“Wait,” I said. “Where’s Zoë? Zoë!”
We both got up and ran around the blasted VW. Nothing inside. Nothing either direction down the road. I looked down the cliff. No sign of her.
“Zoë!” I shouted.
Then she was standing right next to me, pulling me by my arm. “Silence, fool! Do you want to wake Ladon?”
“You mean we’re here?”
“Very close,” she said. “Follow me.”
Sheets of fog were drifting right across the road. Zoë stepped into one of them, and when the fog passed, she was no longer there. Thalia and I looked at each other.
“Concentrate on Zoë,” Thalia advised. “We are following her. Go straight into the fog and keep that in mind.”
“Wait, Thalia. About what happened back on the pier…I mean, with the manticore and the sacrifice—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You wouldn’t actually have…you know?”
She hesitated. “I was just shocked. That’s all.”
“Zeus didn’t send that lightning bolt at the car. It was Kronos. He’s trying to manipulate you, make you angry at your dad.”
She took a deep breath. “Percy, I know you’re trying to make me feel better. Thanks. But come on. We need to go.”
She stepped into the fog, into the Mist, and I followed.
When the fog cleared, I was still on the side of the mountain, but the road was dirt. The grass was thicker. The sunset made a bloodred slash across the sea. The summit of the mountain seemed closer now, swirling with storm clouds and raw power. There was only one path to the top, directly in front of us. And it led through a lush meadow of shadows and flowers: the garden of twilight, just like I’d seen in my dream.
* * *
If it hadn’t been for the enormous dragon, the garden would’ve been the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colors they almost glowed in the dark. Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples, and I don’t mean yellow golden apples like in the grocery store. I mean real golden apples. I can’t describe why they were so appealing, but as soon as I smelled their fragrance, I knew that one bite would be the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.
“The apples of immortality,” Thalia said. “Hera’s wedding gift from Zeus.”
I wanted to step right up and pluck one, except for the dragon coiled around the tree.
Now, I don’t know what you think of when I say dragon. Whatever it is, it’s not scary enough. The serpent’s body was as thick as a booster rocket, glinting with coppery scales. He had more heads than I could count, as if a hundred deadly pythons had been fused together. He appeared to be asleep. The heads lay cured in a big spaghetti-like mound on the grass, all the eyes closed.
Then the shadows in front of us began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. I reached for Riptide, but Zoë stopped my hand. Four figures shimmered into existence, four young women who looked very much like Zoë. They all wore white Greek chitons. Their skin was like caramel. Silky black hair tumbled loose around their shoulders. It was strange, but I’d never realized how beautiful Zoë was until I saw her siblings, the Hesperides. They all looked just like Zoë—gorgeous, and probably very dangerous.
“Sisters,” Zoë said.
“We do not see any sister,” one of the girls said coldly. “We see two half-bloods and a Hunter. All of whom shall soon die.”
“You’ve got it wrong.” I stepped forward. “Nobody is going to die.”
The girls studied me. They had eyes like volcanic rock, glassy and completely black.
“Perseus Jackson,” one of them said.
“Yes,” mused another. “I do not see why he is a threat.”
“Who said I was a threat?”
The first Hesperid glanced behind her, toward the top of the mountain. “They fear thee. They are unhappy that this one has not yet killed thee.”
She pointed at Thalia.
“Tempting sometimes,” Thalia admitted. “But no, thanks. He’s my friend.”
“There are no friends here, daughter of Zeus,” the girl said. “Only enemies. Go back.”
“Not without Annabeth,” Thalia said.
“And Artemis,” Zoë said. “We must approach the mountain.”
“You know he will kill thee,” the girl said. “You are no match for him.”
“Artemis must be freed,” Zoë insisted. “Let us pass.”
The girl shook her head. “You have no rights here anymore. We have only to raise our voices and Ladon will wake.”
“He will not hurt me,” Zoë said.
“No? And what about thy so-called friends?”
Then Zoë did the last thing I expected. She shouted, “Ladon! Wake!”
The dragon stirred, glittering like a mountain of pennies. The Hesperides yelped and scattered. The lead girl said to Zoë, “Are you mad?”
“You never had any courage, sister,” Zoë said. “That is thy problem.”
The dragon Ladon was writing now, a hundred heads whipping around, tongues flickering and tasting the air. Zoë took a step forward, her arms raised.
“Zoë, don’t,” Thalia said. “You’re not a Hesperid anymore. He’ll kill you.”
“Ladon is trained to protect the tree,” Zoë said. “Skirt around the edges of the garden. Go up the mountain. As long as I am a bigger threat, he should ignore thee.”
“Should,” I said. “Not exactly reassuring.”
“It is the only way,” she said. “Even the three of us together cannot fight him.”
Ladon opened his mouths. The sound of a hundred heads hissing at once sent a shiver down my back, and that was before his breath hit me. The smell was like acid. It made my eyes burn, my skin crawl, and my hair stand on end. I remembered the time a rat had died inside our apartment wall in New York in the middle of the summer. This stench was like that, except a hundred times stronger, and mixed with the smell of chewed eucalyptus. I promised myself right then that I would never ask a school nurse for another cough drop.
I wanted to draw my sword. But then I remembered my dream of Zoë and Hercules, and how Hercules had failed in a head-on assault. I decided to trust Zoë’s judgment.
Thalia went left, I went right. Zoë walked straight toward the monster.
“It’s me, my little dragon,” Zoë said. “Zoë has come back.”
Ladon shifted forward, then back. Some of the mouths closed. Some kept hissing. Dragon confusion. Meanwhile, the Hesperides shimmered and turned into shadows. The voice of the eldest whispered, “Fool.”
“I used to feed thee by hand,” Zoë continued, speaking in a soothing voice as she stepped toward the golden tree. “Do you still like lamb’s meat?”
The dragon’s eyes glinted.
Thalia and I were about halfway around the garden. Ahead, I could see a single rocky trail leading up to the back peak of the mountain. The storm swirled above it, spinning on the summit like it was the axis for the whole world.
We’d almost made it out of the meadow when something went wrong. I felt the dragon’s mood shift. Maybe Zoë got too close. Maybe the dragon realized he was hungry. Whatever the reason, he lunged at Zoë.
Two thousand years of training kept her alive. She dodged one set of slashing fangs and tumbled under another, weaving through the dragon’s heads as she ran in our direction, gagging from the monster’s horrible breath.
I drew Riptide to help.
“No!” Zoë panted. “Run!”
The dragon snapped at her side, and Zoë cried out. Thalia uncovered Aegis, and the dragon hissed. In his moment of indecision, Zoë sprinted past us up the mountain, and we followed.
The dragon didn’t try to pursue. He hissed and stomped the ground, but I guess he was well trained to guard that tree. He wasn’t going to be lured off, even by the tasty prospect of eating some heroes.
We ran up the mountain as the Hesperides resumed their song in the shadows behind us. The music didn’t sound so beautiful to me now—more like the sound track for a funeral.
* * *
At the top of the mountain were ruins, blocks of black granite and marble as big as houses. Broken columns. Statues of bronze that looked as though they’d been half melted.
“The ruins of Mount Othrys,” Thalia whispered in awe.
“Yes,” Zoë said. “It was not here before. This is bad.”
“What’s Mount Othrys?” I asked, feeling like a fool as usual.
“The mountain fortress of the Titans,” Zoë said. “In the first war, Olympus and Othrys were the two rival capitals of the world. Othrys was—” She winced and held her side.
“You’re hurt,” I said. “Let me see.”
“No! It is nothing. I was saying…in the first war, Othrys was blasted to pieces.”
“But…how is it here?”
Thalia looked around cautiously as we picked our way through the rubble, past blocks of marble and broken archways. “It moves in the same way Olympus moves. It always exists on the edges of civilization. But the fact that it is here, on this mountain, is not good.”
“Why?”
“This is Atlas’s mountain,” Zoë said. “Where he holds—” She froze. Her voice was ragged with despair. “Where he used to hold up the sky.”
We had reached the summit. A few yards ahead of us, gray clouds swirled in a heavy vortex, making a funnel cloud that almost touched the mountaintop, but instead rested on the shoulders of a twelve-year-old girl with auburn hair and a tattered silvery dress: Artemis, her legs bound to the rock with celestial bronze chains. This is what I had seen in my dream. It hadn’t been a cavern roof that Artemis was forced to hold. It was the roof of the world.
“My lady!” Zoë rushed forward, but Artemis said, “Stop! It is a trap. You must leave now.”
Her voice was strained. She was drenched in sweat. I had never seen a goddess in pain before, but the weight of the sky was clearly too much for Artemis.
Zoë was crying. She ran forward despite Artemis’s protests, and tugged at the chains.
A booming voice spoke behind us: “Ah, how touching.”
We turned. The General was standing there in his brown silk suit. At his side were Luke and half a dozen dracaenae bearing the golden sarcophagus of Kronos. Annabeth stood at Luke’s side. She had her hands cuffed behind her back, a gag in her mouth, and Luke was holding the point of his sword to her throat.
I met her eyes, trying to ask her a thousand questions. There was just one message she was sending me, though. RUN.
“Luke,” Thalia snarled. “Let her go.”
Luke’s smile was weak and pale. He looked even worse than he had three days ago in D.C. “That is the General’s decision, Thalia. But it’s good to see you again.”
Thalia spat at him.
The General chuckled. “So much for old friends. And you, Zoë. It’s been a long time. How is my little traitor? I will enjoy killing you.”
“Do not respond,” Artemis groaned. “Do not challenge him.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “You’re Atlas?”
The General glanced at me. “So, even the stupidest of heroes can finally figure something out. Yes, I am Atlas, the general of the Titans and terror of the gods. Congratulations. I will kill you presently, as soon as I deal with this wretched girl.”
“You’re not going to hurt Zoë,” I said. “I won’t let you.”
The General sneered. “You have no right to interfere, little hero. This is a family matter.”
I frowned. “A family matter?”
“Yes,” Zoë said bleakly. “Atlas is my father.”
SEVENTEEN
I PUT ON A FEW MILLION
EXTRA POUNDS
The horrible thing was: I could see the family resemblance. Atlas had the same regal expression as Zoë, the same cold proud look in his eyes that Zoë sometimes got when she was mad, though on him it looked a thousand times more evil. He was all the things I’d originally dislike about Zoë, with none of the good I’d come to appreciate.
“Let Artemis go,” Zoë ordered.
Atlas walked closer to the chained goddess. “Perhaps you’d like to take the sky for her, then? Be my guest.”
Zoë opened her mouth to speak, but Artemis said, “No! Do not offer, Zoë! I forbid you.”
Atlas smirked. He knelt next to Artemis and tried to touch her face, but the goddess bit at him, almost taking off his fingers.
“Hoo-hoo,” Atlas chuckled. “You see, daughter? Lady Artemis likes her new job. I think I will have all the Olympians take turns carrying my burden, once Lord Kronos rules again, and this is the center of our palace. It will teach those weaklings some humility.”
I looked at Annabeth. She was desperately trying to tell me something. She motioned her head toward Luke. But all I could do was stare at her. I hadn’t noticed before, but something about her had changed. Her blond hair was now streaked with gray.
“From holding the sky,” Thalia muttered, as if she’d read my mind. “The weight should’ve killed her.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t Artemis just let go of the sky?”
Atlas laughed. “How little you understand, young one. This is the point where the sky and the earth first met, where Ouranos and Gaia first brought forth their mighty children, the Titans. The sky still yearns to embrace the earth. Someone must hold it at bay, or else it would crush down upon this place, instantly flattening the mountain and everything within a hundred leagues. Once you have taken the burden, there is no escape.” Atlas smiled. “Unless someone else takes it from you.”
He approached us, studying Thalia and me. “So these are the best heroes of the age, eh? Not much of a challenge.”
“Fight us,” I said. “And let’s see.”
“Have the gods taught you nothing? An immortal does not fight a mere mortal directly. It is beneath our dignity. I will have Luke crush you instead.”
“So you’re another coward,” I said.
Atlas’s eyes glowed with hatred. With difficulty, he turned his attention to Thalia.
“As for you, daughter of Zeus, it seems Luke was wrong about you.”
“I wasn’t wrong,” Luke managed. He looked terribly weak, and he spoke every word as if it were painful. If I didn’t hate his guts so much, I almost would’ve felt sorry for him. “Thalia, you still can join us. Call the Ophiotaurus. It will come to you. Look!”
He waved his hand, and next to us a pool of water appeared: a pond ringed in black marble, big enough for the Ophiotaurus. I could imagine Bessie in that pool. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure I could hear Bessie mooing.
Don’t think about him! Suddenly Grover’s voce was inside my mind—the empathy link. I could feel his emotions. He was on the verge of panic. I’m losing Bessie. Block the thoughts!
I tried to make my mind go blank. I tried to think about basketball players, skateboards, the different kinds of candy in my mom’s shop. Anything but Bessie.
“Thalia, call the Ophiotaurus,” Luke persisted. “And you will be more powerful than the gods.”
“Luke…” Her voice was full of pain. “What happened to you?”
“Don’t you remember all those times we talked? All those times we cursed the gods? Our fathers have done nothing for us. They have no right to rule the world!”
Thalia shook her head. “Free Annabeth. Let her go.”
“If you join me,” Luke promised, “it can be like old times. The three of us together. Fighting for a better world. Please, Thalia, if you don’t agree…”
