𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

77

Finding the place was easy. Hadrian led them right to it, on an abandoned stretch of hillside overlooking the ruined Forum.

Getting in was easy too. Percy's sword cut through the padlock, and the metal gate creaked open. No mortals saw them. No alarms went off. Stone steps spiraled down into the gloom.

"I'll go first," Jason said.

"Nuh uh" Hadrian yelped.

Both of them turned toward him.

"Hads, what is it?" Jason asked. "That vision... you've seen it before, haven't you?"

He looked at Percy. I won't let you drown. "I didn't know how to tell you. I saw the room down there filling with water. I saw the three of us drowning."

Jason and Percy both frowned.

"Percy-"

"I can't drown" Percy said firmly, if he was still scared, he did a good job of not showing it.

"Maybe the future has changed," Hadrian speculated. "In the image I saw again now, there wasn't any water."

He was trying to sound hopeful.

"Look," Percy said. "I'll check it out first. It's fine. Be right back."

Before Hadrian could object, he disappeared down the stairwell.

He counted silently as they waited for him to come back. Somewhere around thirty-five, they heard his footsteps, and he appeared at the top, looking more baffled than relieved.

"Good news: no water," he said. "Bad news: I don't see any exits down there. And, uh, weird news: well, you should see this...."

They descended cautiously. Percy took the lead, with Riptide drawn. Hadrian followed, and Jason walked behind him, guarding their backs. The stairwell was a cramped corkscrew of masonry, no more than six feet in diameter. Even though Percy had given the "all clear," Hadrian kept his eyes open for traps. With every turn of the stairs, he anticipated an ambush.

He had his bow and an arrow in hand. But that would be useless in such a cramped place. Annabeth had given him her cornucopia which he had on a belt. He wasn't sure what he could do with the horn, but Annabeth seemed adamant about only bringing essentials on her quest.

As they wound their way underground, Hadrian saw old graffiti gouged into the stones: Roman numerals, names and phrases in Italian. That meant other people had been down here more recently than the Roman Empire, but Hadrian wasn't reassured. If monsters were below, they'd ignore mortals, waiting for some nice juicy demigods to come along.

Finally, they reached the bottom.

Percy turned. "Watch this last step."

He jumped to the floor of the cylindrical room, which was five feet lower than the stairwell. Why would someone design a set of stairs like that? Hadrian had no idea. Maybe the room and the stairwell had been built during different time periods.

He wanted to turn and exit, but he couldn't do that with Jason behind him, and he couldn't just leave Percy down there. He clambered down, and Jason followed.

The room was just like he'd seen it in his dream, except there was no water. The curved walls had once been painted with frescoes, which were now faded to eggshell white with only flecks of color. The domed ceiling was about fifty feet above.

Around the back side of the room, opposite the stairwell, nine alcoves were carved into the wall. Each niche was about five feet off the floor and big enough for a human-sized statue, but each was empty.

The air felt cold and dry. As Percy had said, there were no other exits.

"All right." Percy raised his eyebrows. "Here's the weird part. Watch."

He stepped to the middle of the room.

Instantly, green and blue light rippled across the walls. Hadrian heard the sound of a fountain, but there was no water. There didn't seem to be any source of light except for Percy's and Jason's blades.

"Do you smell the ocean?" Percy asked.

Hadrian hadn't noticed at first. He was standing next to Percy, and he always smelled like the sea. But he was right. The scent of salt water and storm was getting stronger, like a summer hurricane approaching.

"An illusion?" he asked. All of a sudden, he felt strangely thirsty.

"I don't know," Percy said. "I feel like there should be water here—lots of water. But there isn't any. I've never been in a place like this."

Jason moved to the row of niches. He touched the bottom shelf of the nearest one, which was just at his eye level. "This stone... it's embedded with seashells. This is a nymphaeum."

Hadrian's mouth was definitely getting drier. "A what?"

"We have one at Camp Jupiter," Jason said, "on Temple Hill. It's a shrine to the nymphs."

Hadrian ran his hand along the bottom of another niche. Jason was right. The alcove was studded with cowries, conches, and scallops. The seashells seemed to dance in the watery light. They were ice-cold to the touch. He pressed two fingers to the shell Percy had given to him- the one that hung on a cord around his neck.

Hadrian had always thought of nymphs as friendly spirits—silly and flirtatious, generally harmless. They got along well with the children of Aphrodite and Eros. They loved to share gossip and beauty tips. This place, though, didn't feel like the canoe lake back at Camp Half-Blood, or the streams in the woods where Hadrian normally met nymphs. This place felt unnatural, hostile, and very dry.

Jason stepped back and examined the row of alcoves. "Shrines like this were all over the place in Ancient Rome. Rich people had them outside their villas to honor nymphs, to make sure the local water was always fresh. Some shrines were built around natural springs, but most were man-made."

"So... no actual nymphs lived here?" Hadrian asked hopefully.

"Not sure," Jason said. "This place where we're standing would have been a pool with a fountain. A lot of times, if the nymphaeum belonged to a demigod, he or she would invite nymphs to live there. If the spirits took up residence, that was considered good luck."

"For the owner," Percy guessed. "But it would also bind the nymphs to the new water source, which would be great if the fountain was in a nice sunny park with fresh water pumped in through the aqueducts—"

"But this place has been underground for centuries," Hadrian guessed. "Dry and buried. What would happen to the nymphs?"

The sound of water changed to a chorus of hissing, like ghostly snakes. The rippling light shifted from sea blue and green to purple and sickly lime. Above them, the nine niches glowed. They were no longer empty.

Standing in each was a withered old woman, so dried up and brittle they reminded Hadrian of mummies—except mummies didn't normally move. Their eyes were dark purple, as if the clear blue water of their life source had condensed and thickened inside them. Their fine silk dresses were now tattered and faded. Their hair had once been piled in curls, arranged with jewels in the style of Roman noblewomen, but now their locks were disheveled and dry as straw. If water cannibals actually existed, Hadrian thought, this is what they looked like.

"What would happen to the nymphs?" said the creature in the center niche.

She was in even worse shape than the others. Her back was hunched like the handle of a pitcher. Her skeletal hands had only the thinnest papery layer of skin. On her head, a battered wreath of golden laurels glinted in her roadkill hair.

She fixed her purple eyes on Hadrian. "What an interesting question, my dear. Perhaps the nymphs would still be here, suffering, waiting for revenge."