The Alexander Chronicles
Book I: Greece
Part Four: Operation: Obliterate!
Chapter Two: Discovery
The Council of Cloven Elders were yelling at Grover for "making these scandalous claims that you have heard the wild god Pan speak." They were about to revoke his searcher's license, when I decided to speak up for him. "Excuse me, Leneus. I have a few questions. First, how many satyrs have returned alive before Grover was given his license?"
"None."
"And since?"
"All those who have left have returned alive."
"Um hmm. And in the past two thousand years, how many beings, satyrs or humans, have heard from Pan?"
"Only Mister Underwood. Where are you going with this, Summers?"
"Simple, Silenus. Before Grover, you lost many satyrs in the search for Pan, with no results. Since him, you haven't lost a single satyr, and Pan has actually spoken. Give him some more time, and Pan will be found."
"Do you honestly believe that, boy?"
"Yes, I do. Recently, I've been seeing visions of an extremely old satyr, and a maze. I believe that very soon, Pan will be found, and Grover will be the one to find him." I didn't add in that I only received that vision because I was looking for hope when it came to Nico, or that he had also been in the vision.
"So we're supposed to listen to the deluded ravings of a fifteen-year-old boy. One that shouldn't even be alive."
I was so furious at him that I accidentally caused the sky to thunder at his words. Or maybe Father did that because he wasn't very happy with the satyr. Biting my lips to keep any dangerous remarks back, I argued logically. "If you remember, Leneus, one of the epithets of my father is 'Far-seeing Jove.' It is believable that he would send me visions if he wanted Pan found. Pan is, after all, technically my nephew, the son of my brother Hermes."
The Council quietly discussed it, and decided to allow Grover a small extension of one week to find Pan. Grover started complaining, but I pulled him aside. "Grover, which would you rather have, one more week, or a new job?" He relented, and the Council split up, their meeting over. I decided to head to my cabin, and talk to Jason. "Oh, Iris! Accept my offering. Jason Grace." This time, Jason was in what looked like a Roman villa. "Hey, Jason."
"Hi, Alex. How's it going over there?"
"Not bad. Grover's a little upset, though."
"Oh? What about?"
"The Council of Cloven Elders have given him a week to find Faunus, the god of the wild." Fortunately, during our conversations, Grover had come up several times, and I had been shocked to learn that despite their usefulness among the Greeks, among the Romans they were utterly despised, and usually annoying beggars.
"A week? To find a god that's been missing for nearly two thousand years? Are they crazy?"
"You'd think that, wouldn't you? But I think that they're jealous of him. See, Grover got rid of the main reason that fauns never returned from the search, and then about a week after we met, he said that he heard Faunus speak to him. The Council doesn't believe that Faunus would speak to him, so they want him off the search ASAP."
"I can believe that. All those who gain power are afraid to use it."
"What do you mean?"
"The Council is in charge of everything that the fauns do, right? And if they found Faunus, they would lose that power."
"You do realize that you just quoted one of the most infamous villains in modern fiction, right?"
"Sometimes, it's the villains who offer the best quotes. Besides, as I recall, you once said that the best lies are those that are mixed in with truth. From that point of view, even the worst villain can speak truths."
"Good point. Hey, are you ever going to tell me where your camp is?"
"All I'm allowed to say is that we're south of the dormum lupus, and close enough to Mount Tam to keep an eye on it. Why do you ask?"
"I've been having visions recently. Some of them have to do with Faunus, some with Saturn, and others to do with you and Percy. Something tells me that we're going to need to know where each other's camps are, and soon. Hey, I just remembered something. Do you have a library at your camp?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because I was hoping to do some research on the Gigantomachy, but all our books are in Greek. I can't read Greek that well, and I was hoping that you might be willing to send me a Latin copy."
"All right, but how would I do that?"
"Mercury, how else? He's got to be the only messenger that could get something from one camp to the other."
"All right. Good luck, Alex. May the Fates smile on you."
"And may Victoria grant you victory." That had become our usual farewell, wishing each other luck in our lives. Fortunately, we had good timing, as I noticed Silena Beauregard coming towards my cabin, with the inspection checklist. She was just leaving the Mars . . . err, Ares cabin and making quick progress. I wasn't worried about it, until I turned to the small alcove where Thalia had stayed after we rebuilt the cabin six months ago. I never understood why she got herself a sleeping bag and hid in that alcove, especially when there were plenty of unused beds in the cabin. Anyway, Thalia had left her alcove a mess, covered in garbage, empty soda cans, and a handful of photos. I burned the garbage, gathered up the cans for the satyrs, then I started on the photos. Two were of Annabeth and Luke, then there was a strip of photos from a do-it-yourself photo booth. But it was the last two that shocked me. One had a fairly attractive woman standing next to a man, a man I knew to be Jupiter, the Roman version of my father. The final photo was of an eleven-year-old Thalia with a three-year-old boy that I thought I knew. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn that it was Jason. The same blond hair, same sky-blue eyes, the same scar on his lip. I hid that one inside my jacket, and pinned up the others.
I finished just in time. I had barely finished tacking the photos up when Silena came in. "Hmm, not bad Alex. Not bad at all. I had my doubts, considering Thalia, but you did well. By the way, do you know anything about the large cat that's been running around camp for the past few months?"
"Large cat? You mean an orange tabby, stripes like a tiger, and unusually large canines?"
"Yes, that's it. You do know it, don't you?"
"Bast. How did she get out? Where is she?"
"She's in my cabin. She's cute, but won't quit whining, unless I'm around her. Where did you get her?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
"Alright. Remember a few months ago when the Hunters stopped by, and we went on that quest to save Artemis and Annabeth?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, Percy and I made a stop in DC while we were there, we found Atlas in the Natural History Museum, where he was trying to create some monsters."
"You mean those skeleton warriors that killed Bianca."
"Exactly. Anyway, the guard brought him the wrong teeth at first, and Bast and her siblings were the result. I'm not sure what happened to the others. I thought that they were cute then, and wanted to grab one, but we had to save the others. About five days later, I found Bast in the Junkyard of the Gods in Arizona, and hid her in my pocket. I've had her ever since."
"Interesting. Well, when you get a chance, would you mind picking her up? And make sure that you keep her in your cabin from now on."
"No problem."
At breakfast the next morning, I noticed that Annabeth and Grover were sitting at the Poseidon table with Percy. I knew it had to be about something important, so I decided to join them. "Alright, what's gotten you two to break the rules and sit with Percy today?"
"The Labyrinth. Chiron wants Grover to use it to find Pan. You can get anywhere in the Labyrinth."
"If you don't get lost. And die a horrible death." Grover started arguing with Annabeth, and in the course of the argument, we learned that Clarisse had been in the Labyrinth, as had Chris Rodriguez, another traitorous son of Merc . . . err, Hermes. Clarisse made it out basically unharmed, but Chris had gone insane. We also found out that Luke was looking for Ariadne's string, a sure way through the Labyrinth to wherever you wanted to go.
That got my attention. "Grover, if it can lead you to Pan, then try it! This is your last chance! So what if it's underground? If you don't try it, your dream will be dead! What do you have to lose?" Grover refused to even think about it. Then a horrifying thought occurred to me: what if there was an entrance to the Labyrinth here? That would allow an entire army of monsters to get into Camp and completely ignore our borders. Unless we took care of that, we could be in serious trouble.
That night, Quintus and Chiron had us suit up, as if for Capture the Flag, but I knew that couldn't be it. Capture the Flag only happened on Fridays, and it was only Wednesday. Then Quintus shouted "All right, gather 'round. You will be divided into teams of two." I looked to Percy, planning on having him be my partner, until Quintus said, "Which have already been chosen. Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silver package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silver 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 to stay alive." Then he started announcing the teams: Charlie with Silena, the Stolls, Clarisse with Lee, Annabeth with Percy, Grover with Tyson (interesting selection, considering they were scared of each other,) and so on, until he got to me. "Alex Summers with Drew Tanaka." WHAT? My greatest nightmare, being stuck with one of the useless children of Aphrodite, and to make it even worse, she absolutely loathed me.
"Alright, Garbage Boy, I hope that you have a plan to take care of this."
"Listen, Drew. Let's do each other a favor. You ignore me, I'll ignore you, and we'll both come out of this alive and sane. If you don't want to listen, I'll lead you straight to one of the monsters, and if you survive, I'll do to you what I did to Clarisse last year, got it?" I then walked up to Charlie and Silena. "Hey, would you guys want to work with me?"
"What, and have you steal the credit? No thanks, Nygma."
"No way, Silena. If we do work together, it'll be just so I can find a monster for you. I don't want Drew to get any credit in this. I'll be quite happy with knowing that you two made it through. If you want, I'll swear on the Styx to give you the credit. So, what do you say?" They quietly discussed it, and then decided to let me take the lead. I quickly caught the scent of a monster, heading towards Zeus' Fist. But I also caught the scent of Percy and Annabeth in that direction. I silently debated with myself on rather or not to tell them, and decided that they'd probably want to know, just in case Percy and Annabeth didn't get it.
When we made it to Zeus' Fist, we found three giant scorpions. "Charlie, Silena! Cover me, I'm going to try and get rid of the pincers!" They nodded, Silena slicing at the stinger, Charlie keeping the other two at bay. Eventually, the tree of us were able to take down all three scorpions, and luckily, we found the gold wreath. "Here you go, Charlie. You guys deserve it."
"Thanks, Alex."
"WHAT? You gave them the wreath? Why in Hades would you do that?"
"Drew, SHUT UP! You did absolutely nothing during this, so why should you get a say in who gets the credit? Besides, even if you did have a vote, they'd still get the credit, because I promised them they'd get the credit."
"Why should I do this when those quests are stupid, foolish, and a waste of time?"
"Really, Drew? If that's how you feel, then why come to camp in the first place? If you're not going to contribute, then why don't you just stay home?" She kept quiet after that, and didn't say a word when Chiron congratulated Silena and Charlie for their victory.
Then Chiron noticed something, "Where are Percy and Annabeth?" No one had seen them since the start of the competition. We looked for them for nearly an hour. I focused my search around Zeus' Fist, but I couldn't find a trace of their scent leaving the Fist. Then they just popped up in front of me. "Yah! Annabeth, how many times do I have to tell you, warn me before you become visible again!"
"Huh? What are you talking about? I wasn't invisible."
"Then where did you come from? We've been looking for you guys for nearly an hour!"
Percy was shocked. "An hour? But it's only been a few minutes since we hid from the scorpions!"
"What happened?"
"We were here, and three scorpions came after us. I saw a hole in Zeus' Fist and we tried hiding in there. But when we got in there, we fell into a hole. We found ourselves in a corridor, and couldn't get out until Annabeth found a Delta. Then we got out."
"A corridor, with an exit marked by a Delta? You've found it, haven't you, Annabeth?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we did."
"What? What did we find?"
"An entrance to the Labyrinth, cuz. An invasion route straight into the heart of camp. A route that completely bypasses the magical borders. Something that even monsters could use."
