Untitled Part 25
When the spear touched Hazel, she thought, What if I'm wrong?
The cavern shook with the fury she'd unleashed—a deadly rain of rubies and emeralds. She felt flames traveling up her chest, but there was no pain—just a wave of numbness, as if her entire body were falling asleep.
Darkness enveloped her. The guard's skeletal fingers loosened around her throat. She fell—down, down, down, twisting and turning, but she never hit the floor. She tried to scream, to grab hold of something, but there was nothing. Just cold emptiness.
Then she landed on her side, hard.
Her breath was knocked out of her. Fireworks exploded in her eyes. She clawed her fingers into warm earth. Grass. Sunlight blinded her. She smelled mulch and pine. Definitely not the Underworld...
Where had they sent her?
She pushed herself up on one elbow, wincing from the pain in her ribs. Her windpipe felt bruised and swollen. As her eyes adjusted, a massive beastly face loomed over her, blocking her field of vision.
She tried to scoot back on her hands and feet. She kicked wildly, desperate to get away.
"Hazel, it is me," said a deep, gentle voice.
She forced down her panic. She knew those wide-set brown eyes, those fuzzy ears, the glistening snout with the gold septum ring set between the nostrils.
"Asterion," she sobbed.
She threw herself into the bull-man's arms. He didn't say anything— just held her close and rubbed an enormous hand up and down her back.
"You're alive!" She pulled away to look at him. "You're alive."
"So far," he agreed, giving her a melancholy smile. "Since you are here, I assume the court sentenced you as well. I am so sorry, my friend."
Hazel shuddered. "I just hope Will and Nico are okay."
She told Asterion what had happened in the courtroom after he was condemned—the judges' screed against people who tried to change their nature, Hazel's growing suspicion that maybe Asterion had been transported somewhere rather than killed, her attempt with Nico and Will to break free from the court, and her final cryptic message to Nico, the only words she'd been able to force out as the guard choked her: Don't believe it.
Asterion patted her knee. "You did what you could. And you were right about the nature of our punishment. Come, the others will want to see you."
"The others...?" Hazel's voice died as she looked around her. She'd been so focused on Asterion she hadn't really taken in her surroundings.
They were in some sort of park, and they weren't alone. Rows of stunted knobby cypress trees stretched in either direction, like the ones in Civic Center Plaza. This space was much bigger, though—a shallow oval basin about a quarter mile wide and twice as long. The shape reminded Hazel of the Circus Maximus back in New Rome, an image reinforced by the half-dozen centaurs presently galloping around the perimeter, apparently looking for a way out.
Park benches lined the walkways, and most of the seats were taken by mythic beings. Two satyrs were having an argument, fighting over a lunch bag. A dog-headed man—a cynocephalus—was passed out asleep, his hands and feet twitching like he was chasing rabbits in his dreams. In the pool of a nearby fountain, a pack of telkhines lounged like wayward sea lions, unconcerned by the bronze Colchis bull drinking nearby, its fiery breath making the water boil.
At the near end of the park rose a sandstone band shell flanked by classical columns. Standing on the steps was a woman holding a toddler... except as Hazel studied them more closely, she realized the toddler had leafy green wings, and the woman's hair was on fire.
"Arielle?" Hazel muttered in disbelief. "Arielle! Quinoa!"
She ran toward them, stumbling as she tried to regain the use of her body. Asterion followed in her wake.
Arielle and Quinoa spotted her and came running.
"Hazel Levesque!" Quinoa launched himself from Arielle's arms straight into Hazel's. "You actually found us!"
Arielle grinned, which was a little unnerving given the fangs, but she looked delighted.
"I never thought I'd be so happy to see a demigod," said the empousa. "But how are you here? You're not a mythic— Oof!"
That last sound came when Hazel wrapped her in a hug, squeezing Quinoa between them. Hazel didn't even care that the empousa's flaming head was probably singeing her own hair, or that Arielle's donkey hoof was now on her toes. She was so glad to see the mythics alive.
Finally, Quinoa mumbled, "Can't...breathe."
Hazel stepped back, blinking away happy tears. "Thank the gods you're alive! But what is going on here?"
"We'd like to know that too," said Arielle. "Short answer: we're trapped."
"Trapped?" Hazel scanned the area. "But..."
From where they stood, Hazel could see numerous sets of steps leading out of the basin. There were no walls, no barricades, just flower beds lining the embankments. Cars and tour buses moved freely along the road that circled the park. Beyond that, buildings peeked over the treetops. The nearest was a long angular wedge of dark stone—maybe an art museum?
"How are we trapped?" she asked.
Then she spotted the centaurs again, galloping around the perimeter. Every so often they would stop to throw themselves at the steps or try to leap over the hedges, only to bounce back in frustration. Some were repelled so forcefully they tumbled head over hooves.
Asterion extended a hand. "Come, we'll show you."
Hazel followed the empousa and Asterion while Quinoa nestled in the crook of her arm. His claws dug into Hazel's chest. His leafy wings were scratchy against her skin, but she didn't mind. She never thought she'd feel motherly toward an herbaceous plant, but she would've fought off a drakon to protect the karpos.
Fortunately, she didn't have to. They passed one small drakon—a baby no more than twenty feet long, curled around a metal lamppost—but it didn't seem interested in fighting. It was too busy scanning the horizon like a lookout from a crow's nest.
A giant boar eyed her suspiciously and then went back to rubbing its tusks against a tree trunk. A harpy roosting in the branches above screeched down at it, "Could you not?" A few feet away, something that looked like a massive badger burrowed into the sandy soil like it was trying to dig an escape tunnel.
Arielle led them to a nearby stairway that led up to the road. She stopped just short of the bottom step and then turned to Hazel.
"Open your hand so it is flat," said the empousa. "Press gently. Otherwise, you may get hurt."
Hazel didn't like the sound of that, but she did as Arielle told her to, pushing her palm outward. She felt silly, like a mime in an imaginary box, until she touched something solid—a cold, hard, invisible wall.
She pulled her hand away. "What is that?"
"Like I said," replied Arielle. "We're trapped."
Outside the invisible wall, mortal life continued as usual. A taxi drove past. A man jogged by pushing a stroller, a pit bull running alongside on a leash.
"Hey!" Hazel shouted at the jogger. "Can you hear me?"
The man just kept running. Even the dog didn't look in her direction.
"They cannot see or hear us," Arielle said. "We're not sure why. Every so often, a mortal tries to enter the park and then gets confused and simply turns away. This entire area is sealed off, only mythics within...and now you, Praetor. The centaurs keep looking for weak spots, because they are not very bright, but the more force you apply to the barrier, the harder it will repel you."
"Trust me on that," Asterion grumbled. "I have only been here a little longer than you, Hazel, but the first thing I did was try to charge through this magic boundary. I nearly broke my horns off."
She turned and gazed across the park. On the opposite side of the plaza stood another museum-type building—a long facade of white stone and glass, its roof a grassy landscape of artificial hills.
"That's the California Academy of Sciences," Hazel realized. "We're in Golden Gate Park!"
Asterion scratched the side of his snout. "I am not familiar with human geographical locations. Are we still in San Francisco?"
Hazel nodded. Trapped or not, she felt a sense of relief. At least they weren't someplace beyond the reach of all help—like in Tartarus or Alaska. "This is maybe five miles from the courthouse downtown. Which raises the question of how those guards transported us here."
"Yeah," Quinoa said, his face scrunched up in his characteristic scowl. "We wondered if it was that shadow-travel thing you and Nico are always talking about, but—"
"Shadow-travel!" Hazel hastily set down the karpos. "Let me try something."
She stepped toward a nearby cypress, whose trunk cast a nice dark shadow across the crushed stone. She imagined her bed in Camp Jupiter, with the extra-cushy pillow she loved so much. She put one foot in the shadow, willing herself to travel through it...but nothing happened.
"It's not working," she said mournfully. "I should be able to shadowtravel anywhere."
Asterion crossed his arms. "None of this makes sense. The abductions. The trials. Sentencing us to death, but instead, sending us to some sort of... holding area. What does this Court of the Dead want, and how did they get the power to create something like this prison?"
"Too many questions," Arielle muttered. "We've been here for days now, and new mythics just keep arriving, but..." She froze. "Wait. What about the others? Are Orcus and Johan and Semele all right?"
She sounded so worried Hazel was tempted to give her another hug.
"They were fine when I left camp." She gave the mythics a quick recap of what had been happening since they'd been abducted, including their standoff with Laverna in the principia.
Quinoa grunted. "That explains why the last thing I remember is a sack going over my head. Oh man...I just hope the kindergartners aren't too disappointed. I promised I'd come back and teach them how to raise earthworms! And you never break a promise to a kid."
Hazel couldn't bear seeing him so dispirited, his tiny shoulders and diaper sagging. "We're going to get out of here," she told him. "And I never break a promise to a friend."
Quinoa hugged her leg and began to sniffle. "I'm not crying," he insisted. "It's just all the dust."
Arielle sat on the nearest bench and began to massage her donkey knee. Hazel suspected it must be hard on the joints to have mismatched legs.
"At least you got more information at your trials," the empousa said. "I didn't think to demand the judges introduce themselves."
"Those masks were terrifying," Quinoa agreed, wiping away a green streak (that totally wasn't a tear) from his face. "Not that I was personally scared, mind you, but I can see how others could have been."
Hazel smiled. "Well, Asterion had more presence of mind than I did."
"And this Pirithous person..." said Arielle. "You recognized him from the Underworld?"
"Yeah," Hazel said. "He, um, used to hang out in the Fields of Asphodel."
She explained that by hang out, she actually meant Pirithous had been stuck in an outcropping of granite like he'd fallen asleep and melted into the rock. But how he'd managed to escape, Hazel had no idea.
Arielle grimaced. "So Pirithous was not one of the judges of the dead?"
"Far from it," Hazel said.
Thinking about Asphodel, she looked around at the stunted trees in the barren fields of crushed rock—so much like the Civic Center Plaza next to the courthouse. It couldn't be a coincidence that Pirithous had chosen two locations reminiscent of Asphodel in which to judge and detain his convicted mythics. It gave Hazel the same uneasy feeling as Pirithous's grotesque Hades/Pluto mask, like the court was meant to be an elaborate mockery—a criticism of her father and his entire system of judgment.
"Pirithous must have done something truly heinous," Asterion said, "to warrant such punishment."
"And now he thinks he's worthy of judging others," Quinoa said. "Typical human—no offense."
Hazel shrugged. There were plenty of humans she admired, and others she was embarrassed to share a species with. They were not so different from mythics in that respect.
"Speaking of humans..." Asterion pointed to the top of the steps.
An older mortal couple had stopped to look into the park. The woman wore tie-dye-patterned Lycra exercise clothes and a bright pink visor that cinched her gray hair into an hourglass shape. The man wore a similar outfit and was walking with ski poles.
"When do you think they'll be done with the construction?" the woman asked, squinting at something Hazel couldn't see. Apparently, the Mist had created a DO NOT ENTER: UNDER CONSTRUCTION sign.
The man harrumphed. "This may come as a shock to you, Stephanie, but I'm not the Recreation and Parks Department."
She rolled her eyes. "I didn't say you were, Mark."
"Then how am I supposed to know when the place will reopen? Waste of our tax dollars, if you ask me!"
The two walked off, still bickering
"We could hear them," Hazel noted. "But they can't hear us?"
"I don't know why," said Arielle.
"I just want to leave," Quinoa said. "I miss my hydroponic lights! I miss Camp Jupiter!"
"We all do, young one," said Asterion. "Perhaps if we could figure out why the judges dumped us here..."
Arielle extended her arms. "Welcome to our confusion. It's lovely here. There's pie!"
"There is?" asked Quinoa. "Where? I'm hungry!"
"It was sarcasm," Arielle muttered.
"I don't care what flavor it is!"
Hazel's own stomach growled. "What have you all been eating?"
Arielle snorted. "Whatever we can find. The vegetarians among us have been eating trees, shrubs, flowers...For the rest of us, it's been a challenge."
Hazel wondered how long an empousa could go without blood. She decided not to ask. And that drakon they'd seen on the lamppost...that had to require a fairly substantial meat diet.
"There were a couple of food stashes inside the barrier," Quinoa added. "An old hot dog stand. A closed-down café. But they've been pretty well picked over. We heard the first mythics started arriving here last month."
"That's a long time to be imprisoned," Hazel said. "I guess that's when the court started operating."
"Mmm," Asterion said. "And I notice most of the mythics have sp lit into groups to stay with their own kind. I imagine that is because, eventually, the stronger prisoners will have to start eating the weaker ones."
Hazel shuddered. Now that she thought about it, she was kind of surprised that violence hadn't already broken out.
A couple of Laistrygonian giants—each eight feet tall and covered in tattoos—were camped outside a makeshift tarp tent. In the park's central fountain, the largest of three, an enormous blue-green crab had made itself at home. And at the far end of the park, Hazel spotted what looked like a herd of katoblepones, the monstrous cattle that Frank once destroyed in Venice.
At the thought of Frank, Hazel's heart ached. He must be out of his mind with worry.
"Has anyone done a head count?" Hazel asked. "How many creatures are here?"
"One hundred and eight," said Quinoa, "including you now, Hazel." He shrugged self-consciously. "I enjoy counting. It's one reason I want to teach children."
"Hey, no judgment," Hazel said. "I think that's great!"
"I can do another count if you want!" The karpos flapped his wings, achieved wobbly liftoff, and then fluttered off toward the nearest fountain. "One, two, three...Stand still, you centaurs!"
"Just be careful!" Arielle called after him. Then she faced Hazel. "It gives him something to do, to take his mind off"—she gestured around them—"you know, being trapped in an invisible cage."
Arielle's words triggered something in Hazel's mind. "A cage...You said you've walked the entire perimeter?" "Many times," said Arielle. "There's no way out."
"But did you look for anything unusual? Anything that might be causing the barrier?"
The empousa's hair burned more brightly, as if she were expending more energy to process Hazel's question. "I'm not sure what you mean." Rather than try to explain, Hazel marched up to the barrier. She pressed her palm against the invisible wall. Then she began walking west, keeping her hand in contact with the cool surface. Asterion and Arielle followed.
"What is she doing?" Arielle asked.
Asterion grunted. "I often do not understand demigods."
The boundary ran straight, but it was not always easy to follow. At one point, Hazel had to climb through some hedges and then clamber over the pedestal of a large statue—a helmeted man holding a sword to the sky. Finally, as she approached the far end of the plaza, she found a corner—a forty-five-degree turn in the wall.
She crouched, tracing her fingers to ground level, and saw what she was looking for. Where the two sections of the invisible wall met, a small metal object had been tucked under a sage bush. Its twelve sides were hollow Celestial bronze, with a hole in each face and a protruding knob wherever three corners met. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the boundary, out of reach.
"That's it," she said. "This is how they're holding us!"
Asterion knelt next to her. "What is it?"
"A dodecahedron," she said. "Did Johan tell you how he was tricked into releasing one from the treasury?"
"He did. He said the object froze a demigod in place."
"One dodecahedron can do that," she said. "I bet we'll find three more of these, one at each corner of this park."
"But how do they work?" asked Arielle.
"I...don't know, exactly," Hazel admitted. "They're ancient creations. But once they're set up and activated, they capture and hold anything within their perimeter. Indefinitely."
The empousa scowled. "Powerful magic for something so small. Couldn't we simply break the connection somehow? Perhaps one of the harpies could fly out there and retrieve it."
Hazel considered this. She had an uneasy feeling that Pirithous wouldn't make it so easy to escape his prison. And if a flying prisoner could not get out...that raised a disturbing possibility about the nature of this cage.
"Ah," said a familiar voice, somewhere to her left. "There you are, Hazel Levesque!"
Hazel rose and then stumbled backward into Asterion.
Standing just outside the invisible barrier was Pirithous himself.
He was still wearing his judge robes, his Hades mask hanging from a rope around his neck. His cruel smile sent a chill down Hazel's spine.
"How are you settling in?" he asked. "Are the facilities to your liking?"
"Let us out, Pirithous," she growled.
"Oh, but we're just getting started!" he said, his eyes alight with joy.
Asterion touched her arm. "Come away, Hazel. We do not need to talk to this monster."
"Funny that you should use that word, Asterion," said the judge. "Rather ironic."
"Shut up," snapped Hazel.
He chuckled. "Manners, young lady. I know you think I'm a villain. And I did make a mistake, long ago. But I paid for my crime a hundred times over. At least your punishment will be fair and just."
"Fair and..." Hazel was so angry she choked on the words. She wanted to punch Pirithous in the face, but she guessed the barrier would break her hand.
"What exactly was your crime?" asked Arielle. "It must have been pretty bad if you ended up grafted to a rock."
Pirithous's expression soured. His small, dark eyes bored into Hazel's. "I see you've shared the story of how we met."
"But all those years in Asphodel," Hazel recalled, "you never once explained how you got in trouble. You were too busy whining about your rigged trial and unfair punishment."
"Because it was unfair!" he shouted. Then he paused, evidently trying to regain control of his anger. "But that's fine. I let it guide me to moral clarity." He pointed a finger at Hazel. "That's how I crossed paths with you. In a way, you inspired my court as much as your brother did."
Hazel held back angry tears. She didn't want to give Pirithous the satisfaction.
"Don't blame your megalomania on me," she said. "You don't deserve power over anyone."
Pirithous feigned shock. "Oh, do I not? Yet I was king of the Lapiths. I was worshipped as a hero across Greece. I led armies into battle. And then, when Theseus and I ventured into the Underworld, we both were fused to that cursed rock. Theseus was freed by Hercules. But me? No. Your father deemed me unworthy of rescue. He would not allow it. He..."
Pirithous seemed to realize that he had been subconsciously gripping the gold mask hanging around his neck, trying to crush the face of Hades. He dropped his hands.
"At any rate," he continued, "I was left behind. I was stuck in that rock for thousands of years. Then you came along, Hazel Levesque. You were in Asphodel for, what, a few decades? One of a billion souls who actually belonged in that place. But then your entitled brother freed you! Did Hades object to that? No! Did you deserve it? No!"
His pale face had turned bright red. A vein in his right temple looked like it was about to burst. "Do you know what it feels like to be disrespected like that?"
There were a lot of things Hazel could've said in response, but Pirithous's words were so absurd Hazel just broke into laughter.
He peered at her with disgust. "Of course you do not understand."
Hazel steadied her breathing. It felt good to laugh in Pirithous's face, but there were other lives on the line besides hers.
"If your grudge is with Nico and me," Hazel said, "let the mythics go free. They haven't done anything to you."
Pirithous scoffed. "Nice try, but that's not in the plan. Remember, you all have been sentenced to death."
"Allow me to hazard a guess," said Asterion. "You put us in here with little food and water. Then you wait until we turn on each other. In this way, you prove to yourself that we were monsters all along, unworthy of any other life."
Pirithous looked stunned. "Oh, that's good. That's very good! I confess I hadn't thought of that. But no, Asterion, I don't really care how or when you die in this cage. Your fate will serve a much greater purpose than simply proving the obvious. You will help me put the world to rights!"
Arielle slammed her fist against the barrier, and then she reeled backward, cradling her injured hand. "We won't help you with anything. Let us out!"
"You're an impatient one, Arielle." Pirithous shook his head like a disappointed father. "Give it time. More and more of you will appear in this prison, and with each new addition, I'll be closer to my goal."
Hazel felt like she was banging her head on the invisible wall. "Which is what?"
"For starters, I'm going to break the Mist."
Hazel blinked. "Excuse me?"
"The Mist has always hidden our world from that of the humans," said the judge. "We've fought entire wars without mortals knowing what was really happening."
"And?" asked Asterion.
The man's smile was absolute evil. "Never has there been such a high concentration of mythical beings in one small space at the same time. Eventually, it will be too much for the Mist to cover. When it breaks from the sheer pressure I've exerted on it, the mortal world will see exactly what you are, and how sloppy the Underworld has been about enforcing its borders. There will be chaos. Hades's misrule will be laid bare for all to see. He will have to respond."
Asterion snorted. "All of this, to embarrass Hades?"
"That is the beginning," Pirithous said. "When he arrives...well, I have a veritable army of gods, monsters, and demons on my side. All the forgotten and misunderstood stand with me. They all appreciate my logic. No one is above justice, even the gods."
Hazel shivered. "So that's what this is about. You want to put my father on trial?"
"And why not?" he cried. "Have you seen the state of the Underworld since the Doors of Death opened? It's chaos. You have Titans becoming heroes, heroes venturing into Tartarus, the Minotaur playing dress-up in the mortal world with his hand-knitted outfits. There is no order. No just punishment. Hades must answer for this. He will have his day in court."
"You're delusional," said Hazel. "If my father does show up, he will tear you into a million pieces."
The gleam in Pirithous's eyes was calm and self-assured. It made Hazel nervous.
"We will see," he said. "But for now, I must return to court. So many cases on the afternoon's docket!" He turned to go and then hesitated. "By the way, I heard the tail end of your conversation. There is a top to this prison. Can't have anyone flying out, can we? And I suppose you could try convincing a mortal to move one of the dodecahedrons...." He smiled at Arielle. "If, for instance, you had someone who could charmspeak. But I don't think that would end well for the mortal. These devices carry quite a charge when they are generating a perimeter of this size...."
Then Pirithous disappeared in a burst of flame and ash...which was not nearly as satisfying to watch as Hazel would've hoped.
Arielle swore under her breath. "I hate that man. We have to get out of here."
"I know," said Hazel. "Even if we don't run out of food or water, we have another problem. Because if Pirithous is telling the truth about this prison, we're in a sealed box with limited vegetation and more mythics arriving all the time."
"Meaning?" asked Arielle.
"Eventually," Hazel said, "we're going to run out of oxygen."
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