Author's Note: I just now realised that I forgot to update last week. I had the chapter uploaded and everything, but I forgot to put it up… Sorry about that, although I'm not sure if anyone noticed. XD Anyway, here's two for the price of one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.


Piece of Darkness II - Gambit


Chapter Twelve


"Really," said Gaspode. "Nothing good starts with 'I need your help'."

Terry Pratchett, 'The Fifth Elephant'


After about two seconds of falling, a cold wind gusted around me and the shadows rippled. I felt solid ground forming beneath my feet. I blinked, and the darkness began to ebb away.

I looked around. I was no longer in a dark, dank cave, no longer trapped amongst shadows that seemed to live. I was standing in a large but cosy room - a fire blazed in a grate in front of me, and there were deep armchairs on either side of me.

Sitting in those armchairs were Nico di Angelo and Alice Evans.

"Cyrus!" Nico cried, his tone a combination of surprise and delight, as he rose to his feet.

The son of Hades seemed to be uninjured, but he was clearly exhausted. His aura was dull and drained and his normally active eyes were dimmed by fatigue. I wondered if I looked equally worn-out.

"Where am I?" I asked him, glancing around. The room was oddly cosy, and I couldn't help but question if I was still in the Underworld. With its wooden furnishings, large fire and towering bookcases, the room looked more like a comfortable Victorian library than something you'd find in the Land of the Dead.

"This is my father's study," Nico told me, scratching the back of his head. "I'm not sure, but I think this is where everyone who completed the maze gets dropped off."

I looked around at Alice, who had also risen to her feet, admittedly with a more reserved air than Nico. She smiled as I met her eyes, and said, "So well done! You made it through."

I nodded vaguely. A wave of tiredness hit me, and I cast around for a chair to collapse into. Sure enough, there was one in between Nico's and Alice's. I fell into it unceremoniously, and sat in comfortable silence for a long moment. My body wasn't especially tired, but my mind was exhausted - I felt as though I'd had ten long, complicated, life-or-death chess matches in one day.

"Wait, where are the others?" I said, only now realising that they were absent.

"I don't know," Nico said, drawing his knees up to his chest in the chair to my right. "I really have no idea."

"Do you have any premonitions or anything?" I asked Alice, who was standing, gazing into the fire pensively.

"No," she said softly, not looking around. "To be honest, I'm too drained after the maze to predict anything."

The daughter of Apollo did indeed look deeply tired, even more so than Nico, who was busy yawning. I glanced back and forth between her and him. I was not at all surprised that Nico had made it through the course, but I'd been expecting Jane or Annabeth, or both, to have made it through. Indeed, I hadn't really anticipated Alice getting through it successfully. Clearly, she was a lot more formidable than I'd realised.

After resting for several minutes more, I turned to Nico and asked, in a slightly concerned tone of voice, "So what happens now?"

"I don't know," he repeated. "All my insider info was about the nature of the course. I heard nothing about the aftermath."

"The course," I echoed, slightly hollowly. "That was one tough challenge."

Nico shrugged nonchalantly. "It wasn't that bad. I've faced worse."

"How did you manage to get through it, Alice?" I asked, unable to stop myself. I was curious to know how tough she actually was.

"My foresight was the key," the daughter of Apollo replied, finally sitting back down. "It gave me a hint for the first task, and just before I entered the second task I had a premonition that Phrice was going to attack. That made dealing with her horror a lot easier."

"Her?" I said flatly. "That awful creature actually has a gender?"

"Hey, don't be too hard on her," Nico said chidingly. "It's not her fault she was born to be a physical manifestation of pure horror."

I was tempted to make the point that anything that tried to drive me insane with fear and horror was not really deserving of friendly treatment, but I recalled Kevin's advice about tact, and so kept my mouth tightly shut.

"The third task was the hardest," Alice went on, rubbing her brow. "I got only a very, very small look into the near future, but it was just enough for me to realise what I had to do."

I shuddered as I thought again of the abyss. I had never, in all my life, felt so confused or alone. It had made Phrice's horror seem almost tame.

"How did you get on?" Alice asked me. She met my eyes, and once again I caught that hint of uneasy surprise, surprise which seemed to be very slowly turning into a kind of fear.

"It was okay," I said, looking away. "The first task wasn't too hard, just a bit frustrating. It took me a while to understand what was going on in the second one, but once I got it I didn't have too much trouble. For me, too, the third task was the hardest. What about you?" I asked Nico.

"I shadow-travelled through most of it," he said. I resisted the urge to turf him out of his chair. Damn demigods and their godly-parent-given ability to cheat. "I actually shadow-travelled right past the first one, and I've met Phrice before so I know her MO. The third one really caught me out, though."

"How so?"

"I kept shadow-traveling across the gulf," Nico explained. "Then I walked down the tunnel, but kept ending up at the same point, on top of that pillar. That happened about ten times before I noticed the hint carved in the ceiling."

As I listened to Nico's and Alice's accounts of their journey, I began to feel quite good about myself. They had made it through largely because of their half-blood powers, but I had gotten through using only my ingenuity and my sight. That was certainly a big boost to my self-confidence.

The sound of a door creaking open made us all jump. I twisted around in my chair to see that a wooden door on the other side of the room had just been opened by none other than the Lord of the Dead himself.

Nico and Alice also turned around, but as Hades closed the door and walked slowly over to the fireplace, he didn't meet our eyes. It was only when he was standing in front of the three of us that he spoke.

"Congratulations to you all," Hades said, gazing at each one of us in turn. "You have successfully navigated a difficult course of shadows, proving your skill and power. For this, you deserve the highest honour."

He inclined his head towards us. I was feeling a little too buoyed up by my success, and said, rather bluntly, "Where are the others?"

Nico gave me an annoyed glance, and Hades' jaw clenched.

"They are safe," he assured me, his tone a little less cordial. "They were sent directly back to their rooms and will return to camp very soon."

I began to feel slightly nervous. The way Hades said that made it sound like Nico, Alice and I would not be returning to camp for some time yet.

"So… what now?" Nico said, after a long pause.

Hades sighed, and clapped his hands. Our armchairs slid a few feet backwards, and a new armchair appeared in front of us. The god sat down in it, facing us. I eyed him warily. He seemed worried, perhaps almost nervous. This didn't really put me at my ease. What, I wondered, could make a god nervous?

"I told you that there would be a prize," Hades said, not meeting any of our inquisitive gazes. "But the truth is that there is no real prize. This entire Shadow Games has been, effectively, a selection procedure."

Our stunned silence was broken only by Alice's rather angry, "What?"

"I have a job for you all," the god said briskly, now looking at us, but focussing more on Nico. He seemed to find it easier to relate to his son than to anyone else. "It is something dangerous, something that requires a particular combination of abilities and skills."

"That's what the maze was for," Nico said in realisation. "It was testing whether we have what you need."

"Exactly," Hades nodded. "I could not simply send out a rag-tag group of demigods on this mission. It's too important."

"Then what is it?" Alice asked, leaning forward. "What's the mission?"

Hades sighed again, and didn't reply for a long while. As I watched him prepare to reveal the truth, it struck me how human he looked. His aura had contracted, the air of godly bombast which he'd had when I'd first seen him was mostly gone and the intensity of his dark eyes had cooled. Now, Hades was nothing more than a man with an unpleasant task which he had no choice but to perform.

"The Underworld is a vast place," he said finally. "It stretches out for many, many thousands of miles. Eventually, the Fields of Asphodel and Punishment run out. There is, after all, a finite number of spirits. When they end, the Fields of Silence begin."

He paused again. None of us spoke.

"The Fields of Silence are empty," the god went on. "Completely empty, devoid of anything except hard, stony ground. No one goes there because there is no reason to do so. The Fields of Asphodel and Punishment gradually expand into this empty area, but even now, after eons of people pouring into the Underworld, there are still vast areas which remain empty and bare."

I glanced at Nico and Alice. The son of Hades was frowning, but looked interested, while the daughter of Apollo looked a little bored.

"But even the Fields of Silence run out eventually," Hades continued, his tone growing darker. "When they reach their end, there is nothing."

"Nothing at all?" Nico said, taken aback.

"Well, not quite nothing," Hades amended. "For, beyond the Fields of Silence, there lies a dark and terrible place - the one place in this world to which no god or spirit, not even I, dares to go."

"What place is that?" Nico asked immediately.

"It has many names," the god replied, crossing and uncrossing his legs restlessly. His aura had also become restless and uneasy. "The ancient Greeks might have referred to it as the furthest edge of the cosmos. Some of the more dramatic minor spirits may call it the end of the world. Some others - perhaps those who are part of a different pantheon - would call it a place of pure chaos. Its true name, however, is far less dramatic and far more accurate."

"And that name is?" Alice asked, growing impatient.

Luckily for her continued existence, Hades was too wrapped up in his ominous exposition to pay any heed to her lack of respect. Quietly, as though he feared that saying the name too loudly would instantly transport him to this mysterious place, the god murmured, "The Edge of the West."

"The what?" I said automatically, feeling somewhat let down by this anticlimactic name. I glanced at Nico, but even he looked bewildered.

"The Edge of the West," Hades repeated unhelpfully. He crossed his arms and glared at us. "You can be as flippant as you wish, but this is a truly dangerous place. It is called the Edge of the West because that is what it is. It is the outer edge of what you would call Western Civilisation. To put it in more exact terms, it marks the limit of Olympian power. Beyond the Edge, we gods have no power, and at the Edge we are weaker than we are anywhere else in the universe. Some even say that the Edge of the West is the one place where a god can be truly killed."

None of us replied, but just sat in a confused silence. I didn't know what to make of what I was hearing. In a way it made sense, but I couldn't get my head around the fact that I'd never heard about any of this before.

"I've never heard about any of this before," I said. "Why isn't this in the mythology books? Surely the Ancient Greeks knew about it?"

"Do you really think that the gods are going to let everyone understand the limits and threats to their divine power?" Hades said to me in a tone tinged with scorn. "We gods are a proud race. If there is even a chance that we can be killed at the Edge, don't you think we'd do everything in our power to keep that secret?"

"Then… why are you telling us?" I said, the obvious question springing immediately to my lips.

Hades sighed darkly, as though I'd reminded him of something unpleasant. He made as if to stand up, but changed his mind and leaned back in his chair.

"Because," he said slowly, "I need the three of you to go there."

The three of us stared at him with expressions of horror and disbelief.

"Now, hold on. Let me get this straight," Nico said, holding up his right forefinger and raising his eyebrows. "You want us to go to the one place on Earth that is truly dangerous to the gods - to the single most secret and ominous area in the western world?"

"That's right," Hades nodded.

"Why?" Nico said softly.

"Because there is something going on out there," the god answered, sitting up straighter. "Spirits are vanishing from my realm - they have been for years now and I had no idea why. It was only a few weeks ago that I realised the Edge could be the answer. I sent Charon into the Fields of Silence, and he said that ghosts were being sucked across the Fields - towards the Edge. He refused to go further, to go to the Edge to find out what's happening out there. Then I knew what I had to do."

"You knew you needed half-bloods," Alice said.

"Exactly," Hades said. "The Edge of the West is incredibly dangerous to us immortals, but those with partial," he glanced at me warily, "or full mortal blood can travel there safely. Despite that, it is still a dangerous place, so I had to carefully choose who to send out there."

"And that's why you held the Shadow Games," I said, comprehension dawning. "To select the perfect team."

Hades nodded, and fell silent, surveying us thoughtfully. I looked at Alice, Alice looked at Nico, and Nico stared at the floor. We all knew that any expedition to anywhere in the Underworld would be led by the son of Hades, so it was down to him to take the lead.

For probably the hundred-thousandth time, I thanked Fate that I wasn't the child of a god.

"If we're going out there," Nico said finally. "I need to know more about what we're getting into. How do you even know so much about the place, anyway? I'm guessing the gods aren't exactly queuing up to go out there."

"That's true," Hades conceded. (I could've sworn I saw a hint of a smile on his face.) "Most of what we know comes from Prometheus, who went out there to hide from the gods. It was the perfect hiding place, but he felt his power slowly eroding the longer he stayed there, and he strayed back into the Underworld. One or two demigods have also gone there - Hercules went there for a bet—"

"As you do," Alice muttered.

"—and a son of Erebus once ended up there when an attempt to shadow-travel to another planet went drastically wrong. I have gone deep into the Fields of Silence, and even from a distance I could feel the drain on my power."

Nico pushed his chair back and stood up. He started pacing around the room, and I noticed that his fists were tightly clenched. His aura was trembling and his shoulders were tense.

"Does the Edge occur in just one spot?" he asked.

"No," Hades replied, in a slightly placatory tone. Perhaps the god had spotted what was clear to me - Nico was angry. "It encircles the entirety of the Underworld. However, its deeply metaphysical nature means that its physical existence is a mere manifestation."

Nico was silent for a long moment. His pacing grew slower and slower, and finally he stopped, now standing with his back to us.

"Before you send us out on this suicide mission," he said coldly, "will you tell us what you think is out there?"

I braced myself, sure that Hades was going to engulf us all in a blaze of hellfire. To my surprise, he did not - the god looked deeply annoyed, but for some reason he held himself back.

"I don't know what's out there," he said, his tone as chilly as that of his son's. "Your job is to find out."

I prayed - though I'm not sure to whom - that Nico would calm down and stop making Hades mad. After all the effort it had taken me to get through that stupid maze, I really didn't want my life to be snuffed out by an antagonised god.

"And how do I know that we'll even return?" Nico said, with a touch of angry desperation. He turned around and glared at his father. "How do I know that whatever's out there, whatever's sucking the spirits out of your reach, won't kill us?"

Hades looked back at him for a long moment with an enigmatic expression upon his face. Finally, he spoke.

"You don't know," Hades murmured. "Neither do I. No-one does. But something strange is going on out at the Edge, something that could have consequences for all of us, and I don't have anyone else whom I can trust or even ask to do this. I will not stop you if you choose to walk away from this, Nico, but if you do, you will know that you have walked away from your father at the one moment when he truly needed your help."