The Burning Maze

by Rick Riordan

  ‘This is a word puzzle,’ I decided. ‘Like an acrostic or a crossword. The Sibyl is trying to guide us to her.’

  Meg frowned at the different hallways. ‘If she’s trying to help, why can’t she just make it easy and give us a single direction?’

  ‘This is how Herophile operates,’ I said. ‘It’s the only way she can help us. I believe we have to, er, fill in the correct answer in the correct number of spaces.’

  Grover scratched his head. ‘Does anyone have a giant golden pen? I wish Percy were here.’

  ‘I don’t think we need that,’ I said. ‘We just need to walk in the right direction to spell out my name. Apollo, six letters. Only one of these corridors has six spaces.’

  ‘Are you counting the space we’re standing in?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘Let’s assume this is the start space.’ Her question made me doubt myself, though.

  ‘What if the answer is Lester?’ she said. ‘That has six spaces, too.’

  The idea made my throat itch. ‘Will you please stop asking good questions? I had this all figured out!’

  ‘Or what if the answer is in Greek?’ Grover added. ‘The question is in Greek. How many spaces would your name be then?’

  Another annoyingly logical point. My name in Greek was Απολλων.

  ‘That would be seven spaces,’ I admitted. ‘Even if transcribed in English, Apollon.’

  ‘Ask the Arrow of Dodona?’ Grover suggested.

  The scar in my chest tingled like a faulty electric outlet. ‘That’s probably against the rules.’

  Meg snorted. ‘You just don’t want to talk to the arrow. Why not try?’

  If I resisted, I imagined she would phrase it as an order, so I pulled forth the Arrow of Dodona.

  BACKETH OFF, KNAVE! it buzzed in alarm. NE’ER AGAIN SHALT THOU STICKEST ME IN THY LOATHSOME CHEST! NOR IN THE EYES OF THY ENEMIES!

  ‘Relax,’ I told it. ‘I just want some advice.’

  SO THOU SAYEST NOW, BUT I WARN THEE – The arrow went deathly still. BUT SOOTH. IS THIS A CROSSWORD I SEE BEFORE ME? VERILY, I DOTH LOVE CROSSWORDS.

  ‘Oh, joy. Oh, happiness.’ I turned to my friends. ‘The arrow loves crosswords.’

  I explained our predicament to the arrow, who insisted on getting a closer look at the floor squares and the hint written on the wall. A closer look … with what eyes? I did not know.

  The arrow hummed thoughtfully. METHINKS THE ANSWER SHALT BEEST IN THE COMMON TONGUE OF ENGLISH. ’TWOULD BEEST THE NAME BY WHICH THOU ART MOST FAMILIAR IN THE PRESENT DAY.

  ‘He sayeth –’ I sighed. ‘He says the answer will be in English. I hope he means modern English and not the strange Shakespearean lingo he speaks –’

  ’TIS NOT STRANGE! the arrow objected.

  ‘Because we don’t have enough spaces to spell Apollonius beest thy answereth.’

  OH, HA-HA. A JEST AS WEAK AS THY MUSCLES.

  ‘Thanks for playing.’ I sheathed the arrow. ‘So, friends, the tunnel with six squares. Apollo. Shall we?’

  ‘What if we choose wrong?’ Grover asked.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘perhaps the magic sandals will help. Or perhaps the sandals only allow us to play this game in the first place, and if we stray from the right path, despite the Sibyl’s efforts to assist us, we will open ourselves up to the fury of the maze –’

  ‘And we burn to death,’ Meg said.

  ‘I love games,’ Grover said. ‘Lead on.’

  ‘The answer is Apollo!’ I said, just for the record.

  As soon as I stepped to the next square, a large capital A appeared at my feet.

  I took this as a good sign. I stepped again, and a P appeared. My two friends followed close behind.

  At last we stepped off the sixth square, into a small chamber identical to the last. Looking back, the entire word APOLLO blazed in our wake. Before us, three more corridors with golden rows of squares led onward – left, right and forward.

  ‘There’s another clue.’ Meg pointed to the wall. ‘Why is this one in English?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. Then I read aloud the glowing words: ‘Herald of new entrances, opener of the softly gliding year, Janus, of the double.’

  ‘Oh, that guy. Roman god of doorways.’ Grover shuddered. ‘I met him once.’ He looked around suspiciously. ‘I hope he doesn’t pop up. He would love this place.’

  Meg traced her fingers across the golden lines. ‘Kinda easy, isn’t it? His name’s right there in the clue. Five letters, J-A-N-U-S, so it’s got to be that way.’ She pointed down the hallway on the right, which was the only one with five spaces.

  I stared at the clue, then the squares. I was beginning to sense something even more unsettling than the heat, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  ‘Janus isn’t the answer,’ I decided. ‘This is more of a fill-in-the-blanks situation, don’t you think? Janus of the double what?’

  ‘Faces,’ Grover said. ‘He had two faces, neither of which I need to see again.’

  I announced aloud to the empty corridor: ‘The correct answer is faces!’

  I received no response, but as we proceeded down the right-hand corridor the word FACES appeared. Reassuringly, we were not roasted alive by Titan fire.

  In the next chamber, new corridors once again led in three directions. This time, the glowing clue on the wall was again in Ancient Greek.

  A thrill went through me as I read the lines. ‘I know this! It’s from a poem by Bacchylides.’ I translated for my friends: ‘But the highest god, mighty with his thunderbolt, sent Hypnos and his twin from snowy Olympus to the fearless fighter Sarpedon.’

  Meg and Grover stared at me blankly. Honestly, just because I was wearing the Caligula shoes, did I have to do everything?

  ‘Something is altered in this line,’ I said. ‘I remember the scene. Sarpedon dies. Zeus has his body carried away from the battlefield. But the wording –’

  ‘Hypnos is the god of sleep,’ Grover said. ‘That cabin makes excellent milk and cookies. But who’s his twin?’

  My heart ka-thumped. ‘That’s what’s different. In the actual line, it doesn’t say his twin. It names the twin: Thanatos. Or Death, in English.’

  I looked at the three tunnels. No corridor had eight squares for Thanatos. One had ten spaces, one had four, and one had five – just enough to fit DEATH.

  ‘Oh, no …’ I leaned against the nearest wall. I felt like one of Aloe Vera’s spikes was making its slimy way down my back.

  ‘Why do you look so scared?’ Meg asked. ‘You’re doing great so far.’

  ‘Because, Meg,’ I said, ‘we are not just solving random puzzles. We are putting together a word-puzzle prophecy. And so far it says APOLLO FACES DEATH.’

  38

  I sing to myself!

  Though Apollo is cooler

  Like, way, way cooler

  I hated being right.

  When we got to the end of the tunnel, the word DEATH blazed on the floor behind us. We found ourselves in a larger circular chamber, five new tunnels branching out before us like the fingers and thumb of a giant automaton hand.

  I waited for a new clue to appear on the wall. Whatever it was, I desperately wanted the answer to be NOT REALLY. Or perhaps AND DEFEATS IT EASILY!

  ‘Why is nothing happening?’ Grover asked.

  Meg tilted her head. ‘Listen.’

  Blood roared in my ears, but at last I heard what Meg was talking about: a distant cry of pain – deep and guttural, more beast than human – along with the dull crackle of fire, as if … oh, gods. As if someone or something had been grazed by Titan heat and now lay dying a slow death.

  ‘Sounds like a monster,’ Grover decided. ‘Should we help it?’

  ‘How?’ Meg asked.

  She had a point. The noise echoed, so diffuse I couldn’t tell which corridor it came from, even if we were free to pick our path without answering riddles.

  ‘We’ll have to keep going,’ I decided. ‘I imagine M
edea has monsters on guard down here. That must be one of them. I doubt she’s too concerned about them occasionally getting caught in the fires.’

  Grover winced. ‘Doesn’t seem right, letting it suffer.’

  ‘Also,’ Meg added, ‘what if one of those monsters triggers a flash fire and it comes our way?’

  I stared at my young master. ‘You are a fountain of dark questions today. We have to have faith.’

  ‘In the Sibyl?’ she asked. ‘In those evil shoes?’

  I didn’t have an answer for her. Fortunately, I was saved by the belated appearance of the next clue – three golden lines in Latin.

  ‘Oh, Latin!’ Grover said. ‘Hold on. I can do this.’ He squinted at the words, then sighed. ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘Honestly, no Greek or Latin?’ I said. ‘What do they teach you in satyr school?’

  ‘Mostly, you know, important stuff. Like plants.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Meg muttered.

  I translated the clue for my less educated friends:

  ‘Now must I tell of the flight of the king.

  The last to reign over the Roman people

  Was a man unjust yet puissant in arms.’

  I nodded. ‘I believe that’s a quote from Ovid.’

  Neither of my comrades looked impressed.

  ‘So what’s the answer?’ Meg asked. ‘The last Roman emperor?’

  ‘No, not an emperor,’ I said. ‘In the very first days of Rome, the city was ruled by kings. The last one, the seventh, was overthrown, and Rome became a republic.’

  I tried to cast my thoughts back to the Kingdom of Rome. That whole time period was a little hazy to me. We gods were still based in Greece then. Rome was something of a backwater. The last king, though … he brought back some bad memories.

  Meg broke my reverie. ‘What is puissant?’

  ‘It means powerful,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like that. If somebody called me puissant, I would hit them.’

  ‘But you are, in fact, puissant in arms.’

  She hit me.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Guys,’ Grover said. ‘What’s the name of the last Roman king?’

  I thought. ‘Ta … hmm. I just had it, and now it’s gone. Ta-something.’

  ‘Taco?’ Grover said helpfully.

  ‘Why would a Roman king be named Taco?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Grover rubbed his stomach. ‘Because I’m hungry?’

  Curse the satyr. Now all I could think of was tacos. Then the answer came back to me. ‘Tarquin! Or Tarquinius, in the original Latin.’

  ‘Well, which is it?’ Meg asked.

  I studied the corridors. The tunnel on the far left, the thumb, had ten spaces, enough for Tarquinius. The tunnel in the middle had seven, enough for Tarquin.

  ‘It’s that one,’ I decided, pointing to the centre tunnel.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Grover asked. ‘Because the arrow told us the answers would be in English?’

  ‘That,’ I conceded, ‘and also because these tunnels look like five fingers. It makes sense the maze would give me the middle finger.’ I raised my voice. ‘Isn’t that right? The answer is Tarquin, the middle finger? I love you, too, maze.’

  We walked the path, the name TARQUIN blazing in gold behind us.

  The corridor opened into a square chamber, the largest space we’d seen yet. The walls and floor were tiled in faded Roman mosaics that looked original, though I was fairly sure the Romans had never colonized any part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

  The air felt even warmer and drier. The floor was hot enough that I could feel it through the soles of my sandals. One positive thing about the room: it offered us only three new tunnels to choose from, rather than five.

  Grover sniffed the air. ‘I don’t like this room. I smell something … monstery.’

  Meg gripped her scimitars. ‘From which direction?’

  ‘Uh … all of them?’

  ‘Oh, look,’ I said, trying to sound cheerful, ‘another clue.’

  We approached the nearest mosaic wall, where two golden lines of English glowed across the tiles:

  Leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,

  Perennial roots, tall leaves – O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves

  Perhaps my brain was still stuck in Latin and Greek, because those lines meant nothing to me, even in plain English.

  ‘I like this one,’ Meg said. ‘It’s about leaves.’

  ‘Yes, lots of leaves,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s nonsense.’

  Grover choked. ‘Nonsense? Don’t you recognize it?’

  ‘Er, should I?’

  ‘You’re the god of poetry!’

  I felt my face begin to burn. ‘I used to be the god of poetry, which does not mean I am a walking encyclopedia of every obscure line ever written –’

  ‘Obscure?’ Grover’s shrill voice echoed unnervingly down the corridors. ‘That’s Walt Whitman! From Leaves of Grass! I don’t remember exactly which poem it’s from, but –’

  ‘You read poetry?’ Meg asked.

  Grover licked his lips. ‘You know … mostly nature poetry. Whitman, for a human, had some beautiful things to say about trees.’

  ‘And leaves,’ Meg noted. ‘And roots.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I wanted to lecture them about how overrated Walt Whitman was. The man was always singing songs to himself instead of praising others, like me, for instance. But I decided the critique would have to wait.

  ‘Do you know the answer, then?’ I asked Grover. ‘Is this a fill-in-the-blanks question? Multiple choice? True-False?’

  Grover studied the lines. ‘I think … yeah. There’s a word missing at the beginning. It’s supposed to read Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, et cetera.’

  ‘Tomb-leaves?’ Meg asked. ‘That doesn’t make sense. But neither does body-leaves. Unless he’s talking about a dryad.’

  ‘It’s imagery,’ I said. ‘Clearly, he is describing a place of death, overgrown by nature –’

  ‘Oh, now you’re an expert on Walt Whitman,’ Grover said.

  ‘Satyr, don’t test me. When I become a god again –’

  ‘Both of you, stop,’ Meg ordered. ‘Apollo, say the answer.’

  ‘Fine.’ I sighed. ‘Maze, the answer is tomb.’

  We took another successful trip down the middle finger … I mean, central hall. The word TOMB blazed in the four squares behind us.

  At the end, we arrived in a circular room, even larger and more ornate. Across the domed ceiling spread a silver-on-blue mosaic of zodiac signs. Six new tunnels radiated outward. In the middle of the floor stood an old fountain, unfortunately dry. (A drink would have been much appreciated. Interpreting poetry and solving puzzles is thirsty work.)

  ‘The rooms are getting bigger,’ Grover noted. ‘And more elaborate.’

  ‘Maybe that’s good,’ I said. ‘It might mean we’re getting closer.’

  Meg eyed the zodiac images. ‘You sure we didn’t take a wrong turn? The prophecy doesn’t even make sense so far. Apollo faces death Tarquin tomb.’

  ‘You have to assume the small words,’ I said. ‘I believe the message is Apollo faces death in Tarquin’s tomb.’ I gulped. ‘Actually, I don’t like that message. Perhaps the little words we’re missing are Apollo faces NO death; Tarquin’s tomb … something, something. Maybe the next words are grants him fabulous prizes.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Meg pointed at the rim of the central fountain, where the next clue had appeared. Three lines in English read:

  Named for Apollo’s fallen love, this flower should be planted in autumn.

  Set the bulb in the soil with the pointy end up. Cover with soil

  And water thoroughly … you are transplanting.

  I stifled a sob.

  First the maze forced me to read Walt Whitman. Now it taunted me with my own past. To mention my dead love, Hyacinthus, and his tragic death, to reduce him to a bit of Oracle trivia … No. Th
is was too much.

  I sat down on the rim of the fountain and cupped my face in my hands.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Grover asked nervously.

  Meg answered. ‘Those lines are talking about his old boyfriend. Hyacinth.’

  ‘Hyacinthus,’ I corrected.

  I surged to my feet, my sadness converting to anger. My friends edged away. I supposed I must have looked like a crazy man, and that’s indeed how I felt.

  ‘Herophile!’ I yelled into the darkness. ‘I thought we were friends!’

  ‘Uh, Apollo?’ Meg said. ‘I don’t think she’s taunting you on purpose. Also, the answer is about the flower, hyacinth. I’m pretty sure those lines are from the Farmer’s Almanac.’

  ‘I don’t care if they’re from the telephone directory!’ I bellowed. ‘Enough is enough. HYACINTH!’ I yelled into the corridors. ‘The answer is HYACINTH! Are you happy?’

  Meg yelled, ‘NO!’

  In retrospect, she really should have yelled Apollo, stop! Then I would’ve had no choice but to obey her command. Therefore, what happened next is Meg’s fault.

  I marched down the only corridor with eight squares.

  Grover and Meg ran after me, but by the time they caught me it was too late.

  I looked behind, expecting to see the word HYACINTH spelled out on the floor. Instead, only six of the squares were lit up in glaring correction-pen red:

  U

  N

  L

  E

  S

  S

  Under our feet, the tunnel floor disappeared, and we dropped into a pit of fire.

  39

  Noble sacrifice

  I’ll protect you from the flames

  Wow, I’m a good guy

  Under different circumstances, how delighted I would have been to see that UNLESS.

  Apollo faces death in Tarquin’s tomb unless …

  Oh, happy conjunction! It meant there was a way to avoid potential death, and I was all about avoiding potential death.

  Unfortunately, falling into a pit of fire dampened my new-found hope.

  In mid-air, before I could even process what was happening, I lurched to a halt, my quiver strap yanked tight across my chest, my left foot nearly popping free from my ankle.