Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,16
up like he did Ouranos! Then I could use the scythe for something better—like cutting wheat! Did you see those beautiful fields we flew over?”
Hera scowled at her sister. “What is it with you and crops? All those years in Kronos’s gut, all you ever talked about was plants, which you never even saw before today!”
Demeter blushed. “I don’t know. I always dream about green fields. They’re so peaceful and beautiful and—”
“My children!” said a voice from the woods.
Mother Rhea stepped into the clearing. She hugged each of her precious sons and daughters, weeping tears of joy over their freedom. Then she drew them together and said, “I know where you can get weapons.”
She told them the story of the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Elder Cyclopes, whom Kronos had exiled to Tartarus for a second time.
“The Hundred-Handed Ones are incredible stonemasons,” Rhea said. “They built Kronos’s palace.”
“Which is pretty awesome,” Zeus admitted.
“They are strong, and they hate Kronos,” Rhea continued. “They would be good in battle. As for the Cyclopes, they are talented blacksmiths. If anyone can forge weapons more powerful than your father’s scythe, they can.”
Hades’s dark eyes gleamed. The idea of descending into the most dangerous, vilest part of creation somehow appealed to him. “So we go to Tartarus, and we bring back the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones.”
“Piece of cake,” said Hera. She knew about cake, because Kronos had eaten lots of it. The crumbs and icing were always getting in her hair. “Let’s go.”
A Tartarus jailbreak may not sound like an easy thing for you or me, but six gods can accomplish a lot when they put their minds to it. Hades found a cave system that led deep into the Underworld. He seemed to have a knack for navigating the tunnels. He led his siblings along the course of a subterranean river called the Styx until it spilled over a cliff into the void of Tartarus. The gods became bats (you could argue that they were already bats, but you know what I mean) and flew into the abyss.
At the bottom, they found a gloomy landscape of rock spires, gray wastes, fiery pits, and poisonous fog, with all sorts of nasty monsters and evil spirits roaming about. Apparently Tartarus, the spirit of the pit, had been breeding more primordial gods down there in the darkness, and they’d been having kids of their own.
The six young gods crept around until they found the maximum-security zone, surrounded by a high brass wall and patrolled by demons. In bat form the gods could fly over the wall easily; but once inside, they spotted the jailer and almost lost their nerve.
Kronos had personally hired the most horrible monster in Tartarus to make sure his high-value prisoners never escaped.
Her name was Kampê.
I don’t know if Kronos found her on Craigslist or what, but if the worst creatures from your nightmares had nightmares of their own, they would probably dream about Kampê. From the waist up, she was a humanoid female with snakes for hair. (If that sounds familiar, it’s because the hairdo really caught on with other monsters later.) From the waist down, she was a four-legged dragon. Thousands of vipers sprouted from her legs like grass skirts. Her waist was ringed with the heads of fifty hideous beasts—bears, boars, wombats, you name it—always snapping and snarling and trying to eat Kampê’s shirt.
Large, dark reptilian wings grew from her shoulder blades. Her scorpionlike tail swished back and forth, dripping venom. Basically, Kampê didn’t get invited on many dates.
The gods watched from behind a pile of boulders as the monstrous jailer tromped back and forth, lashing the Elder Cyclopes with a fiery whip and stinging the Hundred-Handed Ones with her scorpion tail whenever they got out of line.
The poor prisoners were forced to work without any break—no water, no sleep, no food, nothing. The Hundred-Handed Ones spent their time at the far end of the yard, quarrying stone blocks from the hard volcanic floor. The Cyclopes worked at the closer end. They each had a forge where they smelted metals and hammered out sheets of bronze and iron. If the Cyclopes tried to sit down, or even pause long enough to catch their breaths, Kampê would leave fresh burning lash marks across their backs.
Even worse, the prisoners weren’t allowed to finish anything they started. As soon as the Hundred-Handed Ones had a goodly stack of building blocks, Kampê forced them to break their quarried stone into rubble. Whenever the Cyclopes were on