Chapter 21. Nico: Of Shadows and Eagles
Shadow travel is not easy. I know it seems to be all flourish and grandeur, one sweep of my robes- or jacket, I don't wear robes – and tada! I'm in an entirely different place. You may think it's easy. It's not.
I remember the first time I shadow travelled as clearly as I remember the last time I saw Bianca's face. I still have scars from the occasion. It was a month or so after I first ran away from Camp Half-Blood and I had spent all that time visiting the places Bianca and I used to go, had visited or stayed. I was surprised at how different some places seem to be. Some places seemed to have magically sprouted skyscrapers and others were abandoned, empty. It felt wrong somehow, these things shouldn't change. How could they? Bianca was dead. Everything should have stopped. The moon should hang in the sky right beside the sun, mourning. The stars should fix their cold light on Earth and never blink, stunned. Nothing should move. Nothing should change. Nothing should live. She was gone and nothing else mattered. Nothing.
It had been a rough week. I was in Maine, at Westover Hall, where I first met Percy, Annabeth, Thalia and the Greek world in general. Standing at the cliff where Annabeth had thrown herself onto Dr. Thorn with her knife and fell over the edge, I remembered the utter and complete surprise on Thalia's face, like she didn't really know what was going on. I remembered Bianca being too shocked for words. I remembered the Hunters appearing magically out of the woods with their silver bows that had enchanted my dead sister so much. I remembered wondering why they didn't come sooner. But most of all, I remembered Percy's face.
When Annabeth had flung herself onto Dr. Thorn's back, there had been a fierce glimmer of pride in his eyes. He seemed to be so confident that they would win. When Annabeth fell, it seemed that half of Percy fell with her. He blanked out for a second that his emotions came crashing back into his face like a tidal wave of fury. I would never forget how angry Percy had been. I think he loved her even then, he just didn't know it.
I had been standing there, lost in memory and cloaked by the shadows when I heard something behind me. In one swift movement, I drew my sword and attacked. The sword was made of celestial bronze and had been given to me by one of the counselors in the Hermes cabin. It felt awkward in my hands, like it didn't really belong to me but I used it anyway. After all, what other choice did I have?
Pivoting on my right foot, I slashed at whatever had been trying to sneak up behind me. Imagine my surprise when my sword went right through it, barely leaving a trace. I stepped back, not believing my eyes. I always knew they existed but I never really expected to see a real ghost. But there he was, standing there his ghostly flesh pale and stretched tightly over his bones. He was as gaunt as any ghost you'd imagine. His raven hair fell to his shoulders and he seemed shriveled somehow, like he hadn't been eating enough. His robed were made of every color imaginable but they seemed to be dim somehow, like the colors themselves had died. The feature that struck me the most were the ghost's eyes. They were sunken and haunted, filled with anger and an unrelenting fury. I remembered thinking that this was one pissed ghost. He purple bags under his eyes made him look much, much older than he really was. Of course, it depended on whether you count the years he had been dead.
"A son of darkness should not be afraid of the shadows of the past," he said to me, as I stood there staring at him in surprise. "King Minos, at your service." He bowed, sweeping out his arms on either side of his thin body. Minos had claimed to be my teacher, telling me that every child of Hades needed a mentor, preferably a ghost. I didn't trust him. I never trusted anyone after Percy. In my mind, they were all the reason she died. She died and left me alone to deal with stupid monsters and ghosts. Minos knew that and he managed to wiggle his way into my life with a deal.
"I'd show you a trick, a useful trick for a child of Hades," he had offered, his dark eyes gleaming with trepidation. "It would make you special, different from other children of the gods." I had thought about it. Different from other children of the gods. Different from Percy, the golden one. Different from Thalia, the child of Zeus. Different from Annabeth, the little miss know-it-all. Different from Bianca, my own sister who had given me up because she was tired. I liked that.
"Show me," I had asked – no, instructed - Minos. He grinned, showing off his teeth, every one of them perfect despite the fact that he was dead. And show me he did. He had drilled me for the rest of the night and I had listened, eager to learn, naïve as I was then. I still didn't trust the phantom but I could handle a deal. It would be easy, I had thought. I get what I want from him and disappear. How wrong had I been.
Anyway, Minos was a pretty good teacher although he had turned out to be a pretty bad traitor. In one night I had understood what he wanted me to do and he had manage to exhaust me of all my questions. I was ready to do it. I was ready to shadow travel. Choosing a shadow that was dark and wide enough, I closed my eyes, remembering what Minos had said.
"Let them pull at you. Surrender to the darkness inside you and let it take you wherever you want to go." Where I wanted to go was as far away as possible from where I was now. The thought had intruded carelessly into my mind and I had had no idea how disastrous it would turn out to be. The shadows grabbed at me, spinning me, twisting every follicle of being. I felt like every inch of my skin was being pulled off my bones. My insides were being burned, cooled and chopped up all at the same time. As I spun faster and faster, I remembered thinking that I was going to kill Minos again for this.
I reappeared onto terra firma. The sun was shining blindly into my eyes and I winced. Darkness still lurked at the edge of my vision. Minos appeared suddenly right beside me. He was waving his arms around wildly, shouting something; in the full force of the sunlight he looked weak, just like a hologram. He didn't look real. It was easy to close my eyes and wish him away.
"Fool!" Minos shouted. "You could have killed yourself! Why in the name of Hades did you pick China?" I didn't hear anything after that. In fact, I didn't hear anything for a week. When I woke up, Minos had grudgingly admitted that he had never seen a child of Hades travel that far on his first try and survive. After that, we stuck to shorter distances, building up my endurance as I learnt more and more about my powers. I did notice however, the more time Minos spent with me, the younger he seemed to grow.
His shriveled body regained its strength and vigor. The bags under his eyes disappeared. His skin seemed to expand until it fitted him properly. But his eyes never changed. They were still as haunted, as furious as before. That should have been my first warning that I was about to be betrayed… again.
The arena was quiet this early in the morning. The rest of the campers were at the Pavilion gorging themselves. The three of us, Vanessa, the freak and me were just about to leave. The golden light of the rising yellow sun fell in rays into the arena. It looked like we were swimming in a yellow sea, an ocean of gold. My eyes hurt from the combination of a lack of sleep and the brightness of the morning. I'm strictly a night person and I really, really hate getting up when the sun's still up. Vanessa didn't look much better than I did; her eyelids were drooping over her eyes and she had had to stifle a yawn a few times. She was so cute, it was distracting. The child of Hecate however seemed as alert as ever, which of course gave me another reason to hate – okay, strongly dislike - her. She was glaring at me, her weird scarlet hair standing up in spikes. First Connor, now her. Honestly, you try to get along with some people.
"Why do we have to shadow travel?" she demanded, her fists clenched at her sides. I sighed, rolling my eyes. Not this again.
"Because," I began, for the sixth hundredth time. "I'm the leader of the quest, it's faster and I can't drive." Of course I can't, I wasn't sixteen yet. Technically speaking, that is. I felt my lips twitched at the thought and my eyes slid to Vanessa again. She smiled at me and I felt my heart leap. The freak ranted on, oblivious to the both of us.
"Vanessa can't shadow-travel." I blinked, shaken out of my daydream.
"Can you shadow travel?" I asked, looking her in the eye. She blinked at the direct question, her hair darkening.
"No," she growled reluctantly. I raised an eyebrow, intrigued despite myself.
"What about the whole flashing-white-light-teleportation show you had?" The freak winced and rubbed the back of her neck nervously.
"That was… a rare occurrence," she admitted grudgingly. I nodded, understanding. Silence fell between us as Vanessa stifled yet another yawn.
"Honestly, this magical teleportation-travelling stuff is really, really fascinating but please, just please, can we go now?" She looked at me through one big bleary blue eye and I grinned.
"Whenever you're ready," I bared my teeth mockingly at the child of Hecate before me. "I'll summon our ride." Vanessa looked up eagerly and the freak crossed her arms and muttered something. I took that to be a yes. Placing my index finger and thumb together over my mouth, I whistled. The shrill sound pierced through the air, making Vanessa wince. Immediately, I heard a response.
A huge, black mass of rippling fur leapt out of nowhere, knocking me down and slobbering all over me. I felt myself grin, holding off the overexcited hound.
"There's a good girl," I patted Mrs. O' Leary on her head and she whined rolling over the floor. I smiled again. I had missed her. Vanessa gasped, staring at the hellhound. Then she looked at me, her eyes wide and unsure. I nodded encouragingly and she seemed to calm down a little. The freak was a whole other story. She had her sword out and seemed ready to charge at any second, her hair as dark as night.
"Put that away, you freak," I hissed. "She's Percy's." Oh rather, I realized with a jolt, she had been Percy's. Percy was gone now. He was dead. Just like Bianca and my mother. I felt a cold knot of fury in my gut. They'll pay. Whoever killed him is going to pay.
Fifteen minutes, a shouting match and two destroyed Greek dummies later, we had finally managed to shadow travel. The spinning sensation hardly bothered me now. It was easy to lose myself in the motion. I barely paid attention to the feeling of my molecules being broken apart and put back together again. Emerging out of a clump of shadows, I looked around. I was standing at the front of a rickety old iron gate. Above it, a rusted sign that looked like it had been placed there before I was born proclaimed something in large bold letters. I squinted trying to read them. After what felt like an eternity of squinting, I made out something like this: roSlbuia Cils tHate Pamlk. I cursed my dyslexia, wondering how exactly I am going to know if I was in the right place or not.
Just as I managed to take all of this in, another figure barreled out of the shadow cast by the wall in the rising sun.
"Vanessa," I cried, relieved. "Fantastic. Tell me, can you read that si- Vanessa?" The girl looked more than a little green. She stood very still where she had slid off Mrs. O' Leary, holding her stomach. I vaguely heard Vanessa mutter something like 'don't puke oh please don't puke not here not in front of him' and stopped a good distance away.
"You okay?" I called. The freak was standing beside her, looking a little better but not by much. Mrs. O' Leary curled up and fell to sleep, right there. Poor girl. Shadow-travelling across America is taxing and even I felt a little tired. But I was stronger than I was before and held. Mrs. O' Leary however would need a few long hours before she can even think of bounding about anywhere.
"No, I'm not," Vanessa shot back. Her tone might have been annoyed if she didn't sound so faint. I stepped closer, worry growing in my gut. Maybe I had misjudged how she would hold against the magic. I mean, it is hardly the most pleasant sensation. I should know. Vanessa blinked, and seemed to recover a little, the green tinge fading. I sighed, relieved. She's okay. She's fine. Just fine.
"Can you read that for me please?" I asked softly, trying to show her I was sorry. She looked up at me, eyes shining with her ever present curiosity, then at the sign. The freak looked at it too but it was clear that she was as baffled by it as I was.
"Columbia … Hills… State … Park," Vanessa read, her voice clear and sweet, before looking at me again. I nodded; we were in the right place. Thank the gods. Shadow-travelling itself was hard enough but pinpointing the exact location you were gonna emerge is just a pain.
"What's the matter Ghost Boy," called the freak from behind me. I grimaced – of course she would choose now to start a quarrel. "Worried you lost your way?" I clenched my fists. Why did I ask her to come on the quest again? Oh yeah, because I had some kind of genius revelation. Mind and heart, I thought. Mind and heart. We needed her, as reluctant as I was to admit it.
"No," I called back over my shoulder. "Just making sure you know where you're headed. In case, you know, you wanna chicken out or something." The voice behind me fell silent. I grinned, triumphant and entered the park. That should keep her quiet for a while.
Juniper said that it had been abandoned. She had sobbed about sons of Earth, eagles and catching Percy's scent. I spotted nothing of the sort here. All I could see was a few cherry buildings with lopsided signs. Shiny pamphlets were strewn on the ground. But what stood out the most was the sheer amount of trash around. There were piles of it – mounds of plastic bags, piles of used bottles and cans and other unrecognizable things. It was disgusting. Behind me, I heard Vanessa bend and pick up one of the pamphlets at our feet. The place was eerily silent. There wasn't even a breeze blowing through the tree leaves. I looked around furtively, feeling uneasy.
There were a few tiny buildings made out of wood surrounding us. An official looking on I presumed to be an office, one more a gift shop and the other I couldn't be sure of. Beyond that, I saw yet another gate hanging off its hinges, swaying slightly in the morning breeze. And after that, the forest.
The forest. It looked like a greenish black mass of thorns, dangerous and uninviting. As we got closer, I saw that some of the trees seem to have fallen, pushed over by something. Something very large and very, very strong. I turned to look at my comrades. Vanessa looked uneasy. She was eying the forest line like she was reliving the day we were attacked by the monsters. The freak's hair was brown and she looked impassive but hey, what else was new?
We stopped at the edge of the forest. The trees around us were huge, spiraling up to the heavens in a spiky staircase of branches and leaves. I couldn't see more than a feet into the forest, it was so dark. It looked threatening. I spotted huge claw marks in the tree barks like some monster had been using it as a scratching post. There was a tension in there, like we were being watched. There was something dangerous close. Very close.
"Nico" Vanessa called from behind me. Her voice was low and I had to strain to hear what she said.
"What is it," I hissed back, my voice equally soft. Something about the place, maybe the claw marks or the fallen trees or the prickly feeling on my skin that screamed danger but I wanted to be as stealthy as possible. I suspected Vanessa felt the same.
"Look at this," Vanessa whispered back. A breeze blew through the park and I shivered, goose bumps erupting all over my skin. I shivered, turning around. Vanessa and the freak were poring over the pamphlet. I felt a twinge of annoyance, we were at the place where Percy had most possibly died and they were looking at pamphlets? Vanessa glanced up and saw the look on my face.
"It's not what you think," she said hastily. "Listen to this." She held the pamphlet up and read from it, her voice as clear as a bell but still hushed. "The logo for the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center is the petroglyph, "Tsagaglalal" or "She Who Watches." Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) is located on a cliff overlooking the Columbia River at Columbia Hills State Park." Vanessa looked up, rooting me at that spot with the sheer intensity of her eyes. "She Who Watches, Nico! They shall begin at the lady who watches, remember?" My eyes widened and I strode forward, taking the pamphlet from Vanessa, ignoring the sparks I felt where our fingers brushed each other's. Focus, Di Angelo, focus.
"Let me see," I said, breathlessly. A picture of a vaguely humanoid face was embossed in it, above some unintelligible writing. The most striking feature of the drawing was the huge coloured in spirals that I think were supposed to be its eyes. I looked up to see two faces that looked as shocked as I felt. "What do you think?" I asked.
"I say we go for it." Vanessa said her eyes wide and excited, sparkling eagerly. Her hair fell down in waves around her shoulders and I swear she never looked more beautiful, her soft features standing out against the stark bleakness of everything around us. "Let's go get the suckers." The freak nodded beside her but she looked uneasy. Grudgingly, I shunted my dislike of her aside.
"What's the matter?" I asked her. She glanced up at me, astonished. I surprised myself too but heck I wasn't going to jeopardize the quest just because of some feud between the gods. Afar all, she was supposed to be the 'mind'.
"I don't know," The words rolled of the witch's mouth slowly, like she was hesitant. "It just feels too easy somehow." As though she had jinxed the moment, a piercing shriek filled the air. We looked up reflexively. Juniper's words sounded in my head, as clear as ever. Those evil eagles and their claws. Eagles. Claws.
"Run!" I yelled and we headed blindly for the forest. Above us, I could hear the sound of huge flapping wings. The sound was so loud I could feel my ear drums vibrating. It was like very flap of the creatures wings resulted in the very air changing, morphing. We dove for the cover of the trees just as the biggest, meanest bird I have ever seen swept down from the sky to where we had been standing. Imagine a normal eagle, with its curved yellow beak, built for catching prey, claws tapered to kill and huge golden eyes that pierce right through you. Take that and times it by about a million, add in a mixture of rabid anger and pure, twisted evilness and you'd get the eagle we were facing now. The Mega Eagle clawed at the outermost of the trees as we dove deeper into the darkness of the forest. Opening its beak, which was about the size of the Big House, it shrieked. We clapped our hands over our ears. The sound was even worse up close. I felt like clawing my ears out, it was that painful. The pamphlet Vanessa had been holding was stuck to the edge of its beak, fluttering slightly. The bird tore at the forest with its killer claws, murdering about a hundred trees on the process, but we were too deep inside for it to catch, kill, eat, whatever.
We stopped, our chests heaving. I glanced at Vanessa, making sure she was okay. She seemed all right except for a few shallow scrapes where a few branches had scraped against her skin. The seemed okay too. Vanessa glanced back at the eagle, her mouth open in a small, pink 'O'.
"Oh my gods" she whispered, pushing her hair back from her face. It shone russet brown in the darkness of the forest. "That was so freaking close. We almost died." I squeezed her shoulder, reassuringly I hope. Warmth flowed from the body to mine. I didn't want to let go, she felt so safe and soft against my hands.
"Almost being the keyword," I said and she smiled at me. I grinned back at her, meeting her blue gray eyes. Something sweet and electric passed between us. I stared into Vanessa's blue-gray eyes my breath catching in my throat. Shivers ran up my arms and it was all I could do not to just pull her into my arms. No, I thought. You're not for her. How can you be? I took in a deep shuddering breath, my eyes travelling over her features. Her kind blue eyes, her perfect lips, the curve of her cheek, how her hair curled behind her ears. She was too perfect, too good. I wasn't. Vanessa seemed as enchanted as I was, looking right into my eyes. The freak cleared her throat and the moment dissipated. Vanessa and I blinked. Somehow we had moved closer to each other and Vanessa was barely an inch away from me. We stepped away from each other, flustered. By the gods, I hated the freak sometimes.
"Uh, guys, look at this." The freak pointed. Beside me, Vanessa gasped. Trees stretched out before us, but unlike the trees behind us, these were gray, ashes covering every bark, every branch, every twig, and every leaf. It was like someone had set fire to the whole place. Some of them seemed to have been blasted open, like a grenade had been chucked into them. It was unnerving, like the whole area was frozen in time. No a single leaf twitched and neither did a single blade of ashen grass move. What was it that Juniper said? 'The poor trees, oh the poor trees. All blasted open, burnt away.' That wasn't what the freak was pointing at though. A single sign stood in midst of the burned and twisted trees, pointing to our left. "What does it say, Vanessa?" The freak asked quietly.
"She Who Watches Petroglyphs." Vanessa read. We looked at each other for a moment. Behind us, the eagle screeched again, but the sound was far away and faint. "What are you waiting for? Let's go!" We rushed through the scorched trees, stepping over broken branches and fallen tree trunks. The deeper we went, following the direction the sign indicated the worse the forest seemed. Finally, the trees hardly seemed to be trees at all. They were twisted, horrible creatures, seemingly carved out of dull grey stone and stretching out to us like they were calling for help. There was barely a spot in me that hadn't been scratched. I was bleeding all over. We came to a stop, screeching to a halt at the bottom of a rock mountain. Directly in front us, about twenty feet up, the petroglyph was displayed in all its glory. It was beautiful and terrible all at once. Its thickly painted eyes seem to swirl hypnotically, taking us all in with its gaze. Its mouth seemed to be open in a silent, eternal scream. It gave me shivers and I live in the Underworld. The lady who watches, I thought. Well we were here, what are we supposed to begin? Were we supposed to climb the mountain? I craned my neck up, taking it all in. It was steep, almost impossible to climb. There was no way we're could climb up without help. Maybe a few tame giant eagles would do.
"Do you know the story of that drawing?" The inquiry came from behind and we whirled around, drawing out various weapons. I pulled out my ring, feeling the familiar comfort of the ridged hilt of my sword beneath my fingers. Vanessa held her dagger at ready, her eyes gleaming with a fierce light that surprised me. The freak's silver sword glowed brightly, illuminating the darkness of the forest. I expected monsters, harpies, talking eagles or worse. Instead I saw an old man. He stood there, leaning on his walking stick which seemed to be carved out of the same grey wood as the burnt trees all around us. He had a weathered face, with strange markings that didn't look quite like wrinkles. His black hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and his grey eyes shone with a kind of dark light. He was wearing dark clothes but I couldn't really make it out in the gloom. We relaxed, lowering our weapons. I didn't know what the mortal saw through the Mist but I hoped he thought we were harmless. "Do you know the story?" The man asked again?
"No," Vanessa replied. She seemed taken aback by his appearance. The freak was staring at the man with wild eyes, her hair a bright blue. "We don't know the story," Vanessa's voice was soft like she was afraid of scaring the man. She needn't have worried. The man grinned and sparks seem to fly from his eyes. He straightened up, letting his stick fall to the ground. The freak's sword flashed suddenly and I could make out every feature of the man. He was in a tux, which was about the most surprising thing of all. A tux in the middle of the forest? The markings on his face weren't wrinkles; they were scars, like a small animal had gone pyscho on his face or something. He had a cynical smile and his hair seemed professionally styled. He seemed familiar. So, so familiar. I frowned, wondering where I had seen him before.
"Good," the man grinned. It was the grin that did it. It came back to me in flash. He was the one who gave Percy Pandora's box during the Second Titan War. I remember the same grin etched on his face as he left, like he was sure, so sure he had already won. He was a Titan. He was…
"I'm Prometheus," the Titan said, the grin never leaving his face. "And if you would kindly sit down, I'll tell you the story."
AN: I'm so sorry if there are any typos I missed. I'm about to fall asleep. Anyway, sorry for the long hiatus. I'm back now, really. This is dedicated to all my readers, reviewers and friends. Peace out.
DRP