𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

chapter sixty-three. ☄︎. *. ⋆

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WE STOPPED IN A ROOM full of waterfalls. In the middle of the floor was one big hole, a slippery stone walkway circling around its circumference. On all four walls, even the one we'd just come through, water tumbled from huge pipes. All the water spilled into the large hole, and even as Percy shined his flashlight into it, we couldn't see the bottom.

Briares slumped against the wall. He scooped up water in a dozen hands and washed his face. "This pit goes straight to Tartarus," he murmured. "I should jump in and save you trouble."

I rolled my eyes, growing tired of his misery. "Don't say that, Briares. You can come back to camp with us and help prepare to fight. You know the Titans better than anyone; you'd be a big help."

"I have nothing to offer," Briares said. "I have lost everything."

"What about your brothers?" Tyson asked. "The other two must still stand tall as mountains! We can take you to them."

Briares's expression morphed to something even sadder: his grieving face. "They are no more. They faded."

The waterfalls thundered. Tyson stared into the pit and blinked tears out of his eye. I couldn't help the frown that grew on my lips.

"What exactly do you mean, they faded?" Percy asked. "I thought monsters were immortal, like the gods."

"Percy," Grover said weakly, "even immortality has limits. Sometimes... sometimes monsters get forgotten and they lose their will to stay immortal."

Looking at Grover's face, I wondered if he was thinking of Pan. I remembered something Medusa had told us once: how her sisters, the other two gorgons, had passed on and left her alone. Then last year my father had said something about the old god Helios disappearing and leaving him with the duties of the sun god. I'd never thought about it too much, but now, looking at Briares, I realized how terrible it would be to be so old—thousands and thousands of years old— and totally alone.

"I must go," Briares said.

"Kronos's army will invade camp," Tyson said. "We need help."

Briares just shook his head. "I cannot, Cyclops. I do not have a finger gun to win this game." To prove his point, he made one hundred finger guns.

"Maybe that's why monsters fade," I piped in. "Maybe it's not about what the mortals believe. Maybe it's because you give up on yourself."

His pure brown eyes regarded me. His face morphed into an expression I recognized—shame. Then he turned and trudged off down the corridor until he was lost in the shadows. Tyson sobbed.

"It's okay." Grover hesitantly patted his shoulder, which must've taken all his courage.

Tyson sniffed. "It is not okay, goat boy. He was my hero."

I wanted to make him feel better, but I wasn't sure what to say. Instead, I shouldered my backpack. "Come on, guys. This pit is making weird. Let's find a better place to camp for the night."

We settled in a corridor made of huge marble blocks. It looked like it could've been part of a Greek tomb, with bronze torch holders fastened to the walls. It had to be an older part of the maze, and I decided this was a good sign.

"Okay," I huffed. "We'll camp here for the night. All of you should get some rest. We can keep moving in the morning. As for when morning is... No clue. But just get some rest."

Grover didn't need to be told twice. He pulled a heap of straw out of his pack, ate some of it, made a pillow out of the rest, and was snoring in no time. Tyson took longer getting to sleep. He tinkered with some metal scraps from his building kit for a while, but whatever he was making, he wasn't happy with it. He kept disassembling the pieces.

He heaved a big sad sigh, then closed his eye. The metal pieces fell out of his hand, still unassembled, and Tyson began to snore. Percy tried to lay down and get to sleep, but I heard him tossing and turning for a few minutes. I imagined he couldn't get any shut-eye with the vision of a scary lady with poisonous swords chasing him through Alcatraz. I felt for him.

Sooner or later, he moved his bedroll over to where mine was and sat down next to me.

"You should be asleep right now," I told him without looking his direction.

"Can't. You doing alright?"

I scoffed. "Never better. First day leading the quest went great."

"We'll get there," Percy said. "We'll find the workshop before Luke does."

I brushed my hair out of my face, shaking my head in exasperation. "I just wish there was some sort of logic to this quest. This Labyrinth is impossible to navigate, and my wish from Hera was useless. I have no idea how to find my way around. Nothing here goes the way you'll think it does. I mean, how can you walk from New York to California in a day?"

"Space isn't the same in the maze."

"I know, I know. It's just.." I looked at him, hesitating. "Percy, I was kidding myself. All that planning and reading, and I don't have a clue where we're going."

"You're doing great. Besides, we never know what we're doing. It always works out. Remember Circe's island?"

I snorted. "You made a cute guinea pig."

"And Waterland, how you got us thrown off that ride?"

"I got us thrown off? That was totally your fault!"

He grinned at me. "See? It'll be fine."

     Despite myself, I smiled, but it disappeared quickly. "Percy, what did Hera mean when she said you knew the way to get through the maze?"

     "I don't know," he admitted, lowering his head. "Honestly."

     "You'd tell me if you did?"

     "Of course. Maybe..."

     "Maybe what?"

     "Maybe if you told me the last line of the prophecy, it would help."

     I bit my lip. He did have a point, but I didn't want to say. I didn't want to hear it come out of my mouth, and most certainly I didn't want to see Percy's reaction to it. My quest was already feeling like a failure, and if he knew that one of us was doomed to a fate worse than death, I was pretty sure he would just give up and walk out.

     I shook my head. "Maybe later," I whispered dismissively.

     I guess I really looked exhausted, because Percy said, "Hey, how about I take first watch? You should get some sleep. I'll wake you if anything happens."

     Even though I knew I should argue with him, that I should be the one to keep watch, I couldn't find it in myself to protest. I just slumped onto my bedroll and shut my eyes.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

MY DREAMS WERE NOTHING. Empty. It was a nice break from everything, admittedly. I almost didn't want to wake up.

     But I did. There was no way to tell time in the Labyrinth, so we just ate breakfast once everyone was awake. It was nice to eat something, tbough. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten. After we finished our granola bars and juice boxes, we headed off.

     The old stone tunnels changed to dirt with cedar beams, like a gold mine or something. It made me short-tempered, for some reason. I grew agitated.

     "This isn't right," I grumbled. "It should still be stone."

"Hey, it's fine," Percy said, wisely noticing my rising temper. "It's all under control. It's fine."

Still upset, but now grateful towards Percy for stopping me from punching the stone wall, I continued forward. We came to a cave where stalactites hung low from the ceiling. In the center of the dirt floor was a rectangular pit, like a grave.

Grover shivered. "It smells like the Underworld in here."

Then I saw something glinting at the edge of the pit— a foil wrapper. I shined my flashlight into the hole and saw a half-chewed cheeseburger floating in brown carbonated muck.

"Nico," Percy said. "He was summoning the dead again."

Tyson whimpered. "Ghosts were here. I don't like ghosts."

"We've got to find him," Percy said, and I agreed silently. I don't know why, but standing at the edge of that pit gave me a sense of urgency. Nico was close. I could feel it. I couldn't let him wander around down here, alone except for the dead.

Percy must've been thinking something along the same lines as me, because he began to jog, then sprint, down the tunnel.

"Percy!" I called, gesturing for Tyson and Grover to follow.

By the time Tyson, Grover, and I caught up with Percy, he was staring at daylight streaming through a set of bars above our heads. We were under a steel grate made out of metal pipes. I could see trees and blue sky.

"Where are we?" Percy wondered.

Then a shadow fell across the grate and a cow stared down at me. It looked like a normal cow except it was a weird color—bright red, like a cherry. The cow mooed, put one hoof tentatively on the bars, then backed away.

"It's a cattle guard," Grover realized. "They put them at the gates of ranches so cows can't get out. They can't walk on them."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "How do you know that?"

Grover huffed indignantly. "Believe me, if you had hooves, you'd know about cattle guards. They're annoying!"

Percy turned to me. "Didn't Hera say something about a ranch? We need to check it out. Nico might be up there."

I hesitated. He had a point, but I hated ranches, and if Nico was trying to find and kill us, I wasn't too keen on walking right up to him. "Fine. But how do we get out?"

Tyson solved that problem by hitting the cattle guard with both hands. It popped off and went flying out of sight. We heard a CLANG! and a startled Moo! Tyson blushed.

"Sorry, cow!" he called. Then he gave us a boost out of the tunnel.

We were on a ranch, alright. Rolling hills stretched to the horizon, dotted with oak trees and cactuses and boulders. A barbed wire fence ran from the gate in either direction. Cherry-colored cows roamed around, grazing on clumps of grass.

"Red cattle," I said. A faint gasp left my lips as I realized. "The cattle of the sun."

"What?" Percy asked.

"They're sacred to my father."

"Holy cows?"

I nodded. "That's exactly what they are. But what are they—?"

"Wait," Grover said. "Listen."

At first everything seemed quiet... but then I heard it: the distant baying of dogs. The sound got louder. Then the underbrush rustled, and two dogs broke through. Except it wasn't two dogs. It was one dog with two heads. It looked like a greyhound, long and snaky and sleek brown, but its neck V'd into two heads, both of them snapping and snarling and generally not very glad to see us.

"Bad Janus dog!" Tyson cried.

The two-headed dog bared its teeth. I guess it didn't like being compared to another two-headed species. Then its master lumbered out of the woods, and I realized the dog was the least of our problems.

He was a huge guy with stark white hair, a straw cowboy hat, and a braided white beard—kind of like Father Time, if Father Time went redneck and got totally jacked. He was wearing jeans, a DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS T-shirt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off so you could see his muscles. On his right bicep was a crossed-swords tattoo. He held a wooden club about the size of a nuclear warhead, with six-inch spikes bristling at the business end.

"Heel, Orthus," he told the dog.

The dog growled at us once more, just to make his feelings clear, then circled back to his master's feet. The man looked us up and down, keeping his club ready.

"What've we got here?" he asked. "Cattle rustlers?"

"Just travelers," I said. "We're on a quest."

The man's eye twitched. "Half-bloods, eh?"

Percy started to say, "How did you know—" but I put a hand on his arm and shot him a look.

"I'm Theodosia, daughter of Apollo. This is Percy, son of Poseidon. Grover the satyr. Tyson the—"

"Cyclops," the man finished. "Yes, I can see that." He glowered at Percy. "And I know half-bloods because I am one, sonny. I'm Eurytion, the cowherd for this here ranch. Son of Ares. You came through the Labyrinth like the other one, I reckon."

"The other one?" I asked. I looked to Percy, a sense of urgency sparking in me. "You mean Nico di Angelo?"

"We get a load of visitors from the Labyrinth," Eurytion said darkly. "Not many ever leave."

"Wow," Percy said. "I feel welcome."

The cowherd glanced behind him like someone was watching. Then he lowered his voice. "I'm only going to say this once, demigods. Get back in the maze now. Before it's too late."

"We're not leaving," I insisted. "Not until we see this other demigod. Please."

Eurytion grunted. "Then you leave me no choice, missy. I've got to take you to see the boss."

It didn't feel like we were hostages or anything. Eurytion walked alongside us with his club across his shoulder. Orthus the two-headed dog growled a lot and sniffed at Grover's legs and shot into the bushes once in a while to chase animals, but Eurytion kept him more or less under control.

We walked down a dirt path that seemed to go on forever. It must've been close to a hundred degrees, which was a shock after San Francisco. Heat shimmered off the ground. Insects buzzed in the trees. Before we'd gone very far, I was sweating like crazy. Flies swarmed us. Every so often we'd see a pen full of holy cows or even stranger animals. Once we passed a corral where the fence was coated in asbestos. Inside, a herd of fire-breathing horses milled around. The hay in their feeding trough was on fire. The ground smoked around their feet, but the horses seemed tame enough. One big stallion looked at me and whinnied, columns of red flame billowing out his nostrils. I wondered if it hurt his sinuses.

"What are they for?" Percy asked.

Eurytion scowled. "We raise animals for lots of clients. Apollo, Diomedes, and... others."

"Like who?"

But clearly Eurytion was done answering questions. We walked in silence the rest of the way. Finally we came out of the woods. Perched on a hill above us was a big ranch house—all white stone and wood and big windows.

"Don't break the rules," Eurytion warned as we walked up the steps to the front porch. "No fighting. No drawing weapons. And don't make any comments about the boss's appearance."

"Why?" Percy asked. "What does he look like?"

Before Eurytion could reply, a new voice said, "Welcome to the Triple G Ranch."

The man on the porch had a normal head, which was a relief. His face was weathered and brown from years in the sun. He had slick black hair and a black pencil moustache like villains have in old movies. He smiled at us, but the smile wasn't friendly; more amused, like Oh boy, more people to torture!

I didn't ponder that very long, though, because then I noticed his body... or bodies. He had three of them. Now, you'd think I would've gotten used to weird anatomy after Janus and Briares, but this guy was three complete people. His neck connected to the middle chest like normal, but he had two more chests, one to either side, connected at the shoulders, with a few inches in between. His left arm grew out of his left chest, and the same on the right, so he had two arms, but four armpits, if that made any sense. The chests all connected into one enormous torso, with two regular but very beefy legs, and he wore the most oversized pair of Levis I'd ever seen. His chests each wore a different color Western shirt—green, yellow, red, like a stoplight. I wondered how he dressed the middle chest, since it had no arms.

The cowherd Eurytion nudged me. "Say hello to Mr. Geryon."

"Hello," I said. "Nice... um, ranch."

Before the three-bodied man could respond, Nico di Angelo came out of the glass doors onto the porch. "Geryon, I won't wait for—"

He froze when he saw us. And before anyone could react, he pulled out his sword and had it pointed directly at my face.