mean the maze where they kept the Minotaur, back in the old days?'
'Exactly,' I said. At least he knew of the Labyrinth.
'So... it's not under the king's palace in Crete anymore,' he presumed. 'The Labyrinth is under some building in America.'
Typical Percy, not having the faintest idea how wrong he was.
I rolled my eyes. 'Under a building? Please, Percy. The Labyrinth is huge. It wouldn't fit under a single city, much less a single building.'
'So... is the Labyrinth part of the Underworld?'
'No,' I said, frowning. There was so much we still didn't know. 'Well, there may be passages from the Labyrinth down into the Underworld. I'm not sure. But the Underworld is way, way down. The Labyrinth is right under the surface of the mortal world, kind of like a second skin. It's been growing for thousands of years, lacing its way under Western cities, connecting everything together underground. You can get anywhere through the Labyrinth.'
'If you don't get lost,' Grover murmured. 'And die a horrible death.'
He was so pessimistic. There has to be a way to navigate it; we just have to find it.
'Grover there has to be a way,' I said. Who knew how many times we had had this argument, and still Grover didn't believe me. 'Clarisse lived.'
'Barely!' Grover exclaimed. 'And the other guy – '
'He was driven insane. He didn't die.'
'Oh, joy.' Grover's bottom lip trembled. 'That makes me feel much better.'
'Whoa,' Percy said. 'What's this about Clarisse and a crazy guy?'
I forgot he had no idea about Chris. Well, he didn't really have any idea about anything, because I didn't want to talk to him after what happened in New York. I looked over to Clarisse. She was eyeing us, clearly she knew what we were discussing, but when she noticed me looking, she fixed her eyes back on her breakfast.
'Last year,' I said, in a low voice so no one would hear. 'Clarisse went on a scouting mission for Chiron.'
'I remember,' Percy said. 'It was a secret.'
I nodded. 'It was a secret, because she found Chris Rodriguez.'
'The guy from Hermes cabin? I remembered him from two years ago. We'd eavesdropped on Chris Rodriguez aboard Luke's ship, the Princess Andromeda. Chris was one of the half-bloods who'd abandoned camp and joined the Titan army.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Last summer he just appeared in Phoenix, Arizona, near Clarisse's mum's house.'
'What do you mean, he just appeared?' Percy asked.
'He was wandering around the desert, in fifty degrees, in full Greek armour, babbling about string.' This was proof that Ariadne's string exists. Luke would only go looking for something that is real. He is too smart to do something as stupid as searching for an object that didn't exist.
'String?' Percy said.
'He'd been driven completely insane. Clarisse brought him back to her mum's house so the mortals wouldn't institutionalize him. She tried to nurse him back to health. Chiron came out and interviewed him, but it wasn't much good. The only thing they got out of him: Luke's men have been exploring the Labyrinth.'
'Okay,' Percy said. 'Why were they exploring the Labyrinth?'
That is a good question. There must be a passage close to the camp that Luke wants to be able to get to. But we couldn't find anything so it must be very well hidden.
'We weren't sure,' I said. 'That's why Clarisse went on a scouting expedition. Chiron kept things hushed up because he didn't want anyone panicking. He got me involved because... well, the Labyrinth has always been one of my favourite subjects. The architecture involved –' I drifted off. But the Labyrinth was so perfect, who wasn't amazed by it! 'The builder, Daedalus, was a genius. But the point is that the Labyrinth has entrances everywhere. If Luke could figure out how to navigate it, he could move his army around with incredible speed.'
'Except it's a maze, right?'
'Full of horrible traps,' Grover said nervously. 'Dead ends. Illusions. Psychotic goat-killing monsters.'
'But not if you had Ariadne's string,' I insisted. 'In the old days, Ariadne's string guided Theseus out of the maze. It was a navigation instrument of some kind, invented by Daedalus. And Chris Rodriguez was mumbling about string.'
'So Luke is trying to find Ariadne's string,' Percy said. 'Why? What's he planning?'
I shook my head. We had to learn so much more! And Luke could cause so much harm if he got hold of Ariadne's string. We had no hope of defeating Kronos if he could get from one side of America to the other in such a short time.
'I don't know,' I told Percy. 'I thought maybe he wanted to invade camp through the maze, but that doesn't make any sense. The closest entrances Clarisse found were in Manhattan, which wouldn't help Luke get past our borders. Clarisse explored a little way into the tunnels, but... it was very dangerous. She had some close calls. I researched everything I could find out about Daedalus. I'm afraid it didn't help much. I don't understand exactly what Luke is planning, but I know this: the Labyrinth might be the key to Grover's problem.'
Percy blinked. 'You think Pan is underground?'
'It would explain why he's been impossible to find.'
Grover trembled. 'Satyrs hate going underground. No searcher would ever try going in that place. No flowers. No sunshine. No coffee shops!'
'But,' I said. 'The Labyrinth can lead you almost anywhere. It reads your thoughts. It was designed to fool you, to trick you and kill you; but if you can make the Labyrinth work for you –'
'It could lead you to the wild god,' Percy said.
'I can't do it,' said Grover, hugging his stomach. 'Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up my silverware.'
'Grover, it may be your last chance,' I said. 'The council is serious. One more week or you learn to tap dance!'
I heard Quintus clear his throat. I guess I had been pushing the rules a little too long.
'We'll talk later,' I said, squeezing Percy's arm in hope that he can get Grover to agree. 'Convince him, will you?'
I headed back to my table and ignored everybody in the room who was staring at me. There were much more important things on my mind than what people thought about me sitting at a table.
I spent the whole day inside my cabin again researching Daedalus. I didn't really find anything knew out, so I wasn't in the best mood when it was time for dinner.
When all the campers had finished their meals we were ordered by Quintus to gear up, ready for battle. Once we were done he stood on the head dining table. 'Right. Gather round,' he told us.
'You will be in teams of two,' Quintus announced. I looked around for Percy; he was the only person I wanted to be partnered with because we worked so well together in battle. 'Which have already been chosen,' he shouted, as everybody started grabbing their friends.
'AWWWWW!' the campers protested.
'Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And of course... You will have to slay the monster to get it.'
This exercise sounded too easy. There was no way we would have to kill a simple monster to win. I bet they are a strange type of monster we haven't encountered before, or they are hard to kill. Either way I wasn't happy about the fact our partners were already chose. What if I got given someone who barely knows how to fight!
'I will now announce your partners,' Quintus said. 'There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining.'
'Aroooof!' The giant dog barked whilst burying her face in some food.
I listened to the pairs Quintus called out. They seemed to be people who knew each other and could work well together.
Finally he got to me. 'Percy Jackson with Annabeth Chase.'
I was very pleased. Maybe Quintus wasn't so bad.
'Nice,' Percy said, grinning at me.
I wasn't going to make a fool of myself, so I didn't act too happy. 'Your armour is crooked,' was all I said, and I went over to fix it.
Suddenly Quintus announced that Grover would be partnered with Tyson.
'What? B-but –' spluttered Grover, jumping and almost hitting another camper.
'No, no,' Tyson sobbed. 'Must be a mistake. Goat boy – '
'No complaining!' Quintus yelled. 'Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare!'
Both Grover and Tyson looked straight at Percy with worried expressions. Percy nodded at them, and tried to tell them that it would be okay, but Tyson just sneezed, and Grover was chewing nervously on his wooden club.
'They'll be fine,' I persuade Percy. 'Come on. Let's worry about how we're going to stay alive.'
When the task started, all the campers headed into the woods. It wasn't dark yet, but the trees made it look like it, and the cold wasn't helping our nerves. We found some tracks to follow very soon. They were scurrying marks; the creature seemed to have a lot of legs.
As we were following the trail we hid behind a boulder because we heard twigs snapping close by. From behind the boulder we realised that it was only the Stoll brothers, so once they passed we continued along the trail.
Whilst we were standing on a ledge overlooking a swampy pond, I realised something. 'This is where we stopped looking,' I said. After Nico di Angelo disappeared, Percy, Grover and I searched the forest for him, and this was the spot we stopped. He had run away from camp after finding out that his sister died. I know Percy blames himself for it, but really, it wasn't his fault. He decided not to tell Chiron about it because he didn't want him to know that Nico was a son of Hades. It was six months after, and still we're no closer to finding him than we were then.
'I saw him last night,' Percy said.
I looked at him, confused. How could he have seen Nico last night? 'What do you mean?' I asked.
Percy told me that last night he received an Iris-message from someone unknown, and it showed Nico summoning the dead with the help of a spirit.
'He's summoning the dead?' I said. 'That's not good.'
'The ghost was giving him bad advice,' Percy said. 'Telling him to take revenge.'
'Yeah... spirits are never good advisers. They've got their own agendas. Old grudges. And they resent the living.'
'He's going to come after me. The spirit mentioned a maze.'
I nodded. This was just more reason to go into the Labyrinth. 'That settles it. We have to figure out the Labyrinth.'
'Maybe,' Percy said, sounding uneasy. 'But who sent the Iris-message? If Nico didn't know I was there –'
Suddenly a branch snapped. In the woods around us there were leaves rustling. We could make out a large shape moving in the trees just beyond the ledge we were standing on.
'That's not the Stoll brothers,' I whispered.
We drew our swords together and looked for the monster.
We got to Zeus's Fist (the huge pile of rocks in the west of the woods) and looked around. There was nobody here.
I heard a rustling coming from the right. 'Over there,' I murmured to Percy.
'No, wait,' Percy said. 'Behind us.'
The noises were coming from multiple directions, which was confusing and strange. As we were circling the boulders, a voice behind us said, 'Hi.'
We spun around. It was Juniper, Grover's tree nymph girlfriend.
She yelped when our swords almost hit her. 'Put those down! Dryads don't like sharp blades, okay?'
'Juniper,' I exhaled. 'What are you doing here?'
'I live here.'
'In the boulders?' Percy said, sounding confused. He lowered his sword.
Juniper pointed at the edge of the clearing. 'In the juniper. Duh.'
Percy looked embarrassed. Well, he was kind of dumb sometimes. But other times he was incredibly smart. It's all very amusing.
'Are you guys busy?' asked Juniper.
'Well,' Percy said. 'We're in the middle of a game against a bunch of monsters and we're trying not to die.'
'We're not busy,' I said. 'What's wrong Juniper?' She looked worried, so this must be important.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. 'It's Grover. He seems so distraught. All year he's been out looking for Pan. And every time he comes back, it's worse. I thought at first, he was seeing another tree.'
'No,' I said. 'I'm sure that's not it.'
Juniper started to cry. 'He had a crush on a blueberry bush once.'
'Juniper,' I said. 'Grover would never even look at another tree. He's just stressed about his searcher's licence.'
'He can't go underground!' she complained. 'You can't let him.'
I felt awkward. I mean, Juniper doesn't understand that going into the Labyrinth is the only way Grover won't lose his searcher's licence. 'It might be the only way to help him; if we just knew where to start.'
'Ah,' Juniper said wiping a tear off her cheek. 'About that...'
There was another crunching of leaves behind us, and Juniper shouted, 'Hide!' Then she disappeared into a green mist.
Percy and I turned around and we found ourselves facing an enormous, glossy, amber coloured creature. It was and about three metres long, with sharp pincers, a powerful tail, and a massively long stinger which was about the size of a sword. Tied onto its back was a silky red package.
'One of us gets behind it,' I said. 'Cuts of its tail while the other distracts it in the front.'
'I'll take point,' Percy said. 'You've got the invisibility hat.'
I nodded. This was going to be easy. Percy and I are great fighters, and we work so well together. We know each other's moves, and we know how to kill monsters.
All of a sudden two more scorpion monsters came out of the woods. What! Six monsters in the forest, and three of them attack us. How on earth were we going to be able to win.
'Three?' I said. 'That's not possible! The whole woods, and half the monsters come at us?' There was almost no way we could kill three of these monsters. We could manage two maybe, but three?
The monsters came towards us, thrashing their tails and pincers. We were forced up against the nearest boulder.
'Climb?' Percy suggested.
'No time,' I replied. How could we get away! We were trapped.
'Look out! I yelled, as a scorpion lunged at Percy. I deflected the stinger with my blade. Percy stabbed at it, but it had already backed away. The monsters followed us as we scrambled along the rocks. We kept slashing and parrying, but we couldn't keep this up forever.
'In here,' Percy said, indicating to something behind him.
I stabbed at a scorpion and looked to see what he meant. He was pointing at a small hole between the boulders; it looked far too small for us to fit into. 'In there? It's too narrow.'
'I'll cover you. Go!'
I ducked around Percy and a scorpion's pincer, and started to squeeze into the small hole. Suddenly I began to fall, so I grabbed at Percy and we were plummeting into a hollow that had just appeared. As soon as we landed the hole above us closed up and we were in total darkness.
Everything was silent except our heavy breathing. The pit we were in was cold and the floor felt like brick.
Percy lifted his blade casting a light luminosity on our surroundings. He looked nervous, and I felt very frightened.
'Wh-where are we?' I asked.
'Safe from the scorpions, anyway,' he said. I could tell he was trying to sound brave, but it wasn't really working. He was as scared as I was.
Percy raised Riptide again showing the place we were in was long.
'It's a long room,' he muttered.
Suddenly it hit me! We weren't in a cave, or a hole in the ground. This was the entrance to the Labyrinth that Luke wanted to get to. If we walked any further, Percy and I may never come out. We had to get out of here.
I grabbed Percy's arm. 'It's not a room. It's a corridor.'
He started to step forward, but I stopped him before we could get lost. 'Don't take another step. We need to find the exit.'
'It's okay,' Percy assured me. 'It's right –'
He looked up at where we had fallen in, and realised that the exit was gone.
I took hold of Percy's hand so we didn't get separated. I would never have done this normally; too embarrassing. But it was good to know he was there.
'Two steps back,' I directed.
Carefully we stepped back towards the wall.
'Okay,' I said. 'Help me examine the walls.'
'What for?'
'The mark of Daedalus.' Again, I forgot how little Percy knew about these things.
'Uh, okay. What kind of –'
My hand touched a small shape on the wall and I shouted, 'Got it!'At my touch, the tiny symbol appeared and glowed blue: Δ, the Ancient Greek Delta.
The roof opened up and I noticed that it was dark outside. A lot darker than it was when we entered the Labyrinth. Metal ladder steps emerged on the wall; they went up to the gap in the roof. In the distance I could hear shouts that sounded like our names.
'Percy! Annabeth!' Tyson was yelling, others were too, but he was the loudest.
Percy and I glanced at each other, worried. Then we climbed out.
Once we got through the hole, we clambered around the rocks and ran into Clarisse and several other campers all carrying torches.
'Where have you two been?' Clarisse demanded. 'We've been looking forever.'
'But we were only gone a few minutes,' Percy said.
Chiron rode up to us, Grover and Tyson not far behind.
'Percy!' Tyson yelled. 'You are okay?'
'We're fine,' he said. 'We fell in a hole.'
Everyone looked at Percy doubtfully before looking at me. Funny how they won't believe Percy, but they will believe me.
'Honest!' Percy insisted. 'There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid in the rocks. But we were only gone a minute.'
'You've been missing for almost an hour,' Chiron said. 'The game is over.'
An hour. The labyrinth must mess with time, as well as your head.
'Yeah,' Grover murmured. 'We would've won, but a Cyclops sat on me.'
'Was an accident!' Tyson objected, before sneezing.
Clarisse was looking at me suspiciously. 'A hole?'
I took a deep breath and looked at everyone. 'Chiron... maybe we should talk about this at the Big House.'
Clarisse gasped. 'You found it, didn't you?'
I bit my lip. This was not the right place to be discussing it; anyone could be a spy for Kronos here. 'I – Yeah. Yeah, we did.'
There was whispering coming from the campers; they had no idea what we were talking about. Chiron just raised his hand for silence. 'Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place. All of you back to your cabins. Get some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!'
Everyone drifted off, away from Zeus's Fist, mumbling complaints and glancing at us suspiciously. I took no notice.
'This explains a lot,' Clarisse said. 'It explains what Luke is after.'
'Wait a second,' Percy said. 'What do you mean? What did we find?'
I turned to look at him. I was so worried about camp, and it was only going to worry Percy to know, but we can't keep it from him forever. 'An entrance to the Labyrinth.' I said. 'An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp.'
A/N: Again, I'm so sorry it's been such a long time since I updated! I made sure this chapter was really long though, and I'll update again soon. Please review!
