The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(93)

They regarded me warily. Who are you?

‘I am Apollo,’ I said, forcing myself to sound confident. ‘We’re going to have a great day!’

I leaped into the chariot, and off we went.

I’ll admit it was a steep learning curve. About a forty-five-degree arc, to be precise. I may have done a few inadvertent loops in the sky. I may have caused a few new glaciers and deserts until I found the proper cruising altitude. But by the end of the day the chariot was mine. The horses had shaped themselves to my will, my personality. I was Apollo, god of the sun.

I tried to hold on to that feeling of confidence, the elation of that successful first day.

I came back to my senses and found myself at the bottom of the pit, crouching in the flames.

‘Helios,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’

The blaze swirled around me, trying to incinerate my flesh and dissolve my soul. I could feel the presence of the Titan – bitter, hazy, angry. His whip seemed to be lashing me a thousand times a second.

‘I will not be burned,’ I said. ‘I am Apollo. I am your rightful heir.’

The fires raged hotter. Helios resented me … but wait. That wasn’t the full story. He hated being here. He hated this maze, this half-life prison.

‘I will free you,’ I promised.

Noise crackled and hissed in my ears. Perhaps it was only the sound of my head catching fire, but I thought I heard a voice in the flames: KILL. HER.

Her …

Medea.

Helios’s emotions burned their way into my mind. I felt his loathing for his sorceress granddaughter. All that Medea had told me earlier about holding back Helios’s wrath – that might have been true. But, above all, she was holding Helios back from killing her. She had chained him, bound his will to hers, wrapped herself in powerful protections against his godly fire. Helios did not like me, no. But he hated Medea’s presumptuous magic. To be released from his torment, he needed his granddaughter dead.

I wondered, not for the first time, why we Greek deities had never created a god of family therapy. We certainly could have used one. Or perhaps we had one before I was born, and she quit. Or Kronos swallowed her whole.

Whatever the case, I told the flames, ‘I will do this. I will free you. But you must let us pass.’

Instantly, the fires raced away as if a tear had opened in the universe.

I gasped. My skin steamed. My arctic camouflage was now a lightly toasted grey. But I was alive. The room around me cooled rapidly. The flames, I realized, had retreated down a single tunnel that led from the chamber.

‘Meg! Grover!’ I called. ‘You can come down –’

Meg dropped on top of me, squashing me flat.

‘Ow!’ I screamed. ‘Not like that!’

Grover was more courteous. He climbed down the wall and dropped to the floor with goat-worthy dexterity. He smelled like a burnt wool blanket. His face was badly sunburned. His cap had fallen into the fire, revealing the tips of his horns, which steamed like miniature volcanoes. Meg had somehow come through just fine. She’d even managed to retract her sword from the wall before falling. She pulled her flask from her supply belt, drank most of the water and handed the rest to Grover.

‘Thanks,’ I grumbled.

‘You beat the heat,’ she noted. ‘Good job. Finally had a godly burst of power?’

‘Er … I think it was more about Helios deciding to give us a pass. He wants out of this maze as much as we want him out. He wants us to kill Medea.’

Grover gulped. ‘So … she’s down here? She didn’t die on that yacht?’

‘Figures.’ Meg squinted down the steaming corridor. ‘Did Helios promise not to burn us if you mess up any more answers?’

‘I – That wasn’t my fault!’

‘Yeah,’ Meg said.

‘Kinda was,’ Grover agreed.

Honestly. I fall into a blazing pit, negotiate a truce with a Titan and flush a firestorm out of the room to save my friends, and they still want to talk about how I can’t recall instructions from the Farmer’s Almanac.

‘I don’t think we can count on Helios never to burn us,’ I said, ‘any more than we can expect Herophile not to use word puzzles. It’s just their nature. This was a one-time get-out-of-the-flames-free card.’

Grover smothered the tips of his horns. ‘Well, then, let’s not waste it.’

‘Right.’ I hitched up my slightly toasted camouflage pants and tried to recapture that confident tone I’d had the first time I addressed my sun horses. ‘Follow me. I’m sure it’ll be fine!’





40


Congratulations

You finished the word puzzle

You win … enemies





Fine, in this case, meant fine if you enjoy lava, chains and evil magic.

The corridor led straight to the chamber of the Oracle, which on the one hand … hooray! On the other hand, not so wonderful. The room was a rectangle the size of a basketball court. Lining the walls were half a dozen entrances – each a simple stone doorway with a small landing that overhung the pool of lava I’d seen in my visions. Now, though, I realized the bubbling and shimmering substance was not lava. It was the divine ichor of Helios – hotter than lava, more powerful than rocket fuel, impossible to get out if you spilled it on your clothes (I could tell you from personal experience). We had reached the very centre of the maze – the holding tank for Helios’s power.