Chapter 2: The Discovery of the Labyrinth
The bells rang with increasing intensity, an Aethiopian drakon had attacked the camp.
It was three in the morning, and Lee Fletcher was woken up by the shrill warning bells. He cast away his sleepiness immediately and rushed to the Big House. Here the head counsellors met together, minus Percy, head of the Poseidon cabin. Apparently, he was still sleeping sound amidst all the chaos and terror.
"We have to attack! This is getting more and more serious. Drakons! Who knows what he'll bring next time?" Clarisse argued.
Other counsellors were more hesitant. "Yes, Clarisse. The attacks on camp are getting more serious by the day, but are we capable to defend camp with what we have at the moment without causing too many casualties?" Annabeth rebutted.
The debate went on for half an hour before Lee Fletcher left the council. He proceeded to lead his fellow cabin members to hunt the drakon.
"Lee?" Will Solace asked. "I think the drakon's been here."
"Then let's follow the trail before its trail fade. Be careful! I don't want to lose you guys!" Lee warned.
They continued to follow the fading trail when they came across the drakon. The drakon was 30 feet long and bright green, its eyes dark as the pit of Tartarus. The drakon sensed something was near and was crawling around, looking for its prey.
Lee positioned his siblings to surround the drakon and prepare to fire. They patiently waited for the right moment, when one of the cabin members loosed his arrow and angered the drakon.
"Fire and retreat!" Lee shouted. The band retreated while the drakon proceeded, wishing to eat its attackers.
It was at this moment an arrow, white and shining, as though a gust of wind, shot through the drakon's eyes, and the drakon was no more.
As the beast crumbled into dust, Lee shouted towards the direction where the arrow was shot from, "Is it you Dad?" Yet no person or voice came out of the forest.
Lee found the arrow that hit the drakon. As soon as he touched it, the arrow glowed and engulfed the band of demigods, healing them fully.
Beleaguered by what had befallen them, they hastily returned to the camp and presented the arrow to Chiron, who examined it closely.
"This arrow is not of the gods or our campers. Yet it is elegantly crafted and deadly. I wonder how the Gods haven't made such advancements to their arrows, this exceeds the craftsmanship on the arrows of Apollo and Artemis…" Chiron said.
"There seems to be some kind of runes etched into the shaft," Lee pointed out.
"Yes, the arrow is edged in unknown characters, yet the mist translates it for me somehow and it reads 'The will of the Powers will be done.' I believe that these Powers refer to the Gods, but who made this?" Chiron wondered.
The excitement of the previous night continued on the next morning. Rumours had circulated regarding the drakon which attacked the camp, especially the one where a mysterious person struck down the beast with a single arrow. Naturally, many thought those as rumours.
"We're just trying to escape from that huge drakon when all of a sudden, a white blazing arrow shot through the drakon's eyes!" someone from the Apollo cabin claimed.
"Everyone stay alert, but stay calm. We don't know what would attack next, but this has happened before," Chiron said.
"Aye," Quintus said from the head table. "And it will happen more and more frequently."
The campers murmured among themselves.
Everyone knew the rumours: Luke and his army of monsters were planning an invasion of the camp. Most of them expected it to happen that summer, but no one knew how or when. It didn't help that their attendance was down. They only had about eighty campers. Three years ago, when Percy'd started, there had been more than a hundred. Some had died. Some had joined Luke. Some had just disappeared.
"This is a good reason for new war games," Quintus continued, a glint in his eyes. "We'll see how you all do with that tonight."
"Yes…" Chiron said. "Well, enough announcements. Let us bless this meal and eat." He raised his goblet. "To the gods."
They all raised their glasses and repeated the blessing, and they took their plates to the bronze brazier and scraped a portion of their food into the flames.
Once everyone was eating, Chiron and Grover came over to visit Percy at his table. Grover was bleary-eyed. His shirt was inside out. He slid his plate onto the table and slumped next to him.
Tyson shifted uncomfortably. "I will go… um… polish my fish ponies." He lumbered off, leaving his breakfast half-eaten.
Chiron tried for a smile, and said, "Well, Percy, how did you sleep?"
"Uh, fine," Percy replied, wondering why he asked that.
"I brought Grover over," Chiron said, "because I thought you two might want to, ah, discuss matters. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Iris-messages to send. I'll see you later in the day." He gave Grover a meaningful look, then trotted out of the pavilion."
"What's he talking about?" Percy asked Grover. Grover chewed his eggs distractedly, biting the tines of his fork and chewed those down also. "He wants you to convince me," he mumbled.
Somebody else slid next to Percy on the bench: Annabeth.
"I'll tell you what it's about," she said. "The Labyrinth."
Annabeth then proceeded to talk about the Labyrinth. Percy was distracted, as everybody in the dining pavilion was stealing glances at them and whispering.
"You're not supposed to be here," Percy said.
"We need to talk," she insisted.
"But the rules…"
Campers weren't allowed to switch tables. Satyrs were different. They weren't really demigods. But the half-bloods had to sit with their cabins. Chiron had already left the pavilion. Quintus looked over and raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything.
"Look," Annabeth said, "Grover is in trouble. There's only one way we can figure to help him. It's the Labyrinth. That's what Clarisse and I have been investigating."
Percy shifted his weight, trying to think clearly. "You mean the maze where they kept the Minotaur, back in the old days?"
"Exactly," Annabeth said.
"So… it's not under the king's palace in Crete anymore," he guessed. "The Labyrinth is under some building in America."
Annabeth rolled her 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?" Percy asked.
"No." Annabeth frowned. "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 muttered. "And die a horrible death."
"Grover, there has to be a way," Annabeth said. "Clarisse lived."
"Barely!" Grover said. "And the other guy—"
"He was driven insane. He didn't die."
"Oh, joy." Grover's lower lip quivered. "That makes me feel much better."
"Whoa," Percy said. "Back up. What's this about Clarisse and a crazy guy?" Annabeth glanced over toward the Ares table. Clarisse was watching them like she knew what they were talking about, but then she fixed her eyes on her breakfast plate.
"Last year," Annabeth said, lowering her voice, "Clarisse went on a mission for Chiron."
"I remember," Percy said. "It was secret."
Annabeth nodded. "It was secret," Annabeth agreed, "because she found Chris Rodriguez."
"The guy from the Hermes cabin?" Chris was one of the half-bloods who'd abandoned camp and joined the Titan Army.
"Yeah," Annabeth said. "Last summer he just appeared in Phoenix, Arizona, near Clarisse's mom's house."
"What do you mean he just appeared?"
"He was wandering around the desert, in a hundred and twenty degrees, in full Greek armour, babbling about string."
"String," Percy said.
"He'd been driven completely insane. Clarisse brought him back to her mom'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."
Percy shivered, then he looked at Grover, who was chewing up the rest of his fork.
"Okay," Percy asked. "Why were they exploring the Labyrinth?"
"We weren't sure," Annabeth 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—" Her expression turned a little dreamy. "The builder, Daedalus, was a genius. But the point is, 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 agreed. "Dead ends. Illusions. Psychotic goat-killing monsters."
"But not if you had Ariadne's string," Annabeth said. "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?"
Annabeth shook her head. "I don't know. 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 about Daedalus. I'm afraid it didn't help much. I don't understand exactly what Luke's planning, but I do 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 shuddered. "Satyrs hate going underground. No searcher would ever try going in that place. No flowers. No sunshine. No coffee shops!"
"But," Annabeth said, "the Labyrinth can lead you almost anywhere. It reads your thoughts. It was designed to fool you, 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." Grover hugged his stomach. "Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up my silverware."
"Grover, it may be your last chance," Annabeth said. "The council is serious. One week or you learn to tap dance!"
Over at the head table, Quintus cleared his throat. Percy got the feeling he didn't want to make a scene, but Annabeth was really pushing it, sitting at his table so long.
"We'll talk later," Annabeth squeezed Percy's arm a little too hard. "Convince him, will you?"
She returned to the Athena table, ignoring all the people who were staring at her.
Grover buried his head in his hands. "I can't do it, Percy. My searcher's license. Pan. I'm going to lose it all. I'll have to start a puppet theatre."
"Don't say that! We'll figure something out."
He looked at Percy teary-eyed. "Percy, you're my best friend. You've seen me underground. In that Cyclops's cave. Do you really think I could…"
His voice faltered. He'd never liked underground places to begin with, but the incident in the Sea of Monsters, when he'd been stuck a Cyclops's cave, made Grover really hated them. Cyclopes gave him the creeps, too. Even Tyson. Grover tried to hide it, but Grover and Percy's empathy link between them made Percy know how he felt. Grover was terrified of Tyson.
"I have to leave," Grover said miserably. "Juniper's waiting for me. It's a good thing she finds cowards attractive."
After he was gone, Percy looked over at Quintus. He nodded gravely, like they were sharing some dark secret. Then he went back to cutting his sausage with a dagger.
That night after dinner, Quintus had them suit up in combat armour like they were getting ready for capture the flag, but the mood among the campers was a lot more serious. Sometime during the day, the crates in the arena had disappeared, and Percy had a feeling whatever was in them had been emptied into the woods.
"Right," Quintus said, standing on the head dining table. "Gather 'round."
He was dressed in black leather and bronze. In the torchlight, his grey hair made him look like a ghost. Mrs O'Leary bounded happily around him, foraging for dinner scraps.
"You will be in teams of two," Quintus announced. When everybody started talking and trying to grab their friends, he yelled: "Which have already been chosen!"
"AWWWWW!" everybody complained.
"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, and stay alive."
The crowd started murmuring excitedly. The task sounded pretty straightforward. Hey, we'd all slain monsters before. That's what we trained for.
"I will now announce your partners," Quintus said. "There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining."
"Aroooof!" Mrs O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza.
Quintus produced a big scroll and started reading off names. Beckendorf would be with Silena Beauregard, which Beckendorf looked pretty happy about. The Stoll brothers, Travis and Connor, would be together. No surprise. They did everything together. Clarisse was with Lee Fletcher from the Apollo cabin—melee and ranged combat combined, they would be a tough combo to beat. Quintus kept rattling off the names until he said, "Percy Jackson with Annabeth Chase."
"Nice." Percy grinned at Annabeth.
"Your armour is crooked" was her only comment, and she redid his straps for him.
"Grover Underwood," Quintus said, "with Tyson."
Grover just about jumped out of his goat fur. "What? B-but—"
"No, no," Tyson whimpered. "Must be a mistake. Goat boy—"
"No complaining!" Quintus ordered. "Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare!"
Tyson and Grover both looked at Percy pleadingly. He tried to give them an encouraging nod and gestured that they should move together. Tyson sneezed. Grover started chewing nervously on his wooden club.
"They'll be fine," Annabeth said. "Come on. Let's worry about how we're going to stay alive."
It was still light when they got into the woods, but the shadows from the trees made it feel like midnight. It was cold, too, even in summer. Annabeth and Percy found tracks almost immediately—scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs. They began to follow the trail.
They jumped a creek and heard some twigs snapping nearby. They crouched behind a boulder, but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as buffaloes.
Once the Stolls had passed, Annabeth and Percy forged deeper into the west woods where the monsters were wilder. They were standing on a ledge overlooking a marshy pond when Annabeth tensed. "This is where we stopped looking."
It took Percy a second to realize what she meant. Last winter, when they'd given up hope of finding him, Grover, Annabeth, and Percy had stood on this rock, and Percy'd convinced them not to tell Chiron the truth: that Nico was a son of Hades. At the time it seemed the right thing to do. Percy wanted to protect his identity. Percy wanted to be the one to find him and make things right for what had happened to his sister. Now, six months later, Percy hadn't even come close to finding him. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"I saw him last night," Percy said.
Annabeth knit her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Percy told her about an Iris-message he received in the middle of the night. When he was done, she stared into the shadows of the woods. "He's summoning the dead? 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," Percy said. "The spirit mentioned a maze."
She nodded. "That settles it. We have to figure out the Labyrinth."
"Maybe," Percy said uncomfortably. "But who sent the Iris-message? If Nico didn't know I was there—"
A branch snapped in the woods. Dry leaves rustled. Something large was moving in the trees, just beyond the ridge.
"That's not the Stoll brothers," Annabeth whispered. Together they drew their swords.
They got to Zeus's Fist, a huge pile of boulders in the middle of the west woods. It was a natural landmark where campers often rendezvoused on hunting expeditions, but now there was nobody around.
"Over there," Annabeth whispered.
"No, wait," Percy said. "Behind us."
It was weird. Scuttling noises seemed to be coming from several different directions. They were circling the boulders, their swords drawn, when someone right behind them said, "Hi."
They whirled around, and the tree nymph Juniper yelped.
"Put those down!" she protested. "Dryads don't like sharp blades, okay?"
"Juniper," Annabeth exhaled. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here."
Percy lowered his sword. "In the boulders?"
She pointed toward the edge of the clearing. "In the juniper. Duh."
Dryads couldn't go very far away from their tree, which was the source of life.
"Are you guys busy?" Juniper asked.
"Well," he said, "we're in the middle of this game against a bunch of monsters and we're trying not to die."
"We're not busy," Annabeth said. "What's wrong, Juniper?"
Juniper sniffled. She wiped her silky sleeve under her eyes. "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 maybe, at first, he was seeing another tree."
"No," Annabeth said as Juniper started crying. "I'm sure that's not it."
"He had a crush on a blueberry bush once," Juniper said miserably.
"Juniper," Annabeth said, "Grover would never even look at another tree. He's just stressed out about his searcher's license."
"He can't go underground!" she protested. "You can't let him."
Annabeth looked uncomfortable. "It might be the only way to help him; if we just knew where to start."
"Ah." Juniper wiped a green tear off her cheek. "About that…"
Another rustle in the woods and Juniper yelled, "Hide!"
Before anyone could ask why she went poof into green mist.
Annabeth and Percy turned. Coming out of the woods was a glistening amber insect, ten feet long, with jagged pincers, an armoured tail, and a stinger as long as Percy's sword Riptide. A scorpion. Tied to its back was a red silk package.
"One of us gets behind it," Annabeth said, as the thing clattered toward us. "Cuts off its tail while the other distracts it in front."
"I'll take point," he said. "You've got the invisibility hat."
She nodded. They'd fought together so many times they knew each other's moves. They could do this easily. But it all went wrong when the other two scorpions appeared from the woods.
"Three?" Annabeth said. "That's not possible! The whole woods and half the monsters come at us?"
The scorpions scurried toward them, whipping their barbed tails like they'd come here just to kill them. Annabeth and Percy put our backs against the nearest boulder.
"Climb?" Percy said.
"No time," she said.
She was right. The scorpions were already surrounding them. They were so close he could see their hideous mouths foaming, anticipating an ice juicy meal of demigods.
"Look out!" Annabeth parried away a stinger with the flat of her blade. Percy stabbed with Riptide, but the scorpion backed out of range. They clambered sideways along the boulders, but the scorpions followed them. He slashed at another one, but going on the offensive was too dangerous. If he went for the body, the tail stabbed downward. If he went for the tail, the thing's pincers came from either side and tried to grab him. All they could do was defend, and they wouldn't be able to keep that up for very long.
All of a sudden, the boy from the sword area and his twin came to help. They lanced near to Percy and Annabeth, and climbed up the rocks, buying them valuable time for rest.
"Thanks, I'm Annabeth, he's Percy. Who are you?" Annabeth asked.
"I'm Mike, and he's Orel," said the boy.
They continued to fend off the scorpions, yet the scorpions' attacks show no sign of slowing down, while they are growing tired and weary.
Percy took another step sideways to dodge the pincers of the scorpions, and suddenly there was nothing behind him. It was a crack between two of the largest boulders, something he'd passed by a million times, but…
"In here," Percy said.
Annabeth sliced at a scorpion then looked at him like he was crazy. "In there? It's too narrow."
"I'll cover you. Go!"
Mike and Orel quickly entered the crack, while Annabeth ducked behind him and started squeezing between the two boulders. Then she yelped and grabbed his armour straps, and suddenly he was tumbling into a pit that hadn't been there a moment before. He could see the scorpions above us, the purple evening sky and the trees, and then the hole shut like the lens of a camera, and they were in complete darkness.
Their breathing echoed against stone. It was wet and cold. Percy was sitting on a bumpy floor that seemed to be made of bricks.
He lifted Riptide. The faint glow of the blade was just enough to illuminate Annabeth's frightened face and the mossy stone walls on either side of them.
Just then, Orel took off the necklace he's been wearing. On the end of the necklace was a small glass bottle filled with liquid, which glowed brilliantly as soon as he touches it.
"What was that?" Percy asked, relieved by the sudden abundance of light.
"It is a relic we picked up during our troubles, at least we don't have to worry about monsters sneaking on us," Astra replied.
"Wh-where are we?" Annabeth said.
"Safe from the scorpions, anyway," Percy tried to sound calm, but he was freaking out. The crack between the boulders couldn't have led into a cave. He would've known if there was a cave here; he was sure of it. It was like the ground had opened up and swallowed them. All he could think of was the fissure in the dining room pavilion, where those skeletons had been consumed last summer. He wondered if the same thing had happened to us.
"It's a long corridor," I muttered.
Percy started forward, but Annabeth stopped him. "Don't take another step," she warned. "We need to look for the exit."
She sounded really scared now.
"It's okay," he promised. "It's right—"
Percy looked up and realized he couldn't see where they'd fallen in. The ceiling was solid stone. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.
"Two steps back," she advised.
They stepped backwards together like they were in a minefield.
"Okay," she said. "Help me examine the walls."
"What for?"
"The mark of Daedalus," she said as if that was supposed to make sense.
"Uh, okay. What kind of—"
"Got it!" she said with relief. She set her hand on the wall and pressed against a tiny fissure, which began to glow blue. A Greek symbol appeared: ∆, the Ancient Greek Delta.
The roof slid open and they saw the night sky, stars blazing. It was a lot darker than it should've been. Metal ladder rungs appeared in the side of the wall, leading up, and Percy could hear people yelling their names.
"Percy! Annabeth!" Tyson's voice bellowed the loudest, but others were calling out too.
Percy looked nervously at Annabeth. Then they began to climb.
They made their way around the rocks and ran into Clarisse and a bunch of other campers carrying torches.
"Where have you been?" Clarisse demanded.
"We've been looking forever."
"But we were gone only a few minutes," Percy said.
Chiron trotted up, followed by Tyson and Grover.
"Percy!" Tyson said. "You are okay?"
"We're fine," Percy said. "We fell in a hole."
The others looked at him sceptically, then at Annabeth, while Mike and Orel went to talk with their friends.
"Honest!" Percy said. "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."
"Yeah," Grover muttered. "We would've won, but a Cyclops sat on me."
"Was an accident!" Tyson protested, and then he sneezed.
Clarisse was wearing the gold laurels, but she didn't even brag about winning them, which wasn't like her. "A hole?" she said suspiciously.
Annabeth took a deep breath. She looked around at the other campers. "Chiron… maybe we should talk about this at the Big House."
Clarisse gasped. "You found it, didn't you?"
Annabeth bit her lip. "I—Yeah. Yeah, we did."
A bunch of campers started asking questions, looking about as confused as Percy was, but Chiron raised his hand for silence. "Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place." He stared at boulders as if he'd just noticed how dangerous they were. "All of you, back to your cabins. Get some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!"
There was a lot of mumbling and complaints, but the campers drifted off, talking among themselves and giving Percy suspicious looks.
"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?"
Annabeth turned toward him, her eyes dark with worry. "An entrance to the Labyrinth. An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp."
Unbeknownst to the campers, Mike and his friends turned towards the forests. A person, dressed in a robe of midnight blue velvet with flowing sleeves over a shirt of dark purple figured silk, approached them. He wore a silver-like circlet on his head, his blue-black hair braided. Around his neck, he wore a pendant of gold and onyx with an emblem of the Sun-in-Eclipse.
"So they have discovered the entrance?" the mysterious man asked.
"Yes, my lord," Mike and Orel replied simultaneously.
"Gifted them the Phial, they shall need it much in this quest," he said, "They do not trust you yet, although, at times of crisis, you will prove your trust to them."
"Understood," they said unanimously.
The man smiled slightly, "Well, I better head back to Valinor, Manwe is expecting a report from me. I wish you all good luck," And he faded into the night.