Annabeth Chase and the Battle of the Labyrinth

Chapter 15 - I hate choices that might lead to death

Let's be honest: I had no idea what I was doing. 

As soon as we stepped into the Labyrinth, I was lost. The tunnels kept changing designs, going from the moss covered stones like they had when we first arrived, to red brick in a pipe-line formation, to a mining like tunnel. And they changed without warning; one moment I was walking past a withered shrub on tiles and the next I was looking inside a port-hole beside bricks. But when I took a few steps to see the shrub again, it was gone and I was facing smooth concrete. It was distracting as well as dizzying. 

I tried to steer us by keeping my left hand on the left wall at all times as I'd read that was an infallible way of moving through mazes without getting lost, but as soon as I told the others my plan, the left wall disappeared and we were in a room that had eight tunnels branching off in different directions. 

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover asked nervously. 

"Just turn around," I suggested. 

I spun to what I thought was our rear while Percy went right and Grover went left. Tyson just pointed straight ahead. All the tunnels looked the same and I had no idea which one we came through. Neither did any of the others. 

"Left walls are mean," Tyson said. "Which way now?"

I inspected each archway closely, moving my flashlight over the curve and up and down the walls. Nothing jumped out at me; no mark or indication that this was the way we should go. We really were hopelessly lost. 

"That way," I decided, pointing towards an archway after having done eeny meeny miny moe in my head. 

"How do you know?" Percy asked me, looking impressed. 

I coughed. "Deductive reasoning."

"So . . . you're guessing." 

"Just come on."

In hindsight, it was a bad pick. The walls gradually sloped in so badly that we were forced to hunch over and go single file with me in the lead, Percy behind and Tyson in the rear. It got so bad for the Cyclops that he had to crawl, which just freaked Grover out more. 

"I can't stand it any more," he whispered, hyperventilating loudly. "Are we there yet?"

"We've been down here maybe five minutes," I muttered back, still questioning myself where we were actually going. 

"It's been longer than that," Grover insisted. "And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!" 

We kept shuffling forward, the only sound being Grover's loud breathing, Tyson occasionally sneezing at his proximity to Grover's fur and Percy cursing every time he kicked his foot against a protruding rock. I thought we were going to keep walking until we were crushed between the still steadily shrinking walls until I suddenly stumbled out into a huge antechamber, Percy crashing into my back as I froze. 

"Whoa," Percy said from behind me. 

The room we had stepped into was covered in beautiful ancient artwork, mostly mosaic tiles. They depicted all of the gods in all their glory; Zeus with his thunderbolt while riding on a cloud (I was pretty sure he didn't do that but eh), Poseidon with his trident, Athena in full battle kit with an owl on her shoulder, Hermes with his winged sandals. The images of the gods weren't particularly accurate - the artists had somehow made Dionysus look somewhat attractive - and they were old and faded, but still awe-inspiring. 

The salient piece of the room was a three-tiered fountain that was placed in the middle of the floor, but it was empty. And by the moss growing over it, it probably hadn't held water in a long  time.