Sweet Legacy

The dungeons of Olympus are a harsh contrast to the shiny white marble world above. Those halls—all sparkle and gemstones—are what I imagined Mount Olympus would be like. This is like a slumlord’s boiler room compared to the high-rent high-rise above. The gods are sending a clear message that if you end up in their basement, you’re in big trouble. It doesn’t look that different from the abyss—dark, wet, never-ending, and foul-smelling.

The main hallway at the base of the staircase branches off in several directions. I stop to listen. The place is eerily silent. It’s starting to make me nervous. The sooner we get out of here, the better.

With no standout reason to choose one branch over the others, I lead us down the left-hand corridor, mostly because it’s the biggest and there are torches lighting the way. It seems the most likely to lead somewhere important.

Or it could be a trap.

“Stay close to the wall,” I instruct, “and right on my heels.”

We follow the corridor around corner after corner, with nothing but stone walls to guide us. There isn’t even a rat or a medieval torture device to break up the monotony. It reminds me of King Minos’s labyrinth. If a minotaur is the biggest bad we run into down here, we’ll be in great shape.

Then we round one last corner, and it all changes.

I hold up my hand, and everyone behind me stops.

The hallway spills into a vast open space. Encircling the outer wall of the chamber is a row of cells, cages closed in by iron bars. The rough stone floor stretches a few feet beyond the cell walls and then drops away. Smoke rises in its place, like a moat of fire. Across the gap, on a stone island floating amid the smoke, are more cages—dozens of cages with thick steel bars that overlook the flames.

Every cage I can see is occupied. The dungeons of Olympus are overflowing.

Somewhere in here, Ursula is suffering.

“Then she took off her dress and she had eight legs,” a booming male voice bellows.

Another male voice cackles with laughter.

Swinging my backpack off my shoulders and dropping it on the ground, I wave everyone back and press myself against the edge of the wall. Looking toward the sound of their voices, I spot two guards tromping around the walkway.

“I’m like, what are you, a spider?” the first voice says. “And she says, no, I’m a daughter of Arachne!”

That sends the other guard into a fit of laughter.

I turn to the group and gesture at them to move up against the wall. We wait, unmoving, as the guards draw closer. Bending at the waist, I reach down and pull out a handful of zip ties from a cargo pocket.

I hope they’re continuing their perimeter walks, and not heading for our hallway.

They reach the juncture and—I hold my breath—keep walking. After a quick glare at my companions to keep them in place, I take off at a run. The guards turn at the sound of my footsteps, but I launch into a flying kick, nailing the talkative one in the gut and knocking him into his laughing friend. I land on my feet between them, quickly dropping to my knees and yanking zip ties around their wrists.

“You stupid bi—”

The talker doesn’t have a chance to finish his insult before I knock his head into the ground and render him unconscious. His buddy silently shakes his head, but I can’t risk it. An instant later he’s just as unconscious as his friend.

I resist the urge to push them into the moat—I don’t know what’s down there, and the two morons aren’t necessarily bad guys—so I just drag them out of the way.

With the guards dispatched, my focus shifts to finding Ursula. Running along the walkway, I twist my head left and right to check the cages on both sides of the moat, scanning for any sight of her and her silver hair.

I’m almost back around to the start when I finally see her.

“Ursula!” I shout. Then, using her true name, “Euryale!”

Through the haze of smoke and brimstone, I can see her in a cage on the far side of the moat, hanging limp from her shackles. She is chained to the wall, and her body is too weak to provide any support at all.

She doesn’t move when I call her name.

“Ursula!” I scream again.

Thane appears at my side. “It’s soundproof.”

He reaches forward. Even though there seems to be nothing but air in front of us, his hand connects with something, sending a shimmering ripple through the empty space, like touching the surface of a pond, only without the water.

“What is this?” I demand.

“A shield,” he says, “raised up by Nemesis.”

I bang at the air, and my hand hits something soft but unyielding. Wave after wave ripples out in every direction from where my fist connects with the shield.

“How do you know that?”

He doesn’t respond.

I fight the urge to punch him in the face. We don’t have time for games and secrecy. As much as I want to pound the whole truth out of him, that’s not the highest priority at the moment.

“Then how do we get across?” I ask.

He shrugs. “No clue.”

I turn my attention to the little monkey. “Sillus?”

“Sillus no see,” he says, his big brown eyes sad. “Never before.”

I look at the golden maiden, who slowly shakes her head.

“There must be a way.” Someone has to be able to get across the moat to feed the prisoners. Or beat them.

Leaving the group, I circle the perimeter again, this time more slowly, more observantly. I walk the full length of one side, then turn and walk another, and another, and finally the last. Half of the prisoners call out to me as I pass by—some in English, some in other languages, some in nonhuman speech. The others are too weak to speak.

My inspection turns up no clues. No bridges, no paths, no sign that anyone has ever made it across to reach the prisoners within.

Even if we figure out how to get the shield down, there’s still the matter of the moat—twenty feet of open space with the gods know what down below.

I turn my attention back to this side of the moat. If there’s nothing directly over it, maybe there’s something else around here that will give me a hint at how to gain access. A lever, a ladder, anything. I circle the moat a third time, now facing the outer ring of cells. They are spartan—each containing nothing but a stone bench, rusty shackles, and a disgusting bowl. And a downtrodden prisoner.

Men, covered in dirt and wearing nothing more than loincloths that look like they’ve been doing overtime as baby diapers. Pathetic, skinny beasts that look like they’re being slowly starved to death. Their empty eyes glance up and follow me as I walk by. Even though I know some of them are bloodthirsty monsters, it’s horrible to see them in such terrible conditions.

“What are you?” a hoarse voice whispers as I pass a cell.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up in warning, but I stop and look inside.

“What are you?” I throw back.

Inside the cell, a thin, haggard man lifts his head. He watches me with sagging, hollow eyes.

His tongue darts out over his lips before he says, “Innocent.”

I scowl. “Isn’t every convict?” I retort.

“I have been convicted of no crime,” he says, his voice smoothing out as he uses it more. “I have been sentenced to a lifetime of chains and beatings without trial.”

“For what?” I ask.

“For daring to disagree.”

That sounds like a bum deal. On any other day, I might be swayed by his sad story and inspired to do