“I don’t fear you,” the old man groaned.
The king smiled coldly. He locked his eyes on the boy. “But a man cares about his son, eh? Displease me, old man, and the next time my guards inflict a punishment, it will be on him!”
The king swept out of the room with his guards, and the doors slammed shut, leaving the boy and his father alone in the darkness.
“What shall we do?” the boy moaned. “Father, they will kill you!”
The old man swallowed with difficulty. He tried to smile, but it was a gruesome sight with his bloody mouth.
“Take heart, my son.” He gazed up at the stars. “I—I will find a way.”
A bar lowered across the doors with a fatal BOOM, and I woke in a cold sweat.
***
I was still feeling shaky the next morning when Chiron called a war council. We met in the sword arena, which I thought was pretty strange— trying to discuss the fate of the camp while Mrs. O’Leary chewed on a life-size squeaky pink rubber yak.
Chiron and Quintus stood at the front by the weapon racks. Clarisse and Annabeth sat next to each other and led the briefing. Tyson and Grover sat as far away from each other as possible. Also present around the table: Juniper the tree nymph, Silena Beauregard, Travis and Connor Stoll, Beckendorf, Lee Fletcher, even Argus, our hundred-eyed security chief. That’s how I knew it was serious. Argus hardly ever shows up unless something really major is going on. The whole time Annabeth spoke, he kept his hundred blue eyes trained on her so hard his whole body turned bloodshot.
“Luke must have known about the Labyrinth entrance,” Annabeth said. “He knew everything about camp.”
I thought I heard a little pride in her voice, like she still respected the guy, evil as he was.
Juniper cleared her throat. “That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. The cave entrance has been there a long time. Luke used to use it.”
Silena Beauregard frowned. “You knew about the Labyrinth entrance, and you didn’t say anything?”
Juniper’s face turned green. “I didn’t know it was important. Just a cave. I don’t like yucky old caves.”
“She has good taste,” Grover said.
“I wouldn’t have paid any attention except…well, it was Luke.” She blushed a little greener.
Grover huffed. “Forget what I said about good taste.”
“Interesting,” Quintus polished his sword as he spoke. “And you believe this young man, Luke, would dare use the Labyrinth as an invasion route?”
“Definitely,” Clarisse said. “If he could get an army of monsters inside Camp Half-Blood, just pop up in the middle of the woods without having to worry about our magical boundaries, we wouldn’t stand a chance. He could wipe us out easy. He must’ve been planning this for months.”
“He’s been sending scouts into the maze,” Annabeth said. “We know because…because we found one.”
“Chris Rodriguez,” Chiron said. He gave Quintus a meaningful look.
“Ah,” Quintus said. “The one in the…Yes, I understand.”
“The one in the what?” I asked.
Clarisse glared at me. “The point is, Luke has been looking for a way to navigate the maze. He’s searching for Daedalus’s workshop.”
I remembered my dream the night before—the bloody old man in tattered robes. “The guy who created the maze.”
“Yes,” Annabeth said. “The greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time. If the legends are true, his workshop is in the center of the Labyrinth. He’s the only one who knew how to navigate the maze perfectly. If Luke managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to help him, Luke wouldn’t have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army in the maze’s traps. He could navigate anywhere he wanted—quickly and safely. First to Camp Half-Blood to wipe us out. Then…to Olympus.”
The arena was silent except for Mrs. O’Leary’s toy yak getting disemboweled: SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
Finally Beckendorf put his huge hands on the table. “Back up a sec, Annabeth, you said ‘convince Daedalus’? Isn’t Daedalus dead?”
Quintus grunted. “I would hope so. He lived, what, three thousand years ago? And even if he were alive, don’t the old stories say he fled from the Labyrinth?”
Chiron clopped restlessly on his hooves. “That’s the problem, my dear Quintus. No one knows. There are rumors…well, there are many disturbing rumors about Daedalus, but one is that he disappeared back into the Labyrinth toward the end of his life. He might still be there.”
I thought about the old man I’d seen in my dreams. He’d looked so frail, it was hard to believe he’d lasted another week, much less three thousand years.
“We need to go in,” Annabeth announced. “We have to find the workshop before Luke does. If Daedalus is alive, we convince him to help us, not Luke. If Ariadne’s string still exists, we make sure it never falls into Luke’s hands.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “If we’re worried about an attack, why not just blow up the entrance? Seal the tunnel?”
“Great idea!” Grover said. “I’ll get the dynamite!”
“It’s not so easy, stupid,” Clarisse growled. “We tried that at the entrance we found in Phoenix. It didn’t go well.”
Annabeth nodded. “The Labyrinth is magical architecture, Percy. It would take huge power to seal even one of its entrances. In Phoenix, Clarisse demolished a whole building with a wrecking ball, and the maze entrance just shifted a few feet. The best we can do is prevent Luke from learning to navigate the Labyrinth.”
“We could fight,” Lee Fletcher said. “We know where the entrance is now. We can set up a defensive line and wait for them. If an army tries to come through, they’ll find us waiting with our bows.”
“We will certainly set up defenses,” Chiron agreed. “But I fear Clarisse is right. The magical borders have kept this camp safe for hundreds of years. If Luke manages to get a large army of monsters into the center of camp, bypassing our boundaries…we may not have the strength to defeat them.”
Nobody looked real happy about that news. Chiron usually tried to be upbeat and optimistic. If he was predicting we couldn’t hold off an attack, that wasn’t good.
“We have to get to Daedalus’s workshop first,” Annabeth insisted. “Find Ariadne’s string and prevent Luke from using it.”