Chapter 7. Tyson leads a jailbreak.
The good news? The left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists or turns.
The bad news is a dead end.
After sprinting a hundred yards, we ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked our path.
Behind us the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor.
Something definitely not human was on our tail.
Tyson, I 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, Antibus said.
We all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed.
Whatever was chasing us wailed infrastration as we heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.
We trapped it, I said.
Or trapped ourselves, Grover said.
I turned.
We were in a 20 foot square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars.
We tunneled straight into a cell.
What in Hades?
Antibus tugged on the bars.
They didn't budge.
Through the bars we could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard.
At least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.
A prison, I said.
Maybe Tyson can break.
Shh! said Grover.
Listen!
Somewhere above us, deep sobbing echoed through the building.
There's another sound too.
A raspy voice muttering something that I couldn't make out.
The words were strange like rocks and a tumbler.
What's that language?
I whispered.
Tyson's eye widened.
Can't be.
What?
I asked.
He grabbed two bars on our cell door and bent them wide enough for even a cyclops to slip through.
Wait!
Grover called.
But Tyson wasn't about to wait.
We 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 near San Francisco?
She nodded.
My school took a field trip here.
It's like a museum.
It didn't seem possible that we could have popped out of the labyrinth on the other side
of the country.
But Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamal Pius
just across the bay.
She probably 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!
Can't you see it?
I looked where he was pointing and my stomach did a somersault.
On the second floor balcony across the courtyard was a monster more horrible than anything
I'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 20 feet long, black and scaly, with enormous claws and a barbed tail.
Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then I realized they were spreading
snakes.
Hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite.
The woman's hair was also made of snakes, like Medusus.
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.
I got the feeling I 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.
Get down, Grover said.
We crouched in the shadows, but the monster wasn't paying us 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?
I muttered.
What's that language?
The tongue of the old times, Tyson chivered.
What mother erp spoke to the Titans and her other children before the gods.
You can understand it?
I 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.
Antibeth shuttered.
I hate it when he does that.
Like all cyclopes, Tyson had super-human hearing and an uncanny ability to mimic voices.
It was almost like he entered a trance when he spoke in other voices.
I will not serve, Tyson said, in a deep-wounded voice.
He switched to the monster's voice.
Then I shall enjoy your pain, Briaries.
Tyson faltered when he said that name.
I never heard a break character when he was mimicking somebody, but he let out a strangled
gulp.
Then he continued in the monster's voice.
If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you'd yet to feel true torment.
Think on this until I return.
The dragon lady trumped toward the stairwell.
Vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts.
She spread wings that I hadn't noticed before.
Huge bat wings she kept folded against her dragon back.
She leapt off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard.
We crossed lower in the shadows.
Our hot, sulfurous wind blasted my face as the monster flew over.
Then she disappeared around the corner.
Horrible, Grover said.
I've never smelled any monster that strong.
Cyclopes were sniped, Mary.
Tyson murmured.
Compi.
Who?
I asked.
Tyson swallowed.
Every cyclopes knows about her.
Stories about her scare us when we're babies.
She was our jailer in the bad years.
Anabeth nodded.
I remember now.
When the titans ruled the imprisoned guy in Arranos' earlier children, the cyclopes in
the Hekantonan caries.
The what?
I asked.
The hundred-handed ones, she said.
They called them that because, well, they had a hundred hands, but they were the elder
brothers of the cyclopes.
Very powerful, Tyson said.
Wonderful.
As tall as the sky so strong they could break mountains.
Cool, I said.
Unless you're a mountain.
Compi was the jailer, he said.
She worked for Kronos.
She kept her brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always until Zeus came.
He killed Compi and freed Cyclopes and a hundred-handed ones to help fight against the titans in
the big war.
And now Compi's back.
I said.
Bad.
Tyson summed up.
So who's in that cell?
I asked.
You said a name.
Brouharys.
Tyson perked up.
He is a hundred-handed one.
They are as tall as the sky and, yeah, I said, they break mountains.
I looked up at the cells above us, wondering how something as tall as the sky could fit
in a tiny cell.
And why I was crying.
I guess we should check it out.
Anabeth said.
Before Compi comes back.
As we approached the cell, the weeping got louder.
When I first saw the creature inside, I wasn't sure what I was looking at.
He was human-sized 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.
His chest sprouted more arms than I could count in rows all around his body.
The arms looked like normal arms, but there are so many of them all tangled together that
his chest looked kind of like a fork full 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, I muttered.
Or he's short.
Tyson didn't pay any attention.
He fell to his knees.
Brouharys!
He called.
The sobbing stopped.
Great hundred-handed one, Tyson said.
Help us!
Brouharys looked up.
His face was long and sad with a crooked nose and bad teeth.
He had deep brown eyes.
I mean completely brown with no whites or black pupils like eyes formed out of clay.
Runwell you can, Cyclops.
Brouharys said miserably.
I cannot even help myself.
You are a hundred-handed one, Tyson insisted.
You can do anything!
Brouharys wiped his nose with five or six hands.
Although 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 doggy shadow puppets against the wall.
I cannot.
Brouharys moaned.
Compy is back.
The Titans will rise and throw us back into Tartarus.
Put on your brave face!
Tyson said.
Immediately Brouharys face morphed into something else.
Same brown eyes but otherwise totally different features.
Yet an upturned nose arched eyebrows in 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?
I asked.
Annabeth elbowed me.
Don't be rude.
The hundred-handed ones have fifty different faces.
Let's make it hard to get a yearbook picture.
I said.
Tyson was still untranced.
It will be okay, Brouharys.
We will help you.
Can I have your autograph?
Brouharys sniffled.
Do you have 100 pens?
Guys, Grover interrupted.
We have to get out of here.
Compy will be back.
She'll sense us sooner or later.
Break the bars.
Annabeth said.
Yes, Tyson said, smiling proudly.
Brouharys can do it.
He's very strong, stronger than Cyclopes even.
Watch!
Brouharys 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, I said, why is he stuck in jail?
Annabeth ribbed me again.
He's terrified, she whispered.
Compy imprisoned him and tartarized for thousands of years.
How would you feel?
The hundred-handed one covered his face again.
Brouharys?
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, you repeated.
He grabbed the cell door and ripped it off his hinges like it was made of wet clay.
Come on, Brouharys.
Annabeth said.
Let's get you out of here.
She held out her hand.
For a second, Brouharys has faced morphed into 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.
Brouharys faced morphed again, furrowed brown, pouting mouth, his brooding face, I guess.
Lightning shook the world.
We threw many rocks.
The Titans and the monsters almost won.
Now they are getting strong again.
Compu said so.
Don't listen to her.
I said, come on.
He didn't move.
I knew Grover was right.
We didn't have much time before Compu returned, but I just couldn't leave him here.
Tyson would cry for weeks.
Even game of rock-paper-scissors.
I blurted out.
If I win, you come with us.
If I lose, we'll leave you in jail.
Annabeth looked at me like I was crazy.
Brouharys faced morphed to doubtful.
I always win rock-paper-scissors.
Then let's do it.
I pounded my fist in my palm three times.
Brouharys did the same with all 100 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 face morphed to confusion.
What is that you made?
A gun, I told him, showing him my finger gun.
It was a trick Paul Blofus had pulled on me, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
A gun beats anything.
That's not fair.
I didn't say anything about fair.
Compu's not going to be fair if we hang around.
She's going to blame you for ripping off the bars.
Now come on.
Brouhary sniffled.
Demigods are cheaters.
But he slowly rose to his feet and followed us out of the cell.
I started to feel hopeful.
All we had to do was get downstairs and find the labyrinth entrance.
But then Tyson froze.
On the ground floor right below, Compu was snarling at us.
The other way, I said, we bolted down the catwalk.
This time Brouharys was happy to follow us.
In fact, he sprinted out front, a hundred arms waving in panic.
Behind us I heard the sound of giant wings as Compu took to the air.
Gihist and growl in her ancient language, but I didn't need a translation to know she
was planning to kill us.
We scrambled down the stairs through a corridor and passed a guard station, out into another
block of prison cells.
Left, Annabeth said.
I remember this from the tour.
We burst outside and found ourselves in the prison yard, ringed by security towers and
barbed wire.
After being inside so long, the daylight almost blinded me.
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 Tamalpias, huge storm clouds swirled.
The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was in prison,
where the Titan Palace of Mount Autoris was rising anew.
It was hard to believe that the tourists couldn't see the supernatural storm brewing, but they
didn't give any hint that anything was wrong.
It's even worse, Annabeth said, gazing to the north.
The storms have been bad all year, but that keep moving, Brouharys wailed.
She is behind us.
We ran to the far end of the yard as far from the cell block as possible.
Can't be too big to get through the doors, I said hopefully.
Then the wall exploded.
Tourists screamed as copy appeared from the dust and rubble.
Her wings spread out as wide as the yard.
She was holding two swords, long bronze simp towers that glowed with weird greenish aura,
boiling wisps of vapor that smelled sour and hot even across the yard.
Poison!
Goryeelte.
Don't let those things touch you or we'll die?
I guessed.
Well, after you shriveled slowly to dust, yes.
Let's avoid the swords, I decided.
Brouharys.
Fight!
Tyson urged.
Grote a full size.
Instead Brouharys looked like he was trying to shrink even smaller.
He appeared to be wearing his absolutely terrified face.
Copy thunder toward us on our dragon legs.
Hundreds of snakes slithering around her body.
For a second I thought about drawing a rip tide and facing her, but my heart crawled
into my throat.
Then Annabeth said what I was thinking.
Run!
That was the end of the debate.
There was no fighting this thing.
We ran through the jail yard and out the gates of the prison.
The monster right behind us.
Goryeel screamed and ran.
Emergency sirens began to blare.
We hit the wharf just as a tour boat was unloading.
The new group of visitors froze that they saw us charging toward them, followed by a mob
of frightened tourists, followed by I don't know 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 needed a diversion, Annabeth said.
Tyson ripped a metal lamppost out of the ground.
I will distract a compie.
You run ahead.
I'll help you, I 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.
I hated the idea.
I'd almost lost Tyson once before and I didn't want to ever risk that again, but there
was no time to argue.
And I had no better idea.
Annabeth Grover and I each took one of Briari's hands and dragged him toward the concession
stands while Tyson bellowed, lowered his pole and charged compie like a jousting knight.
She'd been glaring at Briari's.
But Tyson got her attention as soon as he nailed her in the chest with a pole, pushing
her back into the wall.
She shrieked and slashed with her sword, slicing the pole to shreds.
Poison dripped in pools all around her, sizzling in a cement.
Tyson jumped back as compies haired, 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 we sprinted for the cell blocks, the last thing I saw was Tyson picking up a dippindot
stand and throwing it at compie.
Ice cream and poison exploded everywhere.
All the little snakes in compies haired dotted with 2D fruity.
We dashed back into the jail yard.
Can't make it, Briari's huff.
Tyson is risking his life to help you, I yelled at him.
You will make it.
As we reached the door of the cell block, I heard an angry roar.
I glanced back and saw Tyson running toward us at full speed, compie right behind him.
She was plastered in ice cream and t-shirts.
One of the bare heads on her waist was now wearing a pair of crooked plastic Alcatraz sunglasses.
Hurry, Annabeth said, like I needed to be told that.
We finally found the cell where we'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 delta.
The mark of datallist glowed blue and a stone wall grinded open.
Too slowly Tyson was coming through the cell block.
Compie's sword slashing out behind him, slicing indiscriminately through cell bars and stone
walls.
I pushed Briari's inside the maze, then Annabeth and Grover.
You can do it!
I told Tyson.
But immediately I knew he couldn't.
Compie was gaining.
She raised her swords.
I needed a distraction, something big.
I slapped my wristwatch and it spiraled into a bronze shield.
Desperately I threw it at the monster's face.
Smack!
The shield hit her in the face and she faltered just long enough for Tyson to dive past me
into the maze.
I was right behind him.
Compie charged but she was too late.
The stone door closed and its magic sealed us in.
I could feel the whole tunnel shake as Compie pounded against it, roaring furiously.
We didn't stick around to play knock knock with her.
We raced into the darkness.
And for the first time and the last, I was glad to be back in the labyrinth.