A 1

“No,” Leo said through a forced smile.
Hazel rubbed her eyes and looked across the glittering green water. “Where are—oh…Wow.”
Piper followed her gaze and gasped. Without the cruise ship blocking their view, she saw a
mountain jutting from the sea less than half a mile to the north. Piper had seen impressive cliffs
before. She’d driven Highway 1 along the California coast. She’d even fallen down the Grand Canyon
with Jason and flown back up. But neither was as amazing as this massive fist of blinding white rock
thrust into the sky. On one side, the limestone cliffs were almost completely sheer, dropping into the
sea over a thousand feet below, as near as Piper could figure. On the other side, the mountain sloped
in tiers, covered in green forest, so that the whole thing reminded Piper of a colossal sphinx, worn
down over the millennia, with a massive white head and chest, and a green cloak over its back.
“The Rock of Gibraltar,” Annabeth said in awe. “At the tip of Spain. And over there—” She
pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills. “That must be Africa. We’re at the
mouth of the Mediterranean.”
The morning was warm, but Piper shivered. Despite the wide stretch of sea in front of them, she
felt like she was standing at an impassable barrier. Once in the Mediterranean—the Mare Nostrum—
they would be in the ancient lands. If the legends were true, their quest would become ten times more
dangerous.
“What now?” she asked. “Do we just sail in?”
“Why not?” Leo said. “It’s a big shipping channel. Boats go in and out all the time.”
Not triremes full of demigods, Piper thought.
Annabeth gazed at the Rock of Gibraltar. Piper recognized that brooding expression on her
friend’s face. It almost always meant that she anticipated trouble.
“In the old days,” Annabeth said, “they called this area the pillars of Hercules. The Rock was
supposed to be one pillar. The other was one of the African mountains. Nobody is sure which one.”