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we walked towards to palace of hades. it was much scarier up close.
the furies circled the parapets, high in the gloom. the outer walls of the fortress glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.
up close, i saw that the engravings on the gates were scenes of death. some were from modern times — an atomic bomb exploding over a city, a trench filled with gas mask-wearing soldiers, a line of african famine victims waiting with empty bowls — but all of them looked as if they'd been etched into the bronze thousands of years ago. it looked like prophecies delivered thousands of years ago.
inside the courtyard was the strangest garden i'd ever seen. and believe me, i've seen strange gardens.
multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants grew without sunlight. precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as my fist, clumps of raw diamonds. standing here and there like frozen party guests were medusa's garden statues — petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs — all smiling grotesquely.
in the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark.
i looked at percy. he looked as if he was going to walk right up and grab one.
"the garden of persephone," i told him. "keep walking."
one bite of underworld food, and we would never be able to leave.
we had to pull grover away away a few times to keep him from picking a big juicy one.
we walked up the steps of the palace, between black columns, through a black marble portico, and into the house of hades. the entry hall had a polished bronze floor, which seemed to boil in the reflected torchlight. there was no ceiling, just the cavern roof, far above. probably because they don't have to worry about rain, or snow.
