More lines poured out of me:

“Legions are redeemed.

Light the depths;

One against many,

Never spirit defeated.

Ancient words spoken,

Shaking old foundations!”

 

What did that all mean? I had no idea.

The room rumbled as more blocks shifted into place, new stones rising from the lake to accommodate the sheer number of words. The entire left side of the lake was now roofed by the eight rows of three tile-wide words, like a pool cover rolled halfway over the ichor. The heat lessened. My shackles cooled. Medea’s chant faltered, releasing its hold on my consciousness.

“What is this?” hissed the sorceress. “We’re too close to stop now! I will kill your friends if you don’t—”

Behind her, Crest strummed a suspended fourth on the ukulele. Medea, who had apparently forgotten about him, almost leaped into the lava.

“You too?” she shouted at him. “LET ME WORK!”

Herophile whispered in my ear, “Hurry!”

I understood. Crest was trying to buy me time by distracting Medea. He stubbornly continued playing his (my) ukulele—a series of the most jarring chords I’d taught him, and some he must have been making up on the spot. Meanwhile Meg and Grover spun in their ventus cage, trying to break free without any luck. One flick of Medea’s fingers and they would meet the same fate as Flutter and Decibel.

Starting my voice again was even more difficult than towing the sun chariot out of the mud. (Don’t ask about that. Long story involving attractive swamp naiads.)

Somehow, I croaked out another line: “Destroy the tyrant.”

Three more tiles lined up, this time in the upper-right corner of the room.

“Aid the winged,” I continued.

Good gods, I thought. I’m speaking gibberish! But the stones continued to follow the guidance of my voice, much better than Alexasiriastrophona had ever done.

“Under golden hills,

Great stallion’s foal.”

 

The tiles continued stacking, forming a second column of three-tile lines that left only a thin strip of the fiery lake visible down the middle of the room.

Medea tried to ignore the pandos. She resumed her chanting, but Crest immediately broke her concentration again with an A-flat minor sharp 5.

The sorceress shrieked. “Enough of that, pandos!” She pulled a dagger from the folds of her dress.

“Apollo, don’t stop,” Herophile warned. “You must not—”

Medea stabbed Crest in the gut, cutting off his dissonant serenade.

I sobbed in horror, but somehow forced out more lines:

“Harken the trumpets,” I croaked, my voice almost gone. “Turn red tides—”

“Stop that!” Medea shouted at me. “Ventus, throw the prisoners—”

Crest strummed an even uglier chord.

“GAH!” The sorceress turned and stabbed Crest again.

“Enter stranger’s home,” I sobbed.

Another suspended fourth from Crest, another jab from Medea’s blade.

“Regain lost glory!” I yelled. The last stone tiles shifted into place—completing the second column of lines from the far side of the room to the edge of our platform.

I could feel the prophecy’s completion, as welcome as a breath of air after a long underwater swim. The flames of Helios, now visible only along the center of the room, cooled to a red simmer, no worse than your average five-alarm fire.

“Yes!” Herophile said.

Medea turned, snarling. Her hands glistened with the pandos’s blood. Behind her, Crest fell sideways, groaning, pressing the ukulele to his ruined gut.

“Oh, well done, Apollo,” Medea sneered. “You made this pandos die for your sake, for nothing. My magic is far enough along. I’ll just flay you the old-fashioned way.” She hefted her knife. “And as for your friends…”

She snapped her bloody fingers. “Ventus, kill them!”

THEN she died.

I won’t lie, gentle reader. Most of this narrative has been painful to write, but that last line was pure pleasure. Oh, the look on Medea’s face!

But I should rewind.

How did it happen, this most welcome fluke of fate?

Medea froze. Her eyes widened. She fell to her knees, the knife clattering from her hand. She toppled over face-first, revealing a newcomer behind her—Piper McLean, dressed in leather armor over her street clothes, her lip newly stitched, her face still badly bruised but filled with resolve. Her hair was singed around the edges. A fine layer of ash coated her arms. Her dagger, Katoptris, now protruded from Medea’s back.

Behind Piper stood a group of warrior maidens, seven in all. At first, I thought the Hunters of Artemis had come to save me yet again, but these warriors were armed with shields and spears made of honey-gold wood.

Behind me, the ventus unspooled, dropping Meg and Grover to the floor. My molten chains crumbled to charcoal dust. Herophile caught me as I fell over.

Medea’s hands twitched. She turned her face sideways and opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Piper knelt next to her. She placed her hand almost tenderly on the sorceress’s shoulder, then with her other hand, removed Katoptris from between Medea’s shoulder blades.

“One good stab in the back deserves another.” Piper kissed Medea on the cheek. “I’d tell you to say hello to Jason for me, but he’ll be in Elysium. You…won’t.”

The sorceress’s eyes rolled up in her head. She stopped moving. Piper glanced back at her wood-armored allies. “How about we dump her?”

“GOOD CALL!” the seven maidens shouted in unison. They marched forward, lifted the body of Medea, and tossed it unceremoniously into the fiery pool of her own grandfather.

Piper wiped her bloody dagger on her jeans. With her swollen, stitched-up mouth, her smile was more gruesome than friendly. “Hi, guys.”

I let out a heartbroken sob, which was probably not what Piper expected. Somehow, I got to my feet, ignoring the searing pain in my ankles, and ran past her to the place where Crest lay, gurgling weakly.

“Oh, brave friend.” My eyes burned with tears. I cared nothing for my own excruciating pain, the way my skin screamed when I tried to move.

Crest’s furry face was slack with shock. Blood speckled his snowy white fur. His midsection was a glistening mess. He clutched the ukulele as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the world of the living.

“You saved us,” I said, choking on the words. “You—you bought us just enough time. I will find a way to heal you.”

He locked eyes with me and managed to croak, “Music. God.”

I laughed nervously. “Yes, my young friend. You are a music god! I—I will teach you every chord. We will have a concert with the Nine Muses. When—when I get back to Olympus…”

My voice faltered.

Crest was no longer listening. His eyes had turned glassy. His tortured muscles relaxed. His body crumbled, collapsing inward until the ukulele sat on a pile of dust—a small, sad monument to my many failures.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, dazed and shaking. It hurt to sob. I sobbed anyway.

Finally, Piper crouched next to me. Her face was sympathetic, but I thought somewhere behind her lovely multicolored eyes she was thinking Another life lost for your sake, Lester. Another death you couldn’t fix.