The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, Book Three) (45 page)

They sailed out of the Colosseum and veered south over the rooftops of Rome.

All around the Piazza del Colosseo, traffic had come to a standstill. A crowd of mortals had gathered, probably wondering about the strange lights and sounds that had come from the ruins. As far as Percy could see, none of the giants’ spectacular plans for destruction had come off successfully. The city looked the same as before. No one seemed to notice the huge Greek trireme rising into the sky.

The demigods gathered around the helm. Jason bandaged Piper’s sprained shoulder while Hazel sat at the stern, feeding Nico ambrosia. The son of Hades could barely lift his head. His voice was so quiet, Hazel had to lean in whenever he spoke.

Frank and Leo recounted what had happened in the room with the Archimedes spheres, and the visions Gaea had shown them in the bronze mirror. They quickly decided that their best lead for finding Annabeth was the cryptic advice Bacchus had provided: the Emmanuel Building, whatever that was. Frank started typing at the helm’s computer while Leo tapped furiously at his controls, muttering, “Emmanuel Building. Emmanuel Building.” Coach Hedge tried to help by wrestling with an upside-down street map of Rome.

Percy knelt next to Jason and Piper. “How’s the shoulder?”

Piper smiled. “It’ll heal. Both of you did great.”

Jason elbowed Percy. “Not a bad team, you and me.”

“Better than jousting in a Kansas cornfield,” Percy agreed.

“There it is!” Leo cried, pointing to his monitor. “Frank, you’re amazing! I’m setting course.”

Frank hunched his shoulders. “I just read the name off the screen. Some Chinese tourist marked it on Google Maps.”

Leo grinned at the others. “He reads Chinese.”

“Just a tiny bit,” Frank said.

“How cool is that?”

“Guys,” Hazel broke in. “I hate to interrupt your admiration session, but you should hear this.”

She helped Nico to his feet. He’d always been pale, but now his skin looked like powdered milk. His dark sunken eyes reminded Percy of photos he’d seen of liberated prisoners-of-war, which Percy guessed Nico basically was.

“Thank you,” Nico rasped. His eyes darted nervously around the group. “I’d given up hope.”

The past week or so, Percy had imagined a lot of scathing things he might say to Nico when they met again, but the guy looked so frail and sad, Percy couldn’t muster much anger.

“You knew about the two camps all along,” Percy said. “You could have told me who I was the first day I arrived at Camp Jupiter, but you didn’t.”

Nico slumped against the helm. “Percy, I’m sorry. I discovered Camp Jupiter last year. My dad led me there, though I wasn’t sure why. He told me the gods had kept the camps separate for centuries and that I couldn’t tell anyone. The time wasn’t right. But he said it would be important for me to know…” He doubled over in a fit of coughing.

Hazel held his shoulders until he could stand again.

“I—I thought Dad meant because of Hazel,” Nico continued. “I’d need a safe place to take her. But now…I think he wanted me to know about both camps so I’d understand how important your quest was, and so I’d search for the Doors of Death.”

The air turned electric—literally, as Jason started throwing off sparks.

“Did you find the doors?” Percy asked.

Nico nodded. “I was a fool. I thought I could go anywhere in the Underworld, but I walked right into Gaea’s trap. I might as well have tried running from a black hole.”

“Um…” Frank chewed his lip. “What kind of black hole are you talking about?”

Nico started to speak, but whatever he needed to say must have been too terrifying. He turned to Hazel.

She put her hand on her brother’s arm. “Nico told me that the Doors of Death have two sides—one in the mortal world, one in the Underworld. The
mortal
side of the portal is in Greece. It’s heavily guarded by Gaea’s forces. That’s where they brought Nico back into the upper world. Then they transported him to Rome.”

Piper must’ve been nervous, because her cornucopia spit out a cheeseburger. “Where exactly in Greece is this doorway?”

Nico took a rattling breath. “The House of Hades. It’s an underground temple in Epirus. I can mark it on a map, but—but the mortal side of the portal isn’t the problem. In the Underworld, the Doors of Death are in…in…”

A cold pair of hands did the itsy-bitsy spider down Percy’s back.

A black hole.
An inescapable part of the Underworld where even Nico di Angelo couldn’t go. Why hadn’t Percy thought of this before? He’d been to the very edge of that place. He still had nightmares about it.

“Tartarus,” he guessed. “The deepest part of the Underworld.”

Nico nodded. “They pulled me into the pit, Percy. The things I saw down there…” His voice broke.

Hazel pursed her lips. “No mortal has ever been to Tartarus,” she explained. “At least, no one has ever gone in and returned alive. It’s the maximum-security prison of Hades, where the old Titans and the other enemies of the gods are bound. It’s where all monsters go when they die on the earth. It’s…well, no one knows exactly what it’s like.”

Her eyes drifted to her brother. The rest of her thought didn’t need to be spoken:
No one except Nico.

Hazel handed him his black sword.

Nico leaned on it like it was an old man’s cane. “Now I understand why Hades hasn’t been able to close the doors,” he said. “Even the gods don’t go into Tartarus. Even the god of death, Thanatos himself, wouldn’t go near that place.”

Leo glanced over from the wheel. “So let me guess. We’ll have to go there.”

Nico shook his head. “It’s impossible. I’m the son of Hades, and even I barely survived. Gaea’s forces overwhelmed me instantly. They’re so powerful down there…no demigod would stand a chance. I almost went insane.”

Nico’s eyes looked like shattered glass. Percy wondered sadly if something inside him had broken permanently.

“Then we’ll sail for Epirus,” Percy said. “We’ll just close the gates on this side.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Nico said. “The doors would have to be controlled on both sides to be closed. It’s like a double seal. Maybe, just maybe, all seven of you working together could defeat Gaea’s forces on the mortal side, at the House of Hades. But unless you had a team fighting simultaneously on the Tartarus side, a team powerful enough to defeat a legion of monsters in their home territory—”

“There has to be a way,” Jason said.

Nobody volunteered any brilliant ideas.

Percy thought his stomach was sinking. Then he realized the entire ship was descending toward a big building like a palace.

Annabeth
. Nico’s news was so horrible Percy had momentarily forgotten she was still in danger, which made him feel incredibly guilty.

“We’ll figure out the Tartarus problem later,” he said. “Is that the Emmanuel Building?”

Leo nodded. “Bacchus said something about the parking lot in back? Well, there it is. What now?”

Percy remembered his dream of the dark chamber, the evil buzzing voice of the monster called Her Ladyship. He remembered how shaken Annabeth had looked when she’d come back from Fort Sumter after her encounter with the spiders. Percy had begun to suspect what might be down in that shrine…literally, the mother of all spiders. If he was right, and Annabeth had been trapped down there alone with that creature for hours, her leg broken…At this point, he didn’t care if her quest was supposed to be solo or not.

“We have to get her out,” he said.

“Well, yeah,” Leo agreed. “But, uh…”

He looked like he wanted to say,
What if we’re too late?

Wisely, he changed tack. “There’s a parking lot in the way.”

Percy looked at Coach Hedge. “Bacchus said something about
breaking through
. Coach, you still have ammo for those ballistae?”

The satyr grinned like a wild goat. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Annabeth had reached her terror limit.

She’d been assaulted by chauvinist ghosts. She’d broken her ankle. She’d been chased across a chasm by an army of spiders. Now, in severe pain, with her ankle wrapped in boards and Bubble Wrap, and carrying no weapon except her dagger, she faced Arachne—a monstrous half-spider who wanted to kill her and make a commemorative tapestry about it.

In the last few hours, Annabeth had shivered, sweated, whimpered, and blinked back so many tears that her body simply gave up on being scared. Her mind said something like,
Okay, sorry. I can’t be any more terrified than I already am.

So instead, Annabeth started to think.

The monstrous creature picked her way down from the top of the web-covered statue. She moved from strand to strand, hissing with pleasure, her four eyes glittering in the dark. Either she was not in a hurry, or she was slow.

Annabeth hoped she was slow.

Not that it mattered. Annabeth was in no condition to run, and she didn’t like her chances in combat. Arachne probably weighed several hundred pounds. Those barbed legs were perfect for capturing and killing prey. Besides, Arachne probably had other horrible powers—a poisonous bite, or web-slinging abilities like an Ancient Greek Spider-Man.

No. Combat was not the answer.

That left trickery and brains.

In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She’d bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena’s, which had led to Mount Olympus’s first reality TV punishment program:
So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a Goddess?
Arachne had lost in a big way.

Annabeth knew something about being prideful. It was
her
fatal flaw as well. She often had to remind herself that she couldn’t do everything alone. She wasn’t
always
the best person for every job. Sometimes she got tunnel vision and forgot about what other people needed, even Percy. And she could get easily distracted talking about her favorite projects.

But could she use that weakness against the spider? Maybe if she stalled for time…though she wasn’t sure how stalling would help. Her friends wouldn’t be able to reach her, even if they knew where to go. The cavalry would not be coming. Still, stalling was better than dying.

She tried to keep her expression calm, which wasn’t easy with a broken ankle. She limped toward the nearest tapestry—a cityscape of Ancient Rome.

“Marvelous,” she said. “Tell me about this tapestry.”

Arachne’s lips curled over her mandibles. “Why do you care? You’re about to die.”

“Well, yes,” Annabeth said. “But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real golden thread for the sunbeams?”

The weaving truly was stunning. Annabeth didn’t have to pretend to be impressed.

Arachne allowed herself a smug smile. “No, child. Not gold. I blended the colors, contrasting bright yellow with darker hues. That’s what gives it a three-dimensional effect.”

“Beautiful.” Annabeth’s mind split into two different levels: one carrying on the conversation, the other madly grasping for a scheme to survive. Nothing came to her. Arachne had been beaten only once—by Athena herself, and that had taken godly magic and incredible skill in a weaving contest.

“So…” she said. “Did you see this scene yourself?”

Arachne hissed, her mouth foaming in a not-very-attractive way. “You are trying to delay your death. It won’t work.”

“No, no,” Annabeth insisted. “It just seems a shame that these beautiful tapestries can’t be seen by everyone. They belong in a museum, or…”

“Or what?” Arachne asked.

A crazy idea sprang fully formed from Annabeth’s mind, like her mom jumping out of Zeus’s noggin. But could she make it work?

“Nothing.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s a silly thought. Too bad.”

Arachne scuttled down the statue until she was perched atop the goddess’s shield. Even from that distance, Annabeth could smell the spider’s stink, like an entire bakery full of pastries left to go bad for a month.

“What?” the spider pressed. “What silly thought?”

Annabeth had to force herself not to back away. Broken ankle or no, every nerve in her body pulsed with fear, telling her to get away from the huge spider hovering over her.

“Oh…it’s just that I was put in charge of redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “You know, after the Titan War. I’ve completed most of the work, but we need a lot of quality public art. The throne room of the gods, for instance…I was thinking your work would be perfect to display there. The Olympians could finally see how talented you are. As I said, it was a silly thought.”

Arachne’s hairy abdomen quivered. Her four eyes glimmered as if she had a separate thought behind each and was trying to weave them into a coherent web.

“You’re redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “My work…in the throne room.”

“Well, other places too,” Annabeth said. “
The main pavilion could use several of these.
That one with the Greek
landscape
—
the
Nine Muses would love that. And I’m sure the other gods would be fighting over your work as well.
They’d
compete to have your tapestries in their palaces. I guess, aside
from Athena, none of the gods has ever seen what you can do?”

Arachne snapped her mandibles. “Hardly. In the old days, Athena tore up all my best work. My tapestries depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways, you see. Your mother didn’t appreciate that.”

“Rather hypocritical,” Annabeth said, “since the gods make fun of each other all the time. I think the trick would be to pit one god against another. Ares, for instance, would
love
a tapestry making fun of my mother. He’s always resented Athena.”

Arachne’s head tilted at an unnatural angle. “You would work against your own mother?”

“I’m just telling you what Ares would like,” Annabeth said. “And Zeus would love something that made fun of Poseidon. Oh, I’m sure if the Olympians saw your work, they’d realize how amazing you are, and I’d have to broker a bidding war. As for working against my mother, why shouldn’t I? She sent me here to die, didn’t she? The last time I saw her in New York, she basically disowned me.”

Annabeth told her the story. She shared her bitterness and sorrow, and it must have sounded genuine. The spider did not pounce.

“This is Athena’s nature,” Arachne hissed. “She casts aside even her own daughter. The goddess would never allow my tapestries to be shown in the palaces of the gods. She was always jealous of me.”

“But imagine if you could get your revenge at long last.”

“By killing you!”

“I suppose.” Annabeth scratched her head. “Or…by letting me be your agent. I could get your work into Mount Olympus. I could arrange an exhibition for the other gods. By the time my mother found out, it would be too late. The Olympians would finally
see
that your work is better.”

“Then you admit it!” Arachne cried. “A daughter of Athena admits I am better! Oh, this is sweet to my ears.”

“But a lot of good it does you,” Annabeth pointed out. “If I die down here, you go on living in the dark. Gaea destroys the gods, and they never realize you were the better weaver.”

The spider hissed.

Annabeth was afraid her mother might suddenly appear and curse her with some terrible affliction. The first lesson every child of Athena learned: Mom was the best at everything, and you should never,
ever
suggest otherwise.

But nothing bad happened. Maybe Athena understood that Annabeth was only saying these things to save her life. Or maybe Athena was in such in bad shape, split between her Greek and Roman personalities, that she wasn’t even paying attention.

“This will not do,” Arachne grumbled. “I cannot allow it.”

“Well…” Annabeth shifted, trying to keep her weight off her throbbing ankle. A new crack appeared in the floor, and she hobbled back.

“Careful!” Arachne snapped. “The foundations of this shrine have been eaten away over the centuries!”

Annabeth’s heartbeat faltered. “Eaten away?”

“You have no idea how much hatred boils beneath us,” the spider said. “The spiteful thoughts of
so
many monsters trying to reach the Athena Parthenos and destroy it. My webbing is the only thing holding the room together, girl! One false step, and you’ll fall all the way to Tartarus—and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I will
not
have you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork.”

Annabeth’s mouth tasted like rust.
All the way to Tartarus?
She tried to stay focused, but it wasn’t easy as she listened to the floor creak and crack, spilling rubble into the void below.

“Right, the plan,” Annabeth said. “Um…as I said, I’d
love
to take your tapestries to Olympus and hang them everywhere. You could rub your craftsmanship in Athena’s nose for all eternity. But the only way I could do that…No. It’s too difficult. You might as well go ahead and kill me.”

“No!” Arachne cried. “That is unacceptable. It no longer brings me any pleasure to contemplate. I must have my work on Mount Olympus! What must I do?”

Annabeth shook her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. Just push me into Tartarus or something.”

“I refuse!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Kill me.”

“I do not take orders from you! Tell me what I must do! Or…or—”

“Or you’ll kill me?”

“Yes! No!” The spider pressed her front legs against her head. “I
must
show my work on Mount Olympus.”

Annabeth tried to contain her excitement. Her plan might actually work…but she still had to convince Arachne to do something impossible. She remembered some good advice Frank Zhang had given her:
Keep it simple.

“I suppose I could pull a few strings,” she conceded.

“I excel at pulling strings!” said Arachne. “I’m a spider!”

“Yes, but to get your work shown on Mount Olympus, we’d need a proper audition. I’d have to pitch the idea, submit a proposal, put together a portfolio. Hmm…do you have any headshots?”

“Headshots?”

“Glossy black-and-white…Oh, never mind. The audition piece is the most important thing. These tapestries are excellent. But the gods would require something
really
special—something that shows off your talent in the extreme.”

Arachne snarled. “Are you suggesting that these are not my best work? Are you challenging me to a contest?”

“Oh, no!” Annabeth laughed. “Against me? Gosh, no. You are
much
too good. It would only be a contest against
yourself
, to see if you really have what it takes to show your work on Mount Olympus.”

“Of course I do!”

“Well, I certainly think so. But the audition, you know…it’s a formality. I’m afraid it would be very difficult. Are you sure you don’t just want to kill me?”

“Stop saying that!” Arachne screeched. “What must I make?”

“I’ll show you.” Annabeth unslung her backpack. She took out Daedalus’s laptop and opened it. The delta logo glowed in the dark.

“What is that?” Arachne asked. “Some sort of loom?”

“In a way,” Annabeth said. “It’s for weaving ideas. It holds a diagram of the artwork you would build.”

Her fingers trembled on the keyboard. Arachne lowered herself to peer directly over Annabeth’s shoulder. Annabeth couldn’t help thinking how easily those needlelike teeth could sink into her neck.

She opened her 3-D imaging program. Her last design was still up—the key to Annabeth’s plan, inspired by the most unlikely muse ever: Frank Zhang.

Annabeth did some quick calculations. She increased the dimensions of the model, then showed Arachne how it could be created—strands of material woven into strips, then braided into a long cylinder.

The golden light from the screen illuminated the spider’s face. “You want me to make that? But this is nothing! So small and simple!”

“The actual size would be much bigger,” Annabeth cautioned. “You see these measurements? Naturally it must be large enough to impress the gods. It may look simple, but the structure has incredible properties. Your spider silk would be the perfect material—soft and flexible, yet hard as steel.”

“I see…” Arachne frowned. “But this isn’t even a tapestry.”

“That’s why it’s a challenge. It’s outside your comfort zone. A piece like this—an abstract sculpture—is what the gods are looking for. It would stand in the entry hall of the Olympian throne room for every visitor to see. You would be famous forever!”

Arachne made a discontented hum in her throat. Annabeth could tell she wasn’t going for the idea. Her hands started to feel cold and sweaty.

“This would take a great deal of web,” the spider complained. “More than I could make in a year.”

Annabeth had been hoping for that. She’d calculated the mass and size accordingly. “You’d need to unravel the statue,” she said. “Reuse the silk.”

Arachne seemed about to object, but Annabeth waved at the Athena Parthenos like it was nothing. “What’s more important—covering that old statue or proving your artwork is the best? Of course, you’d have to be incredibly careful. You’d need to leave enough webbing to hold the room together. And if you think it’s too difficult—”