I 027. I

𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔

❝ alcatraz ❞

     ARIADNE RAN LIKE THE WIND. They were trying to put a great distance between themselves and whatever was chasing after them, and it wasn't going well.

The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news; it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred years, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path.

Behind them, the a hounds of dragging footsteps and heavily breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human—was on their tail.

"Tyson," Percy 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 they dashed behind it.

"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said.

They got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.

"We trapped it," Percy said.

Ariadne glanced behind them. "We trapped ourselves," she said.

Her friends turned. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell.

Ariadne was the first to try to find a way out. Her biggest thing was not having a place to escape. It wasn't necessarily her biggest fear, but it made it a bit hard to calm down and focus.

She tugged on the bars. Her knuckles white with her tight grip and she wished she could do something other than panic in the back of her mind.

"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge. Through the bars Ariadne could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard—at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Tyson can break—"

"Ahh," said Grover. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a deep raspy voice muttering something that she couldn't make out. It was like rocks in a tumbler, and she couldn't make them out.

"What's that language?" Ariadne whispered.

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?"

He grabbed two bars on their cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.

"Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.

"I know this place," Annabeth told Ariadne and Percy. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island near San Francisco?" Percy asked.

She nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais just across the bay. Ariadne could bet her sister 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!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"

Ariadne looked where he was pointing, and she narrowed her eyes before her heart did a leap in her chest. On the second floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster she never thought she would ever cross.

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 twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but she realized they were sprouting hundreds of vipers which started around, constantly looking for something to bite.

Her hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa's. 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.

Ariadne's eyes widened in terror.

"It's her," Tyson whimpered.

"Get down!" Grover said.

They crouched in the shadows, but the monster wasn't paying them 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?" Percy muttered. "What's that language?"

"The tongue of old times." Tyson shivered. "What Mother Earth spoke to Titans and... her other children. Before the gods."

"You understand it?" Percy 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."

Annabeth shuddered. "I hate it when he does that."

Ariadne nodded and gulped down her heart that rested in her throat. She wanted to run for the hills at the sight of the chimera and manticore in years last, but this monster—one she knew all too well—was a creature from the beginning of time that terrified her to her very core.

Like all Cyclopes, Tyson had superhuman 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, Briares." Tyson faltered when he said that name. He let out a strangled gulp.

Ariadne took a deep breath to calm her quickly beating heart, and her hand shook slightly at her side. Percy laced their fingers together without looking and ran a thumb over the back of her hand for comfort.

Tyson continued in the monster's voice. "If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you have yet to feel true torment. Think on this until I return."

The dragon lady tromped down the stairwell, vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts. She spread huge bat wings that she kept folded against her dragon back. She leaped off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard.

They crouched lower in the shadows. A hot sulfurous wind blasted their faces as the monster flew over. Then she disappeared around the corner.

"H-h-horrible," Grover said. "I've never snaked a monster that strong."

"Cyclopes' worst nightmare," Tyson murmured. "Kampê."

"Who?" Percy asked.

Tyson swallowed. "Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we're babies. She was our jailer in the bad years."

Annabeth nodded. "I remember now. When the Titans ruled, they imprisoned Gaea and Ouranos's earlier children—the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires."

"The Heka-what?" Percy asked.

"The Hundred-Handed Ones," Annabeth said. "They called them that because... well, they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclopes."

"Very powerful," Tyson said. "Wonderful! As tall as the sky. So strong they could break mountains!"

"Cool," Percy said. "Unless you're a mountain."

Ariadne glanced at him. "Kampê was the jailer," she said. "She worked for Kronos. She kept Tyson's brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones yo help fight against the Titans in the first Titan War."

"And now Kampê is back," Percy said.

"Bad," Tyson summed up.

"So who's in the cell?" Percy asked. "You said a name—"

"Briares!" Tyson perked you. "He is a Hundred-Handed One. They are as tall as the sky and—"

"Yeah," Ariadne said. "They break mountains."

She looked up at the cells above them, wondering how something as tall as the sky could fit in one of the tiny cells on Alcatraz.

"I guess we should check it out," Annabeth said, "before Kampê comes back."

As they approached the cell, the weeping got louder.

When Ariadne first saw the creature inside, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. He was human size 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, right toes on each foot.

But the top half of his body was the weird part. In her eyes, he made Janus seem normal. His chest sprouted more arms than she could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together. Several hands were covering his face as he sobbed.

"Either the sky isn't as tall as it used to be," Percy muttered, "or he's short."

Tyson didn't pay any attention. He fell to his knees.

"Briares!" he called.

The sobbing stopped.

"Great Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson said. "Help us!"

Briares lokked up. His face was long and sad, with a crooked nose and bad teeth. He had deep bore eyes—completely brown with no whites and black pupils, like eyes formed out of clay.

"Run while you can, Cyclops," Briares said miserable. "I cannot even help myself."

"You are a Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson insisted. "You can do anything!"

Briares wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It seemed as if the hands had a mind of their own.

They built a toy boat out of wood, then disassembled it t just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissor. A few others were making duck and dog shadow puppets against the wall.

"I cannot," Briares moaned. "Kampê is back! The Titans will rise and throw us back into Tartarus."

"Put on your brave fave!" Tyson said.

Immediately Briares's face morphed into something else. Same brown eyes, but otherwise totally different features. He had an upturned nose, arched eyebrows, and 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?" Percy asked.

Ariadne gave him a harsh glare. Annabeth elbowed him. "Done be rude," the blonde said. "The Hundred-Handed Ones all have fifty different faces."

"Must make it hard to get a yearbook picture," Percy said.

Ariadne let go of his hand and smacked him on the back of his head. He muttered a soft, "Ow."

Tyson was still entranced. "It will be okay, Briares! We will help you! Can I have your autograph?"

Briares sniffled. "Do you hav some hundred pens."

"Guys," Grover interrupted. "We have to get out of here. Kampê will be back. She'll sense us sooner or later."

"Break the bars," Annabeth said.

"Yes!" Tyson said, smiling proudly. "Briares can do it. He is very strong. Stronger than Cyclopes, even! Watch!"

Briares whimpered. A dozen hands started playing patty-cake, but one of them made any attempt to break the bars.

"If he's so strong," Percy said, "why is he stuck in jail?"

Ariadne smacked his side. "He's terrified, "she whispered while Annabeth glared at him. "Kampê has imprisoned him in Tarofor thousands of years. How would you feel?"

The Hundred-Handed One covered his face again.

"Briares," Tyson asked. "What... what is wrong? Show us your great strength!"

Ariadne's heart tore itself to pieces. Poor Tyson didn't understand how scared Briares was, and she didn't have the heart to tell him.

"Tyson," Annabeth said, "I think you'd better break the bars."

Tyson's smiled melted slowly.

"I will break the bars," he repeated. He grabbed the cell door and ripped it off its hinges like it was made of wet clay.

"Come on, Briares," Annabeth said. "Let's get you out of here."

She held out her hand. For a second, Briares's face morphed to 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," Ariadne promised. "You fought the Titans before, and you won, remember?"

"I remember the war." Briares's face morphed again—furrowed brow and pouting mouth. His brooding face, she guessed. "Lightning shook the world. We threw many rocks. The Titans and the monsters almost won. Now they are getting strong again. Kampê said so."

"Don't listen to her," Percy said. "Come on!"

He didn't move. Ariadne knew Grover was right. They didn't have much time before Kampê returned. But they couldn't leave him there. Tyson would cry for weeks.

"One game of rock, paper, scissors," Percy blurted Out. "If I win, you come with us. If I lose, we'll leave you in jail."

Annabeth looked at him like he was crazy. Ariadne was cruising him loudly in her head and promised to beat him up once they were out of the Labyrinth.

Briares's face morphed to doubtful. "I always win rock, paper, scissors."

"Then let's do it!" Percy pounded his fist in his palm three times.

Briares's did the same with all one hundred hands, which sounded like an army marching three steps forward. He came up with an avalanche of rocks, a a classroom set of scissors, and enough paper to make a fleet of paper airplanes.

"I told you," he said sadly. "I always—" His fave morphed to confusion. "What is that you made?"

Ariadne glanced over at her friend to see his fingers pointed at Briares in the shape of a finger gun. "A gun," Percy told him. "A gun beats anything."

"That's not fair."

"I didn't say anything about fair. Kampê's not going to be fair if we hang around. She's going to blame you for ripping off the bars. Now come on!"

Briares sniffled. "Demigod's are cheaters." But he slowly rose to his feet and followed them out of the cell.

Ariadne had to be dragged by Annabeth because she was rooted in her spot. The blonde chuckled once she saw the brunette's eyes wide with confusion and wonder.

Percy surprised her yet again, and it made her whole mind do a one-eighty.

She started to feel hopeful. All they had to do was get downstairs and find the Labyrinth entrance. But then Tyson froze.

On the ground floor right below, Kampê was snarling at them.

***

     ARIADNE'S SWORD WAS READY TO BE HELD. But the girl knew she couldn't do anything. Without any grass to grow vines from, and her weak control with her madness powers, there was nothing she could do to even make it a slightly even fight with the twenty-foot monster.

"The other way," Percy said.

They bolted down the catwalk. This time Briares was happy to follow them. In fact, he sprinted out front, a hundred arms waving in panic.

Behind them, she heard the sound of giant wings as Kampê took to the air. She hissed and growled in her ancient language, but Ariadne knew she was planning on killing them.

They screamed down the stairs, through a corridor, and past a guards station—out into another block of prison cells.

"Left," Annabeth said. "I remember this from the tour."

They burst outside and found themselves in the prison yard, ringed by security towers and barbed wire.

After being inside for so long, the daylight almost blinded me. Tourists were mulling 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 Tampalpais, huge storm clouds swirled.

The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists could've see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn't give any hint that anything was wrong.

It sounded a bit better than running from a twenty-foot ancient monster.

"It's even worse," Annabeth said, gazing north. "The storms have been bad all year, but that—"

"Keep moving," Briares wailed. "She is behind us!"

They ran to the far end of the yard, as far from the cellblock as possible.

"Kampê's too big to get through the doors," Percy said hopefully.

The the wall exploded.

Ariadne grit her teeth. "Nice jinx, Kelp Head," she muttered.

Tourists screamed as Kampê appeared from the dust and rubble, her wings spread out as wide as then year. She was holding two swords—Long bronze scimitars that flower with a weird greenish aura, boiling wisps of vapor that smelled sour and hot even across the years.

"Poison!" Grover yelped. "Don't let those things touch you or..."

"Or we'll die?" Percy guesser.

"Well... after you shrivel slowly to dust, yes."

"Let's avoid the swords," Percy decided.

Briares, fight!" Tyson urged. "Grow yo full size!"

Instead, Briares looked like he was trying to shrink smaller. He appeared to be wearing his absolutely terrified face.

Kampê thundered toward them on her dragon legs, hundreds of snakes slithering around her body. Ariadne knew here was nothing they could do.

Annabeth said what they were all thinking: "Run."

There was no debate. They ran through the jail yard and towards the gates of the prison. They passed by a patch of grass and Ariadne flicked her hand, long vines exploding from the ground and blocking the monster

Kampê growled and snarled before cutting them down with her swords. The vines shriveled up and turned to dust before the group ran out the gates of the prison. Thankfully, Ariadne had slowed the monster down enough for them to make it to the wharf.

Mortals screamed and ran. Emergency sirens began to blare.

They hit the wharf as a tour boat was unloading. The new group of visitors froze as they saw them charging toward them, followed by a mob of frightened tourists, followed by... Ariadne didn't know what they saw through the Mist, but it couldn't have been good.

"The boat?" Grover asked.

"Too slow," Tyson said. "Back into the maze. Only chance."

"We need a diversion," Annabeth said.

Tyson dipped a metal lamppost out of the ground. "I will distract Kampê. You run ahead."

"I'll help you," Percy 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."

There was no time to argue, and no one had any better ideas. Ariadne, Annabeth, Grover, and Percy each took one of Briares's hands and dragged him toward the concession stands whirl Tyson bellowed, lowered his pole, and charged Kampê like a jousting knight.

She'd been glaring at Briares, but Tyson got her attention as soon as he nailed her in the chest with the pole, pushing her back into the wall.

She shrieked and slashes dher swords, slicing the pole to shreds. Poison dripped in pools all around her, sizzling the cement.

Tyson jumped back as Kampê's hair lashes and hissed, and the vipers around her legs started their tongues in every direction. A lion popped out of the weird half-formed faces around her waist and roared.

As they sprinted for the cell locks, the last thing Ariadne saw was Tyson picking up a Dippin' Dots stand and throwing it at Kampê. Ice cream and poison exploded everywhere, and all the little snakes in Kampê's hair dotted with tutti-frutti. They dashed back into the nail yard.

"Can't make it," Briares huffed.

"Tyson is risking his life to help you!" Ariadne yelled at him. Angry he was giving up when their friend was out there rushing his life. "You will make it!"

As they reached the door of the cellblock, Ariadne heard an angry roar. She glanced back and saw Tyson running toward them at full speed, Kampê right behind him. She was plastered in ice cream and t-shorts. One of the bear heads on her waist was now wearing a pair of crooked plastic Alcatraz sunglasses.

"Hurry!" Annabeth said.

They finally found the cell where they'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 Greek. The mark of Daedalus glowed blur, and the stone wall grinded open.

Too slowly. Tyson was comih through the cellblock, Kampê's swords lashing out behind him, slicing indiscriminately through cell bars and stone walls.

Percy pushed Briares inside the maze, the  Annabeth and Grover. He tried to do the same to Ariadne, but she only gave him a hard glare and he knew to let her be.

"You can do it!" Percy told Tyson. But immediately both Ariadne and Percy knew he couldn't, Kampê was gaining. She raised her swords. They needed a distraction—something big.

Percy slapped his wristwatch and it spiraled into a bronze shield. Desperately, he threw it at the monster's gave.

SMACK! The shield hit her in the face and she faltered just long enough for Tyson to past them into the maze. Percy right behind him.

Kampê charged, but she was too late. Because Ariadne dove right after her friends and gave a swift flick of her wrist, sending a wave of purple over the monster.

The stone door closed and it's magic sealed them in. The whole tunnel shook as Kampê pounded against it, roaring furiously. They didn't stick around to play knock, knock with her, though. They raced into the darkness, and for the first time ( and the last time ) she was glad to be back in the Labyrinth.

They ran away from the stone door and listened as Kampê's wails turned to terror, as Ariadne's powers took affect over her kind.