The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

‘ASK THE ARROW!’ she yelled. ‘I WILL KEEP MAGIC LADY DISTRACTED!’

I hated that idea. I was tempted to yell back, WHAT?

Before I could, Meg darted off.

I fumbled for my quiver and pulled forth the Arrow of Dodona. ‘O Wise Projectile, we need help!’

IS’T HOT IN HITHER? the arrow asked. OR IS’T JUST ME?

‘We have a sorceress throwing Titan heat around!’ I yelled. ‘Look!’

I wasn’t sure if the arrow had magical eyes, or radar, or some other way to sense its environment, but I stuck its point around the corner of the pillar, where Piper and Meg were now playing a deadly game of chicken – fried chicken – with Medea’s blasts of grandfather fire.

HAST YON WENCH A BLOWPIPE? the arrow demanded.

‘Yes.’

FIE! A BOW AND ARROWS ART FAR SUPERIOR!

‘She’s half Cherokee,’ I said. ‘It’s a traditional Cherokee weapon. Now can you please tell me how to defeat Medea?’

HMM, the arrow mused. THOU MUST USE THE BLOWPIPE.

‘But you just said –’

REMIND ME NOT! ’TIS BITTER TO SPEAK OF! THOU HAST THY ANSWER!

The arrow went silent. The one time I wanted it to elaborate, the arrow shut up. Naturally.

I shoved it back in my quiver and ran to the next column, taking cover under a sign that read HONK!

‘Piper!’ I yelled.

She glanced over from five pillars away. Her face was pulled in a tight grimace. Her arms looked like cooked lobster shells. My medical mind told me she had a few hours at best before heatstroke set in – nausea, dizziness, unconsciousness, probably death. But I focused on the few hours part. I needed to believe we would live long enough to die from such causes.

I mimed shooting a blowpipe, then pointed in Medea’s direction.

Piper stared at me like I was crazy. I couldn’t blame her. Even if Medea didn’t bat away the dart with a gust of wind, the missile would never make it through that swirling wall of heat. I could only shrug and mouth the words Trust me. I asked my arrow.

What Piper thought of that, I couldn’t tell, but she unslung her blowpipe.

Meanwhile, across the parking garage, Meg taunted Medea in typical Meg fashion.

‘DUMMY!’ she yelled.

Medea sent out a vertical blade of heat, though, judging from her aim, she was trying to scare Meg rather than kill her.

‘Come out and stop this foolishness, dear!’ she called, filling her words with concern. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but the Titan is hard to control!’

I ground my teeth. Her words were a little too close to Nero’s mind games, holding Meg in check with the threat of his alter ego, the Beast. I just hoped Meg couldn’t hear a word through her smouldering wild-flower earbuds.

While Medea had her back turned, looking for Meg, Piper stepped into the open.

She took her shot.

The dart flew straight through the wall of fire and speared Medea between the shoulder blades. How? I can only speculate. Perhaps, being a Cherokee weapon, it was not subject to the rules of Greek magic. Perhaps, just as Celestial bronze will pass straight through regular mortals, not recognizing them as legitimate targets, the fires of Helios could not be bothered to disintegrate a puny blowpipe dart.

Whatever the case, the sorceress arched her back and screamed. She turned, glowering, then reached behind her and pulled out the missile. She stared at it incredulously. ‘A blowpipe dart? Are you kidding me?’

The fires continued to swirl around her, but none shot towards Piper. Medea staggered. Her eyes crossed.

‘And it’s poisoned?’ The sorceress laughed, her voice tinged with hysteria. ‘You would try to poison me, the world’s foremost expert on poisons? There is no poison I can’t cure! You cannot –’

She dropped to her knees. Green spittle flew from her mouth. ‘Wh-what is this concoction?’

‘Compliments of my Grandpa Tom,’ Piper said. ‘Old family recipe.’

Medea’s complexion turned as pale as the fire. She forced out a few words, interspersed with gagging. ‘You think … changes anything? My power … doesn’t summon Helios … I hold him back!’

She fell over sideways. Rather than dissipating, the cone of fire swirled even more furiously around her.

‘Run,’ I croaked. Then I yelled for all I was worth, ‘RUN NOW!’

We were halfway back to the corridor when the parking lot behind us went supernova.





19


In my underclothes

Slathered with grease. Really not

As fun as it sounds





I am not sure how we got out of the maze.

Lacking any evidence to the contrary, I will credit my own courage and fortitude. Yes, that must have been it. Having escaped the worst of the Titan’s heat, I bravely supported Piper and Meg and exhorted them to keep going. Smoking and half conscious but still alive, we stumbled through the corridors, retracing our steps until we arrived at the freight elevator. With one last heroic burst of strength, I flipped the lever and we ascended.

We spilled into the sunlight – regular sunlight, not the vicious zombie sunlight of a quasi-dead Titan – and collapsed on the sidewalk. Grover’s shocked face hovered over me.

‘Hot,’ I whimpered.

Grover pulled out his panpipes. He began to play, and I lost consciousness.

In my dreams, I found myself at a party in Ancient Rome. Caligula had just opened his newest palace at the base of the Palatine Hill, making a daring architectural statement by knocking out the back wall of the Temple of Castor and Pollux and using it as his front entrance. Since Caligula considered himself a god, he saw no problem with this, but the Roman elites were horrified. This was sacrilege akin to setting up a big-screen TV on a church altar and having a Super Bowl party with communion wine.

That didn’t stop the crowd from attending the festivities. Some gods had even shown up (in disguise). How could we resist such an audacious, blasphemous party with free appetizers? Throngs of costumed revellers moved through vast torchlit halls. In every corner, musicians played songs from across the empire: Gaul, Hispania, Greece, Egypt.

I myself was dressed as a gladiator. (Back then, with my godly physique, I could totally pull that off.) I mingled with senators who were disguised as slave girls, slave girls who were disguised as senators, a few unimaginative toga ghosts and a couple of enterprising patricians who had crafted the world’s first two-man donkey costume.

Personally, I did not mind the sacrilegious temple/palace. It wasn’t my temple, after all. And in those first years of the Roman Empire I found the Caesars refreshingly risqué. Besides, why should we gods punish our biggest benefactors?

When the emperors expanded their power, they expanded our power. Rome had spread our influence across a huge part of the world. Now we Olympians were the gods of the empire! Move over, Horus. Forget about it, Marduk. The Olympians were in the ascendant!

We weren’t about to mess with success just because the emperors got big-headed, especially when they modelled their arrogance on ours.

I wandered the party incognito, enjoying being among all the pretty people, when he finally appeared: the young emperor himself, in a golden chariot pulled by his favourite white stallion, Incitatus.

Flanked by praetorian guards – the only people not in costume – Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus was buck naked, painted in gold from head to foot, with a spiky crown of sun rays across his brow. He was pretending to be me, obviously. But when I saw him my first feeling wasn’t anger. It was admiration. This beautiful, shameless mortal pulled off the role perfectly.

‘I am the New Sun!’ he announced, beaming at the crowd as if his smile were responsible for all the warmth in the world. ‘I am Helios. I am Apollo. I am Caesar. You may now bask in my light!’

Nervous applause from the crowd. Should they grovel? Should they laugh? It was always hard to tell with Caligula, and if you got it wrong you usually died.