by Rick Riordan
faster than Hades can close them. You must retrieve the sword before it leaves our
realm. Or all is lost.”
“Even if we wanted to,” Thalia said, “how would we find this thief?”
A potted plant appeared on the table, a sickly yellow carnation with a few green leaves.
The flower listed sideways as if it were trying to find the sun. “This would guide you,”
the goddess said.
“A magic carnation?” I asked.
“The flower always faces the thief. As your prey gets closer to escaping, the petals will
fall off.”
Right on cue, a yellow petal turned gray and fluttered onto the dirt. “If all the petals fall
off,” Persephone said, “the flower dies. This means the thief has reached an exit and
you have failed.”
I glanced at Thalia. She didn't seem too enthusiastic about the whole track-a-thief-witha-
flower thing. Then I looked at Nico. Unfortunately, I recognized the expression on his
face. I knew what it was like wanting to make your dad proud, even if your dad was
hard to love. In this case, really hard to love. Nico was going to do this, with or without
us. I couldn't let him go alone.
“One condition,” I told Persephone. “Hades would have to swear on the River Styx that
he will never use this sword against the gods.”
The goddess shrugged. “I am not Lord Hades. But I'm confident he would do this as
payment for your help.”
Another petal fell off the carnation. I turned to Thalia. “I'll hold the flower while you
beat up the thief?”
She sighed. “Fine. Let's go catch this jerk.”
The Underworld didn't get into the Christmas spirit. As we made our way down the
palace road into the Fields of Asphodel, it looked pretty much like it had on my previous
visit. Seriously depressing. Yellow grass and stunted black poplar trees rolled on forever.
Shades drifted aimlessly across the hills, coming from nowhere and going nowhere,
chattering to each other and trying to remember who they were in life. High above us,
the cavern ceiling glistened darkly. I carried the carnation which made me feel pretty
stupid. Nico led the way, since his blade could clear a path through any crowd of
undead. Thalia mostly grumbled that she should've known better than to go on a quest
with a couple of boys.
“Did Persephone seem kind of uptight?” I asked.
Nico waded through a mob of ghosts, driving them back with Stygian iron. “She always
acts that way when I'm around. She hates me.”
“Then why did she include you in the quest?”
“Probably my dad's idea.” He sounded like he wanted that to be true but I wasn't so
sure. It seems strange to me that Hades hadn't given us the quest himself. If this sword
was so important to him, why had he let Persephone explain things? Usually, Hades
liked to threaten demigods in person.
Nico forged ahead. No matter how crowded the fields were (and if you've ever seen
Times Square on New Year's Eve you have a pretty good idea) the spirits parted before
him. “He's handy with zombie crowds,” Thalia admitted. “Think I'll take him along next
time I go to the mall.”
She gripped her bow tight like she was afraid it would turn into honeysuckle vine again.
She didn't look any older than she had last year and it suddenly occurred to me that she
would never age, now that she was a Huntress. That meant I was older than she was.
Weird.
“So,” I said, “how's immortality training you?”
She rolled her eyes. “It's not total immortality, Percy. You know that. We can still die in
combat. It's just... we don't ever age or get sick. So we live forever assuming that we
don't get sliced into pieces by monsters. Always a danger. Always.” She looked around
and I realized she was scanning the faces of the dead.
“If you're looking for Bianca,” I said quietly so Nico wouldn't hear me, “she'd be in
Elysium. She died a hero's death.”
“I know that,” Thalia snapped. Then she caught herself. “It's not that Percy, I was just...
Never mind.”
A cold feeling washed over me. I remembered that Thalia's mother had died in a car
crash a few years ago. They'd never been close but Thalia had never gotten to say
goodbye. If her mother's shade was wandering around right down here, no wonder
Thalia looked jumpy.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I wasn't thinking.”
Our eyes met and I got the feeling she understood. Her expression softened. “It's okay.
Let's just get this over with.” Another petal fell off the carnation as we marched on.
I wasn't happy when the flower pointed us toward the Fields of Punishment. I was
hoping we'd veer into Elysium and so we could hang out with the beautiful people and
party. But no, the flower seemed to like the harshest, evilest part of the Underworld. We
jumped over a lava stream and picked our way past scenes of horrible torture. I won't
describe them because you'd completely lose your appetite. But I wished I had cotton
balls in my ears to shut out the screaming and the 1980’s music. The carnation tilted its
face toward the hill on our left.
“Up there,” I said.
Thalia and Nico stopped. They were covered with soot from trudging through
Punishment. I probably I didn’t look much better. A loud grinding noise came from the
other side of the hill like somebody was dragging a washing machine. Then the hill
shook with a BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And a man yelled curses. Thalia looked at Nico.
“Is that who I think it is?”
“Afraid so,” Nico said. “The number one expert on cheating death.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he led us to the top of the hill.
The dude on the other side was not pretty and he was not happy. He looked like one of
those troll dolls with orange skin, a pot-belly, scrawny legs and arms, and a big loin
cloth diaper thing around his waist. His ruddy hair stuck up like a torch. He was hopping
around, cursing and kicking a boulder that was twice as big as he was.
“I won’t,” he screamed, “No, no, no!”
Then he launched into a string of cuss words in several different languages. If I’d had
one of those jars where you put a quarter in for each bad word, I would’ve made
around 500 dollars. He started to walk away from the boulder, but after ten feet he
lurched backward like some invisible force has pulled him. He staggered back to the
boulder and started banging his head against it.
“All right,” he screamed, “all right, curse you.” He rubbed his head and muttered some
more cuss words. “But this is the last time, do you hear me?”
Nico looked at us. “Come on while he's between attempts.”
We scrambled down the hill. “Sisyphus,” Nico called.
The troll guy looked up in surprise. Then he scrambled behind his rock. “Oh no. You're
not fooling me with those disguises. I know you're the Furies.”
“We're not the Furies,” I said. “We just want a talk.”
“Go away,” he shrieked. “Flowers won't make it better. It's too late to apologize.”
“Look,” Thalia said, “we just want...”
“Blah blah blah,” he yelled, “I'm not listening.”
We played tag with him around the boulder until finally Thalia, who was the quickest,
>
caught the old man by his hair.
“Stop it!” he wailed. “I have rocks to move. Rocks to move.”
“I'll move your rock,” Thalia offered. “Just shut up and talk to my friends.”
Sisyphus stopped fighting. “You? You move my rock?”
“It's better than looking at you.” Thalia glanced at me, “Be quick about it.” Then she
shugged Sisyphus towards us. She put her shoulder against the rock and started
pushing it very slowly uphill.
Sisyphus scowled at me distrustfully. He pinched my nose. “Ow!” I said.
“So you're really not a Fury,” he said in amazement. “What's the flower for?”
“We're looking for someone,” I said. “The flower is helping us find him.”
“Persephone!” He spit in the dust. “That's one of her tracking devices, isn't it?”
He leaned forward and I caught an unpleasant whiff of old guy whose been rolling a
rock for eternity. “I fooled her once, you know. I fooled them all.”
I looked at Nico. “Translation?”
“Sisyphus cheated death,” Nico explained. “First, he chained up Thanatos, the Reaper of
Souls, so no one could die. Then when Thanatos got free, he was about to kill him.
Sisyphus told his wife to do incorrect funeral rites so he wouldn't rest in peace. Sisy
here— May I call you Sisy?”
“No!”
“Sisy tricked Persephone into letting him go back to the world to haunt his wife and he
didn't come back.”
The old man cackled. “I stayed alive another 30 years before they finally tracked me
down.”
Thalia was half-way up the hill now. She gritted her teeth, pushing the boulder with her
back. Her expression said, Hurry up!
“So that was your punishment,” I said to Sisyphus, “rolling a boulder up a hill forever.
Was it worth it?”
“A temporary setback,” Sisyphus cried. “I'll bust out of here soon and when I do, they'll
all be sorry!”
“How would you get out of the Underworld?” Nico asked. “It's lock down, you know.”
Sisyphus grinned wickedly. “That's what the other one asked.”
My stomach tightened. “Someone else asked your advice?”
“An angry young man,” Sisyphus recalled. “Not very polite. He hold a sword to my
throat, didn't offer to roll my boulder at all.”
“What did you tell him?” Nico said. “Who was he?”
Sisyphus massaged his shoulders. He glanced up at Thalia, who was almost up to the
top hill. Her face was bright red and drenched in sweat.
“Oh, it's hard to say,” Sisyphus said. “Never seen him before. He carried a long package
all wrapped up in black cloth. Skis maybe, or shovel. Maybe if you wait here, I can go
look for him.”
“What did you tell him?” I demanded.
“Can't remember.”
Nico drew his sword. The Stygian iron was so cold; it steamed in the hot dry air of
punishment. “Try harder.”
The old man winced. “What kind of person carries a sword like that?”
“The son of Hades,” Nico said. “Now, answer me!”
The color drained from Sisyphus' face. “I told him to talk to Melinoe. She always has a
way out.”
Nico lowered his sword. I could tell the name Melinoe bothered him. “Are you crazy?” he
said. “That's suicide.”
The old man shrugged. “I've cheated death before. I could do it again. ”
“What does this demigod look like?”
“Um... He had a nose,” Sisyphus said, “a mouth and one eye and—”
“One eye?” I interrupted. “Did he have an eye patch?”
“Oh, maybe,” Sisyphus said. “He had hair on his head and…” He gasped and looked over
my shoulder. “There he is!”
We fell for it. As soon as we turned, Sisyphus took off down the hill. “I'm free! I'm free!
I'm... ow.”
Ten feet from the hill, he hit the end of his invisible leash and fell on his back. Nico and
I grabbed his arms and hauled him up the hill.
“Curse you!” He let loose with bad words in Ancient Greek, Latin, English, French and
several other languages I didn’t recognize. “I'll never help you! Go to Hades!”
“Already there,” Nico muttered.
“Incoming!” Thalia shouted.
I looked up and might have used a few cuss words myself. The boulder was bouncing
straight towards us. Nico jumped one way, I jumped the other.
Sisyphus yelled, “Nooo!”, as the thing plaud into him. Somehow, he braced himself and
stopped it before it could run him over. I guess he'd had a lot of practice.
“Take it again!” He wailed. “Please, I can't hold it.”
“Not again,” Thalia gasped, “you are on your own.”
He treated us to a lot more colorful language. It was clear he wasn’t going to help us
any further so we left him into his punishment.
“Melinoe's cave is this way.” Nico said.
“If this thief guy really has one eye,” I said, “that could be Ethan Nakamura, son of
Nemesis. He's the one who freed Kronos.”
“I remember,” Nico said darkly, “but if we're dealing with Melinoe, we've got bigger
problems. Come on!”
As we walked away, Sisyphus was yelling, “All right! But this is the last time! Do you
hear me? The last time!”
Thalia shuddered.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“I guess,” she hesitated, “Percy, the scary thing is when I got to the top, I thought I had
it. I thought, This isn't so hard. I can get the rock to stay and as it rolled down, I was
almost tempted to try it again. I figured I could get it the second time.”
She looked back wistfully. “Come on!” I told her, “The sooner we're out of here, the
better.”
We walked for what seemed like eternity. Three more petals withered from the
carnation which meant it is now officially half-dead. The flower pointed toward the
range of jagged gray hills that looked like teeth. So we charged in that direction, over a
plain of volcanic rock.
“Nice day for a stroll,” Thalia muttered. “The Hunters are probably feasting in some
forest glade right about now.”
I wondered what my family was doing. My mom and stepdad, Paul, would be worried
when I didn't come home from school. But it wasn't the first time this had happened.
They'd figure it out pretty quickly that I'm on some quest. My mom would be pacing
back and forth in the living room, wondering if I was going to make it back to unwrap
my presents.
“So who is this Melinoe?” I asked, trying to take my mind off home.
“Long story,” Nico said. “Long very scary story.”
I was about to ask what he meant when Thalia dropped to a crouch. “Weapons!”
I drew Riptide. I'm sure I look terrifying with potted carnation in the other hand so I put
it down. Nico drew his sword. We stood back-to-back. Thalia notched an arrow.
“What is it?” I whispered.
She seemed to be listening. Then her eyes widened. A ring of a dozen daimones
materialized around us. They were part humanoid female, part bat. Their faces were
pug-nosed and furry, with fangs and bulging eyes. Matted gray fur and piecemeal armor
covered their bodies. They had shriveled arms with claws for hands, leathery wings that
sprouted from their backs, and stubby bowed legs. They would've lo
oked funny except
for the murderous glow in their eyes.
“Keres,” Nico said.
“What?” I asked.
“Battlefield spirits. They feed on violent death.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Thalia said.
“Get back!” Nico ordered the daimones. “The son of Hades commands you.”
The Keres hissed. Their mouths foamed. They glanced apprehensively at our weapons,
but I got the feeling the Keres weren't impressed by Nico's command.
“Soon Hades will be defeated,” one of them snarled, “Our new master shall give us free
reign.”
Nico blinked, “New master?”
The lead daimon lunged. Nico was so surprised it might slashed him to bits, but Thalia
shot an arrow point-blank into his ugly bat face and the creature disintegrated. The rest
of them charged. Thalia dropped her bow and drew her knives.
I ducked as Nico's sword whistled over my head, cutting a daimon in half. I sliced and
jabbed and three or four Keres exploded around me but more just kept coming.
“Iapetus shall crush you,” one shouted.
“Who?” I asked. Then I ran her through with my sword. Note to self: If you vaporized
monsters, they can't answer your questions.
Nico was also cutting an arc through the Keres. His black sword absorbed their essence
like a vacuum cleaner and the more he destroy, the colder the air become around him.
Thalia flipped a daimon on his back, stabbed it and impaled another one with her
second knife without even turning around.
“Die in pain, mortal!”
Before I could raise my sword for defense another daimon's claws ripped my shoulder.
If I have been wearing armor, no problem. But I was still on my school uniform.
The thing's talons sliced open my shirt and tore into my skin. My whole left side seem to
explode in pain. Nico kicked the monster away and stabbed it. All I could was to collapse
and curl into a ball, trying to endure the horrible burning.
The sound of battle died. Thalia and Nico rushed to my side. “Hold still, Percy,” Thalia
said. “You'll be fine.” But quiver in her voice told me the wound was bad.
Nico touched it and I yelled in pain. “Nectar,” he said. “I'm pouring nectar on it.”
He uncorked the bottle of the godly drink and tricked it across my shoulder. This was
dangerous. Just a sip of this stuff is almost demigods could stand but immediately the
