Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (83 page)

‘But –’

‘Percy, the spider’s getting away. Do you really want me to explain the exact details of how I was born?’

‘Um… no. That’s okay.’

She smirked. ‘I thought not.’ And she ran ahead. I followed, but I wasn’t sure I would ever look at Annabeth
the same way again. I decided some things were better left as mysteries.

The roaring got louder. After another half-kilometre or so, we emerged in a cavern the size of a Super Bowl stadium. Our spider escort stopped and curled into a ball. We had arrived at the forge of Hephaestus.

There was no floor, just bubbling lava hundreds of metres below. We stood on a rock ridge that circled the cavern. A network of metal bridges spanned across it. At the centre was a huge platform with all sorts of machines, cauldrons, forges and the largest anvil I’d ever seen – a block of iron the size of a house. Creatures moved around the platform – several strange, dark shapes, but they were too far away to make out details.

‘We’ll never be able to sneak up on them,’ I said.

Annabeth picked up the metal spider and slipped it into her pocket. ‘I can. Wait here.’

‘Hold it!’ I said, but before I could argue she put on her Yankees cap and turned invisible.

I didn’t dare call after her, but I didn’t like the idea of her approaching the forge on her own. If those things out there could sense a god coming, would Annabeth be safe?

I looked back at the Labyrinth tunnel. I missed Grover and Tyson already. Finally I decided I couldn’t stay put. I crept along the outer rim of the lava lake, hoping I could get a better angle to see what was happening in the middle.

The heat was horrible. Geryon’s ranch had been a winter wonderland compared to this. In no time I was drenched with sweat. My eyes stung from the smoke. I moved along, trying to keep away from the edge, until I found my way
blocked by a cart on metal wheels, like the kind they use in mine shafts. I lifted up the tarp and found it was half full of scrap metal. I was about to squeeze my way around it when I heard voices from up ahead, probably from a side tunnel.

‘Bring it in?’ one asked.

‘Yeah,’ another said. ‘Movie’s just about done.’

I panicked. I didn’t have time to back up. There was nowhere to hide except… the cart. I scrambled inside and pulled the tarp over me, hoping no one had seen me. I curled my fingers around Riptide, just in case I had to fight.

The cart lurched forward.

‘Oi,’
a gruff voice said. ‘Thing weighs a ton.’

‘It’s celestial
bronze,’
the other said. ‘What did you expect?’

I got pulled along. We turned a corner, and from the sound of the wheels echoing against the walls I guessed we had passed down a tunnel and into a smaller room. Hopefully I was not about to be dumped into a smelting pot. If they started to tip me over, I’d have to fight my way out fast. I heard lots of talking, chattering voices that didn’t sound human – somewhere between a seal’s bark and a dog’s growl. There was another sound, too – like an old-fashioned film projector and a tinny voice narrating.

‘Just set it at the back,’ a new voice ordered from across the room. ‘Now, younglings. Please attend to the film. There will be time for questions afterwards.’

The voices quieted down, and I could hear the film.

As a young sea demon matures,
the narrator said,
changes happen in the monster’s body. You may notice your fangs getting longer and you
may have a sudden desire to devour human beings. These changes are perfectly normal and happen to all young monsters.

Excited snarling filled the room. The teacher – I guess it must have been a teacher – scolded the younglings to be quiet, and the film continued. I didn’t understand most of it, and I didn’t dare look. The film kept talking about growth spurts and acne problems caused by working in the forges, and proper flipper hygiene, and finally it was over.

‘Now, younglings,’ the instructor said. ‘What is the proper name of our kind?’

‘Sea demons!’ one of them barked.

‘No. Anyone else?’

‘Telkhines!’ another monster growled.

‘Very good,’ the instructor said. ‘And why are we here?’

‘Revenge!’ several shouted.

‘Yes, yes, but why?’

‘Zeus is evil!’ one monster said. ‘He cast us into Tartarus just because we used magic!’

‘Indeed,’ the instructor said. ‘After we made so many of the gods’ finest weapons. The trident of Poseidon, for one. And of course – we made the greatest weapon of the Titans! Nevertheless, Zeus cast us away and relied on those fumbling Cyclopes. That is why we are taking over the forges of the usurper Hephaestus. And soon we will control the undersea furnaces, our ancestral home!’

I clutched my pen-sword. These snarling things had created Poseidon’s trident? What were they talking about? I’d never even heard of a telkhine.

‘And so, younglings,’ the instructor continued, ‘who do we serve?’

‘Kronos!’ they shouted.

‘And when you grow to be big telkhines, will you make weapons for his army?’

‘Yes!’

‘Excellent. Now, we’ve brought in some scraps for you to practise with. Let’s see how ingenious you are.’

There was a rush of movement and excited voices coming towards the cart. I got ready to uncap Riptide. The tarp was thrown back. I jumped up, my bronze sword springing to life in my hands, and found myself facing a bunch of… dogs.

Well, their faces were dogs, anyway, with black snouts, brown eyes and pointy ears. Their bodies were sleek and black like sea mammals, with stubby legs that were half flipper, half foot, and humanlike hands with sharp claws. If you blended together a kid, a Dobermann pinscher and a sea lion, you’d get something like what I was looking at.

‘A demigod!’ one snarled.

‘Eat it!’ yelled another.

But that’s as far as they got before I slashed a wide arc with Riptide and vaporized the entire front row of monsters.

‘Back off!’ I yelled at the rest, trying to sound fierce. Behind them stood their instructor – a two-metre-tall telkhine with Dobermann fangs, snarling at me. I did my best to stare him down.

‘New lesson, class,’ I announced. ‘Most monsters will vaporize when sliced with a celestial bronze sword. This change is perfectly normal, and will happen to you
right now
if you don’t BACK OFF!’

To my surprise, it worked. The monsters backed up, but there were at least twenty of them. My fear factor wasn’t going to last long.

I jumped out of the cart, yelled, ‘CLASS DISMISSED!’ and ran for the exit.

The monsters charged after me, barking and growling. I hoped they couldn’t run very fast with those stubby little legs and flippers, but they waddled along pretty well. Thank the gods there was a door in the tunnel leading out to the main cavern. I slammed it shut and turned the wheel handle to lock it, but I doubted it would keep them long.

I didn’t know what to do. Annabeth was out here somewhere, invisible. Our chance for a subtle reconnaissance mission had just been blown. I ran towards the platform at the centre of the lava lake.

‘Annabeth!’ I yelled.

‘Shhh!’ An invisible hand clamped over my mouth and wrestled me down behind a big bronze cauldron. ‘You want to get us killed?’

I found her head and took off her Yankees cap. She shimmered into existence in front of me, scowling, her face streaked with ash and grime.

‘Percy, what is your problem?’

‘We’re going to have company!’ I explained quickly about the monster orientation class. Her eyes widened.

‘So that’s what they are,’ she said. ‘Telkhines. I should’ve known. And they’re making… Well, look.’

We peeked over the cauldron. In the centre of the platform stood four sea demons, but these were fully grown, at least two and a half metres tall. Their black skin glistened
in the firelight as they worked, sparks flying as they took turns hammering on a long piece of glowing hot metal.

‘The blade is almost complete,’ one said. ‘It needs another cooling in blood to fuse the metals.’

‘Aye,’ a second said. ‘It shall be even sharper than before.’

‘What
is
that?’ I whispered.

Annabeth shook her head. ‘They keep talking about fusing metals. I wonder –’

‘They were talking about the greatest Titan weapon,’ I said. ‘And they… they said they made my father’s trident.’

‘The telkhines betrayed the gods,’ Annabeth said. ‘They were practising dark magic. I don’t know what, exactly, but Zeus banished them to Tartarus.’

‘With Kronos.’

She nodded. ‘We have to get out –’

No sooner had she said that than the door to the classroom exploded and young telkhines came pouring out. They stumbled over each other, trying to figure out which way to charge.

‘Put your cap back on,’ I said. ‘Get out!’

‘What?’ Annabeth shrieked. ‘No! I’m not leaving you.’

‘I’ve got a plan. I’ll distract them. You can use the metal spider – maybe it’ll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what’s going on.’

‘But you’ll be killed!’

‘I’ll be fine. Besides, we’ve got no choice.’

Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. And then she did something that surprised me even more. She kissed me.

‘Be careful, Seaweed Brain.’ She put on her hat and vanished.

I probably would’ve sat there for the rest of the day, staring at the lava and trying to remember what my name was, but the sea demons jarred me back to reality.

‘There!’ one yelled. The entire class of telkhines charged across the bridge towards me. I ran for the middle of the platform, surprising the four elder sea demons so much they dropped the red-hot blade. It was about two metres long and curved like a crescent moon. I’d seen a lot of terrifying things, but this unfinished whatever-it-was scared me the most.

The elder demons got over their surprise quickly. There were four ramps leading off the platform, and before I could dash in any direction each of them had covered an exit.

The tallest one snarled, ‘What do we have here? A son of Poseidon?’

‘Yes,’ another growled. ‘I can smell the sea in his blood.’

I raised Riptide. My heart was pounding.

‘Strike down one of us, demigod,’ the third demon said, ‘and the rest of us shall tear you to shreds. Your father betrayed us. He took our gift and said nothing as we were cast into the pit. We will see
him
sliced to pieces. He and all the other Olympians.’

I wished I had a plan. I wished I hadn’t been lying to Annabeth. I’d wanted her to get out safely, and I hoped she’d been sensible enough to do it. But now it was dawning on me that this might be the place I would die. No prophecies for me. I would get overrun in the heart of a
volcano by a pack of dog-faced sea-lion people. The young telkhines were at the platform now, too, snarling and waiting to see how their four elders would deal with me.

I felt something burning against the side of my leg. The
ice
whistle in my pocket was getting colder. If I ever needed help, now was the time. But I hesitated. I didn’t trust Quintus’s gift.

Before I could make up my mind the tallest telkhine said, ‘Let us see how strong he is. Let us see how long it takes him to burn!’

He scooped some lava from the nearest furnace. It set his fingers ablaze, but this didn’t seem to bother him at all. The other elder telkhines did the same. The first one threw a glop of molten rock at me and set my trousers on fire. Two more splattered across my chest. I dropped my sword in sheer terror and swatted at my clothes. Fire was engulfing me. Strangely, it felt only warm at first, but it was getting hotter by the instant.

‘Your father’s nature protects you,’ one said. ‘Makes you hard to burn. But not impossible, youngling. Not impossible.’

They threw more lava at me and I remember screaming. My whole body was on fire. The pain was worse than anything I’d ever felt. I was being consumed. I crumpled to the metal floor and heard the sea demon children howling in delight.

Then I remembered the voice of the river naiad at the ranch:
The water is within me.

I needed the sea. I felt a tugging sensation in my gut, but I had nothing around to help me. Not a faucet or a river. Not even a petrified seashell this time. And, besides,
the last time I’d unleashed my power at the stables, there’d been that scary moment when it had almost got away from me.

I had no choice. I called to the sea. I reached inside myself and remembered the waves and the currents, the endless power of the ocean. And I let it loose in one horrible scream.

Afterwards, I could never describe what happened. An explosion, a tidal wave, a whirlwind of power simultaneously catching me up and blasting me downwards into the lava. Fire and water collided, superheated steam, and I shot up from the heart of the volcano in a huge explosion, just one piece of flotsam thrown free by a million pounds of pressure. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was flying, flying so high Zeus would never have forgiven me, and then beginning to fall, smoke and fire and water streaming from me. I was a comet hurtling towards the earth.

I woke up feeling like I was still on fire. My skin stung. My throat felt as dry as sand.

I saw blue sky and trees above me. I heard a fountain gurgling, and smelled juniper and cedar and a bunch of other sweet-scented plants. I heard waves, too, gently lapping on a rocky shore. I wondered if I were dead, but I knew better. I’d been to the Land of the Dead, and there was no blue sky.

I tried to sit up. My muscles felt like they were melting.

‘Stay still,’ a girl’s voice said. ‘You’re too weak to rise.’

She laid a cool cloth across my forehead. A bronze spoon hovered over me and liquid was dribbled into my mouth. The drink soothed my throat and left a warm chocolatey aftertaste. Nectar of the gods. Then the girl’s face appeared above me.

She had almond eyes and caramel-colour hair, braided over one shoulder. She was… fifteen? Sixteen? It was hard to tell. She had one of those faces that just seemed timeless. She began singing, and my pain dissolved. She was working magic. I could feel her music sinking into my skin, healing and repairing my burns.

‘Who?’ I croaked.

‘Shhh, brave one,’ she said. ‘Rest and heal. No harm will come to you here. I am Calypso.’

The next time I woke I was in a cave, but as far as caves go I’d been in a lot worse. The ceiling glittered with different-colour crystal formations – white and purple and green, like I was inside one of those cut geodes you see in souvenir shops. I was lying on a comfortable bed with feather pillows and white cotton sheets. The cave was divided into sections by white silk curtains. Against one wall stood a large loom and a harp. Against the other wall were shelves neatly stacked with jars of fruit preserves. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling: rosemary, thyme and a bunch of other stuff. My mother could’ve named them all.

There was a fireplace built into the cave wall, and a pot bubbling over the flames. It smelled great, like beef stew.

I sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. I looked at my arms, sure that they would be hideously scarred, but they seemed fine. A little pinker than usual, but not bad. I was wearing a white cotton T-shirt and cotton drawstring trousers that weren’t mine. My feet were bare. In a moment of panic, I wondered what had happened to Riptide, but I felt in my pocket and there was my pen, right where it always reappeared.

Not only that but the Stygian-ice dog whistle was back in my pocket, too. Somehow it had followed me. And that didn’t exactly reassure me.

With difficulty, I stood. The stone floor was freezing under my feet. I turned and found myself staring into a polished bronze mirror.

‘Holy Poseidon,’ I muttered. I looked as if I’d lost ten kilos I couldn’t afford to lose. My hair was a rat’s nest. It was singed at the edges like Hephaestus’s beard. If I saw that face on somebody walking down a highway intersection asking for money, I would’ve locked the car doors.

I turned away from the mirror. The cave entrance was to my left. I headed towards the daylight.

The cave opened onto a green meadow. On the left was grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge flower garden. Four fountains gurgled in the meadow, each shooting water from the pipes of stone satyrs. Straight ahead, the grass sloped down to a rocky beach. The waves of a lake lapped against the stones. I could tell it was a lake because… well, I just could. Fresh water. Not salt. The sun sparkled on the water, and the sky was pure blue. It seemed like a paradise, which immediately made me nervous. You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.

The girl with the braided caramel hair, the one who’d called herself Calypso, was standing at the beach, talking to someone. I couldn’t see him very well in the shimmer from the sunlight off the water, but they appeared to be arguing. I tried to remember what I knew about Calypso from the old myths. I’d heard the name before, but… I couldn’t remember. Was she a monster? Did she trap heroes and kill them? But if she were evil, why was I still alive?

I walked towards her slowly because my legs were still stiff. When the grass changed to gravel, I looked down to keep my balance, and when I looked up again, the girl was alone. She wore a white sleeveless Greek dress with a low
circular neckline trimmed in gold. She brushed at her eyes like she’d just been crying.

‘Well,’ she said, trying for a smile, ‘the sleeper finally awakes.’

‘Who were you talking to?’ My voice sounded like a frog that had spent time in a microwave.

‘Oh… just a messenger,’ she said. ‘How do you feel?’

‘How long have I been out?’

‘Time,’ Calypso mused. ‘Time is always difficult here. I honestly don’t know, Percy.’

‘You know my name?’

‘You talk in your sleep.’

I blushed. ‘Yeah. I’ve been… uh, told that before.’

‘Yes. Who is Annabeth?’

‘Oh, uh. A friend. We were together when – wait, how did I get here? Where am I?’

Calypso reached up and ran her fingers through my mangled hair. I stepped back nervously.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve just grown used to caring for you. As to how you got here, you fell from the sky. You landed in the water, just there.’ She pointed across the beach. ‘I do not know how you survived. The water seemed to cushion your fall. As to where you are, you are in Ogygia.’

She pronounced it like
oh~jee~jee~ah.

‘Is that near Mount St Helens?’ I asked, because my geography was pretty terrible.

Calypso laughed. It was a small, restrained laugh, like she found me really funny but didn’t want to embarrass me. She was cute when she laughed.

‘It isn’t near anything, brave one,’ she said. ‘Ogygia is my phantom island. It exists by itself, anywhere and nowhere. You can heal here in safety. Never fear.’

‘But my friends –’

‘Annabeth,’ she said. ‘And Grover and Tyson?’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I have to get back to them. They’re in danger.’

She touched my face, and I didn’t back away this time. ‘Rest first. You are no good to your friends until you heal.’

As soon as she said it, I realized how tired I was. ‘You’re not… you’re not an evil sorceress, are you?’

She smiled coyly. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Well, I met Circe once, and she had a pretty nice island, too. Except she liked to turn men into guinea pigs.’

Calypso gave me that laugh again. ‘I promise I will not turn you into a guinea pig.’

‘Or anything else?’

‘I am no evil sorceress,’ Calypso said. ‘And I am not your enemy, brave one. Now rest. Your eyes are already closing.’

She was right. My knees buckled, and I would’ve landed face-first in the gravel if Calypso hadn’t caught me. Her hair smelled like cinnamon. She was very strong, or maybe I was just really weak and thin. She walked me back to a cushioned bench by a fountain and helped me lie down.

‘Rest,’ she ordered. And I fell asleep to the sound of the fountains and the smell of cinnamon and juniper.

The next time I awoke it was night, but I wasn’t sure if it was the same night or many nights later. I was in the bed
in the cave, but I rose and wrapped a robe around myself and padded outside. The stars were brilliant – thousands of them, like you only see way out in the country. I could make out all the constellations Annabeth had taught me: Capricorn, Pegasus, Sagittarius. And there, near the southern horizon, was a new constellation: the Huntress, a tribute to a friend of ours who had died last winter.

‘Percy, what do you see?’

I brought my eyes back to earth. However amazing the stars were, Calypso was twice as brilliant. I mean, I’ve seen the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, and I would never say this out loud or she’d blast me to ashes, but, for my money, Calypso was a lot more beautiful, because she just seemed so natural, like she wasn’t trying to be beautiful and didn’t even care about that. She just
was.
With her braided hair and white dress, she seemed to glow in the moonlight. She was holding a tiny plant in her hands. Its flowers were silver and delicate.

‘I was just looking at…’ I found myself staring at her face. ‘Uh… I forgot.’

She laughed gently. ‘Well, as long as you’re up, you can help me plant these.’

She handed me a plant, which had a clump of earth and roots at the base. The flowers glowed as I held them. Calypso picked up her gardening spade and directed me to the edge of the garden, where she began to dig.

‘That’s moonlace,’ Calypso explained. ‘It can only be planted at night.’

I watched the silvery light flicker around the petals. ‘What does it do?’

‘Do?’ Calypso mused. ‘It doesn’t really
do
anything, I
suppose. It lives, it gives light, it provides beauty. Does it have to do anything else?’

‘I suppose not,’ I said.

She took the plant, and our hands met. Her fingers were warm. She planted the moonlace and stepped back, surveying her work. ‘I love my garden.’

‘It’s awesome,’ I agreed. I mean, I wasn’t exactly a gardening type, but Calypso had arbours covered with six different colours of roses, lattices filled with honeysuckle, rows of grapevines bursting with red and purple grapes that would’ve made Dionysus sit up and beg.

‘Back home,’ I said, ‘my mom always wanted a garden.’

‘Why did she not plant one?’

‘Well, we live in Manhattan. In an apartment.’

‘Manhattan? Apartment?’

I stared at her. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’

‘I fear not. I haven’t left Ogygia in… a long time.’

‘Well, Manhattan’s a big city, with not much gardening space.’

Calypso frowned. ‘That is sad. Hermes visits from time to time. He tells me the world outside has changed greatly. I did not realize it had changed so much you cannot have gardens.’

‘Why haven’t you left your island?’

She looked down. ‘It is my punishment.’

‘Why? What did you do?’

‘I? Nothing. But I’m afraid my father did a great deal. His name is Atlas.’

The name sent a shiver down my back. I’d met the
Titan Atlas last winter, and it had not been a happy time. He’d tried to kill pretty much everyone I cared about.

‘Still,’ I said hesitantly, ‘it’s not fair to punish you for what your father’s done. I knew another daughter of Atlas. Her name was Zoë. She was one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.’

Calypso studied me for a long time. Her eyes were sad.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Are – are you healed yet, my brave one? Do you think you’ll be ready to leave soon?’

‘What?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know.’ I moved my legs. They were still stiff. I was already getting dizzy from standing up so long. ‘You want me to go?’

‘I…’ Her voice broke. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well.’

She ran off towards the beach. I was too confused to do anything but watch until she disappeared in the dark.

I don’t know exactly how much time passed. Like Calypso said, it was hard to keep track on the island. I knew I should be leaving. At the very least, my friends would be worried. At worst, they could be in serious danger. I didn’t even know if Annabeth had made it out of the volcano. I tried to use my empathy link with Grover several times, but I couldn’t make contact. I hated not knowing if they were all right.

On the other hand, I really was weak. I couldn’t stay on my feet more than a few hours. Whatever I’d done in Mount St Helens had drained me like nothing else I’d ever experienced.

I didn’t feel like a prisoner or anything. I remembered the Lotus Hotel and Casino in Vegas, where I’d been lured into this amazing game world until I almost forgot everything I cared about. But the island of Ogygia wasn’t like that at all. I thought about Annabeth, Grover and Tyson constantly. I remembered exactly why I needed to leave. I just… couldn’t. And then there was Calypso.

She never talked much about herself, but that just made me want to know more. I would sit in the meadow, sipping nectar, and I would try to concentrate on the flowers or the clouds or the reflections on the lake, but I was really staring at Calypso as she worked, the way she brushed her hair over her shoulder, and the little strand that fell in her face whenever she knelt to dig in the garden. Sometimes she would hold out her hand and birds would fly out of the woods to settle on her arm – lorikeets, parrots, doves. She would say good morning to them, ask how it was going back at the nest, and they would chirp for a while, then fly off cheerfully. Calypso’s eyes gleamed. She would look at me and we’d share a smile, but almost immediately she’d get that sad expression again and turn away. I didn’t understand what was bothering her.

One night we were eating dinner together at the beach. Invisible servants had set up a table with beef stew and apple cider, which may not sound all that exciting, but that’s because you haven’t tasted it. I hadn’t even noticed the invisible servants when I first got to the island, but after a while I became aware of the beds making themselves, meals cooking on their own, clothes being washed and folded by unseen hands.

Anyway, Calypso and I were sitting at dinner, and she looked beautiful in the candlelight. I was telling her about
New York and Camp Half-Blood, and then I starting telling her about the time Grover had eaten an apple while we were playing Hacky Sack with it. She laughed, showing off her amazing smile, and our eyes met. Then she dropped her gaze.

‘There it is again,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘You keep pulling away, like you’re trying not to enjoy yourself.’

She kept her eyes on her glass of cider. ‘As I told you, Percy, I have been punished. Cursed, you might say.’

‘How? Tell me. I want to help.’

‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.’

‘Tell me what the punishment is.’

She covered her half-finished stew with a napkin, and immediately an invisible servant whisked the bowl away. ‘Percy, this island, Ogygia, is my home, my birthplace. But it is also my prison. I am under… house arrest, I guess you would call it. I will never visit this Manhattan of yours. Or anywhere else. I am alone here.’