The Tower of Nero: Chapters 32–39

Nearby, one of the youngest imperials appeared catatonic in the arms of a Hypnos camper, who rocked the child back and forth while singing lullabies.

Over by the emperor’s dais, some of the Apollo kids (my kids) conducted triage operations. Jerry, Yan, and Gracie—the newbies from camp—now all looked like seasoned pros, shouting orders to the stretcher-bearers, examining the wounded, treating campers and Germani alike.

The barbarians looked glum and dejected.

Python shifted and changed as it suited him—sprouting clawed feet, or vestigial bat wings, or extra hissing heads along the side of his body, all of which withered and dropped off as rapidly as they formed.

He was the reptilian conglomeration of everything that mammals feared in their deepest, most primal nightmares.

Python didn’t smile, per se, but he bared his fangs, pulled back his Tootsie-roll-segmented lips and let his forked tongue lash the air, probably savoring the scent of my fear.

Green luminescent fumes thickened and swirled around him, filling the air with the acrid scent of rot.

The cave was now a whirring factory of snake flesh—conveyor belts, shredder apparatuses, compactors, and pistons, all made of Python’s writhing body, every component ready to grind me into pulp.

I imagined what I must have looked like from his perspective: a raggedy teenaged boy with ripped clothes and cuts and contusions everywhere, limping along with one bloody foot, waving a stick and a four-stringed instrument and screaming like a lunatic.

I thought about how many miles I had traveled with this small sliver of wood, and how little credence I’d usually given its words.

Python turned his remaining baleful eye on me. “You will not live.”

I had nothing left to wield as a weapon, so I used my fists and feet, punching the beast's hide, kicking at every claw, wing, or nascent head that sprouted from his body.

He flailed and clawed to reach the shore, but I elbowed him in his one good eye, then kicked him in the gullet—anything to keep him in the water.

I’d sworn on the River Styx not to play music or use a bow until I was a god again. I’d reneged on both counts, and the goddess Styx had been dogging my progress ever since, sprinkling tragedy and destruction wherever I went.

But, alas, even here, at the precipice of nonexistence, I was subject to gravity.

At least I had vanquished Python.
He would never rise again.

I heard the heavenly singing of the Nine Muses in the distance—probably their daily lunchtime concert in the agora.

I took off the laurel wreath. I did not feel comfortable wearing such a symbol of victory. I ran my finger across the gilded leaves, thinking of Daphne, whom I had treated so horribly.

Had I really created these flowers to commemorate him, or just to wallow in my own grief and guilt?

I wanted to sit by the fire at Camp Half-Blood and sing ridiculous songs, or joke with the Roman demigods in the Camp Jupiter mess hall while platters of food flew over our heads and ghosts in glowing purple togas regaled us with tales of their former exploits.

I wanted to sit by the fire at Camp Half-Blood and sing ridiculous songs, or joke with the Roman demigods in the Camp Jupiter mess hall while platters of food flew over our heads and ghosts in glowing purple togas regaled us with tales of their former exploits.

The great domed ceiling, spangled with constellations, could have nested all the largest cupolas ever created by humans.

Dionysus was still in his slovenly Mr. D guise, which annoyed Aphrodite, who sat next to him.

“I think, in your honor, any god who is currently being punished with a stint on Earth ought to be pardoned immediately—”

Demeter had been weaving wheat stalks into new drought-resistant varieties, as she often did while listening to our deliberations, but now she set aside her basket.

Python is truly gone. The Oracles are free. The Fates are once again able to spin their thread without encumbrance.

Zeus scanned the room, in case any of us wanted one last chance to grovel at his feet.

I also hadn’t put a stop to my automatic deliveries from the Amazons, so the portico was piled high with shipping boxes filled with toothpaste, laundry detergent, guitar strings, reams of blank tablature, and coconut-scented suntan lotion.

Its former owner had baked the place with the scent of Titan: pungent and saccharine, slightly reminiscent of Axe body spray.

The idea of Meg handling that volatile group of demigods with only the help of LuBeard the Pirate made me uneasy.

I had forged a more perfect Lester from the dregs of Apollo.

Just as before, the ancient trees whispered in a cacophony of voices—snatches of riddles and songs, bits of doggerel (some of it actually about dogs), recipes, and weather reports, none of it making much sense.

“Hades wouldn’t mind you traipsing down to Tartarus?”

“Ugh,” agreed Thalia Grace, pulling a werewolf tooth out of her leather cuirass.

“Man,” Percy said, looking at me for commiseration. “Homework.”
I was pleased to see them doing so well, but I agreed with him about homework. Gods never got it. We didn’t want it.

Percy stuffed a cookie in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in ecstasy.

I ended up standing on the flat roof of a modest farmhouse—the McLean ancestral home.

“We will march you to the Meg,” one said. “She will pass judgment. Double-time!”
They formed a phalanx around me and herded me up the path.

That seemed to be the extent of their argument. Perhaps it was about to devolve into a death match for local fruit supremacy.

You have followed me through five volumes of adventures and six months of pain and suffering. By my reckoning, you have read two hundred and ten of my haiku.