Chapter 6: Of Demons and Curses
Percy's Pov:
Me and bob had been on high alert, we had been walking across a massive plain only to enter into a forest. It was a lot darker in the woods, but as soon as I we walked in I felt like someone had scraped a long dull knife down my spine.
We had entered a sort of forest, massive black trunks rose up into the hellish shy around us they were perfectly round and bare of branches, but they curved slightly the farther up they went. It gave me the creeps they looked like a single massive strand of hair, as I walked, I kept hearing faint sounds like a string or chain being pulled taught.
Right in front of me a tree truck started vibrating I walked forward and placed my hand on it, bob turned around me and look at me,
"We are stopping" he asked. Then a few meters off to my left another tree started to quiver, then another, then another until all around Bob and I it looked there was an earthquake in progress.
Only to late did I realize what was happening,
"there is something moving above us, come over here," Bob walked towards me and drew his broom spear. A few feet in front of me all the trees stopped shaking and it was silent then I heard it. The flapping of wings, I frantically looked up into the darkness trying to find the souce of the sound but it seemed to be leaking from literal darkness
"Where are they, I cant see them," I asked, then at a speed I wouldn't have expected a demon fell from the air. My first thought about whatever it was, 'please don't be a fury.' The creatures looked almost exactly like one, a wrinkled hag with bat-like wings, brass talons and glowing red eyes. She wore a tattered dress of black silk, and her face was twisted and ravenous, like a demonic grandmother in the mood to kill.
Then several more fell, in total we were surrounded by a little more than half a dozen of the haggish demon ladies. The sound of flapping indicated more hovering off in the darkness.
"What are you," I demanded, I hadn't expected a response per say but, respond they did.
"We are the Arai, the physical embodiment of curses" I tried to locate the speaker but none of the monsters had opened their mouths, and the voice seemed to come from all directions.
"Why are you… What do you want?" it took some effort but I got the question out non the less, as I waited for their response i though 'nice Percy they have no idea your terrified of them'
"we are here to curse you, to destroy you a thousand times in the name of mother night."
"Oh great, only a thousand times, I thought we were in trouble for a minute." I muttered, but I guess they heard me if their enraged hiss was any indicator. Bob turned to glare at me slightly and I realized antagonizing the demons about to kill us, not the best idea.
I was almost relived when the demon grandmothers closed in for the kill, I was so used to fighting for my life that the suspense of what was going to happen was getting to me.
I looked up briefly to see a few dozen more Arai above us in the tree. I almost felt like I could win, bobs back at mine I slashed through the hags until they caught up to me. A wave of pain rolled through my chest and I fell to my knees, I moved my hand down only to bring it away wet and red, I was shocked, how had that happened. Blood gushed out of the fresh wound that seemed to go straight through the side of my rib cage. The left and right hems of his tattered shirt were sticky with blood, as if a javelin had run him through… or an arrow. The Arai, the embodiment of curses. My brain was slow to realize it but then the Arai connected the dots.
"A curse from the slain," I had a flash back to a monster I fought in Texas, one who could only be killed if each if each of his three bodies was run through simultaneously. "What? How? I don't get it"
"If you kill one they curse you" bob explained. More Arai leapt from the tops of the black trees their wings supporting them, they floated about five feat in front of me malicious as ever. I stubled to my feet and bob grabbed my arm,
"Ouchie" he murmured and my fatal wound became less fatal, the pain dulled and got to my feet slightly more steady than before. but as the arai advanced he didn't know how he could protect either of them. "SWEEP" Bob bellowed his broom arching over my head slicing six or seven of them out of the air. "Bob are you okay, any curse?"
"No curses for bob!" he said enthusiastically. The Arai snarled and circled, eying the broom,
"The Titan is already cursed. Why should we torture him further? You, Percy Jackson, have already destroyed his memory" Bob's spearhead dipped, and his head slowly turned to look at me.
Time slowed. Percy wondered if the spirit of Kronos was somewhere nearby, swirling in the
darkness, enjoying this moment so much that he wanted it to last forever. Percy felt exactly like he had at twelve years old, battling Ares on that beach in Los Angeles, when the shadow of the Titan lord had first passed over him.
Bob turned. His wild white hair looked like an exploded halo. "My memory ... It was you?"
Curse him, Titan! the arai urged, their red eyes gleaming. Add to our numbers!
Percy's heart pressed against his spine. "Bob, it's a long story. I didn't want you to be my enemy. I tried to make you a friend."
By stealing your life, the arai said. Leaving you in the palace of Hades to scrub floors! If Bob wouldn't protect them, my only chance was to run – but that wasn't any
chance at all.
"Bob, listen,' he tried again, 'the arai want you to get angry. They spawn from bitter thoughts.
Don't give them what they want. We are your friends."
Even as he said it, Percy felt like a liar. He'd left Bob in the Underworld and hadn't given him a
thought since. What made them friends? The fact that Percy needed him now? Percy always hated it when the gods used him for their errands. Now Percy was treating Bob the same way.
You see his face? the arai growled. The boy cannot even convince himself. Did he visit you, after he stole your memory?
"No," Bob murmured. His lower lip quivered. "The other one did."
Percy's thoughts moved sluggishly,
"The other one?"
'Nico.' Bob scowled at him, his eyes full of hurt. 'Nico visited. Told me about Percy. Said Percy
was good. Said he was a friend. That is why Bob helped.'
'But ...' Percy's voice disintegrated like someone had hit it with a Celestial bronze blade. He'd
never felt so low and dishonorable, so unworthy of having a friend. The Arai attacked, and this time Bob did not stop them.
I ran to the left swinging riptide back and fourth cutting a path through the demons and running off into the forest, as I ran I sliced through trees behind me, I heard the satisfying sounds of Arai being crushed by said falling trees.
Three more of the monsters flew at me and instinctively I swung my sword cleaving them all in half.
When they died i heard that horrifying voice again, like a nails on a chalkboard, "good choices, but which will kill you first, will you be crushed by the weight of the sky like Atlas, will your insides liquify like Phineas, or will you be trapped and suffocated like Hyperion." As the seconds passed I fell to the one knee the weight of the world once again on my shoulders, my body shook and my nerves cried out in pain. Then the gorgons blood took effect, my stomach, throat, limbs and brain all burned, like I had been drinking acid and it was not burning its way through down my throat and into my stomach. Finally the curse of Hyperion, I couldn't breath my chest trying to inhale, it was like there was an anvil sitting on my chest.
"Do not press your luck. When your death comes, I promise it will be much more painful than gorgon's blood." Gaia was right, I thought ad I slowly I sunk to the ground, my vision blurring. I was dying, but as the combined effort of three deadly cursed sapped my life force, I knew two things, one I wasn't gonna die with a guilty conscious, two I wasn't gonna die kneeling on the ground.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, the Arai cackled and their voice echoed around me, "He apologizes, he regrets his failed life, his crimes against the children of Tartarus!"
"NO. Bob I'm so sorry I should have told you the truth sooner, please…please forgive me." With the majority of my remaining strength I shook off the weight of the sky standing up straight again, my whole body was self-destructing and id be dead with in the hour anyways. But despite that I readied riptide for the last time, however before he could the Arai in front of him exploded into dust.
Bob stood in front of me stone-faced and determined. Bob turned around and started slashing back and forth decimating the army of curses. Small bob sat on his shoulder hissing as more and more dust accumulated all around the unusual group. The demons stood zero chance, and before long the only thing that remained was dust and event that was scattering.
As soon as I realized the danger had passed, the curses caught up with me and I collapsed, my final sight was Bob walking over to me, and then I heard one last thing before everything faded to black.
"Everything will be okay"
Bobs Pov:
As Percy fell I walked towards him, I had already chosen to help him survive but, something deep inside of myself had told me that it was the only course of action. When I touched him I knew he was beyond my ability, as the titan of mortality I knew if he didn't get help soon he would surely die. His only hope was a son of the retched pit he was trapped in.
I had to hurry I had been running for about thirty minutes, and Percy was almost dead, finally ahead in the gloom, the terrain levelled out into a black swamp. Sulfurous yellow mist hung in the air. Even without sunlight, there were actual plants, clumps of reeds, scrawny leafless trees, even a few sickly-looking flowers blooming in the muck. Mossy trails wound between bubbling tar pits. Directly in front of me, sunk into the bog, were footprints the size of trashcan lids, with long, pointed toes. It was nearby.
Finally the yellow mist parted, revealing a muddy clearing like an island in the muck. The ground was dotted with stunted trees and wart mounds. In the centre loomed a large, domed hut made of bones and greenish leather. Smoke rose from a hole in the top. The entrance was covered with curtains of scaly reptile skin and, flanking the entrance, two torches made from colossal femur bones burned bright yellow.
I noticed the drakon skull. Fifty yards into the clearing, about halfway to the hut, a massive oak tree jutted from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. The jaws of a drakon skull encircled the trunk, as if the oak tree were the dead monster's tongue.
I hurried for the hut, but the ground started to shake behind me I turned and wished I didn't. The beasts hide was dappled green and yellow, like sunlight through a forest canopy. Its reptilian eyes were the same shade of green as Percy's eyes, and when its frills unfurled around its head, I couldn't help but think what a regal and amazing monster to bad that it was about to attack me.
It was easily as long as a subway train. Its massive talons dug into the mud as it pulled itself.
forward, its tail whipping from side to side. The Drakon hissed, spitting jets of green poison that.
smoked on the mossy ground and set tar pits on fire, filling the air with the scent of fresh pine and ginger. The monster even smelled good. Like most Drakons, it was wingless, longer and more snake-like than a dragon, and it looked hungry. This was the Maeonian Drakon and it was mad.
ROOOOOAAAAAR a giant came running out of his hut, He was about twenty feet tall – typical giant height – with a humanoid upper body and scaly reptilian legs, like a bipedal dinosaur. He held no weapon. Instead of armour, he wore only a shirt stitched together from sheep hides and green-spotted leather. His skin was cherry-red; his beard and hair the colour of iron rust, braided with tufts of grass, leaves and swamp flowers.
He charged at the Drakon, shouting again in challenge as they clashed, deep red of acidic green. The Drakon kept spitting acid at the giant but to no avail. The giant lunged to the left and grabbed the trunk of an oak tree ripping it from the ground. The old skull dissolved into dust, and the giant hefted the tree like a bat, before he could swing though the Drakon lashed its tail around his waist. Once he was close enough to the Drakon he raised the tree above his head and slammed it down the monsters throat, it peired the dragons gullet. When the tree hit the ground its roots began to move, digging deeper as they touched the earth, anchoring the oak tree until it looked like it had stood there for centuries. The Drakon shook and thrashed but it was held fast. The giand aprached slowly and brought his fist down on the back of the Drakons neck. CRACK. The monster did not move again, as it began to dissolve, leaving scraps of bone meat, hide and of course the new skull whose jaws were still wide open ringing the base of the tree.
"Good one" I said. He looked at me then turned back to the dissolving corpse,
"No good bones," he complained "I needed a new walking stick, and some good skin for the out house."
"Hello Damasen, it has been a long time, I think" I muttered the last bit and I felt like the body slung over my shoulder get heavier. "I need your help to heal this boy, he is needed on the surface world." Damasen was the son of Tartarus and Gaia, all of the Gigantes were born to oppose a specific god, as Damasen was born to fight ares he was born a peaceful giant. He had been banished by his mother to Tartarus after he had taken revenge on the Maeonian Drakon after it had killed one of his mortal friends.
"Good meat for dinner, come inside we will have stew then we will see if I can help the boy." The giants hut was as tall as a planetarium and it was constructed completely out of massive bones and Drakon leather. The floor was covered in a dry marsh-like grass and large grey wool rugs. At one end lay a massive bed of sheepskin and more Drakon leather, at the back of the hut were a few drying racks with what looked like drying plants and strips of Drakon jerky. The whole place smelled like stew, smoke, basil, and thyme. right next to the racks was a huge pin of oversized sheep.
"Place the boy on the bed and have a seat," I placed Percy on the bed and sat down by the fire that was burning in the center of the hut, Damasen continued to walk around putting the remnants of the dead monster. Grabbing some herbs and a wooden bowl before he sat down beside the fire, the massive giant out some of the herbs in his mouth and began to chew as he stirred the stew with a large ladle. After filling the bowl he spit the chewed-up plant fiber into the bowl and used his finger to mix the concoction together, standing up again Damasen walked over to Percy before gently with one finger opening his mouth and pouring the mixture into his mouth. He swallowed it in a few large gulps before sighing in relief. Damasen sat back down looking at me expectantly.
"Tell me your story" Damasen said simply, and I did.