The Adventure That Lies Ahead | PJO x HP

CHAPTER 62

They made it thirty meters before they were hopelessly lost. The tunnel looked nothing like the one Annabeth, Percy and Isa had stumbled into before. Now it was round like a sewer, constructed of red brick with iron-barred portholes every three meters. Isa shone a light through one of the portholes out of curiosity, but she couldn't see anything. It opened into infinite darkness. She even thought she heard voices on the other side, but it may have been just the cold wind.

Annabeth and Isa⎼mostly Annabeth⎼tried their best to guide them. Annabeth had this idea that they should stick to the left wall.

"If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course."

Unfortunately, as soon as she said that, the left wall disappeared. They found themselves in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out, and no idea how they'd got there.

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover said nervously.

"Just turn around," Annabeth said. They each turned towards a different tunnel. It was ridiculous. None of them could decide which way led back to camp.

"Left walls are mean," Tyson said. "Which way now?"

Annabeth swept her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. As far as Percy and Isa could tell, they were identical.

"That way," Annabeth said.

"How do you know?" Percy asked.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So... you're guessing."

"Just come on," she said.

The tunnel she'd chosen narrowed quickly. The walls turned to grey cement, and the ceiling got so low that pretty soon they were hunching over. Tyson was forced to crawl.

Grover's hyperventilating was the loudest noise in the maze.

"I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet?"

Isa couldn't blame him, she could feel her claustrophobia acting up. At one point, she was ready to burst out crying from panic. She felt as if the walls were closing in on her. So she would close her eyes, take a deep breath, and try focusing on something different.

"We've been down here maybe five minutes," Annabeth told him.

"It's been longer than that," Grover insisted. "And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!"

They kept shuffling forward. Just when Isa was sure the tunnel would get so narrow it would squish them, it opened into a huge room. She shone her light around the walls and said, "Whoa."

The whole room was covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but she could still make out the colors⎼red, blue, green, gold. The frieze showed the Olympian gods at a feast. There was her and Percy's dad, Poseidon, with his trident, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus was partying with satyrs, and Hermes was flying through the air on his winged sandals. The pictures were beautiful, but they weren't very accurate. Isa had seen the gods. Dionysus was not that handsome, and Hermes's nose wasn't that big.

In the middle of the room was a three-tiered fountain. It looked like it hadn't held water in a long time.

"What is this place?" Percy muttered. "It looks⎼"

"Roman," Annabeth said. "Those mosaics are about two thousand years old."

"But how can they be Roman?" Percy wasn't that great on ancient history, but he was pretty sure the Roman Empire never made it as far as Long Island.