Chapter 25: Conquest, Death, Famine and War

As we walked through the tunnels of the Labyrinth, I immediately came to the conclusion: we're lost. I remembered taking three rights and ending up in a completely different place. It gave me a major headache.

"There's no structure to the Labyrinth" Rachel explained after seeing my confusion. "The maze is constantly changing and growing. By the time you drew up a map, it would already be too outdated to use. Annabeth tried, but she conceded the project a fool's folly".

"So then how are we going to get around?"

"Simple" Rachel explained as she focused her attention on the floor. "The tunnels have this glow about them. Depending on what's in them, if it's a dead end or a corridor the place gives off a different vibe you feel me?"

I was going the shake my head no, but everyone looked at me pointedly and nodded their heads. Like a bobble head I did the same.

Rachel crouched onto the ground and picked up a lock of hair. It had a faint stink to it, like the smell of rotten meat. "The Horses came through here recently".

"Here?" Cassidy whimpered as she looked in front of and then behind her. "But we only just got into the tunnels, how can they be so close to camp?"

"Time works differently down in the maze. For all we know it's been a whole day up there, but down here it went by quick. Distance works the same way. For all we know, we could have walked all the way to California by now". I looked at her in disbelief. "Don't look at me like that, I've done it before, went to see Alcatraz for a day trip".

We walked for a half hour, with Rachel occasionally stopping us to walk around a particular boulder or column. It seemed pretty random and pointless at the time. Rachel picked up a pebble and threw it on a stone in front of us, which sank an inch down. A bunch of rusty pikes six feet long jutted out of the floor in an instant before slowly sinking back down into the floor. "Be wary of traps and pitfalls, the Labyrinth can kill you if you're not careful".

Finally, we left the tight corridors and entered a giant, empty room. The walls were supported by humongous, ancient Greek columns carved of marble. Other than the door we walked in through, there were three other doorways. In the middle of the floor someone had laid out a huge mosaic compass with a statue standing at each point.

"The Four Winds" Rachel explained as she slowly walked around them. "The room is safe, but there's something off about these figures".

Maxwell crossed his arms and grumbled, "could be work of the Gods, maybe Hephaestus. Didn't he make metal statues that could walk and kill people?"

"Automatons" Rachel agreed as she eyed the frozen metal statue of Boreas, cast in an odd purple metal and stood on the north point. "They appear to be harmless enough. However, it would be prudent to leave them be".

Shayla yawned in a bored way as she skipped around the statues. "Any sign of a horse? Oh all-seeing source?" She rhymed as she twiddled away a few notes on her lyre.

"Since when did you get into rhyming?" I asked scratching my head in confusion.

She shrugged her shoulders as she replied, "I'm a poet. And I didn't even know it".

"Lame!" Maxwell cried out. "Save the bad rhymes for your Dad kid. Though the pipsqueak has a point. You see where the Horses went Rachel?"

Rachel slowly spun around, looking at each of the doorways. She looked a bit stumped. "That's the tricky bit. It looks like the horses have gone through all four of the tunnels. Can't really tell when…"

"I can" Cassidy interrupted. "Look" she added in a shaky voice as she pointed down one of the tunnels.

A distant neigh rang out from the darkness. Not long after, the faint glow of a candle sputtered into life. The little flame grew into a raging fire as it came barreling toward us. This was no fire; it was a horse. A tall one with burning red eyes and a blazing mane. Its fur coat glowed with a white hot intensity as it bared its sharp canines. Do horses even have canines usually?

Then the cantor of another horse came crashing toward us from the southern tunnel we entered from. It burned just like the first, but its fur had a sickly yellow-green glow to it, like the color of expired meatloaf.

A third horse shot out of the east entrance. Its body glowed like an ultraviolet light with a black body and a dull, flickering halo of deep red flames. Its eyes glared at us like polished garnet as it snorted at us.

And before we had a chance to make a retreat out the west tunnel, a final horse came clip clopping toward us. Its entire body burned red like a dying sunset and its eyes like a pair of simmering charcoals. Its sharp teeth shined in the horses' combined light; as they slowly approached; starting to circle us and go inwards.

Maxwell reached behind him and pulled out a bronze double sided axe. Its head glinted in the fiery light, but the horses barely even noticed it as they fearlessly got closer. "We can take them, five against four" Maxwell harshly whispered as he held his weapon in a bone-white grip.

"Good luck with that" Cassidy replied as she shied away from the horses and hid behind me.

"Coward" Maxwell hissed as his weapon shook slightly in his grip but he stood firm.

"Any weaknesses Rach?" I asked the oracle as her flame red hair glowed in the light.

Rachel whispered, "water".

Immediately all four horses reared up and neighed nervously as they eyed Rachel. Afraid of water huh? Well they sure messed with the wrong guy. I walked away from my friends; leaving them in the middle of the room. The Four Horses of Diomedes clumped together and watched nervously as I approached. "Hi guys, how are you doing?"

The horses licked their lips and shined their teeth as they stared at me. Hungry! They all called out together in my head.

Gods I didn't need to hear that. "We've come to take you nice horses back to your ranch. Your owner's been worried about you guys".

The horses neighed angrily as they stamped their feet. Worried? He is glad to be rid of us, and we of him. He never fed us enough. The lady on the chariot pulled by the felines freed us. If he would only have stepped into our pen, we would have been happy and never left.

"You guys are man-eating horses, I'm not sure he trusts you to leave him alone".

"Nay, we would leave him alone. After we had a morsel here. A leg there. Maybe after we picked his bones clean. Forget the old demigod, here are tender morsels brothers. The horses neighed excitedly as they readied to charge us.

"Uh Uh! I wouldn't do that" I warned them. "Don't you know who I am?"

Dinner!

"Alex Conecke, half-blood and Son of Poseidon". They faltered their charge as the stared at me in terror. "And you're a bunch of smelly horses who need a bath".

BATH! All four cried in panic as they reared up on their legs and went off running in all directions. I spun around, trying to keep track of them, but they raced about, leaving me spinning and dazed with whiplash, trying to keep track of them. One of the horses brushed against the statue of Boreas and caused it to shift over.

"No!" Rachel cried out, too late.

The statue's mouth gaped wide open and all at once; a mighty wind exploded from it. Rachel went flying through the air, crashed into me, before forcing us into the wall which gave way to a secret passage and we dropped down into the dark.

Meanwhile, the other three statues turned to face toward the others and the horses. Zephyr, standing on the west point, let out a stomach-curdling wail as he sent Cassidy and Maxwell flying into another false wall and down into a black hole.

Notos, standing on the southern point, faced Shayla and gave a weak huff and sent the little girl wildly spinning off into a tunnel which then closed behind her.

Eurus merely glared at the horses before they cantered down one of the open tunnels; completely overwhelmed with fright.