The Tower of Nero

The group eats the skink soup prepared by the trogs. Apollo pretends to like the soup but is secretly nauseated. Nico asks the trogs to tunnel into Nero’s Greek fire reservoir and eat the fire, which they can digest. The trogs are divided about accepting Nico’s request for help. “Crust-dwellers” (180) or mortals have choked the earth with waste and look down on other life-forms such as the trogs. The trogs have no reason to risk their own lives to help mortals. In a moment of divine inspiration, Apollo sings to the trogs about the necessity of different species helping each other out and the sacrifices people like Jason Grace have made for the larger good. The trogs are persuaded and decide to take Apollo and Meg to the Tower of Nero and the rest to the Greek fire reservoir. Just then the cows descend into the trog headquarters.

Apollo gets a trog child out of the way of a rampaging bull. One of the trogs asks him and Meg to follow him into the subterranean river by the headquarters. They swim to a dead end and emerge on a ledge. The trog begins to dig at the base of the facing rock wall they face till he’s cleared out a passage. He leads them to steps that will emerge right across from Nero’s tower.

The tower looks like any other sleek corporate building. Meg and Apollo walk in, are approved by a guard, and take an elevator to Nero’s imperial amphitheater. Nero’s adopted children, Germani guards, and baristas (close to potted plants) mill about. Next to Nero on the throne is Lu standing on crutches, her neck and leg encased in braces. Nero greets Meg with tenderness. He wonders what made Apollo surrender at this particular point in time. Nero turns to Lu and reveals he suspected a betrayal from her all along. Lu’s fall was staged. Nero knows of the campers’ plan to march on his tower. He asks one of his stepsons, Cassius, to punish Lu for her treachery by chopping off her hands. A horrified Cassius is forced to bring down his sword and amputate Lu’s hands.

Nero has Lu and Apollo thrown into the holding cell. He is sure they cannot get to his fasces as Lu is so badly injured. Meg is with Nero. Apollo can see Lu needs urgent medical aid. He notes that the guards have taken his bow and arrows from his backpack but not the medicines Will had stocked. Apollo sedates Lu with chloroform and cauterizes her wounds with a burst of divine energy. He feeds her ambrosia, the food of the gods, and divine nectar. Apollo passes out from exhaustion.

In his dream, Apollo is at a picnic table near Camp Jupiter with Jason Grace. Apollo apologizes to Jason for his death, but Jason tells him it was his own choice to stand up for the right and battle Caligula. Jason asks Apollo to beware the servant of Mithras, the caretaker of Nero’s fasces. There is a price that must be paid for bargaining with the guardian of the stars. Apollo wakes up, confused about Jason’s words. He finds Lu awake and looking better.

Gunther, a Germanus, taunts Lu and Apollo that Nero plans to burn down New York City tonight. After he leaves, Apollo tells Lu about his dream. Lu explains that Mithras is a fearsome Persian god. Nero probably got the guardian for the fasces from Mithras. The guardian has a lion’s face. Lu asks Apollo to tap into his gift for prophetic visions to reach out to Meg, Nico, and the others. Apollo goes off to sleep again.

In his slumber, Apollo rides a dream-chariot and arrives in Meg’s room, which she is trashing in protest. Nero enters the room and tries to pin Lu’s punishment on Meg. Lu is suffering because Meg rebelled against Nero. Despite Meg’s “mistake” (236), Nero promises never to abandon her. He also warns her that if she doesn’t accept her place in his household, he will unleash “the Beast” (237), his dark, punishing side. Before Apollo can gauge Meg’s response to Nero’s manipulation, the dream-chariot drops him inside the vault where Nero’s fasces is being guarded. The extraordinary energy pulsing from the axe makes Apollo realize it may have absorbed the powers of the slain emperors Commodus and Caligula, making Nero thrice as hard to kill. The guardian of the fasces is a leontocephaline created by Mithras. He a human with the face of a lion, his body encircled by a snake without head or tail. Apollo remembers Jason’s advice about bargaining with the guardian. Communicating with Apollo wordlessly, the leontecephaline indicates that Nero has promised him immortality for guarding the fasces. If Apollo can give up his immortality instead, the guardian will release the fasces. Apollo wakes up. He sees Lu has managed to tape a fork and a knife to the stumps of her hands, creating temporary weapons.

Apollo tells Lu that to destroy Nero he has to give up the immortality he has been chasing the last six months. Lu replies they will do whatever it takes to defeat Nero. Apollo and Lu taunt the Germanus Gunther as he passes by their cell. He takes the bait and steps in, slipping on the burn ointment Apollo has deliberately spread on the floor. Gunther faints, his body wedging the doors to the cell open. Apollo and Lu escape in the hall, knowing they are being watched by cameras. Lu tells Apollo to seek out Meg while she goes to the vault. Since Lu too may be immortal, as she has been alive for millennia, she may be able to bargain with the guardian. Apollo sprints away and finds his quiver and other weapons stashed in a room meant to hold the belongings of prisoners. He enters another room, which happens to be a control room crowded with Germani and technicians.