Prologue
Eleven empty thrones sat around a lifeless hearth as a man intently watched the scene transpiring below. A raven-haired young man, in danger of being overwhelmed by the horde of monsters around him, fought back-to-back with a silver-clad young woman, in the guise of a twelve-year-old. As the fighting continued the mist surrounding the image of the combat slowly dissipated.
"That is all the power I can muster forth, Milord." the goddess of rainbows wheezed out.
Seemingly oblivious to the now faded Iris message, Poseidon, Lord of the Seas began to murmur to himself. "May the fates be with you my son."
With a start, he came back to himself and his surroundings. "You did well my dear. As well as any could hope, having re-awoken only yesterday. You have my sincerest gratitude. Now rest Iris."
The goddess began to take her leave, gracefully floating past the frozen hearth, before turning as she arrived at the shining celestial bronze doors that marked the entrance to the throne room. Her next words graced her lips as a low sigh, "Do you truly believe that they can do it?"
"They must. If they fail, then all of this, all that has been created over the last four millennia will crumble and fall. Olympus won't be alone in this. Humanity will be thrust back in time to an age where survival was the least of their problems." Turning back to look at the empty thrones surrounding him, the Earthshaker did not notice as the dejected goddess exited the throne room.
3 Months Prior
The sky was overcast and, for reasons I couldn't understand, there was a pit in my stomach. And before you ask, no, I did not swallow a cherry pit in some food-eating contest. I learned my lesson the first time.
I should probably introduce myself, my name is Percy Jackson, and until a few months ago, my life was great. Well as great as it can be with an abusive stepfather, a slew of school bullies, and a penchant for getting kicked out of whatever school is actually willing to accept me. Fortunately, I have a wonderful mother who makes everything bearable. Her name is Sally Jackson and if you ran into her on the street you would swear up and down that she is the nicest lady in the world. Trust me.
After I accidentally destroyed our school bus with a cannon on a trip to the Saratoga battlefield and was then expelled, my mom and I spent months looking for a new school that I could attend for my first year of middle school. Things would start well, and sometimes I would even be introduced to some of the sixth-grade teachers, but the second the people in charge of registration discovered that I was "that" Percy Jackson, we were quickly ushered out and politely told that we might try looking into other options. That is until we found Yancy Academy.
A boarding school in upstate New York, Yancy is a school that encourages ne'er-do-wells and problem children to enroll. When my mom brought the flier into the house, it was promptly snatched up by Smelly Gabe, my stepfather, and drunk layabout. "Let's see here... 'At Yancy, we pride ourselves in assisting our troubled youth on their journey to reform themselves into upstanding citizens.' This school sounds perfect for the little brat! Hopefully, he'll learn how to respect his elders while he is there."
Taking the flier back and sending a small glare Gabe's way, my mom then showed it to me. "What do you think sweetheart? It looks nice and maybe you can make some good friends there." While she said this, she pointed to a photo with a caption that I couldn't read, on account of my dyslexia, underneath it. "As a boarding school you'd live in the dorms on campus, and they have already accepted your application." I knew that my mom had been looking for an opportunity like this for months so, despite being labeled a "troubled youth", I decided to agree with her. "Sure mom, it looks really nice."
And that just about brings us to the event that would change my life forever. Things were going well at Yancy, and it seemed like I was going to make it through my sixth-grade year without any problems. That is until the school trip to the Mediterranean. Now, I know what you are thinking, "Why would a boarding school for problematic teenagers pay for such an expensive trip?" Honestly, I'm still wondering the same thing. According to the rumor mill, the chairman's daughter really wanted to visit some old landmarks that were scattered throughout Greece and Turkey. That daughter also happened to be in my Latin class.
One thing led to another, my mom signed some permission slips, and the next thing I know I'm on a flight across the world. For the first few days, we toured famous parts of Greece. I saw the Parthenon (which mostly looks like it does in the pictures, a bunch of big stone pillars holding up some larger stone blocks), but the really exciting part was when we started to tour the museums and got a close-up look at the swords and armor. The weird thing is, I could swear that the words engraved in some of the blades were in English, but when asking my friend Rachel about it, she was adamant that they were, in fact, in Greek.
Rachel is a good friend of mine. Well, she's really my only friend. She has bright red hair, vibrant green eyes, and so many freckles you might think you were looking at the night sky if she wasn't so fair-skinned. She also is a bit of a fanatic for all things art, and I mean all things. I don't know if I can count how many times she has dashed into class late, covered in paint, and looking like she just came from an art exhibition. She also comes from a wealthy family. Like really wealthy. She once told me a story about how her dad took her on a helicopter tour of New York. In his company helicopter. Apparently, he is the CEO of some Fortune 500 company. I don't know why she decided that I was worth her time, but I'm not in any position to be picky about my friends.
After another day of touring Greece we were all loaded up onto a ferry, explicitly told to not cause trouble, and set off on a voyage to Ephesus, which is in Turkey? I thought that was an odd name for a country. Who names a country after a bird? Oh well. According to the teachers, Ephesus is home to the remains of a temple that used to be an ancient wonder of the world.
The ferry ride dragged on forever. It was long enough that we all had rooms on the boat and needed to sleep overnight. After waking up we gathered together as a group, ate some cold cereal, and waited the remaining few hours for the boat to arrive at the port. During this time, the chairman's daughter Nancy Bobofit, who also happens to be mine and Rachel's resident bully decided that Rachel was an easy target this early in the morning and started throwing whatever she could find on the deck into Rachel's hair.
I tried in vain to get her to stop when things came to a head as she scooped up some bird poop off the deck and, in what seemed like slow-motion, chucked it directly onto Rachel's forehead. Now, I have never known Rachel Elizabeth Dare to be a crier, but I think bird poop in your face would cause any middle-schooler to break down.
As she ran to the restroom sobbing I was seeing red, and suddenly Nancy was soaked from head to toe. Seeing the water dripping from his daughter's hair and clothes, the chairman rushed over to console her and gave me the evil eye. "I expected better from you Jackson. Dumping a bucket of water on someone is not acceptable under any circumstances. You will return to your room and wait there for us to arrive."
"But sir, I didn't..." I started to reply before being cut off. "No buts. I saw what happened with my own eyes. I will be having words with your mother after the trip. If there are any more problems then you will not be doing anything else for the rest of the trip."
After finally landing in Turkey, we disembarked from the ferry and loaded onto a tour bus that was set to take us to the ancient temple. "Where are we going? All I've heard is that it's some destroyed temple." I asked, turning to Rachel.
"It's the Temple of Artemis, and before its destruction, it was larger than the Parthenon and filled to the brim with ancient Greek art. How cool is that?" Rachel babbled, clearly having recovered from the events of the morning. I listened to her talk about the sculptures, tapestries, and pottery that once lined the halls of the temple for a while longer.
As the tour bus pulled into the visitors' lot for the temple, I was filled with an odd combination of dread and excitement. Something about this place called out to me while simultaneously sending waves of apprehension through my entire being. The teachers started splitting us into groups and ours started walking around the ruins. Rachel was examining some of the broken foundations, but something must've caught her eye because suddenly an alarmed look crossed her face and she made a beeline towards me.
"Do you see that?" She sputtered. Looking around, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary so I merely shrugged my shoulders. "Over there, by that pillar. Does that man look strange to you? How many eyes does he have?"
Glancing around again, I did see an abnormally tall man wearing a dark trench coat and a fisherman's hat, but before I could get a closer look I was roughly forced to look back at Rachel.
"Don't stare!" she hissed. "He looks suspicious, right?"
"I mean, maybe a little suspicious, but it does look like it could rain at any time. I have no idea why you brought up the number of eyes he has though. He has two, just like any other person." I replied, not really feeling concerned over the strange man.
She looked back towards the pillar and I followed her gaze to where the man had been previously, but it seemed like he had moved on. "Whatever. We're falling behind the group. We need to catch up."
Quickening our steps, we barely caught up to our group when I saw a shimmer coming from the ground towards the center of the ruins. Thinking it was just a trick of the light, I continued walking, but suddenly Rachel gasped and started walking towards the glow.
Not wanting to be left behind by my only friend, I followed her and when we were about ten feet from the glimmering light, it took on a silver and sea-green hue, flared brightly, and then disappeared. Rachel and I stared at the moss-covered stone for a moment before I decided to break the silence.
"Did you just see..." I started as the earth beneath us rumbled for a moment and then gave out.
The first thing I noticed as I came to was a sharp pain in my back, followed by a weight on my chest. Feeling around blindly for a moment I found a hand and a head before identifying the weight as a person. I realized that it must be Rachel and gently tried to push her off of me while adjusting my head to look around. I couldn't see a thing. Rachel stirred and after a moment we were separated except for our hands. Neither one of us wanted to lose each other in the dark.
"Where are we?" She asked aloud, though I could tell she wasn't expecting an accurate response.
"No idea. All I remember is a glow on the ground, a flash of light, and the ground collapsing underneath our feet. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with you on top of me." At this moment I realized the position the two of us had been in and was glad that the darkness hid my growing blush.
Rachel must've been having similar thoughts because she spluttered for a moment, almost letting go of my hand, before calming herself and getting to her feet, which also forced me to stand up.
She flipped open her phone and pressed a couple of keys causing the screen to light up. "We can use this as a light for now, but we should probably look for something else if we stay stuck down here." She turned the light upwards, and I was confused by the lack of an opening or cracks of any kind.
"Shouldn't there be a hole above us if we fell through the ground?" She asked, evident panic starting to creep into her voice. I squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Maybe it was a trap door of some kind. We'll find our way out, Rach." I promised her. Honestly, I was trying to show confidence for both of us, because internally I was freaking out myself.
With the light from her phone, we were able to find our way to what looked like a door. Rachel tried to push it open, but it wouldn't budge. "Here, let me try," I suggested, approaching the door. As my hands met the stone, glowing aquamarine lettering appeared on the door. At first, it was illegible, but the letters seemed to rearrange themselves before my eyes, forming words in English.
I started to read the words out loud, before seeing the confused look on Rachel's face. "I don't know how, but I can read this", I mused, "I think the words were in Greek, but now they are in English."
After a few moments of silence, I decided to continue reading the shimmering words.
"Fated companions of sea and night
Will break the curse that hides the light
Symbols of power returned at last
Revive the kings, revive the past."
As I finished reading, the words immediately vanished, before being replaced. They now read:
"Enter Prince of the Seas."
The words remained floating in the air as the stone door in front of us smoothly sunk into the ground. The moment the door descended fully, the words started to blink out, as if being burnt by an invisible flame, leaving us with a fleeting image of a hallway. Then everything around us returned to inky darkness.
"Soooo, we follow the hallway, yeah?" I asked after Rachel and I had spent several minutes searching the room we had initially fallen into. We weren't able to find anything other than some old swords (and the bones of their former owners) and some pots and urns in various states of disrepair.
Picking up a sword to not be completely defenseless, both Rachel and I were surprised as the sword that I tried to hand her fell straight through her fingers. After the shock wore off, she bent down in an attempt to lift the sword again without success. We then walked around the room as she attempted to lift every sword she could find, but the results were largely the same. Every sword she tried to touch would simply pass through her. I even tried to balance my sword on her head, only for it to fall to the ground with a resounding clatter. I would've tried swinging it at her, but from the dimly lit daggers she shot my way, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have approved.
Deciding that she wouldn't be able to use any of the swords in the room, we started walking down the hallway. I insisted on going first, having a sword and all, but in actuality, I needed the light of her phone screen to see the ground ahead of me, so she was pretty close behind me holding her phone beside me while her other hand rested on my shoulder. I held the sword in front of me like I had seen done in movies, just in case I actually needed to use it, and boy was that thing heavy. The longer I held it, the more I realized that it didn't feel right in my hands like the balance was off.
As we continued along, the hallway was marked by large stone arches every twenty feet or so, and after passing around ten of them we found ourselves at an intersection. To the right: Darkness so thick that the passage could last ten feet or a thousand. I had no way to tell. To the left: More darkness. On an instinctual level, I felt as if we should go right.
"We should go left."
"We should go right."
Rachel and I declared in almost perfect unison. We debated the matter before she conceded. Not on the merit of anything I had said to convince her, but because, in her words, "I guess we can go right. Something weird is going on here. You can hold these old swords, and you did say the doorway with the glowing Greek letters said for the prince of the seas to enter. I'm obviously not the prince and I know you. You wouldn't lie about something like that." Touched by her words, all I could offer was a small "thank you" in gratitude.
We proceeded on at a slow pace, stopping whenever a sound rang out through the passageway. Hitting another intersection I didn't even stop before turning left. Oddly enough, it seemed like I could see better the longer we walked, it was almost like my sword was gleaming in the darkness.
Meeting more intersections, I followed my instincts and navigated us deeper and deeper into the ruins, and at each turn, we would stop briefly for Rachel to make a note on her phone on which direction we had turned so we could find our way back. Just as we were about to stop and rest, we heard quick, heavy footfalls coming from the direction that we had just walked through.
A crazed scream broke the silence, "I knew that I smelled a demigod before! It's been too long since I've had demigod."
Rachel and I broke into a full sprint down the tunnel and I saw the man in the trench coat chasing after us as we turned a corner.
"You know how you asked me how many eyes the man in the trench coat had?" I wheezed out to my companion who was fairing only slightly better I was. "Well don't look but he's chasing us right now and he definitely only has one eye."
Rachel let out a slight squeak, gripped my hand harder, and we increased our pace. The beating of my heart roared in my ears. Left. Right. Right. Left. Right. Left. Left. The walls started to blur together and I stopped keeping track of the turns that we made. An argent-white light appeared in an entranceway ahead as we took a final turn and we rushed through an arch that appeared to lead outside.
My breath caught in my throat as we came to a slow halt in the center of a large chamber and glanced around in wonder. The ground was covered in foliage and flowers of all kinds and colors. There were trees all around the walls that seemed to melt into a deep forest. Above us shone the source of the light: the night sky glistened with constellations of stars and a full moon. Birds and other forest critters flew above our heads and scurried below our feet, and ten feet in front of us rested a silver-inlaid stone dais under a large oak tree.
On the dais, in a bed of branches and leaves lay what I can best describe as a young goddess. Auburn locks curled and sprawled over a sterling pillow framing a youthful face in a serene sleep. Skin of porcelain was complemented by ancient Greek garb colored in silver. At the foot of this slumbering beauty's bed lay a magnificent deer, argent in color with gilded antlers.
I was broken out of my reverie as the cyclops stepped into the room. Laughing to himself he began to boast. "I caught you, little demigod. Now I'll feast!"
With our still joined hands, I re-positioned Rachel so she was behind me. "Stay behind me. I have the sword and we don't know what this thing is capable of."
Before I could argue, my friend had let go of my hand and pulled a canister of pepper spray from her waist-bag. "If you are fighting, so am I!" She exclaimed, though her shaking limbs gave her fear away. The look on her face left no room for argument.
"Fine, but stay out of his reach. At best your pepper spray will make for a good distraction." The cyclops began lumbering towards me before reaching down and lifting a large stone from the ground. His arm curled back and my reflexes kicked in. Grabbing Rachel and pulling her to the ground with me, we barely avoided the small boulder as it sailed over us and cracked against the stone dais, startling the deer and causing the room to shake. I was made aware of the illusion created by the ceiling as a few rocks fell from above us landing scattered in the greenery surroundings.
Two realizations dawned on me at the same time. First, the young girl who looked to be about my age had not awoken after the cacophony created by the rockfall. Second, if I was going to protect anyone I would need to take the fight to the monster. If he kept throwing rocks it wouldn't be long before the ceiling collapsed on all of us and no one would survive.
Seeing no point in dallying, I rushed towards the cyclops who only seemed to grow larger as I approached. Standing at an intimidating ten feet tall, I rolled underneath its legs as it reached out to grab me with both hands. Coming out of my roll, I turned and slashed blindly, cutting through most of its calf and causing it to roar in pain as it fell to one knee. Pressing my advantage I clumsily slashed at its back a couple of times before it sprang back to its feet and grabbed me with both hands.
Honestly, at this point, I probably would have died if it weren't for Rachel. As I started to feel my bones creak and pop I heard, "Close your eyes" before I was promptly dropped and broke into a coughing fit at the taste of pepper. The Cyclops definitely got the worst of the pepper spray as it fell back onto its butt, howling in pain and covering its eye with its hands. I was mildly disoriented and my whole body ached but I struggled to my feet and did what came naturally. I jammed my sword straight into the closed, crying eye of the cyclops.
What happened next was far from what I expected. There was little resistance as my sword made a squelching sound and I expected some blood and gore but was instead blinded as the monster exploded in a puff of golden dust. Being in the blast radius I was naturally covered in the stuff and lemme tell you, if you ever have to fight a cyclops, close your mouth before you kill it. Whatever that golden dust is, it tastes horrible.
I must've made a pretty funny sight because the next thing I hear is the sound of a camera shutter going off and as I glance over I see Rachel trying to stifle a giggle while taking pictures in every pose a photographer has ever used. She eventually cracked and fell to the ground laughing where I quickly joined her. I've never spoken to someone who has had a near-death experience, but at the moment I was just so glad to be alive that I couldn't contain myself.
After a couple of minutes, all tension had left us and I was reminded of the sleeping girl by the nudging of the silver deer. Rachel and I stood up and followed the deer as it lead us towards the dais before stopping a few feet shy. Where the deer had once lain was an intricately carved shining silver bow. I could feel the power radiating off of it, and I mean that literally. It was such an intoxicating feeling that I almost couldn't breathe. When I looked over at Rachel she seemed to be mostly unaffected.
With the adrenaline wearing off, Rachel took a closer look at the girl and the deer. "This is the Ceryneian Hind!" She gushed, "There's an ornate silver bow, and we're underneath the Temple of Artemis which must mean..." She trailed off towards the end but had connected enough pieces of the puzzle for me to finish where she left off.
"This is Artemis, the goddess of the Hunt. The Greek gods are real." I finished. We both sat in shocked silence for a few moments.
"Didn't the door say something about returning symbols of power and reviving kings or something along those lines?" I asked Rachel.
"Do you think that works here? I mean, Artemis isn't a king or anything. Although it seems like a bow would be her symbol of power." She replied thoughtfully.
"I don't know, but I feel almost compelled to put it back in her hands. When I first noticed the bow, it overwhelmed me with a wave of power that felt almost nauseating. Now it just feels right to return it to her." I stated, growing more confident in my thoughts with every word.
"You haven't led us wrong yet Percy. I trust whatever you think we should do."
I looked over at the Hind, which seemed to nod at me, before reaching down and lifting the bow off of the ground. As my hand connected with it, I could feel it pulsing with power and the pulsing only grew more urgent as I brought the bow closer to its master.
Right before I laid the bow down on the girl before me, silver eyes like the moon snapped open and her hand grasped her symbol of power beside mine.
