The Battle of the Labyrinth (28 page)

“He has to,” Annabeht said. “We’ll make him listen.”

Ethan snorted. “Yeah, well. Good luck with that.”

I grabbed his arm. “You’re just going to head off alone into the maze?

That’s suicide.”

He looked at me with barely controlled anger. His eye patch was frayed around the edges and the black cloth was faded, like he’d been wearing it a long, long time. “You shouldn’t have spared me, Jackson. Mercy has no place in this war.”

Then he ran off into the darkness, back the way we’d come.

* * *

Annabeth, Rachel, and I were so exhausted we made camp right there in the huge room. I found some scrap wood and we started a fire. Shadows danced off the columns rising around us like trees.

“Something was wrong with Luke,” Annabeth muttered, poking at the fire with her knife. “Did you notice the way he was acting?”

“He looked pretty pleased to me,” I said. “Like he’d spent a nice day torturing heroes.”

“That’s not true! There was something wrong with him. He looked…nervous. He told his monsters to spare me. He wanted to tell me something.”

“Probably,
‘Hi, Annabeth! Sit here with me and watch while I tear your
friends apart. It’ll be fun!’
”

“You’re impossible,” Annabeth grumbled. She sheathed her dagger and looked at Rachel. “So which way now, Sacagawea?”

Rachel didn’t respond right away. She’d become quieter since the arena. Now, whenever Annabeth made a sarcastic comment, Rachel hardly bothered to answer. She’d burned the tip of a stick in the fire and was using it to draw ash figures on the floor, images of the monsters we’d seen. With a few strokes, she caught the likeness of a
dracaena
perfectly.

“We’ll follow the path,” she said. “The brightness on the floor.”

“The brightness that led us straight into a trap?” Annabeth asked.

“Lay off her, Annabeth,” I said. “She’s doing the best she can.”

Annabeth stood. “The fire’s getting low. I’ll go look for some more scraps while
you
guys talk strategy.” And she marched off into the shadows. Rachel drew another figure with her stick—an ashy Antaeus dangling from his chains.

“Annabeth’s usually not like this,” I told her. “I don’t know what her problem is.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you don’t know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Boys,” she muttered. “Totally blind.”

“Hey, don’t you get on my case, too! Look, I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”

“No, you were right,” she said. “I can see the path. I can’t explain it, but it’s really clear.” She pointed toward the other end of the room, into the darkness. “The workshop is that way. The heart of the maze. We’re very close now. I don’t know why the path led through that arena. I—I’m sorry about that. I thought you were going to die.”

She sounded like she was close to crying.

“Hey, I’m usually about to die,” I promised. “Don’t feel bad.”

She studied my face. “So you do this every summer? Fight monsters?

Save the world? Don’t you ever get to do just, you know, normal stuff?”

I’d never really thought about it like that. The last time I’d had something like a normal life had been…well, never. “Half-bloods get used to it, I guess. Or maybe not used to it, but…” I shifted uncomfortably. “What about you?

What do you do normally?”

Rachel shrugged. “I paint. I read a lot.”

Okay, I thought. So far we are scoring a zero on the similarities chart.

“What about your family?”

I could sense her mental shields going up, like this was not a safe subject.

“Oh…they’re just, you know, family.”

“You said they wouldn’t notice if you were gone.”

She set down her drawing stick. “Wow, I’m really tired. I may sleep for a while, okay?”

“Oh, sure. Sorry if…”

But Rachel was already curling up, using her backpack as a pillow. She closed her eyes and lay very still, but I got the feeling she wasn’t really asleep.

A few minutes later, Annabeth came back. She tossed some more sticks on the fire. She looked at Rachel, then at me.

“I’ll take first watch,” she said. “You should sleep, too.”

“You don’t have to act like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like…never mind.” I lay down, feeling miserable. I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed.

* * *

In my dreams I heard laughter. Cold, harsh laughter, like knives being sharpened.

I was standing at the edge of a pit in the depths of Tartarus. Below me the darkness seethed like inky soup.

“So close to your own destruction, little hero,” the voice of Kronos chided.

“And still you are blind.”

The voice was different than it had been before. It seemed almost physical now, as if it were speaking from a real body instead of…whatever he’d been in his chopped-up condition.

“I have much to thank you for,” Kronos said. “You have assured my rise.”

The shadows in the cavern became deeper and heavier. I tried to back away from the edge of the pit, but it was like swimming through oil. Time slowed down. My breathing almost stopped.

“A favor,” Kronos said. “The Titan lord always pays his debts. Perhaps a glimpse of the friends you abandoned…”

The darkness rippled around me, and I was in a different cave.

“Hurry!” Tyson said. He came barreling into the room. Grover stumbled along behind him. There was a rumbling in the corridor they’d come from, and the head of an enormous snake burst into the cave. I mean, this thing was so big its body barely fit through the tunnel. Its scales were coppery. Its head was diamond-shaped like a rattler, and its yellow eyes glowed with hatred. When it opened its mouth, its fangs were as tall as Tyson. It lashed at Grover, but Grover scampered out of the way. The snake got a mouthful of dirt. Tyson picked up a boulder and threw it at the monster, smacking it between the eyes, but the snake just recoiled and hissed.

“It’s going to eat you!” Grover yelled at Tyson.

“How do you know?”

“It just told me! Run!”

Tyson darted to one side, but the snake used its head like a club and knocked him off his feet.

“No!” Grover yelled. But before Tyson could regain his balance, the snake wrapped around him and started to squeeze.

Tyson strained, pushing with all his immense strength, but the snake squeezed tighter. Grover frantically hit the snake with his reed pipes, but he might as well have been banging on a stone wall.

The whole room shook as the snake flexed its muscles, shuddering to overcome Tyson’s strength.

Grover began to play with pipes, and stalactites rained down from the ceiling. The whole cave seemed about to collapse…

* * *

I woke with Annabeth shaking my shoulder. “Percy, wake up!”

“Tyson—Tyson’s in trouble!” I said. “We have to help him!”

“First things first,” she said. “Earthquake!”

Sure enough, the room was rumbling. “Rachel!” I yelled.

Her eyes opened instantly. She grabbed her pack, and the three of us ran. We were almost to the far tunnel when a column next to us groaned and buckled. We kept going as a hundred tons of marble crashed down behind us. We made it to the corridor and turned just in time to see the other columns toppling. A cloud of white dust billowed over us, and we kept running.

“You know what?” Annabeth said. “I like this way after all.”

It wasn’t long before we saw light up ahead—like regular electric lighting.

“There,” Rachel said.

We followed her into a stainless steel hallway, like I imagined they’d have on a space station or something. Fluorescent lights glowed from the ceiling. The floor was a metal grate.

I was so used to being in the darkness that I had to squint. Annabeth and Rachel both looked pale in the harsh illumination.

“This way,” Rachel said, beginning to run. “We’re close!”

“This is so wrong!” Annabeth said. “The workshop should be in the oldest section of the maze. This can’t—”

She faltered, because we’d arrived at a set of metal double doors. Inscribed in the steel, at eye level, was a large blue Greek ∆.

“We’re here,” Rachel announced. “Daedalus’s workshop.”

* * *

Annabeth pressed the symbol on the doors and they hissed open.

“So much for ancient architecture,” I said.

Annabeth scowled. Together we walked inside.

The first thing that struck me was the daylight—blazing sun coming through giant windows. Not the kind of thing you expect in the heart of a dungeon. The workshop was like an artist’s studio, with thirty-foot ceilings and industrial lighting, polished stone floors, and workbenches along with windows. A spiral staircase led up to a second-story loft. Half a dozen easels displayed hand-drawn diagrams for buildings and machines that looked like Leonardo da Vinci sketches. Several laptop computers were scattered around on the tables. Glass jars of green oil—Greek fire—lined one shelf. There were inventions, too—weird metal machines I couldn’t make sense of. One was a bronze chair with a bunch of electrical wires attached to it, like some kind of torture device. In another corner stood a giant metal egg about the size of a man. There was a grandfather clock that appeared to be made entirely of glass, so you could see all the gears turning. And hanging on the wall were several sets of bronze and silver wings.

“Di immortals,”
Annabeth muttered. She ran to the nearest easel and looked at the sketch. “He’s a genius. Look at the curves on this building!”

“And an artist,” Rachel said in amazement. “These wings are amazing!”

The wings looked more advanced than the ones I’d seen in my dreams. The feathers were more tightly interwoven. Instead of wax seals, selfadhesive strips ran down the sides. I kept my hand on Riptide. Apparently Daedalus was not at home, but the workshop looked like it had been recently used. The laptops were running their screen savers. A half-eaten blueberry muffin and a coffee cup sat on a workbench.

I walked to the window. The view outside was amazing. I recognized the Rocky Mountains in the distance. We were high up in the foothills, at least five hundred feet, and down below a valley spread out, filled with a tumbled collection of red mesas and boulders and spires of stone. It looked like some huge kid had been building a toy city with skyscraper-size blocks, and then decided to knock it over.

“Where are we?” I wondered.

“Colorado Springs,” A voice said behind us. “The Garden of the Gods.”

Standing on the spiral staircase above us, with his weapon drawn, was our missing sword master Quintus.

* * *

“You,” Annabeth said. “What have you done with Daedalus?”

Quintus smiled faintly. “Trust me, my dear. You don’t want to meet him.”

“Look, Mr. Traitor,” she growled, “I didn’t fight a dragon woman and a three-bodied man and a psychotic Sphinx to see
you
. Now where is DAEDALUS?”

Quintus came down the stairs, holding his sword at his side. He was dressed in jeans and boots and his counselor’s T-shirt from Camp HalfBlood, which seemed like an insult now that we knew he was a spy. I didn’t know if I could beat him in a sword fight. He was pretty good. But I figured I would have to try.

“You think I’m an agent of Kronos,” he said. “That I work for Luke.”

“Well, duh,” said Annabeth.

“You’re an intelligent girl,” he said. “But you’re wrong. I work only for myself.”

“Luke mentioned you,” I said. “Geryon knew about you, too. You’ve been to his ranch.”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve been almost everywhere. Even here.”

He walked past me like I was no threat at all and stood by the window.

“The view changes from day to day,” he mused. “It’s always some place high up. Yesterday it was from a skyscraper overlooking Manhattan. The day before that, there was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan. But it keeps coming back to the Garden of the Gods. I think the Labyrinth likes it here. A fitting name, I suppose.”

“You’ve been here before,” I said.

“Oh, yes.”

“That’s an illusion out there?” I asked. “A projection or something?”

“No,” Rachel murmured. “It’s real. We’re really in Colorado.”

Quintus regarded her. “You have clear vision, don’t you? you remind me of another mortal girl I once knew. Another princess who came to grief.”

“Enough games,” I said. “What have you done with Daedalus?”

Quintus stared at me. “My boy, you need lessons from your friend on seeing clearly. I
am
Daedalus.”

* * *

There were a lot of answers I might’ve given, from “I knew that” to

“LIAR!” to “Yeah right, and I’m Zeus.”

The only thing I could think to say was, “But you’re not an inventor!

You’re a swordsman!”

“I am both,” Quintus said. “And an architect. And a scholar. I also play basketball pretty well for a guy who didn’t start until he was two thousand years old. A real artist must be good at many things.”

“That’s true,” Rachel said. “Like I can paint with my feet as well as my hands.”

“You see?” Quintus said. “A girl of many talents.”

“But you don’t even look like Daedalus,” I protested. “I saw him in a dream, and…” Suddenly a horrible thought dawned on me.

“Yes,” Quintus said. “You’ve finally guessed the truth.”

“You’re an automaton. You made yourself a new body.”

“Percy,” Annabeth said uneasily, “that’s not possible. That—that can’t be an automaton.”

Quintus chuckled. “Do you know what Quintus means, my dear?”