The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4)

by Rick Riordan

The last thing I wanted to do on my summer break was blow up another school.

Blackjack crunched down his sugar cubes. He shook his mane like he was having a sugar seizure. Whoa! Good stuff! Well, boss, you come to your senses and want to fly somewhere, just give a whistle. Ole Blackjack and his buddies, we’ll stampede anybody for ya!

I’d heard it speak prophecies twice before. The first time had been in the dusty attic of the Big House, where the spirit of Delphi slept inside the body of a mummified hippie lady. The second time, the Oracle had come out for a little stroll in the woods. I still had nightmares about that.

NICO BUYS HAPPY MEALS FOR THE DEAD

Dozens of figures began to appear among the gravestones: bluish, vaguely human shapes. Nico had summoned the dead with Coke and cheeseburgers.

it wasn’t exactly something Chiron liked to brag about. Oh, my dad is the all-powerful evil Titan lord who wants to destroy Western Civilization. I want to be just like him when I grow up!

Tyson nodded. “Lots of monsters. But underground smells like that. Monsters and dead milk people.”

“Percy Jackson,” Geryon supplied. “Annabeth Chase. And a couple of their monster friends. Yes, I know.” “Monster friends?” Grover said indignantly. “That man is wearing three shirts,” Tyson said, like he was just realizing this.

“My stables!” Geryon said. “Well, actually they belong to Aegeas, but we watch over them for a small monthly fee. Aren’t they lovely?” “They’re disgusting!” Annabeth said. “Lots of poop,” Tyson observed. “How can you keep animals like that?” Grover cried. “Y’all gettin’ on my nerves,” Geryon said. “These are flesh-eating horses, see? They like these conditions.”

I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses. Hi, I told him. I’m going to clean your stables. Won’t that be great? Yes! The horse said. Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood! But I’m Poseidon’s son, I protested. He created horses. Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, but not this time.

Now that I thought about it, I’d be pretty mad if somebody dumped four million pounds of manure in my home.

“We’ve met, sir,” I told him. “Have we?” the god asked absently. I got the feeling he didn’t care one way or the other. He was just trying to figure out how my jaw worked, whether it was a hinge or lever or what. “Well then, if I didn’t smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won’t have to do it now.”

If you blended together a kid, a Doberman pinscher, and a sea lion, you’d get something like what I was looking at.

Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. And then she did something that surprised me even more. She kissed me. “Be careful, Seaweed Brain.” She put on her hat and vanished. I probably would’ve sat there for the rest of the day, staring at the lava and trying to remember what my name was, but the sea demons jarred me back to reality.

“I can’t get him to clean his room, but he’ll clean a hundred tons of horse manure out of some monster’s stables?”

“So,” my mom said when I was done with the story, “you wrecked Alcatraz Island, made Mount St. Helens explode, and displaced half a million people, but at least you’re safe.”

“Shhh!” Annabeth said, looking around. “Just announce it to the world, how about?” “Okay.” Rachel stood up and said really loud, “Hey, everybody! These two aren’t human! They’re half Greek god!”

A skeleton was grinning at us. It wasn’t human. It was huge, for one thing—at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent a shiver down my back was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

The walls glittered with crystals—red, green, and blue. In the strange light, beautiful plants grew—giant orchids, star-shaped flowers, vines bursting with orange and purple berries that crept among the crystals. The cave floor was covered with soft green moss. Overhead, the ceiling was higher than a cathedral, sparkling like a galaxy of stars. In the center of the cave stood a Roman-style bed, gilded wood shaped like a curly U, with velvet cushions. Animals lounged around it—but they were animals that shouldn’t have been alive. There was a dodo bird, something that looked like a cross between a wolf and a tiger, a huge rodent like the mother of all guinea pigs, and roaming behind the bed, picking berries with its trunk, was a wooly mammoth.

“My dear satyr,” Pan said. “I tried to tell the world, two thousand years ago. I announced it to Lysas, a satyr very much like you. He lived in Ephesos, and he tried to spread the word.” Annabeth’s eyes widened. “The old story. A sailor passing by the coast of Ephesos heard a voice crying from the shore, ‘Tell them the great god Pan is dead.’” “But that wasn’t true!” Grover said. “Your kind never believed it,” Pan said. “You sweet, stubborn satyrs refused to accept my passing. And I love you for that, but you only delayed the inevitable. You only prolonged my long, painful passing, my dark twilight sleep. It must end.”

“But my name, Pan…originally it meant rustic. Did you know that? But over the years it has come to mean all. The spirit of the wild must pass to all of you now. You must tell each one you meet: if you would find Pan, take up Pan’s spirit. Remake the wild, a little at a time, each in your own corner of the world. You cannot wait for anyone else, even a god, to do that for you.”

When I got back to the horses, Nico was having trouble. His pegasus kept shying away from him, reluctant to let him mount. He smells like dead people! the pegasus complained.

Even Dionysus’s kids had found something to do. The god himself was still nowhere to be seen, but his two blond twin sons were running around providing all the sweaty warriors with water bottles and juice boxes.

I was thinking that my mom’s apartment wouldn’t allow dogs, especially dogs bigger than the apartment,

“during the first war of the gods and the Titans, Lord Pan let forth a horrible cry that scared away the enemy armies. It is—it was his greatest power—a massive wave of fear that helped the gods win the day. The word panic is named after Pan, you see.

“Three to two,” Silenus said. “Ah, yes,” Dionysus said. “But unfortunately for you, a god’s vote counts twice. And as I voted against, we are tied.” Silenus stood, indignant. “This is an outrage! The council cannot stand at an impasse.” “Then let it be dissolved!” Mr. D said. “I don’t care.”

“I train with the dead,” he said flatly. “This camp isn’t for me. There’s a reason they didn’t put a cabin to Hades here, Percy. He’s not welcome, any more than he is on Olympus. I don’t belong. I have to go.”