The Mark Of Athena

Knowing that “trickery and brains” are her only hope against Arachne, Annabeth thinks of the weaver’s fatal flaw, pride, and gets her talking about her tapestries (400). Annabeth mentions that she is redesigning Mount Olympus and says the tapestries belong on display there, where the gods can admire them. Arachne complains that Athena destroyed her best work since they “depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways” (402). Annabeth notes that the gods would enjoy tapestries that depict their divine antagonists in an unflattering light, goading Arachne with promises of revenge on Athena even sweeter than killing her favorite child. Annabeth would be her agent and see Arachne’s tapestries adorning the gods’ palaces. If she dies, and Gaea destroys the gods, however, they will never realize that Arachne was the better weaver.

When Annabeth shifts her weight, another crack opens in the floor. Arachne warns her about the fragility of the room, eaten away by the hatred boiling in Tartarus beneath them. Only Arachne’s webbing keeps the room together. Consumed with a desire to have her work displayed on Olympus, Arachne refuses to kill Annabeth, who says Arachne will have to create an audition piece, an abstract structure. She shows Arachne the design for an enormous version of Chinese handcuffs, but Arachne will have to use the webbing that currently wraps

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