PERCYSLEPTLIKEAMEDUSAVICTIM—which is to say, like a rock.
He hadn't crashed in a safe, comfortable bed since...well, he couldn't
even remember. Despite his insane day and the million thoughts running
through his head, his body took over and said: You will sleep now.
He had dreams, of course. He always had dreams, but they passed
like blurred images from the window of a train. He saw a curly-haired faun
in ragged clothes running to catch up with him.
"I don't have any spare change," Percy called.
"What?" the faun said. "No, Percy. It's me, Grover! Stay put! We're on
our way to find you. Tyson is close—at least we think he's the closest. We're trying to get a lock on your position."
"What?" Percy called, but the faun disappeared in the fog.
Then Annabeth was running along beside him, reaching out her hand.
"Thank the gods!" she called. "For months and months we couldn't see
you! Are you all right?"
Percy remembered what Juno had said—for months he has been
slumbering, but nowhe is awake. The goddess had intentionally kept him
hidden, but why?
"Are you real?" he asked Annabeth.
He wanted so much to believe it he felt like Hannibal the elephant was
standing on his chest. But her face began to dissolve. She cried, "Stay put!
It'll be easier for Tyson to find you! Stay where you are!"
Then she was gone. The images accelerated. He saw a huge ship in a
dry dock, workers scrambling to finish the hull, a guy with a blowtorch
welding a bronze dragon figurehead to the prow. He saw the war god
stalking toward him in the surf, a sword in his hands.
The scene shifted. Percy stood on the Field of Mars, looking up at the
Berkeley Hills. Golden grass rippled, and a face appeared in the
landscape—a sleeping woman, her features formed from shadows and
folds in the terrain. Her eyes remained closed, but her voice spoke in
Percy's mind:
So this is the demigod who destroyed my son Kronos. You don't look
like much, Percy Jackson, but you're valuable to me. Come north. Meet
Alcyoneus. Juno can play her little games with Greeks and Romans, but
in the end, you will be my pawn. You will be the key to the gods'defeat.
Percy's vision turned dark. He stood in a theater-sized version of the
camp's headquarters—a principia with walls of ice and freezing mist
hanging in the air. The floor was littered with skeletons in Roman armor
and Imperial gold weapons encrusted with frost. In the back of the room sat
an enormous shadowy figure. His skin glinted of gold and silver, as if he
were an automaton like Reyna's dogs. Behind him stood a collection of
