ｔｈｅ ｂａｔｔｌｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｌａｂｙｒｉｎｔｈ

THE GOOD NEWS: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news; it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, They ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human—was on their tail.

"Tyson," Percy said, "can you—"

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling.

"Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!"

The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise.

Tyson pushed it into a small room and we dashed through behind it.

"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said.

They all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.

"We trapped it," Percy said.

"Or trapped ourselves," Lucia said.

He turned. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell.

"I'm too pretty for jail." Lucia frowned, crossing her arms over her chest

Percy looked at her with an amused smile

"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge. Through the bars, they could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard—at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Lucia can melt—"

"Shh," said Grover. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a raspy voice muttering something that they couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.

"what's that language?" Lucia whispered.

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

"What?" she asked.

He grabbed two bars on their cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.

"Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.

"I know this place," Annabeth told me. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island is near San Francisco?" Percy remembered

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

It didn't seem possible that they could've popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country, but the months of research confirmed that Annabeth knew what she was talking about.

"Freeze," Grover warned.

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

Lucia looked where he was pointing, and her stomach somersaulted. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything she'd ever seen before.

It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman's body from the waist up. But instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon—at least twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then Lucia realized they were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite.

The woman's hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa's. weirdest 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 vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures. Lucia got the feeling she was looking at something half-formed, a monster so old it was from the beginning of time, before shapes had been fully defined.

"It's her," Tyson whimpered.

"Who's her?" Lucia asked

"Get down!" Grover said.

They crouched in the shadows, but the monster wasn't paying them any attention. It seemed to be talking to someone inside a cell on the second floor. That's where the sobbing was coming from. The dragon woman said something in her weird rumbling language.

"What's she saying?" Percy 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?"

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

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

"Is the imitation necessary?" Lucia squeaked

"I will not serve," Tyson said in a deep, wounded voice.

He switched to the monster's voice: "Then I shall enjoy your pain, Briares." Tyson faltered when he said that name. He let out a strangled gulp. Then he continued in the monster's voice. "If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you have yet to feel true torment. Think on this until I return."

The dragon lady tromped toward the stairwell, vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts. She spread wings that Lucia hadn't noticed before—huge bat wings she kept folded against her dragon back. She leaped off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard. They crouched lower in the shadows. A hot sulfurous wind blasted Lucia's face as the monster flew over. Then she disappeared around the corner.

"H-h-horrible," Grover said. "I've never smelled any monster that strong."

"Cyclopes' worst nightmare," Tyson murmured. "Kampê."

"Who?" Lucia asked.

Tyson swallowed. "Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we're babies. She was our jailer in the bad years."

Annabeth nodded. "I remember now. When the Titans ruled, they imprisoned Gaea and Ouranos's earlier children—the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires."

"The Heka-what?" Percy asked.

"The Hundred-Handed Ones," she said. "They called them that

because...well, they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclopes."

"Very powerful," Tyson said. "Wonderful! As tall as the sky. So strong they could break mountains!"

"Cool," Percy said. "Unless you're a mountain."

"Kampê was the jailer?" Lucia deduced

Tyson nodded. "She worked for Kronos. She kept our brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones to help fight against the Titans in the big war."

"And now Kampê is back," Percy said.

"Bad," Tyson summed up.

"So who's in that cell?" He asked. "You said a name—"

"Briares!" Tyson perked up. "He is a Hundred-Handed One. They are as tall as the sky and—"

"Yeah," Percy said. "They break mountains."

Lucia looked up at the cells above us, wondering how something as tall as the sky could fit in a tiny cell, and why he was crying.

"I guess we should check it out," Annabeth said, "before Kampê comes back."

☼

AS THEY APPROACHED THE CELL, the weeping got louder. When Lucia first saw the creature inside, She wasn't sure what she was looking at. He was human-size and his skin was very pale, the color of milk. He wore a loincloth like a big diaper. His feet seemed too big for his body, with cracked dirty toenails, eight toes on each foot. But the top half of his body was the weird part. He made Janus look downright normal. She knew it was rude to stare but she couldn't help but observe that his chest sprouted more arms than Lucia could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked kind of like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together. Several of his hands were covering his face as he sobbed.

"Either the sky isn't as tall as it used to be," Percy muttered, "or he's short."

"Percy" Lucia poked his side, despite her snorting at his joke "Please behave."

"He's still taller than you, Shortsack."

Lucia poked his side harder causing him to groan

Tyson didn't pay any attention. He fell to his knees.

"Briares!" he called.

The sobbing stopped.

"Great Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson said. "Help us!"

Briars looked up. His face was long and sad, with a crooked nose and bad teeth. He had deep brown eyes—Lucia meant completely brown with no whites or black pupils, like eyes formed out of clay.

"Run while you can, Cyclops," Briares said miserably. "I cannot even help myself."

"You are a Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson insisted. "You can do anything!"

Briars wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It was amazing to watch. The hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They built a toy boat out of wood, then disassembled it just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissors. A few others were making ducky and doggie shadow puppets against the wall.

"I cannot," Briares moaned. "Kampê is back! The Titans will rise and throw us back into Tartarus."

"Put on your brave face!" Tyson said.

Immediately Briares's face morphed into something else. Same brown eyes, but otherwise totally different features. He had an upturned nose, arched eyebrows, and a weird smile, like he was trying to act brave. But then his face turned back to what it had been before.

"No good," he said. "My scared face keeps coming back."

"How did you do that?" Percy asked.

Annabeth elbowed me. "Don't be rude. The Hundred-Handed Ones all have fifty different faces."

"Must make it hard to get a yearbook picture," Percy said.

Lucia rolled her eyes

Tyson was still entranced. "It will be okay, Briares! We will help you! Can I have your autograph?"

Briares sniffled. "Do you have one hundred pens?"

"Will one work!" Lucia pulled out a pen from her backpack

"Why do you have a pen," Annabeth asked

"For moments like these."

"Guys," Grover interrupted. "We have to get out of here. Kampê will be back. She'll sense us sooner or later."

"Break the bars," Annabeth said.

"Yes!" Tyson said, smiling proudly. "Briares can do it. He is very strong. Stronger than Cyclopes, even! Watch!"

Briares whimpered. A dozen of his hands started playing patty-cake, but none of them made any attempt to break the bars.

"If he's so strong," Percy said, "why is he stuck in jail?"

Lucia elbowed him this time. "He's terrified," she whispered. "Kampê had imprisoned him in Tartarus for thousands of years. How would you feel?" The Hundred-Handed One covered his face again.

"Briares?" Tyson asked. "What...what is wrong? Show us your great strength!"

"Tyson," Annabeth said, "I think you'd better break the bars."

Tyson's smile melted slowly.

"I will break the bars," he repeated. He grabbed the cell door and ripped it off its hinges like it was made of wet clay.

"Come on, Briares," Annabeth said. "Let's get you out of here."She held out her hand. For a second, Briares's face morphed to a hopeful expression. Several of his arms reached out, but twice as many slapped them away.

"I cannot," he said. "She will punish me."

"It's all right," Annabeth promised. "You fought the Titans before, and you won, remember?"

"I remember the war." Briares's face morphed again—furrowed brow and a pouting mouth. "Lightning shook the world. We threw many rocks. The Titans and the monsters almost won. Now they are getting strong again. Kampê said so."

"Don't listen to her, She's wrong" Lucia said. "Come on! You can do this."

He hesitated but in the end, he didn't budge. Lucia knew Grover was right. They didn't have much time before Kampê returned. But they couldn't just leave him here.

"One game of rock, paper, scissors," Percy blurted out. "If I win, you come with us. If I lose, we'll leave you in jail."

Annabeth and Lucia looked at him like he was crazy.

Briares's face morphed to doubtful. "I always win rock, paper, scissors."

"Then let's do it!" Percy pounded his fist in his palm three times.

Briares did the same with all one hundred hands, which sounded like an army marching three steps forward. He came up with a whole avalanche of rocks, a classroom set of scissors, and enough paper to make a fleet of airplanes.

"I told you," he said sadly. "I always—" His face morphed to confusion. "What is that you made?"

"A gun," Percy him, showing him his finger gun. Lucia stared at him starry-eyed. "A gun beats anything."

"That's not fair."

"I didn't say anything about fair. Kampê's not going to be fair if we hang around. She's going to blame you for ripping off the bars. Now come on!"

Briares sniffled. "Demigods are cheaters." But he slowly rose to his feet and followed them out of the cell.

Lucia started to feel hopeful. All they had to do was get downstairs and find the Labyrinth entrance. But then Tyson froze.

On the ground floor right below, Kampê was snarling at them.

☼

"THE OTHER WAY!" Lucia Yelled.

They bolted down the catwalk. This time Briares was happy to follow them. In fact, he sprinted out front, a hundred arms waving in panic.

Behind them, Lucia heard the sound of giant wings as Kampê took to the air. She hissed and growled in her ancient language, but Lucia didn't need a translation to know she was planning to kill them.

They scrambled down the stairs, through a corridor, and past a guard's station—out into another block of prison cells.

"Left," Annabeth said. "I remember this from the tour."

They burst outside and found themselves in the prison yard, ringed by security towers and barbed wire. After being inside for so long, the daylight was a source of energy for Lucia. She felt rejuvenated as the light hit her skin. Tourists were milling around, taking pictures. The wind whipped cold off the bay. In the south, San Francisco gleamed all white and beautiful, but in the north, over Mount Tamalpais, huge storm clouds swirled. The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists couldn't see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn't give any hint that anything was wrong.

"That looks bad..." Lucia observed

"It's even worse," Annabeth said, gazing to the north. "The storms have been bad all year, but that—"

"Keep moving," Briares wailed. "She is behind us!"

They ran to the far end of the yard, as far from the cellblock as possible. "Kampê's too big to get through the doors," Percy said hopefully.

Then the wall exploded.

"Nice going kelphead!"

Tourists screamed as Kampê appeared from the dust and rubble, her wings spread out as wide as the yard. She was holding two swords—long bronze scimitars that glowed with a weird greenish aura, boiling wisps of vapor that smelled sour and hot even across the yard.

"Poison!" Grover yelped. "Don't let those things touch you or..."

"Or we'll die?" Percy guessed.

"Well...after you shrivel slowly to dust, yes."

"Let's avoid the swords,"

"Briares, fight!" Tyson urged. "Grow to full size!"

Instead, Briares looked like he was trying to shrink even smaller. He appeared to be wearing his absolutely terrified face.

Kampê thundered toward them on her dragon legs, hundreds of snakes slithering around her body.

For a second Lucia thought about facing her, but her heart crawled into her throat. Then Annabeth said what She was thinking: "Run."

That was the end of the debate. There was no fighting this thing. They ran through the jail yard and out the gates of the prison, the monster right behind them. Mortals screamed and ran. Emergency sirens began to blare.

They hit the wharf just as a tour boat was unloading. The new group of visitors froze as they saw them charging toward them, followed by a mob of frightened tourists, followed by...Lucia had no idea what they saw through the Mist, but it could not have been good.

"The boat?" Grover asked.

"Too slow," Tyson said. "Back into the maze. Only chance."

"We need a diversion," Annabeth said.

Tyson ripped a metal lamppost out of the ground. "I will distract Kampê. You run ahead."

"I'll help you," Percy said.

"No," Tyson said. "You go. Poison will hurt Cyclopes. A lot of pain. But it won't kill."

"Are you sure?"

"Go, brother. I will meet you inside."

Lucia hated the idea. She knew he'd almost lost Tyson once before, and she didn't want him to have to risk that again. But there was no time to argue, and they had no better idea. Annabeth, Grover, Percy, and Lucia each took one of Briares's hands and dragged him toward the concession stands while Tyson bellowed, lowered his pole, and charged Kampê like a jousting knight.

She'd been glaring at Briares, but Tyson got her attention as soon as he nailed her in the chest with the pole, pushing her back into the wall. She shrieked and slashed with her swords, slicing the pole to shreds. poison dripped in pools all around her, sizzling into the cement.

Tyson jumped back as Kampê's hair lashed and hissed, and the vipers around her legs darted their tongues in every direction. A lion popped out of the weird half-formed faces around her waist and roared.

As they sprinted for the cellblocks, the last thing Lucia saw was Tyson picking up a Dippin' Dots stand and throwing it at Kampê. Ice cream and poison exploded everywhere, all the little snakes in Kampê's hair dotted with tutti- frutti. They dashed back into the jail yard.

"Can't make it," Briares huffed.

"Tyson is risking his life to help you!" Percy yelled at him. "You will make it."

As they reached the door of the cellblock, Lucia heard an angry roar. She glanced back and saw Tyson running toward them at full speed, Kampê right behind him. She was plastered in ice cream and T-shirts. One of the bear heads on her waist was now wearing a pair of crooked plastic Alcatraz sunglasses.

"Hurry!" Annabeth said, like they needed to be told that.

They finally found the cell where they'd come in, but the back wall was completely smooth—no sign of a boulder or anything.

"Look for the mark!" Annabeth said.

"There!" Grover touched a tiny scratch, and it became a Greek ∆. The mark of Daedalus glowed blue, and the stone wall grinded open.

Too slowly. Tyson was coming through the cellblock, Kampê's swords lashing out behind him, slicing indiscriminately through cell bars and stone walls.

Percy pushed Briares inside the maze, then Annabeth and Grover. He was about to push Lucia in when she got out of the way and stepped forward.

"Luz get in—"

"You can do it!" She told Tyson. But immediately she knew he couldn't, Kampê was gaining. They needed a distraction—something big. She stepped forward if you don't succeed Tyson will die... Lucia, Succeed.

Lucia took a deep breath in before she screamed, the scream echoed throughout the cell but with Lucia's hands as guidance, the audio found its target and hit the monster straight in the face.

The monster only became disoriented but she faltered just long enough for Tyson to dive past them into the maze. Percy grabbed Lucia by the waist and followed right behind him.

Kampê charged, but she was too late. The stone door closed and its magic sealed them in. Lucia could feel the whole tunnel shake as Kampê pounded against it, roaring furiously. They didn't stick around to play knock, knock with her, though. They raced into the darkness, and for the first time (and the last) Lucia was glad to be back in the Labyrinth.