Chapter 9: I Achieve My Life's Goal (So Far)

If the rock-hard landing hadn't knocked the breath out of me, Percy would have. We lay in a tangle for a moment, my fingers still entwined in his armour straps. Then he rolled away, flustered.

'Sorry,' we muttered at the same time. His voice cracked a little, going from the new, lower pitch I was only just starting to get used to, to its original boyish frequency.

The sky above us winked away, a retractable roof sliding shut. For a second, everything was pitch black. Then my eyes registered the bronze glow of Percy's sword. Its glow lit up his face, shadowy and confused.

My breath came out in a puff that echoed all the way down the pit. When I spoke, my voice bounced off stone walls. Where were we?

Percy tried to joke. 'Safe from scorpions, anyway.'

I put my hand against the wall. It was cold and mossy, with wet lichen creeping along the cracks in the stone. A sense of déjà-vu crept up on me. I'd been in a hole like this before. It was when I'd gone out to Arizona with Clarisse and accidentally opened a trapdoor …

Percy shone his blade into the darkness. 'It's a long room.'

My insides clenched. I stepped closer to Percy, clutching his arm. If we were where I thought we were, it would be disastrous to get separated now. 'It's not a room.'

A draft ruffled my ponytail, further confirming my suspicions. Air flow wouldn't be possible in an enclosed space.

'It's a corridor,' I whispered.

But how was this possible? Clarisse, Grover, and I had searched everywhere for an entrance. We'd definitely looked around Zeus's Fist. Had we simply not searched hard enough? Or had the Labyrinth entrance only just appeared? And if so, why now?

Percy started to move down the corridor. I tightened my grip on his arm. 'Don't take another step! We have to find the exit.'

'It's okay,' he said soothingly. 'It's right—'

He stopped and stared up at the ceiling, as though he'd only just realised the outside had disappeared.

I found his hand. Percy laced his fingers through mine, warm and comforting.

Okay. We could figure this out. How had Clarisse and I done it last spring?

I made us take two steps back. It brought us close to one of the walls. The smell of moss was strong on it, damp and earthy. We'd activated the Phoenix entrance by pressing the mark of Daedalus. I must have accidentally pressed up against a mark on the outer entrance when I was squeezing through the boulders.

'Help me examine the walls,' I told Percy.

'What for?'

'The mark of Daedalus.' I was already running my fingers up and down the stone, searching for a little triangular indent.

There it was. I put my palm against it, relief flooding through my veins. The Delta symbol glowed blue.

The ceiling slid open like a sunroof, revealing a star-strewn sky with the sliver of a new moon. Tree branches swayed across it. Metal rungs imprinted themselves into the wall, like a ladder up a manhole. Percy motioned for me to go first. I let go of his hand and started to climb.

We emerged into the space between the boulders. It had widened, but once we got out, the boulders slid shut, closing off the hole in the ground. The gap shrank to its original narrow opening.

Fortunately, in the five minutes or so that we'd been in the Labyrinth, the scorpions had wandered away. It seemed like we'd been in there for longer, though. The sun had already set, leaving the woods cold and dark. The only light came from the summer constellations: Capricorn, Sagittarius, the Corona Borealis—Ariadne's crown. I shivered, thinking how lucky we'd been. If we'd gone any further into the Labyrinth, with no maps, without Ariadne's string, who knew where we'd have ended up? We could have been lost for months inside, like Clarisse.

People were calling our names. I heard Tyson's voice thundering over everyone else's.

'Come on,' I said, leading the way out from among the boulders.

Our friends were combing the woods with torches. We found Clarisse first, in a group with Silena, Will, and Katie Gardner.

Clarisse shoved her torch in our faces, so close I had to jump back to avoid being scorched. 'Where have you two been? We've been looking forever!'

Percy frowned. 'But we were only gone a few minutes.'

Hadn't he noticed the change in the sky?

Chiron emerged from between two trees, followed by Tyson and Grover. Tyson's one big eye was wide with worry. He nearly dropped his torch when he saw us.

'Percy! You are okay?'

'We're fine,' Percy assured him. 'We fell in a hole.'

Everyone turned to stare at him, except for Clarisse. She raised her eyebrows questioningly at me. She had one of the golden laurels on her head. Silena was wearing another.

'Honest!' Percy explained about the scorpions, stressing that we'd only been gone a minute.

Chiron shook his head. 'You've been missing for almost an hour. The game is over.'

'Yeah.' Grover muttered something about being sat on.

'Was an accident!' Tyson said.

Clarisse kept her eyes on me. 'A hole?' I got the feeling she'd guessed exactly what had happened.

I looked among the members of the search party. Most of them wore puzzled expressions. I had to let Chiron and Clarisse know what we'd found, but the middle of the woods didn't seem to be the best place for it. 'Chiron … maybe we should talk about this at the Big House.'

'You found it, didn't you?' Clarisse demanded.

When I confirmed her suspicions, she looked graver than I'd ever seen her before. We both knew what this meant.

Will scratched his head. 'What were you looking for?'

'What's going on?' Katie asked.

Tyson's eye was wide and bewildered. 'Annabeth found something?'

Chiron put up his hands, stalling their questions. 'Tonight is not the time, and this is not the right place.' He ordered us back to our cabins.

Clarisse and I trailed the group through the woods, hanging back so that the others couldn't hear our conversation. Only Percy stayed close enough to listen.

'It was like in Arizona,' I told her. 'I pressed the mark by accident. And we just—fell in.'

'I knew it,' she said. 'This explains a lot. It explains what Luke is after.'

Percy stopped walking. 'Wait a second—what do you mean?' He gave me a puzzled look. 'What did we find?'

I couldn't believe he hadn't worked it out yet. 'An entrance to the Labyrinth,' I said, wishing our hypothesis hadn't been right. 'An invasion route straight into the heart of camp.'

A stunned silence followed. The others in front of us had stopped walking, too. I'd spoken too loudly.

'We will not talk about this now,' Chiron said firmly. 'Everyone, back to your cabins.'

He caught Clarisse and me by the arm. 'In the morning, we will brief the others. I will rely on the two of you to lead the war council.'

I tried hard to get a good sleep that night, knowing it was essential to be alert the next morning, but my mind kept taking me down dark, winding tunnels. I'm not sure when I actually slipped into dreams. When I woke up, the stone walls and forked paths were still at the front of my thoughts.

Chiron collected me after breakfast. He must have noticed the bags under my eyes, but he didn't comment.

Clarisse was less diplomatic. 'You look awful,' she said.

I took in her messy hair, poking out in different directions under her bandanna, and her rumpled shirt. 'You're one to talk.'

'Are you ready to speak to the others?' Chiron asked.

Clarisse and I exchanged a look. We nodded in unison.

'Call everyone,' I said. 'The cabin heads … er, Quintus, I guess. Grover, too. And Argus.' He was our security chief. If we were really preparing for war, we'd need him.

We assembled around the weapons table in the sword-fighting arena. Mrs O'Leary, never far from Quintus, sat in a corner, working her way through a decapitated training dummy. In addition to the people I'd named, Juniper had accompanied Grover, and Percy had brought Tyson along. No one objected.

Seeing Juniper reminded me of our run-in with her at Zeus's Fist yesterday. Just before the scorpions had shown up, she'd said something, like there was something we should know, something she should tell us …

It was almost as if she'd known what we would find there.

But if she knew it was there, why hadn't she mentioned it before? Juniper knew we were looking for a Labyrinth entrance at camp.

Or did she? I wasn't sure if in our encouragement of Grover to seek Pan underground, we had actually mentioned the possibility of a Labyrinth entrance here.

I let Clarisse kick off the meeting. She laid out the facts about the Labyrinth in a brusque, business-like manner, describing the entrances we'd discovered: Phoenix, San Francisco, Manhattan. She left out Chris, which was strange considering he was the one who had instigated our investigation. I guess it was just too sensitive a topic for her.

'But how did Luke know about the Labyrinth?' Lee mused. 'He's been gone from camp for years. He couldn't have known it'd reform here.'

'The Labyrinth didn't reform,' I said. 'It's been growing under civilisation all along. The entrances shift, but the one Percy and I found … it may have been here for a while.' A few more things were falling into place. The way Luke had used to disappear from camp for hours, as if he had a secret hideout I could never find. The way he'd left camp two years ago—no one had seen him leave; he'd simply vanished at the end of summer. Even the way he'd snuck back in to poison Thalia's tree. It made so much sense now, I was amazed I hadn't seen it before. 'Luke must have known about the Labyrinth entrance.' His knowledge was more extensive than I'd ever imagined. It blew me away, just a little. 'He knew everything about camp.'

'That's what I was trying to tell you last night!' Juniper piped up. 'The cave entrance has been there a long time. Luke used to use it.'

There was a general outcry at this—why hadn't Juniper said anything; did this mean Luke could show up on our doorstep at any moment? Juniper protested that she had no idea what it really was, and she'd only been spying on a cute guy.

All the girls around the table blushed, except for Clarisse. Grover pretended to gag. Percy, I noticed, had balled his hands into fists. He was staring at the chew toy Mrs O'Leary was slavering over, as if imagining Luke in its place.

Quintus cleared his throat. 'Interesting …' he said slowly. He sounded like he had when he'd asked me to tell him about camp, like he was piecing together an intriguing puzzle. 'And you believe this young man, Luke, would dare use the Labyrinth as an invasion route.'

'Definitely.' Clarisse pounded the table with her fist. 'If he could get an army of monsters inside Camp Half-Blood, just pop up in the middle of the woods without having to worry about our magical boundaries, we wouldn't stand a chance. He could wipe us out easy.' She caught my eye. 'He must've been planning this for months.'

I didn't know why Luke couldn't just come straight back to camp through the Labyrinth, if he'd used the entrance before. Maybe it had stopped working for him. He must have tried at the end of last summer, after we'd captured the Golden Fleece, and found he couldn't get through any more. That would have been when he'd started exploring.

'He's been sending scouts into the maze.' I started to explain how we knew this, when I remembered that Clarisse had probably left out Chris's role in this whole escapade for a reason.

'Chris Rodriguez,' Chiron muttered to Quintus in a low voice that only those of us at the head of the table could hear.

Quintus nodded. 'Ah, the one in the … yes, I understand.'

Percy looked up. 'The one in the what?'

Clarisse's face was red. She threw us a resentful look. 'The point is, Luke has been looking for a way to navigate the maze.' She nodded at me. 'He's searching for Daedalus's workshop.'

'The guy who created the maze?' Percy asked.

'Yes—the greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time.' I thought of my maps, my dreams, all the conflicting stories I'd pieced together in my research. 'If the legends are true, his workshop is in the centre of the Labyrinth. He's the only one who knew how to navigate the maze perfectly.' This must be exactly why Kronos had told Luke to find Daedalus. 'If Luke managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to help him, Luke wouldn't have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army in the maze's traps. He could navigate anywhere he wanted—quickly and safely.' I reached for the hilt of my dagger, seeking its comfort. 'First to Camp Half-Blood to wipe us out. Then … to Olympus.'

As I said it, the task we had to undertake to stop him became clear, as though the magical compass, Ariadne's string itself, had illuminated a path in my brain.

'Back up a second, Annabeth,' Beckendorf said in his deep, loud voice. 'You said "convince Daedalus."' He knit his eyebrows in confusion. 'Isn't Daedalus dead?'

'I would hope so,' Quintus said. 'He lived, what, three thousand years ago?' He gazed at me with a strange gleam in his eye, as though he were especially curious about how I would counter this point. 'And,' he added, 'even if he were alive, don't the old stories say he fled from the Labyrinth?'

'That's the problem, my dear Quintus,' Chiron said. 'No one knows. There are rumours … well, there are many disturbing rumours about Daedalus.'

Quintus raised his eyebrows challengingly. I wondered just what he had heard of Daedalus.

'One is that he disappeared back into the Labyrinth towards the end of his life.' Chiron looked at me, and I knew this time he wouldn't shoot down the idea forming in my head. 'He might still be down there.'

I took a deep breath and said, 'We need to go in. We have to find the workshop before Luke does.' I laid out the plan piece by piece: find Daedalus, secure his help, keep Ariadne's string out of Luke's hands. The more I spoke, the more confident I was that this was the right plan.

Percy held up his hand. 'Wait a second. If we're worried about an attack, why not just blow up the entrance? Seal the tunnel?'

Grover brightened and volunteered immediately. I'd never seen him this eager to blow something up.

'It's not so easy, stupid.' Clarisse rolled her eyes, like she couldn't believe Percy assumed we hadn't attempted it. 'We tried that at the entrance we found in Phoenix. It didn't go well.'

I explained how we'd tried to demolish the building that housed the Labyrinth entrance in Phoenix. Clarisse had brought an entire wrecking crew, dynamite and all, but all we'd succeeded in doing was shifting the entrance ten feet away. We could probably blow up the whole camp and the Labyrinth would still open up into the ruins.

'The best we can do is prevent Luke from learning to navigate the Labyrinth.'

Lee pursed his lips. 'We could fight. We know where the entrance is now. We can set up a defensive line and wait for them.' He mimed stringing a bow. 'If an army tries to come through, they'll find us waiting with our bows.'

Chiron reminded him that we'd already been doing that—preparing to defend the camp—but there was only so much we could do. The Aethiopian drakon two nights ago was a prime example of what we were up against. Only the magical boundaries had kept the monster out. If all our archers together couldn't even bring down one monster, how would we face an entire army?

I repeated the plan: beat Luke to Daedalus's workshop and Ariadne's string. If we had it, he couldn't use it.

And maybe—just maybe—if we found Luke, I could try again to convince him to return.

'But if nobody can navigate in there, what chance do we have?' Percy said.

I had to admit this was the toughest part of the plan. But now that we had real evidence that Luke could use the Labyrinth against us, going in ourselves was the best strategy—maybe our only chance. And I'd done so much research. Even if Luke had a head start in his search, he couldn't know more about ancient architecture than me.

'I know Daedalus's Labyrinth better than anybody,' I said.

Percy's eyebrow quirked. 'From reading about it.'

'Well, yes.'

'That's not enough.'

Something inside me deflated. Why was he being so stubborn about this now? I'd counted on him to back me up, but here he was, shooting down my best idea.

'It has to be!' I shot back.

'It isn't!'

I ground my teeth. 'Are you going to help me or not?'

As the words flew out of my mouth, I saw the ghostly shade of my dream two nights ago, with Percy challenging me in the Labyrinth. Did he sense my hope that this plan could save Luke? Was that why he was so strongly against it?

I took a step back. Sometime during our argument, we'd gotten to our feet and were now standing nose to nose. The rest of the table watched us with wide eyes.

'Ahem,' Chiron said. He looked pointedly at Percy and me. We sank back into our seats. 'First things first.' He stared at his hands, weighing the threat to camp against the danger a few of us would face in the Labyrinth. With a heavy sigh, he announced, 'We need a quest. Someone must enter the Labyrinth, find the workshop of Daedalus and prevent Luke from using the maze to invade this camp.'

Percy crossed his arms, looking mutinous.

Clarisse swivelled her chair to face me. 'We all know who should lead this—Annabeth.'

It was a complete one-eighty from last summer, when we'd fought each other to lead the quest for the Golden Fleece. I turned over the college ring on my camp necklace. 'You've done as much as I have, Clarisse. You should go, too.'

'I'm not going back in there.'

The other counsellors exchanged looks of disbelief. I guess they remembered our fight from last summer, too. I knew Clarisse had been through hell in the Labyrinth, but she'd have eaten slugs before admitting it.

'Don't tell me you're scared,' Travis scoffed. 'Clarisse, chicken?'

Clarisse jumped to her feet. 'You don't understand anything, punk. I—' Her voice actually trembled. 'I'm never going in there again. Never!'

Her voice cracked on the last word. She fled the room before anyone could see her lose her composure completely. Her footsteps echoed across the arena.

Travis raised his hands awkwardly, glancing at the rest of us in bewilderment. 'I didn't mean to—'

'The poor girl has had a difficult year,' Chiron said mildly. 'Now, do we have an agreement that Annabeth should lead the quest?'

Nobody objected.

It was funny; for years I'd wanted to be handed a quest. I'd trained harder than anyone, read more, learned more, just so I could lead one of my own. Now that the moment had come, it felt nothing like I'd imagined.

There was no fanfare, no jubilation, no excitement. Just a silent room holding its breath in fear and anticipation, with the survival of our camp hanging on my success.

This was what it really meant to get a quest: responsibility.

And I'd watched enough quests be assigned to know what came next. To proceed with my quest, I needed a prophecy. One that would determine my fate … all of our fates.

It was time to face the Oracle.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

A/N: So, I'm wondering if the clues from DoW were obvious enough to connect to Annabeth's remembrances of Luke's past actions here. Let me know what you think of that!

Thank you Hello, Thunderwolf7226, JustADerangedFanGirl, CQ816, OverLordRevan, MariaClaire, and randomstories7777 for your reassurance this week about the additional details in my fics! I'm glad you guys are enjoying them. And CQ816 and MariaClaire: I am so sorry I haven't been able to put up a reply on the forum as I've spent just about zero time on my laptop this week because I've been busy arranging a birthday present that involved arranging, playing, and singing a song (plus recording) so I didn't really get to do proper replies to anything that came in after last Saturday my time. Sorry about that. I still very much appreciate the time you've taken to leave me a comment on what you enjoyed and will do better this week!