The Last Olympian

the metal from the magical poison that used to cover it. The tag was dated last summer. It read: Scimitar of Kampê, destroyed in the Battle of the Labyrinth .
    “You remember Briares throwing those boulders?” I asked.
    Annabeth gave me a grudging smile. “And Grover causing a Panic?”
    We locked eyes. I thought of a different time last summer, under Mount St. Helens, when Annabeth thought I was going to die, and she kissed me.
    She cleared her throat and looked away. “Prophecy.”
    “Right.” I put down the scimitar. “Prophecy.”
    We walked over to the window. On a three-legged stool sat the Oracle—a shriveled female mummy in a tie-dyed dress. Tufts of black hair clung to her skull. Glassy eyes stared out of her leathery face. Just looking at her made my skin crawl.
    If you wanted to leave camp during the summer, it used to be you had to come up here to get a quest. This summer, that rule had been tossed. Campers left all the time on combat missions. We had no choice if we wanted to stop Kronos.
    Still, I remembered too well the strange green mist—the spirit of the Oracle—that lived inside the mummy. She looked lifeless now, but whenever she spoke a prophecy, she moved. Sometimes fog gushed out of her mouth and created strange shapes. Once, she’d even left the attic and taken a little zombie stroll into the woods to deliver a message. I wasn’t sure what she’d do for the “Great Prophecy.” I half expected her to start tap dancing or something.
    But she just sat there like she was dead—which she was.
    “I never understood this,” I whispered.
    “What?” Annabeth asked.
    “Why it’s a mummy.”
    “Percy, she didn’t used to be a mummy. For thousands of years the spirit of the Oracle lived inside a beautiful maiden. The spirit would be passed on from generation to generation. Chiron told me she was like that fifty years ago.” Annabeth pointed at the mummy. “But she was the last.”
    “What happened?”
    Annabeth stared to say something, then apparently changed her mind. “Let’s just do our job and get out of here.”
    I looked nervously at the Oracle’s withered face. “So what now?”
    Annabeth approached the mummy and held out her palms. “O Oracle, the time is at hand. I ask for the Great Prophecy.”
    I braced myself, but the mummy didn’t move. Instead, Annabeth approached and unclasped one of its necklaces. I’d never paid too much attention to its jewelry before. I figured it was just hippie love beads and stuff. But when Annabeth turned toward me, she was holding a leather pouch—like a Native American medicine pouch on a cord braided with feathers. She opened the bag and took out a roll of parchment no bigger than her pinky.
    “No way,” I said. “You mean all these years, I’ve been asking about this stupid prophecy, and it’s been right there around her neck?”
    “The time wasn’t right,” Annabeth said. “Believe me, Percy, I read this when I was ten years old, and I still have nightmares about it.”
    “Great,” I said. “Can I read it now?”
    “Downstairs at the war council,” Annabeth said. “Not in front of . . . you know.”
    I looked at the glassy eyes of the Oracle, and I decided not to argue. We headed downstairs to join the others. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time I ever visited the attic.
     
    * * *
     
    The senior counselors had gathered around the Ping-Pong table. Don’t ask me why, but the rec room had become the camp’s informal headquarters for war councils. When Annabeth, Chiron, and I came in, though, it looked more like a shouting match.
    Clarisse was still in full battle gear. Her electric spear was strapped to her back. (Actually, her second electric spear, since I’d broken the first one. She called the spear “Maimer.” Behind her back, everybody else called it “Lamer.”) She had her boar-shaped helmet under one arm and a knife at her belt.
    She was in the midst of yelling at Michael Yew, the new head counselor for Apollo, which looked kind of funny since Clarisse was a foot taller. Michael had taken over the Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher died in battle last summer. Michael stood four-foot-six with another two feet of attitude. He reminded me of a ferret, with a pointy nose and scrunched-up features—either because he scowled so much or because he spent too much time looking down the shaft of an arrow.
    “It’s our loot!” he yelled, standing on his tiptoes so he could get in