Warriors of Wisdom

Chapter Seven

I'm usually the kind of person that can wake up right after having a bad dream. That didn't apply to this dream. All of a sudden I was in a temple, with very little light. The only light in the room came from a glowing aura in the middle of the temple. I couldn't see it clearly, but I could see two large people kneeling in front of it: the Cyclops that I encountered in Pittsburgh.

"You have failed me," It had the voice of a woman, except it was deep and hollow, and it sounded like there were three voices speaking and echoing at the same time, "You were supposed to get the girl!"

One of the Cyclops winced. "We're sorry, My Lady. We tried to get her, we really did! But then she scared us away!"

The lady roared with fury. "WHAT? Two all-powerful Greek monsters, and you were scared away by a puny thirteen year old girl! What about the Laistrygonian giant? Any luck with him?"

The other Cyclops spoke up. "He ran away as well. That girl has special powers, beyond anything we have ever seen!"

"I should've known," the lady said, "This girl is the next one, I am sure of it. If she gets out of our clutches, it'll be the end of us!" Her image became clearer. She was wearing a dark dress that flowed behind her, like a bridal train. The dress was torn and shredded, and very dark blue: the color of the night. Her dark, black hair fell behind her with a hood covering most of her face. It was too dark to distinguish any vivid details, but the thing that I noticed the most were her eyes. They were a piercing shade of black, but they seemed to glow. There were no irises. She scared the bejesus out of me.

She growled. "We will not let this girl be our downfall. Her powers and her wits combined are enough to bring us to our knees, I can sense it. She has a very strong aura of power." I thought that was weird. I wasn't feeling very powerful.

One of the Cyclopes gulped. "My Lady, we can get the girl, I promise. We can capture someone, someone that matters to her very much, and use them as bait. It will lead her right to us."

She hissed. "Do you have any idea how much this idea has been used in the past? Do you know how many times it has failed? No, I will think of a way to get the girl myself. I shall have you two buffoons executed while I'm at it."

The Cyclopes bowed down even more and started sobbing. "Please, no! We will get the girl, we promise on the River Styx!" Thunder rumbled around them. This seemed to get the attention of their mistress.

"Oh really? Well, I guess you can get the girl yourselves. And if you fail, well, it won't be my fault you die. Go!" She disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. The Cyclopes scrambled to their feet and shuffled out of the temple nervously. When they got out of the temple, they turned towards me. For a minute I thought that they were going to take me to their mistress and have her rip me apart, but one of them spoke in the voice of Jordan saying, "Callisto, wake up!" I woke up with a start, because Jordan, Zach, and Sean were shaking me, worried looks on their faces.

...

I rubbed my eyes and stretched. "Hey guys," I said with a yawn. I looked outside. The sun was just starting to rise. "Why are we up so early?" I really wasn't a morning person.

They all seemed tired as well, but the worried looks have not left their faces. Jordan yawned and said, "I'll let Sean explain. He's the one who's got the most evidence."

Sean stretched, and began telling the story. "So, about an hour ago, I really had to use the bathroom, so I went. When I got out of the bathroom, I looked around at all of you guys sleeping. And that's when I found that." He pointed to the bunk all the way in the back of the cabin: Asher's bunk.

The reason why they were all worried suddenly dawned on me. "Where's Asher?" I asked.

Zach walked over to his bed. "We don't know. He's never up this early. All he left was this." He showed me a small note that read: Help. Not much time. Look for the signs. Find me. Bring me back. From, Asher.

I was so confused. "What does he mean? Look for the signs? What signs?"

"I think I know what he's talking about," Jordan said, "but it's what we've been fearing he'd do."

"You don't mean--" Sean started.

"Yes. I'm sure of it." Jordan turned back to me. "Asher has gone looking for the Mark.

"The Mark? What's that?" I felt like a kindergartener asking stupid and obvious questions.

Jordan beckoned me to follow her to the table, where a drawing of an owl layed. It had the same Greek letters like the ones outside. "This is the Mark of Athena. It is usually something our mother gives very few every generation to find something very important to her. We all just grew to believe that it was just a myth and it didn't exist. But Asher thought differently. He believed that there was still a quest out there, a dangerous journey to find something that belonged to our mother. We tried to convince him that the journey was not worth it, but he still has his beliefs. Most likely, he found something that he thought was the Mark of Athena, and followed it outside of camp. This is bad. For all we know, he's going out into the mortal world with no weapons or protection, and it's against camp rules to go out on your own without an actual quest assigned by camp. He could've been captured, or even killed. We have to tell Chiron. NOW."

We all hastily got ready and headed out the door. We ran over the Big House. Everyone was still asleep. I knocked on the door. After about five minutes, Chiron came trotting out, stretching his human arms.

"Well," he yawned, "What brings you four here today? And it is only," he checked his watch, "6:15 in the morning."

"Asher's missing." I said. This seemed to have woken him up more.

"Come inside," he gestured for us to follow him, "We'll talk about it in here. We don't want to wake the other campers." We followed him inside and sat down on the couches in the meeting room. "Alright. Can one of you please explain to me anything you know about his disappearance?"

Sean told his part of the story. When he was done, Zach showed him the note.

Chiron frowned, "I do not like the sound of this. Follow the signs."

Jordan spoke, "We think Asher has gone to follow the Mark of Athena. We all know it has already been found, but Asher still believes that there is still more out there, more that our mom left for us."

"Hmm. Yes, Asher has been thinking that lately. Anything else that might connect to his sudden disappearance? Any dreams, maybe?"

I thought about the dream I was having when my siblings woke me up. "I had a dream last night, Chiron. Maybe there were clues in it that I didn't realize."

I recounted my dream: the two Cyclops, their mistress, the plans that they had.

"I think I have an idea," Zach said, "But it's not a very nice idea. In the dream, Callisto said that the Cyclops were going to use someone she's very close to to lure her into their hands. What if they used Asher to get her?"

There was silence. Uncomfortable, painful silence. I wasn't that close to many people, other than my dad, but Asher made sense. I'd only known him for a short amount of time, but he already felt like the brother that he was to me. Even the new siblings I had just met: Sean, Zach, and Jordan, they already seemed like family to me. Probably because they were family. But I felt like I should protect them, like good siblings do. I should do the same with Asher. It infuriated me that I was the reason that he disappeared.

Chiron cleared his throat to break the silence. "I'm afraid, Zach might be right. They may have set up a trick to bring Asher to them, so that Callisto would try and follow them."

Sean sighed, "So, Chiron, what do we do? We can't just leave Asher there!"

"No we cannot, Sean. But I am afraid that we must assign a quest to find him."

I was puzzled, as always. "A quest? What's that supposed to mean?"

"A quest is when we send three campers to look for something," Chiron said, "We send you out with a prophecy and some supplies, but we can't do any more than that." That made me worried.

"Well," I started, "Who's going on this quest?"

"You," they all said at the same time.

"What?" I exclaimed, "Why me?"

"Because you're the one who had the dream," Zach explained, "You'll be able to find the temple, maybe even where Asher is being kept."

"But Chiron, isn't this what the giants want? For me to go find Asher so that they can bring me to their master to have her destroy me? And I just got to this camp yesterday. What do I have besides a dream that can save him?"

"There are many cases in which demigods have gone on quests upon their arrival at camp." Chiron said. "And you have more than a dream that can save Asher."

"And what is that?" I asked.

Chiron smiled. "Your powers."

"My powers?" My siblings looked around at each other.

"But Chiron, there is no child of Athena that has had any special powers besides wisdom and useful arts!" Jordan explained.