Maze of Memories

Rock Paper Scissors

"What in Hades?" Annabeth yanked on the bars, but they refused to budge. From our vantage point, we observed rows of cells encircling a dark courtyard, at least three stories of metal doors and catwalks.

"A prison," Percy deduced. "Maybe Tyson can break—"

"Shh," Grover interrupted. "Listen."

Above us, deep sobs echoed through the building, accompanied by a raspy voice muttering incomprehensible words, like rocks tumbling in a tumbler.

"What's that language?" I whispered.

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?" Percy inquired.

Tyson, seizing two bars on our cell door, bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.

"Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't one to wait. We hurriedly followed him. The prison was dimly lit, with only a few flickering fluorescent lights overhead.

"I know this place," Annabeth informed us. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island near San Francisco?" Percy questioned.

She nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

Despite the seeming impossibility of popping out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country, Annabeth had lived in San Francisco for a year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais across the bay. She likely knew what she was talking about.

"Freeze," Grover warned.

However, Tyson pressed on. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"

Following his pointed gaze, my stomach churned. On the second-floor balcony across the courtyard stood a monster more grotesque than anything I'd encountered.

It resembled a centaur, but with a woman's torso from the waist up. Instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon—about twenty feet long, black and scaly, with massive claws and a barbed tail. Her legs appeared entangled in vines, but upon closer inspection, they were sprouting snakes—hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly seeking something to bite. The woman's hair was also made of snakes, reminiscent of Medusa. Strangest of all, around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a fierce wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she wore a belt of ever-changing creatures. It felt like I was witnessing something half-formed, a monster from the beginning of time, before shapes had fully defined.

"It's her," Tyson whimpered.

"Get down!" Grover urged.

We crouched in the shadows, but the monster paid us no attention. She seemed engrossed in a conversation with someone inside a cell on the second floor, the source of the sobbing. The dragon woman spoke in her strange, rumbling language.

"What's she saying?" I muttered. "What's that language?"

"The tongue of the old times," Tyson shivered. "What Mother Earth spoke to Titans and... her other children. Before the gods."

"You understand it?" Percy asked. "Can you translate?"

Closing his eyes, Tyson began to speak in a raspy woman's voice. "You will work for the master or suffer."

Annabeth shuddered. "I hate it when he does that."

Like all Cyclopes, Tyson possessed superhuman hearing and an uncanny ability to mimic voices. It was almost as if he entered a trance when speaking in other voices.