Shadows flickered more rapidly across the cavern walls. Meg’s song began to reverberate, breaking into random waves of noise. The lake churned around me. On the small rock island, darkness gathered, swirling upward like a waterspout, forming the shape of a man.
“Meg, stop singing!” I yelled.
With one final sob, she crumpled to her knees, her face streaked with tears. She fell to her side, groaning, her voice like crumpling sandpaper. The rhinestones in her glasses still glowed, but with a faint bluish tint, as if all the warmth had been drained from them.
I wanted more than anything to rush to Meg’s side. The sips of Memory and Forgetfulness had mostly burned out of my system. I knew Meg McCaffrey. I wanted to comfort her. But I also knew that the danger to her had not passed.
I faced the island. The apparition was only vaguely humanoid, composed of shadows and fractals of light. Afterimages from Meg’s lyrics flashed and faded in his body. He radiated fear even more strongly than Thalia’s Aegis shield—waves of terror that threatened to rip my self-control from its moorings.
“Trophonius!” I yelled. “Leave her alone!”
His form came into clearer focus: his lustrous dark hair, his proud face. Around him swarmed a host of phantom bees, his sacred creatures, small smudges of darkness.
“Apollo.” His voice resonated deep and harsh, just as it had sounded when expelled from Georgina on the Throne of Memory. “I’ve waited a long time, Father.”
“Please, my son.” I clasped my hands. “Meg is not your petitioner. I am!”
Trophonius regarded young McCaffrey, now curled up and shivering on the stone ledge. “If she is not my petitioner, why did she summon me with her song of grief? She has many unanswered questions. I could answer them, for the price of her sanity.”
“No! She was—She was trying to protect me.” I choked on the words. “She is my friend. She did not drink from the springs. I did. I am the supplicant to your holy Oracle. Take me instead!”
Trophonius’s laughter was a horrible sound…worthy of a spirit who dwelled in the darkness with thousands of poisonous snakes.
“Take me instead,” he repeated. “The very prayer I made when my brother Agamethus was caught in a tunnel, his chest crushed, his life fading. Did you listen to me then, Father?”
My mouth turned dry. “Don’t punish the girl for what I did.”
Trophonius’s ghostly bees swarmed in a wider cloud, buzzing angrily past my face.
“Do you know how long I wandered the mortal world after killing my brother, Apollo?” asked the ghost. “After cutting off his head, my hands still covered in his blood, I staggered through the wilderness for weeks, months. I pleaded to the earth to swallow me up and end my misery. I got half my wish.”
He gestured around him. “I dwell in darkness now because I am your son. I see the future because I am your son. All my pain and madness…Why should I not share it with those who seek my help? Does your help ever come without a price?”
My legs gave out. I plunged to my knees, the frigid water up to my chin. “Please, Trophonius. I am mortal now. Take your price from me, not her!”
“The girl has already volunteered! She opened her deepest fears and regrets to me.”
“No! No, she didn’t drink of the two springs. Her mind is not prepared. She will die!”
Images flickered through Trophonius’s dark form like flashes of lightning: Meg encased in goo in the ants’ lair; Meg standing between me and Lityerses, his sword stopped cold by her crossed golden blades; Meg hugging me fiercely as we flew our griffin from the Indianapolis Zoo.
“She is precious to you,” said the Oracle. “Would you give your life in exchange for hers?”
I had trouble processing that question. Give up my life? At any point in my four thousand years of existence, my answer would’ve been an emphatic No! Are you crazy? One should never give up one’s life. One’s life is important! The whole point of my quests in the mortal world, finding and securing all these ancient Oracles, was to regain immortality so I wouldn’t have to ponder such awful questions!
And yet…I thought of Emmie and Josephine renouncing immortality for each other. I thought of Calypso giving up her home, her powers, and eternal life for a chance to roam the world, experience love, and possibly enjoy the wonders of high school in Indiana.
“Yes,” I found myself saying. “Yes, I would die to save Meg McCaffrey.”
Trophonius laughed—a wet, angry sound like the churning of vipers in water. “Very good! Then promise me that you’ll grant me a wish. Whatever I ask, you will do.”
“Y-your wish?” I wasn’t a god anymore. Trophonius knew that. Even if I could grant wishes, I seemed to recall a very recent conversation with the goddess Styx about the dangers of making oaths I couldn’t keep.
But what choice did I have?
“Yes,” I said. “I swear. Whatever you ask. Then we have an agreement? You will take me instead of the girl?”
“Oh, I didn’t promise anything in return!” The spirit turned as black as oil smoke. “I just wanted to exact that promise from you. The girl’s fate is already decided.”
He stretched out his arms, expelling millions of dark ghostly bees.
Meg screamed in terror as the swarm engulfed her.
Man, I hate my son
A real arrogant jerkwad
Nothing like his dad
I DID NOT KNOW I could move so fast. Not as Lester Papadopoulos, anyway.
I bounded across the lake until I reached Meg’s side. I tried desperately to shoo away the bees, but the wisps of darkness swarmed her, flying into her mouth, nose, and ears—even into her tear ducts. As a god of medicine, I would have found that fascinating if I hadn’t been so repulsed.
“Trophonius, stop it!” I pleaded.
“This is not my doing,” said the spirit. “Your friend opened her mind to the Dark Oracle. She asked questions. Now she is receiving the answers.”
“She asked no questions!”
“Oh, but she did. Mostly about you, Father. What will happen to you? Where must you go? How can she help you? These worries are foremost in her mind. Such misplaced loyalty…”
Meg began to thrash. I turned her onto her side, as one should do for someone after having a seizure. I wracked my brain. What else? Remove sharp objects from her environment….All the snakes were gone, good. Not much I could do about the bees. Her skin was cold, but I had nothing warm and dry to cover her with. Her usual scent—that faint, inexplicable smell of apples—had turned dank as mildew. The rhinestones in her glasses were completely dark, the lenses white with condensation.
“Meg,” I said. “Stay with me. Concentrate on my voice.”
She muttered incoherently. With a twinge of panic, I realized that if she gave me a direct order in her delirious state, even something as simple as Leave me alone or Go away, I would be compelled to obey. I had to find a way to anchor her mind, to shield her from the worst of the dark visions. That was difficult when my own mind was still a little fuzzy and not completely trustworthy.
I muttered some healing chants—old curative tunes I hadn’t used in centuries. Before antibiotics, before aspirin, before even sterile bandages, we had songs. I was the god of both music and healing for good reason. One should never underestimate the healing power of music.