Three beyond reason

20th December 2002

In time, things changed.

That wasn't entirely true for the Immortals, which were almost frozen in their perfect stagnation, but for those that straddled the two worlds... oh, yes, changing to match the ever-twirling and evolving circumstances was the rule of the game.

The forest that separated Halfblood Camp from the fully mundane world was less of a geographical area and more of a mysterious boundary that somehow managed to both act as protection for the Halfblood and as an obstacle. From the deep woods, monsters of unimpressive strength for the truly experienced often were used to bloody the newcomers, which was good, but they also occasionally acted as an impossible stopping wall for those satyrs busy bringing fresh demigods, barely aware of what was going on, to their rightful place.

The forests could be traversed by anyone, but there was a boundary past which monsters, no matter how bloodthirsty, rarely dared to thread.

Not because of a perfect magical barrier powered through a willing self-sacrifice, not because of the grumpy God of Wine that was forced to stay at Camp, and not because of Chiron, trainer of heroes, whose arrows cleanly put down everything that he deemed not-useful for the shaping of his charges. At night, of course, harpies hovered over the Camp, preventing the young demigods from getting up to no good, while teaching a valuable lesson about limits that should not be defied without a very good reason.

But even those details hardly mattered to the monsters that were naturally attracted to the largest concentration of greek demigods on the continent. The occasional Cyclops, the odd Empusa: those were the worst kind of monsters that dared attempt to attack Camp proper. Granted with the combination of enough power and enough brains, somehow they managed to fail the simple math implicit in assaulting what amounted to a small army, which had, since the first days of Camp Half-Blood, been training exactly with the purpose of slaying monsters.

Many more mindless creatures, ruled only by instinct that pointed unerringly to the thrumming power singing in the veins of the aware demigods, managed that which cyclops and empusae did not: holding back.

Luke's arms blurred while his feet crossed large distances under the thick canopy, and his sword whistled through the air uncaringly of its target: so fast and precise were his movements, that he was almost constantly enveloped in a cloud of golden motes, the leftover of monsters he hardly had to pay any shred of attention to.

Once upon a time perhaps, raiding the demigods when they were out of the protection offered by the Temples had been a viable strategy, but that no longer held true. Since a good chunk of the older demigods had departed on the Adamas, years before, the weakness that Camp Half-Blood should have experienced simply hadn't manifested itself.

Demigods were not humans: where some mortals excelled when put between a rock and a hard place, the spawn of the gods was born for it. The harder they were pushed, the harder they could learn to push back. And under Luke Castellan's informal leadership, Camp Half-Blood had thrived despite the rising presence of monsters on its borders.

Shouts of warning rang under the boughs, high-pitched voices called for well-trained strategies to be put in place, while growls and howls broke under the edge of weapons crafted from Celestial Bronze. Luke's eyes darted over the area before he kept moving, mowing through any opposition he found without making a sound.

The logic that cyclops and empusae were capable of dictated that they should try to attack during the day, aiming at those groups of demigods that strayed from the Camp proper, while the instinct in the hellhounds and other beasts was much more aware of an undeniable fact.

The demigods knew that they were the target, and every time a group of kids seemed vulnerable, it was mere bait.

Luke Castellan had taken the principles of thievery in his blood and turned them into weapons. Cut-and-dry strategies provided by Ahtena's cabin had been rearranged and left open enough to be adapted on the fly, Ares' children burned fiercely when living on the edge of a knife, and the constant war taking place on the semi-permeable protections of Camp Half-Blood kept the demigods' teeth sharp.

Luke remembered how Camp had been before he had taken in hand its development, the burning rage he felt within him since that night forcing him into meaningful decisions. He remembered how he had originally doubted his course of action, only to realize that Chiron cared only about teaching, and not about his charges achieving actual results. In a way, that was even worse than the uncaring attitude of the demigods' parents, which made appearances only through vague requests, and barely tolerated spending time with their children during the yearly visit to Olympus that Luke had stopped attending.

The occasional quest saw the demigods leave Camp by the sea, where the beginnings of a fleet, that consisted more of an ever-growing succession of different projects from Hephaestus' demigods than anything else, was ready to drop them in adequate positions on the coast.

The many Satyrs that constantly roamed, seeking Pan despite the impossible news about his death that had been delivered at some point, kept acting as a guide for unaware, young demigods, which were corraled where large teams of demigods were ready to act as an escort. No matter the irresistible smell of the godly spawn: random monsters could never resist the temptation, and died in puffs of golden mist against the ready and trained teams that awaited them around the much easier prey that the young and unaware represented.

Was it wrong to use them as a bait? Perhaps unkind, but they'd be targeted anyway, better for the new demigods to become aware of their place in the world without the rose-tinted lenses that Chiron was partially responsible for building. The spawn of the gods only had each other to rely upon, but before that, they had to learn to rely on themselves, because not being able to... well, you were a liability if nothing else, forcing others to pick up your slack.

Luke's feet jumped from root to stone to creek: without leaving tracks, without making a sound even when they should have. His eyes darted around, perfectly aware of the surroundings while his ears directed him from one scuffle to the next, his arrival turning into a brief reprieve for the demigods fighting or into the actual end of the small battles he stumbled into.

He ignored the cheers and shouts of encouragement he received, blurring away before the golden dust of dispatched monsters had the chance to settle: there would be time for celebrations when it wasn't his turn on the field, when he'd be tired enough to surrender to unconsciousness long enough to not think about the meaninglessness of everything he had achieved. The monsters simply didn't end: while the demigods were more capable now than they had ever been since the son of Hermes' arrival to Camp, to him, it felt almost hollow.

Yes, there was pride in the skills he had managed to impart, pride in his own grown might, and there was satisfaction in seeing how him having the last word managed to get the leaders of the other cabins to work together to great effect.

Things changed, but they looked like they had remained the same: only with a different surface. New demigods arrived to camp, almost always successfully. They grew and they learned, until they went on a quest that didn't succeed, or that succeeded, reminding them of the existence of an entire world outside the relatively safe boundaries of Half Blood Camp, igniting in them a hunger for more that brought them to die once they left.

Yes, things had changed since Icarus had rounded up people he barely knew and left, using Thalia's state as an excuse to escape the tedium that he had barely been able to suffer before setting out, uninvited, for his first quest, and tasting for the first time the true thrill that demigods were meant to seek. To Challenge everything, everywhere, on their terms.

And stories had run on the winds' shoulders, reaching Camp, where they proved to newcomers and veterans that very little was truly impossible with the right preparation and determination.

Since the first voices about the Adamas' success, Luke had taken that fledging realization of the demigods' own limitless potential and turned it into a razor-sharp edge, casting it around the Camp along with the unquenchable fury that never left him. Kids that used to live in a mockery of a summer camp, extending all year long, took to the challenge of defending the home they had been dragged into like fishes to water. Then again, fighting monsters was what demigods were meant for.

And that made him only more furious.

He had dared to hope at some point after he, Thalia, Annabeth, Icarus, and Groover all managed to reach Camp. What he knew of how the gods truly were, of how his father was, had been cast aside for a time. Until he too had felt the need to truly challenge himself, bringing everything to ruin.

The weird dreams had begun around that time...

Eventually, the sounds of fighting died down, and horns bellowed with the clarity of golden and silver trumpets across the forest, signaling the umpteenth victory of the demigods upon those that sought to kill them. One after another, every fighting front signaled the end of the ongoing conflict, and Luke slowed down his mad rush among the trees, but he didn't stop.

That day had been worse than usual, as far as the number of attackers went, but the result had been a foregone conclusion. That managed to steal a grim smile from the demigod, whose expression softened for a few moments as he kept running towards Thalia's tree.

Ever since Icarus' departure, it had become almost mandatory, in order to maintain his sanity, to stop by his old friend, just checking for any possible change, just telling her a few of the news, as if she'd be able to hear and feel something about it.

When he broke into the clearing at the top of one of the hills, the changes hit him like a truck: not on Thalia's tree, oh no, she was still her pine-self, but next to her there were people. People he thought were still in the Sea of Monsters, and their presence...

Before he could truly formulate a thought, his brain put together what his eyes were telling it, and Luke froze on the spot: Icarus, scarred almost beyond belief, was laying among the roots of Thalia's tree a large, golden bundle of fur that shimmered, thrumming with energy that immediately began to spread up the pine, whose bark seemed to ripple as golden lymph began to rejuvenate and empower it beyond everything reasonable.

"What...?" Luke's eyes finally landed on the tuft of blonde hair that escaped the folds of the Golden Fleece, and his rage, which had simmered down as he neared the tree, returned, making him ready to explode as one hand reached for the sword at his waist.

"Before we begin shouting, alerting everyone of things that are better kept silent for the time being," Icarus' voice rang deeper than the son of Hermes remembered, but the cutting certainty he held himself with had only grown sharper since they had last seen each other: "this is only about Annabeth, do you want to help her? We're on the clock here."

The hurricane of violence that Luke had been ready to unleash cooled down immediately as he narrowed his eyes, while his mind, which had worked through countless different battle scenarios during his role as informal 'security chief' of Camp Half Bood, recognized the imperative of 'postpone grief, save what can be saved now'.

"Help her." Luke repeated, his voice flat while his eyes burned, flashing briefly between Icarus, the girl he didn't know at his side, and the still form of Annabeth rolled up in golden fur. The rage he had often felt and fed since the last meeting with Icarus, and he felt the briefest twinge of pain at the memory of the beating received by the scarred demigod, thrummed within the son of Hermes.

Hours upon days upon months upon years of forging himself into the weapon needed to protect Camp, with the faint dream of getting back at Icarus while Luke's mind warred with itself as he still couldn't truly be sure whether Thalia's fate had been his own fault, or if it belonged to the son of Hekate. The son of Hermes wasn't a stranger to forcing his burning rage into a freezing cold edge, but he hated Icarus just a bit more because he had used Annabeth's situation against him, effectively leashing all that he had wished to unleash.

The eyes of the best swordsman in the last three hundred years met the mismatched ones of Icarus, distractedly taking notice that one of the two had an almost metallic sheen to it that matched the golden glint of the two drachmas that he had as earrings, and after a deep breath, forcing his tense muscles to relax, Luke spoke: "What do we do?"

The return to Camp Half-Blood hadn't really gone as I had once hoped. Frankly, returning hadn't been in my plans at all: getting the Fleece to Thalia's tree would have required a quick stop, but it could also have been used to recruit some like-minded demigods: Kataktisi wasn't going to build itself, and the successful raid on Circe's island had proved the usefulness of having what amounted to a small army at my beck and call.

With the beginning of the 21st of December, the Olympians would reunite for the Winter Council, which meant that Hades would leave his abode: we weren't going to get a better chance, so I walked at a brisk pace across the trees, Mist swirling around me as illusions fell one over the other, stretching wide enough for the few others from the Adamas to lend their aid as they placed themselves as invisible guards. We need only a handful of hours.

Ideally, we'd reach the Underworld just as Hades left, giving us all the possible time to retrieve Annabeth's soul from our shore of the Styx. But even as I wished for that situation, I couldn't deny the image of Athena's daughter being returned to us without the two golden drachmas that she had the brilliant idea of giving to every member of the Adamas with the express purpose of avoiding the unsung fate of those we lost in the storm that made me change Argo II's name into Adamas. Far more likely, we would have to corrupt Charon, and take our chances. Let's just hope that Bianca will be able to be ridicolously overpowered with her home field advantage.

No, what should have been a triumphal return was changed into sneaking: the Adamas waiting by the shore shrouded in Mist of my first abode among demigods, and only a few of us descending to make sure Annabeth's body wasn't going to be disturbed. That was why Abigail hovered not far from the tree wile I used the exact words needed to turn Luke from an antagonist into an ally, that was why Bianca was waiting not far from Zeus' Fist, and more importantly, not far from Campìs entrance to the Labirynth.

Anticipating Luke's questions, I had only said what was needed to bring him along: "I'll tell you the rest once we're safe from being eavesdropped." I added when he took a breath.

Blowing horns and celebrating would have brought attention to our situation, and while the stormy sky had followed us, making me think that Zeus was extremely aware of what was going on, but he didn't care because of the advantage to his daughter. Still, there was no need to parade my intentions to all sundry, especially since what we were about to attempt... well, I knew the difference between enjoying a challenge and putting at risk someone only for my amusement.

Well, I know when I need to step up and clean up after my own mess. I corrected my previous line of thought, only for San Francisco on fire to reappear in my Mind's Eye, making me sigh in annoyance. Even now, after the joy of victory upon Kampe had finally bled out, I couldn't truly bring myself to care for the collateral damage I had caused: I couldn't shake the weight of the scales from my mind. Briares was one of us thanks to our killing of Kampe, and for better or worse, Kymopoleia was his wife. The potential for a godly offspring to be born on my island, which would gain a patron basically for free, and a powerful one if the union of the two divine beings bred true, was undeniable.

I didn't feel threatened by having Luke walk at my back with a hand on his sword, ready to be used: until he didn't know my part in Annabeth's death, he would hold her wellbeing above his wants and needs, that was just the kind of person he was, and I wasn't above taking advantage of it. Besides, Hermes' words back at the Lotus Casino heavily implied that he'd be needed in what was about to happen, and even if I disliked the very concept of someone knowing what was going to happen to me and mine before it was time, the warnings of the God of Thieves had turned uniquely useful when Kymopoleia was about to erase the Adamas from existence.

After a while, I banished my thoughts as we reached Bianca, who was sitting beside a roll of the same black chains that had once held Prometheus, my weapon lay beside it next to the burlap sack that I had prepared with everything that could come useful for an eventual bargain. I had put inside my only remaining Golden Apple from the Hesperides' Garden, the Hydra's fang, moly from Circe's Island, and enough Lotus petals to drug Briares. Just to be overprepared, Greek fire rested ready to use in clay jars held together into a net made of rope.

"Who's the kid?" Luke's abrasive voice made me turn an arched eyebrow towards the son of Hermes before glancing back at the daughter of Hades, who narrowed her eyes dangerously.

"Is this the guy?" The one that we delayed our departure for? The second question was silent, but still easy to read in the girl's closed-off expression.

I rapped my knuckles against a hidden Δ set amidst an otherwise forgettable bunch of rocks half hidden by grass and moss, making it shine of an unearthly blue as the opening into the Labyrinth revealed itself.

"That's the Labyrinth." Luke's dull voice didn't betray the surprise in his eyes, nor did the faint fear in his voice. I didn't bother answering as I slung around my torso the black chains that we had taken with us from Kataktisi, not knowing if they'd be useful or not, only to assure over my left shoulder the burlap sack containing enough treasures to buy another Camp Half-Blood three times over, and letting my right hand close around the smooth haft of my chosen weapon.

"Three is the better number to have for this kind of thing, even if asking for a prophecy would broadcast exactly what we want to leave unsaid and unknown, he's the best we could call upon." I answered Bianca before she could mock Luke for his just surprise, stopping the son of Hermes from fanning even more the flames of their instinctive and sudden dislike for each other, even if I personally blamed the situation. "Just trust me on this."

Luke followed me while casually lifting the jars of greek fire from the ground, only for Bianca to hop right after us, running ahead of me as her feet instinctively fell where needed to bring us down. To bring us where her divine blood could feel home. "Annabeth trusted you, and now she's dead."

Her words hurt more than my minute flinch let on, but less than her cold, dead tone as she began guiding us in the Labyrinth, finding that odd center in her power that she had grown to know in Polyphemus' abode.

Of course, Luke chose that moment to free his blade from his scabbard: "Annabeth is WHAT?"

The Labyrinth stretched itself as an uninterrupted gallery of dreary, grey stone. The air was slightly damp, but it hadn't that annoying smell that basements uncared for always seemed to have, it was more reminiscent of the sea itself, even if it luckily lacked the unique feel of a god hovering there. After their meeting with Kymopoleia, both Icarus and Bianca were grateful for the detail that Luke couldn't quite recognize.

The son of Hekate had briefly roughhoused with the son of Hermes when the latter had discovered the truth about the stark gravity of their current circumstances, but the explanation, words drily and concisely delivered as only Icarus was able to give, had forced Luke, once again, to weigh his own desires against the almost negligible possibility of achieving the impossible.

Luke followed with his brow furrowed: monsters appeared out of nowhere, and all he could do was to not get separated from the other two demigods: a little girl as a guide, and Icarus as the only other heavy hitter of the group. The road they took didn't make sense to him, but he had been warned about it, warned about how his sense of time truly couldn't be trusted, and it had even been explained that they would need to face a challenge before they'd be allowed to reach their destination.

What this challenge would turn out to be, it was not to be known, but it had something to do with the metaphysical nature of the Labirynth, and the fact that their destination was the Underworld could hardly help matters.

Still, when the three walked into a large, circular stone room with random mandalas drawn in what appeared to be porcelain on the ceiling, with the floor covered in a thick layer of golden dust, Luke's sword jumped in his hand, his motion immediately copied by Bianca, only for Icarus to raise his left hand in a placating gesture, his mismatched eyes pointing unerringly at a lanky figure resting at ease with his back against one wall, the three-piece suit he wore hardly managing to take attention away from his scarred visage, and his relaxing demeanor doing jack shit about the steely, grey weight of his eyes, which almost seemed to turn on themselves like infinite, fractal cogs of an impossible stretch of machinery.

Then Icarus spoke, and Luke could only hold his sword tighter: "Prometheus," the son of Heckate made a show of looking around, "strange place to meet each other, no? I thought we were done."

"Did you?" the Titan smiled oddly, as if he knew a secret joke that he didn't wish to share with anyone else, "I don't think we'll be done for a long time yet, Icarus."

Something in the way that name was spoken made the leader of the Adamas stiffen minutely, which caused the secret smile of the titan to twist oddly.

"We've got stuff to do." Bianca, tired of being ignored, interjected, "And you're blocking the door: move."

Sword pointed at who she perceived as an enemy, the young girl had no right to appear intimidating: yet, her pupils were deep pools blacker than black, and while the Labyrinth didn't quake, it felt like it shivered, as if unsure of what was going to happen.

"Oh, my dear, I'm not here to bar your path." Prometheus' attention shifted quickly among the other demigods, only to settle, unexpectedly, on Luke: "I was roaming until I met an old friend taking a stroll, and what a beautifully complex combination it was, how exceedingly unlikely for me to meet her here, where she defended herself and destroyed the monster stupid enough to challenge her. "Then again, that old horror would hardly relinquish its prize, even if it had long driven it mad, for it was never meant for its claws."

Under the eyes of the son of Hermes, the Titan moved slightly, revealing the narrow, cracked opening behind him, from which immediately rose a dead, stale wind that seemed to weigh physically over the shoulders of the mortals in the room before retreating, almost like an immense breath being inhaled back.

"Then we're going." Bianca began walking forward, only to stop when Icarus tilted his head as he observed Prometheus like one could study a snake ready to strike.

"It would take a pretty odd combination of events to have us meet here and now, wouldn't it?" the dry voice of the son of Heckate rang in the room with an undercurrent of violence ready to be unleashed, and Luke found himself agreeing: this whole thing smelled of a trap, and they didn't have enough information to spring it to their advantage. "Bianca, if we pass without taking this challenge, however odd it may appear, we'll never reach Annabeth in time."

That managed to still the demigoddess, who bared her teeth in frustration but quieted down, her sword still pointing forward.

Then of course, Icarus kept talking, and Luke felt his blood run just a bit colder: "Meeting you at a crossroad before a secret entrance to the underworld... we'd have to be bling to not notice how impossible this would be without outside intervention: so let's cut this short, what do you want?"

The proud smile on Prometheus was similar to one a teacher might wear when a prized student grasped a particularly complex concept faster than he should have, but it only made Luke stand on edge: there was something going on that he didn't know, something important and definitely dangerous that he wasn't privy to, and from her frown, the son of Hermes knew that Bianca was on his same situation.

"I originally came here to retrieve something, only to find, as I said, an old friend already with my old gift in her possession... and we made a little trade, you see: I'd give this to a demigod, and what I once gave as a gift would be returned to me." with a smooth movement of the wrist, a brand new baseball hat appeared in the Titan's hand, only for it to be flicked to Luke, who caught it deftly with his off hand: "It is a novel experience for me to play courier, but that Trade was enforced in your father's domain, and so..."

Before he could finish speaking, before luke could begin to ask what the flying fuck was going on, a simple, old looking jar appeared in the hands of Prometheus, who didn't appear surprised in the least by the new development.

"What is this? Who wanted you...?"

Luke's questions barely managed to get out of his mouth before Icarus let out a soft bout of laughter, staring with marvel in his eyes at the out-of-place article of clothing that the son of Hermes was holding in his hand: "Clever, so clever, both of you... in the Sea of Monsters, I forgot, but I need to give you old immortals more credit."

"And there's another offer I'd like to make before you venture forth." Prometheus had a curious glint in his eyes, as if he didn't expect Icarus to not ask questions, but also as if he was already formulating his own theories to justify that particular development: "This old thing, for that new thing."

As he spoke, the Titan straightened both his arms, the frail-looking jar held in one palm while with the other he pointed at the weapon in Icarus's right hand. To that, the quick-witted leader of the Adamas stiffened, his genial smile disappearing as his eyes darted about, stopping from time to time on both Luke and an increasingly frustrated Bianca, who was barely holding herself back from running ahead.

Before Icarus could speak further, Prometheus' expression turned somewhat earnest as he spoke: "You won't need your weapon where you're going, on the other hand, in your hands, this might find its use."

"Enough!" Luke gritted his teeth one last time before speed walking in front of Icarus, who seemed frozen with indecision in front of the offer of the appaarently harmless titan: "What is going on?! Explain! Now!"

They didn't have time for proper explanations before, for the context of hos Annabeth had apparently died under Icarus's watch, but now they had time for all of this pointless talking? The son of Hermes waved the grey baseball cap in front of Icarus: "What is this, why did he give it to me? Why aren't we going foward!?"

Icarus sighed in irritation before letting his mismatched eyes land on the son of the God of Trade, Travels, and Thieves: "A certain goddess of wisdom planned a way to increase our chances to save Annabeth, that hat should make the one who wears it invisible, and Prometheus is offering me Pandora's box, and more importantly, the only thing left inside it, in exchange for my weapon: the point is, I don't know what he's going to use it for, I can't figure it our, and I don't want him to figure out a way to start another Titnomachy before we manage to get back to Camp Half-Blood, happy?"

"What?"

"My guess is that it will work on Annabeth's soul, so nobody will notice you stealing her," of course, once Icarus started talking, you could only hoped he stopped before he completely upended your world view, "but only a bunch of very much alive demigods running in and out of the Underworld, which has happened before and is not nearly as worrying as a true resurrection."

Before the two demigods could begin discussing, Bianca stomped up to the leader of the Adamas, and stared: her deep eyes demanded attention, and her imperious, almost childish voice commanded: "If it helps us save Annabeth, do it, we'll take care of the consequences later."

Icarus opened his mouth to retort, but the younger daughter of Hades prevented him: "You owe Annabeth this much."

With a sigh, and a muscle twitching on his cheek, the con of Heckate made his choice, and unseen by everyone, a two faced being smiled and cried at the same time.

AN

A rather long wait, wasn't it? Almost a year, whew!

Ugh, sry for Luke's starting part, it's rather static and only offers an expansion of the few hundred words I had dedicated to him and to Camp Half Blood's situation a lot of chapters ago, but I had to somewhat recap what has been happening offscreen, while reintroducing Luke to the main Plot.

Still, I managed to sneak in some of Icarus neverending plans in his third of the chapter, while I rounded up a bit of his character, especially what transpires with his handling of Luke. The next chapter will be a full focus on him, I promise, but as I have discovered while writing the enormous expanse that Meddling Giant will be, I need to build characters that support the story, and I can't do that only with a first-person POV of the MC: I'm no Rothfuss.

In the Labyrinth, Riordan did set a precedence of gods randomly popping about: I believe Hera did something with Annabeth, and it was high time that the gods we're more familiar with returned to play a part in the events to happen.

Between Athena and Prometheus, with Hermes and Hekate' support, I can easily justify this combination of events, and there will be some funt to be had in the next chapters, this one was kind of necessary to get me back in the swing of things.

Let me know what you think!

And if this story on any site isn't under the username of cloud9stories, it's copied without my consent, do with that what you will.