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FIC: The Golden Fleece, chpt 15
Title: The Golden Fleece (Daughter of Wisdom 2)
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Tyson, Luke Castellan, Clarisse La Rue, Chiron, Thalia Grace, various others, Gen
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Annabeth Chase returns to Camp Half-Blood to find the safety of her home shattered: Thalia's tree has been poisoned, destroying the magic barriers protecting the camp, and Chiron is blamed. Only one thing can save the camp, and it's up to Annabeth and her best friend Percy to find it. The problem is, they set off with a monster in tow. Once again, the quest and the surprises it has in store is about to change everything she thinks she knows. An alternate PoV retelling of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: Our Ship Goes Up In Flames
Rating: PG
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Tyson, Clarisse La Rue
Word Count: 2,933
Chapter Summary: Clarisse charges between Scylla and Charybdis. Between a rock and a hard place, there's only one thing to do: blow it all up.
A/N: Much of the dialogue is, once again, from SoM. I know this isn't much of a cliffhanger, since we already know the plot, but writing it still made me way too sad!
Back to Fic Content Page
I didn't sleep well on the battleship. To begin with, I still wasn't wholly comfortable with sea travel, and the swaying of the hammock on top of the roll of the ship was disconcerting. And then there was Tyson, who snored louder than the machinery in the engine and boiler rooms combined. I wondered how Percy managed to sleep through it. Then again, I guess he was used to it after sharing a cabin with Tyson for a week.
I got up early and headed up to the main deck as the sun was rising. I watched it rise slowly over the horizon, my view unobscured by buildings or even trees. We had travelled far out into the ocean by now and there was only open water in every direction. The vastness of it made me uncomfortable, but the view was beautiful. The sun turned the surface of the sea pink, and then red, and then gold as it crept higher and higher.
Clarisse emerged from her quarters when the sun was a fair way up. The waters we ploughed through were a sparkling blue-green now, with sunbursts dancing off the surface. Clarisse held a flask in each hand. Wordlessly, she passed one to me and took a big gulp out of the other. I unscrewed the top of mine. The smell of freshly-brewed coffee wafted out.
'Thanks,' I said, taking a long, appreciative sniff of the wonderful aroma before sipping at it. Clarisse had made it strong, with just a touch of milk and sugar. I downed it gratefully. The storm of last night's tantrum had evidently passed.
'Think they're doing all right back at camp without us?' Clarisse said.
'I hope so. We had a few days between the Colchis bulls and the Stymphalian birds, so maybe nothing's attacked yet.' I felt uneasy, though. If the demigods on Kronos's side were orchestrating attacks, they would know the camp's defences would be weakest now, with three senior counsellors gone. 'But we have a spy at camp,' I added. I couldn't remember if I'd told Clarisse that yet. 'Luke has been getting information about everything we're doing.'
Clarisse scowled. 'I bet it's Michael Yew. That runt's a rat if I ever saw one.'
'Who?'
'New kid. One of Apollo's. He's a little punk. Totally deserved to have his head shoved down a toilet bowl.'
I refrained from commenting that Clarisse's hazing ritual for new campers was hardly conducive to making them feel warm and fuzzy about the place. I still needed to stay on her good side.
'Or maybe,' Clarisse said darkly, 'it was someone else who showed up recently.' She looked pointedly at something behind me.
I looked over my shoulder. Tyson was coming up from below deck. Strangely, I found myself disagreeing with Clarisse. After all my arguments with Percy about the trustworthiness of Cyclops, you'd think I would have readily agreed that Tyson was a prime suspect. I mean, I'd certainly thought so before. But to my surprise, I was no longer so set against Tyson. He wasn't like the Cyclops in Brooklyn. Percy was right-he'd saved our lives enough times that I should probably stop thinking of him as our enemy. I hesitated to say that I liked him, but I didn't think he was a spy.
'Good morning, Annabeth,' Tyson said. 'Good morning, Clarisse.'
Clarisse gave him a disdainful look, but I said, 'Good morning, Tyson. You okay?'
'Many ghosts below,' he said. 'Was scared.'
Clarisse snorted. 'Scared of ghosts. Well, good. They'll destroy you if you try anything funny.'
Tyson trembled. Quickly, I said, 'Tyson's on our side, Clarisse. You should have seen him against the Hydra yesterday. Anyway, if there's a spy at camp, he's probably been around for a while. Luke isn't the only demigod Kronos turned. I think he targeted a lot of the undetermined Hermes campers. When we were on the monster cruise ship yesterday, we saw a whole bunch there. Like Chris Rodriguez-he was on board. I think they're working to plan the attacks on camp.'
Clarisse's face darkened. Her eyes narrowed, but I couldn't read the expression in them: it seemed to contain her usual anger, but there was something else mixed in, too. Concern? Hurt?
'I'm going to go check on the boiler,' she said abruptly. She turned on her heel and marched off into the interior of the ship.
That left Tyson and me standing awkwardly together on the upper deck.
'Um,' I said. 'Thanks for what you did yesterday, with the Hydra.'
Tyson's big brown eye blinked. 'You are my friend,' he said simply. 'You would do the same for me.'
I stared at my feet, feeling guiltier than ever. I hadn't ever considered defending him-that had been all Percy. In fact, there were all those times I'd thought about ditching him, or sacrificing him to a monster because I couldn't get over my disgust at travelling with a Cyclops …
'Also,' Tyson added shyly, 'you are pretty.'
I blushed and stammered, 'You know, you, uh, really shouldn't judge based on looks alone. People … well, we can be cruel even when we look nice.' Like I'd been. Shame was definitely flooding through me big time now. I felt like I ought to apologise, only that would meant telling him I wasn't the friend he thought I was. 'And-people who look ugly can be quite nice,' I finished instead.
I wasn't sure he'd get the hint, but he beamed widely so I hoped he understood what I was trying to say.
'Percy likes you so I like you,' Tyson said. 'Percy is my brother. Percy's best friend is my best friend.'
I felt myself turning even redder. 'I-uh-Grover is Percy's best friend,' I said lamely.
Tyson shook his head. 'Percy is good friends with satyr,' he agreed, 'but you are special.'
'You think so?' Something about that made me feel warm and tight around the chest. I didn't know if Percy had actually told Tyson all this (the absurd image of them having a heart-to-heart in cabin three the way the Aphrodite cabin might do girl talk at a slumber party flitted across my mind), but the idea that Percy might think of me as special made my heart speed up.
A shadow fell over the deck then. The sun was being blotted out by darkness on the horizon. A murky blackness in the sky and sea was approaching quickly. A loud alarm sounded all over the ship, effectively cutting off our conversation.
There was a yell from one of the zombie crew: 'All hands on deck!' A legion of ghostly soldiers swarmed out from their quarters, moving efficiently to their battle stations. I heard snatches of their crisp, military orders as they ran about: 'Prepare the Dahlgrens,' 'All gun ports locked and loaded,' 'Man the ballistae!'
I found a pair of binoculars in the pilot house and fixed them on the black smudge on the horizon. There was land in the distance, a jagged cliff rising out of the stormy sea. I guessed we were approaching the entrance to the Sea of Monsters.
Percy appeared on the deck shortly. His face was dark and troubled, the way he always looked when he'd had a bad night.
'Another dream?' I asked him. He nodded, but didn't share it. Clarisse came up on his heels, looking just as grim. She put her own pair of binoculars to her eyes.
'At last,' she said. 'Captain, full steam ahead!'
'We're just off Florida now,' Percy murmured. 'We did like, four hundred and fifty nautical miles. This ship must be magically-enhanced, too.'
Tyson frowned. 'Not good,' he said. 'Too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water.'
I wondered how he knew so much. I didn't think he had ever come into contact with ships before. Then I remembered what Beckendorf had said about Cyclopes working in Hephaestus's undersea forges. Maybe that sort of thing was pre-programmed in them, like Percy's perfect nautical bearings.
Given the creaking noises I could hear coming from down below, it sounded as though Tyson was right. Still, we charged forward and the high cliffs came into sight. A little further on, it looked like a malevolent sea storm was churning over the water.
'Hurricane?' I ventured.
Clarisse shook her head, looking satisfied. 'No, Charybdis.'
'Are you crazy?' I asked, realising that the cliff I'd sighted was in fact the legendary rock and the black storm the harsh whirlpool guarding the ancient sea. The most dangerous entrance you could pick to enter the Sea of Monsters.
'Only way into the Sea of Monsters,' Clarisse said. 'Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla.'
Percy frowned, looking at the expanse of ocean on either side of Scylla and Charybdis. 'What do you mean the only way? The sea is wide open! Just sail around them!'
'Don't you know anything?' Clarisse sneered. 'If I tried to sail around them, they would just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters, you have to sail through them.'
'What about the Clashing Rocks? That's another gateway,' I reminded her. 'Jason used it.'
'I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons. Monsters, on the other hand …'
It was such a Clarisse thing to say. Trust a daughter of Ares to charge in with guns blazing, all muscle and no brain. It was the only thing children of the war god knew how to do. Only it was going to get us all killed.
'You are crazy,' I told her.
Clarisse just smirked. 'Watch and learn, Wise Girl.' She told the captain to set our course straight for Charybdis.
The close we got to the monster, the rougher the sea grew. I felt vaguely nauseous. I wasn't sure if it was apprehension about Clarisse's idiotic plan or actual seasickness. Our great battleship was starting to feel more like a toy boat in a giant toddler's bathtub, being sloshed around in frothing currents. Every smack of a powerful wave against the hull reminded me just how out of my depths I was at sea.
I forced myself to think of a plan, because I was sure Clarisse's wasn't going to work. How she even thought she could fight a whirlpool that would just suck us right in, I couldn't even fathom. Odysseus had gotten through this entrance by clinging to a fig tree on an outcrop of rock, but I saw no overhanging land beyond the cliff, and Clarisse refused to go anywhere near Scylla anyway. I thought of how we'd escaped from the Princess Andromeda. Maybe we could try and power through with Hermes's Flask of winds.
Percy vetoed the idea. 'It's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that. More wind might just make things worse.'
I had to trust his word on that. He was the expert with water, after all. Btu that gave me another idea.
'What about controlling the water? You're Poseidon's son. You've done it before.' Maybe he could even calm Charybis herself. She was supposedly a daughter of Poseidon, too. Maybe she would be kinder to her brother.
Percy put his hand out over the deck and closed his eyes, concentrating. He had no luck. If anything, the tossing seemed to get worse. I guess Charybdis wasn't big on sibling co-operation.
'We need a backup plan,' I said desperately. 'This isn't going to work.'
Tyson chimed in, 'Annabeth is right. Engine's no good.'
'What do you mean?'
'Pressure. Pistons need fixing.'
There was a loud noise like the rumble of a grinder. The ship lurched forward, throwing everybody off balance except for Tyson, who seemed to have the firmest sea legs ever. Clarisse screamed at her crew to back the ship up.
A skeletal crew member burst onto the deck, flames licking from his uniform. 'Boiler room overheating, ma'am!' he cried. 'She's going to blow!'
'You've got to be kidding me,' I said.
Clarisse wasn't listening. She argued with her sailors, insisting that they fix the problem and get her in range to fire on Charybdis-as if that would help, fighting a maelstrom with guns-but they shook their heads in defeat.
'We're vaporising in the heat,' the burning sailor protested.
'I can fix it!' Tyson shouted.
Clarisse turned to him in surprise. 'You?'
Yes! I thought in relief. 'He's a Cyclops! He's immune to fire-and he knows mechanics!'
Clarisse didn't waste time arguing. 'Go!' she told him.
Tyson lumbered off in spite of Percy's protests.
'He's going to die down there,' Percy said, looking at me reproachfully.
'He'll be fine. Fire can't hurt him, remember? And we're all going to die if he doesn't fix it.'
We might still die anyway, I thought, as Charybdis loomed up before us. All that was visible of her was her enormous mouth, with crooked teeth rubber-banded with vines. I had a brief glimpse of Odysseus's fig tree sprouting out of nowhere in front of her, and then my attention was captured by the multi-coloured metal braces in her teeth. Some of them had names painted on them-Ellen Austin, USS Cyclops, Connemara IV-I realised they were ships that had previously gone down her swirling oesophagus.
Clarisse fired her guns. Three rounds of celestial bronze ammo exploded into Charybdis's jaws. The sucking didn't even slow. As I'd predicted, the attack was useless at impeding the undercurrent dragging us into the monster's mouth.
But then we started to pull back. The shuddering vibrations from the overheating engine smoothened out and the ship chugged slowly into reverse, then faster, fighting against the pull of Charybdis's swallow.
'Tyson did it!' I realised.
'Wait! We need to stay close!' Clarisse protested. She aimed her next round of cannon fire.
'We'll die,' Percy told her. 'We have to move away.'
The monster teeth around us rattled as Charybdis tried her final, strongest inhalation. Our progress halted, although I could still feel the engine churning away, doing its best to keep us from being swallowed. Then her mouth slammed shut inches away from our bow. For a moment, the sea stopped sloshing about. The waters stilled and I had a moment to think, it's okay, we're okay now.
Then Charybdis did the equivalent of a monster upchuck: a tsunami rushed towards us, flinging the entire ship backwards as it hit. Tons of metal debris was regurgitated as well, including the bronze cannonball Clarisse had just fired down Charybdis's throat. It slammed into our hull like a glowing asteroid. The ship tilted alarmingly, reminding me of the movie Titanic right before the liner was sucked under the surface. Then it righted itself. I suspected Percy had something to do with that.
'The engine is about to blow!' yelled a sailor.
Percy dropped his hands, which he'd raised as he called on the water to steady the ship. 'Where's Tyson?'
'Still down there. Holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer.'
I felt a wave of gratitude towards Tyson. When we got past this, I really owed him an apology. A proper one.
There was a scream and the zombie captain went flying into the air, yanked up by a thick, fleshy tentacle. We'd been shot back too close to the cliffs of Scylla, and she was now plucking sailors at random off the deck.
Percy had his sword out in a flash. 'Everyone get below!'
Clarisse swiped at a tentacle and it recoiled. I caught a brief glimpse of an ugly face at the end of it, snarling and gnashing moss-covered teeth.
'We can't!' Clarisse screamed. 'Below deck is in flames.'
'Lifeboats!' I decided. 'Quick!'
We ran for the rubber boats. I was thankful I'd gotten some experience with this on the Princess Andromeda. My fingers felt slightly more sure with the knots this time. Clarisse and I managed to get two boats uncovered. We lowered the first over the port side. Percy threw me his Flask of winds.
'Get the other boat. I'll get Tyson.'
My eyes widened as I realised he meant to go into the flaming boiler room. 'You can't! The heat will kill you!' Surely Tyson would know to come out before it was too late.
Percy ignored me and ran across the deck. I helped Clarisse lower the second boat, my heart nearly exploding with worry.
'Annabeth, come on!' Clarisse yelled. She'd already leapt into one of the boats and was waiting below.
'We've got to wait for Percy and Tyson!' I yelled back.
'Your funeral!'
I heard her tell the crew to row.
'Percy!' I screamed, but there was no answer.
The flames were licking out onto the deck now. The heat was blinding. I had no choice but to jump into the second emergency boat, unless I wanted to become a human fireball.
An explosion rocked the air behind me, nearly capsizing my boat. A cloud of smoke and fire filled my vision. Wreckage rained down around me. Some of it might even have hit me-I didn't know. My chest was aching so badly, I couldn't register any other pain.
I did the only thing I could think of and opened the Flask and charged away. But the sorrow I'd felt when Chiron had left, my hurt at facing Luke's betrayal … none of that could compare to the grief that was breaking my heart in two now as I realised Percy was gone, lost in the massive explosion that had taken out the entire battleship.
Chapter 16
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Tyson, Luke Castellan, Clarisse La Rue, Chiron, Thalia Grace, various others, Gen
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Annabeth Chase returns to Camp Half-Blood to find the safety of her home shattered: Thalia's tree has been poisoned, destroying the magic barriers protecting the camp, and Chiron is blamed. Only one thing can save the camp, and it's up to Annabeth and her best friend Percy to find it. The problem is, they set off with a monster in tow. Once again, the quest and the surprises it has in store is about to change everything she thinks she knows. An alternate PoV retelling of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: Our Ship Goes Up In Flames
Rating: PG
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Tyson, Clarisse La Rue
Word Count: 2,933
Chapter Summary: Clarisse charges between Scylla and Charybdis. Between a rock and a hard place, there's only one thing to do: blow it all up.
A/N: Much of the dialogue is, once again, from SoM. I know this isn't much of a cliffhanger, since we already know the plot, but writing it still made me way too sad!
Back to Fic Content Page
I didn't sleep well on the battleship. To begin with, I still wasn't wholly comfortable with sea travel, and the swaying of the hammock on top of the roll of the ship was disconcerting. And then there was Tyson, who snored louder than the machinery in the engine and boiler rooms combined. I wondered how Percy managed to sleep through it. Then again, I guess he was used to it after sharing a cabin with Tyson for a week.
I got up early and headed up to the main deck as the sun was rising. I watched it rise slowly over the horizon, my view unobscured by buildings or even trees. We had travelled far out into the ocean by now and there was only open water in every direction. The vastness of it made me uncomfortable, but the view was beautiful. The sun turned the surface of the sea pink, and then red, and then gold as it crept higher and higher.
Clarisse emerged from her quarters when the sun was a fair way up. The waters we ploughed through were a sparkling blue-green now, with sunbursts dancing off the surface. Clarisse held a flask in each hand. Wordlessly, she passed one to me and took a big gulp out of the other. I unscrewed the top of mine. The smell of freshly-brewed coffee wafted out.
'Thanks,' I said, taking a long, appreciative sniff of the wonderful aroma before sipping at it. Clarisse had made it strong, with just a touch of milk and sugar. I downed it gratefully. The storm of last night's tantrum had evidently passed.
'Think they're doing all right back at camp without us?' Clarisse said.
'I hope so. We had a few days between the Colchis bulls and the Stymphalian birds, so maybe nothing's attacked yet.' I felt uneasy, though. If the demigods on Kronos's side were orchestrating attacks, they would know the camp's defences would be weakest now, with three senior counsellors gone. 'But we have a spy at camp,' I added. I couldn't remember if I'd told Clarisse that yet. 'Luke has been getting information about everything we're doing.'
Clarisse scowled. 'I bet it's Michael Yew. That runt's a rat if I ever saw one.'
'Who?'
'New kid. One of Apollo's. He's a little punk. Totally deserved to have his head shoved down a toilet bowl.'
I refrained from commenting that Clarisse's hazing ritual for new campers was hardly conducive to making them feel warm and fuzzy about the place. I still needed to stay on her good side.
'Or maybe,' Clarisse said darkly, 'it was someone else who showed up recently.' She looked pointedly at something behind me.
I looked over my shoulder. Tyson was coming up from below deck. Strangely, I found myself disagreeing with Clarisse. After all my arguments with Percy about the trustworthiness of Cyclops, you'd think I would have readily agreed that Tyson was a prime suspect. I mean, I'd certainly thought so before. But to my surprise, I was no longer so set against Tyson. He wasn't like the Cyclops in Brooklyn. Percy was right-he'd saved our lives enough times that I should probably stop thinking of him as our enemy. I hesitated to say that I liked him, but I didn't think he was a spy.
'Good morning, Annabeth,' Tyson said. 'Good morning, Clarisse.'
Clarisse gave him a disdainful look, but I said, 'Good morning, Tyson. You okay?'
'Many ghosts below,' he said. 'Was scared.'
Clarisse snorted. 'Scared of ghosts. Well, good. They'll destroy you if you try anything funny.'
Tyson trembled. Quickly, I said, 'Tyson's on our side, Clarisse. You should have seen him against the Hydra yesterday. Anyway, if there's a spy at camp, he's probably been around for a while. Luke isn't the only demigod Kronos turned. I think he targeted a lot of the undetermined Hermes campers. When we were on the monster cruise ship yesterday, we saw a whole bunch there. Like Chris Rodriguez-he was on board. I think they're working to plan the attacks on camp.'
Clarisse's face darkened. Her eyes narrowed, but I couldn't read the expression in them: it seemed to contain her usual anger, but there was something else mixed in, too. Concern? Hurt?
'I'm going to go check on the boiler,' she said abruptly. She turned on her heel and marched off into the interior of the ship.
That left Tyson and me standing awkwardly together on the upper deck.
'Um,' I said. 'Thanks for what you did yesterday, with the Hydra.'
Tyson's big brown eye blinked. 'You are my friend,' he said simply. 'You would do the same for me.'
I stared at my feet, feeling guiltier than ever. I hadn't ever considered defending him-that had been all Percy. In fact, there were all those times I'd thought about ditching him, or sacrificing him to a monster because I couldn't get over my disgust at travelling with a Cyclops …
'Also,' Tyson added shyly, 'you are pretty.'
I blushed and stammered, 'You know, you, uh, really shouldn't judge based on looks alone. People … well, we can be cruel even when we look nice.' Like I'd been. Shame was definitely flooding through me big time now. I felt like I ought to apologise, only that would meant telling him I wasn't the friend he thought I was. 'And-people who look ugly can be quite nice,' I finished instead.
I wasn't sure he'd get the hint, but he beamed widely so I hoped he understood what I was trying to say.
'Percy likes you so I like you,' Tyson said. 'Percy is my brother. Percy's best friend is my best friend.'
I felt myself turning even redder. 'I-uh-Grover is Percy's best friend,' I said lamely.
Tyson shook his head. 'Percy is good friends with satyr,' he agreed, 'but you are special.'
'You think so?' Something about that made me feel warm and tight around the chest. I didn't know if Percy had actually told Tyson all this (the absurd image of them having a heart-to-heart in cabin three the way the Aphrodite cabin might do girl talk at a slumber party flitted across my mind), but the idea that Percy might think of me as special made my heart speed up.
A shadow fell over the deck then. The sun was being blotted out by darkness on the horizon. A murky blackness in the sky and sea was approaching quickly. A loud alarm sounded all over the ship, effectively cutting off our conversation.
There was a yell from one of the zombie crew: 'All hands on deck!' A legion of ghostly soldiers swarmed out from their quarters, moving efficiently to their battle stations. I heard snatches of their crisp, military orders as they ran about: 'Prepare the Dahlgrens,' 'All gun ports locked and loaded,' 'Man the ballistae!'
I found a pair of binoculars in the pilot house and fixed them on the black smudge on the horizon. There was land in the distance, a jagged cliff rising out of the stormy sea. I guessed we were approaching the entrance to the Sea of Monsters.
Percy appeared on the deck shortly. His face was dark and troubled, the way he always looked when he'd had a bad night.
'Another dream?' I asked him. He nodded, but didn't share it. Clarisse came up on his heels, looking just as grim. She put her own pair of binoculars to her eyes.
'At last,' she said. 'Captain, full steam ahead!'
'We're just off Florida now,' Percy murmured. 'We did like, four hundred and fifty nautical miles. This ship must be magically-enhanced, too.'
Tyson frowned. 'Not good,' he said. 'Too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water.'
I wondered how he knew so much. I didn't think he had ever come into contact with ships before. Then I remembered what Beckendorf had said about Cyclopes working in Hephaestus's undersea forges. Maybe that sort of thing was pre-programmed in them, like Percy's perfect nautical bearings.
Given the creaking noises I could hear coming from down below, it sounded as though Tyson was right. Still, we charged forward and the high cliffs came into sight. A little further on, it looked like a malevolent sea storm was churning over the water.
'Hurricane?' I ventured.
Clarisse shook her head, looking satisfied. 'No, Charybdis.'
'Are you crazy?' I asked, realising that the cliff I'd sighted was in fact the legendary rock and the black storm the harsh whirlpool guarding the ancient sea. The most dangerous entrance you could pick to enter the Sea of Monsters.
'Only way into the Sea of Monsters,' Clarisse said. 'Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla.'
Percy frowned, looking at the expanse of ocean on either side of Scylla and Charybdis. 'What do you mean the only way? The sea is wide open! Just sail around them!'
'Don't you know anything?' Clarisse sneered. 'If I tried to sail around them, they would just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters, you have to sail through them.'
'What about the Clashing Rocks? That's another gateway,' I reminded her. 'Jason used it.'
'I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons. Monsters, on the other hand …'
It was such a Clarisse thing to say. Trust a daughter of Ares to charge in with guns blazing, all muscle and no brain. It was the only thing children of the war god knew how to do. Only it was going to get us all killed.
'You are crazy,' I told her.
Clarisse just smirked. 'Watch and learn, Wise Girl.' She told the captain to set our course straight for Charybdis.
The close we got to the monster, the rougher the sea grew. I felt vaguely nauseous. I wasn't sure if it was apprehension about Clarisse's idiotic plan or actual seasickness. Our great battleship was starting to feel more like a toy boat in a giant toddler's bathtub, being sloshed around in frothing currents. Every smack of a powerful wave against the hull reminded me just how out of my depths I was at sea.
I forced myself to think of a plan, because I was sure Clarisse's wasn't going to work. How she even thought she could fight a whirlpool that would just suck us right in, I couldn't even fathom. Odysseus had gotten through this entrance by clinging to a fig tree on an outcrop of rock, but I saw no overhanging land beyond the cliff, and Clarisse refused to go anywhere near Scylla anyway. I thought of how we'd escaped from the Princess Andromeda. Maybe we could try and power through with Hermes's Flask of winds.
Percy vetoed the idea. 'It's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that. More wind might just make things worse.'
I had to trust his word on that. He was the expert with water, after all. Btu that gave me another idea.
'What about controlling the water? You're Poseidon's son. You've done it before.' Maybe he could even calm Charybis herself. She was supposedly a daughter of Poseidon, too. Maybe she would be kinder to her brother.
Percy put his hand out over the deck and closed his eyes, concentrating. He had no luck. If anything, the tossing seemed to get worse. I guess Charybdis wasn't big on sibling co-operation.
'We need a backup plan,' I said desperately. 'This isn't going to work.'
Tyson chimed in, 'Annabeth is right. Engine's no good.'
'What do you mean?'
'Pressure. Pistons need fixing.'
There was a loud noise like the rumble of a grinder. The ship lurched forward, throwing everybody off balance except for Tyson, who seemed to have the firmest sea legs ever. Clarisse screamed at her crew to back the ship up.
A skeletal crew member burst onto the deck, flames licking from his uniform. 'Boiler room overheating, ma'am!' he cried. 'She's going to blow!'
'You've got to be kidding me,' I said.
Clarisse wasn't listening. She argued with her sailors, insisting that they fix the problem and get her in range to fire on Charybdis-as if that would help, fighting a maelstrom with guns-but they shook their heads in defeat.
'We're vaporising in the heat,' the burning sailor protested.
'I can fix it!' Tyson shouted.
Clarisse turned to him in surprise. 'You?'
Yes! I thought in relief. 'He's a Cyclops! He's immune to fire-and he knows mechanics!'
Clarisse didn't waste time arguing. 'Go!' she told him.
Tyson lumbered off in spite of Percy's protests.
'He's going to die down there,' Percy said, looking at me reproachfully.
'He'll be fine. Fire can't hurt him, remember? And we're all going to die if he doesn't fix it.'
We might still die anyway, I thought, as Charybdis loomed up before us. All that was visible of her was her enormous mouth, with crooked teeth rubber-banded with vines. I had a brief glimpse of Odysseus's fig tree sprouting out of nowhere in front of her, and then my attention was captured by the multi-coloured metal braces in her teeth. Some of them had names painted on them-Ellen Austin, USS Cyclops, Connemara IV-I realised they were ships that had previously gone down her swirling oesophagus.
Clarisse fired her guns. Three rounds of celestial bronze ammo exploded into Charybdis's jaws. The sucking didn't even slow. As I'd predicted, the attack was useless at impeding the undercurrent dragging us into the monster's mouth.
But then we started to pull back. The shuddering vibrations from the overheating engine smoothened out and the ship chugged slowly into reverse, then faster, fighting against the pull of Charybdis's swallow.
'Tyson did it!' I realised.
'Wait! We need to stay close!' Clarisse protested. She aimed her next round of cannon fire.
'We'll die,' Percy told her. 'We have to move away.'
The monster teeth around us rattled as Charybdis tried her final, strongest inhalation. Our progress halted, although I could still feel the engine churning away, doing its best to keep us from being swallowed. Then her mouth slammed shut inches away from our bow. For a moment, the sea stopped sloshing about. The waters stilled and I had a moment to think, it's okay, we're okay now.
Then Charybdis did the equivalent of a monster upchuck: a tsunami rushed towards us, flinging the entire ship backwards as it hit. Tons of metal debris was regurgitated as well, including the bronze cannonball Clarisse had just fired down Charybdis's throat. It slammed into our hull like a glowing asteroid. The ship tilted alarmingly, reminding me of the movie Titanic right before the liner was sucked under the surface. Then it righted itself. I suspected Percy had something to do with that.
'The engine is about to blow!' yelled a sailor.
Percy dropped his hands, which he'd raised as he called on the water to steady the ship. 'Where's Tyson?'
'Still down there. Holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer.'
I felt a wave of gratitude towards Tyson. When we got past this, I really owed him an apology. A proper one.
There was a scream and the zombie captain went flying into the air, yanked up by a thick, fleshy tentacle. We'd been shot back too close to the cliffs of Scylla, and she was now plucking sailors at random off the deck.
Percy had his sword out in a flash. 'Everyone get below!'
Clarisse swiped at a tentacle and it recoiled. I caught a brief glimpse of an ugly face at the end of it, snarling and gnashing moss-covered teeth.
'We can't!' Clarisse screamed. 'Below deck is in flames.'
'Lifeboats!' I decided. 'Quick!'
We ran for the rubber boats. I was thankful I'd gotten some experience with this on the Princess Andromeda. My fingers felt slightly more sure with the knots this time. Clarisse and I managed to get two boats uncovered. We lowered the first over the port side. Percy threw me his Flask of winds.
'Get the other boat. I'll get Tyson.'
My eyes widened as I realised he meant to go into the flaming boiler room. 'You can't! The heat will kill you!' Surely Tyson would know to come out before it was too late.
Percy ignored me and ran across the deck. I helped Clarisse lower the second boat, my heart nearly exploding with worry.
'Annabeth, come on!' Clarisse yelled. She'd already leapt into one of the boats and was waiting below.
'We've got to wait for Percy and Tyson!' I yelled back.
'Your funeral!'
I heard her tell the crew to row.
'Percy!' I screamed, but there was no answer.
The flames were licking out onto the deck now. The heat was blinding. I had no choice but to jump into the second emergency boat, unless I wanted to become a human fireball.
An explosion rocked the air behind me, nearly capsizing my boat. A cloud of smoke and fire filled my vision. Wreckage rained down around me. Some of it might even have hit me-I didn't know. My chest was aching so badly, I couldn't register any other pain.
I did the only thing I could think of and opened the Flask and charged away. But the sorrow I'd felt when Chiron had left, my hurt at facing Luke's betrayal … none of that could compare to the grief that was breaking my heart in two now as I realised Percy was gone, lost in the massive explosion that had taken out the entire battleship.
Chapter 16