𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

150

Three pits lay side by side like finger holes on a recorder. Each one was perfectly round, two feet in diameter, each one plunged straight into darkness. Every few seconds, seemingly at random, one of the three pits shot a column of fire into the sky. Each time, the color and intensity of the flames were different.

"They weren't doing this before." Annabeth walked a wide arc around the pits. "There doesn't seem to be any pattern. The timing, the colour, the height of the fire... I don't get it."

"Did we activate them somehow?" Hadrian wondered. "Maybe that conversation? Fear?"

Annabeth didn't seem to hear him. "There must be some kind of mechanism... a pressure plate, a proximity alarm."

Flames shot from the middle pit. Annabeth counted silently. The next time, a geyser erupted on the left. She frowned. "That's not right. It's inconsistent. It has to follow some kind of logic."

Hadrian's ears started to ring. Something about these pits...

Each time one ignited, a horrible thrill went through him – fear, panic, but also a strong desire to get closer to the flames.

"It isn't rational," he said. "It's emotional."

"How can fire pits be emotional?"

Hadrian held his hand over the pit on the right. Instantly, flames leaped up. Hadrian barely had time to withdraw his fingers. 

"Hads!" Annabeth ran over. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't. I was feeling. What we want is down there. These pits are the way in. I'll have to jump."

"Are you crazy? Even if you don't get stuck in the tube, you have no idea how deep it is."

"You're right."

"You'll be burned alive!"

"Possibly." Hadrian grinned and slung his bow off, tossing it into the pit on the right, "I'll let you know if it's safe. Wait for my word."

"Don't you dare," Annabeth warned.

Hadrian jumped.

For a moment he was weightless in the dark, the sides of the hot stone pit burning his arms. It felt nothing like falling into Tartarus, but similar at the same time. Then the space opened up around him. Instinctively he tucked and rolled, absorbing most of the impact as he hit the stone floor.

Flames shot up in front of him, singeing his eyebrows, but Hadrian snatched up his bow and drew it before he'd even stopped rolling. A bronze dragonhead, sported an arrow in his mechanism, it wobbled across the floor.

Hadrian stood, trying to get his bearings.

Three bronze dragon statues stood in a row, aligned with the holes in the roof. Hadrian had incapacitated the middle one. The two intact dragons were each three feet tall, their snouts pointed upward and their steaming mouths open. They were clearly the source of the flames, but they didn't seem to be automatons. They didn't move or try to attack him. Hadrian calmly shot the other two, the arrows pierced their controls and wires. 

He waited.  No more flames shot upward.

"Hads?" Annabeth's voice echoed from far above like she was yelling down a chimney.

"Mostly alive, sweetheart!"

"Thank the gods!"

His eyesight adjusted to the dark. He scanned the chamber. The only light came from his glowing bow and the openings above. The ceiling was about thirty feet high. By all rights, Hadrian should've broken both legs in the fall, but he wasn't going to complain.

The chamber itself was round, about the size of a helicopter pad. The walls were made of rough-hewn stone blocks chiseled with Greek inscriptions– thousands and thousands of them, like graffiti.

At the far end of the room, on a stone dais, stood the human-sized bronze statue of a warrior– the god Ares, Hadrian guessed– with heavy bronze chains wrapped around his body, anchoring him to the floor.

On either side of the statue loomed two dark doorways, ten feet high, with a gruesome stone face carved over each archway. The faces reminded Hadrian of gorgons, except they had lions' manes instead of snakes for hair.

Hadrian suddenly felt very much alone.

"Annabeth!" he called. "It's a long drop, but it's safe to come down. Maybe... uh, you have a rope you could fasten so we can get back up?"

"On it!"

A few minutes later a rope dropped from the centre pit. Annabeth shinned down.

"Hadrian Allaire," she grumbled like an exasperated mother, "that was without a doubt the dumbest risk I've ever seen anyone take, and I know Percy. He's rubbing off on you"

Hadrian resisted the urge to make a dirty joke.

"Extremely stupid is my middle name too now I guess" Hadrian nudged the nearest dragon with his foot. "I'm guessing these are the dragons of Ares. That's one of his sacred animals, right?"

"And there's the chained god himself. Where do you think those doorways–"

Hadrian held up his hand. "Do you hear that?"

The sound was like a drumbeat... with a metallic echo.

"It's coming from inside the statue," He decided. "The heartbeat of the chained god."

Annabeth unsheathed her sword. In the dim light, her face was ghostly pale, her eyes colorless. "I – I don't like this, Hads. We need to leave."

The rational part of Hadrian agreed. His skin crawled. His legs ached to run. But something about this room felt strangely familiar...

"The shrine is ramping up our emotions," he said. "It's like being around me, except this place radiates fear, not love. That's why I started feeling overwhelmed on the hill. Down here, it's a thousand times stronger."

Annabeth scanned the walls. "Okay... we need a plan to get the statue out. Maybe haul it up with the rope, but–"

"Wait." Hadrian glanced at the snarling stone faces above the doorways. "A shrine that radiates fear. Ares had two divine sons, didn't he?"

"Ph-phobos and Deimos." Annabeth shivered. "Panic and Fear. Percy met them once in Staten Island."

Hadrian decided not to ask what the twin gods of panic and fear had been doing in Staten Island. "I think those are their faces above the doors. This place isn't just a shrine to Ares. It's a temple of fear."

Deep laughter echoed through the chamber.

On Hadrian's right, a giant appeared. He didn't come through either doorway. He simply emerged from the darkness as if he'd been camouflaged against the wall.

He was small for a giant – perhaps twenty-five feet tall, which would give him enough room to swing the massive sledgehammer in his hands. His armor, his skin and his dragon-scale legs were all the color of charcoal. Copper wires and smashed circuit boards glittered in the braids of his oil-black hair.

"Very good, child of Eros." The giant smiled. "This is indeed the Temple of Fear. And I am here to make you believers."