Chapter 12: I Visit the Sun

Chapter 11

Max

Julie harnessed the horses rather quickly, then booted me out of the drivers seat when she climbed inside. Then, without touching the reins at all, the horses started to move and took us off the ground.

I have to say, Flying is awesome. Supposedly, my brother had that power. Kinda wished I had it now too.

We were flying over Greensboro, North Carolina when the birds came. By the birds, I mean Stymphalian Birds, feather shooting crazy critters. We found out they were on the way when the Pegasus’s started to freak out. The carriage started to shake and jump as they tried to escape.

“What is going on?” Duke yelled.

“Something is coming, something that scares them,” Julie replied. She picked up the reigns and tried to regain control of the mounts. I had the bright idea of sticking my head out the top. The air was thin, but breathable. I looked around, at first seeing nothing other than dark storm clouds. Then I saw them.

A flock of birds were flying high above the clouds, they were black birds with something metallic in their beaks.

“All I see is a bunch of birds with metal in their beaks.”

“In their beaks? or their beaks are metal?” Duke asked.

“How would their beaks be metal?” I asked.

“Monsters.” Was all I got. Lovely. As the birds got closer I could see that their beaks were metal.

“Their beaks are metal. Why are they metal?” I asked.

“Easier to kill us with dear,” Julie replied sarcastically.

“Really? Red Riding Hood?” I replied.

“Children, shut up, how many are there Max?” Duke said.

“I count fifty at least, but they are flipping around it too quickly.”

“Well, crap. We can’t take them out that way, too many in the cluster.” I had no idea what was going on.

“How do we kill them, or get rid of them?” I asked.

“Kill them like every other monster we face. hit em with our weapons. Get rid of them, we need loud noises.” This gave me ideas. I closed my eyes and turned on my electro vision thing. I saw blues and reds floating around between clouds, and some sticking on the birds. Perfect.

I focused and moved the charges around a bit, magnetizing the beaks of the birds and overcharging positive in some clouds and negative in others. When I was done the clouds above the birds, as well as the top of the birds, was all red, the bottom was all blue. Physics took over for me.

See magnets are just another form of electricity, the charge of a metallic item in a magnet are reaching polar opposites. I just did that to their beaks. The birds started flying even more erratically, running into each other and trying to separate. Soon enough a majority of the birds were clumped into a giant ball, sinking fast. Then the charges reached the clouds and the light show began.

The birds were lit up like Christmas tree’s. Unfortunately, my body chose this point to tell me that the adrenaline high I was running on had left. I nearly fell out of our flying carriage, but Duke grabbed me and pulled me back inside.

“Over did it. Again,” he muttered as Julie hit some sort of warp speed button and we zoomed off. Of course, I passed out.

My dreams decided to return me to freaky land again. This time I was sitting somewhere really hot. I mean really hot. I think I was in the sun (the big ball of gas, not Apollo’s car), seeing as everything except where I was sitting was blue flames.

“Funny thing how this works isn’t it?” said a voice from behind me. I couldn’t turn very well for whatever reason, but the voice was very...cultured I think is the word.

“Blacksmiths were the first, and really the only, fellows back in my time who learned the use of different colors of fire. Most people figured that any other color of fire was sorcery of some sort. But I digress. I brought you here for a reason, son of Zeus.” My chair spun. The dude in front of me was wearing robes of fire. That is the only way I can explain it, it was red and burning and, thankfully, not see through. In his mouth he had a pipe which was black and stood out against his very white skin. His blond and red hair (yes both colors) waved with the flames that surrounded us. He had, I kid you not, golden eyes.

“I am Helios. Now I know most people will tell you I have faded, and this is true. The Romans didn’t need me and rolled my job in with Apollo, and I honestly didn’t mind. Father insisted on trying to find a way to combat against your father, and I was tired of it. I was happy with what I was doing. So I took the hint and went away.”

“Ummm...Helios...sir, I was told that fading meant that you died, as in gone away never to return.”

“Accurate enough I suppose, but its not quite like that. What happens when a Human dies?” He asked, then plowed on before I could say anything.

“He goes to Hades, where he sits around for as long as he pleases before choosing to be reborn. The soul does not change. It is similar to Immortal figures. When we fade, we essential go to our afterlife, which is the real world representation of what we symbolized, at least until we are re-imagined or called up again by followers. For me, that meant I get stuck in the sun, which I do not mind so much. Lots of time to read.

“But I did not bring you hear to tell you about my afterlife, however interesting that would be. I am being brought back, for all the wrong reasons. My sister is collecting relics of me. I don’t quite understand why. You need to stop her. If she brings me back I cannot fade again for a while, at least two or three human generations. The other reason she could be gathering my relics is to give the energy to our father for him to break out of his prison. That would be bad for both of us. You, because then he would do everything he could to kill off every Demigod and Satyr, especially the ones who helped imprisoned him. Me, because it would be a re-imagining of me, thus, I would no longer exist. I like my limited existence, I do not wish for it to go away.

“To help each of us, I will give you a gift. From the moment you wake up you and your friends will have three days that my sister cannot track you. Use them well.”

“With you dead how do you have any influence in the world?”

“My helm. My sister totes it around and thus I can influence her, in this case keep her from finding you.”

“Why three days?”

“Oh shut up.” He snapped, then my dream view went black, which is painful after all the light that was inside the sun.

I woke to see the top of our carriage. Not to far I heard Julie speaking.

“It’s alright. We got to where we need to be, take this note to Camp Half-Blood and you will be treated well.” A horse neighed. “No, no, no. We need to be here, its part of our quest. Get going.” I heard horses moving away, then the flapping of wings.

“We need to wake up thunder boy and plan our next move,” she said when the flapping could no longer be heard.

“Our plan is to get a boat and move towards the Sea of Monsters.” Duke said. I figured this was a good time to speak up.

“We have three days,” I grunted forcing myself to wake up completely. It hurt. My whole body hurt in fact. I sat up. My arms were red, like sun burn.

“What happened to me?” I asked.

“Dunno, you were smoking a bit when we landed, then you just stopped. I can give you some nectar to help you out if your up for it.” Duke said, I motioned with my hand and he handed me a can.

“Monster?” I asked.

“Caffeine and sugar do good things for Demigods. I found out recently that mixing it with Nectar makes it even better, and less likely to kill you.”

“Joy,” I chugged the soft drink. It tasted like raspberries again, and I felt alot better. I looked at my arms and the redness faded.

“So Thunder boy, why were you so hot?” Julie asked.

“Glad you think that,” I said and she blushed. “But to get to the point, I talked to a dead God.” I told them about my trip to the sun with Helios.

“How did you know about faded gods?” Duke asked.

“Hmm? Oh, some time I ended up spending with Annabeth and Chiron back at camp, I asked if Gods died or something.” Duke nodded.

“Anyways, so we have three days thanks to a faded god. What do we do?” Julie asked.

“Duke is right, we have to go to this sea of monsters place, that’s the only clue we have.” I said.

“Not all,” Julie said. Then she told us why her room exploded back at Horrace’s shop.

“And who was the girl?” I asked.

“Circe.” Duke said.

“Circe? The sorceress girl from the Odysseus's odyssey?” I asked. They looked at me somewhat surprised.

“What? I watched the movie.” The shook their heads.

“Anyways, yes that Circe. Bad news, but best hint we have. If we stop her and Eos from sinking the island into the sea, we can stop their plan.” Julie finished.

“Sounds good to me. Where do we get the boat?” I asked. Julie sighed like I was an idiot.

“The Harbor behind us.” I looked behind her. There was, in fact, a rather big harbor. Many sorts of boats, of all sizes, were docked. Including some military boats and old fashioned kind.

“Do we hire one or something?” I asked. Julie blushed apparently, after finding the boats she thought we were ready to go. She forgot that we had to use them.

“Your brother had a thing with the older fashioned boats. According to Annabeth, he could command Blackbeards boat to make it sail.” She nodded. I looked out towards the harbor and examined (as best I could) the old fashioned boats. I saw one that looked like a ship from the movies, three masts, sails, the whole shibang. I got up and started to get closer. The others followed me, asking questions, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

The boat had writing on the side, but I couldn’t make it out from the distance we were at. Before I could step on the concrete that was the dock proper, someone stepped in front of me.

“Excuse me child, but what do you think your doing?” Asked a dry raspy voice. I looked at the speaker. The dude must have been beaten by an ugly stick all through his life. He had long black hair covering his face, arms, chest, pretty much everything. Under the hair I could tell he had blue overalls on and a saber at his side.

“Umm, we want to take a look at the boats,” I said.

“I am afraid that you cannot do that laddie, I have orders to kill any Demigod that tries to get on a boat.” Then he drew the blade and started to attack.

Chapter 13