章節 59: Where am I?

{Unknown Place, April 18th 2005}

The place I had been teleported was weird to say the least, my sight which previously in 360 degrees was now locked only to the 180 degrees in front of me, I couldn't sense anything on the other side of the walls I was crossing but I knew things were there because every once in a while I crossed a rat or cockroach.

"Master this place is giving me a bad feeling why don't we shadow travel away."

"Don't be scared Swiper besides aren't you uncatchable, if dad teleported us here then it has to probably do it's the labor."

Let's see Odysseus biggest regret was taking Achilles' armour for himself and not giving it to Ajax who deserved it more, which later lead to Ajax killing himself because of the disgraceful he had suffered in the camp. But what happened to the armor after Odysseus' passing?

While it could be true it was passed along Odysseus' bloodline, I don't think that's what happened especially considering that Hephaestus was the person who forged the armor, the most probable thing is that Hephaestus took it back. The bad thing is if that's true that I have no clue where Hephaestus would be, he is one of the more introverted Olympians, still with my new upgraded sight at least I wouldn't misss him if we bumped into each other.

A shadow tendril emerged from my own shadow with a compass in its grip, a tool I hadn't used for several months. I then started thinking about Hephaestus and his forge. The needle began spinning trying to locate the thing I wanted like always, but the weird thing is that it never stopped spinning.

Fifteen minutes went by where the needle continued to spin, Ithought it may just be that it was taking it a while to locate him, but I simply decided to give up on the compass placing it back in my shadow.

There was only one other time when the compass didn't work and that was when I thought of Thalia which it couldn't pinpoint after she had been turned into a tree. So there were three possibilities as to why the compass wasn't working the first and most improbable is that Hephaestus had died or been imprisoned, the second was that my compass simply couldn't pinpoint a god and my third hypothesis whatever place I was in it was disrupting the compass just like it was disrupting my sight, the last one was the one which I was leaning towards the most.

"Master." Lailaps said in a worried tone.

"Yeah." I replied, "You have been quiet for a long time."

"I was just thinking." I added, if this place really was disrupting then I needed to find a way to get out.

"Lailaps?" I questioned thinking of one way to try and figure out where Hephaestus or his forge were.

"Can you track down either Hephaestus or his forge?"

"I could but I need something with its scent, if not I won't be able to track it."

"That's disappointing." I sighed scratching her fur while still seated on her back, after all it was a good and fast way to get around, I didn't need to rely on shadow travel and she was super fluffy.

"Then let's head forward." I gestured, Lailaps picking up pace once more, while Swiper clung tightly almost digging his claws into my back.

{40 minutes later}

Trekking through the tunnels, my sight and Swiper saw something that intrigued me and made me realize where I was, the walls we were taking were constantly changing and shifting slightly etching is deeper and deeper into the tunnels.

Yet as we moved deeper and the shifting of the walls became more erratic every second I realized where we were, we where in Daedalus' Labyrinth, it was the only thing that made sense.

When I thought that, it felt as if the Labyrinth itself answered me, I could feel it rumble even when I was on Lailaps' back, Mist started leaking through the gaps in the walls, trying to disrupt me.

"Why did dad send me here?" I asked mostly to myself, I already seemed to know the answer to my question, I was here because Hephaestus was here, still it felt ironic that the god of the forge was in a place forged by another.

—BOOM, CRACK—

Walls appeared slime and mist dripping from them like molten lava, the walls blocked all our routes.

—DRUMMM—

The floor beneath us retracted into the walls, making us fall into the deep darkness where Ben more Mist seems to cling to me and my companions.

I summoned tendrils around us, catching us from our falls,before commanding them to descend us slowly, into the darkness below.

We finally reached the floor beneath us, looking at were we where we seemed to be in a simple circular room, the floor was tilde with mosaics, torches sprung into life on the walls, the blaze lighting this room though it did kt matter much to me.

The room seemed to expand, no it did expand when the torches lit, making the room four time grander than before, a fountain sprouted in front of us, breaking apart the tiled mosaic that covered the ground, a painting appeared on the front wall, of people feasting, I realized they were the gods it they looked slighlty different than they normally did.

I dismounted Lailaps wanting to investigate this place, after all this was the first room we had found, instead of just tunnels, tunnels and more tunnels.

I felt a presence appear beneath us, turning around I knew instinctively how it was another progenitor, what was that the fourth one already maybe more. Dressed in doorman attire, Mist clung to him more than even the Labyrinth walls but slighlty less than Charon.

His two identical faces on one head, gave away his identity immediately it was Janus god of Doorways, Choices, Beginning and Ends. Still I realized something when I looked at Janus something I hand't thought of since my time with the Kane family, the existence of Roman gods.

Janus was a Roman god a uniquely roman god he had no greek equivalent. Something clicked in my head the portrait of the Olympians they weren't greek gods they were roman.

"Hello dear demigod."

"Why are you greeting him he sis going to die anyway."

The two heads one with a light smile, the other with a small frown, the dichotomy was something to behold, especially when I realized I couldn't look at both faces at the same time.

Two doors with archways appereaed underneath the portrait of the dining Roman Olympians.

Janus paid no heed to the rumbling of his doors each face just a said one simple statement.

"Lucky you, you got something roman aren't we better."

"Unlucky that Jupiter hasn't killed you yet for stealing something of his."

Janus' words brought out a memory, from something which I had almost forgotten about, the golden eagle that I found at Alcyoneus' ice camp, it belonged to Jupiter.

"Well I'm fucked."

"Indeed you are."

"Good to see you figured it out."

— —

"So what am I supposed to do, choose one of the doors." I said with a deadpanned face as I looked at the god and the doors behind him.

"Why yes you must choose one of our doors." Both faces replied at the same time, their voices turning into one.

The face with a small smile added "Through one door you will achieve what you need."

The other face continued the sentence "And through the other you will get what you want."

Simple enough I guess, I need to go through the door where I'll get what I need, sure the one that I want may be better in the long term but if other stories were anything to go by choosing what you wanted instead of what you needed always turned out bad for the hero.

"Okay then which is the door that gives me what I need."

"The left one."

"The right one."

Don't tell me this dude's faces perform that one lies and the other tells the truth, cliche. Thank god for my dad's (Chiron) riddles which already gave me one similar to this.

"What would the other face say is the door of needs?"

"Left door."

"Ok then it's the right thanks for the tip." I finished saying as I mounted Lailaps once more, and made my way past both into the right door. Yet just as I was about to cross it Janus appeared before me again.

"Are you sure this is one that you want to use?" They both said simultaneously their eerie voice echoing through the chamber in the labyrinth.

"Pretty sure yeah, after all you already answered me which door would be the right one, since of the face that tells the truth says left it means that the person who lied would tell me to take left, if the person who lied also said left that means that the door which the face that tells the truth would have said the right door. So yeah riddle done and I'm going through the door."

"Wait, wait don't go yet." Their voices echoed but I paid them no heed.

"See I told you we shouldn't have gone with the lying one and the truthful one."

"You were the one who said we should do it."

"Nuh, uh."

"Yuh, huh."

I could hear them both continue to bicker I paid them no heed, and continued going through the tunnel, but it wasn't long before Janus reappeared in front of me.

"What now?" I asked almost bored with the god in front of me.

"Come on it's the first time in almost a century a person has entered the labyrinth entertains us a bit more."

Being done with their presence I decided to simply get rid of them, Οπάλιον σβέσον τὸ φῶς σου (Opal dim your light). The darkness which was plentiful in the dark labyrinth tunnels heard my call my sclera and pupils turned black, even Swiper and Lailaps shivered as they sensed my growing power.

I teleported behind the gods of doorways clutching its two faces in my hand and slamming it into the labyrinth floor.

-BOOOM-

"I already played your stupid game Janus so leave me alone." I snarled, using one of the newest abilities I had been able to create in the Underworld.

"They say you can see the beginning and the end of time. Let's see if you can still do that after this."

Shadowy threads escaped my fingernails making their way into the gods eyes on both faces, their pupils disappeared as I raised my hand from his head, I stepped back wondering if my job had worked.

Janus slowly rose, raising his hands towards his face, "What have you done to us?" The faces whispered though I still clearly heard them, as their words bounced off the walls.

"We can't see, we can't see!" Janus yelled now clawing at his face.

"Damn you overreact, I was blind for four years it wasn't that bad."

"You son't understand boy, we are gods of choices, we can't see your choices."

"Well isn't that good for me." I replied, shadowy tendrils raising from the walls, ceilings and floors, ensnaring him the barbs on the tendrils plunging into his skin, I summoned my spear and plunged it into the god's heart, before he turned into a puff of smoke.

"Hahahahaa."

Yet just as I killed the last god a high squeaked laugh started permeating through the tunnel.

"Oh great what is that now." I muttered as I let go my control from the shadows, after all while experimenting with it in the Underworld with the help of my father, I realized something my body couldn't seem to handle the power not in a my skin disintegrated kind of way but simply that the more I used it the more strain I would have on my body once I left this state of power.

"Jolly good show brother, jolly good show." The voice echoed as my eyes started felling slightly hazy, Lailaps ran behind me catching me with its torso.

"Master are you okay?" She asked in a worried tone, Swiper too started clawing at my neck with his paws almost as if he was trying to keep me awake. Realizing that someone was trying to pout me to sleep, I kept on remembering the phrase that gave me power again and again I repeated it, but slowly my eyes closed.

{Universal Dreamscape}

"Jolly good show indeed, I've never seen Janus manhandled like that before."

"Okay who are you?? I interrupted, "Oh step-bro it feels truly sad you can't recognize your own brother." He answered turning his head away while raising his hand to his mouth almost like a crying drama queen.

"Hypnos stop laughing like that you are a primogenitor act like one."

A feminine voice rumbled across the space, the figure of a woman with bat like wings, and fair features appearing before me, a teenager with eagle like wings on his shoulders appearing at her side.

"Welcome Ozzy , it's nice to finally see the newest of my children."

[Greek Myth Fact: Janus was considered the animistic spirit of doorways (januae) and archways (jani). According to legend, Janus and the nymph Camasene were the parents of Tiberinus, whose death in or by the river Albula led to the renaming of the river as Tiber. The worship of Janus dates back to the time of Romulus, even before the actual founding of the city of Rome. Janus is usually depicted as having two faces, which symbolize his dual nature. He presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, making him associated with both war and peace.

The gates of a building in Rome named after him (not a temple, as it is often called, but an open enclosure with gates at each end) were opened in times of war and closed to mark the arrival of peace. As a god of transitions, Janus had functions related to birth, journeys, and exchange. His association with Portunus, another harbor and gateway god, connected him to traveling, trading, and shipping.

Janus had no specialized priest assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites himself carried out his ceremonies. His ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year meant that he was ritually invoked at the beginning of each ceremony, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion.

The name Iānus comes from Latin, meaning "arched passage" or "doorway". It is cognate with words in other languages, such as Sanskrit, Lithuanian, and Irish, all related to the concept of going or passing through. The month of January is named after Janus, emphasizing his role as the god of beginnings and transitions.]

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