Daughter of the Sea || HoO

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The next morning Tori woke to a different ship's horn—a blast so loud it literally shook her out of bed. She wondered if Leo was pulling another joke. Then the horn boomed again. It sounded like it was coming from several hundred yards away— from another vessel.

She rushed to get dressed. She threw on a random oversize hoodie she found over her pajama shorts. She looked like she wasn't wearing pants, but at that moment she didn't care. By the time she got up on deck, the others had already gathered—all hastily dressed except for Coach Hedge, who had pulled the night watch.

Frank's Vancouver Winter Olympics shirt was inside out. Percy wore pajama pants and a bronze breastplate, which was an interesting fashion statement. Hazel's hair was all blown to one side, as though she'd walked through a cyclone; and Leo had accidentally set himself on fire. His T-shirt was in charred tatters. His arms were smoking. 

About a hundred yards to port, a massive cruise ship glided past. Tourists waved at them from fifteen or sixteen rows of balconies. Some smiled and took pictures. None of them looked surprised to see an Ancient Greek trireme. Maybe the Mist made it look like a fishing boat, or perhaps the cruisers thought the Argo II was a tourist attraction. 

The cruise ship blew its hornagain, and the Argo II had a shaking fit. 

Coach Hedge plugged his ears. "Do they have to be so loud?"

 "They're just saying hi," Frank speculated. 

"WHAT?" Hedge yelled back.

The ship edged past them, heading out to sea. The tourists kept waving. If they found it strange that the Argo II was populated by half-asleep kids in armor and pajamas and a man with goat legs, they didn't let on.

"Bye!" Leo called, raising his smoking hand.

"Can I man the ballistae?" Hedge asked.

"If I say yes, can I go back to sleep?" Tori asked the satyr.

"Yes."

"No," Leo said through a forced smile, "no one is going to man  the ballistae."

Hazel rubbed her eyes and looked across the glittering greenwater. "Where are—oh...Wow."

Tori followed her gaze and gasped. She suddenly didn't feel like going back to bed. Without the cruise ship blocking their view, she saw a mountain jutting from the sea less than half a mile to the north. On one side, the limestone cliffs were almost completely sheer, dropping into the sea over a thousand feet below, as near as Tori could figure. On the other side, the mountain sloped in tiers, covered in green forest, so that the whole thing reminded Tori of a colossal sphinx, worn down over the millennia, with a massive white head and chest, and a green cloak over its back.

"The Rock of Gibraltar," Annabeth said in awe. "At the tip of Spain. And over there—" She pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills. "That must be Africa. We're at the mouth of the Mediterranean."

The morning was warm, but Tori shivered. Despite the wide stretch of sea in front of them, she felt like she was standing at an impassable barrier. Once in the Mediterranean—the Mare Nostrum—they would be in the ancient lands. If the legend swere true, their quest would become ten times more dangerous. 

"What now?" Piper asked. "Do we just sail in?"

"Why not?" Leo said. "It's a bigshipping channel. Boats go in andout all the time."

Not triremes full ofdemigods, Tori thought.

Annabeth gazed at the Rock of Gibraltar. Tori recognized that brooding expression on her best friend's face. It almost always meant that she anticipated trouble.