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Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame

Chapter Fourteen

I tried to think positive, because I read somewhere that it's important to do that at times of stress and frustration.

Whoever wrote that was probably selling something.

–Jim Butcher, 'Proven Guilty'

The sun had set by the time we got back to camp.

It took time to get off Olympus. I had to go back to the Library to wake Jane and Annabeth. Then we'd gone to report to Athena, who hadn't exactly been amused by how events had unfolded. The goddess didn't seem surprised, but she sure wasn't happy, either.

"This may be a grave mistake," she muttered, glaring at Annabeth, who looked like she just wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. "If the Rheans invoke the ritual, the consequences will be severe."

She made a few more grave pronouncements before sending us off with an air of disapproval. It seemed to me, though, that Athena wasn't anywhere near as annoyed as one would expect. Something told me that she'd suspected all along that our plan would fail drastically, but for some inexplicable reason she'd said nothing.

After that, we'd headed back through Olympus, to the elevator. Annabeth made her way along wearily: the things she'd been able to do in the Library had cost her a lot more energy than I'd expected.

"I had a feeling this would happen," she murmured, as we shuffled down the sky-bridge. "Percy always gets exhausted if he pulls too many stunts in the water."

Jane was unsteady, too, though for different reasons. She was still shaky from being knocked out by Wilson, but I thought she seemed frustrated, too, as though she was annoyed that someone could defeat her using the very shadows she wielded. Her power had been growing, after all, and to be so easily defeated would inevitably wound her pride.

Somehow, when we got down to Fifth Avenue, Argus was already waiting for us in the camp bus. None of us bothered to ask him how he'd known to be there.

The drive back to camp was not exactly what one could call cheerful. None of us even spoke until we'd gotten out of New York City. Annabeth looked too tired to try to talk, Jane was busy brooding and yawning, and I was occupied with my own reflections.

Throughout our journey, I became increasingly and pressingly aware that all this could be very easily blamed on me. After all, it had been my idea to retrieve the ritual in the first place. Then again, what other option had we had? Even if we weren't going to give Tartarus a fake copy of the ritual, surely we would have had to move the thing to make sure he didn't get his shadowy hands on it…

But that didn't matter. The important issue now was going to be who had first put this idea forward - and that was me.

Finally, as our surroundings became decreasingly urban, Jane asked glumly, "So what happens now?"

No-one replied for a long moment, but eventually Annabeth replied, from her seat across from us, "I don't know."

That alone was enough to prove the morbidity of our situation. Annabeth Chase, the daughter of Athena, was telling us that she simply didn't know what was coming. The apocalypse was not necessarily around the corner, but any hope of a happy ending seemed to be quickly spiralling into the abyss.

We said little more for the rest of the journey. None of us really felt like talking, and anyway, we all knew that there'd be a post-mortem camp council held as soon as we arrived. We could save the discussions until then.

The light was slowly fading as we drove along. I couldn't help seeing a kind of morbid symbolism in the way the gentle gloom of dusk settled around us as we returned to announce how badly things had gone. The fall of night was similar to Wilson and Xavier's escape: quiet, calm, almost unnoticeable, but nonetheless undeniable.

I didn't even notice that we were nearing camp until we were right at the foot of the hill. We got off the bus, and made our way up the slope. Peleus, the dragon that guarded the Fleece, glanced up at us half-heartedly, before settling back down to his rest. Gradually, the lights of camp slipped into view below us.

Without speaking, we all paused at the top of the hill to look down upon this sanctuary of heroes.

"It's all so peaceful," Jane murmured, her arms folded against the chill in the night air. "I wonder if it's going to stay that way."

Annabeth cast a sidelong, bemused glance at her.

"Oh, don't worry," she said drily, starting down the hill. "We'll figure something out. We always do. The only variable is the number of things that get blown up in the process."

We found Chiron on the Big House porch, and the first thing he did upon seeing us was gallop away into camp.

"Uh," I said, as we stood on the porch steps, watching him vanish off towards the cabins. "Did he hear what happened already? Is he getting out of the way of Zeus' lightning strikes?"

"I doubt it," Annabeth murmured, leaning on the wooden fencing. "Maybe he went looking for Rachel?"

We must have looked pretty terrible, because Chiron had actually gone to get a healer. The centaur cantered back to us in no time, bearing one of the older Apollo kids on his back.

"You can tell me what happened later," Chiron said urgently, as he stopped alongside us. "We'll get you checked up first."

Owen was a bright-eyed, tufty-haired son of Apollo who looked like he'd be a lot more comfortable at a rock concert than in a medical bay. I felt glad I didn't need surgery or something, because I found it pretty hard to believe that this guy was one of camp's top healers.

"Wow, you look awful," he told Annabeth reassuringly, as he dismounted from Chiron. "I haven't seen someone this exhausted since Nico shadow-travelled to Siberia."

Annabeth muttered something indistinctly uncomplimentary, as Owen looked her up and down. He murmured a few Ancient Greek words, and frowned as he passed his hand to and fro around Annabeth's head. To the naked eye, he looked ridiculous, but the rippling in the son of Apollo's gold aura showed me that he was drawing on his power.

"You need to rest," he said, more seriously than before. "I don't know how you haven't collapsed before now. Your spiritual energy is almost totally drained." He glanced at me only briefly, before turning to Jane and examining her in the same way.

"Someone hit you pretty hard, your system clearly suffered energic trauma," Owen told her, raising an eyebrow. "But you're not physically injured…? This is unusual. You need to rest, that's the main thing. I'll take them to the infirmary," he said to Chiron. "They'll be mostly fine by lunchtime tomorrow."

The centaur nodded, looking a little relieved as Owen led the two drooping half-bloods into the Big House.

Chiron turned to me then, and I felt a deep sinking sensation in my stomach. It was up to me, then, to tell the story. Maybe that was only fair.

"I assume," the centaur said wearily, rubbing his brow, "that you didn't retrieve the ritual?"

I shook my head, as apologetically as I could manage.

Chiron sighed, and glanced back out across camp. His expression was hard to read, but the look in his eyes showed deep tiredness, the weariness of an eons-old struggle. The trainer of heroes was old, of course - he was ancient, but he didn't usually look it. Now, though, his aged gaze seemed to ask of the universe, how much more?

"I'll call a council," he said finally, looking back at me, somehow with no anger in his manner. "Can you wait here, Cyrus?"

I nodded, and moved to sit in the porch, while Chiron trotted off once again.

It took another half-hour to assemble the camp counsellors in the rec room. All the important half-bloods turned up, although Rachel and a few of the minor cabin representatives didn't come. Annabeth and Jane weren't there either, of course, and so - as if my day hadn't sucked enough already - Zack Walker was in attendance, as second-in-command of the Athena cabin.

Chiron made me stand next to him at the top of the table, so that everyone could see me clearly when I gave my account. The half-bloods kept glancing at me curiously as they assembled, looking around the room, no doubt wondering where Annabeth was.

It occurred to me, as I watched them group around the ping-pong table, that I was the last person who should be telling them this story. The first person you blame when you hear bad news is often the person you hear it from, and I'd be getting blame enough even without that.

(I wondered if Chiron had a crash helmet I could borrow, in case a couple of the more hotheaded campers decided that the fate of the West depended upon putting my head through the wall.)

Finally, as that sense of dread settled on me like a cloak of lead, Chiron called the council to order.

"You will be wondering why Jane and Annabeth couldn't attend this meeting," he began. Conversations quickly ceased around the room as everyone's attention focussed upon the centaur. "They both sustained slight injuries during the attempt to obtain the Ritual of the Pit from Olympus Library, and are now resting in the infirmary."

Disconcerted whispers passed from half-blood to half-blood. Some of them, like Percy and Alice, looked disconcerted for Annabeth, while others, like Zack and Clarisse, looked rather disturbed by Chiron's use of the word "attempt".

"Cyrus here was also on the mission, as you know," Chiron went on, with the air of one about to do something unpleasant. "I haven't yet heard what happened on Olympus, so he will now tell us what occurred."

Focus quickly shifted onto me. I wondered what they were all thinking about me in that moment - and what they'd be thinking by the time they knew the whole truth.

I took a deep breath and, trying to avoid looking any particular half-blood in the eye, I recounted our little day-trip to Olympus.

No-one had been talking even before I'd begun, but as I told what had happened, the room seemed to grow quieter and quieter. At first many people were only vaguely interested, but when I got to the part about Wilson's sudden arrival (leaving out my discovery of the prophecy), everyone became intensely concentrated upon my story.

"How could he have gotten in, without any clearance?" Zack demanded, his eyebrows raised in angry confusion. "That's impossible."

I explained that Annabeth had forgotten to shut the door, and Wilson had entered before she'd gone back to close it. As I said that, Chiron sighed heavily and suddenly. I paused, glancing at him, but he waved at me to go on.

In the briefest possible terms, I ran through the rest of what had happened. No-one spoke, not even as I explained how Xavier and Wilson had ambushed and overcome us, and how they'd ultimately both escaped. I fell silent as I finished telling of how Wilson had managed to shadow-travel away.

The silence in the room was deafening, and literally everyone seemed to be staring at me. I met no-one's eyes, but pretended to be fascinated by the handle of the ping-pong bat that sat on the table in front of me.

"Thank you, Cyrus," Chiron said, his voice low and full of weariness. "Well, I understand now what happened. I fear that we have made a grave error."

"What do you mean?" Percy asked, folding his arms. The son of Poseidon looked more at his ease now, since I'd explained that Annabeth had not been badly hurt. The imminent apocalypse didn't seem to particularly worry him. I guess he was too experienced with such things to be easily fazed.

Chiron passed a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes and brow, as though he could brush away the emotions and troubles that so obviously pressed on him.

"We were tricked," he said flatly, looking quickly from face to face. "The son of Chaos gave us an ultimatum, and we believed that we'd found a way to work around his threat. In truth, we did exactly what he wanted us to do."

I frowned, not understanding, but Zack seemed to get it.

"We opened the door to the Library," he said slowly.

"That's right," Chiron nodded at him. "The son of Chaos knew that we would not simply hand him the ritual, but he also knew that we would have no choice but to go to retrieve it from Olympus Library. There was no way he or any of his minions could enter the archives by themselves, but if one of us were to enter Olympus and open the Library door, it would provide the perfect cover for one of his servants - or, as it turned out, some other agent - to slip in and snatch away the book."

"That makes sense," said Alice Evans suddenly. She'd been standing back from the table, watching, and only now stepped forwards. "The gods would normally be on the watch for intruders, but if a few demigods are coming into Olympus, they wouldn't notice if one or two other people came along behind them."

"So it was all a trick," Zack said darkly, tapping his fingers on the table. "We thought we were outmanoeuvring Tartar— the son of Chaos, but all along he was actually manoeuvring us."

There was a pause as we digested this. It made a lot of sense to me, and it made me feel awfully stupid. It was so obvious now, so clear, I felt that I should have seen it myself. Tartarus was turning out to be a far more skilful player of the game than I'd expected, and I felt just plain dumb for underestimating him so much.

"There's just one thing I don't get," Percy said, frowning. "I thought Jake and Xavier are working for Rhea? Why would they be trying to steal the ritual? It doesn't make sense."

Everyone looked to Chiron, who spread his hands before him.

"Most likely, the Rheans are cooperating more closely with the son of Chaos than we realised," he said. "Or perhaps they seek the ritual for their own reasons, and the son of Chaos is allowing them to proceed because their actions will benefit him. It doesn't really matter. Either way, the ritual is gone."

"That's exactly right," Zack said, overly loudly. I looked at him, frowning. His aura was churning angrily about him, and his expression was thunderous. The son of Athena had worked up a head of steam - a literal one, looking at his aura.

"And I have a couple of other questions," he went on, folding his arms and glaring around. "Firstly, how in the name of Zeus Almighty was Jake Wilson able to escape so easily from Olympus?"

"I told you," I answered, before anyone else could speak. "He shadow-travelled."

"He shadow-travelled," Zack echoed, his tone acidic. "And how did he do that, when it's impossible for anyone other than Hades to shadow-travel on or off Olympus?"

"Cyrus said that the son of Erebus stepped off the Olympus mountaintop," Chiron interjected. "The anti-umbrakinesis enchantments only cover the mountain itself, so it is technically possible to shadow-travel in the area just outside of those protections. It would take a great deal of power, but clearly Jake has gained it."

I only half-listened to Chiron, because I was looking at Zack. The son of Athena was rearing to say something else, but he was holding himself back until the centaur had finished. He wasn't really interested in how Wilson had escaped - he was just getting ready to launch into a line of attack. His grey eyes flickered over to me every now and then, and I had a feeling that I knew what he was about to say.

"There's another issue here," Zack said, a tiny moment after Chiron finished. "The fact is, Cyrus, you made a very poor choice in deciding to pursue Jake Wilson rather than the Rhean."

I met his gaze, and tried not to scowl.

"I assumed that someone on Olympus would spot Xavier and stop him. It seemed highly probable to me that he had triggered security measures by taking the book out of the Library," I said formally, trying to keep my tone even. "With that in mind, I decided that it would be better to capture Wilson as well."

"But you didn't capture him, and no-one stopped Xavier," Zack replied promptly - perhaps triumphantly. "I don't question your motives, but I believe your judgement is unavoidably under question, given what has occurred."

I looked away from him, and frowned down at the ping-pong table. I knew, of course, that I hadn't made the smartest choice, but I didn't like that Zack was making all this about me. We needed to be talking about solutions, not looking for people to blame. The problem wasn't that I'd gone after the wrong guy - it was that we'd been tricked and manipulated.

No-one was saying anything, I realised, and for a moment I became intensely aware of how I was the only mortal in the room. Everyone here, they were all part of the world of the gods, they all had skills and powers and strengths that helped them cope, helped them do the right things and make those snap decisions which could mean so much. It wasn't so much the result of my choice that was the question.

It was the way it proved that I wasn't as capable as a half-blood in these urgent, split-second situations.

After a pause, I looked up at Zack.

"I made the decision which I believed to be the right one," I said quietly. "It was a fast-moving situation, and I didn't exactly have time to sit down and draw out a battle plan."

I held Zack's gaze, and he mine, for a long moment. I refused to turn away, but stared into his grey, chilly eyes and mentally dared him to push me further.

"In any case," Chiron said abruptly, making both of us turn to him quickly, "the ritual is now gone. This situation can thus take four courses. One, the Rheans do nothing."

No-one even replied to that, clearly dismissing it as a possibility. Several people laughed, and Alice cocked her head to one side as if to say, really?

"Two, they destroy the ritual," Chiron ploughed on. He seemed anxious to move things out of the realm of argument. "It is possible that they seized the ritual so as to stop the son of Chaos from obtaining it. They do not trust the gods to respond appropriately to the son of Chaos' threat, and perhaps they decided to take the matter into their own hands."

He paused, letting us take that in. I thought it sounded like a strong possibility, and the more optimistic expressions spreading from half-blood to half-blood showed that they agreed. It would certainly explain the mysterious argument Xavier and Chiron had had just before we'd left camp.

"Problem with that," said Leo Valdez, Hephaestus counsellor. "If they really wanted to destroy it, Xavier wouldn't have been so careful to get away safely with the damn thing. He would have burnt it on the spot."

That was frustratingly realistic. I thought of the zeal with which the Rhean priest had fled with the tome. If he'd wanted to destroy the book, he would have put that energy into doing so immediately. He had the power, after all: he'd managed to take down Annabeth with his magic.

"Option three," Chiron went on. I got the feeling that he was leading up to what he really thought was going to happen. "The Rheans hand the ritual over to the son of Chaos."

I frowned. That sure could be true, but it didn't quite fit…

"Can't be," Clarisse said firmly, leaning with one hand on the table. "They wouldn't gain a real advantage from doing that. Tartar— the son of Chaos probably isn't someone to keep promises. As soon as he gains enough power, he'd crush them."

"Exactly," the centaur nodded, looking at her approvingly. "That leaves one final possibility."

We all watched him, waiting for him to say the words, but we all knew what the possibility was. We all knew what was going to happen.

Chiron took a deep breath, and then said, "The fourth option is that the Rheans perform the ritual."

The silence in the room turned icy cold. This was the danger we'd all been thinking about, but hearing it said aloud seemed to make it more present, more real. For a moment, I felt like Tartarus was in the room, standing next to each one of us, resting an ethereal hand of darkness upon our shoulders.

"They will not perform the ritual exactly," Chiron added quickly. "They will alter the magic a little, so that they summon the son of Chaos only partially. That gives them control of the situation. It gives them power."

"How?" Percy asked. His role in the meeting always seemed to be the guy asking questions.

"If you summon something, it is compelled to obey you," the centaur replied. "That's simply how the magic works. The act of invocation binds the entity to the invoker. However, many entities are powerful enough to break through that kind of bond. Thus, the Rheans will summon the son of Chaos, but they will control the ritual to ensure that he does not become sufficiently empowered to break their control."

There was a brief pause as everyone took that in. That had been a lot of words, which some of the less bookish demigods had trouble absorbing. Percy, for instance, initially frowned in kelpish confusion, but his look of puzzlement gradually dissolved into comprehension.

"But why?" he said suddenly, raising his eyebrows. "Why would they do that? What do they get out of it?"

It was Zack who answered that one.

"Disruption," he said, leaning forward. "The Rheans can use the son of Chaos to disrupt the gods. Rhea and her minions want to overturn Olympus. If they summon the ancient personification of shadows and bind him to their control, they have the perfect weapon to unsettle the gods and shake them from their thrones."

With a chill, I thought of the lines from the prontos profiteia: Only when the shadows themselves rise and fight,/Will Olympus fall to a truly dark night.

"So what do we do?" Alice asked, looking rather depressed, though that wasn't exactly unusual for the foresightful daughter of Apollo. "They have the ritual. We have no idea where they are. They probably have myriad hideouts and sanctuaries. I don't suppose, Chiron, you got a map of all the Rhean refuges in the country when you were negotiating with them?"

The ancient centaur shook his head, a little glumly. "No," he said. "I didn't. Our only option is to try to determine where they might perform the rite, and go there to stop them. Generally, ceremonies of this sort can only be performed at specific locations, and these places are named in the rite's instructions. Did any of you get a look at the text of the ritual?" he asked me.

I thought back.

"Yes!" I said, nodding, feeling less miserable. "Annabeth read at least some of it."

"Good," Chiron said, also looking a touch more hopeful. "Tomorrow we can talk to her properly. Let's hope being knocked out didn't affect her memory too badly."

He shrugged, and clapped his hands together.

"And until then?" Zack asked, darkly. "What do we do, until we know where to go?"

Chiron smiled ruefully, as he looked back at the son of Athena.

"What else?" the trainer of heroes said drily. "We wait."