Percy Jackson Meet The Underland

The Labyrinth

Guided by what he remembered of the Labyrinth before his nose was injured, Donar led them through the maze. Almost at once, the tunnel began to divide. Some paths led to intersections that branched off into four or five directions. Others twisted around like a corkscrew so that it took ten minutes to cover the distance you could've walked in one of the paths had been straight. As they moved farther into the maze, the tunnels became even more unpredictable. A narrow passage they could barely squeeze through would suddenly open onto a huge cavern that in turn would lead to an obstacle course of boulders.

They headed down a middle tunnel and after about twenty minutes arrived in a large, circular cavern. It was almost perfectly cone-shaped, with the walls slanting up fifty feet to meet at a single point at the top. Around the base, at least a dozen tunnels led out from it like the spokes on a bicycle wheel.

"Oh, great," said Percy. "Now which way?"

Mars had no idea. "But, Overlander, it has been many hours since we fed. If we are to continue, we must eat."

When had they last eaten? Percy tried to think back — back through the time with Donar, through the Leviathan attack, through Temp's voice waking him, through the night to that evening when they were all together. He'd eaten a slab of raw fish and given Nico all his bread and meat.

The ice sealed back over his chest.

"You're right. We have to eat," Howard said and opened the pack. They sat on the stone floor, choking down the dry food, washing it down with water from a leather bag that looked like a wineskin.

We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks and groans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together as tunnels changed, grew, and expanded. 

"Nico and they are down here is down here somewhere," I said. 

Gregor was quiet for a long time. "Percy, I hope you're wrong. But if you're right..." he stared at the flashlight beam, casting a dim circle on the stone wall. I had a feeling he was thinking about the prophecy. I'd never seen him look more tired.

"How about I take first watch?" I said. "I'll wake you if anything happens."

The group looked like they wanted to protest, but they just nodded, slumped into their bedrolls, and closed their eyes.

***

When it was my turn to sleep, I dreamed I was in the guy's Labyrinth prison.

It looked more like a workshop. Tables were littered with measuring instruments. A forge burned red hot in the corner.  A weird funnel device was attached to the forge's chimney, trapping the smoke and heat and channeling it through a pipe into the floor, next to a big bronze manhole cover.

It was daytime. The sky above was blue, but the walls of the maze cast deep shadows across the workshop. After being in tunnels so long, I found it weird that part of the Labyrinth could be open to the sky. Somehow that made the maze seem like even a crueler place.

The old man looked sickly. He was thin, his hands raw and red from working. White hair covered his eyes, and his tunic was smudged with grease. He was bent over a table, working on some kind of long metal patchwork—like a swath of chain mail. He picked up a delicate curl of bronze and fitted it into place.

"Done," he announced. "It's done."

He picked up his project. It was so beautiful, my heart leaped—metal wings constructed from thousands of interlocking bronze feathers. There were two sets. One still lay on the table. The guy stretched the frame, and the wings expanded twenty feet. Part of me knew it could never fly. It was too heavy, and there'd be no way to get off the ground. But the craftsmanship was amazing. Metal feathers caught the light and flashed thirty different shades of gold.

The man attached a leather harness to his chest, like climbing gear, with straps that ran from his shoulders to his wrists. Then he began fastening on the wings, using a metal canister that looked like an enormous hot-glue gun.

"The wax compound should hold for several hours," The man said nervously as he worked. "But we must let it set first. And we would do well to avoid flying too high or too low. The sea would wet the wax seals—"

It was slow going. The old man's hands fumbled with the straps. He had a hard time keeping the wings in position while he sealed them. His metal wings seemed to weigh him down, getting in his way while he tried to work.

"Too slow," the old man muttered. "I am too slow."

BOOM!

The workshop doors shuddered. The man had barred them from the inside with a wooden brace, but still, they shook on their hinges.

BOOM! BOOM!

Something heavy was slamming into the doors. The brace held, but a crack appeared in the left door.

The man worked furiously.

CRASH! The doors splintered and the head of a bronze battering ram emerged through the breach. Axes cleared the debris, and two armed guards entered the room, followed by the king with the golden crown and the spear-shaped beard.

"Well, well," the rat king said with a cruel smile. "Going somewhere?"

The man froze, his metal wings glimmering on his back.