Wisdom's Daughter Walks Alone (Sort of)
The Mark of Athena Burns (Under) Rome
Third Person:
Halfway down the steps, Annabeth froze, seeming to just take in the situation. She was alone for the first time in ages.
"Keep going…" A voice whispered. Annabeth looked around, on alert. Farther down the steps, a figure appeared, glowing light green. It was a girl, but there were no clear features to her. She was humanoid, but her lower half misted outwards, as though she were nothing but a ghost. She nodded forwards and waved for Annabeth to come. Annabeth was cautious, but down the stairs were the only way to go. The girl's voice didn't seem threatening or enchanting, but that didn't mean it wasn't a trick.
At the bottom of the steps, she reached an old wooden door with an iron pull-ring. Above the ring was a metal plate with a keyhole. The green-ghost-girl took Annabeth's hand, her touch cold and barely solid, more like just a wind that guided her wrist, and had her touch the pull-ring. A fiery shape burned in the middle of the door: the silhouette of Athena's owl. Smoke plumed from the keyhole, and then the door swung inward. The ghost-girl hovered forward and past the door before beckoning for Annabeth to follow.
"Come…" Her voice whispered through the air. Annabeth looked up one last time. At the top of the stairwell, the sky was a square of brilliant blue. Mortals would be enjoying the warm afternoon, couples would be holding hands at the cafés, tourists would be bustling through shops and museums. Romans would be going about their daily business, probably not considering the thousands of years of history under their feet, and definitely unaware of the spirits, gods, and monsters that still dwelt here, or the fact that their city might be destroyed today unless a certain group of demigods succeeded in stopping the giants.
Annabeth stepped through the doorway. She found herself in a basement that was an architectural cyborg. Ancient brick walls were crisscrossed with modern electrical cables and plumbing. The ceiling was held up with a combination of steel scaffolding and old granite Roman columns. The front half of the basement was stacked with crates. Out of curiosity, Annabeth opened a few. Some were packed with multicolored spools of string - like for kites or arts and craft projects - while others were full of cheap plastic gladiator swords. Maybe at one point this had been a storage area for a tourist shop.
In the back of the basement, the floor had been excavated, revealing another set of steps - these of white stone - leading still deeper underground. Ghost-girl hovered over to the steps and flicked a switch on the wall. Glaring white fluorescent bulbs illuminated the stairs. Below was a mosaic floor decorated with deer and fauns - maybe a room from an ancient Roman villa, just stashed away under this modern basement along with the crates of string and plastic swords. Annabeth climbed down.
The room was about a twenty feet square. The walls had once been brightly painted, but most of the frescoes had peeled or faded. The only exit was a hole dug in one corner of the floor where the mosaic had been pulled up. Annabeth crouched next to the opening. It dropped straight down into a larger cavern, but the bottom couldn't be seen. Running water could be heard maybe thirty or forty feet below. The air didn't smell like a sewer - just old and musty, and slightly sweet, like moldering flowers. Perhaps it was an old water line from the aqueducts.
"Come," Ghost girl said.
"I'm not jumping," Annabeth said. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Curse."
"You're cursed?"
"Sort of. I am made from a curse. Wisdom's daughter walks alone. The Mark of Athena burns through Rome." She pointed into the darkness, where the Mark of Athena blazed to life at the bottom of the cavern, revealing glistening brickwork along a subterranean canal forty feet below. The fiery owl seemed to be taunting her: "Well, this is the way, kid, so you'd better figure something out." Annabeth considered her options. It was too dangerous to jump, there were no ladders or ropes. She thought about borrowing some metal scaffolding from above to use as a fire pole, but it was all bolted in place, and she didn't want to cause the building to collapse on top of her.
She began to get frustrated. All of the other demigods had amazing powers that could've helped in this situation. Percy and Audrey could control water, and if they were here, they could raise the water level and simply float down or just turn to water and fly down respectively. Hazel, from what she had said, could find her way underground with flawless accuracy and even create or change the course of tunnels. She could easily make a new path. Veon could've just shadow traveled down or used his lance. Leo would just pull the right tools from his belt and build something to do the job. Frank could turn into a bird. Jason and Zy could simply control the wind and float down. Even Piper and Emily could've convinced Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia to be a little more helpful.
What did Annabeth have? A bronze dagger that did nothing special, and a cursed silver coin. She had her backpack with Daedalus's laptop, a water bottle, a few pieces of ambrosia for emergencies, and a box of matches - probably useless, but her dad had drilled into her head that she should always have a way to make a fire. She had no amazing powers, and even her one true magic item, her New York Yankees cap of invisibility, had stopped working, and was still back in her cabin on the Argo II.
"You've got your intelligence," Curse said. "Like Odysseus, who won the Trojan War with cleverness, not strength. He had overcome all sorts of monsters and hardships with his quick wits. That is what Athena values. Child of Athena, you cannot bend the skies, seas, or shadows. You cannot work with the earth, machines, or emotions. You cannot change form, summon those who can aid you to your side. Yet all of these powers are meaningless without intelligence. Assess what you have at your disposal, and then let your mind work to put pieces together that were never intended to meet. You need not only intelligence, but creativity."
Annabeth looked down into the opening. She needed a way to get down there safely and make sure she had a way to get out again if necessary. Assess what you have at your disposal. She climbed back to the basement and stared at the open crates. Kite string and plastic swords. The idea that came to her was so ridiculous, she almost had to laugh; but it was better than nothing. She set to work, her hands seeming to know exactly what to do. Let your mind work to put pieces together that were never intended to meet. She'd never made anything out of kite string and plastic swords, but it seemed easy, natural. Within minutes she'd used a dozen balls of strong and a crateful of swords to create a makeshift rope ladder - a braided line, woven for strength yet not too thick, with swords tied at two-foot intervals to serve as hand and footholds.
As a test, she tied one end around a support column and leaned on the rope with all her weight. The plastic swords bent under her, but they provided some extra bulk to the knots in the cord, so at least she could keep a better grip. The ladder wouldn't win any design awards, but it might get her to the bottom of the cavern safely. First, she stuffed her backpack with the leftover spools of string. They were one more resource, and not too heavy at that. Besides, the others had said that having some string might be useful for a child of Athena. She headed back to the hole in the mosaic floor, securing one end of her ladder to the nearest piece of scaffolding, lowering the rope into the cavern, and then shinnied down.
When Annabeth finally made it to the bottom, she missed the brickwork edge and landed in the canal, but it turned out to be only a few inches deep. Still, freezing cold water soaked into her running shoes. Curse floated down next to her, providing sufficient lighting. The shallow channel ran down the middle of a brickwork tunnel. Every few yards, ceramic pipes jutted from the walls. She guessed that the pipes were drains, part of the ancient Roman plumbing system, though it was amazing to her that a tunnel like this had survived, crowded underground with all the other centuries' worth of pipes, basements and sewers. She chilled as she realized that maybe this could be a part of Daedalus's labyrinth. When Daedalus had died, the entire maze collapsed, but it was entirely possible that that was just in America. This could've been an older version of the labyrinth. Daedalus had once told her that his maze had a life of its own. Maybe it could regenerate, like monsters. It was an archetypal force, as Chiron would say - something that could never really die.
"A labyrinth, maybe, but one that you can be guided through by the Mark," Curse said. She floated to the left, where about fifty feet away, the Mark of Athena blazed against the wall. Deciding to not take chances, Annabeth tied a new ball of string to the end of her rope ladder. She could unravel it behind her as she explored. An old trick, but a good one. By the time she reached the spot, the image of the owl had faded, and she'd run out of string on her first spool.
As she was attaching a new line, she glanced across the tunnel. There was a broken section in the brickwork, as if a sledgehammer had knocked a hole in the wall. She crossed to take a look. Sticking her dagger through the opening for light, she could see a lower chamber, long and narrow, with a mosaic floor, painted walls, and benches running down either side. It was shaped sort of like a subway car. Curse floated through the wall to light the room with her green glow. At the near end of the room was a bricked-off doorway. At the far end was a stone table, or maybe an alter.
The water tunnel kept going, but Curse waved for Annabeth to come through. This had to be the way. She remembered what Tiberinus had said: "Find the altar of the foreign god." There didn't seem to be any exits from the altar room, but it was a short drop onto the bench below. She should be able to climb out again with no problem. Still holding her string, she lowered herself down. The room's ceiling was barrel-shaped with brick arches, but Annabeth didn't like the look of the supports. Directly above her head, on the arch nearest to the bricked-in doorway, the capstone cracked in half, and stress fractures ran across the ceiling. The place had probably been intact for two thousand years, but she decided she'd rather not spend too much time here. With her luck, it would collapse in the next two minutes.
The floor was a long narrow mosaic with seven pictures in a row, like a time line. At Annabeth's feet was a raven. Next was a lion. Several others looked like Roman warriors with various weapons. The rest were too damaged or covered in dust for Annabeth to make out details. The benches on either side were littered with broken pottery. The walls were painted with scenes of a banquet: a robed man with a curved cap like an ice cream scoop, sitting next to a larger guy who radiated sunbeams. Standing around them were torchbearers and servants, and various animals like crows and lions wandered in the background. Annabeth wasn't sure what the picture represented, but it didn't remind her of any Greek legends that she knew.
At the far end of the room, the altar was elaborately carved with a frieze showing the man with the ice-cream-scoop hat holding a knife to the neck of a bull. On the altar stood a stone figure of a man sunk to his knees in rock, a dagger and torch in his outraised hands. Again, Annabeth had no idea what those images meant.
"A story," Curse said, hovering forward. "Study the story, or your own shall end here." Annabeth took one step toward the altar. Her foot went CRUNCH, and she looked down to realize she'd just put her shoe through a human rib cage. She swallowed back a scream. She had glanced down only a moment before and hadn't seen any bones. Now the floor was littered with them. The rib cage was obviously old. It crumbled to dust as she removed her foot. Nearby lay a corroded bronze dagger, very much like her own. Either this dead person had been carrying the weapon, or it had killed him. A little farther down the mosaic path sprawled a more complete skeleton in the remains of an embroidered red doublet, like a man from the Renaissance. His frilled collar and skull had been badly burned, as if the guy had decided to wash his hair with a blowtorch.
She lifted her eyes to the altar statue, which held a dagger and a torch. Some kind of test. These two guys had failed. Correction: not just two guys. More bones and scraps of clothing were scattered all the way to the altar. She couldn't guess how many skeletons were represented, but she was willing to bet they were all demigods from the past, children of Athena on the same quest.
"I will not be another skeleton on your floor," Annabeth called to the statue, hoping she sounded brave.
"A girl," Said a watery voice, echoing through the room. "Girls are not allowed."
"A female demigod," A second voice said. "Inexcusable."
"And she brings with her a curse. This is unprecedented." The chamber rumbled, dust fell from the cracked ceiling. Annabeth bolted for the hole she'd come through, but it had disappeared. Her string had been severed. She clambered up on the bench and pounded on the wall where the hole had been, hoping the hole's absence was just an illusion, but the wall felt solid. Trapped. Along the benches, a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence - glowing purple men in Roman togas, like the Lares back at Camp Jupiter. They glared at Annabeth and Curse as if they'd interrupted their meeting. Having little choice, Annabeth stepped down from the bench and put her back to the bricked-in doorway. She tried to look confident, though the scowling purple ghosts and demigod skeletons at her feet made her want to turtle in her T-shirt and scream.
"I'm a child of Athena," She said, as boldly as she could manage.
"A Greek," One of the ghosts said with disgust. "That is even worse." At the other end of the chamber, an old-looking ghost rose with some difficulty (do ghosts have arthritis?) and stood by the altar, his dark eyes fixed on Annabeth. Her first thought was that he looked like the pope. He had a glittering robe, a pointed hat, and a shepherd's crook.
"This is the cavern of Mithras," Said the old ghost. "You have disturbed our sacred rituals. You cannot look upon our mysteries and live."
"I don't want to look upon your mysteries," Annabeth assured him. "I'm following the Mark of Athena. Show me the exit, and I'll be on my way." Her voice sounded calm despite the situation. She had no idea how to get out, but she knew she had to succeed where her siblings failed. Her path led further on - deeper into the underground layers of Rome. Tiberinus had said that the failures of her predecessors would guide her, but after that, he didn't know. Not many children of Athena must've made it past here. The ghosts mumbled to each other in Latin, saying a few unkind things about female demigods and Athena, not to mention Curse. Finally, the ghost with the pope hat struck his shepherd's crook against the floor, and the other Lares fell silent.
"Your Greek goddess is powerless here," Said the pope. "Mithras is the god of Roman warriors! He is the god of the legion, the god of the empire!"
"He wasn't even Roman," Annabeth protested. "Wasn't he, like, Persian or something?"
"Sacrilege!" The old man yelped, banging his staff on the floor a few more times. "Mithras protects us! I am the pater of this brotherhood-"
"The father," Annabeth translated.
"Do not interrupt! As pater, I must protect our mysteries."
"What mysteries? A dozen dead guys in togas sitting around in a cave?" The ghosts muttered and complained.
"Do not try to aggravate them," Curse warned. "Study their story, or they shall end yours." The pater got the ghosts under control with a taxicab whistle worthy of an Apollo child. The old guy had a good set of lungs.
"You are clearly an unbeliever. And you bring with you a curse. Like the others, you must die." Annabeth worked frantically to remember everything she could about Mithras. He had a secret cult for warriors, he was popular in the legion, he was one of the gods who'd supplanted Athena as a war deity. Aphrodite had mentioned him during their teatime chat in Charleston. Aside from that, Annabeth had no idea. Mithras just wasn't one of the gods they talked about at Camp Half-Blood. She doubted the ghosts would wait while she whipped out Daedalus's laptop and did a search. "Study their story," Curse had said. Everything she needed was in this room. She just needed to put the pieces together. She scanned the floor mosaic - seven pictures in a row. She studied the ghosts and noticed all of them wore some sort of badge on their toga - a raven, or a torch, or a bow.
"You have rites of passage," She blurted out. "Seven levels of membership. And the top level is pater." The ghosts let out a collective gasp, while Curse smiled. Then, the ghosts all began shouting at once.
"How does she know this?" One demanded.
"The girl has learned our secrets!"
"Silence!" The pater ordered.
"But she might know about the ordeals!" Another cried.
"The ordeals!" Annabeth said. "I know about them!" Another round of incredulous gasping.
"Ridiculous!" The pater yelled. "The girl lies! Daughter of Athena, choose your way of death. If you do not choose, the god will choose for you!"
"Fire or dagger," Annabeth guessed. Even the pater looked stunned. Apparently, he hadn't remembered there were victims of past punishments lying on the floor.
"How…how did you…?" He gulped. "Who are you?"
"A child of Athena," Annabeth said again. "But not just any child. I am…uh, the mater in my sisterhood."
"The magna matter," Curse corrected.
"Yes, the magna matter. There are no mysteries to me. Mithras cannot hide anything from my sight."
"The magna mater!" A ghost wailed in despair. "The big mother!"
"Kill her!" One of the ghosts charged, his hands out to strangle her, but he passed right through her. Curse grabbed his wrists and pushed them away.
"You are dead," She reminded him. "Sit down." The ghost looked embarrassed and took his seat.
"We do not need to kill you ourselves," The pater growled. "Mithras shall do that for us!" The statue on the altar began to glow. Annabeth pressed her hands against the bricked-in doorway at her back. That had to be the exit. The mortar was crumbling, but it wasn't weak enough for her to break through with brute force. She looked desperately around the room - the cracked ceiling, the floor mosaic, the wall paintings, and the carved altar. She began to talk, pulling deductions from the top of her head.
"It is no good," She said. "I know all. You test your initiates with fire because the torch is the symbol of Mithras. His other symbol is the dagger, which is why you can also be tested with the blade. You want to kill me, just as…uh, as Mithras killed the sacred bull." It was a total guess, but the altar showed Mithras killing a bull, so Annabeth figured it must be important. The ghosts wailed and covered their ears. Some slapped their faces as if to wake up from a bad dream.
"The big mother knows!" One exclaimed. "It is impossible!"
"Unless you look around the room," Annabeth thought to herself, her confidence growing. She glared at the ghost who had just spoken. He had a raven badge on his toga - the same symbol as on the floor at her feet, at the beginning of the chain of membership levels.
"You are just a raven," She scolded. "That is the lowest rank. Be silent and let me speak to your pater." The ghost cringed.
"Mercy! Mercy!" At the front of the room, the pater trembled - either from rage or fear, Annabeth wasn't sure which. His pope hat tilted sideways on his head like a gas gauge dropping toward empty.
"Truly, you know much, big mother. Your wisdom is great, but that is all the more reason why you cannot leave. The weaver warned us you would come."
"The weaver…" Annabeth knew what the pater was talking about, the thing in the dark from Percy's dream, the guardian of the shrine. This was the one time she wished she didn't know the answer, but she tried to maintain her calm. "The weaver fears me. She doesn't want me to follow the Mark of Athena. But you will let me pass."
"You must choose an ordeal!" The pater insisted. "Fire or dagger! Survive one, and then, perhaps!" Annabeth looked down at the bones of her siblings. They'd all chosen one or the other: fire or dagger. Maybe they thought they could beat the ordeal, but they had all died. Annabeth needed a third choice. Curse pointed to the altar statue, which was glowing brighter by the second, its heat radiating across the room.
"The choices," She said. Annabeth looked to the statue and stared. Her instinct was to focus on the dagger or the torch, but instead she concentrated on the statue's base. She wondered why its legs were stuck in stone. Then it occurred to her: maybe the little statue of Mithras wasn't stuck in the rock. Maybe he was emerging from the rock.
"Neither torch nor dagger," Annabeth said firmly. "There is a third test, which I will pass."
"A third test?" The pater demanded.
"Mithras was born from rock," She said, hoping she was right. "He emerged fully grown from the stone, holding his dagger and torch." The screaming and wailing told her she had guessed correctly.
"The big mother knows all!" A ghost cried. "That is our most closely guarded secret!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't put a statue of it on your altar," Annabeth thought, though she was thankful for the stupid male ghosts. If they'd let women warriors into their cult, they might have learned some common sense. Annabeth gestured dramatically to the wall she'd come from.
"I was born from stone, just as Mithras was! Therefore, I have already passed your ordeal!"
"Bah!" The pater spat. "You came from a hole in the wall! That's not the same thing." Okay, so apparently the pater wasn't a complete moron, but Annabeth remained confident. Curse pointed to the ceiling and another idea came to Annabeth - all the details clicking together.
"I have control over the very stones." She raised her arms. "I will prove my power is greater than Mithras. With a single strike, I will bring down this chamber." The ghosts wailed and trembled and looked at the ceiling, but they didn't see what Annabeth and Curse saw. These ghosts were warriors, not engineers. The children of Athena had many skills other than combat, and Annabeth had studied architecture for years. She knew this ancient chamber was on the verge of collapse. She recognized what the stress fractures in the ceiling meant, all emanating from a single point - the top of the stone arch just above her. The capstone was about to crumble, and when that happened, assuming she could time it correctly…
"Impossible!" The pater shouted. "The weaver has paid us much tribute to destroy any children of Athena who would dare enter our shrine. We have never let her down. We cannot let you pass."
"Then you fear her power!" Curse said dramatically. "You admit that my lady could destroy your sacred chamber!" The pater scowled. He straightened his hat uneasily. She'd put him in an impossible position. He couldn't back down without looking cowardly.
"Do your worst, child of Athena," He decided. "No one can bring down the cavern of Mithras, especially with one strike. Especially not a girl!" Annabeth hefted her dagger. The ceiling was low. She could reach the capstone easily, but she'd have to make her one strike count. The doorway behind her was blocked, but in theory, if the room started to collapse, those bricks should weaken and crumble. She should be able to bust her way through before the entire ceiling came down - assuming, of course, that there was something behind the brick wall, not just solid earth. And assuming that Annabeth was quick enough and strong enough and lucky enough. Otherwise, she was about to be a demigod pancake.
"Well boys," She said. "Looks like you chose the wrong war god." She struck the capstone. The Celestial bronze blade shattered it like a sugar cube. For a moment, nothing happened.
"Ha!" The pater gloated. "You see? Athena has no power here!" The room shook. A fissure ran across the length of the ceiling and the far end of the cavern collapsed, burying the altar and the pater. More cracks widened. Bricks fell from the arches. Ghosts screamed and ran, but they couldn't seem to pass through the walls. Apparently, they were bound to this chamber even in death. Curse turned and hovered through the wall behind Annabeth, the bricks glowing with her green aura as she weakened them. Annabeth turned and slammed against the blocked entrance with all her might, and the bricks gave away. As the cavern of Mithras imploded behind her, she lunged into darkness and found herself falling.
