Caliginosity [ Leo Valdez ]

To Hell and Back

Jason wasn't sure what to hope for: storm or fire.

As he waited for his daily audience with the lord of the South Wind, he tried to decide which of the god's personalities, Roman or Greek, was worse. But after eight days in the palace, he was only certain about one thing: he and his crew were unlikely to get out of here alive.

He leaned against the balcony rail. The air was so hot and dry, it sucked the moisture right out of his lungs. Over the last week, his skin had gotten darker. His hair had turned as white as corn silk. Whenever he glanced in the mirror, he was startled by the wild, empty look in his eyes, as if he'd gone blind wandering in the desert.

A hundred feet below, the bay glittered against a crescent of red sand beach. They were somewhere on the northern coast of Africa. That's as much as the wind spirits would tell him.

The palace itself stretched out on either side of him—a honeycomb of halls and tunnels, balconies, colonnades, and cavernous rooms carved into the sandstone cliffs, all designed for the wind to blow through and make as much noise as possible. The constant pipe-organ sounds reminded Jason of the floating lair of Aeolus, back in Colorado, except here the winds seemed in no hurry.

Which was part of the problem.

On their best days, the southern venti were slow and lazy. On their worst days, they were gusty and angry. They'd initially welcomed the Argo II, since any enemy of Boreas was a friend of the South Wind, but they seemed to have forgotten that the demigods were their guests. The venti had quickly lost interest in helping repair the ship. Their king's mood got worse every day.

Down at the dock, Jason's friends were working on the Argo II. The main sail had been repaired, the rigging replaced. Now they were mending the oars. Without Leo, they were unable to repair the more complicated parts of the ship, even with the help of Buford the table and Festus (who was now permanently activated thanks to Piper's charmspeak—and none of them understood that). But they kept trying.

Hazel and Frank stood at the helm, tinkering with the controls. Piper relayed their commands to Coach Hedge, who was hanging over the side of the ship, banging out dents in the oars. Hedge was well suited for banging on things.

They didn't seem to be making much progress, but considering what they'd been through, it was a miracle the ship was in one piece.

Jason shivered when he thought about Khione's attack. He'd been rendered helpless—frozen solid not once but twice, while Leo was blasted into the sky and Piper was forced to save them all single-handedly.

Thank the gods for Piper. She considered herself a failure for not having stopped the wind bomb from exploding; but the truth was, she'd saved the entire crew from becoming ice sculptures in Quebec.

Livana had managed to direct the explosion of the icy sphere, so even though the ship had been pushed halfway across the Mediterranean, it had sustained relatively minor damage.

But now Livana was nowhere to be seen. She wouldn't leave her room at all or talk to anybody. Jason couldn't blame her, he could only imagine how hard it would be to lose Piper. And on top of that, her siblings had all been killed. He could understand why she wasn't able to keep it together. But that breakdown had been gnarly. Almost everything in the room had been sucked into some sort of nightmare vortex. Nico had to knock her out to get it to stop. Since that, she stayed in her room. But everyone could hear her crying at night. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do but try to reassure her that things would be okay.

Down at the dock, Hedge yelled. "Try it now!"

Hazel and Frank pulled some of the levers. The port oars went crazy, chopping up and down and doing the wave. Coach Hedge tried to dodge, but one smacked him in the rear and launched him into the air. He came down screaming and splashed into the bay.