The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, Book Three)

by Rick Riordan

  She looked around her. Her dagger had skittered a few feet away. In its dim light she could make out the features of the room. She was lying on a cold floor of sandstone blocks. The ceiling was two stories tall. The doorway through which she’d fallen was ten feet off the ground, now completely blocked with debris that had cascaded into the room, making a rockslide. Scattered around her were old pieces of lumber—some cracked and desiccated, others broken into kindling.

  Stupid, she scolded herself. She’d lunged through that doorway, assuming there would be a level corridor or another room. It had never occurred to her that she’d be tumbling into space. The lumber had probably once been a staircase, long ago collapsed.

  She inspected her ankle. Her foot didn’t appear too strangely bent. She could feel her toes. She didn’t see any blood. That was all good.

  She reached out for a piece of lumber. Even that small bit of movement made her yelp.

  The board crumbled in her hand. The wood might be centuries old, or even millennia. She had no way of knowing if this room was older than the shrine of Mithras, or if—like the labyrinth—the rooms were a hodgepodge from many eras thrown randomly together.

  “Okay,” she said aloud, just to hear her voice. “Think, Annabeth. Prioritize.”

  She remembered a silly wilderness survival course Grover had taught her back at camp. At least it had seemed silly at the time. First step: Scan your surroundings for immediate threats.

  This room didn’t seem to be in danger of collapsing. The rockslide had stopped. The walls were solid blocks of stone with no major cracks that she could see. The ceiling was not sagging. Good.

  The only exit was on the far wall—an arched doorway that led into darkness. Between her and the doorway, a small brickwork trench cut across the floor, letting water flow through the room from left to right. Maybe plumbing from the Roman days? If the water was drinkable, that was good too.

  Piled in one corner were some broken ceramic vases, spilling out shriveled brown clumps that might once have been fruit. Yuck. In another corner were some wooden crates that looked more intact, and some wicker boxes bound with leather straps.

  “So, no immediate danger,” she said to herself. “Unless something comes barreling out of that dark tunnel.”

  She glared at the doorway, almost daring her luck to get worse. Nothing happened.

  “Okay,” she said. “Next step: Take inventory.”

  What could she use? She had her water bottle, and more water in that trench if she could reach it. She had her knife. Her backpack was full of colorful string (whee), her laptop, the bronze map, some matches, and some ambrosia for emergencies.

  Ah…yeah. This qualified as an emergency. She dug the godly food out of her pack and wolfed it down. As usual, it tasted like comforting memories. This time it was buttered popcorn—movie night with her dad at his place in San Francisco, no stepmom, no stepbrothers, just Annabeth and her father curled up on the sofa watching sappy old romantic comedies.

  The ambrosia warmed her whole body. The pain in her leg became a dull throb. Annabeth knew she was still in major trouble. Even ambrosia couldn’t heal broken bones right away. It might speed up the process, but best-case scenario, she wouldn’t be able to put any weight on her foot for a day or more.

  She tried to reach her knife, but it was too far away. She scooted in that direction. Pain flared again, like nails were piercing her foot. Her face beaded with sweat, but after one more scoot, she managed to reach the dagger.

  She felt better holding it—not just for light and protection, but also because it was so familiar.

  What next? Grover’s survival class had mentioned something about staying put and waiting for rescue, but that wasn’t going to happen. Even if Percy somehow managed to trace her steps, the cavern of Mithras had collapsed.

  She could try contacting someone with Daedalus’s laptop, but she doubted she could get a signal down here. Besides, who would she call? She couldn’t text anyone who was close enough to help. Demigods never carried cell phones, because their signals attracted too much monstrous attention, and none of her friends would be sitting around checking their e-mail.

  An Iris-message? She had water, but she doubted that she could make enough light for a rainbow. The only coin she had was her silver Athenian drachma, which didn’t make a great tribute.

  There was another problem with calling for help: this was supposed to be a solo quest. If Annabeth did get rescued, she’d be admitting defeat. Something told her that the Mark of Athena would no longer guide her. She could wander down here forever, and she’d never find the Athena Parthenos.

  So…no good staying put and waiting for help. Which meant she had to find a way to keep going on her own.

  She opened her water bottle and drank. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. When the bottle was empty, she crawled to the gutter and refilled it.

  The water was cold and moving swiftly—good signs that it might be safe to drink. She filled her bottle, then cupped some water in her hands and splashed her face. Immediately she felt more alert. She washed off and cleaned her scrapes as best she could.

  Annabeth sat up and glared at her ankle.

  “You had to break,” she scolded it.

  The ankle did not reply.

  She’d have to immobilize it in some sort of cast. That was the only way she’d be able to move.

  Hmm…

  She raised her dagger and inspected the room again in its bronze light. Now that she was closer to the open doorway, she liked it even less. It led into a dark silent corridor. The air wafting out smelled sickly sweet and somehow evil. Unfortunately, Annabeth didn’t see any other way she could go.

  With a lot of gasping and blinking back tears, she crawled over to the wreckage of the stairs. She found two planks that were in fairly good shape and long enough for a splint. Then she scooted over to the wicker boxes and used her knife to cut off the leather straps.

  While she was psyching herself up to immobilize her ankle, she noticed some faded words on one of the wooden crates: HERMES EXPRESS.

  Annabeth scooted excitedly toward the box.

  She had no idea what it was doing here, but Hermes delivered all sorts of useful stuff to gods, spirits, and even demigods. Maybe he’d dropped this care package here years ago to help demigods like her with this quest.

  She pried it open and pulled out several sheets of Bubble Wrap, but whatever had been inside was gone.

  “Hermes!” she protested.

  She stared glumly at the Bubble Wrap. Then her mind kicked into gear, and she realized the wrapping was a gift. “Oh…that’s perfect!”

  Annabeth covered her broken ankle in a Bubble Wrap cast. She set it with the lumber splints and tied it all together with the leather straps.

  Once before, in first aid practice, she’d splinted a fake broken leg for another camper, but she never imagined she’d have to make a splint for herself.

  It was hard, painful work, but finally it was done. She searched the wreckage of the stairs until she found part of the railing—a narrow board about four feet long that could serve as a crutch. She put her back against the wall, got her good leg ready, and hauled herself up.

  “Whoa.” Black spots danced in her eyes, but she stayed upright.

  “Next time,” she muttered to the dark room, “just let me fight a monster. Much easier.”

  Above the open doorway, the Mark of Athena blazed to life against the arch.

  The fiery owl seemed to be watching her expectantly, as if to say: About time. Oh, you want monsters? Right this way!

  Annabeth wondered if that burning mark was based on a real sacred owl. If so, when she survived, she was going to find that owl and punch it in the face.

  That thought lifted her spirits. She made it across the trench and hobbled slowly into the corridor.

  THE TUNNEL RAN STRAIGHT AND SMOOTH, but after her fall, Annabeth decided to take no chances. She used the wall for support and tapped the floor
in front of her with her crutch to make sure there were no traps.

  As she walked, the sickly sweet smell got stronger and set her nerves on edge. The sound of running water faded behind her. In its place came a dry chorus of whispers like a million tiny voices. They seemed to be coming from inside the walls, and they were getting louder.

  Annabeth tried to speed up, but she couldn’t go much faster without losing her balance or jarring her broken ankle. She hobbled onward, convinced that something was following her. The small voices were massing together, getting closer.

  She touched the wall, and her hand came back covered in cobwebs.

  She yelped, then cursed herself for making a sound.

  It’s only a web, she told herself. But that didn’t stop the roaring in her ears.

  She’d expected spiders. She knew what was ahead: The weaver. Her Ladyship. The voice in the dark. But the webs made her realize how close she was.

  Her hand trembled as she wiped it on the stones. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this quest alone.

  Too late, she told herself. Just keep going.

  She made her way down the corridor one painful step at a time. The whispering sounds got louder behind her until they sounded like millions of dried leaves swirling in the wind. The cobwebs became thicker, filling the tunnel. Soon she was pushing them out of her face, ripping through gauzy curtains that covered her like Silly String.

  Her heart wanted to break out of her chest and run. She stumbled ahead more recklessly, trying to ignore the pain in her ankle.

  Finally the corridor ended in a doorway filled waist-high with old lumber. It looked as if someone had tried to barricade the opening. That didn’t bode well, but Annabeth used her crutch to push away the boards as best she could. She crawled over the remaining pile, getting a few dozen splinters in her free hand.

  On the other side of the barricade was a chamber the size of a basketball court. The floor was done in Roman mosaics. The remains of tapestries hung from the walls. Two unlit torches sat in wall sconces on either side of the doorway, both covered in cobwebs.

  At the far end of the room, the Mark of Athena burned over another doorway. Unfortunately, between Annabeth and that exit, the floor was bisected by a chasm fifty feet across. Spanning the pit were two parallel wooden beams, too far apart for both feet, but each too narrow to walk on unless Annabeth was an acrobat, which she wasn’t, and didn’t have a broken ankle, which she did.

  The corridor she’d come from was filled with hissing noises. Cobwebs trembled and danced as the first of the spiders appeared: no larger than gumdrops, but plump and black, skittering over the walls and the floor.

  What kind of spiders? Annabeth had no idea. She only knew they were coming for her, and she only had seconds to figure out a plan.

  Annabeth wanted to sob. She wanted someone, anyone, to be here for her. She wanted Leo with his fire skills, or Jason with his lightning, or Hazel to collapse the tunnel. Most of all she wanted Percy. She always felt braver when Percy was with her.

  I am not going to die here, she told herself. I’m going to see Percy again.

  The first spiders were almost to the door. Behind them came the bulk of the army—a black sea of creepy-crawlies.

  Annabeth hobbled to one of the wall sconces and snatched up the torch. The end was coated in pitch for easy lighting. Her fingers felt like lead, but she rummaged through her backpack and found the matches. She struck one and set the torch ablaze.

  She thrust it into the barricade. The old dry wood caught immediately. Flames leaped to the cobwebs and roared down the corridor in a flash fire, roasting spiders by the thousands.

  Annabeth stepped back from her bonfire. She’d bought herself some time, but she doubted that she’d killed all the spiders. They would regroup and swarm again as soon as the fire died.

  She stepped to the edge of the chasm.

  She shined her light into the pit, but she couldn’t see the bottom. Jumping in would be suicide. She could try to cross one of the bars hand over hand, but she didn’t trust her arm strength, and she didn’t see how she would be able to haul herself up with a full backpack and a broken ankle once she reached the other side.

  She crouched and studied the beams. Each had a set of iron eye hooks along the inside, set at one-foot intervals. Maybe the rails had been the sides of a bridge and the middle planks had been removed or destroyed. But eye hooks? Those weren’t for supporting planks. More like…

  She glanced at the walls. The same kind of hooks had been used to hang the shredded tapestries.

  She realized the beams weren’t meant as a bridge. They were some kind of loom.

  Annabeth threw her flaming torch to the other side of the chasm. She had no faith her plan would work, but she pulled all the string out of her backpack and began weaving between the beams, stringing a cat’s cradle pattern back and forth from eye hook to eye hook, doubling and tripling the line.

  Her hands moved with blazing speed. She stopped thinking about the task and just did it, looping and tying off lines, slowly extending her woven net over the pit.

  She forgot the pain in her leg and the fiery barricade guttering out behind her. She inched over the chasm. The weaving held her weight. Before she knew it, she was halfway across.

  How had she learned to do this?

  It’s Athena, she told herself. My mother’s skill with useful crafts. Weaving had never seemed particularly useful to Annabeth—until now.

  She glanced behind her. The barricade fire was dying. A few spiders crawled in around the edges of the doorway.

  Desperately she continued weaving, and finally she made it across. She snatched up the torch and thrust it into her woven bridge. Flames raced along the string. Even the beams caught fire as if they’d been pre-soaked in oil.

  For a moment, the bridge burned in a clear pattern—a fiery row of identical owls. Had Annabeth really woven them into the string, or was it some kind of magic? She didn’t know, but as the spiders began to cross, the beams crumbled and collapsed into the pit.

  Annabeth held her breath. She didn’t see any reason why the spiders couldn’t reach her by climbing the walls or the ceiling. If they started to do that, she’d have to run for it, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t move fast enough.

  For some reason, the spiders didn’t follow. They massed at the edge of the pit—a seething black carpet of creepiness. Then they dispersed, flooding back into the burned corridor, almost as if Annabeth was no longer interesting.

  “Or I passed a test,” she said aloud.

  Her torch sputtered out, leaving her with only the light of her dagger. She realized that she’d left her makeshift crutch on the other side of the chasm.

  She felt exhausted and out of tricks, but her mind was clear. Her panic seemed to have burned up along with that woven bridge.

  The weaver, she thought. I must be close. At least I know what’s ahead.

  She made her way down the next corridor, hopping to keep the weight off her bad foot.

  She didn’t have far to go.

  After twenty feet, the tunnel opened into a cavern as large as a cathedral, so majestic that Annabeth had trouble processing everything she saw. She guessed that this was the room from Percy’s dream, but it wasn’t dark. Bronze braziers of magical light, like the gods used on Mount Olympus, glowed around the circumference of the room, interspersed with gorgeous tapestries. The stone floor was webbed with fissures like a sheet of ice. The ceiling was so high, it was lost in the gloom and layers upon layers of spiderwebs.

  Strands of silk as thick as pillars ran from the ceiling all over the room, anchoring the walls and the floor like the cables of a suspension bridge.

  Webs also surrounded the centerpiece of the shrine, which was so intimidating that Annabeth had trouble raising her eyes to look at it. Looming over her was a forty-foot-tall statue of Athena, with luminous ivory skin and a dress of gold. In her outstretched hand, Athena held a statue of Nike, the winged victory
goddess—a statue that looked tiny from here, but was probably as tall as a real person. Athena’s other hand rested on a shield as big as a billboard, with a sculpted snake peeking out from behind, as if Athena was protecting it.

  The goddess’s face was serene and kindly…and it looked like Athena. Annabeth had seen many statues that didn’t resemble her mom at all, but this giant version, made thousands of years ago, made her think that the artist must have met Athena in person. He had captured her perfectly.

  “Athena Parthenos,” Annabeth murmured. “It’s really here.”

  All her life, she had wanted to visit the Parthenon. Now she was seeing the main attraction that used to be there—and she was the first child of Athena to do so in millennia.

  She realized her mouth was hanging open. She forced herself to swallow. Annabeth could have stood there all day looking at the statue, but she had only accomplished half her mission. She had found the Athena Parthenos. Now, how could she rescue it from this cavern?

  Strands of web covered it like a gauze pavilion. Annabeth suspected that without those webs, the statue would have fallen through the weakened floor long ago. As she stepped into the room, she could see that the cracks below were so wide, she could have lost her foot in them. Beneath the cracks, she saw nothing but empty darkness.

  A chill washed over her. Where was the guardian? How could Annabeth free the statue without collapsing the floor? She couldn’t very well shove the Athena Parthenos down the corridor that she’d come from.

  She scanned the chamber, hoping to see something that might help. Her eyes wandered over the tapestries, which were heart-wrenchingly beautiful. One showed a pastoral scene so three-dimensional, it could’ve been a window. Another tapestry showed the gods battling the giants. Annabeth saw a landscape of the Underworld. Next to it was the skyline of modern Rome. And in the tapestry to her left…

  She caught her breath. It was a portrait of two demigods kissing underwater: Annabeth and Percy, the day their friends had thrown them into the canoe lake at camp. It was so lifelike that she wondered if the weaver had been there, lurking in the lake with a waterproof camera.