The Burning Maze

Grover descends into the maze first and gives the all-clear sign. The rest follow him into a small, square room. Grover looks around as if expecting someone, and finally reveals that he sent a cloud nymph to Piper, telling her of their plans.

Apollo puts on the shoes, but nothing happens. He wonders what to do, and golden light faintly illuminates the room. Grover notices squares outlined in gold along the floor. A gold inscription in ancient Greek appears on the wall. Apollo will have to solve a series of crossword clues in order to proceed through the maze. They solve the first three by consulting the Arrow of Dodona, and Apollo realizes with dread that the three clues spell out, “Apollo faces death” (342).

In the distance, they hear deep cries of pain, and Grover wonders if they should try to help. Apollo decides that they must forge on. Although Grover feels uncomfortable allowing suffering to continue, the heroes reason that it could be one of Medea’s monstrous guards.

The next clue is in Latin; it asks the name of the last Roman king. Apollo recalls that his name was Tarquinius, or Tarquin in English. He chooses the English name because there are five potential corridors laid out like a hand, and the name Tarquin name sends them down the middle one. Apollo finds it fitting that the maze is giving him “the middle finger” (346).

Grover recognizes the next clue: lines from a poem by Walt Whitman. Whitman is not a favorite of Apollo, who resents the fact that Whitman never praised him. They solve the riddle and reach a larger, more ornate room. The next clue references “Apollo’s fallen love” (349). When Apollo appears distressed, Meg explains to Grover about Apollo’s former boyfriend, Hyacinth. Apollo corrects Meg and says that his name was Hyacinthus. Angry that the maze seems to be taunting him, he shouts Hyacinth instead of the answer to the clue. The floor disappears, and they drop into a fire pit.

Grover clings to the ledge with one hand and Apollo’s quiver with the other. Meg, who berates Apollo for not knowing the correct answer to the clue despite having created hyacinths, clings to Apollo’s foot. Because Grover is not strong enough to pull them up, Apollo orders Meg to plant one of her scimitars into the rock. Once she has a secure hold, he tells Grover to release him and is slightly insulted at how quickly he does so.

Believing that the fire is Helios’s essence, Apollo drops into it and is pulled into a memory of the first day that he entered the throne room in the sun god’s palace and discovered that Helios had disappeared. At that time, Apollo claimed the throne and the chariot.

Back in the present, Apollo announces that as Helios’s rightful heir, he will not be burned. He then promises to release Helios from Medea if the Titan will let them pass. The flames fall away. Grover and Meg drop into the room, and they all continue through a corridor.

The corridor leads them into the Oracle’s chamber. The walls are lined with entrances, each with a landing set over a pool of lava, just as Apollo saw in his vision. However, what he thought was lava is actually Helios’s ichor. Apollo feels compassion for Herophile, who is smoke-stained and shackled to her platform. She can only speak to them in crossword clues. Each clue provides a line of prophecy that, when solved, creates a bridge leading to her platform. Apollo puts the clues together: “I face death in the tomb of Tarquin, unless the doorway to the soundless god is opened by…what?” (366). He and Meg agree that something must be missing, but suddenly Medea enters, announcing that they will all die.

Meg slices Herophile’s chains, and to the Sibyl’s dismay, the chains lash themselves around Apollo’s wrists and ankles. Overwhelmed by the pain, Apollo falls to his knees and entreats Meg and Grover to flee with Herophile, but Medea blocks their exit. Two pandai, hand-picked for their personal grievance against Apollo, stand guard.

Medea and Apollo verbally spar, then Medea begins chanting. Apollo’s mortal form begins to dissolve, and steam and fire “erupt[s] from cracks in [his] body” (370). Grover attempts to disrupt Medea’s chanting by playing a nature song, and Meg covers him with her scimitars raised. Medea’s chanting begins to chip away at Apollo’s resolve, but Grover’s song soothes Apollo’s pain. Meg joins in, singing out of tune, and Medea orders the pandai to kill her and Grover. Rather than attacking with her scimitars, Meg throws ragweed seeds at the pandai, and they dissolve in sneezes, finally provoking Medea to throw them into the pool of ichor. She orders wind spirits to contain Meg and Grover and returns her attention to Apollo.

Herophile urges Apollo to resist, but he does not know how. He tries to recall memories of his birth, of fighting Python, and of riding his sun chariot, but he does not remember who he is or what his parents, Leto and Zeus, look like. Herophile insists, “Help will arrive” (377) and tells him to use the fact that he has taken her place. He recalls that the prophecy was left incomplete and resolves to complete it.

He begins speaking a prophecy, croaking out the lines despite having no idea what they mean. Crest attempts to distract Medea by playing Apollo’s ukulele, even though she stabs him after each chord. Herophile warns Apollo not to stop, and he continues until the prophecy feels complete. Medea sneers that he made Crest sacrifice his life for nothing, since she will now “flay [him] the old-fashioned way” (381). She orders the wind spirits to kill Grover and Meg.

Suddenly, Medea falls over, dead. Piper has sunk her dagger, Katoptris, into Medea’s back. Behind Piper are seven warrior dryads, the Meliai, who toss Medea into “the fiery pool of her own grandfather” (383). Apollo rushes to Crest and praises him for saving their lives. Apollo promises that when he returns to Olympus, they will play a concert with the Nine Muses. Crest dies, leaving Apollo’s ukulele resting on a pile of ash. Piper tells him that they must grieve later, after they finish their job.

The Meliai pledge themselves to “the Meg,” the “daughter of the creator” (385). (As the daughter of “the McCaffrey” and Demeter, Meg is twice blessed. They explain that when Grover and Meg sang, the Meliai “heard the call of nature” (386)—which Apollo notes “has a different meaning for mortals” (386). Piper met with them in downtown LA, and they defeated the guards protecting the entrance to the maze. Piper asks about the prophecy that Apollo uttered. Meg realizes it is an acrostic poem, and when the first letter of each line is put together, the poem spells out “Bellona’s daughter” (389). This means that the heroes must find Reyna, Camp Jupiter’s senior praetor.

The dryads hail Meg as the “solver of the puzzle” (391). The chamber begins to collapse. Before they leave, Apollo speaks to the ichor of Helios, acknowledging Helios’s right to be angry and remembering his “brilliance,” “warmth,” and friendship. Apollo promises to remember Helios and his best qualities and reminds him that the sun is meant to warm the earth, not to destroy it. He asks Helios to be at peace. The ichor shimmers and vanishes. The lead dryad hails Meg because her “weakling servant has saved nature” (393).

The dryads lead them out and find Incitatus and pandai blocking their exit. Apollo warns them to surrender, but Incitatus refuses. Meg orders them to attack, and they quickly destroy the pandai and Incitatus. Piper is struck by the power of Meg’s command, and Grover agrees that he might have his first nightmare about trees. Even Meg is uncomfortable, which comforts Apollo, since power “makes good people uneasy” (395). Meg wants to go home to Palm Springs.

Piper plans to return to Malibu. She and her father will be traveling to Oklahoma with the Hedge family. She gives Apollo an address in Santa Monica. Herophile drives a somber Grover, Meg, and Apollo back to Palm Springs, with the Meliai marching effortlessly alongside them. With the fires ended and the rain falling, the desert is now covered in wildflowers. The dryads welcome the heroes and congratulate them. The Meliai ask Meg where they should root themselves. The dryads invite them to stay, and they plant themselves around the cistern to benefit from the shade and water. Apollo is pleased to have a new “sacred grove of ashes” (400). Herophile decides to stay as the Oracle in residence.

Apollo thanks Grover, who will be returning to Camp Half-Blood. Apollo reflects that they have now recovered three Oracles from the Triumvirate. Two remain: Delphi and the Sibylline Books. That night, Apollo dreams of the goddess Styx, who asks if he regrets his “rash vow” (405) and warns of more deaths to come. Meg wakes him up to show him something.

The McCaffrey mansion has regrown by the dryads, who intend the repaired mansion to be their thanks to Meg for saving the Mojave Desert. Aloe asks Meg to stay at Aeithales, saying that her father would be proud. As Meg stares out at the desert, Apollo is frightened that she will accept the invitation and free him from service. He is happy that she has found a home, but he cannot imagine going on without her. She tells Aloe that although she hopes to return, she cannot do so just yet.

Meg and Apollo go to the address that Piper gave him and find her waiting by a plane. The plane is about to take her father and Jason’s coffin to Camp Jupiter so that Jason can have the funeral he deserves. Piper gives them Jason’s Temple Hill display board and notes. Apollo recalls Jason’s request that he always remember being human. He reflects that being human means having to say goodbye. Meg notices what Apollo believes to be a small plane coming in for a landing, but it is the demigod Leo riding his dragon, Festus. Leo announces that he has good and bad news from New Rome. He then asks where Jason is.

Piper sobs out the story in Leo’s arms, and they grieve together. He shares the news that Camp Jupiter has thwarted an attack. Leo insists on escorting Piper, her father, and the Hedges to Oklahoma before returning to Indianapolis. Meg and Apollo take off and head for Camp Jupiter. Remembering Jason and Crest, Apollo weeps. Meg tells him that they will “make everything right” and “beat the Triumvirate” (417). Apollo asks if that is an order, and Meg replies that it is a promise. The word initially makes Apollo nervous as he remembers the Styx, but his anger returns when he thinks of Jason. He pledges to defeat the emperors and free Delphi. He will ensure that those who made sacrifices did so for a reason. They have a long road ahead of them, but he will be Apollo. He will remember.