The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan
That was the last moment before everything went wrong, before our great tragedy unspooled – when Jason Grace thrust out his arms, and the cages of wind exploded.
33
No good news awaits
I warned you right at the start
Turn away, reader
One tornado can ruin your whole day.
I’d seen the sort of devastation Zeus could wreak when he got angry at Kansas. So I was not surprised when the two shrapnel-filled wind spirits ripped through the Julia Drusilla XII like chain saws.
We all should have died in the blast. Of that I’m certain. But Jason channelled the explosion up, down and sideways in a two-dimensional wave – blasting through the port and starboard walls; bursting through the black ceiling that showered us with golden candelabras and swords; jackhammering through the mosaic floor into the bowels of the ship. The yacht groaned and shook – metal, wood and fibreglass snapping like bones in the mouth of a monster.
Incitatus and Caligula stumbled in one direction, Medea in the other. None of them suffered so much as a scratch. Meg McCaffrey, unfortunately, was on Jason’s left. When the venti exploded, she flew sideways through a newly made rent in the wall and disappeared into the dark.
I tried to scream. I think it came out as more of a death rattle, though. With the explosion ringing in my ears, I couldn’t be sure.
I could barely move. There was no chance I could go after my young friend. I cast around desperately and fixed my gaze on Crest.
The young pandos’s eyes were so wide they almost matched his ears. A golden sword had fallen from the ceiling and impaled itself in the tile floor between his legs.
‘Rescue Meg,’ I croaked, ‘and I will teach you how to play any instrument you wish.’
I didn’t know how even a pandos could hear me, but Crest seemed to. His expression changed from shock to reckless determination. He scrambled across the tilting floor, spread his ears and leaped into the rift.
The break in the floor began to widen, cutting us off from Jason. Ten-foot-tall waterfalls poured in from the damaged hull to port and starboard – washing the mosaic floors in dark water and flotsam, spilling into the widening chasm in the centre of the room. Below, broken machinery steamed. Flames guttered as seawater filled the hold. Above, lining the edges of the shattered ceiling, pandai appeared, screaming and drawing weapons – until the sky lit up and tendrils of lightning blasted the guards into dust.
Jason stepped out of the smoke on the opposite side of the throne room, his gladius in his hand.
Caligula snarled. ‘You’re one of those Camp Jupiter brats, aren’t you?’
‘I’m Jason Grace,’ he said. ‘Former praetor of the Twelfth Legion. Son of Jupiter. Child of Rome. But I belong to both camps.’
‘Good enough,’ Caligula said. ‘I’ll hold you responsible for Camp Jupiter’s treason tonight. Incitatus!’
The emperor snatched up a golden spear that was rolling across the floor. He vaulted onto his stallion’s back, charged the chasm and leaped it in a single bound. Jason threw himself aside to avoid getting trampled.
From somewhere to my left came a howl of anger. Piper McLean had risen. Her lower face was a nightmare – her swollen upper lip split across her teeth, her jaw askew, a trickle of blood coming from the edge of her mouth.
She charged Medea, who turned just in time to catch Piper’s fist in her nose. The sorceress stumbled, pinwheeling her arms as Piper pushed her over the edge of the chasm. The sorceress disappeared into the churning soup of burning fuel and seawater.
Piper shouted at Jason. She might have been saying COME ON! But all that came out was a guttural cry.
Jason was a little busy. He dodged Incitatus’s charge, parrying Caligula’s spear with his sword, but he was moving slowly. I could only guess how much energy he’d expended controlling the winds and the lightning.
‘Get out of here!’ he called to us. ‘Go!’
An arrow sprouted from his left thigh. Jason grunted and stumbled. Above us, more pandai had gathered, despite the threat of severe thunderstorms.
Piper yelled in warning as Caligula charged again. Jason just managed to roll aside. He made a grabbing gesture at the air, and a gust of wind yanked him aloft. Suddenly he sat astride a miniature storm cloud with four funnel clouds for legs and a mane that crackled with lightning – Tempest, his ventus steed.
He rode against Caligula, jousting sword versus spear. Another arrow took Jason in the upper arm.
‘I told you this isn’t a game!’ yelled Caligula. ‘You don’t walk away from me alive!’
Below, an explosion rocked the ship. The room split further apart. Piper staggered, which probably saved her life; three arrows hit the spot where she’d been standing.
Somehow, she pulled me to my feet. I was clutching the Arrow of Dodona, though I had no memory of picking it up. I saw no sign of Crest, or Meg, or even Medea. An arrow sprouted from the toe of my shoe. I was in so much pain already I couldn’t tell if it had pierced my foot or not.
Piper tugged at my arm. She pointed to Jason, her words urgent but unintelligible. I wanted to help him, but what could I do? I’d just stabbed myself in the chest. I was pretty sure that if I sneezed too hard I would displace the red plug in my wound and bleed to death. I couldn’t draw a bow or even strum a ukulele. Meanwhile, on the broken roof line above us, more and more pandai appeared, eager to help me commit arrowcide.
Piper was no better off. The fact that she was on her feet at all was a miracle – the sort of miracle that comes back to kill you later when the adrenalin wears off.
Nevertheless, how could we leave?
I watched in horror as Jason and Caligula fought, Jason bleeding from arrows in each limb now, yet somehow still able to raise his sword. The space was too small for two men on horses, yet they circled one another, trading blows. Incitatus kicked at Tempest with his golden-shod front hooves. The ventus responded with bursts of electricity that scorched the stallion’s white flanks.
As the former praetor and the emperor charged past each other, Jason met my eyes across the ruined throne room. His expression told me his plan with perfect clarity. Like me, he had decided that Piper McLean would not die tonight. For some reason, he had decided that I must live too.
He yelled again, ‘GO! Remember!’
I was slow, dumbstruck. Jason held my gaze a fraction of a second too long, perhaps to make sure that last word sank in: remember – the promise he had extracted from me a million years ago this morning, in his Pasadena dorm room.
While Jason’s back was turned, Caligula wheeled about. He threw his spear, driving its point between Jason’s shoulder blades. Piper screamed. Jason stiffened, his blue eyes wide in shock.
He slumped forward, wrapping his arms around Tempest’s neck. His lips moved, as if he was whispering something to his steed.
Carry him away! I prayed, knowing that no god would listen. Please, just let Tempest get him to safety!
Jason toppled from his steed. He hit the deck facedown, the spear still in his back, his gladius clattering from his hand.
Incitatus trotted up to the fallen demigod. Arrows continued to rain around us.
Caligula stared at me across the chasm – giving me the same displeased scowl my father used to before inflicting one of his punishments: Now look what you’ve made me do.
‘I warned you,’ Caligula said. Then he glanced at the pandai above. ‘Leave Apollo alive. He’s no threat. But kill the girl.’
Piper howled, shaking with impotent rage. I stepped in front of her and waited for death, wondering with cold detachment where the first arrow might strike. I watched as Caligula plucked out his spear, then drove it again into Jason’s back, removing any last hope that our friend might still be alive.
As the pandai drew their bows and took aim, the air crackled with charged ozone. The winds swirled around us. Suddenly Piper and I were whisked from the burning shell of the Julia Drusilla XII on the back of Tempest – the
I sobbed in despair as we shot across the surface of Santa Barbara Harbor, the sounds of explosions still rumbling behind us.
34
Surfing accident
My new euphemism for
Worst evening ever
For the next few hours, my mind deserted me.
I do not remember Tempest dropping us on the beach, though he must have done so. I recall moments of Piper yelling at me, or sitting in the surf shuddering with dry sobs, or uselessly clawing gobs of wet sand and throwing them at the waves. A few times, she slapped away the ambrosia and nectar I tried to give her.
I remember slowly pacing the thin stretch of beach, my feet bare, my shirt cold from the seawater. The plug of healing goo throbbed in my chest, leaking a little blood from time to time.
We were no longer in Santa Barbara. There was no harbour, no string of super-yachts, just the dark Pacific stretching before us. Behind us loomed a dark cliff. A zigzag of wooden stairs led up towards the lights of a house at the top.
Meg McCaffrey was there too. Wait. When did Meg arrive? She was thoroughly drenched, her clothes shredded, her face and arms a war zone of bruises and cuts. She sat next to Piper, sharing ambrosia. I suppose my ambrosia wasn’t good enough. The pandos Crest squatted some distance away at the base of the cliff, eyeing me hungrily as if waiting for his first music lesson to begin. The pandos must have done what I’d asked. Somehow, he’d found Meg, pulled her from the sea and flown her here … wherever here was.
The thing I remember most clearly is Piper saying, He’s not dead.
She said this over and over, as soon as she could manage the words, once the nectar and ambrosia tamed the swelling around her mouth. She still looked awful. Her upper lip needed stitches. She would definitely have a scar. Her jaw, chin and lower lip were one gigantic aubergine-coloured bruise. I suspected her dentist bill would be hefty. Still, she forced out the words with steady determination. ‘He’s not dead.’
Meg held her shoulder. ‘Maybe. We’ll find out. You need to rest and heal.’
I stared incredulously at my young master. ‘Maybe? Meg, you didn’t see what happened! He … Jason … the spear –’
Meg glared at me. She did not say Shut up, but I heard the order loud and clear. On her hands, her gold rings glinted, though I didn’t know how she could have retrieved them. Perhaps, like so many magic weapons, they automatically returned to their owner if lost. It would be like Nero to give his stepdaughter such clingy gifts.
‘Tempest will find Jason,’ Meg insisted. ‘We just have to wait.’
Tempest … right. After the ventus had brought Piper and me here, I vaguely remembered Piper harassing the spirit, using garbled words and gestures to order him back to the yachts to find Jason. Tempest had raced off across the surface of the sea like an electrified waterspout.
Now, staring at the horizon, I wondered if I could dare hope for good news.
My memories from the ship were coming back, piecing themselves together into a fresco more horrible than anything painted on Caligula’s walls.
The emperor had warned me: This is not a game. He was indeed not Commodus. As much as Caligula loved theatrics, he would never mess up an execution by adding glitzy special effects, ostriches, basketballs, race cars and loud music. Caligula did not pretend to kill. He killed.
‘He’s not dead.’ Piper repeated her mantra, as if trying to charmspeak herself as well as us. ‘He’s gone through too much to die now, like that.’
I wanted to believe her.
Sadly, I had witnessed tens of thousands of mortal deaths. Few of them had any meaning. Most were untimely, unexpected, undignified, and at least slightly embarrassing. The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon.
Falling in combat against an evil emperor in order to save one’s friends … that seemed all too plausible a death for a hero like Jason Grace. He’d told me what the Erythraean Sibyl said. If I hadn’t asked him to come with us –
Don’t blame yourself, said Selfish Apollo. It was his choice.
It was my quest! said Guilty Apollo. If not for me, Jason would be safe in his dorm room, sketching new shrines for obscure minor deities! Piper McLean would be unharmed, spending time with her father, preparing for a new life in Oklahoma.
Selfish Apollo had nothing to say to this, or he kept it selfishly to himself.
I could only watch the sea and wait, hoping that Jason Grace would come riding out of the darkness alive and well.
At last, the smell of ozone laced the air. Lightning flashed across the surface of the water. Tempest charged ashore, a dark form laid across his back like a saddlebag.
The wind horse knelt. He gently spilled Jason onto the sand. Piper shouted and ran to his side. Meg followed. The most horrible thing was the momentary look of relief on their faces, before it was crushed.
Jason’s skin was the colour of blank parchment, speckled with slime, sand and foam. The sea had washed away the blood, but his school shirt was stained as purple as a senatorial sash. Arrows protruded from his arms and legs. His right hand was fixed in a pointing gesture, as if he were still telling us to go. His expression didn’t seem tortured or scared. He looked at peace, as if he’d just managed to fall asleep after a hard day. I didn’t want to wake him.
Piper shook him and sobbed, ‘JASON!’ Her voice echoed from the cliffs.
Meg’s face settled into a hard scowl. She sat back on her haunches and looked up at me. ‘Fix him.’
The force of the command pulled me forward, made me kneel at Jason’s side. I put my hand on Jason’s cold forehead, which only confirmed the obvious. ‘Meg, I cannot fix death. I wish I could.’
‘There’s always a way,’ Piper said. ‘The physician’s cure! Leo took it!’
I shook my head. ‘Leo had the cure ready at the moment he died,’ I said gently. ‘He went through many hardships in advance to get the ingredients. Even then, he needed Asclepius to make it. That wouldn’t work here, not for Jason. I’m so sorry, Piper. It’s too late.’
‘No,’ she insisted. ‘No, the Cherokee always taught …’ She took a shaky breath, as if steeling herself for the pain of speaking so many words. ‘One of the most important stories. Back when man first started destroying nature, the animals decided he was a threat. They all vowed to fight back. Each animal had a different way to kill humans. But the plants … they were kind and compassionate. They vowed the opposite – that they’d each find their own way to protect people. So, there’s a plant cure for everything, whatever disease or poison or wound. Some plant has the cure. You just have to know which one!’
I grimaced. ‘Piper, that story holds a great deal of wisdom. But, even if I were still a god, I couldn’t offer you a remedy to bring back the dead. If such a thing existed, Hades would never allow its use.’
‘The Doors of Death, then!’ she said. ‘Medea came back that way! Why not Jason? There’s always a way to cheat the system. Help me!’
Her charmspeak washed over me, as powerful as Meg’s order. Then I looked at Jason’s peaceful expression.
‘Piper,’ I said, ‘you and Jason fought to close the Doors of Death. Because you knew it was not right to let the dead back into the world of the living. Jason Grace struck me as many things, but he wasn’t a cheater. Would he want you to rend the heavens and the earth and the Underworld to bring him back?’
Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘You don’t care because you’re a god. You’ll go back to Olympus after you free the Oracles, so what does it matter? You’re using us to get what you want, like all the other gods.’
‘Hey,’ Meg said, gently but firmly. ‘That won’t help.’
Piper pressed a hand on Jason’s chest. ‘What did he die for, Apollo? A pair of shoes?’
A jolt of panic almost blew out my chest plug. I’d entirely forgotten about the shoes. I tugged the quiver fro
The rolled-up sandals of Caligula tumbled onto the beach.
‘They’re here.’ I scooped them up, my hands trembling. ‘At least – at least we have them.’
Piper let out a broken sob. She stroked Jason’s hair. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s great. You can go see your Oracle now. The Oracle that got him KILLED!’
Somewhere behind me, partway up the cliff, a man’s voice cried out, ‘Piper?’
Tempest fled, bursting into wind and raindrops.
Hurrying down the cliffside stairs, in plaid pyjama pants and a white T-shirt, came Tristan McLean.
Of course, I realized. Tempest had brought us to the McLean house in Malibu. Somehow, he had known to come here. Piper’s father must have heard her cries all the way from the top of the cliff.
He ran towards us, his flip-flops slapping against his soles, sand spraying around the cuffs of his pants, his shirt rippling in the wind. His dark dishevelled hair blew in his eyes, but it did not hide his look of alarm.
‘Piper, I was waiting for you!’ he called. ‘I was on the terrace and –’
He froze, first seeing his daughter’s brutalized face, then the body lying on the sand.
‘Oh, no, no.’ He rushed to Piper. ‘What – what is –? Who –?’
Having assured himself that Piper was not in imminent danger of dying, he knelt next to Jason and put his hand against the boy’s neck, checking for a pulse. He put his ear to Jason’s mouth, checking for breath. Of course, he found none.
He looked at us in dismay. He did a double take when he noticed Crest crouched nearby, his massive white ears spread around him.
I could almost feel the Mist swirling around Tristan McLean as he attempted to decipher what he was seeing, trying to put it into a context his mortal brain could understand.