The Mark of Athena

Her voice sounded calm, which surprised her. She had no idea how to get out of here, but she knew she had to succeed where her siblings had failed. Her path led farther on—deeper into the underground layers of Rome.

The failures of your predecessors will guide you, Tiberinus had said. After that…I do not know.

The ghosts mumbled to each other in Latin. Annabeth caught a few unkind words about female demigods and Athena.

Finally the ghost with the pope hat struck his shepherd’s crook against the floor. The other Lares fell silent.

“Your Greek goddess is powerless here,” said the pope. “Mithras is the god of Roman warriors! He is the god of the legion, the god of the empire!”

“He wasn’t even Roman,” Annabeth protested. “Wasn’t he, like, Persian or something?”

“Sacrilege!” the old man yelped, banging his staff on the floor a few more times. “Mithras protects us! I am the pater of this brotherhood—”

“The father,” Annabeth translated.

“Do not interrupt! As pater, I must protect our mysteries.”

“What mysteries?” Annabeth asked. “A dozen dead guys in togas sitting around in a cave?”

The ghosts muttered and complained, until the pater got them under control with a taxicab whistle. The old guy had a good set of lungs. “You are clearly an unbeliever. Like the others, you must die.”

The others. Annabeth made an effort not to look at the skeletons.

Her mind worked furiously, grasping for anything she knew about Mithras. He had a secret cult for warriors. He was popular in the legion. He was one of the gods who’d supplanted Athena as a war deity. Aphrodite had mentioned him during their teatime chat in Charleston. Aside from that, Annabeth had no idea. Mithras just wasn’t one of the gods they talked about at Camp Half-Blood. She doubted the ghosts would wait while she whipped out Daedalus’s laptop and did a search.

She scanned the floor mosaic—seven pictures in a row. She studied the ghosts and noticed all of them wore some sort of badge on their toga—a raven, or a torch, or a bow.

“You have rites of passage,” she blurted out. “Seven levels of membership. And the top level is the pater.”

The ghosts let out a collective gasp. Then they all began shouting at once.

“How does she know this?” one demanded.

“The girl has gleaned our secrets!”

“Silence!” the pater ordered.

“But she might know about the ordeals!” another cried.

“The ordeals!” Annabeth said. “I know about them!”

Another round of incredulous gasping.

“Ridiculous!” The pater yelled. “The girl lies! Daughter of Athena, choose your way of death. If you do not choose, the god will choose for you!”

“Fire or dagger,” Annabeth guessed.

Even the pater looked stunned. Apparently he hadn’t remembered there were victims of past punishments lying on the floor.

“How—how did you… ?” He gulped. “Who are you?”

“A child of Athena,” Annabeth said again. “But not just any child. I am…uh, the mater in my sisterhood. The magna mater, in fact. There are no mysteries to me. Mithras cannot hide anything from my sight.”

“The magna mater!” a ghost wailed in despair. “The big mother!”

“Kill her!” One of the ghosts charged, his hands out to strangle her, but he passed right through her.

“You’re dead,” Annabeth reminded him. “Sit down.”

The ghost looked embarrassed and took his seat.

“We do not need to kill you ourselves,” the pater growled. “Mithras shall do that for us!”

The statue on the altar began to glow.

Annabeth pressed her hands against the bricked-in doorway at her back. That had to be the exit. The mortar was crumbling, but it was not weak enough for her to break through with brute force.

She looked desperately around the room—the cracked ceiling, the floor mosaic, the wall paintings, and the carved altar. She began to talk, pulling deductions from the top of her head.

“It is no good,” she said. “I know all. You test your initiates with fire because the torch is the symbol of Mithras. His other symbol is the dagger, which is why you can also be tested with the blade. You want to kill me, just as…uh, as Mithras killed the sacred bull.”

It was a total guess, but the altar showed Mithras killing a bull, so Annabeth figured it must be important. The ghosts wailed and covered their ears. Some slapped their faces as if to wake up from a bad dream.

“The big mother knows!” one said. “It is impossible!”