CHAPTER 7 – I THINK THAT I AM DREAMING

"All present?" Chiron croaked, marking off a register on a clipboard. Everybody nodded. Well – everybody who was here. "Good."

I studied who was here. Thalia for the Zeus cabin, me for Poseidon, Georgia Egalite from Demeter, Clarisse from Ares, Annabeth from Athena, Lucas Mantova from Apollo, and Phoebe Stoll-basher instead of Artemis' campers. Charles Beckendorf from Hephaestus, Silena Beauregard from Aphrodite, Winnie Vincent from Dionysus (Mr D's daughter – complete with nose turning a nasty shade of puce) and the Stoll brothers from Hermes (nobody could decide which so they were joint heads of cabin)

"Pretty much," Travis and Connor chorused.

"Well," Chiron leant forward. "I should let you know, young demigods, that war is coming. And very soon it will be coming to Camp Half-Blood. Our old enemy Luke tells us that Lord Kronos' army will be attacking Camp Half-Blood soon, and at lightning speed."

"Hold on." I really could not help myself. "Our old enemy Luke?"

Chiron sighed – I read his face like a book. Trust you to take the nit-picky route, Percy. He sighed. He sighed too much nowadays.

"Luke is now our ally."

The rest of the heads of cabin couldn't believe it either. Only Thalia and Annabeth looked remotely believing. Lucas Mantova from the Apollo cabin spat out a mouthful of pistachio shells. "Hang on," he said. "Haiku!"

Luke is now our friend

Anyone know what happened?

Chiron's gone insane

"No, I am not insane, Lucas," Chiron sighed. "I am a tad eccentric, but never insane. Luke has pledged allegiance to us full-heartedly, on the River Styx."

"You know," Mr D interrupted. "I was thinking – the Styx is a river, right? Well, there isn't an awful amount that's necessary to her, is there?"

Thunder rumbled overhead.

"Mr D, with the greatest respect, could you please shut up?" Chiron snapped. That was something. I had never seen Chiron get particularly angry before. Mr D returned to his Wine Connoisseur magazine. This was déjà vu.

"Oho!" Lucas shouted.

Chiron said shut up-

"SHUT UP!" chorused the other campers.

"As I was saying," Chiron said, eyeing Dionysus' magazine thirstily, "Luke has given us important information on Lord Kronos' plans. Lady Arachne found him wandering the woods, deranged and half-mad. It is a wonder he did not die out there."

I remembered my dream of him and shuddered.

"As you may know, powers even older than the Titans have been getting involved in the coming war. Lord Poseidon has been having trouble with the older spirits of his realm of the sea. Lord Hades is struggling to keep a lid on Tartaros.

"Older spirits are awakening slowly, and the information Luke has supplied us with is that Lord Kronos intends to seek out these elder spirits and persuade them over to his side of the war."

"How old are these spirit things?" Charles Beckendorf asked gruffly, twirling his mighty axe in his hands.

"Some of them are as old as the universe," Chiron explained. "I do not expect any campers to try and take on these powerful forces, because there would probably a fate worse than death in store. I'm looking for volunteers who are willing to go on diplomatic missions to these elder spirits, and try to coax them over to our side."

"And what if they are already on Kronos' side?" Thalia snapped.

"Then do not try to fight them," he said. "They will crush you like ten thousand steel garbage compactors can crush you, and even then keep you alive to suffer an even worse fate."

I shuddered. It sounded like the New York Giants team to me. But they weren't as old as the universe. They wouldn't be playing good baseball otherwise.

Aeons-old big gods

Kill like garbage compactors

And keep you alive

"Well summed up, Lucas," Chiron sighed. "See you at the campfire tonight."

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The campfire of Camp Half-Blood was like nothing else. It had been made to shine and flame brighter and better than any other year it had before. I wondered whether this would be our last campfire, and they were trying to make it go with a bang this year.

"Attention campers!" Mr D bellowed. "We have guests among us tonight."

No kidding. The entire Athena cabin was crouching behind everybody else because of the spiders on the opposite side giving them arachnid evils.

"Some of you," he sniggered at the Athena cabin, "have already noticed the presence of Lady Arachne and her Spider Brethren. And do not worry, they are under oath not to harm you."

One of the spider lieutenants hissed menacingly. Most of the Athena cabin, apart from Annabeth and some of the older ones, ran for the hills, screaming. Lady Arachne sighed, and resumed varnishing her fingernails next to Chiron. The centaur looked pretty trifled at a mutant human-spider trivially applying nail varnish.

"Also with us is Lady Eris," Mr D shouted over the dying screams of the Athena cabin. "Many of you will know her from mythology as the goddess of strife and cause of the Trojan War." Eris gave him the strife-goddess-evils, which were really not pretty. "She recently escaped capture from the Sheut demons, thanks to Peter Johnson and Annabel Chafe and friends. And no, campers, I did not swear."

The little kids, some of whom looked barely out of kindergarten, were practically hyperventilating with laughter. Annabeth was still transfixed at Lady Arachne's presence.

"And go on, have your stupid little campfire."

A resounding cheer rose, and Apollo cabin burst into haikus and limericks appropriately, and everybody covered their ears accordingly.

There was a centaur from Britain

With Artemis he was smitten

He took one peep

She turned him to sheep

And now wears him as a mitten

"Ow," I moaned, ears throbbing. "My ears."

I felt a small wriggling sensation in my pocket. Fumbling around, I brought out the husk of the snake. I slapped my forehead – I had entirely forgotten about the oracle during the meeting.

It looked balefully up into my eyes. Now – you see – I have never liked snakes (especially after the incident at the Reptile House when I was three) but now I could feel nothing but sorry for the little creature writhing about in my hands.

I approached Chiron, the dead snake still struggling to live in my arms.

"Chiron?"

"Mmm… Percy?"

Great. He was listening to Frank Sinatra a la iPod again. I tried to ignore the crooning heights of My Way to speak to him.

"Chiron – the Oracle's dead."

The headphones disconnected without him having to move. He seemed to have frozen in my chair. After several seconds, I thought Medusa had got to him – but then I remembered that campers would be screaming their faces off by now.

"When did this happen?"

"Earlier this evening. I would have come earlier, but I forgot about it."

Chiron shuddered.

"The times are a-changing Percy," he murmured. He was either quoting Bob Dylan or being deadly serious (I suspected the latter) "Come to the woods. We can talk there, away from the campfire."

I nodded. He rose from his chair, and lead into the woods. As we slipped between the trees, I remembered happy days of Capture the Flag and other sports. Laughter seemed to ripple through the mist descending for the night.

"The Oracle has been around for thousands upon thousands of years, Percy," Chiron sighed. "It is an incredibly long-lived creature, needing a new host after the previous one's death. They say that the first Oracle spoke the words of Apollo for one thousand years – not his haikus, but his prophecies."

"So Apollo knows what is in store for me?"

"Alas, no. The cords of Fate and Destiny are not in the hands of the Olympian Twelve. It is the charge of the Fates to structure the universe and decide destinies. They have been here from the beginning of time, much like the beings I described earlier in the heads-of-cabin meeting."

Well – those three old ladies spinning yarn when my half-blood adventures began weren't exactly in their prime.

"Zeus, highest of the Olympians, can control the cords of Fate, but even he cannot defy Ananke, the Strong Fate. She was the wife of one of the Elder Four. As with the Four, she lies imprisoned in celestial realms, which even immortal lips cannot disclose.

"She ordained that whenever an Oracle died, a great catastrophe should happen to mark its passing. Sometimes it was a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or a volcano. Sometimes it was a human disaster, such as a war or genocide."

"So now that the Oracle's kicked the bucket, does that mean something bad will happen?"

"You are full of questions, Perseus Jackson. Thankfully, they are all the right ones. Yes – something major will happen. Of course, it could be something so major that the effects would not be felt at all.

"But with Kronos gaining power so rapidly, I fear that the effects of Ananke's Curse will certainly be felt. Word for word. In both immortal and mortal realms."

I shuddered, just as I had shivered in the presence of Athena. A war? But mortals couldn't feel celestial bronze weapons.

"And the Oracle prophesied something. I – I think it was a quest."

"Do you remember its words?"

Find he who since Protogenos fell

Has slumbered somewhere we cannot tell

Call on the three who have quested so long

Hunter, strife and spider too will come along

Along enemy sworn you shall fight

One shall fall at serpent's bite

But woe indescribable you shall take

For one must fall for a friend's sake

That hadn't been me. I had no chance to open my mouth before the words spoke themselves. I turned around to see Lady Arachne and Eris standing in the clearing behind us. Eris was leaning against a tree, picking at her nails, as she had been when I first met her.

"You were not the only pair of ears to hear that prophecy, Perseus Jackson," Eris almost purred. "And I can't say that I'll be glad to go along with you."

"Wait?" I spluttered. "Who says you're going anywhere?"

I had this instinctive habit of making enemies of nearly every god I meet. Zeus, Ares, Hades, Athena and now Eris.

"The prophecy does. Hunter, strife and spider too will come along." She rolled her eyes. "Now, if strife doesn't refer to the goddess of strife, whom could it refer to?"

You had to admit it – she was pretty damn good.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, guys! Whew! That sure took a long time in uploading. Can I be a real pain and beg for reviews? I really want both positive and constructive-criticism feedback! Oh, and I thought of starting this little feature:

NEXT TIME ON THE CHAOS CODE:

Find he who since Protogenos fell

Has slumbered somewhere we cannot tell

Call on the three who have quested so long

Hunter, strife and spider too will come along

Along enemy sworn you shall fight

One shall fall at serpent's bite

But woe indescribable you shall take

For one must fall for a friend's sake

What? When? Where? Why? How? And most importantly, WHO?

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON…THE CHAOS CODE!

Tell me if that was cheesy or not.