ARIANA HATES TARTARUS ALREADY
Nine days.
As she fell, Ariana thought about Hesiod, the old Greek poet who'd speculated it would take nine days to fall from earth to Tartarus.
She hoped Hesiod was wrong. She'd lost track of how long she, Annabeth and Percy had been falling - hours? A day? It felt like an eternity.
They'd all been holding hands ever since they'd dropped into the chasm. Now Percy pulled them both close, hugging them tight as they tumbled through absolute darkness.
Wind whistled in Ariana's ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon.
She wrapped her arms around Annabeth and Percy and tried not to sob. She'd never expected her life to be easy.
Most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy. They knew the greatest heroes didnt get happy endings.
Still, this wasn't fair. She'd gone through so much through these past five or so years. Ariana had experienced so much pain and misery.
Now they had plunged to their deaths.
Even the gods couldn't devise a fate so twisted.
But Gaia wasn't like other gods. The Earth Mother was older, more vicious, more bloodthirsty.
Ariana could imagine her laughing as they fell into the depths.
Ariana tried to think of a plan, she was a daughter of Hades surely she had some control of Tartarus. But she couldn't think of any way to reverse or even slow their fall.
None of them had the power to fly - not like Jason, who could control the wind, or Frank, who could turn into a winged animal.
If they reached the bottom at terminal velocity ... well, she knew enough science to know it would be terminal.
She was seriously wondering whether they could fashion a parachute out of their shirts - that's how desperate she was - when something about their surroundings changed.
The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. She realized she could see Percy's and Annabeths hair as she hugged them.
The whistling in her ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.
Ariana knew tiny bits and pieces about Tartarus, Hades had given her so many lectures. She knew that she'd see Tartarus in its true form - something Annabeth and Percy wouldn't be able to do.
Truth be told, she was terrified.
Suddenly, the chute they'd been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below them, Ariana could see the bottom.
For a moment she was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern - and she couldn't even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood.
The landscape - at least what she could see of it - was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms.
To Ariana's left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.
The stench of sulphur made it hard to concentrate, but she focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid - a river.
"Percy!" Annabeth yelled in his ear. "Water!"
She gestured frantically. Percy's face was hard to read in the dim red light. He looked shell-shocked and terrified, but he nodded as if he understood.
Percy could control water - assuming that was water below them. He might be able to cushion their fall somehow.
Of course Ariana had heard horrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld from her father. They could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But she decided not to think about that.
This was their only chance.
The river hurtled towards them. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed them whole.
The impact didn't kill her, but the cold nearly did.
Freezing water shocked the air right out of her lungs.
Her limbs turned rigid, and she lost her grip on Percy and Annabeth . She began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled her ears - millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness.
The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed her down and made her numb.
What's the point of struggling? they told her. You're dead anyway. You'll never leave this place.
She could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry her body away. That would be easier. She could just close her eyes ...
Percy gripped her hand and jolted her back to reality. She couldn't see him in the murky water, but suddenly she didn't want to die.
Together they kicked upward and broke the surface.
Ariana and Annabeth gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulphurous. The water swirled around them, and Ariana realized Percy was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.
Though she couldnt make out their surroundings, she knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.
"Land." Annabeth croaked. "Go sideways."
Percy looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but not this water.
Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength.
The whirlpool began to dissipate. Ariana and Annabeth hooked one arm around Percys waist and struggled across the current.
The river worked against her: thousands of weeping voices whispering in her ears, getting inside her brain.
Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.
"Pointless." Percy murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink.
"Percy!" Ariana shrieked. "The river is messing with your mind. It's the Cocytus - the River of Lamentation. It's made of pure misery!"
"Misery." he agreed.
"Fight it!" Ariana told him.
Ariana kicked and struggled, trying to keep all of them afloat. Another cosmic joke for Gaia to laugh at: Ariana and Annabeth die trying to keep, the son of Poseidon, from drowning.
Not going to happen, you hag, Ariana thought.
Annabeth hugged Percy tighter and kissed him.
"Tell me about New Rome." she demanded. "What were your plans for us?"
"New Rome ... For Us ..."
"Yeah, Seaweed Brain. You said we could have a future there! Tell me!"
Ariana had never wanted to leave Camp Half-Blood. It was the only real home she'd ever known but the idea of going to New Rome for a few years was something she didn't mind doing.
"Architecture." Percy murmured. The fog started to clear from his eyes. "Thought you'd like the houses, the parks. There's one street with all these cool fountains."
Ariana and Annabeth started making progress against the current. Ariana's limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping them now.
She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone's throw away.
"College." Annabeth gasped. "Could we go there together with Ariana?"
"Y-yeah." he agreed, a little more confidently.
"What would you study, Percy?" Asked Ariana.
"Dunno." he admitted.
"Marine science." Annabeth suggested. "Oceanography?"
"Surfing?" he asked.
Ariana laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise.
Ariana wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before - just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.
She used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank. Her feet dug into the sandy bottom. Ariana, Annabeth and Percy hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.
Ariana wanted to curl up into a ball and fall asleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream and wake up to find herself back on the Argo II, safe with her friends (well ... as safe as a demigod can ever be).
But, no. They were really in Tartarus. It was terrifying, Ariana could practically smell the monsters miles away.
The essence of death filled the area, there was no escape from it. It was dark, so dark. At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness.
The sulphurous air stung Ariana's lungs and prickled her skin. When she looked at her arms, she saw they were already covered with an angry rash.
She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.
The beach wasn't sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Ariana's palms.
So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. There were monsters all around, death.
Everything here was designed to hurt and kill.
Ariana took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.
Next to her, Percy coughed. "This place smells like my ex-stepfather."
Annabeth managed a weak smile.
If she'd fallen into Tartarus by herself, Ariana thought, she would have been doomed. She would've curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus.
But she wasn't alone. She had Percy and Annabeth. And that meant she couldn't give up.
Annabeth forced herself to take stock. Her foot was still wrapped in its makeshift cast of board and bubble wrap, still tangled in cobwebs. But when she moved it, it didnt hurt her.
Ariana sat there, looking around them. What she saw was so terrifying it was indescribable - if this is what she saw, she wondered what Percy and Annabeth saw.
No food, no water .... basically no supplies at all.
Yep. Off to a promising start.
Ariana glanced at Percy. He looked pretty bad. His dark hair was plastered across his forehead, his T-shirt ripped to shreds.
His fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before they fell. Most worrisome of all, he was shivering and his lips were blue.
"We should keep moving or we'll get hypothermia." Annabeth said. "Can you two stand?"
They nodded. They both struggled to their feet.
Annabeth put her arm around Percy's waist, though Ariana she wasn't sure who was supporting whom.
Ariana scanned their surroundings. Above, she saw no sign of the tunnel they'd fallen down. She couldnt even see the cavern roof - just blood-coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air.
It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.
The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff.
From where she stood, Ariana couldn't see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.
A distant memory tugged at her - something about Tartarus and fire. Before she could think too much about it, Percy inhaled sharply.
"Look." He pointed downstream.
A hundred feet away, a baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand.
Annabeth gripped Percy's hand, and they stumbled towards the wreckage. One of the car's tyres had come off and was floating in a back-water eddy of the Cocytus.
The Fiat's windows had shattered, sending brighter glass like frosting across the dark beach.
Under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon - the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty.
Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver ... as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.
"She's alive."
Ariana resisted the urge to throw up.
"It's Tartarus." Percy said. "Monster come court. Down here, maybe they can't be killed."
He gave Annabeth an embarrassed look, as if realizing he wasn't helping team morale. "Or maybe she's badly wounded, and she crawled away to die."
"Let's go with that." Annabeth agreed.
Percy was still shivering. Ariana wasn't feeling any warmer either, despite the hot, sticky air. The glass cuts on her hands were still bleeding, which was unusual for her.
Normally, she healed fast. Her breathing got more and more laboured.
"This place is killing us." Ariana said, shaking her head. "I mean, it's literally going to kill us,
unless ..."
Tartarus. Fire. That distant memory came into focus. She gazed inland towards the cliff, illuminated by flames from below. It was an absolutely crazy idea. But it might be their only chance.
"Unless what?" Percy prompted.
"You've got a brilliant plan, haven't you?" Annabeth asked.
"It's a plan." Ariana murmured, though her eyes fluttered in fear. "I don't know about brilliant. We need to find the River of Fire."