The Tower of Nero

by Rick Riordan

  Meg sobbed.

  I couldn’t blame her. Devilish or not, the cows’ deaths were horrible to watch.

  “What just happened?” Rachel’s voice trembled.

  “They choked on their own anger,” I said. “I—I didn’t think it was possible, but apparently Aelian got it right. Silvestres hate being stuck in pits so much they just…gag and die. It’s the only way to kill them.”

  Meg shuddered. “That’s awful.”

  The herd stared at us in apparent agreement. Their blue eyes were like laser beams burning into my face. I got the feeling they’d been after us before just because it was in their nature to kill. Now, it was personal.

  “So what do we do about the rest of them?” Will asked. “Dad, you sure you can’t…” He gestured at our bovine audience. “I mean, you’ve got a god-level bow and two quivers of arrows at basically point-blank range.”

  “Will!” Meg protested. Watching the bulls choke in the pit seemed to have sapped all her willingness to fight.

  “I’m sorry, Meg,” Will said. “But we’re kind of stuck here.”

  “It won’t do any good,” I promised. “Watch.”

  I drew my bow. I nocked an arrow and aimed at the nearest cow. The cow simply stared back at me like, Really, dude?

  I let the arrow fly—a perfect shot, right between the eyes with enough force to penetrate stone. The shaft splintered against the cow’s forehead.

  “Wow,” Nico said. “Hard head.”

  “It’s the entire hide,” I told him. “Look.”

  I shot a second arrow at the cow’s neck. The creature’s shaggy red hair rippled, deflecting the arrowhead and turning the shaft downward so it skittered between the cow’s legs.

  “I could shoot at them all day,” I said. “It won’t help.”

  “We can just wait them out,” Meg suggested. “They’ll get tired eventually and leave, right?”

  Rachel shook her head. “You forgot they waited outside my house in hot cattle cars for two days with no food or water until you showed up. I’m pretty sure these things can outlast us.”

  I shivered. “And we have a deadline. If we don’t surrender to Nero by tonight…” I made the explode-y hands gesture.

  Will frowned. “You might not get the chance to surrender. If Nero sent these cows, he might already know you’re here. His men could be on the way.”

  My mouth tasted like cow breath. I remembered what Luguselwa had told us about Nero having eyes everywhere. For all I knew, this construction site was one of the Triumvirate’s projects. Surveillance drones might be hovering overhead right now.…

  “We have to get out of here,” I decided.

  “We could climb down the crane,” Will said. “The cows couldn’t follow us.”

  “But then what?” Rachel asked. “We’d be trapped in the pit.”

  “Maybe not.” Nico stared into the chasm like he was calculating how many bodies could be buried in it. “I see some good shadows down there. If we can reach the bottom safely…How do you all feel about shadow-travel?”

  I LOVED THE IDEA. I WAS IN FAVOR OF ANY kind of travel that would get us away from the tauri. I would have even summoned the Gray Sisters again, except I doubted their taxi would appear on a crane jib, and if it did, I suspected the sisters would instantly fall in love with Nico and Will because they were so cute together. I wouldn’t wish that kind of attention on anyone.

  Single file, we crawled toward the center of the crane like a line of bedraggled ants. I tried not to look at the carcasses of the dead bulls below, but I could feel the malevolent gaze of the other silvestres as they tracked our progress. I had a sneaking suspicion they were placing bets on which of us would fall first.

  Halfway to the main tower, Rachel spoke up behind me. “Hey, are you going to tell me what happened back there?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The wind whipped Rachel’s red hair around her face, making it swirl like the bulls’ fur.

  I tried to process her question. Had she missed the killer cows destroying her house? Had she been sleepwalking when she jumped onto the crane?

  Then I realized she meant her prophetic trance. We’d been so busy running for our lives, I hadn’t had time to think about it. Judging from my past experience with Delphic Oracles, I imagined Rachel had no recollection of what she’d said.

  “You completed our prophecy,” I said. “The last stanza of terza rima, plus a closing couplet. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “I’m afraid you were channeling Python.”

  I crawled ahead, my eyes fixed on the tread of Meg’s shoes, as I explained to Rachel what had happened: the yellow smoke boiling from her mouth, the glow of her eyes, the horribly deep voice of the serpent. I repeated the lines that she’d spoken.

  She was silent for a count of five. “That sounds bad.”

  “My expert interpretation as well.”

  My fingers felt numb against the girders. The prophecy’s line about me dissolving, leaving no mark—those words seemed to work their way into my circulatory system, erasing my veins and arteries.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Rachel promised. “Maybe Python was twisting my words. Maybe those lines aren’t part of the real prophecy.”

  I didn’t look back, but I could hear the determination in her voice. Rachel had been dealing with Python’s slithery presence in her head, possibly for months. She’d been struggling with it alone, trying to keep her sanity by working through her visions in her artwork. Today, she had been possessed by Python’s voice and encircled by his poisonous fumes. Still, her first instinct was to reassure me that everything would be okay.

  “I wish you were right,” I said. “But the longer Python controls Delphi, the more he can poison the future. Whether he twisted your words or not, they are now part of the prophecy. What you predicted will happen.”

  Apollo’s flesh and blood shall soon be mine. The serpent’s voice seemed to coil inside my head. Alone he must descend into the dark.

  Shut up, I told the voice. But I was not Meg, and Python was not my Lester.

  “Well, then,” Rachel said behind me, “we’ll just have to make sure the prophecy happens in a way that doesn’t get you dissolved.”

  She made it sound so doable…so possible.

  “I don’t deserve a priestess like you,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” Rachel agreed. “You can repay me by killing Python and getting the snake fumes out of my head.”

  “Deal,” I said, trying to believe I could hold up my side of the bargain.

  At last we reached the crane’s central mast. Nico led us down the rungs of the ladder. My limbs shook with exhaustion. I was tempted to ask Meg if she could create another latticework of plants to carry us to the bottom like she’d done at Sutro Tower. I decided against it, because 1) I didn’t want her to pass out from the effort, and 2) I really hated being tossed around by plants.

  By the time we reached the ground, I felt wobbly and nauseated.

  Nico didn’t look much better. How he planned to summon enough energy to shadow-zap us to safety, I couldn’t imagine. Above us, around the rim of the pit, the tauri watched in silence, their blue eyes gleaming like a string of angry Hanukkah lights.

  Meg studied them warily. “Nico, how soon can you shadow us out?”

  “Catch…my…breath…first,” he said between gulps of air.

  “Please,” Will agreed. “If he’s too tired, he might teleport us into a vat of Cheez Whiz in Venezuela.”

  “Okay…” said Nico. “We didn’t end up in the vat.”

  “Pretty close,” Will said. “Definitely in the middle of Venezuela’s biggest Cheez Whiz processing plant.”

  “That was one time,” Nico grumbled.

  “Uh, guys?” Rachel pointed to the rim of the pit, where the cows were becoming agitated. They jostled and pushed each other forward until one—either by choice or with pressure from the herd—toppled off the edge.

  Watching it f
all, kicking its legs and torquing its body, I remembered the time Ares dropped a cat from Mount Olympus to prove it would land on its feet in Manhattan. Athena had teleported the cat to safety, then beat Ares with the butt of her spear for putting the animal in danger, but the fall had been terrifying to witness, nonetheless.

  The bull was not as lucky as the cat. It landed sideways in the dirt with a throaty grunt. The impact would have killed most creatures, but the bull just flailed its legs, righted itself, and shook its horns. It glared at us as if to say, Oh, you’re gonna get it now.

  “Um…” Will edged backward. “It’s in the pit. So why isn’t it choking on its rage?”

  “I—I think it’s because we’re here?” My voice sounded like I’d been sucking helium. “It wants to kill us more than it wants to choke to death?”

  “Great,” Meg said. “Nico, shadow-travel. Now.”

  Nico winced. “I can’t take all of you at once! Two plus me is pushing it. Last summer, with the Athena Parthenos…That almost killed me, and I had Reyna’s help.”

  The bull charged.

  “Take Will and Rachel,” I said, hardly believing the words were coming out of my mouth. “Return for Meg and me when you can.”

  Nico started to protest.

  “Apollo’s right!” Meg said. “Go!”

  We didn’t wait for a response. I drew my bow. Meg summoned her scimitars, and together we raced into battle.

  There’s an old saying: The definition of insanity is shooting an invulnerable cow in the face over and over and expecting a different result.

  I went insane. I shot arrow after arrow at the bull—aiming at its mouth, its eyes, its nostrils, hoping to find a soft spot. Meanwhile, Meg slashed and stabbed with gusto, weaving like a boxer to keep away from the creature’s horns. Her blades were useless. The bull’s shaggy red hide swirled and rippled, deflecting each hit.

  We only stayed alive because the bull couldn’t decide which of us to kill first. It kept changing its mind and reversing course as we took turns annoying it.

  Perhaps if we kept up the pressure, we could tire out the bull. Sadly, we were also tiring out ourselves, and dozens more bulls waited above, curious to see how their friend fared before they risked the fall themselves.

  “Pretty cow!” Meg yelled, stabbing it in the face and then dancing out of horn range. “Please go away!”

  “It’s having too much fun!” I said.

  My next shot was the dreaded Triple P—the perfect posterior perforator. It didn’t seem to hurt the bull, but I definitely got its attention. The animal bellowed and whirled to face me, its blue eyes blazing with fury.

  While it studied me, probably deciding which of my limbs it wanted to pull off and beat me over the head with, Meg glanced at the rim of the pit.

  “Um, hey, Apollo?”

  I risked a look. A second bull tumbled into the pit. It landed on top of a portable toilet, crushing the box into a fiberglass pancake, then extracted itself from the wreckage and cried, “Moooo!” (Which I suspected was Tauri for I totally meant to do that!)

  “I’ll take Potty Cow,” I told Meg. “You distract our friend here.”

  A completely random division of duties—in no way related to the fact that I did not want to face the bull I’d just poked in the nether region.

  Meg began dancing with Cow the First as I charged toward Potty Cow. I was feeling good, feeling heroic, until I reached for my quivers and found myself out of arrows…except for Ye Olde Standby, the Arrow of Dodona, which would not appreciate being used against an invulnerable bovine butt.

  I was already committed, though, so I ran at Potty Cow with great bravado and zero clue how to fight it.

  “Hey!” I yelled, waving my arms in the dubious hope that I might look scary. “Blah, blah, blah! Go away!”

  The cow attacked.

  This would have been an excellent time for my godly strength to kick in, so of course that didn’t happen. Just before the bull could run me down, I screamed and leaped aside.

  At that point, the bull should have executed a slow course correction, running around the entire perimeter of the pit to give me time to recover. I’d dated a matador in Madrid once who assured me bulls did this because they were courteous animals and also terrible at sharp turns.

  Either my matador was a liar, or he’d never fought tauri. The bull pivoted in a perfect about-face and charged me again. I rolled to one side, desperately grabbing for anything that might help me. I came up holding the edge of a blue polyurethane tarp. Worst shield ever.

  The bull promptly jabbed its horn through the material. I jumped back as it stepped on the tarp and got pulled down by its own weight like a person stumbling over their own toga. (Not that I had ever done this, but I’d heard stories.)

  The bull roared, shaking its head to dislodge the tarp, which only got it more tangled up in the fabric. I retreated, trying to catch my breath.

  About fifty feet to my left, Meg was playing death-tag with Cow the First. She looked unharmed, but I could tell she was tiring, her reaction times slowing.

  More cows began to fall into the pit like large, uncoordinated Acapulco cliff-divers. I recalled something Dionysus had once told me about his twin sons, Castor and Pollux—back when he was living with his mortal wife during a short phase of “domestic bliss.” He’d claimed that two was the best number for children, because after two, your children outnumbered you.

  The same was true for killer cows. Meg and I could not hope to fend off more than a pair of them. Our only hope was…My eyes fixed on the mast of the crane.

  “Meg!” I yelled. “Back to the ladder!”

  She tried to comply, but Cow the First stood between her and the crane. I whipped out my ukulele and ran in their direction.

  “Cowie, cowie, cow!” I strummed desperately. “Hey, cow! Bad, cow! Run away, cowie, cowie, cow!”

  I doubted the tune would win any Grammys, but I was hoping it might at least distract Cow the First long enough for Meg to get around it. The cow stayed stubbornly put. So did Meg.

  I reached her side. I glanced back in time to see Potty Cow throw off the tarp and charge toward us. The newly fallen cows were also getting to their hooves.

  I estimated we had about ten seconds to live.

  “Go,” I told Meg. “J-jump the cow and climb the ladder. I’ll—”

  I didn’t know how to finish that statement. I’ll stay here and die? I’ll compose another verse of “Cowie, Cowie, Cow”?

  Just as Cow the First lowered its horns and charged, a hand grabbed my shoulder.

  Nico di Angelo’s voice said, “Gotcha.”

  And the world turned cold and dark.

  “JUMP THE COW?” MEG DEMANDED. “THAT was your plan?”

  The five of us sat in a sewer, which was something I’d grown accustomed to. Meg seemed to be bouncing back quickly from her shadow-travel sickness, thanks to Will’s timely administration of nectar and Kit Kat bars. I, however, still felt like I was coming down with the flu: chills, body aches, disorientation. I was not ready to be assaulted for my choices in combat.

  “I was improvising,” I said. “I didn’t want to see you die.”

  Meg threw her hands up. “And I didn’t want to see you die, dummy. Did you think of that?”

  “Guys,” Rachel interrupted, a cold pack pressed against her head. “How about none of us lets any of us die? Okay?”

  Will checked her bruised temple. “Feeling any better?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rachel said, then explained for my benefit: “I managed to stumble into the wall when we teleported here.”

  Nico looked sheepish. “Sorry about that.”

  “Hey, I’m not complaining,” Rachel said. “Better than being trampled.”

  “Guess so,” he said. “Once we…”

  Nico’s eyelids fluttered. His pupils rolled up in his head and he slumped against Will’s shoulder. It might have been a clever ploy to fall into his boyfriend’s arms—I had used the ca
tch me, handsome fainting trick a few times myself—but since Nico immediately began to snore, I decided he was not faking.

  “That’s night-night for Nico.” Will pulled a travel pillow from his supply bag, which I suspected he carried just for these occasions. He eased the son of Hades into a comfortable sleeping position, then gave us a weary smile. “He’ll need about half an hour to recover. Until then, we might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  On the bright side, I’d had plenty of experience getting comfortable in sewers, and Nico had shadow-traveled us to the New York drainage system’s equivalent of the presidential suite.

  The vaulted ceiling was adorned with a redbrick herringbone pattern. Along either wall, terra-cotta pipes dripped only the finest goo into a canal running down the middle of the floor. The concrete ledge upon which we sat was comfortably upholstered with lichen and scum. In the dim golden glow of Meg’s swords—our only illumination—the tunnel looked almost romantic.

  Given New York rental prices, I imagined a place like this could go for quite a bit. Running water. Privacy. Lots of space. Great bones—mouse bones, chicken bones, and some others I couldn’t identify. And did I mention the stench? The stench was included at no extra cost.

  Will tended to our various cuts and scrapes, which were surprisingly light given our morning’s adventures. He insisted we partake liberally of his medicinal stockpile of Kit Kat bars.

  “The best thing for recovering from shadow-travel,” he assured us.

  Who was I to argue with the healing powers of chocolate and wafers?

  We ate in silence for a while. Rachel held the cold pack against her head and stared glumly at the sewer water as if waiting for pieces of her family home to float by. Meg sprinkled seeds into the scum patches next to her, causing luminous mushrooms to pop into existence like tiny umbrellas. When life gives you scum, make mushrooms, I suppose.