The ravine ended at a cave. That much I expected. What I didn't count on was the smell.
It was like a mix between rotten eggs, dank mud, and dog poop. Clearly the Telekhines had used this tunnel for a while, and they weren't potty-trained. The whole place was wet (with water, I hoped) and pitch black. Our footsteps squelched. Thalia walked in front, sparks crackling above her palm to light our way.
In the glow of the lightning we could still see the footsteps. Whoever we were following had come this way, alone.
"So at what point do we decide one person isn't worth it?" Thalia asked.
"Just keep walking," I told her.
"Oh come on. I wasn't serious." Thalia walked a few more steps. "Mostly."
The cave was definitely sloping up. The higher we climbed the less water dripped from the ceiling, and the ground grew firmer underfoot. The smell didn't get any better though.
I started sneaking glances at Piper as we forged forward one rough step at a time
"You're waiting for me to complain about the cave," she said finally.
"Of course not!" I lied.
"It's fine," she said. "Venus girls don't have the best reputation. And they deserve it. I haven't met many of my half-sisters, but the ones I have MET tended to care more about the state of their skin than the state of the world."
"But not you?" Thalia asked.
"I don't believe I would've lived this long if I did," Piper said.
A natural vent puffed out a cloud of silver gas. We sped up, skirting the edge, and still came out the other side coughing.
"Sulfur," Thalia said. "Lovely."
"So what's it like being a daughter of Venus?" I asked Piper. "Like, you put on makeup before you jump in the phalanx?"
Piper laughed. "I actually do my hair, too."
But she sobered quickly. At first I thought it was because her foot sunk into a mud patch, but that wasn't quite right.
"To be serious, I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, I didn't even know about any of this before the world fell. My dad — he was an actor — he had this job in San Francisco. That's where we were when the world collapsed. I just remember monsters everywhere, and both of us getting separated. Camp Jupiter found me when I reached Berkeley, back when they were still trying to fight back. They needed soldiers, I needed a place to stay, so it worked out. That was the luckiest break I've had in years."
"What about that thing with the Telekhines?" I asked. "You told him to kill himself, and he just did it. Like you were his mom telling him to clean his room."
Surprisingly, it was Thalia who answered.
"Charmspeak," she said. "Some people can command other beings, persuading them magically to listen. It's like using the mist to trick mortals, only more potent."
"You know it?"
She looked back at me. "You should too. Don't tell me you've never run into it?"
Now that she mentioned it, that did sound familiar. Back in the Sea of Monsters, the resort-running sorceress Circe had done something like that. Her words pulled me in and made me dopey. Before I knew it, I was downing a magic guinea pig-ifying potion.
"I guess I just didn't know the name," I said.
"Charmspeak is dangerous," Piper said. "People say I'm good at it. All I know is I'm only alive today because of it. It's possible for a strong mind to overcome it, but I haven't seen that often."
Suddenly, the sparks extinguished above Thalia's hand. We were plunged into darkness. I stopped walking, worried I'd trip on something.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Up ahead," Thalia whispered. "Light."
Looking ahead, I saw it too. The cave was ending. And on the other side, something was tossing up an orange glow framed by flickering shadows.
We slowed down, creeping forward carefully to avoid making noise. Soon, we could hear voices.
Something with a thick Scottish accent barked out simple orders: move, stop, swing, faster! There were lots of sharp pinging sounds, and the slow clank of chains. Just as we reached the point we could look out, the Scot shouted, "Look who's turned up!"
The cave fed into a cavernous room held up by tall pillars of condensed rock. The floor was a spider-web-like array of pathways that extended in three dimensions, leading between dozens of different smaller caves and carved ledges. The smell of sulfur had been replaced by proper lava. I could see it, burbling far below in a big pool.
The room was packed. Long lines of humans ambled along the paths. They swung pickaxes and generally looked miserable. Telekhines ambled behind them, cracking whips and barking curses. In the middle of the room, on a circular earthen platform, the largest Telekhine I'd ever seen stood with three brothers around him, facing a human-looking woman.
"Not like you to take an interest in work," he said, and I realized it was his voice we'd been hearing. "Too hot. Too smokey. Not enough plants."
His friends snickered, as if liking plants was a sick burn. The woman looked down her nose at him.
She wore a pure white toga and sandals. A wreath of leaves was nestled in her hair. She had a short, almost chubby build that still held a feminine shape. A wreath of leaves was wrapped around her head. With her puffy cheeks and blond hair she looked angelic, but there was something dark about her eyes.
"Hullo Alastor," greeted the woman. "I'm only here for a ripe fruit to harvest. No need to worry about me."
"But there is a need," said Alastor the Telekhine. "Every time you come looking, you leave with one of my best slaves. And they never seem to wander back like you promise."
"Strange," said the woman.
She was already turning away. She wandered beside a line of chained humans, stopping in front each of the men before moving on.
"Get back here!" barked Alastor. "I'm telling you to keep your paws off, Pompona!"
'Minor goddess,' Piper mouthed to Thalia and I.
I knew her. A statue of hers threw fruit at me in Manhattan. That statue had been nothing but happy about the return of the Titans, and the real one seemed to have the same opinion if she was working here.
Alastor stomped after the goddess. "Look here, Lassie! I know you don't care about a thing, but this facility is already behind! If Krios comes all the way out here, who do you think will be the ones he takes his displeasure out on? It'll be us!"
Pompona stopped in front of a tall, thin man. She prodded his arms, and when he flinched under her nails, she sniffed and turned away.
"I don't see why you're yelling at me," she said. "Morpheus is the one who sleeps all day. Tell him to help."
"At least he brings in new blood with those dream traps," Alastor said. "And he keeps the ones here from thinking of resisting. Hard to conspire when you can only sleep enough to swing an ax. You, on the other hand, eat up our best workers like they're a buffet!"
Finally, Pompona turned back to him. Her eyes that looked so calmly at so much suffering had turned even colder.
"What do you propose instead?" she asked. "Do you think to control me? Have you spent so long around mewling slaves that you believe the whole world listens to your orders?"
Alastor stopped pacing after her. I noticed he was very careful to keep distance between them.
"None of us are happy about being assigned here," he said.
Pompona laughed. "You daemons were born to crawl about this kind of place. But not me! I am the goddess of harvest! I should be frolicking among bountiful fields, far away from here! So what if I fall back on the pleasures of flesh, the only pleasure I have left? So what if it costs you a few slaves? You have no idea how close I am to turning this place and everyone in it into one giant arboretum!"
As she spoke she crossed her arms and stomped her foot. The goddess looked remarkably like a toddler, but I'd learned a while ago how much gods could have in common with little kids. Small green buds broke out of the ground around her feet as her anger grew, but they quickly withered and burned under the room's heat.
"Alright." Alastor rubbed his face. "Alright," he repeated. "You can have another toy. But please, let me pick him? I'll find you a dashing one that won't hurt production too bad. It'll be a compromise."
Pompona didn't look much happier at that. But she said, "Fine!" and blew imperiously down the walkway.
She still stopped to eye a few men appraisingly on her way out, before finally leaving. Alastor sighed.
"You heard her, boys," he said. "Find her a dashing one we can spare. Chop chop!"
The Telekhines hesitated.
"What makes a human good lookin'?" asked one.
"Hades if I know," said Alastor. "Look for ones with thin hands and long feet. As close to flippers as you can manage. Every woman goes crazy for flippers."
"Good thinking!" chorused his entourage.
They stomped away as fast as their seafaring feat could carry them, fanning out on their search. Exchanging a look with the others, we crept into the light.
There was enough distance from us to them that none of the guards noticed our arrival. I was trying to figure out a way to get rid of them before they could take hostages when a Telekhine cried out.
He toppled off the walkway, falling a hundred feet into a pool of lava. His head broke the surface and his limbs thrashed to keep him afloat as he screamed. I wasn't sure if lava would kill it, but if it could, it was certain to be a slow death.
"Who?" shouted Alastor.
One human had stepped out of the line. They weren't bound by the chains, instead having hidden themselves with the slaves. While the Telekhine had leaned forward to look at the men around her, she'd slipped behind him and given his back a strong shove.
It was Aubrey, the pretty but silent woman Annie introduced me to the day I first woke up. I hadn't seen much of her since saving her from Rio's advances, but I had noticed when she chose to follow me. I was proud of it. She'd seemed completely lethargic at times, but she still had some hope left in her bones.
Enough, apparently, to sneak into a monster den and send one of them for a molten bath. From the look on her face she hadn't thought it through all the way. She didn't have a plan to deal with the rest of the Telekhines rushing toward her, and these ones weren't going to be so easy to push off.
"That's one of ours," I said.
Thalia was already moving.
She literally flew across the room. She zipped over the heads of shocked humans, kicking Telekhines as she passed them, sending demons tumbling. The moment she landed Aegis formed. The hideous shield made a few Telekhines dive off into the lava all on their own, just to get away from it.
"You're brave," Thalia told Aubrey. "Foolish, sure. But brave."
Piper and I followed much more slowly. We jumped down onto the path the others were on, pinning the leader Alastor between us and Aegis.
"What's the meaning o' this!" he cried.
"Morpheus brought us," I told him pleasantly. "Unfortunately, he couldn't make it himself. An unplanned lobotomy came up out of the blue.
Alastor's snout twitched. "You're not slaves."
"About that. We checked in our schedules, but a lifetime of manual labor just didn't fit with our plans. We'll have to refuse."
"Jump!" Piper shouted.
Every Telekhine around the room took a running leap into the lava, leaving the slaves behind. Only Alastor managed to resist, slapping his own snout to keep his wits.
"What do you want?" asked the Telekhine.
"Not sure yet." I looked at Audrey. "What do we want?"
She stood there, staring at us. I think our sudden arrival had short circuited her brain. She slowly brought a finger around, pointing at herself.
Thalia rolled her eyes. "Yes, he's talking to you."
"You cared enough about something to sneak in here on your own," I said. "I'm not going to pretend I understand what that was or even what this place is for. But there must be something you're after."
"These people," she said quietly.
"What about them?"
"Free them. Please!"
"You're after my slaves?" Alastor roared. "Over my dead body!"
That could be arranged pretty easily. But my eyes drifted over the room, tracing the many lines of humans. Most were dressed in torn and filthy mortal clothing. I saw all ages represented. It tugged at my heart, but at the same time, there had to be hundreds in this room alone.
"We can't take all of them with us," I said carefully. "We can't even take most of them."
"Then turn them out into the desert," Aubrey said. "Anything is better than life as a slave."
"Even if they die out there?"
"Anything is better," she repeated fervently.
"What about work with pay?" Alastor asked suddenly.
The Telekhine looked nervous. He was sweating profusely under his chin (that was how Telekhines sweated?) while doing his best to hold his gaze on me and ignore Aegis at his back.
"Explain," Piper said, lacing the command with charmspeak for good measure.
"I'll give 'em benefits," the Telekhine swore. "And working hours. And weekends. Hades, I'll even throw them a banquet once a month."
"What, out of the goodness of your heart?" I asked.
"Of course not!" he snapped. "This is a deal. A transaction! If I was in charge, I wouldn't need to work these fools so hard. Pompona's the one that's really in charge, and she can't keep her paws off. I've lost dozens of strong men to her already!"
"So you want us to get rid of her," Piper said.
"And you just expect us to take you at your word?" I asked.
"I'm sick of this," Alastor admitted. "We're great smiths! But the Titans don't want new weapons popping up. They want theirs to be the only ones left in the world. So we get to babysit mewling slaves, working for minor goddesses that think with their snatch and whine every hour of the day. I'll swear any oath you want, within reason. Just get her gone."
Everyone was waiting for my decision, I realized, even the slaves. They weren't willing to speak, but the ones close to us had their hands clenched. They were hoping to hear one answer from me. But this wasn't my choice.
"Do we do it?" I asked Aubrey.
Instead of answering, she walked forward.
She stomped up to Alastor. As a full-grown Telekhine, the monster was a head taller than her. She looked terrified. But it didn't stop her from saying, "We'll kill you if you're lying."
"Yes, yes," Alastor flapped his hand like a flipper. "Are you in or not?"
Aubrey looked at me. I smiled.
"What are you waiting for?"
She gave the demon her firmest nod.