(Wyatt)
Okay. So we were doing this.
Daniel, Zara, and I plummeted straight down into the abyss. The abyss turned out to be only about ten feet deep, and the three of us landed ungracefully on hard packed dirt.
I could still see the Mark of Daedalus on the ceiling. It was almost completely dark, except the faint blue light of the triangle and a bronze glow coming from Zara's barbed wire stick. The tunnel we were in appeared to go straight off in two directions, but it faded into dark only a few feet away.
Daniel was the first up on his feet. On his hooves, more accurately. I stood next and offered my hand to Zara. She slapped it away and got up on her own. I had expected as much, but I could tell she was still in pain from her injury.
Daniel sniffed the air, muttering something that sounded like "Strawberriesstrawberries," under his breath. His nose twitched, and he turned left and started walking. Zara and I followed without a word. I glanced over at her, but she continued to ignore me.
It was only a few feet before we reached the first branch. One opening led into a passageway made of dark stone, with torches in wall sconces that made it resemble a medieval dungeon. Another was dirt with roots hanging from the ceiling and muddy concrete floor. The third looked like an abandoned subway tunnel, an austere tube of rusted metal.
Daniel hesitated for several moments, studying each and looking completely lost. He eventually chose the subway tunnel, which morphed into a stone lined tunnel with Greek frescos.
We continued like this for several hours, traversing the bizarre and utterly illogical geography of the Labyrinth. Daniel became visibly more panicked with each branch. Zara's face was still tight with pain, and I worried she might snap at him. Fortunately, she remained silent.
The three of us looked like we had survived the apocalypse, or possibly middle school. Daniel was the most bruised and cut up, having been unable to eat the ambrosia. Zara was visibly pale and struggled with each step, despite trying to hide it. As for me, I was in better shape than the other two, but still not very good. My hair was a mess. My white and khaki school uniform was unrecognizable under the grime, sweat, blood, and gasoline it had accumulated. I only had one shoe left, and my other foot throbbed from walking on the hard ground.
We passed through every kind of underground passageway from every time period I could conceive of, and many that I couldn't. Each time period and architecture style morphed into another so quickly I could barely keep track of them. We occasionally passed the more glowing blue exits, and Daniel sometimes stopped us to open them and look out. One was in what appeared to be down-town Tokyo. Another was in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a forest, complete with several very surprised grizzly bears. Daniel politely asked the bears if they could tell us where we were, because apparently my best friend can talk to bears, as well as spiders. I may never get used to that. The bears said we were in Canada, somewhere in a Northern Province. How the bears understood human geography, I didn't want to ask. We also found openings to Germany, Antarctica, the Mariana trench, and Florida. But not New York.
Over those hours, we encountered many strange things. Greek murals with modern graffiti. Modern sewers scattered with ancient marble statues. Daniel even noticed that one concrete bunker had perfectly functional internet, for reasons none of us would ever comprehend. We passed through several crowded subway tunnels where people completely ignored us. Maybe a trio of bedraggled teenagers was a normal part of commuter traffic in whatever cities or countries the tunnels were in, or maybe the Mist was working overtime. We tiptoed through personal basements that contained homemade recording studios, enormous gaming consoles, and one very impressive collection of lampshades. We even managed to stumble into a top-secret government laboratory full of very surprised men with large beards who yelled at us in Russian.
In a tunnel that looked and smelled like a sewer, I found a shiny golden coin I didn't recognise. I instinctively pocketed it without knowing why.
When it came to monsters, we were apparently lucky. We passed through a natural cavern with an enormous sleeping reptile that Daniel said was a Drakon, but it slept soundly as we crept around it. Daniel's keen noise did succeed in steering us away from directions that smelled strongly of monsters. In hindsight, going towards the monsters would have probably been the most direct route to get where we were going. Doing so wouldn't have been logical, but I've learned since that day that the life of a demigod is all danger and no logic.
Everything was fine until Daniel cried out, "There! That's the one, I'm sure of it!"
He was pointing at a Mark of Daedalus directly across from us. We were currently in a narrow room that looked like a secret passageway from a World War II movie. The floor was hard-packed earth, and the sides and low ceiling were covered in rotting wooden boards. The triangle was about twenty feet away.
Just like that. We could have been out of that mess.
If, of course, Daniel hadn't shouted. If, of course, there hadn't been a monster lying in wait by the exit. If, of course, we could have had one bit of good luck. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
What Daniel had failed to notice was the small dark hole directly under the triangle. As soon as he raised his voice, something slithered ominously out of the dirt wall.
Spoiler alert: things slither out of dirt walls are almost never good. I'd say that they are absolutely never good, but then I expect someone, likely Zara, would find the one exception and I'd never heard the end of it, so I'm going with 'almost never'.
At first, the reptile didn't seem so bad. He (or she) was about the size of an overgrown cucumber. (To those who don't know what a cucumber is, this made it about the size of my arm. Also to those who are unfamiliar with cucumbers, why on earth do you not know what a cucumber is? Eat more vegetables!) His scales were a shade of yellowish green, and its glowing eyes were pale yellow.
"Nice snakey?" I asked hopefully.
The not-necessarily-nice snakey raised its head and hissed at us, raising a ruff of white spikes from around its neck.
"That's a basilisk," Daniel whispered. "They breathe fire, and their touch is extremely poisonous."
The definitely-not-nice snakey stayed where it was.
"I thought Basilisks turned people to stone," I whispered back.
"You're thinking of Harry Potter," he replied.
"We could run," Zara suggested.
That sounded pretty good to me, but Daniel shook his head. "If we ran, it would definitely chase us. And that exit leads to New York, I'm sure of it."
The basilisk chose that moment to attack. He blew a burst of flames at us. Daniel and Zara dove to the right, and I went left. So, naturally, I was singled out as the target.
It slithered towards me, leaving a trial of blackened earth behind it.
"Bad snakey!" I yelled. In my defense, it was all I could think of at the time.
Then I did something even more heroic than talking to a snake as if it were a puppy.
I threw my shoe.
That's right. I pulled off my one remaining sneaker, and heroically chucked it at the snake. My aim was perfect and the basilisk was so surprised by my sheer stupidity that he didn't bother to dodge the weaponized footwear, so I spent a brief moment thinking my harebrained non-plan would actually work. My filthy, ripped up sneaker bounced off the head of the snake, then disintegrated into black dust midair.
The snake seemed momentarily stunned, then remembered that it wanted to kill me. It continued to slither towards me, occasionally breathing out small bursts of flame. I was backed into a corner, so it could have easily incinerated me if it wanted to. Perhaps the monster wasn't very bright, though I doubted it considering the malicious gleam in its eyes. More likely, it wanted to terrify me as much as it could before killing me. Maybe the more scared a demigod is, the better they taste. Maybe "snakey" was considered the worst possible insult in its culture. Maybe it was just having fun.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Daniel and Zara creeping around the edge of the chamber until they were behind the snake. For a moment, I worried that they would escape out through the exit and leave me to die.
Fortunately for me and unfortunately for them, my friends weren't smart enough to sacrifice me in exchange for their own safety. Zara picked up a rock and threw it at the basilisk, and it turned towards her, hissing and rattling its spikes some more. She scrambled back.
Daniel, who had traveled a little farther, yelled to get the snake's attention, and it turned towards him.
Apparently the snake had trouble focusing on more than one demigod at once. The three of us took turns yelling and throwing rocks at it. As it continued to swivel towards each of us in turn, I could sense its growing impatience with the situation. We didn't have much time left.
The next time it turned towards me, Zara took the opportunity to lunge forward with her bronze stick-weapon. The snake slithered around and out of the way with unnatural speed, and Zara had to roll away in order to avoid being clipped by its poisonous tail. In the process, she dropped her stick.
The snake advanced on her, having finally singled out her as its target.
The barbed-wire stick rolled towards me. I grasped it instinctually.
Zara was trapped in a corner, and the snake was rising above her, rustling its spiny frill, preparing for the final blow. Daniel was frozen in terror.
And me? I was the least qualified of our group when it came to heroics. Daniel had the knowledge, Zara had the fighting skills. So naturally, I had our only weapon.
The snake drew back its head, preparing to blow fire or bite.
Without even thinking, sprung up and swung the barbed-wire stick. It nailed the snake from the side of what may have been its neck. (Do snakes have necks? I'm not quite sure, but I hit the part of its body directly below its head. Calling it the neck saves a lot of time.)
My blow hit from the side, and the basilisk flew sideways across the passage and dissolved into dust midair.
Zara let out a long breath. Daniel struggled to his hooves, and I noticed that his curly hair had been singed. I sat down, hard.
We stayed silent for a few moments, taking in what had just happened.
"Well," Zara said, "What are we waiting for? Let's get out of here."
She led us to the Mark of Daedalus, opening it with a touch. The three of us peered out the opening, which led into a narrow alley. At the end of it, we could see a busy street surrounded by tall buildings.
I shrugged and stepped out first. "Welcome to New York," I said.
Daniel shuddered. "I hate that song."
"It's a perfectly good song."
"Does it matter?" Zara asked.
I sighed. "Not really."
She turned towards Daniel. "What's the fastest way to get to your camp?"
"The Grey Sisters, but we need a Dracma for that."
Zara rubbed her hand over her face, messing up her hair even more. "And we still don't have one of those."
"Yeah…"
I suddenly remembered the golden coin I'd found in the Labyrinth. I pulled it out of my pocket. "Is this a Dracma?"
Daniel's eyes widened. "Yes! Where'd you get that?"
"I found it in the Labyrinth."
"Figures."
Daniel took the coin from me and tossed it onto the pavement. He shouted something in Ancient Greek that I somehow understood to mean 'Stop, O Chariot of Damnation!' which was not particularly reassuring.
Suddenly, the pavement in front of us boiled into lava and a gray taxi cab appeared before us. In the front seat were three old ladies so ancient that it appeared death had simply forgotten about them and let them continue to age indefinitely. Their skin sagged off their bodies, which were covered in formless black dress. The one at the wheel had a single tooth, while all of the others only displayed rotten gums. Even worse, only one of them, and not the one who was driving, had a singular bloodshot, greenish eye. The rest had closed eyelids over sunken sockets.
I hid behind Zara. I can handle a lot of things, or so I like to think, but a trio of old women missing parts of their faces was past the limit of what I could handle that day.
Daniel looked bored, while Zara managed to keep her expression neutral.
The back doors of the cab flew open.
"What are you waiting for? Get in," barked the crone with the eye.
Zara was the first in, followed by Daniel, who dragged me by the wrist.
The engine started, and the taxi cab shot out of the alleyway at a speed that was surely illegal. It went straight into the busy street, weaving through traffic at a supernatural, and very dangerous, speed.
"Anger!" yelled the one in the middle. "You're going to crash!"
"Tempest won't give me the eye," responded Anger, the one with the tooth.
"Not until you give me the tooth," whined Tempest.
"Hey!" said the one in the middle. "I should get the tooth! I don't have anything."
"But I want the tooth," said Tempest. "Why should Wasp have it?"
"Why shouldn't I?" Wasp asked.
"GIVE ME THE EYE!" screamed Anger, as the cab almost crashed into a building. "We can't have these little heroes dying on us."
"Yes," Wasp agreed. "They're important. Very important indeed…"
"What do you mean?" Zara demanded. "What do you know?"
Tempest continued like she hadn't heard. "Important as they are, they're still heroes. We all know that heroes are never to be trusted."
Wasp shuddered. "Horrid little monsters, the lot of them."
I considered pointing out that the sisters were also horrid monsters, albeit slightly larger than me, but decided against it.
Anger nearly crashed us into a traffic light, but managed to dodge it thanks to Tempest and Wasp yelling at her to swerve. She gestured again for the eye, and Tempest reluctantly handed it over.
"What do you know about us being important?" Zara asked again.
Tempest shrugged. "Only something that could mean the difference between life and death for you. We can't tell you though."
"Please?" I asked.
"No," Anger said tauntingly.
Wasp chose the moment to lunger for Anger, snatching the disgusting tooth out of her mouth. Before Wasp could put it into her own mouth, Tempest made a wild grab for it, knocking it out of Wasp's hand. The yellowed tooth rolled into the backseat, stopping right at my feet. I reluctantly picked it up, and nearly gagged. Was that moss on it?
"The tooth!" Wasp shrieked.
She knocked into Anger, who swerved just in time to avoid driving off the edge of the bridge to Long Island. She glanced back and saw me holding the tooth.
"You-uh-dropped this," I said weakly.
"No!" Tempest exclaimed. "The nasty demigod boy has our tooth! He won't give it back unless we tell him what we know!"
"Uh," I repeated. I'd been planning to give back the tooth, of course. I wasn't the sort of guy to steal teeth from old ladies, even if they were revolting and very unsafe drivers. But right now, getting more information sounded pretty good to me.
"He'll throw it out the window if we don't tell him!" shrieked Anger.
"That's… right," I said. I sounded unsure and unenthusiastic, but the ladies either couldn't tell or didn't care.
"No!" they cried in unison.
"Yes," I said. "I'm rolling down the window now."
I did roll down the window, but kept a tight group on the tooth with my other hand.
Zara caught on to what I was doing. "You'd better tell us what you know right now, or he will throw it out," she said. "He's a total lunatic like that."
"Fine, we'll tell you," Tempest grumbled.
Anger made a sharp turn that almost caused the car to roll. I nearly dropped the tooth, but managed to hold on to it.
Wasp took a deep breath, which rattled in her decrepit chest. "After your quest, you're going to be asking an important question."
She looked very pleased with herself. I exchanged a glance with Zara and Daniel.
Zara cleared her throat. "And? That can't possibly be all."
"It is!" cried Tempest. "We absolutely don't know the answer, I swear."
"I'm rolling down the window even more now," I said.
"Don't do it," pleaded Anger.
"He will," Daniel chimed in. "He'll throw the tooth out unless you tell us the answer to the question right now."
"Fine," muttered Wasp. "The answer to your question is-"
"I want to say it!" cut in Tempest.
"No, it should be me," interrupted Anger.
"But I was already saying it," whined Wasp.
"But you got to say the first bit," said Anger.
"And Anger gets to drive, so I get to say the final reveal," argued Tempest. Before the others could interject, she started again. "The answer to your question is Tartarus."
Daniel choked on air and couldn't breathe again until Zara pounded him on the back. "T-tartarus?" he choked out. "That can't be right!"
Wasp smiled a nasty, toothless smile. "That's right, little Satyr. Tartarus."
"Now give me the tooth!" Tempest demanded.
Wordlessly, I tossed it to her. She and Wasp proceeded to squabble over who got it. Meanwhile, the unnatural speed of the cab slowed slightly. We drove along the coast, then sharply turned into a forest, fast approaching a lake with a dock. Suddenly, the taxi doors opened, dumping the three of us straight into the water.
Just like that, the gray sisters were gone.
The three of us fell hard into the water. At the bottom of the lake, there was a group of girls in jeans and green shirts. They waved cheerfully to us as we plummeted in a cloud of bubbles, then swam over to help us to the surface.
I sputtered, then gulped in air. Over by the dock, I could see a group of adolescents in orange shirts, all staring at us. I waved awkwardly at them, then started to swim in their direction. Daniel followed, and it was only by the time we'd reached the dock that I noticed Zara had gone in an entirely different direction.