The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan

Meg, don’t you dare—MEG!

Or you could just get us killed

Yeah, sure, that works, too

I HOPED THERE WEREfour other interlopers hidden somewhere on this balcony. Surely, Tarquin was talking to them and not us.

Hazel jabbed her thumb toward the exit, the universal sign for LET’S VAMOOSE! Lavinia began crawling that way on her hands and knees. I was about to follow when Meg ruined everything.

She stood up tall (well, as tall as Meg can be), summoned her swords, and leaped over the railing.

“MEEEEEEEEEGAH!” I shouted, half war cry, half What in Hades are you doing?

Without any conscious decision, I was on my feet, my bow in hand, an arrow nocked and loosed, then another and another. Hazel muttered a curse no proper lady from the 1930s should’ve known, drew her cavalry sword, and jumped into the fray so Meg would not have to stand alone. Lavinia rose, struggling to uncover her manubalista, but the oil cloth seemed to be stuck on the crossbeam.

More undead swarmed Meg from under the balcony. Her twin swords whirled and flashed, cutting off limbs and heads, reducing zombies to dust. Hazel decapitated Caelius, then turned to face another two eurynomoi.

The deceased former legionnaire with the burned face would have stabbed Hazel in the back, but Lavinia loosed her crossbow just in time. The Imperial gold bolt hit the zombie between the shoulder blades, causing him to implode in a pile of armor and clothes.

“Sorry, Bobby!” Lavinia said with a sob.

I made a mental note never to tell Hannibal how his former trainer had met his end.

I kept firing until only the Arrow of Dodona remained in my quiver. In retrospect, I realized I’d fired a dozen arrows in about thirty seconds, each a kill shot. My fingers literally steamed. I hadn’t unleashed a volley like that since I was a god.

This should have delighted me, but any feeling of satisfaction was cut short by Tarquin’s laughter. As Hazel and Meg cut down the last of his minions, he rose from his sarcophagus couch and gave us a round of applause. Nothing sounds more sinister than the ironic slow-clap of two skeletal hands.

“Lovely!” he said. “Oh, that was very nice! You’ll all make valuable members of my team!”

Meg charged.

The king didn’t touch her, but with a flick of his hand, some invisible force sent Meg flying backward into the far wall. Her swords clattered to the floor.

A guttural sound escaped my throat. I leaped over the railing, landing on one of my own spent arrow shafts (which are every bit as treacherous as banana peels). I slipped and fell hard on my hip. Not my most heroic entrance. Meanwhile, Hazel ran at Tarquin. She was hurled aside with another blast of unseen force.

Tarquin’s hearty chuckle filled the chamber. From the corridors on either side of his sarcophagus, the sounds of shuffling feet and clanking armor echoed, getting closer and closer. Up on the balcony, Lavinia furiously cranked her manubalista. If I could buy her another twenty minutes or so, she might be able to take a second shot.

“Well, Apollo,” said Tarquin, purple coils of mist slithering from his eye sockets and into his mouth. Yuck. “Neither of us have aged well, have we?”

My heart pounded. I groped around for usable arrows but found only more broken shafts. I was half-tempted to shoot the Arrow of Dodona, but I couldn’t risk giving Tarquin a weapon with prophetic knowledge. Can talking arrows be tortured? I didn’t want to find out.

Meg struggled to her feet. She looked unhurt but grumpy, as she tended to whenever she got thrown into walls. I imagined she was thinking the same thing I was: this situation was too familiar, too much like Caligula’s yacht when Meg and Jason had been imprisoned by venti. I couldn’t let another scenario like that play out. I was tired of evil monarchs tossing us around like rag dolls.

Hazel stood, covered head to toe in zombie dust. That couldn’t have been good for her respiratory system. In the back of my mind, I wondered if we could get Justicia the Roman law goddess to file a class-action suit on our behalf against Tarquin for hazardous tomb conditions.

“Everyone,” Hazel said, “back up.”

It was the same thing she’d told us in the tunnel to camp, right before turning the eurynomos into ceiling art.

Tarquin just laughed. “Ah, Hazel Levesque, your clever tricks with rocks won’t work here. This is my seat of power! My reinforcements will arrive any moment. It will be easier if you don’t resist your deaths. I’m told it’s less painful that way.”

Above me, Lavinia continued to crank her hand-cannon.

Meg picked up her swords. “Fight or run, guys?”

The way she glared at Tarquin, I was pretty sure I knew her preference.

“Oh, child,” Tarquin said. “You can try to run, but soon enough, you’ll be fighting at my side with those wonderful blades of yours. As for Apollo…he’s not going anywhere.”

He curled his fingers. He was nowhere close to me, but my gut wound convulsed, sending hot skewers into my rib cage and groin. I screamed. My eyes welled with tears.

“Stop it!” Lavinia shrieked. She dropped from the balcony and landed at my side. “What are you doing to him?”

Meg charged again at the undead king, perhaps hoping to catch him off guard. Without even looking at her, Tarquin tossed her aside with another blast of force. Hazel stood as stiff as a limestone column, her eyes fixed on the wall behind the king. Tiny cracks had begun to spiderweb across the stone.

“Why, Lavinia,” the king said, “I’m calling Apollo home!”

He grinned, which was the only facial expression he was capable of, having no face. “Poor Lester would’ve been compelled to seek me out eventually, once the poison took hold of his brain. But getting him here so soon—this is a special treat!”

He clenched his bony fist tighter. My pain tripled. I groaned and blubbered. My vision swam in red Vaseline. How was it possible to feel so much pain and not die?

“Leave him alone!” yelled Meg.

From the tunnels on either side of Tarquin’s sarcophagus, more zombies began to spill into the room.

“Run.” I gasped. “Get out of here.”

I now understood the lines from the Burning Maze: I would face death in Tarquin’s tomb, or a fate worse than death. But I would not allow my friends to perish, too.

Stubbornly, annoyingly, they refused to leave.

“Apollo is my servant now, Meg McCaffrey,” Tarquin said. “You really shouldn’t mourn him. He’s terrible to the people he loves. You can ask the Sibyl.”

The king regarded me as I writhed like a bug pinned to a corkboard. “I hope the Sibyl lasts long enough to see you humbled. That may be what finally breaks her. And when those bumbling emperors arrive, they will see the true terror of a Roman king!”

Hazel howled. The back wall collapsed, bringing down half the ceiling. Tarquin and his troops disappeared under an avalanche of rocks the size of assault vehicles.

My pain subsided to mere agony levels. Lavinia and Meg hauled me to my feet. Angry purple lines of infection now twisted up my arms. That probably wasn’t good.

Hazel hobbled over. Her corneas had turned an unhealthy shade of gray. “We need to move.”

Lavinia glanced at the pile of rubble. “But isn’t he—?”

“Not dead,” Hazel said with bitter disappointment. “I can feel him squirming under there, trying to…” She shivered. “It doesn’t matter. More undead will be coming. Let’s go!”

Easier said than done.

Hazel limped along, breathing heavily as she led us back through a different set of tunnels. Meg guarded our retreat, slicing down the occasional zombie who stumbled across our path. Lavinia had to support most of my weight, but she was deceptively strong, just as she was deceptively nimble. She seemed to have no trouble hauling my sorry carcass through the tomb.

I was only semiconscious of my surroundings. My bow clanged against my ukulele, making a jarring open chord in perfect sync with my rattled brain.

What had just happened?

After that beautiful moment of godlike prowess with my bow, I’d suffered an ugly, perhaps terminal setback with my gut wound. I now had to admit I was not getting better. Tarquin had spoken of a poison slowly making its way to my brain. Despite the best efforts of the camp’s healers, I was turning, becoming one of the king’s creatures. By facing him, I had apparently accelerated the process.

This should have terrified me. The fact that I could think about it with such detachment was itself concerning. The medical part of my mind decided I must be going into shock. Or possibly just, you know, dying.

Hazel stopped at the intersection of two corridors. “I—I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?” Meg asked.

Hazel’s corneas were still the color of wet clay. “I can’t get a read. There should be an exit here. We’re close to the surface, but…I’m sorry, guys.”

Meg retracted her blades. “That’s okay. Keep watch.”

“What are you doing?” Lavinia asked.

Meg touched the nearest wall. The ceiling shifted and cracked. I had a fleeting image of us getting buried like Tarquin under several tons of rock—which, in my present state of mind, seemed like an amusing way to die. Instead, dozens of thickening tree roots wriggled their way through the cracks, pushing apart the stones. Even as a former god accustomed to magic, I found it mesmerizing. The roots spiraled and wove themselves together, shoving aside the earth, letting in the dim glow of moonlight, until we found ourselves at the base of a gently sloping chute (A root chute?) with handholds and footholds for climbing.

Meg sniffed the air above. “Smells safe. Let’s go.”

While Hazel stood guard, Meg and Lavinia joined forces to get me up the chute. Meg pulled. Lavinia pushed. It was all very undignified, but the thought of Lavinia’s half-primed manubalista jostling around somewhere below my delicate posterior gave me an incentive to keep moving.

We emerged at the base of a redwood in the middle of the forest. The carousel was nowhere in sight. Meg gave Hazel a hand up, then touched the trunk of the tree. The root chute spiraled shut, submerging under the grass.

Hazel swayed on her feet. “Where are we?”

“This way,” Lavinia announced.

She shouldered my weight again, despite my protestations that I was fine. Really, I was only dying a little bit. We staggered down a trail among the looming redwoods. I couldn’t see the stars or discern any landmarks. I had no idea which direction we were heading, but Lavinia seemed undeterred.

“How do you know where we are?” I asked.

“Told you,” she said. “I like to explore.”

She must really like Poison Oak,I thought for the umpteenth time. Then I wondered if Lavinia simply felt more at home in the wild than she did at camp. She and my sister would get along fine.

“Are any of you hurt?” I asked. “Did the ghouls scratch you?”

The girls all shook their heads.

“What about you?” Meg scowled and pointed at my gut. “I thought you were getting better.”

“I guess I was too optimistic.” I wanted to scold her for jumping into combat and nearly getting us all killed, but I didn’t have the energy. Also, the way she was looking at me, I got the feeling that her grumpy facade might collapse into tears faster than Tarquin’s ceilings had crumbled.

Hazel eyed me warily. “You should have healed. I don’t understand.”

“Lavinia, can I have some gum?” I asked.

“Seriously?” She dug in her pocket and handed me a piece.

“You’re a corrupting influence.” With leaden fingers, I managed to unwrap the gum and stick it in my mouth. The flavor was sickly sweet. It tasted pink. Still, it was better than the sour ghoul poison welling up in my throat. I chewed, glad for something to focus on beside the memory of Tarquin’s skeletal fingers curling and sending scythes of fire through my intestines. And what he had said about the Sibyl…? No. I couldn’t process that right now.

After a few hundred yards of torturous hiking, we reached a small stream.

“We’re close,” Lavinia said.

Hazel glanced behind us. “I’m sensing maybe a dozen behind us, closing fast.”

I saw and heard nothing, but I took Hazel’s word for it. “Go. You’ll move faster without me.”

“Not happening,” Meg said.

“Here, take Apollo.” Lavinia offered me to Meg like I was a sack of groceries. “You guys cross this stream, go up that hill. You’ll see Camp Jupiter.”

Meg straightened her grimy glasses. “What about you?”

“I’ll draw them away.” Lavinia patted her manubalista.

“That’s a terrible idea,” I said.

“It’s what I do,” Lavinia said.

I wasn’t sure if she meant drawing away enemies or executing terrible ideas.

“She’s right,” Hazel decided. “Be careful, legionnaire. We’ll see you at camp.”

Lavinia nodded and darted into the woods.

“Are you sure that was wise?” I asked Hazel.

“No,” she admitted. “But whatever Lavinia does, she always seems to come back unscathed. Now let’s get you home.”