Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (40 page)

The whole scene glowed in a warm, buttery light. The three of them were talking and laughing, and when they saw Annabeth, their faces lit up with delight. Annabeth’s mom and dad held out their arms invitingly. Luke grinned and gestured for Annabeth to sit next to him – as if he’d
never betrayed her, as if he were still her friend.

Behind the trees of Central Park, a city skyline rose. I caught my breath, because it was Manhattan, but
not
Manhattan. It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever – with golden windows and rooftop gardens. It was better than New York. Better than Mount Olympus.

I knew immediately that Annabeth had designed it all. She was the architect for a whole new world. She had reunited her parents. She had saved Luke. She had done everything she’d ever wanted.

I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, all I saw were the Sirens – ragged vultures with human faces, ready to feed on another victim.

I pulled Annabeth back into the surf. I couldn’t hear her, but I could tell she was screaming. She kicked me in the face, but I held on.

I willed the currents to carry us out into the bay. Annabeth pummelled and kicked me, making it hard to concentrate. She thrashed so much we almost collided with a floating mine. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never get back to the ship alive if she kept fighting.

We went under and Annabeth stopped struggling. Her expression became confused. Then our heads broke the surface and she started to fight again.

The water! Sound didn’t travel well underwater. If I could submerge her long enough, I could break the spell of the music. Of course, Annabeth wouldn’t be able to breathe, but at the moment, that seemed like a minor problem.

I grabbed her around the waist and ordered the waves to push us down.

We shot into the depths – three metres, six metres. I knew I had to be careful because I could withstand a lot more pressure than Annabeth. She fought and struggled for breath as bubbles rose around us.

Bubbles.

I was desperate. I had to keep Annabeth alive. I imagined all the bubbles in the sea – always churning, rising. I imagined them coming together, being pulled towards me.

The sea obeyed. There was a flurry of white, a tickling sensation all around me, and when my vision cleared, Annabeth and I had a huge bubble of air around us. Only our legs stuck into the water.

She gasped and coughed. Her whole body shuddered, but when she looked at me, I knew the spell had been broken.

She started to sob – I mean horrible, heartbroken sobbing. She put her head on my shoulder and I held her.

Fish gathered to look at us – a school of barracudas, some curious marlins.

Scram!
I told them.

They swam off, but I could tell they went reluctantly. I swear I understood their intentions. They were about to start rumours flying around the sea about the son of Poseidon and some girl at the bottom of Siren Bay.

‘I’ll get us back to the ship,’ I told her. ‘It’s okay. Just hang on.’

Annabeth nodded to let me know she was better now, then she murmured something I couldn’t hear because of the wax in my ears.

I made the current steer our weird little air submarine through the rocks and barbed wire and back towards the
hull of the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
, which was maintaining a slow and steady course away from the island.

We stayed underwater, following the ship, until I judged we had moved out of earshot of the Sirens. Then I surfaced and our air bubble popped.

I ordered a rope ladder to drop over the side of the ship, and we climbed aboard.

I kept my earplugs in, just to be sure. We sailed until the island was completely out of sight. Annabeth sat huddled in a blanket on the forward deck. Finally she looked up, dazed and sad, and mouthed,
Safe.

I took out the earplugs. No singing. The afternoon was quiet except for the sound of the waves against the hull. The fog had burned away to a blue sky, as if the island of the Sirens had never existed.

‘You okay?’ I asked. The moment I said it, I realized how lame that sounded. Of course she wasn’t okay.

‘I didn’t realize,’ she murmured.

‘What?’

Her eyes were the same colour as the mist over the Sirens’ island. ‘How powerful the temptation would be.’

I didn’t want to admit that I’d seen what the Sirens had promised her. I felt like a trespasser. But I figured I owed it to Annabeth.

‘I saw the way you rebuilt Manhattan,’ I told her. ‘And Luke and your parents.’

She blushed. ‘You saw that?’

‘What Luke told you back on the
Princess Andromeda
, about starting the world from scratch … that really got to you, huh?’

She pulled her blanket around her. ‘My fatal flaw. That’s
what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.’

I blinked. ‘That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘No, Seaweed Brain. That’s
hummus.
Hubris is worse.’

‘What could be worse than hummus?’

‘Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else … even the gods.’

‘You feel that way?’

She looked down. ‘Don’t you ever feel like, what if the world really
is
messed up? What if we
could
do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did – that’s why the fire is still burning. That’s why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: “If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.” Don’t you ever feel that way? Like
you
could do a better job if you ran the world?’

‘Um … no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare.’

‘Then you’re lucky. Hubris isn’t your fatal flaw.’

‘What is?’

‘I don’t know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you don’t find it and learn to control it … well, they don’t call it “fatal” for nothing.’

I thought about that. It didn’t exactly cheer me up.

I also noticed Annabeth hadn’t said much about the
personal
things she would change – like getting her parents
back together, or saving Luke. I understood. I didn’t want to admit how many times I’d dreamed of getting my own parents back together.

I pictured my mom, alone in our little apartment on the Upper East Side. I tried to remember the smell of her blue waffles in the kitchen. It seemed so far away.

‘So was it worth it?’ I asked Annabeth. ‘Do you feel … wiser?’

She
gazed
into the distance. ‘I’m not sure. But we
have
to save the camp. If we don’t stop Luke…’

She didn’t need to finish. If Luke’s way of thinking could even tempt Annabeth, there was no telling how many other half-bloods might join him.

I thought about my dream of the girl and the golden sarcophagus. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I got the feeling I was missing something. Something terrible that Kronos was planning. What had the girl seen when she opened that coffin lid?

Suddenly Annabeth’s eyes widened. ‘Percy.’

I turned.

Up ahead was another blotch of land – a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows – just like I’d seen in my dreams.

My nautical senses confirmed it. Thirty degrees, thirty-one minutes north, seventy-five degrees, twelve minutes west.

We had reached the home of the Cyclops.

When you think ‘monster island’, you think craggy rocks and bones scattered on the beach like the island of the Sirens.

The Cyclops’s island was nothing like that. I mean, okay, it had a rope bridge across a chasm, which was not a good sign. You might as well put up a billboard that said, SOMETHING EVIL LIVES HERE. But, except for that, the place looked like a Caribbean postcard. It had green fields and tropical fruit trees and white beaches. As we sailed towards the shore, Annabeth breathed in the sweet air. ‘The Fleece,’ she said.

I nodded. I couldn’t see the Fleece yet, but I could feel its power. I could believe it would heal anything, even Thalia’s poisoned tree. ‘If we take it away, will the island die?’

Annabeth shook her head. ‘It’ll fade. Go back to what it would be normally, whatever that is.’

I felt a little guilty about ruining this paradise, but I reminded myself we had no choice. Camp Half-Blood was in trouble. And Tyson … Tyson would still be with us if it wasn’t for this quest.

In the meadow at the base of the ravine, several dozen sheep were milling around. They looked peaceful enough, but they were huge – the size of hippos. Just past them
was a path that led up into the hills. At the top of the path, near the edge of the canyon, was the massive oak tree I’d seen in my dreams. Something gold glittered in its branches.

‘This is too easy,’ I said. ‘We could just hike up there and take it.’

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed. ‘There’s supposed to be a guardian. A dragon or…’

That’s when a deer emerged from the bushes. It trotted into the meadow, probably looking for grass to eat, when the sheep all bleated at once and rushed the animal. It happened so fast that the deer stumbled and was lost in a sea of wool and trampling hooves.

Grass and tufts of fur flew into the air.

A second later the sheep all moved away, back to their regular peaceful wanderings. Where the deer had been was a pile of clean white bones.

Annabeth and I exchanged looks.

‘They’re like piranhas,’ she said.

‘Piranhas with wool. How will we –’

‘Percy!’ Annabeth gasped, grabbing my arm. ‘Look.’

She pointed down the beach, to just below the sheep meadow, where a small boat had been run aground … the other lifeboat from the CSS
Birmingham.

We decided there was no way we could get past the man-eating sheep. Annabeth wanted to sneak up the path invisibly and grab the Fleece, but in the end I convinced her that something would go wrong. The sheep would smell her. Another guardian would appear. Something. And if that happened, I’d be too far away to help.

Besides, our first job was to find Grover and whoever had come ashore in that lifeboat – assuming they’d got past the sheep. I was too nervous to say what I was secretly hoping … that Tyson might still be alive.

We moored the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
on the back side of the island where the cliffs rose straight up a good sixty metres feet. I figured the ship was less likely to be seen there.

The cliffs looked climbable, barely – about as difficult as the lava wall back at camp. At least it was free of sheep. I hoped that Polyphemus did not also keep carnivorous mountain goats.

We rowed a lifeboat to the edge of the rocks and made our way up, very slowly. Annabeth went first because she was the better climber.

We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good. Once, I lost my grip and I found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifteen metres above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was my face.

‘Sorry,’ she murmured.

‘S’okay,’ I grunted, though I’d never really wanted to know what Annabeth’s sneaker tasted like.

Finally, when my fingers felt like molten lead and my arm muscles were shaking from exhaustion, we hauled ourselves over the top of the cliff and collapsed.

‘Ugh,’ I said.

‘Ouch,’ moaned Annabeth.

‘Garrr!’ bellowed another voice.

If I hadn’t been so tired, I would’ve leaped another sixty metres. I whirled around, but I couldn’t see who’d spoken.

Annabeth clamped her hand over my mouth. She pointed.

The ledge we were sitting on was narrower than I’d realized. It dropped off on the opposite side, and that’s where the voice was coming from – right below us.

‘You’re a feisty one!’ the deep voice bellowed.

‘Challenge me!’ Clarisse’s voice, no doubt about it. ‘Give me back my sword and I’ll fight you!’

The monster roared with laughter.

Annabeth and I crept to the edge. We were right above the entrance of the Cyclops’s cave. Below us stood Polyphemus and Grover, still in his wedding dress. Clarisse was tied up, hanging upside down over a pot of boiling water. I was half hoping to see Tyson down there, too. Even if he’d been in danger, at least I would’ve known he was alive. But there was no sign of him.

‘Hmm,’ Polyphemus pondered. ‘Eat loudmouth girl now or wait for wedding feast? What does my bride think?’

He turned to Grover, who backed up and almost tripped over his completed bridal train. ‘Oh, um, I’m not hungry right now, dear. Perhaps –’

‘Did you say
bride
?’ Clarisse demanded. ‘Who – Grover?’

Next to me, Annabeth muttered, ‘Shut up. She has to shut up.’

Polyphemus glowered. ‘What “Grover”?’

‘The satyr!’ Clarisse yelled.

‘Oh.!’ Grover yelped. ‘The poor thing’s brain is boiling from that hot water. Pull her down, dear!’

Polyphemus’s eyelid narrowed over his baleful milky eye, as if he were trying to see Clarisse more clearly.

The Cyclops was an even more horrible sight than he had been in my dreams. Partly because his rancid smell was now up close and personal. Partly because he was dressed in his wedding outfit – a crude kilt and shoulder-wrap, stitched together from baby-blue tuxedoes, as if he’d skinned an entire wedding party.

‘What satyr?’ asked Polyphemus. ‘Satyrs are good eating. You bring me a satyr?’

‘No, you big idiot!’ bellowed Clarisse.
‘That
satyr! Grover! The one in the wedding dress!’

I wanted to wring Clarisse’s neck, but it was too late. All I could do was watch as Polyphemus turned and ripped off Grover’s wedding veil – revealing his curly hair, his scruffy adolescent beard, his tiny horns.

Polyphemus breathed heavily, trying to contain his anger. ‘I don’t see very well,’ he growled. ‘Not since many years ago when the other hero stabbed me in eye. But YOU’RE – NO – LADY – CYCLOPS!’

The Cyclops grabbed Grover’s dress and tore it away. Underneath, the old Grover reappeared in his jeans and T-shirt. He yelped and ducked as the monster swiped over his head.

‘Stop!’ Grover pleaded. ‘Don’t eat me raw! I – I have a good recipe!’

I reached for my sword, but Annabeth hissed, ‘Wait!’

Polyphemus was hesitating, a boulder in his hand, ready to smash his would-be bride.

‘Recipe?’ he asked Grover.

‘Oh y-yes! You don’t want to eat me raw. You’ll get E. coli and botulism and all sorts of horrible things. I’ll taste much better roasted over a slow fire. With mango chutney! You could go get some mangoes right now, down there in the woods. I’ll just wait here.’

The monster pondered this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I figured I’d
die
if I charged. But I couldn’t let the monster kill Grover.

‘Roasted satyr with mango chutney,’ Polyphemus mused. He looked back at Clarisse, still hanging over the pot of boiling water. ‘You a satyr, too?’

‘No, you overgrown pile of dung!’ she yelled. ‘I’m a girl! The daughter of Ares! Now untie me so I can rip your arms off!’

‘Rip my arms off,’ Polyphemus repeated.

‘And stuff them down your throat!’

‘You got spunk.’

‘Let me down!’

Polyphemus snatched up Grover as if he were a wayward puppy. ‘Have to graze sheep now. Wedding postponed until tonight. Then we’ll eat satyr for the main course!’

‘But … you’re still getting married?’ Grover sounded hurt. ‘Who’s the bride?’

Polyphemus looked towards the boiling pot.

Clarisse made a strangled sound. ‘Oh, no! You can’t be serious. I’m not –’

Before Annabeth or I could do anything, Polyphemus plucked her off the rope like she was a ripe apple, and tossed her and Grover deep into the cave. ‘Make yourself comfortable! I come back at sundown for big event!’

Then the Cyclops whistled, and a mixed flock of goats and sheep – smaller than the man-eaters – flooded out of the cave and past their master. As they went to pasture, Polyphemus patted some on the back and called them by name – Beltbuster, Tammany, Lockhart and so on.

When the last sheep had waddled out, Polyphemus rolled a boulder in front of the doorway as easily as I would close a refrigerator door, shutting off the sound of Clarisse and Grover screaming inside.

‘Mangoes,’ Polyphemus grumbled to himself. ‘What are mangoes?’

He strolled off down the mountain in his baby-blue groom’s outfit, leaving us alone with a pot of boiling water and a six-ton boulder.

We tried for what seemed like hours, but it was no good. The boulder wouldn’t move. We yelled into the cracks, tapped on the rock, did everything we could think of to get a signal to Grover, but if he heard us, we couldn’t tell.

Even if by some miracle we managed to kill Polyphemus, it wouldn’t do us any good. Grover and Clarisse would die inside that sealed cave. The only way to move the rock was to have the Cyclops do it.

In total frustration, I stabbed Riptide against the boulder. Sparks flew, but nothing else happened. A large rock is not the kind of enemy you can fight with a magic sword.

Annabeth and I sat on the ridge in despair and watched the distant baby-blue shape of the Cyclops as he moved among his flocks. He had wisely divided his regular animals from his man-eating sheep, putting each group on either
side of the huge crevice that divided the island. The only way across was the rope bridge, and the planks were much too far apart for sheep hooves.

We watched as Polyphemus visited his carnivorous flock on the far side. Unfortunately, they didn’t eat him. In fact, they didn’t seem to bother him at all. He fed them chunks of mystery meat from a great wicker basket, which only reinforced the feelings I’d been having since Circe turned me into a guinea pig – that maybe it was time I joined Grover and became a vegetarian.

‘Trickery,’ Annabeth decided. ‘We can’t beat him by force, so we’ll have to use trickery.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What trick?’

‘I haven’t figured that part out yet.’

‘Great.’

‘Polyphemus will have to move the rock to let the sheep inside.’

‘At sunset,’ I said. ‘Which is when he’ll marry Clarisse and have Grover for dinner. I’m not sure which is grosser.’

‘I could get inside,’ she said, ‘invisibly.’

‘What about me?’

‘The sheep,’ Annabeth mused. She gave me one of those sly looks that always made me wary. ‘How much do you like sheep?’

‘Just don’t let go!’ Annabeth said, standing invisibly somewhere off to my right. That was easy for her to say. She wasn’t hanging upside down from the belly of a sheep.

Now, I’ll admit it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. I’d crawled under a car before to change my mom’s oil, and
this wasn’t too different. The sheep didn’t care. Even the Cyclops’s smallest sheep were big enough to support my weight, and they had thick wool. I just twirled the stuff into handles for my hands, hooked my feet against the sheep’s thigh bones, and presto – I felt like a baby wallaby, riding around against the sheep’s chest, trying to keep the wool out of my mouth and my nose.

In case you’re wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn’t smell that great. Imagine a winter sweater that’s been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week. Something like that.

The sun was going down.

No sooner was I in position than the Cyclops roared, ‘Oy! Goaties! Sheepies!’

The flock dutifully began trudging back up the slopes towards the cave.

‘This is it!’ Annabeth whispered. ‘I’ll be close by. Don’t worry.’

I made a silent promise to the gods that if we survived this, I’d tell Annabeth she was a genius. The frightening thing was, I knew the gods would hold me to it.

My sheep taxi started plodding up the hill. After a hundred metres, my hands and feet started to hurt from holding on. I gripped the sheep’s wool more tightly, and the animal made a grumbling sound. I didn’t blame it. I wouldn’t want anybody rock climbing in my hair either. But if I didn’t hold on, I was sure I’d fall off right there in front of the monster.

‘Hasenpfeffer!’ the Cyclops said, patting one of the sheep in front of me. ‘Einstein! Widget – eh there, Widget!’

Polyphemus patted my sheep and nearly knocked me to the ground. ‘Putting on some extra mutton there?’

Uh-oh
, I thought.
Here it comes.

But Polyphemus just laughed and swatted the sheep’s rear end, propelling us forward. ‘Go on, fatty! Soon Polyphemus will eat you for breakfast!’

And just like that, I was in the cave.

I could see the last of the sheep coming inside. If Annabeth didn’t pull off her distraction soon…

The Cyclops was about to roll the stone back into place, when from somewhere outside Annabeth shouted, ‘Hello, ugly!’

Polyphemus stiffened. ‘Who said that?’

‘Nobody!’ Annabeth yelled.

That got exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for. The monster’s face turned red with rage.

‘Nobody!’ Polyphemus yelled back. ‘I remember you!’

‘You’re too stupid to remember anybody,’ Annabeth taunted. ‘Much less Nobody.’

I hoped to the gods she was already moving when she said that, because Polyphemus bellowed furiously, grabbed the nearest boulder (which happened to be his front door) and threw it towards the sound of Annabeth’s voice. I heard the rock smash into a thousand fragments.