The Mark of Athena

labyrinth made distance meaningless. If she wasn’t careful, she could walk twenty feet in the wrong direction and end up in Poland.

Just to be safe, she tied a new ball of string to the end of her rope ladder. She could unravel it behind her as she explored. An old trick, but a good one.

She debated which way to go. The tunnel seemed the same in both directions. Then, about fifty feet to her left, the Mark of Athena blazed against the wall. Annabeth could swear it was glaring at her with those big fiery eyes, as if to say, What’s your problem? Hurry up!

She was really starting to hate that owl.

By the time she reached the spot, the image had faded, and she’d run out of string on her first spool.

As she was attaching a new line, she glanced across the tunnel. There was a broken section in the brickwork, as if a sledgehammer had knocked a hole in the wall. She crossed to take a look. Sticking her dagger through the opening for light, Annabeth could see a lower chamber, long and narrow, with a mosaic floor, painted walls, and benches running down either side. It was shaped sort of like a subway car.

She stuck her head into the hole, hoping nothing would bite it off. At the near end of the room was a bricked-off doorway. At the far end was a stone table, or maybe an altar.

Hmm…The water tunnel kept going, but Annabeth was sure this was the way. She remembered what Tiberinus had said: Find the altar of the foreign god. There didn’t seem to be any exits from the altar room, but it was a short drop onto the bench below. She should be able to climb out again with no problem.

Still holding her string, she lowered herself down.

The room’s ceiling was barrel-shaped with brick arches, but Annabeth didn’t like the look of the supports. Directly above her head, on the arch nearest to the bricked-in doorway, the capstone was cracked in half. Stress fractures ran across the ceiling. The place had probably been intact for two thousand years, but she decided she’d rather not spend too much time here. With her luck, it would collapse in the next two minutes.

The floor was a long narrow mosaic with seven pictures in a row, like a time line. At Annabeth’s feet was a raven. Next was a lion. Several others looked like Roman warriors with various weapons. The rest were too damaged or covered in dust for Annabeth to make out details. The benches on either side were littered with broken pottery. The walls were painted with scenes of a banquet: a robed man with a curved cap like an ice cream scoop, sitting next to a larger guy who radiated sunbeams. Standing around them were torchbearers and servants, and various animals like crows and lions wandered in the background. Annabeth wasn’t sure what the picture represented, but it didn’t remind her of any Greek legends that she knew.

At the far end of the room, the altar was elaborately carved with a frieze showing the man with the ice- cream-scoop hat holding a knife to the neck of a bull. On the altar stood a stone figure of a man sunk to his knees in rock, a dagger and a torch in his outraised hands. Again, Annabeth had no idea what those images meant.

She took one step toward the altar. Her foot went CRUNCH. She looked down and realized she’d just put her shoe through a human rib cage.

Annabeth swallowed back a scream. Where had that come from? She had glanced down only a moment before and hadn’t seen any bones. Now the floor was littered with them. The rib cage was obviously old. It crumbled to dust as she removed her foot. Nearby lay a corroded bronze dagger very much like her own. Either this dead person had been carrying the weapon, or it had killed him.

She held out her blade to see in front of her. A little farther down the mosaic path sprawled a more complete skeleton in the remains of an embroidered red doublet, like a man from the Renaissance. His frilled collar and skull had been badly burned, as if the guy had decided to wash his hair with a blowtorch.

Wonderful, Annabeth thought. She lifted her eyes to the altar statue, which held a dagger and a torch.

Some kind of test, Annabeth decided. These two guys had failed. Correction: not just two guys. More bones and scraps of clothing were scattered all the way to the altar. She couldn’t guess how many skeletons were represented, but she was willing to bet they were all demigods from the past, children of Athena on the same quest.

“I will not be another skeleton on your floor,” she called to the statue, hoping she sounded brave.

A girl, said a watery voice, echoing through the room. Girls are not allowed.

A female demigod, said a second voice. Inexcusable.

The chamber rumbled. Dust fell from the cracked ceiling. Annabeth bolted for the hole she’d come through, but it had disappeared. Her string had been severed. She clambered up on the bench and pounded on the wall where the hole had been, hoping the hole’s absence was just an illusion, but the wall felt solid.

She was trapped.

Along the benches, a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence—glowing purple men in Roman togas, like the Lares she’d seen at Camp Jupiter. They glared at her as if she’d interrupted their meeting.

She did the only thing she could. She stepped down from the bench and put her back to the bricked-in doorway. She tried to look confident, though the scowling purple ghosts and the demigod skeletons at her feet made her want to turtle in her T-shirt and scream.

“I’m a child of Athena,” she said, as boldly as she could manage.

“A Greek,” one of the ghosts said with disgust. “That is even worse.”

At the other end of the chamber, an old-looking ghost rose with some difficulty (do ghosts have arthritis?) and stood by the altar, his dark eyes fixed on Annabeth. Her first thought was that he looked like the pope. He had a glittering robe, a pointed hat, and a shepherd’s crook.

“This is the cavern of Mithras,” said the old ghost. “You have disturbed our sacred rituals. You cannot look upon our mysteries and live.”

“I don’t want to look upon your mysteries,” Annabeth assured him. “I’m following the Mark of Athena. Show me the exit, and I’ll be on my way.”