Chapter 11: A dog gets us on a train
"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light"
Albus Dumbledore
"So, a snake tried to tell you to betray the gods?" Annabeth summed up. "And claim some weird powers to bring them down. And then Hera came, healed you."
"Kind of healed me," Percy corrected. They went straight back into the woods to put some distance between them and Medusa's lair.
"And then told you to go on, leading you to Medusa, find us, use your powers and free some souls."
"That sums it up."
Grover frowned. "But why would a snake tell you to betray the gods? And how can you even speak to snakes?"
Percy shrugged, not knowing any more than them. "I wish I knew. But there's probably a lot of powers that I don't know about."
He glanced at Annabeth. "Do you know any gods associated with a snake?"
"There's quite a few of them actually. They have their preferences as snakes represent different parts of their aspects. The most associated god for snakes is Asclepius," Annabeth said.
"The god of healing, right? Apollo's son?"
"Yup. Snakes were believed to the creatures that blurred the line between life and death. And they shared this knowledge with him."
"Any other gods?"
"There's Ares as well. One of his sacred animals is the venomous snake. He used it to guard some of his sacred groves. There's also Hecate, but that's less commonly known. They represent some of her magical powers during the night. There's also Athena."
"Athena?"
"Of course. Sometimes her spear can be depicted with a snake. The ancient greeks believed because the snake came from the earth, they held a lot of wisdom, which is a reference to Athena. Also Apollo. He slewed the Python and so some powers of the snake are to him as well."
"But then again," Grover put in. "Apollo is connected to like, a million things."
"What about… my brother?" Percy asked. "The eldest one?"
Annabeth thought about that for a moment. "It's possible. His sacred animal is the screeching owl, but the snakes did represent death as they came from underground. You think he may have sent the snake?"
Percy nodded. "At this point, anything is possible. After all, he's known to trick his enemies. I can see him using it to try and just confuse me while journeying towards him."
"But, the snake called you a hatchling," Annabeth muttered. Percy could almost see the gears turning in her brains. Her face paled for a few moments.
"You have an idea who it might have been, don't you?" Percy asked. She shook her head.
"No Percy it's not-" she stopped, drawing herself a deep breath. "Just, it's not possible Percy. Don't worry about it." She gave him a pleading look.
It didn't make him feel any better, but he could tell pushing Annabeth at the moment wouldn't be the best idea either.
They were pretty miserable that night.
They camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.
They'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but they didn't dare light a fire to dry their damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.
They decided to sleep in shifts. Percy volunteered to take the first watch.
Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.
"Go ahead and sleep," Percy told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."
He nodded but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."
"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"
"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."
"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."
He glared at Percy. "Only a human wouldn't be. You, of all people, I expected to understand."
"Me? Why?"
Grover smacked his head. His expression was like what am I going to do with this guy?
"Percy, you have a gift that very few humans have ever been given. You get to walk in the shoes of the gods that protect this earth. You are the one mortal being who can understand how each domain can affect the mortal plane in many ways. You released the restless souls trapped by Medusa. You can control the three primary domains of this world. The toxins in the sea. The pollution in the skies. The extensive damage done to the earth, the ground. Your powers aren't just meant to be used to kill monsters. You can connect to each of these aspects on a spiritual level that very few people are able to. I thought you, of all people, would be able to relate to these problems."
Percy pondered on that for a few moments. He'd never really thought of his powers in that way. This entire time, he'd really used his abilities to get into fights with crazy half bulls and a bunch of winged demon bats. But was there more to his abilities than just combat?
Grover sighed, staring back up to the skies. "At the rate things are going, I'll never be able to find Pan."
"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"
"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"
A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly Percy was nostalgic for something I'd never known.
"Tell me about the search," he said.
Grover looked at him cautiously, as if he were afraid Percy was just making fun.
"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told Percy. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."
"And you want to be a searcher."
"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there—"
"Oh, right, sorry."
Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."
"Hang on—the first?"
Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."
"Not once in two thousand years?"
"No."
"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"
"None."
"But you still want to go," Percy said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"
"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."
Percy stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was he any better? Grover wanted to do this because he believed in something greater than himself. Percy was doing his quest for his own personal reasons, and if he was being honest, a lot of arrogance which should've gotten him killed at least a dozen times if it wasn't for his friends and family.
"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" Percy asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Annabeth was telling me—"
"Oh, I forgot. Annabeth will have a plan all figured out."
"Don't be so hard on her, Percy. She's had a tough life, but she's a good person. After all, she forgave me..." His voice faltered.
"What do you mean?" Percy asked. "Forgave you for what?"
Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.
"Wait a minute," Percy said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Annabeth has been at camp five years. She wasn't ... I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—"
"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if Percy pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Annabeth and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems."
"Well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took."
"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."
"They seemed plenty aggressive to me. And they were more than happy to provoke me."
Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"
"Asking about me," he said.
"Maybe ... but Annabeth and I, we both got the feeling they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is it?' They seemed to be asking about an object."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." Grover looked at him like he was hoping for answers, but Percy didn't have any.
He thought about what Medusa had said: he was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of him was worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight with you," Percy told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."
Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you sure that's the only reason?"
"I'm not doing it to help the gods. Or Poseidon. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."
Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad you have an actual family up there. You feel good that Poseidon has, in a way, claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted all of them to notice what you'd done. And more importantly, you want to prove to Poseidon that you're worth every sacrifice he's made to protect you."
"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks. What any of them think. Hera just about helped ease the pain to find you. Poseidon needs me to find the bolt. Zeus barely backed off from killing me because of the one goddess who cares about me. Hestia. And Hades is torturing my own mother. I care nothing for them, nor what they think about me."
Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Percy. Whatever."
"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."
Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."
Percy wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and Percy turned away, his eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, he was asleep.
In his dreams, he stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around him, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.
They tugged at his clothes, trying to pull him back, but he felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.
Looking down made him dizzy.
The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, Percy knew it must be bottomless. Yet he had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.
"Ah yes. You've finally be awakened child. You'll serve well. Bring forth what I require, and I'll reward you beyond anything you can imagine. Strike them down, show them your true power. Bring forth my will, and I'll grant you all you ever want."
The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around him like sheets of lead.
They have misled you, boy, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.
A shimmering image hovered over the void: his mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at him, pleading: Go!
Percy tried to cry out, but his voice wouldn't work.
Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.
An invisible force pulled him forward. It would drag him into the pit unless he stood firm.
Help me rise, boy. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!
The spirits of the dead whispered around him, No! Wake!
The image of his mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.
Percy realised it wasn't interested in pulling him in. It was using him to pull itself out.
Good, it murmured. Good.
Wake! the dead whispered. Wake!
Someone was shaking him.
His eyes opened, and it was daylight.
"Well," Annabeth said, "the zombie lives."
He was trembling from the dream. He could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around his chest. "How long was I asleep?"
"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Annabeth tossed him a bag of nacho-flavoured corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."
His eyes had trouble focusing.
Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.
No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.
The poodle yapped at him suspiciously. Grover said, "No, he's not."
Percy blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?"
The poodle growled.
"This thing," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."
"You can talk to animals?"
Grover ignored the question. "Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy."
He stared at Annabeth, figuring she'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on him, but she looked deadly serious.
"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," he said. "Forget it."
"Percy," Annabeth said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."
The poodle growled.
Percy said hello to the poodle.
Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods, and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.
"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" Percy asked.
"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."
"Of course," he said. "Silly me."
"So we turn in Gladiola," Annabeth explained in her best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."
Percy thought about his dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and his mother's face shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for him in the West.
"Not another bus," he said warily.
"No," Annabeth agreed.
She pointed downhill toward train tracks he hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the westbound train leaves at noon."
Author's Note: Sorry it's been a while. I'm pushing into my last two months of school, so my exams are coming in quite soon. I've been a bit preoccupied with them, and it's been a bit stressful managing my timetable. I'll try to get one more chapter done this week as well. This wasn't really an exciting chapter, but it's an important one as Annabeth starts to realise the true danger Percy may be in. And also Grover showing Percy how his powers could be used for more than just combat and there's a lot more depth to his abilities.
Not much else to say on this chapter. Lets get to the reviews
UU TWO: Yeah, that's understandable. And the snake was more than aware he wouldn't be able to convince Percy entirely. The point of the snake was to place the seeds of doubt in Percy and let the others take it from there. And this chapter kind of shows them trying to understand who sent the snake. Glad you're enjoying it.
KashundraOtsutsuki: Your point is very valid. I'll give partial defence to Annabeth that her father wasn't really understanding of her and allowed his wife to harshly treat Annabeth until he realised he messed up after Annabeth ran away. But yeah, that was the point of the argument between Annabeth and Percy. It's for Annabeth to realise that Percy has it quite worse. But it was also for Percy to understand that despite what he's going through, there are equally other demigods who go through similar things, and despite that, Annabeth came back to save him. I always wanted Annabeth to have a slightly bigger role in TLT, so I'm adding subtle scenes to show her having a more active role. But Annabeth's feeling of inferiority will be more addressed in Titan's Curse. But also being around Percy will humble her gradually in this version of the books.
Lord Kronos1950: Appreciate it :)
Anaklusmos404: I wanted Percy to meet more gods on his first quest in this adaptation, and it's important to his understanding of the divine world. There'll be quite a few more appearances, but every appearance has an important purpose that won't be understood till the end of this book and in the Titan's curse. As for Percy's underworld powers, well I won't spoil too much. But I can tell you that his command will be less than Nico's. Remember Nico is the son of Hades, the actual god of the dead. Once properly trained, Nico's powers will surpass Percy's in Underworld matters. There's a lot more to it, but no spoilers.
Death Fury: Part of the line of the prophecy came true here. His loyalty is yet to be properly tested.
Guest: "Called it! I knew that Percy would run into Medusa! I thought that the conversation with Hera was nice; I can see where the queen of the gods is coming from with her bitterness. I also thought that the scene with freeing the souls of those Medusa petrified was equal parts heartwarming and creepy; the creepiness comes from the fact that their souls hadn't passed on to the Underworld, while the heartwarming part comes from how Percy freed them! Good job expanding on his powers from Kronos! Thank you for responding to my reviews, keep up the great work and stay safe from the coronavirus"
Yeah I didn't want to divert too much from the canon story of him meeting Medusa and it was a perfect excuse to show Percy's Underworld powers and having them trapped in Medusa's statue was the best way to demonstrate it. The conversation between him and Hera will lead to bigger things, good and bad. Appreciate the review :)
JoJo 'Perlia' Jesus: Appreciate it bro. Hope you're doing good as well
Yeah that's it for this one. Again, I'll try and upload one more chapter for this Saturday.
See you in the next one.
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