CHAPTER VIII: MAY TAKES AN UNEXPECTED VACATION

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the works of Rick Riordan, or any certain DC Comics superheroes I may or may not mention…

"So, basically," said Biagio d'Amore as he plummeted back down to earth from the rock-climbing wall, "You're a Green Lan – "

He never got to finish naming that particular band of superheroes, though, as by that time he had been suddenly reintroduced to the ground. What would otherwise have been a –"tern" became a grunt that I don't think anyone could've spelled, and only Biagio could've pronounced. It takes a lot more than that to deter Biagio, however, and in moments he was back on his feet, dusting off his usual tuxedo. "Am I right?"

It was a few days after the fateful Capture the Flag game. Presented with a mostly free afternoon, Biagio and I had been hanging out (sometimes quite literally) by Camp Half-Blood's signature climbing wall, which boasted "amenities" like lava flows, minor earthquakes and spikes that were probably poisonous. Oh, and there are two of them, and they have the occasional tendency to slam together like something out of a video game – one of those platformers where the game designers are really trying to kill you.

Ever since our shared journey to Camp Half-Blood, Biagio and I – who had only been casual acquaintances at school – were quickly becoming good friends. In part we'd been thrust together by circumstances (Manticores are an excellent bonding experience!), and he was also the only person at Camp (besides Flint, that is) who knew, sort of, what my life had been like before all this. But besides all that, he was certainly a funny and entertaining person to be around, and I was slowly catching glimpses of a good heart beneath the bizarre, flirty exterior.

Right now we were discussing what nearly everyone else at Camp Half-Blood seemed to be talking about: my new spear, which I'd decided to name Strix (Ancient Greek for owl ) . Apparently, receiving a magic item directly from one's immortal parent wasn't completely unheard-of – Annabeth's Yankees cap was another example – but it was still a rare occurrence. Also, I gathered that it had been a long time since any Olympian (Mr. D excluded) had visited the camp in person.

"Not quite," I answered Biagio, idly wondering what the Ancient Greek for "No evil shall escape my sight" was. "But you're on the right track, at least – it does seem to be controlled with my thoughts. I'm still experimenting, but I did figure out that you can make the fire stuff actually burn if you concentrate and, uh, think fiery thoughts. And when I was fighting with it on Friday, it kind of helped out – like it was guiding my hand where it needed to go."

"And why were you so honored, is what I want to know?" Biagio grumbled, tackling the wall for yet another try. "Why didn't Aphrodite descend from the sky and give me a superpowered magical weapon?"

I rolled my eyes. "You're larger than life already, Biagio – adding anything else to that would make you just plain dangerous. Besides, you were doing well enough with the nunchucks, weren't you?"

I'd decided not to mention any of Athena's warnings about my destiny just yet, mostly because I had no idea what they meant myself. For all of my banter, the idea was still making me uneasy – like knowing you were blindfolded on a roller coaster, certain that there was a huge drop coming up but not knowing when.

I'd been teasing Biagio about the nunchucks, and I was far from the first person to have done so. He'd more or less disappeared during the general chaos of the Capture the Flag game, but word of the hitting-himself-in-the-shoulder incident had spread quickly. Furthermore, despite the fact that the weather had gotten warmer, he was still resolutely wearing long sleeves – like there were more bruises he wasn't keen to show off.

"Maybe I should talk to the Hephaestus Cabin about forging me a cool sword," he mused, now about halfway up the climbing wall. "I think my awesomeness needs a conduit. WAAAARGH!"

That last bit was caused by a sudden spray of fire directly over Biagio's head that had flared up without warning. This was what had caused him to fall earlier, but now he somehow held on, swinging crazily away from the wall, and quickly scrambled up the last few feet to the top. "Ha! What do you think of that?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Good luck getting back down."

Biagio bit his lip and mumbled something in Italian that I didn't quite hear.

For the most part, that day had been a lot like any other day at camp – sacrificing part of my breakfast to the gods, reading about the life of Theseus in the original Greek, trying to avoid the Hermes cabin's paintball trebuchet – but as it turned out, it was the last normal day before the roller coaster of my life took another sharp turn. Therefore, the whole thing stands out very clearly in my mind.

It all began at the canoe lake, shortly after Ashley Summers had capsized her head counselor, Will Solace, thoroughly on purpose. He'd been the victim of a direct hit from the Stoll Brothers of Hermes and their paintball weaponry earlier that afternoon, so he'd been liberally splattered with hot pink – until now. Personally I thought he should've been grateful – as the neon pink shade against his orange camp T-shirt had not been the best of looks – but he still seemed bent on revenge for his dunking and an oar war had broken out among the Apollo cabin's boats.

Our actual canoe lesson had concluded several minutes previously, so I was drifting lazily about twenty feet out from shore, watching the Apollo kids squabbling and the water glittering orange in the magnificent sunset. There was still a smoky taste in my mouth from barbeque night in the pavilion, and the promise of s'mores at the campfire later. A perfect day.

My eyes were idly following the progress of a large tailfin cutting through the water some distance away – one of the usual prowling sea serpents, I was guessing – and I caught sight of a strange silhouette out of the corner of my vision. Careful not to flip my boat over with a sudden movement (this time), I turned around and identified the sight: it was Chiron, who looked almost like an ordinary human riding a horse from that distance, standing on the shore of the lake.

I frowned slightly; this was unusual. Chiron taught archery, some sword fighting and advanced Greek, but as far as I knew, he had nothing to do with canoeing (this was understandable, as his second half meant he couldn't even get into a canoe in the first place.) Perhaps, I reasoned, he'd come to rein in the Apollo cabin's little argy-bargy – which did look like to was getting out of hand somewhat.

The relative calm of the lake was interrupted by the sound of the camp's conch-shell being blown (for the uninitiated, it sounds kind of like a bass guitar trying to yodel). Immediately all of the other canoeing campers stepped what they were doing and headed for shore. I followed, feeling a little nervous. Did this mean there was an emergency going on, or something? Had that fin been something more serious than I'd assumed?

Evidently, most of the other campers were wondering the same thing, and there were a lot of uncertain, muttered conversations as we all docked our canoes and stumbled back onto the sand. Chiron still hadn't said anything, but he was wearing his finest ominous expression. By now, the uncertainty of it all was making me truly nervous, and just about anything – like suddenly hearing my name – would've freaked me out entirely.

That didn't stop Chiron. "Jason Williams?"

I tried to stifle the fact that my heart was now pounding a mile a minute. "AGH … umm …yes?"

Our activities director the centaur didn't respond for a moment, but just stood where he was, gazing off towards the distant hills. The sunset light reflected in his eyes, making his expression pretty hard to gauge.

"Follow me to the Big House," he finally said. "I'm afraid I have much to explain."

The journey from the canoe lake to the Big House wasn't a very long one in theory, but with hundreds of possibilities and thoughts rushing through my head at a hundred miles an hour, each even worse that the last, it seemed to be taking an eternity.

A small group of demigods – from Aphrodite, mostly – were hanging around the volleyball courts and chatting, and several of them looked up in interest as Chiron and I passed by. One of them, I noticed, was Melanie, who shot me a concerned look and mouthed something. I'm no good at lip-reading, but all things considered I was pretty sure she was saying something along the lines of, what's going on?

It was good to know that somebody cared, and she'd asked the same question I kept coming back to myself, but Chiron was keeping up a pretty brisk pace and I was loath to be left behind. I gave Melanie an awkward shrug designed to be as apologetic as I could make it, inwardly promising that I'd try to explain later.

As we neared the Big House, I gradually became aware of a strange, insistent creak creak creak noise that I couldn't identify. By the time I stepped onto the porch, though, I'd figured it out – the Big House's eagle-shaped weathervane was swiveling slowly back and forth in the wind. And that was another thing, come to think of it – up until then it had been a wonderfully warm evening without a trace of wind in the air, but now a chilly breeze had swept up. Perhaps it was nothing more than changing weather, but my spine tingled all the same. I hadn't felt this nervous since my arrival at Camp Half-Blood.

Still looking preoccupied, Chiron ushered me into the den – the same room where I'd met the other campers on my first day. Now, it was completely empty, or so I thought until a loud voice swearing in Ancient Greek suddenly broke the silence. This proved to be Mr. D – the first I'd seen of him in quite some time – playing a Donkey Kong arcade game in the corner.

Chiron cleared his throat. "Erm, Mr. D –"

The god of wine looked back at us innocently. "Oh, I'm sorry, Chiron. Did you need the den for something? I'd be the last Olympian to stand in your way."

He started slowly ambling out, clearly taking as long as he possibly could. "You know, Chiron, as reluctant as I was to return, even I must admit that mortal civilization does have its strong points. Like this game, for instance. Di Immortales, it's almost as good as Pac-Man!"

That little soliloquy had brought him to the doorway. But before he left, he turned and shot me a look. Everyone seemed to be giving me significant glances lately, but Dionysus' was especially hard to read – not exactly angry, and not exactly expectant. Whatever he'd been trying to convey, it was beyond me to decipher.

Then he was gone, and Chiron was showing me to a comfortable leather chair and pouring lemonade. I took a glass and tried to wait patiently, but I was itching with anticipation; dying to find out why Chiron had summoned me here. I was reminded again of my journey to camp – Flint had dropped a lot of ominous hints before he'd finally explained about the Greek gods. Hopefully I'd get an explanation this time around too – eventually.

Chiron had returned to his wheelchair disguise and was now facing me across a coffee table, an intent expression on his face. "Flint told me the details of your and Mr. D'Amore's journey to camp. In some ways it was typical, but I'm afraid that one element continues to perplex me."

He looked at me like he was expecting me to figure out what he meant, but I couldn't think of anything (except Biagio falling out of the van, but that was more humiliating than perplexing.) "And, uh, what was that?" I ventured after a medium-sized awkward pause had gone by.

Chiron raised his eyebrows. "The attack of the Kindly One at your school, Jason. Such entities are more than ordinary monsters, who will hunt demigods out of malice and opportunism. The Erinyes are the avengers of Hades, and long ago, at the Areopagus in Greece, they became general arbiters of justice. In short, they will not be loosed unless there is some wrong to be redressed."

I considered this, a tingly feeling of uneasiness gradually beginning to sweep through me. Flint had mentioned something similar – jokingly congratulating me for getting Hades mad at me – but I remained just as confused now as I had been back then. Was it possible that I'd done something seriously wrong without even being aware of it?

I took a long drink of lemonade, hoping that it might clarify my mind somehow, but no dice. "So, why was it, uh, pursuing Biagio and me?" I asked hesitantly, not at all sure I wanted to know the answer. "What did we do?"

Chiron scratched his beard, squinting at me thoughtfully. "I must confess that I'm not sure, but the fact that you were granted a weapon by your immortal parent shortly afterward is suggestive. Taken together, these two events seem to point to your being at the center of something truly momentous – and I could think of a few candidates for such a role," he added darkly.

I gulped, and apparently my face looked pretty stricken after the dripping-with-doom conversation, for Chiron's tone suddenly became far more nonchalant. "For now, enough said about the matter. I will inform you immediately if I learn anything definite. My primary purpose in summoning you here for this conversation was something else altogether."

He grinned suddenly, which sort of surprised me – up until then, he'd always struck me as an extremely serious kind of person. Now, though, he looked almost mischievous.

"Your performance in last Friday's Capture the Flag game caught my attention," he told me. "The gods have a need, and I believe that you are the hero for the job. The quest is yours, if you will accept it."

I blinked, wondering if I'd missed something, but I suspected it was just the usual case of Chiron being two steps ahead of me. "A quest … for what?"

Chiron checked his watch, like it was going to be a long story. "Ah, yes – the details. Please, follow me."

He didn't bother to return to centaur form, but instead wheeled briskly out of the den. I quickly gulped the rest of my lemonade before following.

"What do you know," Chiron asked me, "about the great war between the gods and the Titans?"

For some reason, we'd only gone as far as the Big House's wraparound porch. Chiron was leaning against the railing and gazing up into the twilight sky, so I couldn't see his face very well. This made it even more difficult to tell what he was thinking, so I gave up trying and concentrated on his question.

Fortunately, I'd been kind of a Greek mythology geek even before my journey to Camp Half-Blood, - I wonder now if the gods gave me that tendency just for times like this – and I remembered something or other about the Titans. "That was, um, the war of the gods – led by Zeus – against the Titans, right?" I recalled hesitantly. "Kronos was Zeus' father and tried to destroy the gods by swallowing them, but Zeus escaped and set the rest of the gods free. Then there was a war, and the Olympians took over the world from the Titans."

Chiron nodded. "A commendable summary, but my question concerned more recent events as well. After Zeus conquered his father Kronos, he sliced him into pieces with his own scythe and cast him into the blackest pits of Tartarus in the underworld, But Titans are immortal just a gods are, and last summer Kronos gathered the strength to return to life and wage war on Olympus again."

I frowned in confusion. Sure, maybe the world of gods, monsters, and heroes could go unnoticed by mortals most of the time, but a full-scale war between gods and Titans? There was no way everyone could miss that.

Or had they? I asked myself, suddenly remembering the catastrophic storm system last year that had been all over the news – the one that had done so much damage in Manhattan.

Right around here, actually …

My mouth had suddenly gone dry. "What happened?" The thought of such powerful and dangerous entities at war in America was sobering – there were just so many ways for things to go disastrously wrong.

Chiron turned back towards me with a wry grin. "Well, as you might have guessed by the fact that we're still here, we achieved victory, albeit at a cost. The Olympians sent the dread monster Typhon back to Tartarus, Percy Jackson and an army of satyrs imprisoned Hyperion in a tree in Central Park, and a son of Hermes named Luke Castellan" – a shadow visibly descended across Chiron's features – "sacrificed himself to destroy Kronos again.

"It was a momentous episode in the gods' history," he continued, "But fortunately it is all in the past now. There is just one specific facet of last summer's evens that pertains to your quest.

"There were four Titans who corresponded to the cardinal directions," Chiron told me. "Hyperion, for instance, was lord of the east. And Krios, the lord of the south, was set to guard Mount Orthrys, the Titan's palace near San Francisco. But a valiant group of demigods, led by none other than Jason Grace, slew Krios and returned Orthrys to ruins."

Chiron leaned back in his wheelchair, seemingly done with his speech, and looked at me thoughtfully. I uneasily began to remember the dreams I'd been having, filled with menacing giants. Krios … Hyperion … who had they been? I wasn't entirely certain yet, but a nervous feeling was slowly overtaking me the more I thought about it, like I was on the track of something vastly important.

Yet again, Chiron seemed to be waiting for me to ask a question. I was still pretty confused, so I wasted no time. "So … what is my quest?"

Chiron glanced up at the sky, which was rapidly darkening as the last traces of the sunset vanished. "Look at the sky, Jason, and tell me what you notice."

Silence fell, apart from the occasional noise of a moth hitting the porch lights, as I stared into the wild blue yonder. At first glance it looked like a typical evening sky, but something felt wrong.

It seemed trivial enough when I noticed it – nothing to get too excited about – but when I voiced my conclusion, I heard my voice tremble a little. "I don't see any stars … "

Chiron nodded gravely. "I noticed this a few days ago and, sadly, I am now certain that it is no quirk of the weather. Krios is lord of constellations as well as of the south, so if the stars have disappeared, or are shielded from our sight … it must be his work."

My dream from a few weeks before flooded back into my head: an enormous figure escaping from some sort of cave, brandishing its fists in triumph. I might have known that the ignominy of death couldn't hold me for long! And he'd been killed by Jason Grace – the guy everyone said looked a lot like me. He was going to want revenge, wasn't he? And if I was the one he found...

I struggled to keep the panic out of my tone. "So … how can Krios be alive again? Didn't it take Kronos, like, a thousand years after the first Titan war?"

Chiron grimaced. "Ah, yes … I wondered when we would draw near to that subject. I am afraid that much of this knowledge is strictly off-limits to regular campers, but …" he sighed. "Sending you out into the world without a few key details would be ludicrously dangerous.

"In summary, though the Titans were defeated and Olympus preserved, that was not – is not – the end of the story. Our oracle has issued a second Great Prophecy, the events of which are in motion even now. The prophecy makes reference to the Doors of Death."

The combination of furniture and death was an unsettling one – if the doors themselves were "of death," then what the heck was behind them, the Shag Carpeting of Eternal Pain?

Chiron, apparently reading my confusion, hastened to explain. "The Doors are an illicit entrance to the Underworld created by our enemies," he told me. "Through them, the worst monsters and villainous mortals of Ancient Greece have escaped back into the world. Apparently, their pull is strong enough to wrench a Titan from Tartarus, as well."

I sighed, feeling more than a little overwhelmed, and tried to sort through the massive overload of information I'd been given. "Right … so, the Doors of Death, through which the titan Krios has escaped, he's done something or other to the stars, and I have to find him," I reeled off. Oh, great, I added silently.

Chiron nodded encouragingly, seemingly pleased that I'd figured it all out. "You will leave bearing a flag of truce, trying to ascertain Krios' motivations, but go armed," he said briskly. "I would recommend traveling south. You are allowed to choose two other demigods as companions on your quest. I'll contact the Oracle at Delphi about a prophecy tomorrow morning."

He stood up extensively until he was a proper centaur again, his curly hair nearly brushing the porch's bug zappers. "And now, that will be all," he informed me. "I suggest you head to the campfire – I am told that the Magical Flames will be in optimal condition for toasting marshmallows tonight." And with that, he was gone.

I headed towards the campfire as well, but stopped at the edge of the porch. Ahead of me I could see only the occasional patch of ground lit up by the torches, and could only hear the rushing of the wind in the trees. Above me, thanks to the absence of the stars, was a dark, seemingly never-ending void.

But as minimal as my surroundings may have been, everything Chiron had just told me had made the darkened camp come unsettlingly to life. The distant silhouettes of trees started to resemble monstrous figures reaching out towards me, and the crashing of the waves in Long island Sound became the booming laughter that echoed through my dreams. And here I was, about to leave the safety of camp into a world that I now knew was filled with the very things I was imagining.

A cold sweat prickled on the back of my neck as I set off for the campfire. A few toasted marshmallows sounded good – in circumstances like these, I was going to need all the sugar I could get.

A few hours later, I was slumped in the Athena cabin library's most comfortable chair, surrounded by a stack of books on quests and Titans and other things I hoped would be useful. My eyes were starting to burn from lack of sleep, but I kept reminding myself how important this was. I didn't want to miss a thing – what if I got eaten by a monster because I'd been too sleepy to look up how to kill it?

I hadn't even had time to tell my cabin mates about the quest before they started bombarding me with questions about it. At Camp Half-Blood, news travels on wings – Hermes' winged messenger shoes, to be specific; sometimes literally. I'd been a little surprised that all of my half-siblings knew about the whole thing already, but I supposed it made sense: demigod spends half an hour in a private meeting with Chiron, returns looking like rug has been pulled out from under him. There weren't too many alternate explanations.

According to Annabeth, having to confront a Titan wasn't too unusual, even for a first-year camper. Apparently, back when she was twelve, she, Percy Jackson and Grover the satyr had traveled to the Underworld to retrieve Zeus' lightning and prevent World War III from breaking out. That had made me feel a little better – at least I knew now that such monumental feats were possible – but then again, I wasn't nearly as smart or competent as Annabeth.

Speaking of siblings, my half-sister Alexis is a saint. When she'd learned that I intended to borrow her usual late-night reading spot to research for my quest, she'd insisted on staying up and helping me. She'd been fighting to stay awake even harder that I had, and I was really touched that she would go so far out of her way to help me.

My eyes grew even blearier as I continued to read. Kronos chopped up Ouranos, Zeus sliced and diced Kronos, the giants tried to kill Zeus and the Olympians but failed miserably … it was all one big cycle, and right now it was more than my frazzled brain could handle. Maybe it was time I got some sleep after all…

Boom. Boom. Boom. It was virtually midnight, but someone was hammering at the door. Fear twisted my insides – who was trying to get in?

Alexis sat bolt upright, peeling her face off of Hesiod's Theogony. "What's going on?"

She was only a second ahead of the rest of the cabin. There was an abrupt chorus of surprised, awakened voices – "Attack! "Di Immortales!" "Eucalyptus!" and so on – and everyone leapt out of their bunk beds onto the floor.

By the time all of the commotion had subsided, we noticed that the door had been opened. In the doorway stood Chiron, looking as grim as I had ever seen him. Behind the centaur, a flurry of snow blew into the cabin.

Waitaminute – a flurry of snow? This was the middle of May! What on earth was happening?

"Jason Williams," Chiron intoned, "I'm sorry to bother you again, but I must speak with you." Our activities director could be cheerful, he could be wry, he could be ominous, but I'd never seen him look frightened … until now. "I'm afraid," he said, "that things are going to be far more dangerous than I'd imagined."

Welcome back (assuming someone is actually reading this!) from Maecenas! This is, no doubt, the moment you 've all been waiting for. Introductions to the world of gods, monsters and heroes are all well and good, but now that those are done, the adventure is going to kick into high gear. As a matter of fact, assuming I can remember how it works, I will put a poll on my profile taking your guesses about who his two companions will be. I welcome any and all speculation!

So, now you know the specifics of Jason's quest. "But," you might say, "This story takes place several months after The Lost Hero! Aren't all of the Titans back in Tartarus where they belong, and the Gigantomachy, led by Gaia, now the pre-eminent threat to half-bloods everywhere? Why would they want to bring a Titan back through the Doors of Death?" Assuming you actually did wonder that, great question. Let's just say that that has more than a little to do with why Chiron is so worried now…

Along with the publication of this chapter, I have some further good news to report. I've long made promises about revised and updated editions of the first four chapters of this story (which were written pre-Lost Hero); now they're a reality! A slightly altered Chapter One will be published along with this chapter, but it's Chapter Two where the edits start to get notable (the manticore attack I mentioned before). I warn you now!

So, please stick with this story, for there are great things on the horizon!

Maecenas out.