Whoop, I love Will and Calypso, just saying.
Replies:
Undeath9087: Well I mean it won't take long.
Guest: Yep I did want to mess with you, I was there like 'make them think that I've ramped up the heartbreak and then boom! Surprise happy twist. And yeah, Bob and Damasen shouldn't have been able to hold out how they did realistically. They're pretty beat up even now.
Hazel was willing to admit that she was terrified as the darkness surrounded them- it was a horrible feeling as the layers of Mist enfolded her, twisting her sense of reality. She took one step forward and bumped into a wall that shouldn't have been there.
Will and Calypso were both looking around, and will pressed his hands against the stone, swallowing hard. "W-where are we?" and there it was, that terror in his voice, as if he was asking a question he suspected he knew the answer too.
A corridor stretched out to their left and right. Torches guttered in iron sconces. The air smelled of mildew, as in an old tomb. On Hazel's shoulder, Gale barked angrily, digging her claws into Hazel's collarbone.
"Yes, I know," Hazel muttered to the weasel. "It's an illusion."
"This is no illusion." Calypso breathed as she looked around, "This is something stronger, darker-"
"Listen to the daughter of Atlas," Pasiphaë laughed. Her voice sounded watery and far away. "Is it an illusion, Hazel Levesque, or something more? Don't you see what I have created? The son of Apollo knows-" and Will let out a terrified noise, "He recognises it-"
"Will-" Hazel gave him a worried look- his scars seemed even more vivid against his skin he'd gone so ashen.
"The Labyrinth." Will's voice cracked, "It's the Labyrinth. But that's not possible- Nico told me- he told me that the Labyrinth collapsed when he took Daedalus' soul. He told me that it was over that-" and Hazel could almost hear the 'That I was safe'.
And gods but she'd barely registered- Percy had told them so much that day that the labyrinth was just a small part of the story but she had said that Nico's boyfriend had come close to dying hadn't she?
Pasiphaë's voice clucked disapprovingly. "Ah, but I am still alive. You credit Daedalus with all the maze's secrets? I breathed magical life into his Labyrinth. Daedalus was nothing compared to me—the immortal sorceress, daughter of Helios, sister of Circe! Now the Labyrinth will be my domain."
"It's an illusion," Hazel insisted. "We just have to break through it."
Even as she said it, the walls seemed to grow more solid, the smell of mildew more intense.
"Too late, too late," Pasiphaë crooned. "The maze is already awake. It will spread under the skin of the earth once more while your mortal world is leveled. You demigods…you heroes… will wander its corridors, dying slowly of thirst and fear and misery. Or perhaps, if I am feeling merciful, you will die quickly, in great pain!"
Holes opened in the floor beneath Hazel's feet. She only just managed to grab Calypso's arm and yank her with her as she barged into will, knocking him aside as a row of spikes shot up, impaling the ceiling.
"Run!" she yelled the word.
Pasiphaë's laughter echoed down the corridor. "Where are you going, young sorceress? Running from an illusion?"
Hazel didn't answer. She was too busy trying to stay alive. Behind them, row after row of spikes shot toward the ceiling with a persistent thunk, thunk, thunk.
She dragged Calypso and Will down a side corridor, leaped over a trip wire, then stumbled to a halt in front of a pit twenty feet across.
"Oh gods." Will groaned, "This place tries to kill you it changes- Hazel-"
"How deep is that?" Calypso cut over him, her voice stronger than Hazel would have expected Hazel's senses told her that the pit was at least fifty feet straight down, with a pool of poison at the bottom. Could she trust her senses? Whether or not Pasiphaë had created a new Labyrinth, Hazel believed they were still in the same cavern, being made to run aimlessly back and forth while Pasiphaë and Clytius watched in amusement. Illusion or not: unless Hazel could figure out how to get out of this maze, the traps would kill them.
"Eight minutes now," said the voice of Pasiphaë. "I'd love to see you survive, truly. That would prove you worthy sacrifices to Gaea in Athens. But then, of course, we wouldn't need your friends in the elevator."
Hazel's heart pounded. She faced the wall to her left. Despite what her senses told her, that should be the direction of the Doors. Pasiphaë should be right in front of her.
Hazel wanted to burst through the wall and throttle the sorceress. In eight minutes, she, Calypso and Will needed to be at the Doors of Death to let their friends out.
But Pasiphaë was an immortal sorceress with thousands of years of experience in weaving spells. Hazel couldn't defeat her through sheer willpower. She'd managed to fool the bandit Sciron by showing him what he expected to see. Hazel needed to figure out what Pasiphaë wanted most.
"Seven minutes now," Pasiphaë lamented. "If only we had more time! So many indignities I'd like you to suffer."
That was it, Hazel realized. She had to run the gauntlet. She had to make the maze more dangerous, more spectacular—make Pasiphaë focus on the traps rather than the direction the Labyrinth was leading.
"Okay- I have a plan. We're going to jump-"
"What?" Will shook his head, "But-" and Hazel wasn't sure what had happened to him in the Labyrinth but it must have been bad- she'd never seen the usually cheery son of Apollo look so petrified- so she grabbed his hand, grabbed Calypso's hand- and she looked ready to wage war, it was comforting- and she dragged Will with them as they launched themselves across the pit. When they landed, Hazel looked back and saw no pit at all—just a three-inch crack in the floor.
"Come on!" she urged.
They ran as the voice of Pasiphaë droned on. "Oh, dear, no. You'll never survive that way. Six minutes."
The ceiling above them cracked apart. Gale the weasel squeaked in alarm, but Hazel imagined a new tunnel leading off to the left—a tunnel even more dangerous, going the wrong direction. The Mist softened under her will. The tunnel appeared, and they dashed to one side.
Pasiphaë sighed with disappointment. "You really aren't very good at this, my dear."
But Hazel felt a spark of hope. She'd created a tunnel. She'd driven a small wedge into the magic fabric of the Labyrinth.
"That was very good." Calypso told her quickly, "You can do it Hazel you need to believe in yourself. That's a large part of magic, the confidence."
The floor collapsed under them. Hazel jumped to one side, dragging her friends with her.
She imagined another tunnel, veering back the way they'd come, but full of poisonous gas. The maze obliged.
"Hold your breath."
They plunged through the toxic fog. Hazel's eyes felt like they were being rinsed in pepper juice, but she kept running.
"Five minutes," Pasiphaë said. "Alas! If only I could watch you suffer longer." They burst into a corridor with fresh air. All three of them were coughing and Calypso pulled a face.
"I am feeling the urge to smack this woman."
"I fucking hate labyrinths." Will ground out "I really, really hate them."
They ducked under a bronze garrotte wire. Hazel imagined the tunnel curving back toward Pasiphaë, ever so slightly. The Mist bent to her will.
The walls of the tunnel began to close in on either side. Hazel didn't try to stop them. She made them close faster, shaking the floor and cracking the ceiling. The three of them ran for their lives, following the curve as it brought them closer to what she hoped was the center of the room.
"A pity," said Pasiphaë. "I wish I could kill you and your friends in the elevator, but Gaea has insisted that two of you must be kept alive until the Feast of Hope, when your blood will be put to good use! Ah, well. I will have to find other victims for my Labyrinth. You two have been second-rate failures."
Hazel, Will and Calypso stumbled to a stop. In front of them stretched a chasm so wide, Hazel couldn't see the other side. From somewhere below in the darkness came the sound of hissing—thousands and thousands of snakes.
Hazel was tempted to retreat, but the tunnel was closing behind them, leaving them stranded on a tiny ledge. Gale the weasel paced across Hazel's shoulders and farted with anxiety.
"What now?" Will asked quickly, "You can do this Hazel."
"Will is right. What do we do now?" Calypso reassured, "For Leo, Nico and Percy."
And if there was ever anything that would make Hazel determined that would be it. She grabbed their hands again. "We have to jump-"
"Oh gods." Will groaned.
"For Leonidas."
Hazel dragged them, leaping into the pit and pulling them with her.
She forced herself to focus, she bent all her will into redirecting the magic of the Labyrinth.
Pasiphaë laughed with delight, knowing that any moment they would be crushed or bitten to death in a pit of snakes. Instead, Hazel imagined a chute in the darkness, just to their left. She twisted in midair and fell toward it. She, Will and Calypso hit the chute hard and slid into the cavern, landing right on top of Pasiphaë.
"Ack!" The sorceress's head smacked against the floor as Will sat down hard on her chest.
For a moment, the four of them and the weasel were a pile of sprawling bodies and flailing limbs. Hazel tried to draw her sword, but Pasiphaë managed to extricate herself first. The sorceress backed away, her hairdo bent sideways like a collapsed cake- and Hazel laughed as Calypso surged towards her, the flat of her hand hitting the womans face hard.
"No one gets between me and my Leonidas!"
And Will let out a piercing whistle that made the sorceress clutch at her ears.
"You miserable wretches!"
The maze was gone. A few feet away, Clytius stood with his back to them, watching the Doors of Death. By Hazel's calculation, they had about thirty seconds until their friends arrived. Hazel felt exhausted from her run through the maze while controlling the Mist, but she needed to pull off one more trick.
She had successfully made Pasiphaë see what she most desired. Now Hazel had to make the sorceress see what she most feared. "You must really hate demigods," Hazel said, trying to mimic Pasiphaë's cruel smile. "We always get the best of you, don't we, Pasiphaë?"
"Nonsense!" screamed Pasiphaë. "I will tear you apart! I will—"
"We're always pulling the rug out from under your feet," Hazel sympathized. "Your husband betrayed you. Theseus killed the Minotaur and stole your daughter Ariadne. Now two second-rate failures have turned your own maze against you. But you knew it would come to this, didn't you? You always fall in the end."
"I am immortal!" Pasiphaë wailed. She took a step back, fingering her necklace. "You cannot stand against me!"
"You can't stand at all," Hazel countered. "Look."
She pointed at the feet of the sorceress. A trapdoor opened underneath Pasiphaë. She fell, screaming, into a bottomless pit that didn't really exist.
The floor solidified. The sorceress was gone.
"That was amazing!" Will laughed, "Wish we'd had you on the Labyrinth the first time."
"It was bad?"
"It's where I got these." Will gestured to the scars on his face, "I only just made it out alive. If Mr. D. Hadn't healed me I'd be dead right now-" his mouth shut-because the elevator dinged. Rather than pushing the UP button, Clytius stepped back from the controls, keeping their friends trapped inside.
"No!" Hazel screamed the word- but Will and Calypso were already moving, Will slid a ring off his finger and he was throwing it- and Hazel's mouth dropped open in shock- there was no way- it was such a small thing- but Calypso was singing a soft lilting song and it seemed to twist slightly, speeding up, the direction correcting itself as it rocketed straight past Clytius and slammed into the UP button.
The Doors of Death opened with a hiss.
