CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

Master and Apprentice, Part 1

Sam blinked his eyes open to a high wooden ceiling, the sound of softly running water, and the strong smell of pines after the rain.

“Thank the gods... it wasn’t a dream,” he breathed a sigh of relief. “I really did escape that place.”

He shrugged off the shiver that came with the remembrance of that abyss he’d been trapped in with a little help from the sunlight filtering in through the curtains of the window to the right of the bed.

“But this means—”

Sam sat up and suddenly wished he hadn’t as the world seemed to tilt to the right.

“Ugh, vertigo…” He covered his eyes with the palm of his hand. “I should probably take it a little slow...”

“You think?” replied a snarky, gruff sounding voice Sam often heard inside his mind, which he was surprised to discover he now heard through the ears.

His gaze snapped toward that voice and found its owner idling by the door. He was a red-haired, shaggy-bearded man in a basketball training jersey from the waist up and a russet-haired stallion from the waist down.

“Chiron…” Sam breathed, “Y-you’re real?”

“Of course, I’m real, lame-brain.” Chiron whinnied, which sounded a lot like a scoff to Sam’s ears. “What, did you lose some intelligence points while you were stuck in the Shadow Veil?”

One of Sam’s eyebrows rose. “The... Shadow Veil?”

“It’s what we call the negative space between the regions of the Underworld…the labyrinthine crack in the fabric of space-time,” Chiron explained offhandedly.

“And... I was sent there?” Sam slumped against the bed rest. “Geez, I thought I’d fallen into Tartarus or someplace just as bad...”

“Believe me, kid; getting thrown into the primordial crack even the gods of creation can’t stitch together is nearly as horrible as being imprisoned in the worst place in all existence.” Chiron leaned his left shoulder against the door frame. “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t lose your mind while you were there.”

“I...” Sam’s cheeks flushed crimson as the thought of a certain blonde bombshell drifted across his mindscape. “I had things to remind me.”

“Uhuh,” Chiron chuckled knowingly.

The centaur wrapped his hands together as if in prayer and then puckered his lips while making kissing noises in the air.

“I like you,” Chiron said in a teasing voice. “Lol!”

Chiron laughed that familiar braying laugh Sam thought had been such a weird sound the first time he’d heard it. Not anymore though. He’d heard it way too much now to think of it as strange ever again.

“How did...” Sam’s cheeks turned red as apples. “...I thought you weren’t around then...?”

“Our connection came back around the time you were fumbling around on that bridge.” Chiron wiped a tear from his eye. He’d laughed that hard. “And I was just in time for you to fumble your confession, too... Holy Zeus, kid, I guess I should have taught you lesson number thirty-five sooner.”

Despite his chagrin, Sam couldn’t help but ask, “Thirty-five?”

“I call it the Attack of Opportunity!” Chiron answered enthusiastically. “Whether you’re in an ambush or part of a debate, there’s a perfect moment to strike for every occasion. You’ll sense it in the air or see it in the actions of those around you—and when you feel it, don’t be afraid to leap!”

“Um, I thought I was going to die... I think that’s pretty much THE moment,” Sam countered.

“More like ‘way past the moment’, lame-brain,” Chiron chuckled. “Besides, you didn’t die... so your point’s moot.”

“I... I didn’t die,” Sam repeated.

The realization that he survived his recent disastrous adventure washed over Sam all at once, causing his chest to tighten fiercely. He lowered his face because he didn’t want Chiron to notice the tears welling up in his eyes.

Although the centaur liked to tease his apprentice, Chiron said nothing while he watched Sam’s shoulders shake, and the master waited patiently for the hero to reclaim his cool.

After his panic attack had run its course, Sam raised his head to ask a question that had suddenly popped up in his brain. “That thing that was in the Shadow Veil with me—”

“I heard about your new pen pal, but no, that bastard wasn’t actually in there with you,” Chiron corrected. “The voice in the Shadow Veil was no more than a sliver of consciousness belonging to something that’s trapped in the deepest pit of Tartarus.”

“That was...” Remembering the cold wave of dark energy that slammed into him just before his escape, Sam repressed a shudder. “...just a sliver?”

“The cracks of the Shadow Veil reach into even the most desolate places of creation... think of it as the perfect smuggler’s network for bad juju to make its way from one plane into another,” Chiron explained with a furrowed brow. “A being with enough strength could send their wills through it and share their intent with lesser, like-minded idiots.”

A shadow passed over Chiron’s face as he said that last bit.

“Consider yourself lucky, kid... if the Gigantes was actually in there with you then it would have eaten your annoying little butt before Apollo could find you,” Chiron added.

That was a sobering thought, one that made Sam grateful his patron turned out to be a little more reliable than he believed the god would be.

“H-how...how long was I gone?” Sam asked.

“A week,” Chiron replied.

“Just a week... Seriously?” Sam asked surprised. “It…it felt like months...”

“The passage of time’s weird in places like the Shadow Veil so your sense of it would naturally be messed up,” Chiron explained.

“I have to find—”

“No, you’re not going anywhere right now,” Chiron interrupted.

“But the mission—”

“Will still be here by the time you finish changing.” The centaur pointed to the chest by the foot of Sam’s bed. “You’ll find some spare gear in there. Get changed and then meet me outside.”

Chiron retreated through the open door and left before Sam could ask him more questions.

“You could have at least told me how my friends were doing,” Sam sighed.

He felt the fatigue wash over him the moment he got up from the stiff bed Chiron had put him in. It was as if there were thick weight bags strapped to his arms and legs, and his muscles were suddenly straining against the gravity of the mortal plane.

“You’d think Regeneration would have healed me up by now,” Sam wondered aloud.

But his power hadn’t healed him completely, and that was worrisome for Sam, who, after tapping on the patch of air in front of him, found he couldn’t summon Triple-A’s interface either.

He frowned. “That’s...weird.”

Sam stumbled toward the chest, opened it, and discovered to his immense delight that some of his equipment had survived his recent ordeal. His suit was gone, which he expected, but seeing his old-school utility belt and Onus still strapped to it looking relatively unscathed sent a thrill rising to Sam’s chest.

“Thank the gods.” He pulled these items out of the chest. “I wouldn’t know what I’d do if I lost you guys...”

He glanced over to the door and made sure Chiron was nowhere in sight before he hugged these items tightly to his chest.

“Yup, it’s official... I’m a hoarder,” Sam chuckled.

He searched the chest a second time and found the Mask of the Argonaut and the Grappling Bracers were both in there, too. Underneath these items was armor Sam hadn’t seen before. It was of a kind with such an old-school design that he imagined it would have fit in perfectly with the other Greek displays that the Trickster had destroyed when he burned the Met’s ancient Greek wing more than a month ago.

“Seriously, I’m supposed to wear this?” he raised the leather muscle cuirass to his eye level. “This thing has more abs than I do...”

A thin plating of bronze covered each half of the armor’s breast area while another two bronze bands covered the shoulder blades on its back. Two straps and buckles at the sides and two more on the shoulders attached both sides of the armor to a person’s upper body.

Sam’s boots were gone too. He could vaguely recall them burning away during his fight with Medea’s dragon. In their place, however, were Greek-style sandals and knee-high, leather-lined, bronze greaves similar to Thunder’s boots.

“I have a bad feeling about this...” he sighed.

This bad feeling only continued to grow as Sam strapped on this ancient armor over the white linen cloth pajamas Chiron had dressed him in while he’d been unconscious. He didn’t bother with the tasset belt that came with the cuirass, opting instead to wrap his reliable utility belt around his waist.

“I feel like I’m about to visit a Spartan-themed renaissance fair,” Sam said while he eyed his reflection in the mirror hanging by the wall. “Um, can I get an overview of this armor’s stats, Triple-A?”

Seconds ticked by while he waited, but a full minute passed and Triple-A remained silent. This was indeed very worrisome because Sam had become reliant on the system’s descriptions.

He frowned. “I have a really bad feeling about this...”

Sam hoped Gram would be in the chest too, but it was empty now. He couldn’t help grimacing at the thought of losing such a powerful relic as the dragon-slayer sword.

“And I was on the cusp of becoming an apprentice blade-master too,” he grumbled.

Sam moved over to the door and took one final look at the wooden paneled room he’d been recuperating in.

“I’m really back,” he said, in an almost disbelieving tone. Then he walked out the door to search for his master with one final thought on his lips. “It feels like a training montage is about to begin.”