The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo, #5)

by Rick Riordan

I felt stalked. I had the same ants-in-the-pores feeling I used to get when playing hide-and-seek with Artemis and her Hunters in the woods, just before they jumped from the brush and riddled me with arrows. That was back when my sister and I were younger deities and could still enjoy such simple amusements.

Whether Lu had saved us from capture or not, she’d trained Meg, which meant she must have stood by for years while Nero tormented my young friend emotionally and mentally. Lu had been part of the problem—part of Meg’s indoctrination into the emperor’s twisted family. I worried that Meg was slipping into her old patterns. Perhaps Nero had figured out a way to manipulate her indirectly through this former teacher she admired.

Where had this tempest come from? Was it a welcome-home present from my father, or a warning? Or maybe it was just a regular summer storm. Sadly, my time as Lester had taught me that not every meteorological event was about me.

I’m sure the chef and baby made for an adorable, heartwarming scene. Unfortunately, I’d grown up on stories about Titans and gods who cooked and/or ate their children, so I was perhaps not quite as charmed as I might have been.

Also, I respected the fact that Sally needed to work. As the god of poetry, I understood revisions. Facing monsters and imperial mercenaries was much easier.

I couldn’t decide what I found most horrifying: Meg’s uncomfortable slip calling Nero Father, or the fact that Nero had expected his young stepdaughter to execute prisoners for his amusement, or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show nonlethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than—oh, I don’t know—refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors.

“Wait.” Meg looked at me in wonder. “You know the Gray Sisters?” She said this as if I’d been holding out on her—as if I knew all three founding members of Bananarama and had not yet gotten Meg their autographs. (My history with Bananarama—how I introduced them to the actual Venus and inspired their number one–hit cover of that song—is a story for another time.) “Yes, Meg,” I said. “I am a god. I know people.”

In the past, every time I’d agreed to listen to their so-called prophetic poetry, it turned out to be a prediction of what I would have for lunch, or an expert opinion about which Olympian god I most resembled. (Hint: It was never Apollo.) Then they would pester me for a critique and ask if I would share their poetry with my literary agent. Ugh.

Dionysus was the god of other things, such as wine, madness, Oscar-night after-parties, and certain types of vegetation. But to me, he would always be the annoying little brother who followed me around, trying to get my attention by imitating everything I did. You know the type. You’re a god. Your little brother pesters Dad to make him a god, too, even though being a god is supposed to be your thing. You have a nice chariot pulled by fiery horses. Your little brother insists on getting his own chariot pulled by leopards. You lay waste to the Greek armies at Troy. Your little brother decides to invade India. Pretty typical stuff.

Meg and I reached the summit. Peleus welcomed us with a puff of steam from his nostrils. Meg gave the dragon a hug around the neck, which I’m not sure I would have recommended. Dragons are notoriously not huggers.

“Poor, poor Apollo.” He hugged me. His hair smelled faintly of grape-flavored bubble gum. This unexpected show of sympathy brought me close to tears…until Dionysus pulled away, held me at arm’s length, and gave me a triumphant smirk. “Now you understand how miserable I’ve been,” he said. “Finally, someone got punished even more harshly than me!”

Austin introduced them casually, like I know you don’t have a clue who these three kids are that you sired and forgot about twelve or thirteen years ago, but don’t worry, Dad, I got you.

“The newbies all look so young,” Will murmured. “Were we ever that young?” Kayla and Austin nodded in agreement. Yan grumbled. “We newbies are right here.” I wanted to tell them that they were all so young. Their life spans were a blink of an eye compared to my four millennia. I should be wrapping them all in warm blankets and giving them cookies rather than expecting them to be heroes, slay monsters, and buy me clothes.

“I told you, Apollo, the world has many crises. Just this morning, scientists released another study tying soda to hypertension. If they continue to disparage the name of Diet Coke, I will have to smite someone!” He stormed off to plot his revenge on the health industry.

“Okay, I’m worried,” I admitted. “About you. And me. I don’t know the answer to your question.” Meg nodded. “But we have to try.” “Together, then,” I said. “One more time, into the lair of the Beast.” “Peaches,” Peaches murmured. Meg smirked. “He says he’ll stay here at camp. He needs some me time.” I hate it when fruit spirits have more sense than me.

I choked on a laugh. Nico’s claim was the most ridiculous thing I’d heard since Mars swore to me that Elvis Presley was alive on, well, Mars. “Troglodytes are a myth,” I said. Nico frowned. “A god is telling a demigod that something is a myth?”

I tried to process this information. I’d never taken Aelian’s stories about the troglodytes seriously. To be fair, though, I hadn’t believed in rocs, either, until the day one flew over my sun chariot and bowel-bombed me. That was a bad day for me, the roc, and several countries that my swerving chariot set on fire.

I would have even summoned the Gray Sisters again, except I doubted their taxi would appear on a crane jib, and if it did, I suspected the sisters would instantly fall in love with Nico and Will because they were so cute together. I wouldn’t wish that kind of attention on anyone.

Watching it fall, kicking its legs and torquing its body, I remembered the time Ares dropped a cat from Mount Olympus to prove it would land on its feet in Manhattan. Athena had teleported the cat to safety, then beat Ares with the butt of her spear for putting the animal in danger, but the fall had been terrifying to witness, nonetheless.

“Those forest bulls were amazing,” Meg said after a while. “If you could train them to carry…” I groaned. “It was bad enough when you weaponized unicorns.” “Yeah. That was great.”

Rachel shrugged. “Like I said, I think I’m supposed to be in this trouble. It’s not your fault. A Dare reveals the path that was unknown. For once, I’m part of the prophecy.” She sounded strangely proud of this fact. Perhaps, after issuing perilous quests for so many other people, Rachel found it nice to be included in our communal death-wish adventure. People like to be seen—even if it’s by the cold, cruel eyes of fate.

“Cool,” said Meg. “So if we find the trogs, we give them the lizard and they’ll help us?” “I doubt it will be that simple,” I said. “Meg, has anyone ever agreed to help you simply because you gave them a dead lizard?” She pondered the question so long it made me wonder about her past gift-giving practices. “I guess not?”

Nico smirked. “Friends, meet my glow-in-the-dark boyfriend.” “Could you not make a big deal about it?” Will asked. I was speechless. How could anyone not make a big deal about this? As far as demigod powers went, glowing in the dark was perhaps not as showy as skeleton-summoning or tomato-vine mastery, but it was still impressive. And, like Will’s skill at healing, it was gentle, useful, and exactly what we needed in a pinch. “I’m so proud,” I said. Will’s face turned the color of sunlight shining through a glass of cranberry juice. “Dad, I’m just glowing. I’m not graduating at the top of my class.” “I’ll be proud when you do that, too,” I assured him.

Their dwellings were tents. Most had been appropriated from the human world, which gave me unpleasant flashbacks of the camping display at Macro’s Military Madness in Palm Springs. Others appeared to be of trog design, carefully stitched from the shaggy red hides of the tauri silvestres. I had no idea how the trogs had managed to skin and stitch the impervious hides, but clearly, as the ancestral enemies of the forest bulls, they had found a way. I wondered about that rivalry, too. How had a subterranean frog people in love with hats and lizards become mortal enemies to a breed of bright-red devil bulls? Perhaps at the beginning of time, the elder gods had told the first trogs, You may now pick your nemesis! And the first trogs had pointed across the newly made fields of creation and yelled, We hate those cows! Whatever the case, I was comforted to know that even if the trogs were not yet our friends, at least we had a mutual enemy.

THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES WEREN’T JUST chaotic. They were what Chaos is like when Chaos wants to let her hair down and go nuts. And believe me, you never want to see a primordial goddess go nuts.

Meg and I crossed at the crosswalk. Gods forbid we jaywalk and get hit by a car on our way to a painful death.

If his expression had been any smugger, the entire species of domestic cats would have sued him for plagiarism.

“Where was I?” Nero mused, coming back from his pleasant thoughts of massacre. “The villain monologue,” I said.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got Nero exactly where I want him.” I had to smile. My gods, this Gaul…I had gone from disliking and distrusting her to being ready to take a bullet for her. I wanted her at my side, hands or no, as we took down the emperor and saved Meg. And we would do it, if I could muster even a little bit of Lu’s toughness.

“Fine,” I relented. “Can I at least tape a sword to your arm?” “No time,” she said. “Too unwieldy. Wait, actually. That dagger over there. Unsheathe it and put the blade between my teeth.” “How will that help?” “Probably won’t,” she admitted. “But it’ll look cool.”

The technicians whimpered in terror. They were mortals, so I wasn’t sure what they thought they’d just seen, but it was nothing good. Nico looked at them. “Run away.” They fell all over each other to comply. They couldn’t run very well with arrows in their feet, but they were out the door faster than you could say, Holy Hades, that dude just turned Leader Guy into a skeleton.

“Okay, we gotta clear your head. Drink this.” She lifted a vial to my lips. “Nectar?” “Definitely not nectar.” The taste exploded in my mouth. Immediately, I realized what she was giving me and why: Mountain Dew, the glowing-lime-green elixir of perfect sobriety. I don’t know what effect it has on mortals, but ask any supernatural entity and they will tell you, Mountain Dew’s combination of sweetness, caffeine, and otherworldly je-ne-sais-quoi-peut-être-radioactif taste is enough to bring complete focus and seriousness to any god. My eyesight cleared. My giddiness evaporated. I had zero desire to giggle. A grim sense of danger and impending death gripped my heart. Mountain Dew is the equivalent of the enslaved servant who would ride behind the emperor during his triumphal parades, whispering, Remember, you are mortal, and you will die to keep him from getting a big head.

In one corner, a small stage had been set up with a single microphone and a stand of instruments: a guitar, a lyre, and a violin. Oh, Nero. As a sick joke, he had intended to fiddle while New York burned. No doubt his guests would have laughed and clapped politely as the city exploded and millions perished to the tune of “This Land Is Your Land.” And who were these guests? The emperor’s billionaire golf buddies? Adult demigods who had been recruited for his postapocalyptic empire? Whoever they were, I hoped Austin stampeded them straight into a mob of angry troglodyte shareholders.

Behind me, a familiar voice roared, “STOP!” The tone was so commanding even Nero’s guards and family members turned toward the broken blast doors. On the threshold stood Will Solace, radiating brilliant light. At his left was Luguselwa, alive and well, her stumps now outfitted with daggers instead of silverware. At Will’s right was Rachel Elizabeth Dare, holding a large ax wrapped in a golden bundle of rods: the fasces of Nero. “No one hits my boyfriend,” Will thundered. “And no one kills my dad!”

“I’ll gather some supplies.” Rachel kissed my forehead, then dashed off. “Bow and quiver coming up,” Nico said. “And ukulele,” Will added. Nico winced. “Do we really hate Python that much?”

There was no reason the thrones couldn’t have been human-size, but then we would have seemed too human (and we didn’t like being reminded of the resemblance). Or forty feet tall, but that would have been too awkward—too much shouting to make ourselves heard. We’d need magnifying glasses to see our visitors. We could’ve even made the thrones six inches tall. Personally, I would have loved to see that. A demigod hero straggles into our presence after some horrible quest, takes a knee before an assembly of miniature gods, and Zeus squeaks in a Mickey Mouse voice, Welcome to Olympus!

My father coughed into his fist. “I know you think your punishment was harsh, Apollo.” I did not answer. I tried my best to keep my expression polite and neutral. “But you must understand,” Zeus continued, “only you could have overthrown Python. Only you could have freed the Oracles. And you did it, as I expected. The suffering, the pain along the way…regrettable, but necessary. You have done me proud.” Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let’s be honest: some fathers don’t deserve that. Some aren’t capable of it.

The welcome I received at Camp Half-Blood was uproarious and beautiful. “LESTER!” the campers chanted. “LESTER!” “LESTER?!” “LESTER!” I had chosen to appear in my old Papadopoulos form. Why not my glowing perfect god bod? Or one of the Bangtan Boys, or Paul McCartney circa 1965? After complaining for so many months about my flabby, acne-spotted Lester meat sack, I now found that I felt at home in that form. When I’d first met Meg, she had assured me that Lester’s appearance was perfectly normal. At the time, the notion had horrified me. Now I found it reassuring.

“Halt!” they yelled in unison. “Intruder!” “It’s just me!” I said, which didn’t seem to help. “Lester!” Still nothing. “Meg’s old, you know, servant.” The Meliai lowered their spear points. “Oh, yes,” said one. “Servant of the Meg,” said another. “The weak, insufficient one,” said a third. “Before the Meg had our services.” “I’ll have you know I’m a full Olympian god now,” I protested. The dryads did not look impressed.