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Bab 187: The quest

"That's some serious danger you're facing," Connor Stoll said. (Drako loved how he said you and not we.) "It sounds like at least one of the six are going to die, maybe even two."

"Drako, be careful," Silena said. "You have to be the one to kill the other dragon."

She sounded really worried.

"I know," Drako said.

"And the Titan's curse must one withstand," Beckendorf said. "What could that mean?"

Drako saw Chiron and Zoë exchange a nervous look, but, whatever they were thinking, they didn't share it.

"One shall perish by a parent's hand," Grover said in between bites of Cheez Whiz and Ping-Pong balls. "How is that possible? Whose parent would kill them?"

There was heavy silence around the table.

"There will be deaths," Chiron decided. "That much we know."

"Oh, goody!" Dionysus said.

Everyone looked at him. He glanced up innocently from the pages of Wine Connoisseur magazine. "Ah, pinot noir is making a comeback. Don't mind me."

"Percy is right," Silena said. "Two campers should go."

"Oh, I see," Zoe said sarcastically. "And I suppose you wish to volunteer?"

Silena blushed. "I'm not going anywhere with the Hunters. Don't look at me!"

"A daughter of Aphrodite does not wish to be looked at," Zoe scoffed. "What would thy mother say?"

Silena started to get out of her chair, but the Stoll brothers pulled her back.

"Stop it," Beckendorf said. He was a big guy with a bigger voice. He didn't talk much, but when he did, people tended to listen. "Let's start with the Hunters. Which three of you will go?"

Zoë stood. "I shall go, of course, and I will take Phoebe. She is our best tracker."

"The big girl who likes to hit people on the head?" Travis Stoll asked cautiously.

Zoe nodded.

"The one who put the arrows in my helmet?" Connor added…

"Yes," Zoe snapped. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Travis said. "Just that we have a T-shirt for her from the camp store." He held up a big silver T-shirt that said ARTEMIS DE MOON GODDESS, FALL HUNTING TOUR 2002, with a huge list of national parks and stuff underneath. "It's a collector's item. She was admiring it. You want to give it to her?"

Drako didn't know well the Stoll brothers, but it was enough with what had happened before on the game. They were up to something, Drako was sure of that. But Zoë didn't realise anything, and Drako wasn't going to help her. She just sighed and took the T-shirt. "As I was saying, I will take Phoebe. And I wish Bianca to go."

Bianca looked stunned. "Me? But… I'm so new. I wouldn't be any good."

"You will do fine," Zoë insisted. "There is no better way to prove thyself."

"Hey, what about Thalia?" Drako asked.

It was so strange, Zoë didn't even mentioned her.

"Her circumstances are strange, just like you," Zoë said. "She was still a camper when the year started, so she is officially both a camper and a hunter. That's the reason why she still sleeps on Zeus' cabin."

"Hey, that's wasn't we accorded," Percy protested.

"No, Percy, she is right," Chiron said.

"Still, I don't think that bringing Bianca with us is going to be a good idea," Drako said.

"I'm the one who takes decisions here, dragon."

Drako shrugged.

Percy was going to protest again, but a look from Chiron shut his mouth off.

"And for campers?" Chiron asked.

"Me!" Grover stood up so fast he bumped the Ping-Pong table. He brushed cracker crumbs and Ping-Ping ball scraps off his lap. "Anything to help Artemis!"

Zoë wrinkled her nose. "I think not, satyr. You are not even a half-blood."

"But he is a camper," Thalia said. "And he's got a satyr's senses and woodland magic. Can you play a tracker's song yet, Grover?"

"Absolutely!"

Zoe wavered. Drako didn't know what a tracker's song was, but apparently Zoë thought it was a good thing.

"Very well," Zoe said. "And the second camper?"

Zoë looked straight to Thalia; it was obvious who she wanted to join the team.

"I'll go." Thalia stood and looked around, daring anyone to question her.

It was obvious that no one was happy with that.

"Whoa, wait a sec," Percy said. "I want to go too."

Thalia said nothing. Chiron was studying Percy, his eyes sad.

Drako looked at him with pity. He understood why Percy wanted to join more than anyone else, but he was certainly the weakest (not counting Grover and Bianca).

The truth was that Drako would rather take him than Bianca, but he couldn't say anything in this case.

"Oh," Grover said, suddenly aware of the problem. "Whoa, yeah, I forgot! Percy has to go. I didn't mean… I��ll stay. Percy should go in my place."

"He cannot," Zoe said. "He is a boy. I won't have Hunters traveling with a boy."

"Oh, so now I'm no longer a boy," Drako commented.

Zoe gave Drako a hard look. "Thy're an exception, and thy know it."

"You travelled here with me," Percy reminded her.

"That was a short-term emergency, and it was ordered by the goddess. I will not go across country and fight many dangers in the company of a male half-blood."

Smart girl, she changed her words.

"What about Grover?" Percy demanded.

Zoe shook her head. "He doesn't count. He's a satyr. He is not technically a boy."

"Hey!" Grover protested.

"I have to go," Percy said. "I need to be on this quest."

"Why?" Zoe asked. "Because of thy friend Annabeth?"

Percy blushed. "No! I mean, partly. I just feel like I'm supposed to go!"

Nobody rose to his defence. Dionysus looked bored, still reading his magazine. Silena, the Stoll brothers, and Beckendorf were staring at the table. Bianca gave him a look of pity.

"No," Zoe said flatly. "I insist upon this. I will take a satyr if I must, but not a male hero."

Chiron sighed. "The quest is for Artemis. The Hunters should be allowed to approve their companions."

"So be it," Chiron finally said. "Thalia and Grover will accompany Zoe, Bianca, Phoebe and Drako. You shall leave at first light. And may the gods"—he glanced at Dionysus—"present company included, we hope—be with you."

................................................…

Percy didn't show up at dinner that night.

Chiron, Grover and Drako came looking for him at his cabin. Chiron and Grover knew Percy for some years and were worried for him, Drako just thought that he has to talk to the guy.

"Percy, I'm so sorry!" Grover said, sitting next to him on the bunk. "I didn't know they'd—that you'd—Honest!"

He started to sniffle.

"It's okay," Percy was obviously lying. "Really. It's fine."

Grover's lower lip trembled. "I wasn't even thinking… I was so focused on helping Artemis. But I promise, I'll look everywhere for Annabeth. If I can find her, I will."

"Grover," Chiron said, "perhaps you'd let me have a word with Percy?"

"Sure," he sniffled.

Chiron waited, "Oh," Grover said. "You mean alone. Sure, Chiron," He looked at Percy miserably. "See? Nobody needs a goat."

He trotted out the door, ignoring Drako's presence and blowing his nose on his sleeve.

Chiron sighed and knelt on his horse legs. "Percy, I don't pretend to understand prophecies."

"Yeah," Percy said. "Well, maybe that's because they don't make any sense."

Chiron gazed at the saltwater spring gurgling in the corner of the room. "Thalia would not have been my first choice to go on this quest. She's too impetuous. She acts without thinking. She is too sure of herself."

"Would you have chosen men?"

"Frankly, no," he said. "You and Thalia are much alike."

"Thanks a lot."

He smiled. "The difference is that you are less sure of yourself than Thalia. That could be good or bad. But one thing I can say: both of you together would be a dangerous thing."

"We could handle it."

"Perhaps it's for the best," Chiron mused. "You can go home to your mother for the holidays. If we need you, we can call."

"Yeah," he said. "Maybe."

Percy pulled out Riptide out of his pocket and set it on his nightstand. Riptide is his pen that can transforms into a sword.

When he saw the pen, Chiron grimaced. "It's no wonder Zoe doesn't want you along, I suppose. Not while you're carrying that particular weapon."

"What do you mean?" Drako asked for the first time that night.

Percy and Chiron turned to Drako. He was so silent that they almost forgot that he was there.

"It's an old story. So old that even some old people like me had started to forgot it," Chiron answered. "So, what do you think, dragon?"

"I would choose Percy instead of Bianca," Drako said. "I don't know what Zoe was thinking back then."

"Maybe is as you think," Chiron said. "But is not that simple. Zoë has been the only lieutenant for a long time in the Hunters, she probably wants Bianca to be another one. Is the same with Thalia."

"I see," Drako nodded. "But that's not enough reason for me. I think that Zoë is making a mistake."

"And for you, Percy," Drako turned to the son of Poseidon. "I understand what are you feeling right now. I will be the same if one of my girls disappear, or maybe even worse than you. You have a bright future ahead of you, I'm sure of it. Slap the faces of the people who didn't believed in you."

Drako thought of inviting Percy to his group, Akatsuki, but it would be awkward to do so in front of Chiron.

Percy muttered a "thanks" towards Drako's words of encouragement, but he was still on a bad mood.

Chiron pulled a golden drachma from his saddlebag and tossed it to Percy. "Call your mother, Percy. Let her know you're coming home in the morning. And, ah, for what it's worth… I almost volunteered for this quest myself. I would have gone, if not for the last line."

"One shall perish by a parent's hand. Yeah."

Yeah, Chiron's dad was Kronos, the evil Titan Lord himself. The line would make perfect sense if Chiron went on the quest. Kronos didn't care for anyone, including his own children.

"Chiron," Drako said. "You know what this Titan's curse is, don't you?"

His face darkened. He made a claw and pushed outward—an ancient gesture for warding off evil. "Let us hope the prophecy does not mean what I think. Now, good night Percy. And your time will come. I'm convinced of that. There's no need to rush. Now, dragon, I want to talk with you."

Chiron leave the cabin, but Drako stayed a little bit more.

"If Annabeth is not dead, I will do everything to rescue her. I promise."

Percy didn't even lift his head.

....................................

"So, what do you want, Chiron?" Drako asked to the centaur.

The Centaur turned to look at Drako.

"What is your objective?"

Chiron asked a simple question. Drako understood that that was all this man wanted to know about him.

"Hunt," Drako replied. "The more powerful the prey, the better. Gods, Titans, monsters... I just want to hunt and keep hunting. That's why I joined the Hunters, to hunt."

"Just that?" he asked.

"Your life is directly related to being a teacher, isn't it?" Drako said. "That's why Zeus gave you back your immortality, so you could teach more demigods."

"That's right," Chiron didn't hide it.

"Well, my life is directly related to the hunt," Drako said. "I have to hunt, and keep hunting. Otherwise, I won't be strong enough to survive."

Chiron didn't understand the last thing Drako said. But the answer was enough for him.

"If you stay on our side, I assure you, you will be able to hunt many monsters and the occasional titan," Chiron said. "I can't say the same for the other side."

Drako smiled, understanding what Chiron meant. He was trying to convince him that his side was better than the other.

"I know," Drako nodded. "That's why I joined Artemis, isn't it?"

Without waiting for Chiron's answer, Drako left back to cabin number one.


Bab 188: Percy rescues an water cow.

(This chapter is about Percy, but it's necessary for the plot. I think that most of the people hasn't read Percy Jacskon's novels, so they won't understand anything if I don't show this. I will post two chapters, so don't worry.)

(Btw, it's written in Percy's POV. If you have already read the novel, you can skip the chapter.)

I don't remember falling asleep, but I remember the dream.

I was back in that barren cave, the ceiling heavy and low above me. Annabeth was kneeling under the weight of a dark mass that looked like a pile of boulders. She was too tired even to cry out. Her legs trembled. Any second, I knew she would run out of strength and the cavern ceiling would collapse on top of her.

"How is our mortal guest?" a male voice boomed.

It wasn't Kronos. Kronos's voice was raspy and metallic, like a knife scraped across stone.

I'd heard it taunting me many times before in my dreams. But this voice was deeper and lower, like a bass guitar. Its force made the ground vibrate.

Luke emerged from the shadows. He ran to Annabeth, knelt beside her, then looked back at the unseen man. "She's fading. We must hurry."

The hypocrite. Like he really cared what happened to her.

The deep voice chuckled. It belonged to someone in the shadows, at the edge of my dream. Then a meaty hand thrust someone forward into the light—Artemis—her hands and feet bound in celestial bronze chains.

I gasped. Her silvery dress was torn and tattered. Her face and arms were cut in several places, and she was bleeding ichor, the golden blood of the gods.

"You heard the boy," said the man in the shadows. "Decide!"

Artemis's eyes flashed with anger. I didn't know why she just didn't will the chains to burst, or make herself disappear, but she didn't seem able to. Maybe the chains prevented her, or some magic about this dark, horrible place.

The goddess looked at Annabeth and her expression changed to concern and outrage.

"How dare you torture a maiden like this!"

"She will die soon," Luke said. "You can save her."

Annabeth made a weak sound of protest. My heart felt like it was being twisted into a knot.

I wanted to run to her, but I couldn't move.

"Free my hands," Artemis said.

Luke brought out his sword, Backbiter. With one expert strike, he broke the goddess's handcuffs. Artemis ran to Annabeth and took the burden from her shoulders. Annabeth collapsed on the ground and lay there shivering. Artemis staggered, trying to support the weight of the black rocks.

The man in the shadows chuckled. "You are as predictable as you were easy to beat, Artemis."

"You surprised me," the goddess said, straining under her burden. "It will not happen again."

"Indeed it will not," the man said. "Now you are out of the way for good! I knew you could not resist helping a young maiden. That is, after all, your specialty, my dear."

Artemis groaned "You know nothing of mercy, you swine."

"On that," the man said, "we can agree. Luke, you may kill the girl now."

"No!'" Artemis shouted.

Luke hesitated. "She—she may yet be useful, sir.. Further bait."

"Bah! You truly believe that?"

"Yes, General. They will come for her. I'm sure."

The man considered. "Then the dracaenae can guard her here. Assuming she does not die from her injuries, you may keep her alive until winter solstice. After that, if our sacrifice goes as planned, her life will be meaningless. The lives of all mortals will be meaningless."

Luke gathered up Annabeth's listless body and carried her away from the goddess.

"You will never find the monster you seek," Artemis said. "Your plan will fail."

"How little you know, my young goddess," the man in the shadows said. "Even now, your darling attendants begin their quest to find you. They shall play directly into my hands. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a long journey to make. We must greet your Hunters and make sure their quest is... challenging."

The man's laughter echoed in the darkness, shaking the ground until it seemed the whole cavern ceiling would collapse.

I woke with a start. I was sure I'd heard a loud banging. I looked around the cabin. It was dark outside. The salt spring still gurgled. No other sounds but the hoot of an owl in the woods and the distant surf on the beach. In the moonlight, on my nightstand was Annabeth's New York Yankees cap. I stared at it for a second and then: BANG BANG.

Someone, or something, was pounding on my door. I grabbed Riptide and got out of bed.

"Hello?" I called. THUMP. THUMP.I crept to the door.

I uncapped the blade, flung open the door, and found myself face-to-face with a black pegasus.

Whoa, boss! Its voice spoke in my mind as it clopped away from the sword blade. I don't wanna be a horse-ke-bob!

Its black wings spread in alarm, and the wind buffeted me back a step, "Blackjack," I said, relieved but a little irritated. "It's the middle of the night!"

Blackjack huffed. Ain't either, boss. It's five in the morning. What you still sleeping for?

"How many times have I told you? Don't call me boss."

Whatever you say, boss. You're the man. You're my number one. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried not to let the pegasus read my thoughts. That's the problem with being Poseidon's son: since he created horses out of sea foam, I can understand most equestrian animals, but they can understand me, too. Sometimes, like in Blackjacks case, they kind of ad-opt me.

See, Blackjack had been a captive on board Luke's ship last summer, until we'd caused a little distraction that allowed him to escape. I'd really had very little to do with it, seriously, but Blackjack credited me with saving him.

"Blackjack," I said, "you're supposed to stay in the stables."

Meh, the stables. You see Chiron staying in the stables?

"Well... no."

Exactly. Listen, we got another little sea friend needs your help.

"Again?"

Yeah. I told the hippocampi I'd come get you.

I groaned. Anytime I was anywhere near the beach, the hippocampi would ask me to help them with their problems. And they had a lot of problems. Beached whales, porpoises caught in fishing nets, mermaids with hangnails—they'd call me to come underwater and help.

"All right," I said. "I'm coming."

You're the best, boss.

"And don't call me boss!"

Blackjack whinnied softly. It might've been a laugh.

I looked back at my comfortable bed. My bronze shield still hung on the wall, dented and unusable. And on my nightstand was Annabeth's magic Yankees cap. On an impulse, I stuck the cap in my pocket. I guess I had a feeling, even then, that I wasn't coming back to my cabin for a long, long time.

............….

Blackjack gave me a ride down the beach, and I have to admit it was cool. Being on a flying horse, skimming over the waves at a hundred miles an hour with the wind in my hair and the sea spray in my face—hey, it beats waterskiing any day.

Here. Blackjack slowed and turned in a circle. Straight down.

"Thanks." I tumbled off his back and plunged into the icy sea.

I'd gotten more comfortable doing stunts like that the past couple of years. I could pretty much move however I wanted to underwater, just by willing the ocean currents to change around me and propel me along, I could breathe underwater, no problem, and my clothes never got wet unless I wanted them to.

I shot down into the darkness.

Twenty, thirty, forty feet. The pressure wasn't uncomfortable. I'd never tried to push it—to see if there was a limit to how deep I could dive. I knew most regular humans couldn't go past two hundred feet without crumpling like an aluminum can. I should've been blind, too, this deep in the water at night, but I could see the heat from living forms, and the cold of the currents. It's hard to describe. It wasn't like regular seeing, but I could tell where everything was.

As I got closer to the bottom, I saw three hippocampi—fish-tailed horses—swimming in a circle around an overturned boat. The hippocampi were beautiful to watch. Their fish tails shimmered in rainbow colors, glowing phosphorescent. Their manes were white, and they were galloping through the water the way nervous horses do in a thunderstorm. Something was upsetting them.

I got closer and saw the problem. A dark shape—some kind of animal—was wedged halfway under the boat and tangled in a fishing net, one of those big nets they use on trawlers to catch everything at once. I hated those things. It was bad enough they drowned porpoises and dolphins, but they also occasionally caught mythological animals. When the nets got tangled, some lazy fishermen would just cut them loose and let the trapped animals die.

Apparently this poor creature had been mucking around on the bottom of Long Island Sound and had somehow gotten itself tangled in the net of this sunken fishing boat. It had tried to get out and managed to get even more hopelessly stuck, shifting the boat in the pro-cess. Now the wreckage of the hull, which was resting against a big rock, was teetering and threatening to collapse on top of the tangled animal.

The hippocampi were swimming around frantically, wanting to help but not sure how. One was trying to chew the net, but hippocampi teeth just aren't meant for cutting rope. Hippocampi are really strong, but they don't have hands, and they're not (shhh) all that smart.

Free it, lord! A hippocampus said when it saw me. The others joined in, asking the same thing.

I swam in for a closer look at the tangled creature. At first I thought it was a young hippocampus. I'd rescued several of them before. But then I heard a strange sound, something that did not belong underwater:

"Mooooooo!"

I got next to the thing and saw that it was a cow. I mean... I'd heard of sea cows, like manatees and stuff, but this really was a cow with the back end of a serpent. The front half was a calf—a baby, with black fur and big, sad brown eyes and a white muzzle—and its back half was a black-and-brown snaky tail with fins running down the top and bottom, like an enormous eel.

"Whoa, little one," I said. "Where did you come from?"

The creature looked at me sadly. "Moooo!"

But I couldn't understand its thoughts. I only speak horse.

We don't know what it is, lord, one of the hippocampi said. Many strange things are stirring.

"Yeah," I murmured. "So I've heard."

I uncapped Riptide, and the sword grew to full length in my hands, its bronze blade gleam-ing in the dark.

The cow serpent freaked out and started struggling against the net, its eyes full of terror.

"Whoa!" I said. "I'm not going to hurt you! Just let me cut the net."

But the cow serpent thrashed around and got even more tangled. The boat started to tilt, stirring up the muck on the sea bottom and threatening to topple onto the cow serpent.

The hippocampi whinnied in a panic and thrashed in the water, which didn't help.

"Okay, okay!" I said. I put away the sword and started speaking as calmly as I could so the hippocampi and the cow serpent would stop panicking. I didn't know if it was possible to get stampeded underwater, but I didn't really want to find out. "It's cool. No sword. See? No sword. Calm thoughts. Sea grass. Mama cows. Vegetarianism."

I doubted the cow serpent understood what I was saying, but it responded to the tone of my voice. The hippocampi were still skittish, but they stopped swirling around me quite so fast.

Free it, lord! they pleaded.

"Yeah," I said. "I got that part. I'm thinking."

But how could I free the cow serpent when she (I decided it was probably a "she") panicked at the sight of a blade? It was like she'd seen swords before and knew how dangerous they were.

"All right," I told the hippocampi. "I need all of you to push exactly the way I tell you."

First we started with the boat. It wasn't easy, but with the strength of three horsepower, we managed to shift the wreckage so it was no longer threatening to collapse on the baby cow serpent. Then I went to work on the net, untangling it section by section, getting lead weights and fishing hooks straightened out, yanking out knots around the cow serpent's hooves. It took forever—I mean, it was worse than the time I'd had to untangle all my video game con-troller wires. The whole time, I kept talking to the cow fish, telling her everything was okay while she mooed and moaned.

"It's okay, Bessie," I said. Don't ask me why I started calling her that. It just seemed like a good cow name. "Good cow. Nice cow."

Finally, the net came off and the cow serpent zipped through the water and did a happy somersault.

The hippocampi whinnied with joy. Thank you, lord!

"Moooo!" The cow serpent nuzzled me and gave me the big brown eyes.

"Yeah," I said. "That's okay. Nice cow. Well... stay out of trouble."

Which reminded me, I'd been underwater how long? An hour, at least. I had to get back to my cabin before Argus or the harpies discovered I was breaking curfew.

I shot to the surface and broke through. Immediately, Blackjack zoomed down and let me catch hold of his neck. He lifted me into the air and took me back toward the shore.

Success, boss?

"Yeah. We rescued a baby... something or other. Took forever. Almost got stampeded."

Good deeds are always dangerous, boss. You saved my sorry mane, didn't you?

I couldn't help thinking about my dream, with Annabeth crumpled and lifeless in Luke's arms. Here I was rescuing baby monsters, but I couldn't save my friend.


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