The Legacy of the Sky, Book 1: Chapter 11

Chapter 11: I Solve the Puzzle
“Fly us home, to Long Island, New York,” I told Gunner, and he led the pegasi as they veered toward the East.

I had a lot of time to think on the journey home. I thought mainly about the prophecy, the meanings finally starting to come together in my head like a puzzle; everything was coming together and finally making sense.

“Son of Lightning, know your flaw.”

The son of lightning was me, and I had to know what my fatal flaw was, which was starting to come to me. I thought about the testing simulation Phobos and Deimos put me through, and how I couldn’t make a choice, and that I had to cheat. I thought that might be my fatal flaw. I have a rather difficult time trying to make snap decisions, even if it was what I wanted for lunch. I’ve had trouble with that for most of my life, and it made sense for it to be a fatal flaw.

“Or risk flying into Terror’s claw.”

If I didn’t know what my fatal flaw had been, I would have played right into the hands of Phobos and Deimos, Deimos being the god of terror. I figured the title of Terror could have been applied to both of them. They knew that if they presented me with a no-win situation, I couldn’t handle it, and they would’ve had me.

“Use the inside to escape the oppressor.”

The inside was Emily Parker, daughter of Hecate, as she was in the ranks of the demi-titans. The oppressor was Nathan and Kelsey, and without Emily’s help, we would have never had made it out of that camp, and we would probably be dead or locked up in some dungeon wearing nothing but pillow cases.

“Rediscover west legacy’s successor.”

The only line of the prophecy that didn’t make sense to me was the last line. I still had no idea what west legacy’s successor was, and we didn’t rediscover anything, we just discovered Camp Othrys, and I was pretty sure that didn’t succeed west legacy.

I was jarred from my deep thoughts as Gunner folded his wings and started to plunge towards the ground, heading towards the beach of Long Island Sound.

“Take us to Camp Half-Blood!” I yelled at the horse through the wind, not completely sure that he was able understand me, but nevertheless, he extended his wings and veered off to the left. Before long, the beach of Camp Half-Blood came into view; the triremes in the water, the campers running around on the beach. I steered Gunner over the tree tops that separated the beach from the camp and then he extended his wings to slow down to land. Campers from the whole valley rushed away from what they were doing to run to follow us to where we would land. We missed the stables and touched down at the sword fighting arena, but they kept running until they came to a complete stop at the canoe lake. Campers immediately swarmed and made a ring around the three pegasi and their riders. Among the ones at the front were Rebecca, Annabeth, Percy, and Arthur, all waiting for our report, and probably eager to find out how we left on foot and came back with three pegasi. Chiron cantered from the Big House, and the crowd parted for him as he trotted up to us. As we were on horse back, I was finally at eye level with him.

“We were not expecting you back so early. It has only been two days,” he said in disbelief.

“That’s got to be one of the shortest quests in the century,” Annabeth commented.

“So? Did you find the demi-titans?” Percy asked.

I nodded solemnly. “Oh, we found them all right. Chiron, we need to call another war council.”

Before the council, I took Chiron aside and showed him the letter Emily had given to me.

“This is from somebody we met at the demi-titan camp, Emily Parker, daughter of Hecate, a demigod spy. She said to give this to Jason, but I didn’t know of any Jason at camp. I thought I should give it to you,” I told him. He took the letter with a questioning look.

“I assure you my boy, that there is no daughter of Hecate at this camp with that name, and that we have no demigod spies at that camp. You are the first from Camp Half-Blood to set foot on their territory,” he informed me grimly. “Did she tell you who her mother was?”

“Well, she said she was the daughter of the magic goddess, and I know that’s Hecate. She didn’t tell me her actual name. Why do you ask?” I asked suspiciously, sure he was holding something back. He unfolded the letter and scanned it for about two seconds, and the he folded it back up and tucked it into his side satchel.

“I am sorry, but I cannot say right now. The will of the Fates is hard to read at this time,” he said with his usual grim expression.

“Can I talk to you after the council? There are still some minor thing I need to work out,” I asked him, and the centaur nodded as he led me into the rec room for the war council.

“Camp Othrys is directly on the border between Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas,” I was explaining to the head councillors. “It’s in a valley protected by mountains all around it. It would be very hard to attack it on foot.”

“We only got in through deceit. We made one of their reconnaissance soldiers believe we were one of them, and she brought us in through its main access point, a wind tunnel opened through the earth by Gaea herself,” Lily furthered.

“The camp is very well disciplined, a very efficient unit. They have no hesitation to use or do anything that will get them to their goal,” Elissa finished.

“So you’re saying that they’re a highly skilled war machine in a valley we can’t really get at,” Percy summed up.

“Pretty much,” Elissa shrugged.

“How many allies do they have?” asked Annabeth.

“Well, they have about three gods that we know of; Phobos, Deimos, and Gaea. They most likely have the favour of all the Titans, excluding Kronos. And on top of all of that, they have a whole ton of monsters that they can use. You know, Karpoi, dracanae, hellhounds, Laistrygonians, centaurs, Cyclopes,” Lily listed off.

“Well, we’re screwed,” said Shawn Cooper from Apollo.

“Pretty much,” I conceded. We stayed in a grim silence for several minutes, letting our situation sink in. I knew we probably didn’t stand a chance alone, that we needed some more people, build up our own army, but I had no idea how to do that.

“We will take a recess now, and then we will come back to come up with our next course of action. In the mean time, enjoy the rest of your day,” Chiron announced, and with that, everybody left the rec room in dejected silence.

The rest of the day felt surreal. After riding giant bunnies across country, getting threatened by grains, and then keeping up a charade like a false identity all in two days, it is a little overwhelming to be back in a normal life, if you can call living at a camp for children of Greek gods normal. I spent a lot of my day in my cabin, lying on my bed, resting from the experience. After that I went to go visit Gunner in the stables. Chiron had allowed Gunner, Ariel and Phillip to stay at camp in the stables, and we could come by and ride them when we wanted. I dropped by to find Arthur tending the pegasi, while Percy was feeding the only black one in the stables, just like Gunner was the only brown one. He seemed to be having a conversation with it.

“Yeah, I know you want sugar cubes, but the apple is all you’re getting today,” Percy was telling it. He kept protesting with the pegasus.

“Uh, why are you talking to a horse?” I asked him.

“What? Oh right, you’re new. You don’t know,” he reminded himself with a shrug. “Speaking to horses is something children of Poseidon can do, since my father created horses. This is my own pegasus, Blackjack.” The black pegasus whinnied, shaking his head.

“Your horse has attitude,” I commented.

“Well, I’ve seen worse. Yours is pretty friendly though. He told me he likes it better here than at Camp Othrys,” he told me, and Gunner shook his head in compliance.

“Well, I’m glad to have one of my own. It’ll be good to ride again. It might be different riding in the sky, though,” I thought out loud.

“Just don’t over work him. He’ll hate you for it and probably buck you off at a hundred feet,” Percy said with a smirk.

“Thanks,” I said, kind of mockingly, and then went back to my cabin after feeding Gunner an apple Arthur gave me. I entered the empty cabin and pulled my questing backpack with me toward my bed, where I sat down and started to unpack it. I pulled my large foot locker out from under my bed, the one that was given to me when I first came to the cabin. It had various sub-compartments in it, and I started to organize the things from my trip into it. I stuffed the rations in one section, small utilities in the lid compartment, ambrosia and nectar in the smaller one, and then put the clothes in the largest space. I pulled the clothes from my backpack, and unfolded the t-shirts. I nicely folded the couple of orange camp ones, and then took a long look at the navy blue Camp Othrys t-shirt. The black scythe with the word Camp arched over it, and Othrys arched the other way underneath it, to form a circle of words. I scrunched up the shirt and through it across the expanse of the cabin, but it ended up lying on the foot of the giant statue of my father. I continued my raid of my backpack, pulling out the purple shirt I retrieved from the armoury at Camp Othrys. I unfolded it and looked over the front. I stared at it in confusion, gears turning in my head, recognizing the letters written on it. I rushed out of the cabin to find Chiron, the shirt still in my hand.

Chapter 10: We Make an Escape

Chapter 12: I Lean a Secret