Home Is Where The Heart(h) Is

Chapter 14: Revelations

A silence hung in the air.

"Scritch." The rocks scraped each other as they were pushed aside. A young demigod soul pulled himself out from the rubble. He laid there on the solid underworld floor for a while before getting to his feet. He climbed the rocks that buried the ground like hailstones and scanned the vicinity.

The sky was purple and red, noxious gases seeping from above where the ceiling had collapsed. He saw, in the horizon, things moving towards him. Figures cloaked by the fumes. They seemed to be carrying weapons. He heard shoutings from behind him. He turned around.

Another dispatch of the same troops were coming towards his direction. A figure was pointing at him and seemed to be issuing a command. They were coming for him, whatever they were.

Cursing, he climbed down and rummaged his pockets, bringing out a pen glowing bronze from the magma pools close by. He clicked it, and a blade sprouted from it in a fraction of a second.

He heard footsteps. He ducked behind a rock, peeking out slowly from it.

Skeleton warriors, brandishing swords and shields of bone. Their heads turned around independtly from their bodies, scanning a full three hundred and sixty degrees of the area. They didn't seem to be detect him. Good, the demigod thought.

Suddenly, a voice behind him, and from above, screeched, "I found him!"

Immediately, he leaped from behind the rock and, for the first time in days, found himself yet again fighting. Except that the skeletons were not fighting him. They made no movements of hostility. He stopped, as did the skeletons.

A familiar voice spoke, "Ah, there you are, Perseus."

Percy turned. "Uncle?"

Hades smiled, but his smile was more of a grimace. "I'm glad you survived. We need to talk. Now."

~

"I was quite surprised you had died," Hades stated, "the Giants were throwing quite a party in Tartarus."

The two of them sat on debris while skeleton warriors guarded them, keeping a watchful eye on anything that moved in the silent underworld. The three Furies, one of which had been the one who had compromised Percy's position, circled overhead.

Percy looked at his uncle. He looked tired. The bags under his eyes and the wrinkles in his aged face were testament to that. His Olympian crown of studded rubies and other jewels rested on his forehead, but the enchanted precious materials beat faintly, as though it were a representation of Hades' mood.

"You're still controlling Tartarus?" Percy asked. "I would have thought that with all that was going on, Tartarus would be shut off."

Hades let out an unsteady laugh. "That's true. The primordial spirit of Tartarus has reclaimed his body, and thus lessened my control on that part of the underworld. But the Giants were rather loud with their celebrations."

"Tartarus has risen?" Percy said incredulously. The situation was getting worse and worse. "Do the other gods know?"

Hades fixated his onyx eyes on Percy's, and said, "No, they don't. This, however," he waved his hand around, "word will reach Olympus soon enough. Spirits that were already inside here and killed by falling debris...I'm not sure what happened to them. It seemed like they just disappeared. Newly deceased spirits will not be able to enter here, it seems. The gateways to here were all blocked, and I suspect not from the rocks. No, something more sinister has ostracised the Underworld from the mortal world."

"Tartarus." Percy breathed. The name sounded poisonous in his tongue.

Hades nodded. "I understand the Giants' plan now. They want to destroy the underworld. Mortal souls that die will enter their own, and my assumption is that they will go to wherever these souls went." He pointed at the ground, as though there was a soul crushed by the five hundred ton rock.