CHAPTER XVI
REYNA
"This is it. This is what my life has become. My grave has been built, my feet are about to give way, and here my corpse shall lie for all eternity."
Reyna groaned. "Shut up, Al, we've only been walking for twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes of pure hell. We are completely lost."
"No, we aren't. All we have to do is go down."
Al rolled her eyes. "Down. What an excellent idea. It has always been my life's ambition to become a mole."
"Al, I swear to the gods, if I hear one more comment-"
Al tried giving her the pleading brown puppy eyes. "But I'm bored! I can't help it."
Reyna let her spear swing sideways and whack Al's knees. Al yelped and grabbed her leg. "Ow! What the hell?"
She couldn't help the grin on her face. "My palms are sweaty. I can't help it."
Al glared at her and muttered something about psycho purple ninjas.
A flash of movement from the side caught her attention. "Did you see that?"
Al frowned. "Um… see what?"
"The correct answer to that question is no. Move faster."
Al scowled at her. "After you hit me?"
"For gods' sake, Al, just keep walking along."
Al stood up straight. "Yeah, small problem. Where the hell's the exit?"
The path they had been following had disappeared completely. Instead they were now in a circular chamber with no exits, the only light coming from her imperial gold spear.
Al did a three-sixty degree turn. "Now what? We clap our hands and sing the macarena?"
Reyna gave her the worst wolf stare she could. She was pretty sure that the glare that she was giving Al was supposed to incinerate her. Sadly, she was facing Al's back and she didn't get the message. Al brought out the sword she'd taken from the Cyclopes.
A loud metallic clang sounded from somewhere to her left. Reyna raised her spear, casting light on the wall, but there was nothing to be seen.
"DOWN!" she felt herself being pushed to the ground by another figure. An axe whizzed past, blowing air in her face as it went by. It landed on the opposite wall and pierced the thick stone, the same height as her. If she were still standing, she would have been beheaded.
Al was crouched next to her, eyes wide in alarm. "What the hell is going on? Can I check myself into Bedlam already?"
Reyna got back to her feet. "Come on, we don't have time. There will be more traps."
Al dusted her jeans as she got up. "Thank you, Al, you saved my life. If it weren't for you, I would be dead, I am forever indebted to you. Thanks for being so alert and-"
Just then Reyna grabbed her jacket and pulled her back by the hood as an arrow whistled past in front of her eyes.
Al sniffed. "I'll retain my dignity and shut up."
Reyna scoffed. "What dignity?"
Al, being the mature adult she was, stuck her tongue out at her. "O Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano, Praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, Daughter of Bellona, of the Fourth Cohort of Camp Jupiter, Horse Friend, how shalt we find our path out of this circular conundrum?"
"Well, actually, I think you should ask me that question."
They both whirled around to find a man standing behind them. The first thing she noticed was his faces. Faces, plural, as in there were two of them. They jutted from either side of his head, staring over his shoulders, so his head looked like it had been stretched. He had overlapping ears and matching sideburns. He was dressed like a doorman to a fancy showroom; long black overcoat, shiny black shoes and a rather ridiculous top hat which somehow seemed to fit him.
He rubbed his hands together. "Well, well." The right smiling face said. "What do we have here?"
"More demigods." The left scowling face said. "They are everywhere, those pests."
Reyna recognized him. "You're Janus. God of doorways and choices."
The left face snorted. "How many two-headed gods do you know, demigod?"
"Don't mind him, godling." The right face reassured. "He's a little grouchy."
"Whoa." Al raised her hand. "Time-out. Are you seriously fighting with yourself?"
"Of course not, you silly thing!" The left face scowled even more. "We are giving you a choice."
Al frowned. "What choice? Being a bore or having a sense of humor?"
Reyna groaned internally. Al seemed to have a death wish big as a mountain.
Two doorways opened behind Janus. They were rectangular hollows set in the stone wall of the chamber, completely identical, with nothing but darkness behind.
"Urm…" Al looked at her for help. "But they're the same."
Janus (his right-facing head) laughed. "That's cute. Of course they're the same. They both converge, after all."
"So what difference does it make?" Reyna had always thought that the way some demigods at Camp Jupiter would go and toss a coin in his shrine asking for guidance was ridiculous. Janus was well-known for enjoying the confusion of others, and handing your fate in the gods' hands was not a sensible thing to do.
The left face turned to Al. "That is your choice, godling. Do you believe that the end justifies the means? Or do you think it is the journey that matters, and the end is just a part of it?"
Al looked more confused than ever. "Well, it depends, I think, on what you're talking about."
Janus chuckled. "This is a yes or no question, my dear. There is no ambiguity."
Al looked hesitant. "I guess it does matter how you go about it, right? 'End justifies the means' is pretty ambiguous."
The left face grunted. "This one's new. The older ones, now, they never have any time. It's always rush, rush, rush. But then you didn't really have a choice, kid. The first guy took one way, so you'd have to take the other."
They exchanged a confused look. "Who, now? And why does my choice depend on him? And if the decision had already been made, why the hell did you ask me?"
Janus waved his hands, and the left doorway disappeared. "You may proceed." His form started to flicker and fade.
Al looked completely lost now. "Wait! What the hell did you mean? Can't you even-"
"May the gods be with you." Janus completely disappeared.
Al turned around. "What the hell was that? And what is the point of saying 'may the gods be with you' if you are the god and you're fading away? Is that demigod speak for 'and may the odds be ever in your favor! You can die now!'"
Reyna tried to quell the uneasy feeling in her gut. Judging from Al's expression, she wasn't able to hide it. "Why are you nervous?" Al's voice was wary.
Reyna hesitated. "Janus came to seek you out. That's not good. Either he was messing with you, or you're going to be in serious trouble soon."
Al shrugged. "Meh. I'm always in trouble. I create trouble. Can we keep walking now? Standing around discussing the future freaks me out."
They were completely lost.
Then again, they didn't really have a choice. They didn't have Ariadne's string, or a mortal who could see through Mist handy.
Plunging into the maze unprepared was foolish, but they didn't have options. On the other hand, Reyna was worried that she was leading Al to her death. Al might the same age as her, but she was about as trained as she had been when she was eight.
But most people weren't children of Bellona, nor were they raised in a military-style home which was pretty much a miniature fort. But the whole thing was still frustrating as hell. Scratch that, even the Underworld would be less frustrating.
They had decided to stop for the time being, exhausted by the steep pathways and traps that they triggered every five feet. They'd pulled each other out of danger far more times than she cared to count.
Al peered into the little bundle they had gathered before entering the Labyrinth. "Do you want something to eat?" she asked while rummaging through the contents. "There's fruit, fruit, fruit, and you will never guess this one, more fruit."
Reyna sighed. She wasn't in the mood for jokes or sarcasm, and Al seemed to thrive on those two qualities. She wondered whether this was Juno's idea of a joke, to try and find out how long she would last before she lost her temper. She'd probably start a betting pool. If Al had been a legionnaire, Reyna would have got to her a dozen times for discipline. But Al had never had any contact with a mythological creature or encountered or had dreams of wolves, which meant that she was probably a Greek demigod.
Al seemed to pick up on her mood. "All right. I'll take first watch. Would it kill you to laugh a little?"
Reyna scowled. "Well, not all of us live in a happy world. I don't think you realize the mess we're in."
Al shook her head. "On the contrary, I know exactly how screwed up this situation is. That doesn't mean I have to spend my time moping." She took out some electronic parts from her jacket and fiddled with the wires. "I just don't happen to care." She twisted a few wires and frowned. "Go to sleep, Praetor. You are ruining my happy shell."
Reyna rolled her eyes and lay down next to the wall. She hadn't realized how tired she was, and didn't even know when she fell asleep.
She woke up to Al shaking her. "Wake up. And don't you dare strangle me again."
Reyna woke up and looked around her. "What?"
Al's eyes had the same sparkle to them that Annabeth's and Leo's got when they had managed to figure something out. She stared. Al's hand was wedged into the wall. Al grinned. She closed her eyes and pulled her hand out, like the wall was an illusion.
Reyna hesitated and hit a fist against the wall. It was rock solid. "What the hell?"
Al rubbed her hands. "So you remember that part where you told me about that Pacify chick-"
"Pasiphae."
"That's the one. And how she raised the Labyrinth but Hazel Levesque manipulated it using the Mist? Well, here's the rub, Pasiphae was a witch, Daedalus was an inventor. His stuff would be mostly mechanical. The Labyrinth took thousands of years to reach the size it did. No way it suddenly got growing so fast, right? I mean, imagine the kind of energy that would take."
Reyna nodded. "You're right, but could you please get to the point?"
Al was definitely in mad-scientist mode now. "Well, look at this, the Mist is in your head, right? It's what you think you see. But what if your head was so confused it couldn't think of anything? You'd see what was real, right?"
"Right."
Al spread her hands wide like a magician. "Behold!"
"Wait, what do you mean 'if your head is so confused it can't think of anything'?"
Al sat down. "Well, roughly speaking, the ampulla of your semicircular canals is responsible for the dynamic balance of your body, depending upon movement of fluid in your inner ear. The cristae ampullaris detect acceleration in three perpendicular planes; superior, horizontal and posterior similar to the x-y-z planes-"
Reyna could already feel her head spinning. She grabbed Al's hand. "Al, English."
"That was English." Al muttered. "Well, the shorter version is that sometimes you are spinning round and round, and the world seems to be spinning even after you stop, or if you're drunk, or something like that, your brain would not be able to judge your position accurately. That's kind of what I tried to do. Not get drunk, the other one. It works. The whole damn thing is an illusion, or a bloody good VR machine if that's how you want to look at it."
Reyna tried to piece her thoughts together. "So you spun yourself in circles and ran headfirst into a wall?"
Al rubbed her head. "It didn't work the first time round, but it worked later. I just needed some time." She grinned. Reyna knew that look, it was the look that Leo or Percy got before they did something completely insane. "Care to accompany me, Praetor?"
Reyna narrowed her eyes. "I will not spin around like a lunatic and run into a wall."
Al took something out of her pocket. "I never asked you to."
Reyna looked at the devices. They were short thick tubes with a funnel-like openings at one end. "What the hell are those?"
Al simply walked over to her and placed the two tubes around her ears. There was a buzzing sound, and it felt like her whole head was vibrating. The world started spinning in and out of focus. She felt someone grab her arm and pull her into the shadows.
The plan worked perfectly well until they fell into a pit. All along she had a feeling that they were rushing down. Her head was still spinning, but the effects of whatever Al had done were wearing off. She was still feeling a little disoriented, so it took her a few moments to get up. She staggered to her feet and leant against the wall. Al groaned. "I think this is where the real part of the Labyrinth is."
"If you do that to me again, I swear to the gods I will kill you." Reyna was almost growling now. She could feel a headache forming.
Al dragged herself to her feet. "I think I need to work on that. The side-effects are a little tricky, but hey, I put that together in about an hour with zero lighting. It's decent. I could probably weaponize it if I needed to." She noticed Reyna's glare. "If you're still wondering what that was, it was just a little thingummybob to throw your cochlear fluid or whatever into a nice swirl. It sends vibrations near your ears that causes the endolymph to-"
Reyna shook her head. "I don't even want to know." She looked around. They had fallen from a ledge about twenty feet above. They were lucky they hadn't broken something. Like all other corridors, this one was completely dark, the only light available coming out of their weapons. The corridor stretched into darkness, completely silent. The walls were rough black stone, with scratch marks along some of them.
Suddenly there was a loud metallic clang from the darkness. Al set off towards it, sword raised high for light. Reyna followed, barely able to see in front of her hands. She stumbled and cursed. Whatever Al had done to her head was slow in withdrawing its effects.
"Stop cussing like a sailor, Rey. Honest to goodness, my ma would have washed my mouth for saying stuff like that."
"Don't call me Rey."
"Whatever, purple ninja."
"Al, I swear-"
"You can swear all you want later. Look at this." al raised her sword higher. The metal cast a glow on a heavy stone door. There was nothing to distinguish it except for a blue triangle at the side. "Delta. Delta for Daedalus?"
Reyna pressed a hand to the symbol. "I hope so." The door slowly started opening with a groan. "How did you see this, anyway? It's almost invisible in the dark."
Al seemed surprised. "What do you mean? It's glowing blue. The whole damn floor is kinda blue."
Reyna stared. "Al, there isn't any blue glow."
Al crossed her arms. "It's blue. Light blue, just like that symbol. You can see the symbol, right?"
Reyna nodded. "I can see that. But I still don't see any blue glow on the ground."
Al shook her head. "There's a trail. Kinda faint, but there. And I like blue. Not the light blue things, but I like dark blue, and in this black background, blue is okay."
"Not another blue person." Reyna muttered. "As if one wasn't enough."
Al rolled her eyes. "Ever lived a carnie life, praetor? Every damn thing is red and yellow and green and so fricking bright and cheery that it makes me like dark blues and blacks and purples and stuff."
"And you enjoy being a contrary person, don't you?"
Al slipped through the open door. "I think of this as the depth of the darkness and bitterness of my soul. Are we talking or walking?"
Al stopped as soon as she entered. Reyna slipped through the door to stand next to her. The sight made her freeze in her tracks.
In front of her was what could have been a scene from old Rome, with a wide courtyard paved in perfect rectangles, a stone fountain in the centre with water spouting from the centre. There were some plants around, and a number of couches were placed around the courtyard. Music played from the corner. There wasn't any sign of the sun, but the place was bright like a sunny day.
But what made her stop were the ghosts, the sheer number of them floating around. Children ran around, chasing each other. Older men lounged on the couches eating ghostly fruits while others stood around, talking to each other. Ghostly serving girls darted around the place, going from one corner to the other.
The ghosts stopped and looked at them. It was like time had frozen. The silence was deafening. Reyna forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She dealt with the Lares at Camp Jupiter all the time. These ghosts were harmless.
Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime.
Shut up, she told herself sternly.
Al broke the tense silence. "Um, hi?"
The ghosts rose from their seats, reaching for their weapons. "Okay, bad idea." Al muttered as she scooted back.
"Who are you? What brings you here?" One ghost that looked like the ring leader stepped forward.
Reyna debated the best way to talk to the ghosts. She didn't want to anger a bunch of ghosts that had weapons. They were clearly Roman, which meant that they would probably accept the authority of the Legion. "Friends, Romans, Countrymen?" suggested Al.
Reyna glared at her. "I am Praetor Ramirez-Arellano of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. We wish to move forward." Reyna kept her voice as steady as she could. "We request passage for our quest through the Labyrinth."
The ghost smiled. "Of course you do. It is rare that I see a legionnaire these days. Mostly it's just the monsters who some here and tear up our stuff. Seeing a demigod makes me feel happy. Normally, I might have let you part with my blessings."
Al tightened her grip on her sword. "Normally?"
The ghost sighed as he pulled out his sword. "I'm afraid this is a special case. You see, someone has paid a high price for your heads, my dear."