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FIC: The Curse of Lethe, chpt 15
Title: The Curse of Lethe
Author: shiiki
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Thalia Grace/Reyna Ramírez-Arellano + a full cast of supporting characters
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Percy and Annabeth intended to retire and spend a quiet four years at college in New Rome. However, old enemies have other ideas, and one very determined attack leaves Percy poisoned and fighting for his life and Annabeth facing the difficult decision of giving him the only cure: water from the Lethe...and dealing with the heartbreaking side-effects. There is hope, though, but will Percy, Annabeth, and their friends have the courage to brave Tartarus again to retrieve Percy's memories from the edge of Chaos?
In this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Bob, Damasen, various monsters
Word Count: 4,029
Chapter Summary: The demigods need to make it through more barriers standing between them and the heart of Tartarus.
Notes: This chapter is brought to you courtesy of several adventures I had clambering in the mountains of the Lake District back in May this year. Including fording a fast-running river unexpectedly and stumbling downhill on a rainy day. I highly recommend it as writing inspiration. No better way than to pinpoint the challenges of crossing a harsh landscape than actually tramping around in nature!
A few disclaimers-I am not an architect, nor have I ever studied architecture, so most of Annabeth’s architectural ‘expertise’ comes from stuff I’ve managed to glean from listening to TED talks and scouring Google for course outlines on environmental design and organic architecture. I plucked pretty liberally from various websites for inspiration in this chapter. And I didn’t make up the information about spider silk either! It really is pretty amazing stuff in engineering terms, and I figured Annabeth the aspiring architect would appreciate it once she wasn’t paralysed with her arachnophobia.
The muscaliet is a mythological creature from medieval times.
Back to fic content page
XV
PERCY
Percy felt the heartbeat of Tartarus before he saw it.
The cave walls shook with an ominous rumble. Under their feet, the ground-now a slippery, membranous skin-pulsed and spat them out the mouth of the cave.
The harsh redness of Tartarus's sky scorched Percy's retinas. He didn't remember it being so bright before, but then after the pitch black of the arai's forest, the inky pit of Chaos, and the dim interior of the Caves of Night, his pupils must have acclimatised to darkness.
Several hundred feet to their right, the wailing Acheron poured into a rapid river that snaked around the rim of a vast valley, blocking their path forward. The waters disappeared into the horizon, but Percy didn't need to see the rest of the river to know that it had no end-the river made a perfect circle around the heart of Tartarus. Little watery fingers branched from the opposite bank and dipped into the ground, tributaries feeding subterranean capillaries that bulged and shrank with the systole and diastole of each heartbeat.
The whole valley was a funnel, a basin into which the rest of Tartarus drained.
'How do we get across?' asked Thalia.
Percy cocked his head and listened. The roar of the water was a cacophony of wails, moans, and screams. The Acheron was the nearest source for this rushing river, but all five poured into it at some point. If they kept walking along the river's edge, Percy had no doubt they'd come to the others in turn.
Either way, the rushing river was an impassable barrier. Swimming was out of the question-they'd just be swept away in the vicious current, dragged down to join the chorus of tortured, despondent, and forgotten souls. Percy also knew without asking that there wouldn't be a bridge anywhere.
'Sideways,' Bob suggested, pointing to the left, where the river disappeared into the shadow of the jagged mountains. There was a point, maybe half a mile down, where Percy thought the flow sounded different, like it might be rippling across shallows. Wading through the deadly, dissonant rush of water wasn't the best solution but it was preferable to being fully immersed in it.
'Sure,' he said, and explained this plan to the others. When he was finished, he added, 'I think that's our best bet.'
Small Bob-now back in housecat form-bounded ahead of them as if he endorsed this idea. He paused, made a raspy retching noise, and coughed up something round and hairy.
'What's that?' said Will.
'Hairball.' Bob shrugged. 'He is a cat.'
Small Bob batted his paw at the ball, pretty nonchalantly considering it was literally his own solid puke. The hairball rolled over to Annabeth's feet.
'I don't think it's just a hairball,' Annabeth said. She bent to pick it up. 'He swallowed a spider.'
'Are you telling me that's her?' said Thalia. 'Gross.'
'No, I don't think so. But look-there's silk trapped inside the cat hairs.'
She played with the ball as they hiked around the curve of the river. She seemed as fascinated with it as she was with the stuff she'd been studying in her environmental design course this semester. (Percy had heard plenty about that.)
'It's a perfect blend,' she marvelled. 'The strong draglines are woven into catching threads so it's got tensile strength and cohesion. I bet none of the artificial fibres we have even come close. It's amazing. If I could replicate the bonding, imagine what sort of structures I could build!'
'Amazing,' Nico repeated flatly. 'Yeah, it's amazing when you're the one trapped in it.'
'Yeah, I'd rather not think about that either,' Thalia said darkly.
'Sorry.'
Annabeth's hands didn't stop fiddling as she walked. She'd somehow crafted herself gloves from the cat hairs, allowing her to actually tease apart the silken fibres without getting her fingers stuck to it. Percy wasn't sure she was even fully aware of what her hands were doing. Judging from the intent look in her eyes-that piercing stare that practically glowed with an inner light-her mind was racing with further speculation on the subject.
It was such a familiar look that Percy could almost hear the accompanying commentary. He could picture Annabeth sprawled out on his bed with textbooks strewn around her, talking a mile a minute about organic edges, sustainable binding, and topographical manipulation.
'A lot of the buildings had rigid designs because people only thought within the confines of the material's own geometry. But the really talented architects found ways to design structures in harmony with nature instead of dominating it.'
Not that he really understood the stuff she went on about (any more than he understood the properties of magical spider silk now), but he was always content to lie on his back next to her and listen to the sound of her voice.
A wave of homesickness nearly knocked him off his feet. Or maybe it was just the ba-boom of the pulsating heart messing with his walking pace.
'What?' Annabeth said suddenly.
'What, what?'
'You're looking at me funny.'
'I-nothing. I just love you.'
'Save it for later, will you?' muttered Thalia. 'If I have to listen to you being sappy, I'm going to barf up a hairball.'
'Oh, sorry, forgot you Hunters are violently allergic to romance,' Percy shot back.
He expected Thalia to shoot him one of those I'm the daughter of Zeus and an immortal Hunter and I'm this close to using you for target practice glares she'd perfected over the years. He did not expect her to look away with splotchy colour rising in her cheeks.
Percy suddenly remembered something he'd seen briefly in the Caves of Night. He hadn't thought much of it-he had enough demons of his own to deal with, thank you very much-but it hit him now. They'd all had their shameful secrets out in the open.
And Thalia wasn't as immune to romance as she was supposed to be.
Will coughed delicately. 'Um, should we be worried about those?' He pointed up at a towering cliff face.
Balancing on little outcrops of rock were a bunch of pig-faced creatures with big furry butts. They were a mishmash of different animals-attached to the body of a hare was a poofy squirrel's tail and the head of a boar, complete with tiny piggy eyes and a grin full of sharp teeth, but with rounded weasel's ears and a protruding muzzled snout like a mole. Little puffs of smoke rose from under their paws, making Percy think of Leo Valdez and the way his hands occasionally caught fire.
Annabeth gasped. 'Muscaliets!'
She might as well have said muskateers for all the sense it made. 'English, please?' Percy said.
The first creature leaped from its perch. Will notched an arrow to defend them from the attack, but Thalia grabbed his arm.
'No!'
Percy was shocked to see tears in her eyes. 'What-'
The muscaliet cannonballed into the river with a hiss of steam. For a second, it bobbed on the surface, then it disappeared-not sinking, but actually dissolving into the water. Percy gaped as the other muscaliets on the cliff followed suit, like a line of dive-bombing lemmings.
'They're gone,' Nico said. 'Their essence-it's fading from thought.'
'Is that what this river does?' Percy asked with a shiver. Just what they needed, another Lethe-like stream.
'No,' Damasen said. 'It is because the muscaliets have been forgotten.'
'What do you mean, forgotten? They're right here!'
'They're-they were an endangered species,' Thalia said quietly. 'We-the Hunters-are charged with protecting them. The world doesn't have a clue they still exist. Once they get killed-well, all monsters go to Tartarus. But not all of them come back.' Her fingers clenched around her bow, like she was itching to shoot at whoever had sent this flock here. 'These must have been last ones on earth…and they're gone.'
'They've lost their purpose. It's like Pan,' Annabeth said. 'Or the elder Hekatonkheires. No one is left to believe in them, and they don't have an identity any more.'
They watched the last muscaliet take its graceful, fatal dive into the river. Nico raised his sword and murmured a few lines of an ancient burial rite. Percy found a handful of loose, black grass and tossed it into the water. It wasn't any ritual he knew, but it just seemed wrong to stand and watch the muscaliets evaporate from existence without acknowledging their passing in some way.
They came to the shallows shortly after. Here, the river bed was just visible under the grey surface of the river. The water swept around uneven piles of Stygian rock, gurgling in little eddies in the lee of their obstructions.
Some of the rock stuck above the surface, forming a haphazard path that they might possibly hop across. Small Bob leapt onto the nearest one, eyed the next-about ten feet away-and sprang for it. He just missed it, his hind legs slipping into the stream, and he let out a piteous howl.
Bob splashed straight in after him, rushing to scoop him up. The Titan's skin bubbled and warped where the water touched it, like he'd been immersed in acid.
'Bob!' Annabeth cried.
Percy didn't really think about what he did next. There was simply a desperate compulsion to help Bob, accompanied by a fierce tug in his gut, and he was pushing at the water, forcing it to part around Bob.
It was more difficult than any other liquid he'd ever controlled, and that was saying something. In his career as a teenage demigod hero, he'd raised hurricanes, squeezed water from stone, and even parted the Lethe like he was Moses at the Red Sea. This took all that effort combined and then some. The river resisted stubbornly, fighting him for every drop. His entire body trembled with exertion.
But the waters parted. First in a circle around Bob, then inch by inch to form a narrow channel down the middle.
'Go!' Percy panted.
His friends didn't waste any time. Bob grabbed his cat and lumbered across to the far side. Thalia, Will, and Nico followed close behind, with Damasen bringing up the rear.
'Annabeth, go!' Percy gritted out. 'I'll be right behind you.'
'You're coming with me,' Annabeth said. She looped an arm around his waist and dragged him forward.
He had to admit he needed her help. Percy had borne the weight of the sky on his shoulders once-an incomparably heavy anvil that threatened to crush his puny mortal body. Keeping the two sides of his river channel apart wasn't quite as exhausting, but he thought it might come close.
With Annabeth's help, he stumbled over the shallow river bed. Ten feet, twenty…
Their friends were reaching out to them from the other side. They were almost there.
Five feet from the edge, Percy's stomach groaned and he knew he wasn't holding the water back for much longer. Behind them, the river had already begun to pool over the path he'd created. Little splashes spat at their legs and dotted acid holes in their pants. Annabeth grimaced when it touched her skin, raising ugly red welts on her calf.
Percy tried to push her away from him and force her ahead. At least she could get to safety.
'I'm not leaving you, Seaweed Brain.'
'You're impossible.'
She just gave him a withering look. He'd known her long enough to translate: So are you, and I love you, too.
Percy gathered the remnants of his strength. He scooped Annabeth up, ignoring her cries of, 'What are you doing, Percy?' Then he released the load of water and concentrated, as he had once done in the Lethe, on a single thought: dry.
The river sloshed back into place, swirling around his ankles. It circled his legs like poisonous chains, full of the burn of the Phlegethon and the pinch of the Cocytus and the fierce sucker-punch of the Styx. The Acheron howled and lapped painfully at his shins. Below the surface, the Lethe was a quiet but insistent undercurrent that tried to drag him away.
It hurt worse than a manticore's sting. But he stayed dry. His skin stayed whole.
He hugged Annabeth close to him and waded the last five feet-it might have been fifty, for the effort it took-against the strong current. Strong arms grabbed at them and pulled them out of the river.
Percy crawled out onto the bank and promptly collapsed.
OoOoO
He came to with a splutter. His throat was on fire, like his own saliva was oil and every swallow a spark.
'What happened?' he croaked.
'You over-extended, duh,' Thalia said, rolling her eyes. 'You're just as bad as Shadow Hero and Wonder Healer over there.' She jerked her head towards Nico and Will. 'Boys.'
'Hey!' said Will.
'It was necessary,' said Nico. 'But Shadow Hero has a better ring to it than Death Boy.'
'Ouch,' said Will. 'That hurt, Death Boy.'
Annabeth looked like she had something to add, but she just shook her head and sighed. 'Seaweed Brain,' she scolded. Her eyes were soft.
Damasen glanced at Bob with a deep crease in his bushy red brows. The Titan shrugged. 'We are here,' he said solemnly.
They were at the top of a small rise. The massive valley unfolded before them, a mottled purplish landscape of bumps and ridges, streaked with thin red and blue rivulets running just under the surface.
'It looks the same,' Annabeth said, 'but it feels different.'
'No monsters?' Percy suggested. The vast cardiac valley-wide enough that the outer rims blended into the blood-red horizon-wasn't dotted with Gaia's army this time, which was reassuring. On the other hand, he couldn't spot the Doors either.
Maybe they just weren't near enough. He didn't recall the exact moment when they'd become visible last time.
Annabeth shook her head. 'That's not it.'
Percy looked down into the curved bowl of Tartarus's heart, at the undulating waves of the ground, which pulsed in a steady rhythm. It was the same creepy embodiment of the god of the pit. But there was also something warped about it, like this horrifying image was an illusion disguising what really lay at the heart of Tartarus.
Percy remembered facing the nauseating knowledge that they were mere fleas on the pit god's skin. At the time, this had seemed to be the worst possible interpretation of the place-true hell was simply the mind and body of a diabolical monster.
That was before being treated to the accusatory home videos of the Caves of Night.
Once, Percy had lifted the lid of a coffin to find the distorted face of someone he'd known. Traversing the Caves of Night was like lifting that lid again, only to find himself instead of Luke lying there, but with the same cold, hard visage.
Yes, Tartarus was hell in the sense that it was what you imagined evil incarnate to be. But scratch the surface-literally and figuratively-and the real horror was what actually brought Tartarus to life. The internal organs of this place was fuelled by human vice.
His own vice, not to put too fine of a point on it.
Now that he realised this, Percy was uneasy about what might actually await them at the heart of the pit.
You have shaped the journey-what you were seeking will be at the heart of it.
Yeah, Angelos's tidings didn't exactly fill him with the warm and fuzzies either.
A malodorous belch of wind followed them into the valley, sending a rancid, hot gust whipping through it. The descent was treacherously steep. The ground rose and fell in an unstable rhythm, the resounding base pulsating through his body like it was trying to force his heart to beat in time with it. Percy's feet stumbled over throbbing clots every other step. These blockages clogged the path, as though Tartarus had ingested too many greasy monsters over the years and his arteries were paying for it now.
They didn't speak much as they navigated their way down, too intent on finding their footing. Percy copied Annabeth at first, who had the genius idea of using her sword as a hiking pole to stabilise herself. At least, it seemed like a genius idea until Percy accidentally stabbed a vein and sprayed them all with a Phlegethon fountain.
By the time they reached the flat bowl of the valley, Percy was drenched in sweat (and liquid fire) and breathing as heavily as if he'd been speed-climbing up the Camp Half-Blood lava wall rather than picking his way downhill.
The centre of the valley was scarily empty. The mountains that encircled the tight drum-skin of the purple heart like a funnel seemed to reach all the way to the poisonous clouds, making it unimaginable that they'd just hiked down from that height.
'I don't see any Doors,' said Will. 'But on the bright side, no monsters either.'
'Seriously, man,' Percy said, 'are you trying to jinx us? First rule of any quest-commenting on the absence of monsters leads to monsters showing up out of nowhere.'
'Not here,' Damasen said. 'This is a dangerous place. Monsters stay away-usually.'
'When there are no Doors,' Bob corrected. He scooped up Small Bob, who had been about to poke a claw into a throbbing vein. 'If your friends have not sent it yet, there is no reason for monsters to come. Once they arrive, though…'
Percy had a disturbing image of a horde of monsters thundering into the valley like an invading army. He didn't bother to ask how they'd know the Doors were here. The way these things went, Tartarus probably ran advertisements for stuff like that, like a TV infomercial announcing, 'We interrupt your regular regenerating to bring you a shortcut to the mortal world. Call now to book your spot! And as a bonus, we'll throw in a bunch of demigods for the first ten callers!'
A question he'd never thought to ask before nudged at his brain. 'How do monsters regenerate usually?'
Thalia arched an eyebrow. 'You did see those bubbles in the ground earlier, didn't you?'
'No, I mean, how do they come back to our world? When there's no handy shortcut like the Doors of Death, that is.'
Damasen shook his head. 'I have never left since my father locked me here, Percy Jackson. My fate was to spend all eternity here until my name faded from the thoughts of mankind.'
Bob scratched his silver beard. 'Thoughts,' he said, like this was the answer.
'We believe in them,' Annabeth reasoned. 'Or the world does, anyway. When enough people believe in them-or what they represent-we give them the power to return.'
Percy got a sudden vision of a group of kids standing in a circle, clapping their hands and chanting, 'We do believe in monsters! We do believe in monsters!' He suppressed a grin.
'Be nice if Hazel and the others could just wish us back up there,' Will commented.
'It's not that simple,' Annabeth said. 'Monsters-and gods-are archetypes. They're, well, they're like ideas.'
'And you are not monsters,' said Bob. 'Or gods.' He looked at his own hands. 'Or Titans.'
'Our paths are not like those of mortals,' Damasen agreed. 'You have the power to take your fate into your own hands. We, on the other hand, are part of a pattern. The world gives us our purpose.'
'But you chose, Damasen,' Annabeth reminded him. 'You broke the pattern.'
'And it saved us from being eternally stuck on my father's armour,' said Damasen. 'I do not know if it will be enough to carry us to the mortal world.'
'It will be!' Annabeth said fiercely. 'We're not leaving you behind again.'
'Yeah,' Percy said, even as he recalled, with a sinking feeling, the way they'd operated the Doors of Death last time. How would they press the button on the Tartarus end this time?
Maybe they'd get lucky. Maybe with Thanatos in charge this time, there'd be a cheat code or something. And at least they wouldn't have to fight off the army of a vengeful earth goddess in the process.
It was at that moment the universe decided once again to say, LOL, NAH!
A streak of black lightning sizzled across the sky, striking the valley dead centre. It was still several hundred feet away, but Percy could see the elevator doors inching their way along the black bolt like someone was lowering it laboriously on a set of invisible cables.
Seconds later, the monster invasion he'd pictured earlier came charging into sight. The seven of them ran for the Doors, but the monsters were fast. They swarmed from almost every direction, except the one Percy and his friends had come from.
Kampê soared over their heads and landed with a thump that rivalled the thunderous heartbeat of the valley. Every one of her heads, from the snakes in her hair to the beasts on her belt, bared their teeth at them.
'Percy Jackson!' she said. 'We have come!'
And then Percy realised that the monsters that had gathered all had something in common.
Standing between his group and the descending Doors of Death was every monster he'd ever fought from the time he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Yep, there was the Minotaur, his bull head as ugly as ever. An entire phalanx of hellhounds-but unfortunately no Mrs O'Leary to help him out. Gods, was that Medusa hiding behind her grisly sisters? (It was just as well he couldn't see her face.)
They all sported cruel, mocking grins, as if to say, You wanted your memory back, didn't you? Let us help you with that!
What you were seeking will be at the heart of it. Great. He'd managed to bring every monster from his past down on himself and his friends.
'It's not your fault,' Annabeth whispered, like she'd read his mind. 'It's Tartarus-he's toying with you.'
'Tartarus isn't just the body of a god,' Percy said. 'It's us. It's who we are inside. I saw it in the caves. I-I'm not a good guy. And this-it's my past.'
'We were all in the caves,' Annabeth said. 'We all saw things-Percy, I told you, that was only one version of you.'
'No one's all good or all bad,' Will added. 'You saw everything we had to hide, too.'
'Yeah, and you didn't drag us here, you know,' Thalia said. 'We came because you're our friend. Even when you're being an idiot.'
'And these guys?' Annabeth jerked her head towards the monsters. 'I was there with you for most of it, Seaweed Brain.'
Nico glared at a beast with a thorn-studded tail and the disgruntled, bespectacled head of a man-Dr Thorn, the manticore who'd once attempted to kidnap him; Will aimed an arrow at the flock of cawing, razor-clawed Stymphalian birds that had previously attacked Camp Half-Blood; Thalia pursed her lips at a wide-mouthed lion with steel fur; Damasen stared down a pack of multi-limbed giants; Bob's fingers tightened around his broom as he locked eyes on the golden-haired Titan that resembled him.
Annabeth was right. These monsters might have emerged from Percy's past, but he hadn't fought them alone the first time. They were part of his friends' histories, too.
And Annabeth… Percy thought about her volunteering first to brave Tartarus with him. He thought about her holding on to him at the edge of Chaos. He thought about her refusing to leave his side in the river.
She knew him at his best and his worst. She knew the measure of his soul. And she still thought there was something worth fighting for. Someone worth fighting with.
'We'll do it again together,' she promised.
'Seven against seventy. Our odds suck.'
'Yeah,' said Nico grimly, 'but I think we've faced worse.'
Thalia raised her bow. 'We'll fight through them.'
'Together?' Annabeth said.
'Together,' Percy agreed. He drew Riptide.
As one, they charged.
Chapter 16
Author: shiiki
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Thalia Grace/Reyna Ramírez-Arellano + a full cast of supporting characters
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Percy and Annabeth intended to retire and spend a quiet four years at college in New Rome. However, old enemies have other ideas, and one very determined attack leaves Percy poisoned and fighting for his life and Annabeth facing the difficult decision of giving him the only cure: water from the Lethe...and dealing with the heartbreaking side-effects. There is hope, though, but will Percy, Annabeth, and their friends have the courage to brave Tartarus again to retrieve Percy's memories from the edge of Chaos?
In this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Bob, Damasen, various monsters
Word Count: 4,029
Chapter Summary: The demigods need to make it through more barriers standing between them and the heart of Tartarus.
Notes: This chapter is brought to you courtesy of several adventures I had clambering in the mountains of the Lake District back in May this year. Including fording a fast-running river unexpectedly and stumbling downhill on a rainy day. I highly recommend it as writing inspiration. No better way than to pinpoint the challenges of crossing a harsh landscape than actually tramping around in nature!
A few disclaimers-I am not an architect, nor have I ever studied architecture, so most of Annabeth’s architectural ‘expertise’ comes from stuff I’ve managed to glean from listening to TED talks and scouring Google for course outlines on environmental design and organic architecture. I plucked pretty liberally from various websites for inspiration in this chapter. And I didn’t make up the information about spider silk either! It really is pretty amazing stuff in engineering terms, and I figured Annabeth the aspiring architect would appreciate it once she wasn’t paralysed with her arachnophobia.
The muscaliet is a mythological creature from medieval times.
Back to fic content page
XV
PERCY
Percy felt the heartbeat of Tartarus before he saw it.
The cave walls shook with an ominous rumble. Under their feet, the ground-now a slippery, membranous skin-pulsed and spat them out the mouth of the cave.
The harsh redness of Tartarus's sky scorched Percy's retinas. He didn't remember it being so bright before, but then after the pitch black of the arai's forest, the inky pit of Chaos, and the dim interior of the Caves of Night, his pupils must have acclimatised to darkness.
Several hundred feet to their right, the wailing Acheron poured into a rapid river that snaked around the rim of a vast valley, blocking their path forward. The waters disappeared into the horizon, but Percy didn't need to see the rest of the river to know that it had no end-the river made a perfect circle around the heart of Tartarus. Little watery fingers branched from the opposite bank and dipped into the ground, tributaries feeding subterranean capillaries that bulged and shrank with the systole and diastole of each heartbeat.
The whole valley was a funnel, a basin into which the rest of Tartarus drained.
'How do we get across?' asked Thalia.
Percy cocked his head and listened. The roar of the water was a cacophony of wails, moans, and screams. The Acheron was the nearest source for this rushing river, but all five poured into it at some point. If they kept walking along the river's edge, Percy had no doubt they'd come to the others in turn.
Either way, the rushing river was an impassable barrier. Swimming was out of the question-they'd just be swept away in the vicious current, dragged down to join the chorus of tortured, despondent, and forgotten souls. Percy also knew without asking that there wouldn't be a bridge anywhere.
'Sideways,' Bob suggested, pointing to the left, where the river disappeared into the shadow of the jagged mountains. There was a point, maybe half a mile down, where Percy thought the flow sounded different, like it might be rippling across shallows. Wading through the deadly, dissonant rush of water wasn't the best solution but it was preferable to being fully immersed in it.
'Sure,' he said, and explained this plan to the others. When he was finished, he added, 'I think that's our best bet.'
Small Bob-now back in housecat form-bounded ahead of them as if he endorsed this idea. He paused, made a raspy retching noise, and coughed up something round and hairy.
'What's that?' said Will.
'Hairball.' Bob shrugged. 'He is a cat.'
Small Bob batted his paw at the ball, pretty nonchalantly considering it was literally his own solid puke. The hairball rolled over to Annabeth's feet.
'I don't think it's just a hairball,' Annabeth said. She bent to pick it up. 'He swallowed a spider.'
'Are you telling me that's her?' said Thalia. 'Gross.'
'No, I don't think so. But look-there's silk trapped inside the cat hairs.'
She played with the ball as they hiked around the curve of the river. She seemed as fascinated with it as she was with the stuff she'd been studying in her environmental design course this semester. (Percy had heard plenty about that.)
'It's a perfect blend,' she marvelled. 'The strong draglines are woven into catching threads so it's got tensile strength and cohesion. I bet none of the artificial fibres we have even come close. It's amazing. If I could replicate the bonding, imagine what sort of structures I could build!'
'Amazing,' Nico repeated flatly. 'Yeah, it's amazing when you're the one trapped in it.'
'Yeah, I'd rather not think about that either,' Thalia said darkly.
'Sorry.'
Annabeth's hands didn't stop fiddling as she walked. She'd somehow crafted herself gloves from the cat hairs, allowing her to actually tease apart the silken fibres without getting her fingers stuck to it. Percy wasn't sure she was even fully aware of what her hands were doing. Judging from the intent look in her eyes-that piercing stare that practically glowed with an inner light-her mind was racing with further speculation on the subject.
It was such a familiar look that Percy could almost hear the accompanying commentary. He could picture Annabeth sprawled out on his bed with textbooks strewn around her, talking a mile a minute about organic edges, sustainable binding, and topographical manipulation.
'A lot of the buildings had rigid designs because people only thought within the confines of the material's own geometry. But the really talented architects found ways to design structures in harmony with nature instead of dominating it.'
Not that he really understood the stuff she went on about (any more than he understood the properties of magical spider silk now), but he was always content to lie on his back next to her and listen to the sound of her voice.
A wave of homesickness nearly knocked him off his feet. Or maybe it was just the ba-boom of the pulsating heart messing with his walking pace.
'What?' Annabeth said suddenly.
'What, what?'
'You're looking at me funny.'
'I-nothing. I just love you.'
'Save it for later, will you?' muttered Thalia. 'If I have to listen to you being sappy, I'm going to barf up a hairball.'
'Oh, sorry, forgot you Hunters are violently allergic to romance,' Percy shot back.
He expected Thalia to shoot him one of those I'm the daughter of Zeus and an immortal Hunter and I'm this close to using you for target practice glares she'd perfected over the years. He did not expect her to look away with splotchy colour rising in her cheeks.
Percy suddenly remembered something he'd seen briefly in the Caves of Night. He hadn't thought much of it-he had enough demons of his own to deal with, thank you very much-but it hit him now. They'd all had their shameful secrets out in the open.
And Thalia wasn't as immune to romance as she was supposed to be.
Will coughed delicately. 'Um, should we be worried about those?' He pointed up at a towering cliff face.
Balancing on little outcrops of rock were a bunch of pig-faced creatures with big furry butts. They were a mishmash of different animals-attached to the body of a hare was a poofy squirrel's tail and the head of a boar, complete with tiny piggy eyes and a grin full of sharp teeth, but with rounded weasel's ears and a protruding muzzled snout like a mole. Little puffs of smoke rose from under their paws, making Percy think of Leo Valdez and the way his hands occasionally caught fire.
Annabeth gasped. 'Muscaliets!'
She might as well have said muskateers for all the sense it made. 'English, please?' Percy said.
The first creature leaped from its perch. Will notched an arrow to defend them from the attack, but Thalia grabbed his arm.
'No!'
Percy was shocked to see tears in her eyes. 'What-'
The muscaliet cannonballed into the river with a hiss of steam. For a second, it bobbed on the surface, then it disappeared-not sinking, but actually dissolving into the water. Percy gaped as the other muscaliets on the cliff followed suit, like a line of dive-bombing lemmings.
'They're gone,' Nico said. 'Their essence-it's fading from thought.'
'Is that what this river does?' Percy asked with a shiver. Just what they needed, another Lethe-like stream.
'No,' Damasen said. 'It is because the muscaliets have been forgotten.'
'What do you mean, forgotten? They're right here!'
'They're-they were an endangered species,' Thalia said quietly. 'We-the Hunters-are charged with protecting them. The world doesn't have a clue they still exist. Once they get killed-well, all monsters go to Tartarus. But not all of them come back.' Her fingers clenched around her bow, like she was itching to shoot at whoever had sent this flock here. 'These must have been last ones on earth…and they're gone.'
'They've lost their purpose. It's like Pan,' Annabeth said. 'Or the elder Hekatonkheires. No one is left to believe in them, and they don't have an identity any more.'
They watched the last muscaliet take its graceful, fatal dive into the river. Nico raised his sword and murmured a few lines of an ancient burial rite. Percy found a handful of loose, black grass and tossed it into the water. It wasn't any ritual he knew, but it just seemed wrong to stand and watch the muscaliets evaporate from existence without acknowledging their passing in some way.
They came to the shallows shortly after. Here, the river bed was just visible under the grey surface of the river. The water swept around uneven piles of Stygian rock, gurgling in little eddies in the lee of their obstructions.
Some of the rock stuck above the surface, forming a haphazard path that they might possibly hop across. Small Bob leapt onto the nearest one, eyed the next-about ten feet away-and sprang for it. He just missed it, his hind legs slipping into the stream, and he let out a piteous howl.
Bob splashed straight in after him, rushing to scoop him up. The Titan's skin bubbled and warped where the water touched it, like he'd been immersed in acid.
'Bob!' Annabeth cried.
Percy didn't really think about what he did next. There was simply a desperate compulsion to help Bob, accompanied by a fierce tug in his gut, and he was pushing at the water, forcing it to part around Bob.
It was more difficult than any other liquid he'd ever controlled, and that was saying something. In his career as a teenage demigod hero, he'd raised hurricanes, squeezed water from stone, and even parted the Lethe like he was Moses at the Red Sea. This took all that effort combined and then some. The river resisted stubbornly, fighting him for every drop. His entire body trembled with exertion.
But the waters parted. First in a circle around Bob, then inch by inch to form a narrow channel down the middle.
'Go!' Percy panted.
His friends didn't waste any time. Bob grabbed his cat and lumbered across to the far side. Thalia, Will, and Nico followed close behind, with Damasen bringing up the rear.
'Annabeth, go!' Percy gritted out. 'I'll be right behind you.'
'You're coming with me,' Annabeth said. She looped an arm around his waist and dragged him forward.
He had to admit he needed her help. Percy had borne the weight of the sky on his shoulders once-an incomparably heavy anvil that threatened to crush his puny mortal body. Keeping the two sides of his river channel apart wasn't quite as exhausting, but he thought it might come close.
With Annabeth's help, he stumbled over the shallow river bed. Ten feet, twenty…
Their friends were reaching out to them from the other side. They were almost there.
Five feet from the edge, Percy's stomach groaned and he knew he wasn't holding the water back for much longer. Behind them, the river had already begun to pool over the path he'd created. Little splashes spat at their legs and dotted acid holes in their pants. Annabeth grimaced when it touched her skin, raising ugly red welts on her calf.
Percy tried to push her away from him and force her ahead. At least she could get to safety.
'I'm not leaving you, Seaweed Brain.'
'You're impossible.'
She just gave him a withering look. He'd known her long enough to translate: So are you, and I love you, too.
Percy gathered the remnants of his strength. He scooped Annabeth up, ignoring her cries of, 'What are you doing, Percy?' Then he released the load of water and concentrated, as he had once done in the Lethe, on a single thought: dry.
The river sloshed back into place, swirling around his ankles. It circled his legs like poisonous chains, full of the burn of the Phlegethon and the pinch of the Cocytus and the fierce sucker-punch of the Styx. The Acheron howled and lapped painfully at his shins. Below the surface, the Lethe was a quiet but insistent undercurrent that tried to drag him away.
It hurt worse than a manticore's sting. But he stayed dry. His skin stayed whole.
He hugged Annabeth close to him and waded the last five feet-it might have been fifty, for the effort it took-against the strong current. Strong arms grabbed at them and pulled them out of the river.
Percy crawled out onto the bank and promptly collapsed.
OoOoO
He came to with a splutter. His throat was on fire, like his own saliva was oil and every swallow a spark.
'What happened?' he croaked.
'You over-extended, duh,' Thalia said, rolling her eyes. 'You're just as bad as Shadow Hero and Wonder Healer over there.' She jerked her head towards Nico and Will. 'Boys.'
'Hey!' said Will.
'It was necessary,' said Nico. 'But Shadow Hero has a better ring to it than Death Boy.'
'Ouch,' said Will. 'That hurt, Death Boy.'
Annabeth looked like she had something to add, but she just shook her head and sighed. 'Seaweed Brain,' she scolded. Her eyes were soft.
Damasen glanced at Bob with a deep crease in his bushy red brows. The Titan shrugged. 'We are here,' he said solemnly.
They were at the top of a small rise. The massive valley unfolded before them, a mottled purplish landscape of bumps and ridges, streaked with thin red and blue rivulets running just under the surface.
'It looks the same,' Annabeth said, 'but it feels different.'
'No monsters?' Percy suggested. The vast cardiac valley-wide enough that the outer rims blended into the blood-red horizon-wasn't dotted with Gaia's army this time, which was reassuring. On the other hand, he couldn't spot the Doors either.
Maybe they just weren't near enough. He didn't recall the exact moment when they'd become visible last time.
Annabeth shook her head. 'That's not it.'
Percy looked down into the curved bowl of Tartarus's heart, at the undulating waves of the ground, which pulsed in a steady rhythm. It was the same creepy embodiment of the god of the pit. But there was also something warped about it, like this horrifying image was an illusion disguising what really lay at the heart of Tartarus.
Percy remembered facing the nauseating knowledge that they were mere fleas on the pit god's skin. At the time, this had seemed to be the worst possible interpretation of the place-true hell was simply the mind and body of a diabolical monster.
That was before being treated to the accusatory home videos of the Caves of Night.
Once, Percy had lifted the lid of a coffin to find the distorted face of someone he'd known. Traversing the Caves of Night was like lifting that lid again, only to find himself instead of Luke lying there, but with the same cold, hard visage.
Yes, Tartarus was hell in the sense that it was what you imagined evil incarnate to be. But scratch the surface-literally and figuratively-and the real horror was what actually brought Tartarus to life. The internal organs of this place was fuelled by human vice.
His own vice, not to put too fine of a point on it.
Now that he realised this, Percy was uneasy about what might actually await them at the heart of the pit.
You have shaped the journey-what you were seeking will be at the heart of it.
Yeah, Angelos's tidings didn't exactly fill him with the warm and fuzzies either.
A malodorous belch of wind followed them into the valley, sending a rancid, hot gust whipping through it. The descent was treacherously steep. The ground rose and fell in an unstable rhythm, the resounding base pulsating through his body like it was trying to force his heart to beat in time with it. Percy's feet stumbled over throbbing clots every other step. These blockages clogged the path, as though Tartarus had ingested too many greasy monsters over the years and his arteries were paying for it now.
They didn't speak much as they navigated their way down, too intent on finding their footing. Percy copied Annabeth at first, who had the genius idea of using her sword as a hiking pole to stabilise herself. At least, it seemed like a genius idea until Percy accidentally stabbed a vein and sprayed them all with a Phlegethon fountain.
By the time they reached the flat bowl of the valley, Percy was drenched in sweat (and liquid fire) and breathing as heavily as if he'd been speed-climbing up the Camp Half-Blood lava wall rather than picking his way downhill.
The centre of the valley was scarily empty. The mountains that encircled the tight drum-skin of the purple heart like a funnel seemed to reach all the way to the poisonous clouds, making it unimaginable that they'd just hiked down from that height.
'I don't see any Doors,' said Will. 'But on the bright side, no monsters either.'
'Seriously, man,' Percy said, 'are you trying to jinx us? First rule of any quest-commenting on the absence of monsters leads to monsters showing up out of nowhere.'
'Not here,' Damasen said. 'This is a dangerous place. Monsters stay away-usually.'
'When there are no Doors,' Bob corrected. He scooped up Small Bob, who had been about to poke a claw into a throbbing vein. 'If your friends have not sent it yet, there is no reason for monsters to come. Once they arrive, though…'
Percy had a disturbing image of a horde of monsters thundering into the valley like an invading army. He didn't bother to ask how they'd know the Doors were here. The way these things went, Tartarus probably ran advertisements for stuff like that, like a TV infomercial announcing, 'We interrupt your regular regenerating to bring you a shortcut to the mortal world. Call now to book your spot! And as a bonus, we'll throw in a bunch of demigods for the first ten callers!'
A question he'd never thought to ask before nudged at his brain. 'How do monsters regenerate usually?'
Thalia arched an eyebrow. 'You did see those bubbles in the ground earlier, didn't you?'
'No, I mean, how do they come back to our world? When there's no handy shortcut like the Doors of Death, that is.'
Damasen shook his head. 'I have never left since my father locked me here, Percy Jackson. My fate was to spend all eternity here until my name faded from the thoughts of mankind.'
Bob scratched his silver beard. 'Thoughts,' he said, like this was the answer.
'We believe in them,' Annabeth reasoned. 'Or the world does, anyway. When enough people believe in them-or what they represent-we give them the power to return.'
Percy got a sudden vision of a group of kids standing in a circle, clapping their hands and chanting, 'We do believe in monsters! We do believe in monsters!' He suppressed a grin.
'Be nice if Hazel and the others could just wish us back up there,' Will commented.
'It's not that simple,' Annabeth said. 'Monsters-and gods-are archetypes. They're, well, they're like ideas.'
'And you are not monsters,' said Bob. 'Or gods.' He looked at his own hands. 'Or Titans.'
'Our paths are not like those of mortals,' Damasen agreed. 'You have the power to take your fate into your own hands. We, on the other hand, are part of a pattern. The world gives us our purpose.'
'But you chose, Damasen,' Annabeth reminded him. 'You broke the pattern.'
'And it saved us from being eternally stuck on my father's armour,' said Damasen. 'I do not know if it will be enough to carry us to the mortal world.'
'It will be!' Annabeth said fiercely. 'We're not leaving you behind again.'
'Yeah,' Percy said, even as he recalled, with a sinking feeling, the way they'd operated the Doors of Death last time. How would they press the button on the Tartarus end this time?
Maybe they'd get lucky. Maybe with Thanatos in charge this time, there'd be a cheat code or something. And at least they wouldn't have to fight off the army of a vengeful earth goddess in the process.
It was at that moment the universe decided once again to say, LOL, NAH!
A streak of black lightning sizzled across the sky, striking the valley dead centre. It was still several hundred feet away, but Percy could see the elevator doors inching their way along the black bolt like someone was lowering it laboriously on a set of invisible cables.
Seconds later, the monster invasion he'd pictured earlier came charging into sight. The seven of them ran for the Doors, but the monsters were fast. They swarmed from almost every direction, except the one Percy and his friends had come from.
Kampê soared over their heads and landed with a thump that rivalled the thunderous heartbeat of the valley. Every one of her heads, from the snakes in her hair to the beasts on her belt, bared their teeth at them.
'Percy Jackson!' she said. 'We have come!'
And then Percy realised that the monsters that had gathered all had something in common.
Standing between his group and the descending Doors of Death was every monster he'd ever fought from the time he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Yep, there was the Minotaur, his bull head as ugly as ever. An entire phalanx of hellhounds-but unfortunately no Mrs O'Leary to help him out. Gods, was that Medusa hiding behind her grisly sisters? (It was just as well he couldn't see her face.)
They all sported cruel, mocking grins, as if to say, You wanted your memory back, didn't you? Let us help you with that!
What you were seeking will be at the heart of it. Great. He'd managed to bring every monster from his past down on himself and his friends.
'It's not your fault,' Annabeth whispered, like she'd read his mind. 'It's Tartarus-he's toying with you.'
'Tartarus isn't just the body of a god,' Percy said. 'It's us. It's who we are inside. I saw it in the caves. I-I'm not a good guy. And this-it's my past.'
'We were all in the caves,' Annabeth said. 'We all saw things-Percy, I told you, that was only one version of you.'
'No one's all good or all bad,' Will added. 'You saw everything we had to hide, too.'
'Yeah, and you didn't drag us here, you know,' Thalia said. 'We came because you're our friend. Even when you're being an idiot.'
'And these guys?' Annabeth jerked her head towards the monsters. 'I was there with you for most of it, Seaweed Brain.'
Nico glared at a beast with a thorn-studded tail and the disgruntled, bespectacled head of a man-Dr Thorn, the manticore who'd once attempted to kidnap him; Will aimed an arrow at the flock of cawing, razor-clawed Stymphalian birds that had previously attacked Camp Half-Blood; Thalia pursed her lips at a wide-mouthed lion with steel fur; Damasen stared down a pack of multi-limbed giants; Bob's fingers tightened around his broom as he locked eyes on the golden-haired Titan that resembled him.
Annabeth was right. These monsters might have emerged from Percy's past, but he hadn't fought them alone the first time. They were part of his friends' histories, too.
And Annabeth… Percy thought about her volunteering first to brave Tartarus with him. He thought about her holding on to him at the edge of Chaos. He thought about her refusing to leave his side in the river.
She knew him at his best and his worst. She knew the measure of his soul. And she still thought there was something worth fighting for. Someone worth fighting with.
'We'll do it again together,' she promised.
'Seven against seventy. Our odds suck.'
'Yeah,' said Nico grimly, 'but I think we've faced worse.'
Thalia raised her bow. 'We'll fight through them.'
'Together?' Annabeth said.
'Together,' Percy agreed. He drew Riptide.
As one, they charged.
Chapter 16