The revelation of Percy's parentage only brought more problems.
Because of what had happened in the woods, the cabin eleven kids were now afraid to share their sparring lesson with him. So, I offered to share mine. The two of us had fallen into a regular routine of training with Luke and Max. I noticed Luke seemed more determined to get Percy to learn, going much harder than he had before. It came to the point where sometimes Max had to tell Luke to take a break while he sparred with Percy.
Annabeth also seemed more distant. She still had some activities with me, but her mind was never really there and she would always wander off muttering to herself afterwards. I reckoned it was due to the Athena-Poseidon rivalry. She had probably hoped that if Percy was the one, they would be able to work together. That plan was shot down by that little glowing trident.
I was also more on edge, but mostly because of the hell hound. Monsters like those were extremely dangerous, not the kind of creatures we kept in the forest. It would never have gotten past the barrier by itself. Which meant that, like Chiron said, it had been summoned. There was someone at camp who deliberately wanted to kill Percy.
I would have pointed my finger at Clarisse, were it not for the fact that she was as surprised as we were when it appeared. Also, I didn't think she would be the kind to have others do her work for her. She preferred to get her own hands dirty.
It didn't help that my nightmares were constantly making me feel even more worried. It was always variations of the same dream.
I was standing in the middle of a forest, heavy fog obscuring my vision. There was a figure in front of me. It was covered in shadows, so I couldn't make out who or what it was. It spoke with a distorted voice, sounding ancient, far older than the gods, and unpleasant, like a knife scraping on chalk.
"Come, little light. Bring me the weapon."
I didn't know why it called me that. I tried to locate the speaker, but the figure had vanished and the voice seemed to come from all around me.
"No, I won't." I refused firmly.
The voice laughed, as if it found my resistance amusing.
"You can't stop this war. Join me, and you won't suffer."
"No! I will stop you!" I replied defiantly.
The voice chuckled again, the unnatural sound sending chills down my spine. Then, the ground opened beneath my feet, dragging me down into a dark bottomless abyss no matter how hard I struggled.
I woke up immediately after in my bed with a jolt and breathing heavily. These nightmares always left me with several questions. The two most important ones were: who did the voice belong to and what weapon did they want.
I used my sparring session with Max to discuss this with him, hoping he would have an idea.
"I have no idea about the voice. But if I had to guess, I'd say someone or something connected to the Underworld." Max said as he sliced at me.
"What about the weapon? Any ideas?" I asked, blocking his attack.
"Well, Annabeth suspects something was stolen, right? What if the thing that was stolen is a god's weapon?" he suggested:
It did make sense. From what I had read, the gods' weapons were incredibly powerful. One of those would definitely give anyone the edge in a battle. If you could withstand its power.
Our conversation/sparring session was interrupted by Grover, who trotted into the arena looking extremely nervous.
"Penny, Mr. D wants to see you."
I was confused. The resident Olympian had hardly even looked my way for the last month. What could he possibly want from me now?
Still, I decided it was better not to keep him waiting. I had a vague memory of a story about him turning people into dolphins. I don't know about you, but I don't see the appeal of a dolphin life.
As I walked over to the Big House, storm clouds began gathering overhead. These were far darker than before. If I didn't know about camp's magical borders that stopped even the weather, I would have sprinted away in search of an umbrella.
When I reached the blue building, Chiron and Mr. D were sitting at the pinochle table on the porch, with Percy standing next to them.
"Mr. D? You wanted to see me?" I asked as I approached them.
He looked over at me with a frown and gave me a nod, motioning for me to stand next to Percy.
"Now, I've already told this to your friend, if it were up to me, I would simply turn you both into a dolphin and a weasel and send you back to your parents." Mr. D began.
"Mr. D." Chiron warned.
"But Chiron has a different plan. It's crazy, but it's there." Mr. D added.
"I'm off to an emergency meeting in Olympus. If I find either of you here when I return, I will turn you into animals. And I suspect you'll find that a much better option than what Chiron has to offer."
He picked up a card, folded it into a plastic rectangle suspiciously similar to a credit card, snapped his fingers and vanished.
Chiron smiled at Percy, Grover and I, but it was his weary and tired smile. The one he always gave before he had to deliver bad news.
"Percy, Penny, take a seat. You too, Grover." he said.
The three of us all sat down at the table.
"Percy, tell me, what did you think of the hell hound?" Chiron asked.
The question caught Percy off guard. Not surprising, seeing as it pretty much came out of the blue.
"I was terrified. If it weren't for your arrows I would be dead." Percy answered honestly.
I would have called him a liar if he had answered otherwise. I'd had months of training for those kinds of situations and even I had been scared.
"You will face worse opponents, Percy, far worse, before you're done."
Percy frowned in confusion.
"Done with what?"
"Your quest, of course. Do you accept?"
My jaw went slack and my heart skipped a beat. Chiron wanted to send Percy on a quest after he'd arrived at camp mere weeks ago? It was like sending him to the slaughter!
"Um, but you haven't told me what for?" Percy replied.
Chiron grimaced.
"Well, that's the tricky part, the details."
The rumble of thunder shook the air. Looking out the window you could almost see the beach, where the sky seemed to be fighting the ocean. Just like in some of my dreams.
"Poseidon and Zeus, they're fighting about something valuable... something that was stolen, right?" Percy said.
Now it was my turn to frown. How did he know that? Annabeth had had a few guesses based on the weather, but nothing certain. And I doubted she would share that with Percy after what happened on Friday.
Chiron and Grover seemed to share my question, as they glanced at each other before Chiron leaned forward in his wheelchair.
"And how do you know that?" he asked.
Percy seemed suddenly very nervous, as if he'd been caught with his pants down.
"The weather has been weird since Christmas, like the sky and the sea are angry at each other. And then Annabeth told me she overheard something about something being stolen."
Okay, maybe Annabeth would have told him.
"And... I've been having dreams."
Grover seemed to perk up at this.
"I knew it!"
"Silence, satyr!" Chiron ordered.
"But it's his quest! It has to be!" Grover exclaimed excitedly.
"Only the Oracle can determine that." Chiron said.
"Anyway, what you said is correct, Percy. Zeus and your father are angry. It is their biggest quarrel yet. All because of something valuable that was stolen. A bolt, to be precise."
Percy let out a nervous laugh. But I knew it wasn't a reason to laugh. If I understood what Chiron had said correctly, then this was really, really bad.
"A what?"
"It isn't a joke. I'm not talking about about a piece of cut cardboard covered in aluminum foil that you would find in second grade theater play. I'm talking about a sixty centimeter long cylinder made of high quality celestial bronze, equipped on both ends with explosives."
"Ah."
"Zeus's master bolt. The symbol of his power, from which all lightning bolts are formed. The first weapon made by the cyclopes for the first Titan war, the bolt that destroyed the summit of Mount Etna and ripped Kronos from his throne, the master bolt whose power and energy would make the mortals' hydrogen bombs look like fireworks."
Yep. It was just as bad as I feared.
"And it's missing?" Percy asked.
"It was stolen." Chiron corrected.
"By who?
"You."
Percy's mouth fell open while my eyes widened in shock.
"WHAT?!" I exclaimed.
Chiron raised his hand, requesting we stay calm.
"At least, that's what Zeus thinks. In the last winter solstice, during the Council of the Gods, Zeus and Poseidon got into an argument. The usual silly disagreements: "Mother Rhea always liked you more.", "Aerial catastrophes are more impressive than marine ones.", and so forth. After that, Zeus noticed his master bolt had been stolen from the throne room, right under his nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. A god can't steal another god's symbol of power directly, it is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. However, Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to do it."
"But I didn't..."
"Be patient and listen, my boy. Zeus is right to be mistrustful. The cyclopes forges are located at the bottom of the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's bolt. Zeus believes Poseidon stole the master bolt and secretly asked the cyclopes to make an arsenal of copies that he will then use to overthrow him. The one thing Zeus wasn't sure about, was what hero his brother convinced to steal the bolt. Now, Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York during winter break. You could have snuck into Olympus. Zeus thinks he's found the thief."
"But Percy's never even been in Olympus!" I argued.
"Yeah! Zeus is crazy!" Percy agreed.
Chiron and Grover both looked fearfully at the sky. The storm clouds weren't going away like the usually did. If anything, they seemed to be gathering closer.
"Uhm, Percy? We don't refer to the Lord of the Skies with that word." Grover warned nervously.
"Perhaps 'paranoid' would be more accurate. But if you think about it, Poseidon has attempted to overthrow Zeus once before. If I'm not mistaken, that was question number thirty eight of your final exam." Chiron said.
I thought that was asking for too much, even with Chiron's high standards. Percy had just been told that the King of Olympus believed him to be guilty of a crime he didn't commit. How was he supposed to remember an exam question?!
Still, Chiron expected an answer.
"It had something to do with a golden net? Poseidon and Hera and the other gods... like, imprisoned Zeus and refused to release him until he promised to be a better ruler, right?" he said.
"Exactly." Chiron confirmed.
"And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon ever since. Of course he denied having stolen the bolt and was deeply offended by the accusation. These last months the two haven't stopped arguing, threatening war. And now you showed up, the last drop."
"But I'm just a kid!" Percy protested.
I could understand his frustration perfectly. The only thing he'd ever done was be born. It wasn't fair for Zeus to blame him simply because of his father.
"Percy, if you were Zeus and you believed your brother wanted to overthrow you, and then he admitted to breaking a sacred oath made after World War II, proving that he had fathered a new half-blood that could be used as a weapon against you... wouldn't that make you even more furious?" Grover reasoned.
"But I didn't do anything! Poseidon, my dad, didn't actually have that master bolt stolen, right?"
Chiron sighed.
"Most observers would agree that theft isn't Poseidon's style. However, the Sea God is too proud to try to convince his brother of that. Zeus has demanded Poseidon return the bolt until the summer solstice, which is the 21st of June, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being accused of theft until that same day. I had hoped diplomacy might worked, that Hera or Athena or Hestia might be able to bring them to their senses. Unfortunately, your arrival has only angered Zeus even more, and now neither god will back down. Unless someone does something, or the bolt is returned to Zeus until the established deadline, we will have war. And do you know what a fully-fledged war would look like, Percy?"
"Bad?" Percy suggested.
I saw that as the understatement of the year, if not the decade.
"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus or Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western Civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight." Chiron illustrated.
"Bad." Percy repeated.
Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.
"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."
Suddenly, it began raining. And not just a few drops, but a torrential downpour. At first my mouth just dropped at what I was seeing. It was supposed to be impossible. It never rained at camp unless we wanted.
But then I realized what was happening. This was Zeus getting revenge on Percy.
"So I have to find the stupid bolt and bring it to Zeus." Percy summed up.
"What better peace offering than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?" Chiron said.
"If Poseidon doesn't have it, then where is the thing?" Percy inquired.
"I believe I know. Part of a prophecy I had years ago... well, some of the lines make sense to me now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle." Chiron instructed.
"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?" Percy asked.
"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge." Chiron answered.
Percy already looked pretty afraid. But I guess that was to be expected.
"Good reason." he replied.
"You agree, then?"
Percy stayed silent for a few seconds, probably pondering if Mr. D's offer was better.
"All right. It's better than being turned into a dolphin." he finally decided.
"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle. Go upstairs, to the attic, Percy Jackson. When you come down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more." Chiron told him.
Percy didn't seem too excited about the possibility of insanity. But there was no other option. So I watched as he nervously went up the stairs.