The Hidden Oracle (17 page)

“Talking trees.” Meg’s mouth twitched. “What was that Oracle called?”

“I—I can’t remember.” I ground my teeth. “I
should
know. I should be able to tell you instantly! But the information…It’s almost as if it is eluding me on purpose.”

“That happens sometimes,” Meg said. “You’ll think of it.”

“But it
never
happens to me! Stupid human brain! At any rate, I believe this grove is somewhere in those woods. I don’t know how or why. But the whispering voices…they are from this hidden Oracle. The sacred trees are trying to speak prophecies, reaching out to those with burning questions, luring them in.”

Meg put her glasses back on. “You know that sounds crazy, right?”

I steadied my breathing. I had to remind myself that I was no longer a god. I had to put up with insults from mortals without being able to blast them to ashes.

“Just be on guard,” I said.

“But the race doesn’t even go through the woods.”

“Nevertheless…we are not safe. If you can summon your friend Peaches, I would welcome his company.”

“I told you, he sort of pops up when he feels like it. I can’t—”

Chiron blew a hunting horn so loudly my vision doubled. Another pledge to myself: once I became a god again, I would descend upon this camp and take away all their horns.

“Demigods!” said the centaur. “Tie your legs together and follow me to your starting positions!”

We gathered in a meadow about a hundred yards from the Big House. Making it
that
far without a single life-threatening incident was a minor miracle. With my left leg bound to Meg’s right, I felt the way I used to in Leto’s womb just before my sister and I were born. And, yes, I remember that quite well. Artemis was always shoving me aside, elbowing me in the ribs and generally being a womb hog.

I said a silent prayer that if I got through this race alive, I would sacrifice a bull to myself and possibly even build myself a new temple. I am a sucker for bulls and temples.

The satyrs directed us to spread out across the meadow.

“Where is the starting line?” Holly Victor demanded, shoving her shoulder ahead of her sister’s. “I want to be the closest.”

“
I
want to be closest,” Laurel corrected. “You can be
second
closest.”

“Not to worry!” Woodrow the satyr sounded very worried. “We’ll explain everything in a moment. As soon as I, um, know what to explain.”

Will Solace sighed. He was, of course, tied to Nico. He propped his elbow on Nico’s shoulder as if the son of Hades were a convenient shelf. “I miss Grover. He used to organize things like this so well.”

“I’d settle for Coach Hedge.” Nico pushed Will’s arm off. “Besides, don’t talk about Grover too loudly. Juniper’s right over there.”

He pointed to one of the dryads—a pretty girl dressed in pale green.

“Grover’s girlfriend,” Will explained to me. “She misses him. A lot.”

“Okay, everybody!” Woodrow shouted. “Spread out a little bit more, please! We want you to have plenty of room so, you know, if you die, you won’t take down all the other teams too!”

Will sighed. “I am
so
excited.”

He and Nico loped off. Julia and Alice from the Hermes cabin checked their shoes one more time, then glared at me. Connor Stoll was paired with Paolo Montes, the Brazilian son of Hebe, and neither of them seemed happy about it.

Perhaps Connor looked glum because his mangled scalp was covered in so much medicinal salve his head looked like it had been coughed up by a cat. Or perhaps he just missed his brother Travis.

As soon as Artemis and I were born, we couldn’t
wait
to get some distance between us. We staked out our own territories and that was that. But I would’ve given anything to see her just then. I was sure Zeus had threatened her with severe punishment if she tried to help me during my time as a mortal, but she could have at least sent me a care package from Olympus—a decent toga, some magical acne cream, and maybe a dozen cranberry ambrosia scones from the Scylla Cafe. They made
excellent
scones.

I scanned the other teams. Kayla and Austin were bound together, looking like a deadly pair of street performers with her bow and his saxophone. Chiara, the cute girl from Tyche, was stuck with her nemesis, Damien White, son of…well, Nemesis. Billie Ng from Demeter was leg-tied with Valentina Diaz, who was hastily checking her makeup in the reflective surface of Billie’s silver coat. Valentina didn’t seem to notice that two twigs were sprouting from her hair like tiny deer antlers.

I decided the biggest threat would be Malcolm Pace. You can never be too careful with children of Athena. Surprisingly, though, he’d paired himself with Sherman Yang. That didn’t seem like a natural partnership, unless Malcolm had some sort of plan. Those Athena children
always
had a plan. It rarely included letting me win.

The only demigods not participating were Harley and Nyssa, who had set up the course.

Once the satyrs judged we had all spread out sufficiently and our leg bindings had been double-checked, Harley clapped for our attention.

“Okay!” He bounced up and down eagerly, reminding me of the Roman children who used to cheer for executions at the Colosseum. “Here’s the deal. Each team has to find three golden apples, then get back to this meadow alive.”

Grumbling broke out among the demigods.

“Golden apples,” I said. “I
hate
golden apples. They bring nothing but trouble.”

Meg shrugged. “I like apples.”

I remembered the rotten one she’d used to break Cade’s nose in the alley. I wondered if perhaps she could use golden apples with the same deadly skill. Perhaps we stood a chance after all.

Laurel Victor raised her hand. “You mean the first team back wins?”

“
Any
team that gets back alive wins!” Harley said.

“That’s ridiculous!” Holly said. “There can only be one winner. First team back wins!”

Harley shrugged. “Have it your way.
My
only rules are stay alive, and don’t kill each other.”

“O quê?”
Paolo started complaining so loudly in Portuguese that Connor had to cover his left ear.

“Now, now!” Chiron called. His saddlebags were overflowing with extra first-aid kits and emergency flares. “We won’t need any
help
making this a dangerous challenge. Let’s have a good clean three-legged death race. And another thing, campers, given the problems our test group had this morning, please repeat after me:
Do not end up in Peru
.”

“Do not end up in Peru,” everyone chanted.

Sherman Yang cracked his knuckles. “So where
is
the starting line?”

“There is no starting line,” Harley said with glee. “You’re all starting from right where you are.”

The campers looked around in confusion. Suddenly the meadow shook. Dark lines etched across the grass, forming a giant green checkerboard.

“Have fun!” Harley squealed.

The ground opened beneath our feet, and we fell into the Labyrinth.

Bowling balls of death

Rolling toward my enemies

I’ll trade you problems

AT LEAST WE DID NOT LAND IN PERU.

My feet hit stone, jarring my ankles. We stumbled against a wall, but Meg provided me with a convenient cushion.

We found ourselves in a dark tunnel braced with oaken beams. The hole we’d fallen through was gone, replaced by an earthen ceiling. I saw no sign of the other teams, but from somewhere above I could vaguely hear Harley chanting, “Go! Go! Go!”

“When I get my powers back,” I said, “I will turn Harley into a constellation called the Ankle Biter. At least constellations are silent.”

Meg pointed down the corridor. “Look.”

As my eyes adjusted, I realized the tunnel’s dim light emanated from a glowing piece of fruit about thirty meters away.

“A golden apple,” I said.

Meg lurched forward, pulling me with her.

“Wait!” I said. “There might be traps!”

As if to illustrate my point, Connor and Paolo emerged from the darkness at the other end of the corridor. Paolo scooped up the golden apple and shouted,
“BRASIL!”

Connor grinned at us. “Too slow, suckers!”

The ceiling opened above them, showering them with iron orbs the size of cantaloupes.

Connor yelped, “Run!”

He and Paolo executed an awkward one-eighty and hobbled away, hotly pursued by a rolling herd of cannonballs with sparking fuses.

The sounds quickly faded. Without the glowing apple, we were left in total darkness.

“Great.” Meg’s voice echoed. “Now what?”

“I suggest we go the other direction.”

That was easier said than done. Being blind seemed to bother Meg more than it did me. Thanks to my mortal body, I already felt crippled and deprived of my senses. Besides, I often relied on more than sight. Music required keen hearing. Archery required a sensitive touch and the ability to feel the direction of the wind. (Okay, sight was also helpful, but you get the idea.)

We shuffled ahead, our arms extended in front of us. I listened for suspicious clicks, snaps, or creaks that might indicate an incoming flock of explosions, but I suspected that if I
did
hear any warning signs, it would be too late.

Eventually Meg and I learned to walk with our bound legs in synchronicity. It wasn’t easy. I had a flawless sense of rhythm. Meg was always a quarter beat slow or fast, which kept us veering left or right and running into walls.

We lumbered along for what might have been minutes or days. In the Labyrinth, time was deceptive.

I remembered what Austin had told me about the Labyrinth feeling different since the death of its creator. I was beginning to understand what he meant. The air seemed fresher, as if the maze hadn’t been chewing up quite so many bodies. The walls didn’t radiate the same malignant heat. As far as I could tell, they weren’t oozing blood or slime, either, which was a definite improvement. In the old days, you couldn’t take a step inside Daedalus’s Labyrinth without sensing its all-consuming desire:
I will destroy your mind and your body.
Now the atmosphere was sleepier, the message not quite as virulent:
Hey, if you die in here, that’s cool.

“I never liked Daedalus,” I muttered. “That old rascal didn’t know when to stop. He always had to have the latest tech, the most recent updates. I
told
him not to make his maze self-aware. ‘A.I. will destroy us, man,’ I said. But noooo. He
had
to give the Labyrinth a malevolent consciousness.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Meg said. “But maybe you shouldn’t bad-mouth the maze while we’re inside it.”

Once, I stopped when I heard the sound of Austin’s saxophone. It was faint, echoing through so many corridors I couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. Then it was gone. I hoped he and Kayla had found their three apples and escaped safely.

Finally, Meg and I reached a Y in the corridor. I could tell this from the flow of the air and the temperature differential against my face.

“Why’d we stop?” Meg asked.

“Shh.” I listened intently.

From the right-hand corridor came a faint whining sound like a table saw. The left-hand corridor was quiet, but it exuded a faint odor that was unpleasantly familiar…not sulfur, exactly, but a vaporous mix of minerals from deep in the earth.

“I don’t hear anything,” Meg complained.

“A sawing noise to the right,” I told her. “To the left, a bad smell.”

“I choose the bad smell.”

“Of course you do.”

Meg blew me one of her trademark raspberries, then hobbled to the left, pulling me along with her.

The bronze bands around my leg began to chafe. I could feel Meg’s pulse through her femoral artery, messing up my rhythm. Whenever I get nervous (which doesn’t happen often), I like to hum a song to calm myself—usually Ravel’s
Boléro
or the ancient Greek “Song of Seikilos.” But with Meg’s pulse throwing me off, the only tune I could conjure was the “Chicken Dance.” That was not soothing.

We edged forward. The smell of volcanic fumes intensified. My pulse lost its perfect rhythm. My heart knocked against my chest with every
cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck
of the “Chicken Dance.” I feared I knew where we were. I told myself it wasn’t possible. We couldn’t have walked halfway around the world. But this was the Labyrinth. Down here, distance was meaningless. The maze knew how to exploit its victims’ weaknesses. Worse: it had a vicious sense of humor.

“I see light!” Meg said.

She was right. The absolute darkness had changed to murky gray. Up ahead, the tunnel ended, joining with a narrow, lengthwise cavern like a volcanic vent. It looked as if a colossal claw had slashed across the corridor and left a wound in the earth. I had seen creatures with claws that big down in Tartarus. I did not fancy seeing them again.

“We should turn around,” I said.

“That’s stupid,” Meg said. “Don’t you see the golden glow? There’s an apple in there.”

All I saw were swirling plumes of ash and gas. “The glow could be lava,” I said. “Or radiation. Or eyes. Glowing eyes are
never
good.”