AN: Hey guys! So as you see, I wasn't able to post on Friday. So, from now on, expect chapters on Sunday and Wednesday. I'm sorry about the schedule change, but I do think this is going to work better with my schedule. Thank you for understanding and thank you for your continued support!
One review to respond to this time, from Soricon. "do you remember in the battle of the labyrinth when Nico came into it without originally being in the quest will someone that we know well enter the maze after Elizabeth to help her."
A: Interesting question. But to answer the question either way would be a spoiler, so I'm not gonna say yes or no.
Alright, that's all from me this time. Enjoy the chapter and DFTBA!
Chapter 9: Attack of the Giant Flying Rodents
We came out of our shadow travel next to a road on a mountainside. Across the road, the land fell away off a cliff. The air smelled minty – eucalyptus, I realized. The road was abandoned. Slightly ahead of us, fog drifted across the road, the orange sunset bouncing off of the water particles.
"Oh gods," Matt muttered. I glanced over at him. He was incredibly pale. "I do not like shadow travel."
"You'll be okay," Nico said, handing him a bar of chocolate. "It can be a bit disconcerting the first time you do it. Eat this. Getting food in your stomach is the best way to feel better."
Matt munched on the chocolate bar. Meanwhile, I turned to Nico. "So what? We just go through this sheet of fog? I'm guessing it's actually the Mist and is hiding the garden of the Hesperides."
"Yeah, it's the Mist alright," Emily muttered, moving forward towards it. "It's very thick here. And I can sense a dark force past here."
"That'd be the remains of Mt. Othrys," Jocelyn said. "The Titans made a good choice when they built their fortress here."
"We're going to wait here a minute," Nico said. "Someone from the team defending the Labyrinth entrance will come get you guys and show you to the top. I'm not seeing you in."
I looked at him confused. "You're not working with the team defending the Labyrinth entrance?"
"I'm working with them, but I don't like spending more time with them than necessary," Nico said, a frown on his face. "And trust me, the feeling is mutual."
"Well does your… acquaintance, I guess?... know we're here?" I asked. "Because we don't have much time until the sun finishes setting –"
"Two and a half minutes exactly," Theo put in.
"– so you might just have to bite the bullet and show us to the mountain top on your own," I finished.
"That won't be necessary," a familiar voice said. I whirled around, and just outside of the fog was a teen girl with short, spiky black hair, a silver circlet around her brow, grey camo pants, and a black Green Day t-shirt. It was Thalia Grace.
"Thalia!" I exclaimed. "The Hunters are the ones covering the Labyrinth entrance?"
Thalia nodded, smiling. "I'll explain everything while we walk. But it's good to see you, again, Elizabeth. And Matt! My goodness, you're a lot taller than I remember."
"It's good to see you again," Matt said, smiling back.
"And you must be Emily Zhang," Thalia went on. "And you two are Elizabeth's friends, right?"
"Jocelyn and Theo," I said.
Thalia shook their hands, then said, "But you were right, Elizabeth. We should get going up the mountain."
We turned to say goodbye to Nico. Emily gave him a big hug. He placed a hand on the back of her head as he hugged her back. He locked eyes with me, and I knew he was pleading with me to keep her alive. I nodded. Someone would die on this quest, there was no stopping that. But I would make sure that it wouldn't be Emily. "Good luck, all of you," Nico said. Then we turned back to Thalia.
"We've got to go through this fog," Thalia said. "But if you're actually going to make it through to the garden of twilight, you've got to focus on me, alright?" My friends and I nodded, and followed Thalia into the fog. I glanced back one last time, and saw Nico raise a hand in farewell. Then we passed through the fog. Everything around us changed.
The paved road was suddenly a dirt path. All around us, the garden practically glowed it was so beautiful. There were nearly uncountable varieties of flowers. The most magnificent feature of the garden was the huge tree with golden apples. The apples of immortality. The smell was… intoxicating. I would've been tempted to run over and pluck one from the branches if not for the dragon coiled around the base of the tree. The top of the mountain, which was much closer now, had a dark storm brewing over it. The remains of black stone walls were just visible from where we stood.
The other remarkable thing about the garden was the amount of activity. Hunters moved about in silvery clothing. Wolves dashed across the hillside. Tents were pitched wherever there was a clear space. The dragon was surrounded by a perimeter of forklifts, and I noticed older women moving about the garden and mountaintop in pantsuits.
Theo let out a low whistle. "The Garden of the Hesperides," he said.
"Quite the operation," Jocelyn observed. "What is all this?"
Thalia walked and talked, leading us up the dirt trail to the top of the mountain. "We're here because of you guys. Nico found me in a dream and explained everything. Your quest into the Labyrinth is an important one. You might be able to stop the son of Kronos's plans. We know that you might be followed when you leave, and even if you aren't you'll need help subduing Pasiphaë. So I agreed to bring the Hunters to help. I got in touch with Hylla, queen of the Amazons, and they agreed to help, too."
"And Diana and the other Hunters were fine with doing something a man suggested?" Emily asked skeptically.
Thalia frowned. "Well unfortunately, Artemis isn't with us right now. Zeus called her back to Olympus to help with 'other matters.' What it really is, is that my idiot father didn't like how much we were doing to help your war effort. He thought we were getting too involved." I ground my teeth. Zeus was more of a hindrance than he was a help. It was almost like he wanted to lose this war. "Anyway," Thalia went on, "when Nico contacted me and told me that you would be leading the quest, Elizabeth, then I knew it wouldn't be a hard sell to the others. After all, you are a powerful young maiden, one with the spirit of a true Hunter. They were fine with it."
"Uh, well, I am dating Augustus," I said awkwardly.
"Yes, but you're still a maiden, right?" Thalia asked, stopping and facing me. "Not that I care, but if you're not, keep it to yourself. There are several Hunters here who wouldn't take well to the news that you weren't."
My face burned. "You uh… don't have to worry about that. I'm still a maiden."
"Ha! I win!" Theo exclaimed from behind me. I whirled around and saw him holding out a hand to Jocelyn. "Pay up, Joce."
Jocelyn grumbled but dug a drachma out of her pocket and put it in Theo's palm. My face was so hot now, I was surprised that my friends didn't catch fire. I gaped at them. "You – you made a bet about –"
"Anyway," Thalia said delicately, moving on, "the Labyrinth entrance is right up at the summit."
We walked in silence for a few more yards, then crested the top. The sky above was so dark, it made it look like we were in a cavern. The ruins of the Titan's fortress were kinda pathetic. There were bare chunks of wall six or seven feet high in a few places, but other than that you couldn't tell there had been a palace on top of this mountain. Hell, if I hadn't dreamed about the place last year, then I wouldn't have believed it. In the center of the mountain, a gigantic man kneeled, the sky funneled down onto his back. He yelled and cursed. Every time he did, one of the Hunters or Amazons standing guard around him would poke him with a spear.
Two people were standing nearby. The first was Celia, one of the Hunters I'd met last year. She looked about twelve, though I knew that age was deceptive with Hunters. She had long strawberry blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and sharp blue eyes. When we'd met before, I'd gotten the impression that she wasn't my biggest fan, though it might've just been that she had a brisk personality. Celia was having a conversation with an older woman, one of the Amazons. She looked quite a bit like Reyna and Amy. Same dark hair (although this woman's had streaks of grey in it), same black eyes, same regal face. She wore an ornate belt. I could only assume that this was Hylla, Reyna's older sister and the queen of the Amazons.
They turned towards us when we crested the hill. Hylla smiled slightly. "Ah, our guests have arrived. You must be Elizabeth Jackson?" We shook hands.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Queen Hylla," I said respectfully. Hylla greeted Jocelyn and Emily, too, but completely ignored the boys. From the slight twitch in Matt's eye, I could tell he didn't entirely appreciate that.
I turned to Celia. "Good to see you again."
"Hello, Elizabeth Jackson," she said shortly. Then she turned to Thalia. "Atlas's status hasn't changed."
Thalia nodded. "Good. Let's continue monitoring. Did you put together a guard rotation?"
"Yes, I did," Celia said.
Thalia turned back to me. "To be completely honest with you, helping you isn't the only reason we're here."
"Atlas," I said, nodding to the center of the mountaintop. "You want to keep him contained. I've heard the gods are worried about the Titans getting involved on the side of their children."
"Yeah," Thalia said. "And with a Labyrinth entrance right here, they could come out and free Atlas."
"Which would be disastrous," Hylla said. "Atlas was a great warrior. He could be a great boon to the demititans. By stationing here, we kill two birds with one stone. We can help you subdue Pasiphaë and we can stop any demititans from taking the sky from Atlas and setting him free."
"Anyway, you're here for the Labyrinth entrance," Thalia said.
"That'd be helpful," Jocelyn replied flatly.
Hylla and Thalia led the way over to a chunk of wall just like any of the others. I frowned. "Uh, this is just a wall."
Emily stepped forward and pressed her hand against the wall, her eyes shut. "It's not just a wall," she said. "They're right, this is the Labyrinth entrance." Suddenly, the outline of a door glowed blue in the wall. In the middle of the outline, the wall disappeared. Instead of just looking out over the edge of the mountaintop, like you'd expect to see on the other side of the wall, the doorway opened into a pitch-black corridor made from rough hewn bricks.
"Whoa," Theo said softly.
"Nice one," Matt added to Emily.
Emily shrugged humbly, though I could tell by the look on her face she was pleased with herself. "It was nothing" she said. "If you know what to do, anyone can open it."
I turned back to Thalia and Hylla. Behind them, Celia was walking towards the people guarding Atlas. "Thank you for holding down the fort," I told Thalia and Hylla.
Thalia shrugged. "No problem. Keep yourselves alive, okay?" Easier said than done, I thought darkly.
"Bring us back some enemies to fight," Hylla added.
I chuckled darkly. "I don't think there'll be any problem doing that." I turned back to my friends, who were looking to me to lead this quest. One of them wasn't going to make it, according to my prophecy. I felt panic rising in my throat, but I pushed it down. I couldn't afford to focus on that. I took a deep breath. "Well… here goes nothing." I led the way into the maze. As soon as we all passed the threshold, the wall slammed shut behind us, putting us in total darkness. We were officially in the Labyrinth.
My chest tightened as the reality of the situation set in. We were in the Labyrinth. And so was Gaius. He could be waiting for me just a few feet ahead. Stop it, I thought harshly. You're gonna give yourself a panic attack. I was half-tempted to dig into my backpack and pull out my anxiety meds, but I'd already taken my dose today and Will had been very clear when he'd written my prescription.
"Only one dose every twenty-four hours," he'd said. "And only if you need it. These meds are highly addictive. And remember, they won't solve the problem, only make it easier for you to manage your panic attacks. You really should see a therapist."
I had followed his directions, except for the bit about the therapist. The last thing I needed was to get addicted to my anxiety meds. I did not want to be any weaker than I already was. And while it was true that I'd started taking them every day, it was only because I really couldn't afford to lose my cool at war council meetings or on missions. And I wasn't about to lose my cool on this quest. Jocelyn and Theo may have already known, but I really didn't want Matt and Emily finding out.
Somewhere to my right, Jocelyn said sarcastically, "Man, it would suck if any of us were afraid of the dark."
"Some light would be helpful, though," Matt said, and from the rustling sound coming from the same vicinity of his voice, it sounded like he was digging through his bag for a light.
"I've got it," Emily said. Suddenly a beam of light appeared to my left, temporarily blinding me. I looked around at my friends, who were squinting, trying to adjust to the light. Emily clipped her light to the shoulder strap of her backpack. Matt found his own light and did the same thing. After a couple of minutes, we all had lights clipped to our backpacks.
"Okay, what now?" Theo asked, looking at me.
"Now we hope Emily can tell what way we need to go. So how about it Emily? Do you know how to guide us?"
Emily closed her eyes for a two count. When she opened them again, she nodded firmly. "I know how to guide us. I can sense a powerful source of magic that could only be Pasiphaë's place."
"Lead the way, then," I said, motioning her on.
"Actually, this way is better," she said, turning away from me and starting to walk. I glance at Jocelyn and shrugged, then we set off into the maze.
We'd only been walking for about five minutes when we hit our first snag. From the front of the group, Emily suddenly yelled, "Hit the dirt!"
My friends and I dropped to our stomachs. And not a moment too soon. Metal spikes shot out of the ceiling, halting only inches above our new positions flat on the floor. Dust fell from above us. We were all silent for a moment. After a minute, Emily called back in a shaky voice, "Is everyone okay?"
"Di immortals!" Jocelyn cursed. "A little more warning next time! Or maybe don't lead us down the passage with spikes in the ceiling next time!"
"I'm sorry," Emily said miserably. "I didn't sense the trap until moments before it activated."
"It's okay," Theo said, his voice surprisingly calm. "We're alive, that's what's important."
"Yeah," Matt agreed. "If you hadn't been leading the way, that definitely would've killed us."
"Let's just keep moving," I said, my voice slightly hoarse. "Emily, are we still going the right way?"
"Well I don't know that there's a right way," Emily replied from the front. "But this is the best way to go to get to Pasiphaë." That sounded like the "right way" to me, but I didn't say anything.
Instead, I replied, "Let's get out from under these spikes. Catch our breath."
We army crawled for about ten feet before we could get out from under the spikes. We clambered to our feet, dusting ourselves off. I turned back towards the spikes and tapped them with one finger. The metal pinged softly. "That would've been a nasty way to go," I said lowly.
Theo looked around nervously. "I wonder if there are any more booby trap." Jocelyn and I gave him withering "you're an idiot" looks.
"Of course there are more booby traps!" Jocelyn exclaimed. "This whole maze is a death trap!"
"Oh," Theo said, embarrassed. "Right."
"Hey guys," Matt said, "did anyone else notice that the walls changed?"
I turned, the beam from my flashlight illuminating the wall. Before the spikes, the entire corridor had been made from rough-hewn bricks. Now the walls were made from smooth cement and the floor was dirt. "Weird," I commented. "Emily, any ideas?"
"Well the maze is a magical structure," she said. "I can't be sure, but I'd suspect that the structure reflects whatever it runs beneath."
I nodded. It made sense. "Alright. Well let's keep moving."
Emily turned and led on. We walked quietly for a few moments before Jocelyn spoke up in a poor imitation of Theo's voice, "Gee, I hope we don't run into anything else dangerous. I thought this quest was going to be sunshine and daisies."
I couldn't help but snicker. "Shut up," Theo said, and I could almost hear the blush in his voice. "That doesn't even sound like me."
Over the next hour – or it felt like an hour anyway, but it was hard to tell – we were almost killed by booby traps about fifteen times. Axes swung from the ceiling, poison darts shot at us out of the walls, the ceiling and floor smashed together like a car compactor, and so on, and so on. If you can think of it, there was probably a trap like it. The only reason we were still alive was because of Emily. She'd sense the danger just in time and pull us all to safety. I was glad I'd brought her. We hadn't been in the maze long but she'd proven her worth already. While it was true she couldn't sense the exact layout of the maze, she was not hindered by the maze. At every split path, she knew the exact way to go. I was glad she knew exactly where to go, not only because I wanted to beat Gaius to Pasiphaë but also because I was pretty sure the maze was constantly shifting around us – the constantly changing style of corridor seemed to evidence that.
We went through a passage of cracked and weathered marble, then turned into what looked like a mine shaft. Not long after that, we walked through a hall made of elaborately carved stone, the low ceiling vaulted above us. We passed through a wood-paneled section, sections made of bare stone – we even came across a piece of corridor that looked exactly like a hallway from my high school, lockers and all.
"That locker is a doorway to the surface," Emily said, pointing to a locker numbered thirty-one.
I raised my eyebrows. "You can sense doorways? Do you know where it lets out?"
"Yeah, I can sense doorways," Emily replied. "So can you, if you know what to look for. Do you want me to show you?"
I hesitated a moment. I appreciated the offer, but I didn't think we should be wasting time learning how to spot doors. "Uh… no, it's fine. As long as you know how to spot them, I'm sure it's fine."
Emily shrugged. "Well anyway, no I can't sense exactly where it will let out."
"Probably a school somewhere," Jocelyn commented dryly.
We hadn't run into any signs of life yet; no monsters, no demititans, no mortals who'd wandered down here by accident, no Underworld escapees. But I knew it was only a matter of time.
We were walking down a hallway made entirely from stainless steel when it happened. My foot caught on something stiff and I fell to the floor. I grunted and turned to see what I'd tripped over. When my flashlight beam found it, I had to suppress a girlish scream. My friends had stopped, too, their lights pointed at the same thing, their mouths opened in shock. It was a dead body.
An extremely recent dead body by the looks of it. Like, so recent that he hadn't started to smell. The man was slumped against the wall, blood spattered all around him from deep wound on the side of his neck. I checked to make sure that none had gotten on me, but it had apparently been long enough for the blood to dry.
Shakily, I got to my feet, still looking at the man. He wore a Celestial bronze breastplate and helmet over black military style clothes. A sword lay on his left side. I gulped. "I recognize the uniform. He's a demititan." A wave of panic hit me. If he was a demititan, and so recently dead, then that meant Gaius was close. Calm down, I thought, fruitlessly. If Gaius really is close, you can't afford a panic attack right now.
As if reading my mind, Jocelyn said, "I don't think the rest of the demititans are close, necessarily. I'm no genius when it comes to magical mazes, but I get the feeling that distance is pretty meaningless here. Plus, I'm pretty sure the maze keeps changing around us."
Matt bent down next to the corpse and examined the wound. "I wonder what did this to him."
From down the corridor came high-pitched noises - almost like bats, but much louder. "I think we may be about to find out," Theo said nervously.
I whirled around to Emily who was still staring at the body in shock. I had a lot of sympathy for her. I remembered the horror I'd felt when I'd encountered my first body. Granted, I'd been responsible for that person's death, so part of my horror then had come from that. Still, I understood what Emily was feeling. But there wasn't time to let her process it. The high-pitched, bat-like screeches were getting closer. "Emily, can you lead us someplace better to fight? There's not enough space here." Emily did not move. "Emily!" I snapped.
She blinked like she was coming out of a trance. Her face quickly transformed to serious and determined. "Right. This way!"
We sprinted off down the corridor, the makeup of the walls and floor changing to uneven stone, like a cave. The screeching was getting closer. Emily led us around a corner and we burst into a huge circular room made of stone bricks, the ceiling lost far above, like we were in a well meant for giants. From the sound of it, the screeching monsters were almost upon us. I skidded to a halt in the center of the room and turned to face the passage we'd come from, drawing my sword as I whirled around. My friends did the same, drawing their weapons, lights trained on the entryway we'd come through. Then the monsters burst into the room.
They actually were bats, funny enough, though not like any bats I'd ever seen before. These guys were scaled up vampire bats. And by scaled up, I mean they had a ten foot wingspan. The fangs in their oddly shaped mouths glinted. I slashed into the air as the first bats reached us. Two burst apart, but the swarm was huge. They swirled around us like a whirlwind.
My friends and I fought wildly. To my left, Jocelyn was shooting her pistol rapidly with her right hand, lashing out with her whip using her left hand. On my right, Theo was firing four or five arrows into the air at a time. Matt and Emily had ended up behind me somehow. Matt had transformed his gladius into a lance. A nifty trick. The extra reach was serving him well. Emily, meanwhile, had transformed into an elephant.
Oh yeah, Emily had inherited her family gift and could transform into animals. I didn't mention that? Whoops. Yeah, it was the one power I had known Emily had before I'd visited Camp Jupiter.
Anyway, Emily was trumpeting loudly, swinging her trunk around like a club and spearing bats on her tusks.
I continued to slash bats out of the air whenever they swooped in. They weren't hard to take down, nor were they very intelligent. Their advantage was numbers. They swooped around us, trying to dig their fangs into my friends and I, screeching loudly, their wings buffeting us.
I slashed upward, destroying a bat, but another one was right behind. Jocelyn shot it. I whirled around and sliced the wing off another bat that was swooping down on Theo. Theo fired three arrows, killing a group of bats that were descending on Emily's pachadermal hide. Emily wrapped her trunk around a bat that Matt had missed with his lance and squeezed it to dust. Matt swung around, sweeping his lance through the air and puncturing two bat about to get Jocelyn. In short, our teamwork was amazing.
Finally, the horde of bat monsters started to thin out. I slashed what I thought was the last one out of the air. I panted, exhausted, but pleased with myself and my friends. But that feeling evaporated quickly when Emily the elephant let out a much higher blast. It sounded like she was in pain. I whirled around just in time to see Matt kill a bat that had sunk its fangs into Emily's front right leg. With the bat gone, Emily instantly transformed back to human, crying in pain. Her right arm was soaked in blood.
"Shit," I cursed.
Theo jumped into action. His quiver was back in backpack mode. He dug out his first aid supplied. "Eat this," he told Emily, handing her a square of Ambrosia. Emily did as she was told. Meanwhile, Theo had wrapped the spot where all the blood was coming from in gauze, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
I knelt on Emily's other side and grabbed her hand, a million alarms going off in my head. This was it, Emily was going to die. "Hey, hang in there," I pleaded futilely.
"She's gonna be fine," Theo said calmly to me. He added more gauze. The first layer had already been soaked through with blood. "It's not good, but it'll be okay. I promise." I felt my fear subside. Theo knew what he was talking about when it came to first aid stuff. I let out a deep breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"This is all my fault," Emily grunted. "If I hadn't gotten so distracted by that body, the bats might not have caught us."
"Yeah, they would've," I said. "They were faster than us. This is in no way your fault. In fact, it's only because of you we found such a good place to fight before they did catch up." I glanced over at Matt and Jocelyn, who still had their weapons drawn, keeping watch.
After a couple minutes, Theo said, "Okay, I think I mostly stopped the bleeding. I'm gonna try to clean out the wound now. This will sting a little."
"Okay," Emily said, bracing herself. Theo cast aside the blood soaked gauze. I flinched slightly when I saw the wound. There were two puncture holes just below Emily's elbow, each about an inch in diameter. Theo washed the area with some Nectar and Emily yelped in pain. Theo waited a moment, letting the godly drink sizzle in the wound, killing any bacteria around the site. Then he dabbed away the excess with more gauze. After that, he pulled out even more gauze, carefully placed it over the puncture marks, then pulled out wrapping cloth and wound it tightly around Emily's lower arm.
Theo breathed out slowly as he tied off the wrap and handed Emily a canteen. "Alright, drink this. It's unicorn draught. Doesn't work as quickly as godly food, but it won't incinerate you, and I don't dare risking any more Nectar and Ambrosia on you." As a legacy, she couldn't consume as much as normal half-bloods could.
"Thank you, Theo," Emily said after taking a swig.
Theo nodded. "Now, you lost a lot of blood. The Ambrosia I gave you will help you regenerate it pretty quickly, but it still might take a little while. I wish I could give you more, but like I said, I don't want to risk it. Until your blood cell count gets back to normal, you'll tire more easily and you're going to feel weak. What you need is rest." He looked up at me. "Frankly, we could all probably use some rest."
I'd been thinking the same thing. "Okay, we'll camp here for the night."
"How about no?" Jocelyn said. She and Matt had drifted closer to join the conversation.
I shot her a questioning look. Matt quickly explained. "This room would be a terrible place to camp for the night. There are too many points of entry. We needed the open space to fight those monsters, but this is not a secure enough place to crash for the night."
"Unless we want to sleep one at a time and have the rest of us on guard duty all night," Jocelyn added.
I frowned. That was smart thinking. Why hadn't I thought of what they just said? I was supposed to be the smart one and the quest leader. I was way too messed up to think clearly. Today had been a lot to handle. I looked at Emily. "Do you feel up to leading us someplace better to crash?"
Emily nodded. "Yeah, I can do that." With effort, she stood up. Her dark skin was tinged with green like she'd be sick. Nonetheless, she turned and pointed down one of the passageways connected to the room. "This way," she said. We went down the corridor she pointed to, looking for a place to crash.
AN: Alright, another chapter done and they're FINALLY in the Labyrinth. Also, just a reminder, you can expect the next update on Wednesday.
