The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

Medea.

Helios’s emotions burned their way into my mind. I felt his loathing for his sorceress granddaughter. All that Medea had told me earlier about holding back Helios’s wrath – that might have been true. But, above all, she was holding Helios back from killing her. She had chained him, bound his will to hers, wrapped herself in powerful protections against his godly fire. Helios did not like me, no. But he hated Medea’s presumptuous magic. To be released from his torment, he needed his granddaughter dead.

I wondered, not for the first time, why we Greek deities had never created a god of family therapy. We certainly could have used one. Or perhaps we had one before I was born, and she quit. Or Kronos swallowed her whole.

Whatever the case, I told the flames, ‘I will do this. I will free you. But you must let us pass.’

Instantly, the fires raced away as if a tear had opened in the universe.

I gasped. My skin steamed. My arctic camouflage was now a lightly toasted grey. But I was alive. The room around me cooled rapidly. The flames, I realized, had retreated down a single tunnel that led from the chamber.

‘Meg! Grover!’ I called. ‘You can come down –’

Meg dropped on top of me, squashing me flat.

‘Ow!’ I screamed. ‘Not like that!’

Grover was more courteous. He climbed down the wall and dropped to the floor with goat-worthy dexterity. He smelled like a burnt wool blanket. His face was badly sunburned. His cap had fallen into the fire, revealing the tips of his horns, which steamed like miniature volcanoes. Meg had somehow come through just fine. She’d even managed to retract her sword from the wall before falling. She pulled her flask from her supply belt, drank most of the water and handed the rest to Grover.

‘Thanks,’ I grumbled.

‘You beat the heat,’ she noted. ‘Good job. Finally had a godly burst of power?’

‘Er … I think it was more about Helios deciding to give us a pass. He wants out of this maze as much as we want him out. He wants us to kill Medea.’

Grover gulped. ‘So … she’s down here? She didn’t die on that yacht?’

‘Figures.’ Meg squinted down the steaming corridor. ‘Did Helios promise not to burn us if you mess up any more answers?’

‘I – That wasn’t my fault!’

‘Yeah,’ Meg said.

‘Kinda was,’ Grover agreed.

Honestly. I fall into a blazing pit, negotiate a truce with a Titan and flush a firestorm out of the room to save my friends, and they still want to talk about how I can’t recall instructions from the Farmer’s Almanac.

‘I don’t think we can count on Helios never to burn us,’ I said, ‘any more than we can expect Herophile not to use word puzzles. It’s just their nature. This was a one-time get-out-of-the-flames-free card.’

Grover smothered the tips of his horns. ‘Well, then, let’s not waste it.’

‘Right.’ I hitched up my slightly toasted camouflage pants and tried to recapture that confident tone I’d had the first time I addressed my sun horses. ‘Follow me. I’m sure it’ll be fine!’





40


Congratulations

You finished the word puzzle

You win … enemies





Fine, in this case, meant fine if you enjoy lava, chains and evil magic.

The corridor led straight to the chamber of the Oracle, which on the one hand … hooray! On the other hand, not so wonderful. The room was a rectangle the size of a basketball court. Lining the walls were half a dozen entrances – each a simple stone doorway with a small landing that overhung the pool of lava I’d seen in my visions. Now, though, I realized the bubbling and shimmering substance was not lava. It was the divine ichor of Helios – hotter than lava, more powerful than rocket fuel, impossible to get out if you spilled it on your clothes (I could tell you from personal experience). We had reached the very centre of the maze – the holding tank for Helios’s power.

Floating on the surface of the ichor were large stone tiles, each about five feet square, making columns and rows that had no logical patterns.

‘It’s a crossword,’ Grover said.

Of course he was right. Unfortunately, none of the stone bridges connected with our little balcony. Nor did any of them lead to the opposite side of the room, where the Sibyl of Erythraea sat forlornly on her stone platform. Her home wasn’t any better than a solitary-confinement cell. She’d been provided with a bed, a table and a toilet. (And, yes, even immortal Sibyls need to use the toilet. Some of their best prophecies come to them … Never mind.)

My heart ached to see Herophile in such conditions. She looked exactly as I remembered her: a young woman with braided auburn hair and pale skin, her solid athletic build a tribute to her hardy naiad mother and her stout shepherd father. The Sibyl’s white robes were stained with smoke and spotted with cinder burns. She was intently watching an entrance on the wall to her left, so she didn’t seem to notice us.

‘That’s her?’ Meg whispered.

‘Unless you see another Oracle,’ I said.

‘Well, then talk to her.’

I wasn’t sure why I had to do all the work, but I cleared my throat and yelled across the boiling lake of ichor, ‘Herophile!’

The Sibyl jumped to her feet. Only then did I notice the chains – molten links, just as I’d seen in my visions, shackled to her wrists and ankles, anchoring her to the platform and allowing her just enough room to move from one side to the other. Oh, the indignity!

‘Apollo!’

I’d been hoping her face might light up with joy when she saw me. Instead, she looked mostly shocked.

‘I thought you would come through the other …’ Her voice seized up. She grimaced with concentration, then blurted out, ‘Seven letters, ends in Y.’

‘Doorway?’ Grover guessed.

Across the surface of the lake, stone tiles ground and shifted formation. One block wedged itself against our little platform. Half a dozen more stacked up beyond it, making a seven-tile bridge extending into the room. Glowing golden letters appeared along the tiles, starting with a Y at our feet: DOORWAY.

Herophile clapped excitedly, jangling her molten chains. ‘Well done! Hurry!’

I was not anxious to test my weight on a stone raft floating over a burning lake of ichor, but Meg strode right out, so Grover and I followed.

‘No offence, Miss Lady,’ Meg called to the Sibyl, ‘but we already almost fell into one lava fire thingie. Could you just make a bridge from here to there without more puzzles?’

‘I wish I could!’ said Herophile. ‘This is my curse! It’s either talk like this or stay completely –’ She gagged. ‘Nine letters. Fifth letter is D.’

‘Quiet!’ Grover yelled.

Our raft rumbled and rocked. Grover windmilled his arms and might have fallen off had Meg not caught him. Thank goodness for short people. They have low centres of gravity.

‘Not quiet!’ I yelped. ‘That is not our final answer! That would be idiotic, since quiet is only five letters and doesn’t even have a D.’ I glared at the satyr.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I got excited.’

Meg studied the tiles. In the frames of her glasses, her rhinestones glinted red. ‘Quietude?’ she suggested. ‘That’s nine letters.’

‘First of all,’ I said, ‘I’m impressed you know that word. Second, context. “Stay completely quietude” doesn’t make sense. Also, the D would be in the wrong place.’

‘Then what’s the answer, smarty-god?’ she demanded. ‘And don’t get it wrong this time.’

Such unfairness! I tried to come up with synonyms for quiet. I couldn’t think of many. I liked music and poetry. Silence really wasn’t my thing.

‘Soundless,’ I said at last. ‘That’s got to be it.’

The tiles rewarded us by forming a second bridge – nine across, SOUNDLESS, connecting to the first bridge by the D. Unfortunately, since the new bridge led sideways, it got us no closer to the Oracle’s platform.