The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan

We all need a hand

On our shoulder sometimes so

We can chew through steel

“VAPORIZED,” SAID REYNA.

“Yes.”

“What did you do to him?” Meg asked.

I tried to look offended. “Nothing! I may have teased him a bit, but he was a very minor god. Rather silly-looking. I may have made some jokes at his expense in front of the other Olympians.”

Reyna knit her eyebrows. “So you bullied him.”

“No! I mean…I did write zap me in glowing letters on the back of his toga. And I suppose I might have been a bit harsh when I tied him up and locked him in the stalls with my fiery horses overnight—”

“OH, MY GODS!” Meg said. “You’re awful!”

I fought down the urge to defend myself. I wanted to shout, Well, at least I didn’t kill him like I did my pregnant girlfriend Koronis! But that wasn’t much of a gotcha.

Looking back on my encounters with Harpocrates, I realized I had been awful. If somebody had treated me, Lester, the way I had treated that puny Ptolemaic god, I would want to crawl in a hole and die. And if I were honest, even back when I was a god, I had been bullied—only the bully had been my father. I should have known better than to share the pain.

I hadn’t thought about Harpocrates in eons. Teasing him had seemed like no big deal. I suppose that’s what made it even worse. I had shrugged off our encounters. I doubted he had.

Koronis’s ravens…Harpocrates…

It was no coincidence they were both haunting me today like the Ghosts of Saturnalias Past. Tarquin had orchestrated all this with me in mind. He was forcing me to confront some of my greatest hits of dreadfulness. Even if I survived the challenges, my friends would see exactly what kind of dirtbag I was. The shame would weigh me down and make me ineffective—the same way Tarquin used to add rocks to a cage around his enemy’s head, until eventually, the burden was too much. The prisoner would collapse and drown in a shallow pool, and Tarquin could claim, I didn’t kill him. He just wasn’t strong enough.

I took a deep breath. “All right, I was a bully. I see that now. I will march right into that box and apologize. And then hope Harpocrates doesn’t vaporize me.”

Reyna did not look thrilled. She pushed up her sleeve, revealing a simple black watch on her wrist. She checked the time, perhaps wondering how long it would take to get me vaporized and then get back to camp.

“Assuming we can get through those doors,” she said, “what are we up against? Tell me about Harpocrates.”

I tried to summon a mental image of the god. “He usually looks like a child. Perhaps ten years old?”

“You bullied a ten-year-old,” Meg grumbled.

“He looks ten. I didn’t say he was ten. He has a shaved head except for a ponytail on one side.”

“Is that an Egyptian thing?” Reyna asked.

“Yes, for children. Harpocrates was originally an incarnation of the god Horus—Harpa-Khruti, Horus the Child. Anyway, when Alexander the Great invaded Egypt, the Greeks found all these statues of the god and didn’t know what to make of him. He was usually depicted with his finger to his lips.” I demonstrated.

“Like be quiet,” Meg said.

“That’s exactly what the Greeks thought. The gesture had nothing to do with shh. It symbolized the hieroglyph for child. Nevertheless, the Greeks decided he must be the god of silence and secrets. They changed his name to Harpocrates. They built some shrines, started worshipping him, and boom, he’s a Greek-Egyptian hybrid god.”

Meg snorted. “It can’t be that easy to make a new god.”

“Never underestimate the power of thousands of human minds all believing the same thing. They can remake reality. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.”

Reyna peered at the doors. “And now Harpocrates is in there. You think he’s powerful enough to cause all our communications failures?”

“He shouldn’t be. I don’t understand how—”

“Those cables.” Meg pointed. “They’re connecting the box to the tower. Could they be boosting his signal somehow? Maybe that’s why he’s up here.”

Reyna nodded appreciatively. “Meg, next time I need to set up a gaming console, I’m calling you. Maybe we could just cut the cables and not open the box.”

I loved that idea, which was a pretty good indication it wouldn’t work.

“It won’t be enough,” I decided. “The daughter of Bellona has to open the door to the soundless god, right? And for our ritual summoning to work, we need the last breath of the god after his…um, soul is cut free.”

Talking about the Sibylline recipe in the safety of the praetors’ office had been one thing. Talking about it on Sutro Tower, facing the god’s big red shipping container, was quite another.

I felt a deep sense of unease that had nothing to do with the cold, or the proximity of the sphere of silence, or even the zombie poison circulating in my blood. A few moments ago, I had admitted to bullying Harpocrates. I had decided to apologize. Then what? I would kill him for the sake of a prophecy? Another rock plopped into the invisible cage around my head.

Meg must have felt similarly. She made her best I-don’t-wanna scowl and started fidgeting with the tatters of her dress. “We don’t really have to…you know, do we? I mean even if this Harpo guy is working for the emperors…”

“I don’t think he is.” Reyna nodded toward the chains on the locking rods. “It looks like he’s being kept in. He’s a prisoner.”

“That’s even worse,” Meg said.

From where I stood, I could just make out the white stenciled Arabic for Alexandria on the door of the container. I imagined the Triumvirate digging up Harpocrates from some buried temple in the Egyptian desert, wrestling him into that box, then shipping him off to America like third-class freight. The emperors would’ve considered Harpocrates just another dangerous, amusing plaything, like their trained monsters and humanoid lackeys.

And why not let King Tarquin be his custodian? The emperors could ally themselves with the undead tyrant, at least temporarily, to make their invasion of Camp Jupiter a little easier. They could let Tarquin arrange his cruelest trap for me. Whether I killed Harpocrates or he killed me, what did it matter to the Triumvirate in the end? Either way, they would find it entertaining—one more gladiator match to break the monotony of their immortal lives.

Pain flared from the stab wound in my neck. I realized I’d been clenching my jaw in anger.

“There has to be another way,” I said. “The prophecy can’t mean for us to kill Harpocrates. Let’s talk to him. Figure something out.”

“How can we,” Reyna asked, “if he radiates silence?”

“That…that’s a good question,” I admitted. “First things first. We have to get those doors open. Can you two cut the chains?”

Meg looked scandalized. “With my swords?”

“Well, I thought they would work better than your teeth, but you tell me.”

“Guys,” said Reyna. “Imperial gold blades hacking away at Imperial gold chains? Maybe we could cut through, but we’d be here until nightfall. We don’t have that kind of time. I’ve got another idea. Godly strength.”

She looked at me.

“But I don’t have any!” I protested.

“You got your archery skills back,” she said. “You got your musical skills back.”

“That Valerie song didn’t count,” Meg said.

“‘Volare,’”I corrected.

“The point is,” Reyna continued, “I may be able to boost your strength. I think that might be why I’m here.”

I thought about the jolt of energy I’d felt when Reyna touched my arm. It hadn’t been physical attraction, or a warning buzz from Venus. I recalled something she had told Frank before we left camp. “Bellona’s power,” I said. “It has something to do with strength in numbers?”

Reyna nodded. “I can amplify other people’s abilities. The bigger the group, the better it works, but even with three people…it might be sufficient to enhance your power enough to rip open those doors.”

“Would that count?” Meg asked. “I mean, if Reyna doesn’t open the door herself, isn’t that cheating the prophecy?”

Reyna shrugged. “Prophecies never mean what you think, right? If Apollo is able to open the door thanks to my help, I’m still responsible, wouldn’t you say?”

“Besides…” I pointed to the horizon. Hours of daylight remained, but the full moon was rising, enormous and white, over the hills of Marin County. Soon enough, it would turn bloodred—and so, I feared, would a whole lot of our friends. “We’re running out of time. If we can cheat, let’s cheat.”

I realized those would make terrible final words. Nevertheless, Reyna and Meg followed me into the cold silence.

When we reached the doors, Reyna took Meg’s hand. She turned to me: Ready? Then she planted her other hand on my shoulder.

Strength surged through me. I laughed with soundless joy. I felt as potent as I had in the woods at Camp Half-Blood, when I’d tossed one of Nero’s barbarian bodyguards into low earth orbit. Reyna’s power was awesome! If I could just get her to follow me around the whole time I was mortal, her hand on my shoulder, a chain of twenty or thirty other demigods behind her, I bet there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish!

I grabbed the uppermost chains and tore them like crepe paper. Then the next set, and the next. The Imperial gold broke and crumpled noiselessly in my fists. The steel locking rods felt as soft as breadsticks as I pulled them out of their fittings.

That left only the door handles.

The power may have gone to my head. I glanced back at Reyna and Meg with a self-satisfied smirk, ready to accept their silent adulation.

Instead, they looked as if I’d bent them in half, too.

Meg swayed, her complexion lima-bean green. The skin around Reyna’s eyes was tight with pain. The veins on her temples stood out like lightning bolts. My energy surge was frying them.

Finish it,Reyna mouthed. Her eyes added a silent plea: Before we pass out.

Humbled and ashamed, I grabbed the door handles. My friends had gotten me this far. If Harpocrates was indeed waiting inside this shipping box, I would make sure the full force of his anger fell on me, not Reyna or Meg.

I yanked open the doors and stepped inside.