فصل 41

MEG struck first.

With quick, sure moves, she severed the chains that bound the Sibyl, then glared at Medea as if to say Ha-ha! I have unleashed my attack Oracle!

The shackles fell from Herophile’s wrists and ankles, revealing ugly red burn rings. Herophile stumbled back, clutching her hands to her chest. She looked more horror-struck than grateful. “Meg McCaffrey, no! You shouldn’t have—”

Whatever clue she was going to give, across or down, it didn’t matter. The chains and shackles snapped back together, fully mended. Then they leaped like striking rattlesnakes—at me, not Herophile. They lashed themselves around my wrists and ankles. The pain was so intense it felt cool and pleasant at first. Then I screamed.

Meg hacked at the molten links once again, but now they repelled her blades. With each blow, the chains tightened, pulling me down until I was forced to crouch. With all my insignificant strength, I struggled against the bonds, but I quickly learned this was a bad idea. Tugging against the manacles was like pressing my wrists against red-hot griddles. The agony almost made me pass out, and the smell…oh, gods, I did not enjoy the smell of deep-fried Lester. Only by staying perfectly neutral, allowing the manacles to take me where they wished, could I keep the pain at a level that was merely excruciating.

Medea laughed, clearly enjoying my contortions. “Well done, Meg McCaffrey! I was going to chain up Apollo myself, but you saved me a spell.”

I fell to my knees. “Meg, Grover—get the Sibyl out of here. Leave me!”

Another brave, self-sacrificing gesture. I hope you’re keeping count.

Alas, my suggestion was futile. Medea snapped her fingers. The stone tiles shifted across the surface of the ichor, leaving the Sibyl’s platform cut off from any exit.

Behind the sorceress, her two guards shoved Crest to the floor. He slid down, his back to the wall, his hands shackled but still stubbornly holding my combat ukulele. The pandos’s left eye was swollen shut. His lips were split. Two fingers on his right hand were bent at a funny angle. He met my eyes, his expression full of shame. I wanted to reassure him that he had not failed. We should never have left him alone on guard duty. He would still be able to do amazing fingerpicking, even with two broken fingers!

But I could barely think straight, much less console my young music student.

The two guards spread their giant ears. They sailed across the room, letting hot updrafts carry them to separate tiles near the corners of our platform. They drew their khanda blades and waited, just in case we were foolish enough to try leaping across.

“You killed Timbre,” one hissed.

“You killed Peak,” said the other.

On her landing, Medea chuckled. “You see, Apollo, I picked a couple of highly motivated volunteers! The rest were clamoring to accompany me down here, but—”

“There’s more outside?” Meg asked. I couldn’t tell if she found this idea helpful (Hooray, fewer to kill now!) or depressing (Boo, more to kill later!).

“Absolutely, my dear,” Medea said. “Even if you had some foolish idea about getting past us, it wouldn’t matter. Not that Flutter and Decibel will let that happen. Eh, boys?”

“I’m Flutter,” said Flutter.

“I’m Decibel,” said Decibel. “May we kill them now?”

“Not just yet,” Medea said. “Apollo is right where I need him, ready to be dissolved. As for the rest of you, just relax. If you try to interfere, I will have Flutter and Decibel kill you. Then your blood might spill into the ichor, which would mess up the purity of the mixture.” She spread her hands. “You understand. We can’t have tainted ichor. I only need Apollo’s essence for this recipe.”

I did not like the way she talked about me as if I were already dead—just one more ingredient, no more important than toad’s eye or sassafras.

“I will not be dissolved,” I growled.

“Oh, Lester,” she said. “You kind of will.”

The chains tightened further, forcing me to all fours. I couldn’t understand how Herophile had endured this pain for so long. Then again, she was still immortal. I was not.

“Let it begin!” Medea cried.

She began to chant.

The ichor glowed a pure white, bleaching the color from the room. Miniature stone tiles with sharp edges seemed to shift under my skin, flaying away my mortal form, rearranging me into a new kind of puzzle in which none of the answers was Apollo. I screamed. I spluttered. I might have begged for my life. Fortunately for what little dignity I had left, I couldn’t form the words.

Out of the corner of my eye, in the hazy depths of my agony, I was dimly aware of my friends backing away, terrified by the steam and fire now erupting from cracks in my body.

I didn’t blame them. What could they do? At the moment, I was more likely to explode than Macro’s family-fun grenade packs, and my wrapping was not nearly as tamper-resistant.

“Meg,” Grover said, fumbling with his panpipe, “I’m going to do a nature song. See if I can disrupt that chanting, maybe summon help.”

Meg gripped her blades. “In this heat? Underground?”

“Nature’s all we’ve got!” he said. “Cover me!”

He began to play. Meg stood guard, her swords raised. Even Herophile helped, balling her fists, ready to show the pandai how Sibyls dealt with ruffians back in Erythraea.

The pandai didn’t seem to know how to react. They winced at the noise of the pipes, curling their ears around their heads like turbans, but they didn’t attack. Medea had told them not to. And as shaky as Grover’s music was, they seemed unsure as to whether or not it constituted an act of aggression.

Meanwhile, I was busy trying not to be flayed into nothingness. Every bit of my willpower bent instinctively to keeping myself in one piece. I was Apollo, wasn’t I? I…I was beautiful and people loved me. The world needed me!

Medea’s chant undermined my resolve. Her ancient Colchian lyrics wormed their way into my mind. Who needed old gods? Who cared about Apollo? Caligula was much more interesting! He was better suited to this modern world. He fit. I did not. Why didn’t I just let go? Then I could be at peace.

Pain is an interesting thing. You think you have reached your limit and you can’t possibly feel more tortured. Then you discover there is still another level of agony. And another level after that. The stone tiles under my skin cut and shifted and ripped. Fires burst like sun flares across my pathetic mortal body, blasting straight through Macro’s cheap discount arctic camouflage. I lost track of who I was, why I was fighting to stay alive. I wanted so badly to give up, just so the pain would stop.

Then Grover found his groove. His notes became more confident and lively, his cadence steadier. He played a fierce, desperate jig—the sort that satyrs piped in springtime in the meadows of ancient Greece, hoping to encourage dryads to come forth and dance with them in the wildflowers.

The song was hopelessly out of place in this fiery crossword dungeon. No nature spirit could possibly hear it. No dryads would come to dance with us. Nevertheless, the music dulled my pain. It lessened the intensity of the heat, like a cold towel pressed against my feverish forehead.

Medea’s chant faltered. She scowled at Grover. “Really? Are you going to stop that, or must I make you?”

Grover played even more frenetically—a distress call to nature that echoed through the room, making the corridors reverberate like the pipes of a church organ.

Meg abruptly joined in, singing nonsense lyrics in a terrible monotone. “Hey, how about that nature? We love those plants. Come on down, you dryads, and, uh, grow and…kill this sorceress and stuff.”

Herophile, who had once had such a lovely voice, who had been born singing prophecies, looked at Meg in dismay. With saintlike restraint, she did not punch Meg in the face.

Medea sighed. “Okay, that’s it. Meg, I’m sorry. But I’m sure Nero will forgive me for killing you when I explain how badly you sang. Flutter, Decibel—silence them.”

Behind the sorceress, Crest gurgled in alarm. He fumbled with his ukulele, despite his bound hands and two crushed fingers.

Meanwhile, Flutter and Decibel grinned with delight. “Now we shall have revenge! DIE! DIE!”

They unfurled their ears, raised their swords, and leaped toward the platform.

Could Meg have defeated them with her trusty scimitars?

I don’t know. Instead, she made a move almost as surprising as her sudden urge to sing. Maybe, looking at poor Crest, she decided that enough pandos blood had been shed. Maybe she was still thinking about her misdirected anger, and whom she should really spend her energy hating. Whatever the case, her scimitars flicked into ring form. She grabbed a packet from her belt and ripped it open—spraying seeds in the path of the oncoming pandai.

Flutter and Decibel veered and screamed as the plants erupted, covering them in fuzzy green nebulae of ragweed. Flutter smacked into the nearest wall and began sneezing violently, the ragweed rooting him in place like a fly on flypaper. Decibel crash-landed on the platform at Meg’s feet, the ragweed growing over him until he looked more like a bush than a pandos—a bush that sneezed a lot.

Medea face-palmed. “You know…I told Caligula that dragon’s teeth warriors make much better guards. But noooo. He insisted on hiring pandai.” She shook her head in disgust. “Sorry, boys. You had your chance.”

She snapped her fingers again. A ventus swirled to life, pulling a cyclone of cinders from the ichor lake. The spirit shot toward Flutter, ripped the screaming pandos from the wall, and dumped him unceremoniously into the fire. Then it swept across the platform, grazing my friends’ feet, and pushed Decibel, still sneezing and crying, off the side.

“Now, then,” Medea said, “if I can encourage the rest of you to BE QUIET…”

The ventus charged, encircling Meg and Grover, lifting them off the platform.

I cried out, thrashing in my chains, sure that Medea would hurl my friends into the fire, but they merely hung there suspended. Grover was still playing his pipes, though no sound came through the wind; Meg was scowling and shouting, probably something like THIS AGAIN? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Herophile was not caught in the ventus. I supposed Medea considered her no threat. She stepped to my side, her fists still clenched. I was grateful for that, but I didn’t see what one boxing Sibyl could do against the power of Medea.

“Okay!” Medea said, a glint of triumph in her eyes. “I’ll start again. Doing this chant while controlling a ventus is not easy work, though, so please, behave. Otherwise I might lose my concentration and dump Meg and Grover into the ichor. And, really, we have too many impurities in there already, what with the pandai and the ragweed. Now, where were we? Oh, yes! Flaying your mortal form!”