Theseus and the Minotaur, Part Three

For my weekly post I bring you the final installment of “Theseus and the Minotaur.”

If you haven’t read the earlier parts of the story, here are links to Part One and Part Two.

This is a long one, leading up to the climax in the story, and it didn’t feel like there were natural breaks to fade out and bring the rest of the story to you next week. I’ll be sharing soon a way to download the entire story so you can read it all together in your e-reader.

Here, Theseus meets the Minotaur and discovers he is not at all what he expected. In fact, I had a really hard time finding an illustration to go with this excerpt since — without giving too much away — I envisioned the Minotaur quite differently from the way he is depicted in classical and fantasy artwork. But I did like this drawing by 19th century British artist Edward Burne-Jones. It captures a bit of what’s happening in the following scenes.

IN THE MORNING, a horn blared from the tower of the king’s palace, and then the pounding of a drum awoke from somewhere inland. Theseus joined his crew to look up to the promontory above the beach. They watched in silence while a procession of priests, led by a drummer, descended the roadway to collect the prince for the contest.

Theseus bid farewell to his crew, who were to wait for him by their ship. One by one, the sailors gripped his arm, some of them misty eyed, a touching display that made him feel ashamed of the secret he concealed. Theseus had told no one of his pact with Ariadne. He had said, in brief, the princess had come to bestow well wishes, some custom of fair play in her fancy country. Lying went against his nature. He had sewn a deep fraternity with the sailors, each one of them a volunteer to see him through his journey to Crete.

He feared however if he spoke the truth, the men would raise their voices against the promise he had made. They were all proud Athenians. Some would distrust the foreign princess generally, and others might doubt they could sail off with her without detection, but instead restoke a war they had come to end.

Theseus had not decided himself what to make of Ariadne, but he knew for sure if the plot was exposed, overheard while they argued about it on the beach, he would have no chance of besting the king at his contest. He had to put his mind to killing the Minotaur and emerging from the labyrinth, not just for his own sake but for the children who would be sent for sacrifice.

The priests led him through the cobbled streets surrounding the palace. Throngs of townspeople had gathered to look upon the man who was bold enough to face the Minotaur. The drummer sounded a slow and steady beat, and a mixture of commotion broke out while the prince passed by. Some cursed at him, turned down their thumbs, and called out taunts. Others cheered and tossed at him seashell garlands, some token of good luck, he supposed. Theseus stood tall throughout the display. Even if it was his last act upon the earth, he would show the rowdy foreigners the honorable nature of Athenian men.

The procession led into a grand arena where noblemen and women filled the stands. They were no less boisterous than their peasant counterparts, whether hailing him as a traitor or urging on his victory in a bloodthirsty way. The priests brought him to the middle of the stage where he saw a round stone, the span of a man’s arms, laid in the very center like the slab to a crypt. Next to it, a bell hung from a post. Theseus figured that must comprise the entrance to the labyrinth. The bell was attached to a thin rope, which disappeared into the earth, and must be used by a contestant to signal he had slayed the Minotaur. The round slab was etched with arcane glyphs, some story of the challenge that laid within as best as Theseus could say.

He spotted the king and his family beneath an eaved grandstand across the arena. Staring at Minos, he did not cede an ounce of doubt he would be victorious. Then, the sight of Ariadne drew his attention. He glanced at her for just a breath lest their acquaintance show on either of their faces. She held herself together well, no more or less interested in the spectacle than she should be. The queen sat solemnly beside her husband, disguised in her black veil.

The crowd erupted when the high priest came out to the arena. For the first time that morning, Theseus felt dread in his bones. If what the princess had said was true, the high priest was a traitor to his king, devising a moppet for her escape. Strangely, impossibly, that meant his presiding over the contest was a show. He knew that Theseus would slay the Minotaur? Or he at least expected it?

If so, he was an expert showman. He strode toward Theseus with an enlivened gaze. Theseus looked back at him defiantly. Whatever the priest’s motives, his god was as an enemy to Athens, and the young prince despised the notion of taking part in a ceremony to honor him. While he studied the priest, Theseus wondered of a darker conspiracy. What if the man had lied to Ariadne and would reveal her betrayal after the contest?

Theseus could do nothing while hundreds of people in the arena looked on. The high priest took a place in the center and gazed across the stands, powerful and grim in his bull horn headdress. He raised his fist to the sky and intoned an incantation to the god. His voice grew ever louder, ever more fervent, mad with passion. The spectators looked to the heavens and cried out Poseidon’s name. Theseus half-expected the sky to cleave open and the angry, bearded face of the god to appear. His lungs shrunk from the rumble of thunder. He breathed again when he realized it was a priest drumming again. It was time for the contest to begin.

A pair of strongarms came over to slide the rounded slab aside, revealing an earthen stairwell. It was as grim as the portal to the underworld must be. The high priest smiled at Theseus inscrutably and gestured to the stairwell.

He spoke, “Should he return ‘fore nightfall, it shall be by the god’s blessing, and he shall have his freedom. Should he not, his soul shall belong to Poseidon.”

~

THE SUBTERRANEAN maze was as cold as a crypt and as dark as the deepest hour of night. A single torch, ensconced at the landing of the stairwell, awaited Theseus. He listened to the slab scrape shut above him, as thick and heavy as a grindstone, and he took down the torch to orient himself.

The roar of the arena extinguished all at once. The first thing he thought to do was to look in all directions and listen very keenly. Surely the beast that warded the keep had hearkened to the scraping of the door, seen a spray of light entering its lair. Yet Theseus heard no bestial sounds, no clop of hooves on what looked like an earthen floor. The labyrinth was veiled in an eternal silence. Theseus could feel a faint current of air and see a few steps around himself, but his senses told him nothing more.

The princess had said the monster kept to the very heart of the maze. Better to find it before it found him. He pointed his torch in three directions: to his right, to his left, and in front of him. Each way was a dusky, stone-walled passage with no markings of a trap that he could see.

Straight ahead would seem to lead to the center of the keep. He felt for his father’s blade, which was holstered at his hip, and then he peered once more into the passage before him.

The torch laid bare a solid floor and stone and mortar walls for a yard or two. Well, his quest would require a process of elimination. That way ahead seemed still and empty.

Eager to get on with it, he ventured forward a few steps before catching himself and retreating. Fool! He was so lightheaded and restless, he had forgotten the tool the princess had given him.

Theseus drew a breath and fumbled out the bobbin of string he had concealed inside his armor. Pitting the torch back in its holder for the moment, he found the end of the string and wound it to the fixture, tying it fast with a knot. The gods knew, he would need to find his way back. After killing the Minotaur, he was to take its collar, climb the stairs, and pull the bell rope to hail his victory.

Now, Theseus retook his torch, used his other hand to mind the bobbin, and traversed the floor to one side of the artery in front of him. Ariadne had told him to keep to the walls. Mainly. He inched forward along one side of the passage while his heartbeat drummed in his ears, and his throat grew as dry as bone. With his attention divided between holding the torch in front of him to see his steps and minding the string, he was no more prepared to fight off an enemy than a blind man with his wrists bound at his sides. Yet he had thought he could stalk the monster, following it unseen, waiting to enact an ambush. What an impossible feat that would be!

As he shuffled forward, he noticed a shadowy shape on the floor ahead of him. His heartbeat quickened, and the muscles of his shoulders strung up tight. It looked to be far too small to be a man-bull, but he did not relish encountering any denizen of the pitch-black hold, nor some deadly snare. Yet the only way forward was past that murky thing.

He stared at the strange obstacle. It appeared to be still. Perhaps it was something harmless like a large rock, crumbled from the wall. He kept tight to one side of the passageway, imagined the quick motion of dropping the bobbin and unsheathing his blade, and he stepped nearer. His shoulder brushed against a spur in the cobbled wall.

A stone he had touched cratered into the wall, and then Theseus heard a ratcheting, like the movement of a gear. He ducked to the floor and made himself small just in time. The blade of a giant axe, thick and wide enough to behead a man, swung over the place where he had stood. He felt the rush of its momentum over his head. He nearly scalded himself with the torch, gripped tightly against the ground lest he lose hold of it. The axe clanged horribly against the wall and swung back over him for another deadly attack.

Theseus winced, squinted up, and held himself motionless until the weapon gradually came to a stop like a pendulum. He gingerly righted himself to examine the trap. It was fastened to a cord and must have been released from the opposite wall by a mechanism he had triggered.

He shone his torch down both ends of the passageway. If the beast had not noticed his arrival before, it certainly had now. He still could not see anything in either direction, nor did he hear the slightest sound.

His gaze passed over the floor, and his chest froze over with ice. The object he had been approaching looked terribly familiar now. He ducked beneath the axe and shone his torch on the floor to see. Yes, it was a human skull, cleaved from the neck. He saw its skeleton on the floor nearby. Both had turned dry and brittle, flesh and tendon shrunken from the bone completely. The unlucky fellow must have perished years ago. He had only made it a few yards from the entrance to the labyrinth.

The prince took a moment to draw full breaths, tasting the dank air again. The underground maze was maniacal. He would have to be supremely alert and supremely quick to avoid its fatal traps. All the while staying apprised of the movements of a man-beast, who, by its perfect silence, was likely stalking him.

So it was. Theseus crept forward intrepidly. After his scare with the axe, he felt even more determined to foil the king’s plans to kill him.

The passageway led to a crossing where he must choose right or left. Once again, he could see and hear nothing to recommend his direction. He favored right where he could corner the wall he was treading without trying his step on the center of the floor. If he could remember each turn he made, he could at least envision his position in the stone-walled maze and perhaps avoid arriving back where he had started. Otherwise, he would end up circling the same quadrant past nightfall. Theseus took shallow steps forward, raising his torch at his shoulder, staring at and listening to the hollow of shadow he was entering.

Some pebbles were strewn on the floor. That gave him an idea, and he could think of no reason to disavow it. He had already trumpeted his arrival, had he not? Theseus reached down and gathered a handful of pebbles in his hand, and then he tossed them down the passageway. They clinked against the ground and disappeared in a void of shadow. Theseus followed them at a brisker pace. He foraged some scrabble again and tossed it ahead.

The little stones skated along the floor, and then came an eruption that made Theseus stoop down and shield his face with both his arms. A few yards ahead, the ceiling of the labyrinth had yawned open like a miner’s chute, and an avalanche of skull-sized rocks buried the passageway. Some rolled all the way to his feet. A gritty fog belched out from the floor-to-ceiling pile of rubble.

He did not dare to move a muscle for a while. His heart was in his throat, and he had seen his life pass in front of his eyes. Recognizing he was intact, and the ceiling seemed to have expelled every rock in its deadly lode, he allowed himself to wipe his eyes, which stung from the dusty air.

He passed his torch over the stone-fall and marveled at the ingenious trap. It must have been triggered by the faint weight of the pebbles he had thrown. He would have been crushed beneath the avalanche. Every bone in his body would have been broken. Now the way ahead was clogged with rocks. But he perceived passages to his left and his right.

Sprouting sweat from his adventure so far, he ventured into the left passageway since the right would turn him around the way he had come. His idea with the pebbles turned into somewhat of a game. He threw some down the corridor and triggered a plate dropping open in the floor. When he edged close to behold that trap, he felt heat rising against his face, smelled smoke, and glimpsed ruby embers deep below. It was a pit of coals on which a man would be burned alive.

Later, a throw sent the walls ahead sprouting spears that would impale a passerby from either side. Theseus crawled beneath that obstacle, noticing spear heads stained with dried, darkened blood. The labyrinth was the invention of a mad man. How many engineers must the king have hired to construct it? How many methods had he imagined to kill its victims? Theseus passed by another corpse while he wound through the prison’s arteries. The fallen man was not as decomposed as the first one he had found, and for that, even more gory with his skin stretched around his bones turned blue-grey and putrid. His gut and limbs had been gnawed away by rats. At another pass, his pebbles triggered open a trap door, which was so impenetrable and still, it brought to mind a plummet to the center of the earth.

He wound around another corner to his right, and keeping to his pebble game, he gathered some cracked mortar from the wall to make a throw. When he sent it down the passage, the ceiling creaked open some three strides away.

At first, it was too dark to see what peril had been released. Something, or some things, had fallen to the floor, but whatever it was, the landing on the floor had been light, unsubstantial.

Theseus shuddered from a familiar sound. He shone his torch ahead to see. Shadows wriggled on the floor, and he heard that awful hiss again. Yes, it was an ambush of snakes, some two dozen, and poisonous for certain based on the tastes of the bloodthirsty king.

He dropped his bobbin, drew his sword. At least he had the opportunity now to use his weapon. Theseus hacked the snakes aside, grimacing and hopping around as he stepped deeper into the horde. The stubborn ones crested and snarled at him, better for catching them with his blade in fact. The fainthearted ones slithered away, finding hidden cracks in the walls. When he satisfied himself he had cleared the way, Theseus hunched over himself and gathered his breath. Though exhausting, it was good to have had the chance to exercise his weapon.

The labyrinth was still again. Curiosity pulled Theseus to look up. There had to be a vein above, through which some villain had brought the snakes. He raised the torch overhead, bringing light into the cavity from which the deadly creatures had fallen. It looked like the space was enclosed in a manner to cage the snakes, albeit with a trap floor so they could be released. Theseus turned to the wall of the passageway, sorting out footholds so that he might investigate further.

He climbed up the wall a few feet where he could rest one arm inside the ceiling cavity, shine his torch around, and look here and there. As he had supposed, the space was closed in on four sides (and it was foul with the stench of snakes). An earthen roof finished the enclosure. He stretched a hand and touched the side nearest him. It felt like wood and made a hollow knock. Bracing himself against the wall, he struck out with his fist, bending nails from wood, and then tearing down a plank.

It was too dark to see much of what he had revealed, but Theseus felt at once a current of air, balmier than below, slightly sour. Could it be the breath of the sea? Perhaps from a distance. The arena had not been such a long walk away from the shore. The king could have constructed an underground tunnel through which goods could be brought into his labyrinth: its crushing rocks, its weapons, its slithering beasts. Theseus noticed then granules of sand. Yes, a man had trod from the beach. For a moment, the prince was beguiled by the prospect of exploring the tunnel. He could uncover its devices from the safety of above, perhaps even trace the way to freedom on the beach.

Theseus’s better instincts held him back. He had to find the Minotaur. Exploring the overhead vault might only waste his time. If he did not complete the contest by nightfall, he was doomed to live out his days in the labyrinth. Plotting a way out would make him a coward and a traitor.

He climbed down, retook the bobbin from the floor, and ventured deeper into the labyrinth.

As he skulked along, he did hearken to some noises in the crypt, his senses now attuned to the subterranean habitat. Though those sounds did not account for much: the far-off rustle of vermin, a pebble clinking from crumbling mortar, the infinite voice of the vast maze, as air echoes within a deep cavern. He threaded the passageways, surely for half a day it seemed, and uncovered more traps, another skeleton; and he had to retrace his steps twice, encountering dead ends. Increasingly, he worried he was making little progress, merely forging a circuitous trail through the damnable maze. The bobbin had nearly reached its end. The torch had burned down to a flame of orange and blue, almost drained of fuel. He spent more time at crossroads, blindly judging a stingy route.

And then he came to a hollow of shadow, which was so wide, the light of his torch could not lay bare its boundaries.

~

THESEUS HELD himself silent for a moment. The dimensions of the chamber surely signified something, whether a pit lay in its center for him to trip into or (could it finally be?) his trail had led him to the heart of the labyrinth. Casting his gaze here and there, he regretted he had so few markers with which to judge. But, oh yes, that looked like straw scattered on the ground, such as could make a kind of bedding. And, oh yes, a familiar scent traveled to his nostrils, which spoke of habitation, as a house held onto the peculiar smell of its occupants, bare feet upon the floorboards, odors seeped into leftover clothes and bedsheets. This scent he would describe as hide and the earthy smell of a man freshly woken from a night’s sleep. He stood on guard, thinking about how quickly he could wield his sword. Now, he heard breaths. Not slumbering breaths but more carefully measured, like a man (or creature?) concealing itself in the shadows.

Switching out the bobbin for his sword, he staggered forward a few paces, pointing his torch ahead of him.

He called out: “Show yourself, and let us end this game.”

A daring vow that overplayed his true grit. For when a shadow rose from the floor, towering a head taller than he, and a murky silhouette lurched toward him, the prince could only hold his ground, transfixed by the adversary he had summoned. Twisted horns sprouting from an impossibly broad and jutting forehead. The shoulder-span and thickly muscled torso of a demi-god. The creature was entirely bare from its bulging chest to its manhood to its thick, crushing thighs. Bowlegged by its anatomy, it walked upright with powerful strides, only slightly clumsy on its hooves.

“You’ve come to smite me?” it said. A further terror: It spoke. Yet in a voice more human than Theseus would have imagined. Deep and virile, as befitted its proportions. Theseus stared back at its black-eyed, challenging gaze. He could not produce a word at first. The Minotaur curled its mouth. “If you are such an adventurer, I should like to know your name before you try your sword against me.”

Theseus threw back a foot, bent his knees in a defensive stance, and wielded his sword, one-handed, at his shoulder. “I am Theseus of Attica,” he said. “Son of Aegeus. Prince of Athens. Enemy of Crete.”

The Minotaur cocked its head slightly. A strange gesture for a man-eating monster. Though its horns, its size, its physicality spoke of dominance, destruction, it did not seem to be tensed for battle. By the heaving of its chest, it looked as though it might be just as surprised by its discovery as Theseus.

“What is Attica?” it said.

“A land far from here. Across the Aegean Sea.” Theseus felt queer. He had not come for conversation. His gaze passed over the leather collar around the creature’s neck, and he steeled himself. “Your father declared war on us. As did your god. I have come to end it.”

He rushed at the monster with his blade outstretched, ready to hack. For a moment, he thought he had caught his enemy off guard. Then, in a blur, the Minotaur struck out and caught his sword arm in its hand with an impossible strength. Theseus fought to free himself, and then the hilt of his blade slipped from his hand, and his only weapon clanged on the floor behind him. The monster held him in an iron grip. He twisted the prince’s arm and shoved him back. The force of it was so powerful, Theseus barely managed stay on his two legs and not drop his torch.

When he next looked up, the creature came at him again. Now, he looked distinctly peeved (and the Minotaur was no longer “it” in the prince’s head. Theseus had expected to find a man-beast in equal parts, or perhaps a creature more beast than man. He had found instead an adversary with human intelligence, the capacity to speak, composed of human flesh but for twisted horns and hooves. It was he.).

“What do you know of my father?’ he roared. “What do you know of my god?”

Theseus pivoted around, anticipating a strike, unable to take his eyes off of his challenger in favor of searching for his blade, which he desperately needed.

The Minotaur rounded him. “Speak,” he demanded. “You’ve come a long way to tell me about my origins. Would you stop now?”

“Your stepfather, I meant,” Theseus said. “The King. He is my enemy. As are you.”

The Minotaur snorted. “Yes, stepfather,” he said. “My warden. He is no father to me. Would a father keep his son in a cold, dark crypt, Prince Theseus?”

Theseus supposed it would not be so, though Minos doled out miseries rather liberally. He was surprised to hear the creature call him by his name. Judging the space around him, the creature’s reach, he could see no opening for an attack—with only his bare hands? A spree to escape the creature was slightly more plausible. Strangely, it seemed like the Minotaur was more interested in pinning him into a conversation than striking out.

“I will have justice,” he snarled. “Your country has terrorized my people and driven us to starvation.”

The Minotaur looked over the prince from foot to head. “You do not look so badly used, nor fed.”

“I have been chosen as my country’s champion.” Gods, his voice had cracked like a petulant boy. Theseus tried to shake it off. “Your father, I mean Minos is a child-murderer. If I do not succeed, Athens must send him fourteen children to enter the labyrinth.”

“Children? Well, Minos is a master of cruelty. And you: an unlucky victim. I do not answer for King Minos’s nature nor his crimes.”

Theseus’s eyes flared. His impartial acquittal of the matter was vexing, seemed mocking. “Are you not the lord of this den?” Theseus waved his torch arm around. “Is this not your house? Your hunting ground?”

A mirthless smile came back at him. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Though it would be too much to say the prince regretted his words, he was in an instant aware he had unleased a fury, to which he possessed no equal reprisal, from an opponent who stood much taller and broader than he, and had pointed horns.

The Minotaur overtook the space between them and railed, “Yes, I am your beast. Your Minotaur. Tremble before me as men have done since the day of my birth. Dread monster. Man-eater, they call me. Hated by all who behold my horns. Banished to this underworld lest women faint and children cry from the sight of me. Scourge of the earth, so foul it entraps men to dine on their bones. Are you not afraid, Prince Theseus?”

Indeed he was while the creature lorded over him, so near, the breaths from his nostrils fanned the young prince’s face (and though Theseus had awarded a degree of humanity to the creature in thinking of him as male, he could only reckon him as otherworldly: a creature, not a man). It was not the epithets of which the creature spoke that held him impotent. Naturally, Theseus had heard them before, and having seen now the creature himself, that story had lost its allure, its delicious terror. But the bite, the bile of his speech, spawned from multitudes of acrimony, that was scalding, and he did not know what destruction would come of it.

He could think of only one thing to say. “I am not afraid.”

The creature’s long-lashed eyes widened. He scowled, scuffed his hooves, snorted. “You’ve come for death, but you do not have the means to do it. I’ve no interest in killing you. Be gone then.”

Now, Theseus’s eyes widened. Of all the possibilities he had imagined, this? The creature bullied forward, forcing Theseus toward the entrance of the chamber. “Be gone,” he shouted again. Theseus shrunk his face into his neck. He felt the creature back away, warily. When he next looked up, he had turned to retreat into the darkened end of the chamber. “Tell your tale,” he said over his shoulder. “Receive your prize. Let the world sing your victory and know what horrors you have seen.”

Theseus refound his blade on the floor. Though what use was it? He had found the challenger he must defeat, but the creature did not want to fight, had done him no harm. That left the prince with just the option of trying to creep up on him and stab him in the back as a vandal would take advantage of a passing stranger. “I cannot leave,” he called out before the Minotaur would disappear in shadow. Were those scars on his powerful back, deep and jagged as from the lashes of a whip?

The creature halted, cocked his head.

Theseus pointed down his blade and stepped gently toward him. “I cannot leave without proof of my success.” His companion turned to face him, frowned moodily. “Please,” Theseus persisted. “I will not be released without it. And then the children will be sent for sacrifice.”

They locked eyes. Something in that bold account of one another made both skirt their gazes. When Theseus next ventured to look upon him, the creature’s powerful arms were bent, elbows pointed out, while his hands worked to unlatch the fastenings behind his collar. He removed it from his neck and was all at once completely deprived of the sparest possession. He tossed the collar to the prince.

Theseus caught it in his free hand. The creature receded into a hollow of shadow. The prince ought to have been joyous. He had his victory and his freedom, and he would save the lives of his countrymen’s daughters and sons. Yet he could not find the will to move his feet.

“Wait,” he called out. “You are right. I have no means to kill you, while you have the strength to do so in a thousand ways. Let me thank you for your charity. I would like to hear your story. You are not the beast that people say you are.”

The Minotaur said nothing for a while. Theseus hoped he had not offended him.

“Come,” he said at last, retaking his retreat deeper into the chamber, waving Theseus along. “There’s water. Nothing to eat, I regret. But we can sit if you dare to dally in my company.”

~

THE PRINCE followed him to a corner of the chamber where there were banks of straw as befitted a prisoner’s cell. He also saw a collection of torches, which he presumed were gathered from failed contestants. King Minos had installed no light in the labyrinth other than the single torch he provided for its victims.

The creature drew up in front of him, looking to Theseus’s torch, awaiting his permission, and then he took the smoldering torch, which was nearly spent, and used it to light one of his own, which was still thick with tar. He posted it on a hoop in the wall, filling their corner of the chamber with soft, flickering light. Then he pushed over a bucket into the space they shared. The handle of a ladle stuck out of it, and the prince thought he saw water. He also noticed on the floor a bowl, caked with the residue of some manner of gruel, such as a jailor would leave for a prisoner. Apparently, the Minotaur did not feast on the flesh of men as was said.

This nook where the creature lived smelled strongly of him. Theseus was not offended by that odor, though it triggered an instinctual panic, like he had been swallowed into the creature’s world. Perhaps he was not a man-eater, but surely it was reasonable to be on guard, was it not? Their meeting had turned out so unexpected, the prince was not sure what to think. He held the creature’s collar of coarse leather, which he had given freely, and the creature (the man’s?) handling of him thus far bespoke of a domesticated, even generous nature.

Meanwhile, his companion’s bearing seemed routine, if a bit wary. He took a seat on a bank of straw with his knees tented together, contriving a sort of privacy. Theseus sat down next to him. The man pushed the ladle toward him, and Theseus scooped up a drink. The water was somewhat stale, but he was grateful for it.

“Why would you spare me?” he asked.

“I’ve no interest in my stepfather’s quarrels. Cyprus. Ileum. Athens. Those are his wars, not mine.”

Theseus looked around. “Then what is all this? This labyrinth of death.”

“You think I favor this habitat, Prince? Would even an animal prefer to live beneath the ground, to never see the light of day?” Theseus had not thought about it like that.

“Tell me: how did it come to be?” he asked. Theseus glanced askew. What he meant but could not say: how did you come to be?

His companion looked down at his outstretched hands, glanced at his hooves. “You would hear a monster’s tale? Perhaps you will judge it so once it’s through,” he began. “’Tis true: I was born of bull and man. My father came from the island of Euboea. I’ve nothing of him. No heirlooms. Scarcely a tale. Though I think sometimes I belong more to his kind than to my mother’s.” He turned down his palms, clasped his knees, shifted a bit. “When King Minos was younger, he set anchor at Euboea, in search of auguries. He was haunted by a dream of a white bull, sent to him by the god Poseidon. That, he estimated, was a sign he was destined to rule the world. In an Euboean pasture, he found my father, and perhaps he was snow-white as the legend goes. Though much of legend cannot be trusted I’ve come to understand. Maybe then he was just a bull as ordinary as any other, but one who Minos could trap. The king took him back to Crete and hailed him as Poseidon’s gift, His promise. He was to be sacrificed to the god to fulfill the portents of the king’s vision.”

Theseus watched the man’s face. He had turned timid, hiding one half of himself in shadow while he spoke. Every expression of his was familiar, even appealing, and cast aside the image of a monster, which the prince had created in his head.

“My mother never wanted me,” he went on. “She is as much a victim of my history as any other. There was a tale about her. I’ll never know if it was true. Man has such a lively imagination. It tends toward depravity and scandal. They say she had an affair with the king’s high priest while Minos was away. Some tell it as a love story. More say it as an indictment of her character. I prefer neither. She never bore the man any children, so where’s the proof of it at all?” He scuffed one hoof against the floor. “Well, this is the rumor then. When Minos returned, my mother broke it off with the priest. Whether she loved him no more or did not wish to risk her queenship, the reason depends on the rumor-teller. They say the high priest was enraged, and that part I believe. He hated my mother for spurning him and hated the king for taking her away. Thus, when he saw my father, the Euboean bull, he devised a plot and a sorcery to ruin them.”

Now Theseus knit his hands together, ever more anxious to hear.

“I had a kind keeper for a while when I was a child. An old man, perhaps as starved for companionship as I. He would linger when he brought my meal and tell me somewhat of the world. He said it was a potion the priest gave to my mother, some concoction he had learned from a wizard of the Orient. My sister, who took a morbid fascination in me, wondering if I could be bettered by learnings, a girlish amusement I suppose, she used to sneak away to tell me stories from behind the bars of my pen. She taught me how to speak and a bit of how to read and write. For that I might be grateful, though her visits always came with sharp edges. A barb about my ugliness. Laughter at my failings. It was enough to snip off any bond that might have grown between us.”

He gazed off thoughtfully, and a wry glimmer sparked in his eyes. “Ariadne had a most inventive tale about the priest’s magic. She said a songbird appeared on a windowsill and woke my mother from her bed in the middle of the night. It flew away, and my mother, thinking it was a messenger of the gods, she went to follow it. The magicked bird led her through the palace, onto the grounds, and all the way to my father’s stable, where he set upon her and forced her with child.”

That struck Theseus as the cruelest of stories an older sister could tell her brother. Recall: the prince was an only child and thereby unacquainted with the brutal nature of siblinghood. Meanwhile, his companion continued impartially.

“Whatever the enchantments, the methods, I was sewn inside my mother. When I grew enough to announce myself, she and Minos had no reason to believe it was anything more than a blessed event. My mother’s memory of the night was washed away. My father had been slaughtered and could not speak of his part even if he had lived. They say the kingdom celebrated my arrival with great joy and anticipation. Minos only had one son and one daughter, which was not much for a man who claimed to rule the world one day.”

A thin smile from that bit of wit. Then, perhaps in contemplation of where the story must lead, the Minotaur dropped his gaze.

“I try to picture sometimes what my birth must have been like. They say no man can remember back that far, whether the violence shocks the memory from us, or we lose the sights, the sounds from the passage of time. It must have been horrific.

“There, the physicians and midwives assembled around my mother to calm her. There, the king, perhaps slightly alarmed at the severity of his wife’s duress, yet nonetheless, eager to feast his eyes on the sight of his child. There, his court officials, called to witness the nativity of the prince or princess who might one day succeed the king. And then, the unimaginable delivery. A gray baby with the buds of horns on its head and hooves for feet. It was said my sharpened parts tore my mother apart. Her bleeding could not be stopped, and I drank her blood after her death. It was said the king cried out to have me killed, but he was restrained by his high priest. He insisted I was Poseidon’s miracle and no harm could come to me, lest the god punish the kingdom.”

His eyes found Theseus for a breath. “I would like to remember. I would like to know precisely how the priest portrayed himself when he looked upon his creation. Could he hide his delight at reaping the reward of his subterfuge? Or had he doubted just a little it would come to pass and shielded his eyes like all the others, or did he weep for my mother?” He looked to the prince again. “Is it possible for any man to withhold so much while watching his beloved die?”

The image held Theseus spellbound for a moment. It warranted words of comfort though he doubted himself just then. He did not want to appear womanly, nor to imply his companion was the sort of man who should be pitied. What then could he say? Words of righteous reprisal? He hated the priest. Should he say so? Even that sentiment left Theseus unable to bring his thoughts forward. The priest was responsible for his companion coming into the world, nearly a father by the manner in which he had engineered it. All the players in King Minos’s court shifted in the prince’s mind, taking on a different valence, a mire of complexity. He did not want to insult his companion, espousing to have the authority to judge them. One, however, needed to be rapidly explained.

“But the queen,” he said.

The Minotaur gave him a quiet smile. “You have seen her?”

“Yes. In the king’s great hall. And only just this morning in the arena.”

“My mother died over eighteen years ago. What you have seen is an invention. An imposter, designed by the priest.”

Theseus recalled Ariadne’s plan to deceive her father. “A moppet!” he said. His companion nodded. The queen had been veiled and deathly still. As in mourning. It never would have entered the prince’s head to question whether or not she was real. Theseus marveled over the priest’s diabolism.

“For eighteen years, he has used a moppet to stand in for the queen? What of all the people who saw her death? The king himself!”

“Sworn to secrecy. And others: dead. The priest’s next conspiracy was nearly as masterful as his first. After my birth, the palace was sealed while the king was panic-stricken over how to bring the news to his country. That night, the priest showed Minos his magic, the strange dolls over which he had the power to bring life. He told the king he must construct one of Pasiphae lest his subjects turn against him for allowing the death of their queen. Even we Cretans have a limit to superstition. A man-bull sent by the god Poseidon is one thing. A man-bull that killed its mother in its birth is another. His subjects would surely take that as a curse and wonder what the king had done to deserve it.”

Theseus bristled with anger. He could not understand at first why his companion spoke of everything so evenly, so unperturbed. Though the prince gathered then, he had lived with this history all his life. Indignity had given way to resignation, and in that peaceful state, an honorable calling. He would speak the truth regardless of where that led.

“I do not know how Minos made that bargain with the priest,” the Minotaur went on. “May be he was afraid. His greed for power is extreme, and my mother’s family were wealthy landowners who he could not afford to lose as allies. May be he really loved my mother and took comfort in preserving her. In any case, he cast his lot and made his covenant with the dark path which followed.

“The physicians and midwives were put to death and said to be casualties of my birth, the ferocious beast, which sprang from the queen’s womb. The courtiers were rounded up and well-motivated to pledge their silence. Still, a few met bitter ends, whether justly or due to the king’s fear the truth could be revealed. The priest’s moppets are ensorcelled to resemble the living in every way, but they do have flaws. They do no breathe, and they remain as cold as the materials from which they were built. And, they do not speak.

“So the queen’s moppet was veiled and covered up in bunchy robes, befitting the shame of having lain with a bull. They said the ordeal of her birth had left her mute. How they maintained the ruse when her family visited, I cannot say. Though I presume those visits came infrequently.”

“Did Androgeus know?” Theseus asked. “Does Ariadne?”

His companion took on a wistful air. “My brother was only two years old when our mother died. Ariadne, only one year old, a baby. There was no need to tell them the truth, though I see you understand: how does one deceive a child about the nature of his mother as he grows wise to the world?

“Androgeus lacked for brains. Besides which he looked up to my father as a god. The thought of King Minos foisting such a grand deceit on his kingdom, on him personally would never have entered his head.” A quiet scowl passed over his face. “Ariadne, however, is a clever girl.”

He explained to Theseus: “They kept the queen to her private rooms, permitting her children to look upon her only weekly. My sister could behold the truth by the way her mother’s veil never rustled from the faintest expulsion of air, and by the coldness of her hand, which she would take to wish her well. So she confessed to me to flaunt how very wise and penetrating she was. She used that knowledge as bounty for her own protection. She told me if I should ever speak of it, she would rush to her father and say that I had said her mother was dead. Minos would have no choice but to kill me once and for all.”

He said no more while Theseus stirred uneasily, his meeting with Ariadne weighing on him. “I have spoken with your sister,” he admitted. He could not hide it any longer, and he told this man, this terrible victim of fate, everything about his conspiracy with the princess.

“Will you sail away with her?” his companion asked.

Theseus gaped at him. “After everything you have told me? Of course not. I would not trust her.” He added, “She wanted to help me kill you.”

The corner of his companion’s lip curled up. “Yes. Ariadne never cared for siblings. It was her idea to send our brother on his fateful voyage two years past. The details seemed insubstantial at the time, but I remember now: he was to meet the King of Athens, your father. Ariadne had heard the foreigners enjoyed horse-riding. Before Androgeus left, she had her priest cast a spell on his saddle, which would affect a sort of palsy. Her plan worked perfectly. She laughed when she told me Androgeus had returned in a coffin. It brought her one step closer to the throne.” He looked at Theseus. “Still, with all her faults, she is very beautiful.”

This, somewhat of both a statement and a question, and thereby the prince took it as a vetting, which brought a regrettable blush to his face. No, he did not find her beautiful, neither on account of his private appetites, which were, well private, and certainly not on account of her character. She was a murderess. While Theseus shifted in his seat, opening his mouth, then shutting it in consternation, his companion broke out in a laugh.

So, the man had been teasing him. Theseus glared at him reproachfully. Soon after, he could not help but laugh at himself. He shook his head, squared his shoulders, and in doing so, brushed his upper arm against his companion, as he might with a friend. They had leaned together closer than Theseus had realized during the long tale, a brotherly proximity.

Their confidence had bred a rare intoxication, this stranger, this sworn enemy entrusting him with his sorrows as though they had known each other much longer than a passing hour. For a moment, Theseus wanted to unburden himself of his own troubles, his princeship—a flimsy thing. His father had judged him unworthy from the day of his birth. Yet that seemed minor compared to his companion’s trials.

Protective feelings had arisen in the prince, and he felt honored to be in the man’s company. He was indeed otherworldly, and not because of the perversion of his nature as Theseus had first appraised him. He possessed an otherworldly beneficence, and his appearance, his composition no longer seemed dreadful at all. Rather, while he sat with this man with fantastical horns, long-lashed eyes, and crushing arms, he was entranced by his otherworldly beauty.

The Minotaur hid his face for a moment. Then, seeming to arbitrate his own private thoughts, he leaned away. “Now you’ve heard my tale, and you must go. Nightfall comes.”

A restless feeling snaked through the prince’s body. How much of the day had passed while they were talking? He had not meant to be so careless. If he did not make it back to the entrance of the maze, fourteen Athenian children would die.

He stood, shook off some straw from his legs, and dallied helplessly. It hurt his heart to leave his companion so abruptly, to abandon him after he had shared so much about his life.

“Can I ask for one thing more?” he said.

The man looked up at him.

“What is your name? You cannot be: ‘The Minotaur.’ What was the name your mother wished to give to you?”

His companion’s eyes brightened. “I had heard if she was to have a boy, she would have named him Asterion.”

A noble name. Theseus smiled. He reached down his arm to make proper greetings. “I am pleased to meet you, Asterion.” Asterion took his arm in his sturdy grip. They looked each other in the face. “I am forever in your debt for what you have done for me,” Theseus said.

Asterion released Theseus’s arm. “You have repaid me with your companionship, if only for a little while.”

That seemed like an insubstantial favor in return. Theseus glanced around the dark chamber. He was leaving to walk the earth, see the stars in the sky, and in the morning to feel the sun against his skin. Asterion would stay in this cold pit forever. Theseus looked down at the collar in his hand.

He asked, a bit timidly: “What will happen to you?”

Asterion shrugged. “I’ve minded myself for this long.”

“The king will think you’re dead,” Theseus said. “He’ll send men to look for your body.” A shiver passed through him. “They’ll kill you if they find you, won’t they?”

For the first time, Theseus noticed a cast of worry on Asterion’s face, though he quickly tried to disguise it.

“Go,” Asterion told him. “I’ve handled soldiers before. And if I cannot, well, so have the Fates decided.”

Theseus hatched an idea. Why had he not thought of it before?

“Come with me. There is a way. I will say I lured you into one of the labyrinth’s traps. They’re all set off behind me.” No, he was forgetting something. “I’ll say I wrestled you first to take your collar, and then you fell into a trap. There is one, a well so deep, they’d never be able to say whether it was true or not.”

Asterion regarded him with a frown. Theseus pressed on nonetheless.

“You can climb out of the engineer’s passage. I found it. When I released the vipers. One end leads to the beach. You can make your way beneath the cloak of night. Find the cavern where the princess hides, and in the morning, instead of taking her, I’ll take you aboard my ship, hidden in the chest.”

Now Asterion looked truly doubtful. “And what of your countrymen? How will they receive me? With open arms? Hailing me as one of their own?”

“Asterion, I promise you: if any man raises a hand to harm you, he will be cast aside.”

Asterion snorted. “You are not a beast. You think it will be so easy for me to live among men?”

“No,” Theseus answered. “But would you live instead in a crypt for the rest of your days? Would you give up and have the king’s guards fall upon you with their swords?” Theseus could not countenance such a fate. He was overcome with emotion. “Asterion, please. You saved my life. You spared the lives of fourteen children who would be sent to die here. Allow me to save yours.”

Asterion slumped against the wall. He looked up to the ceiling, and then he dropped his head and hiccupped with tears. Theseus knew at that moment a kinship with the prisoner. He knew the sorrow that afflicted Asterion, if not by the precise circumstance of its cause, by its painful throb, its hollowing to the core. He had been a favored child, a feted prince, but he had also been a boy without a father, and later, a boy whose father thought so little of his capacity to make something of himself in the world, he had sent him to be hidden away.

He crouched down and clasped Asterion’s shoulder while he wept. How strange, how very lovely that a man so strong could yield to strife like any other. Yes, he would help Asterion. He had never been so certain about anything in his life.

Theseus gazed at him steadily. “Do not be afraid. I’ve found you. The past is nothing. We walk together hereon as friends.”

~

THE CEDAR CHEST was exactly where the princess had said Theseus would find it: in a cavern, north from where he had beached his ship. The seaside cliffs had many hidden nodes but none tall enough for a man to enter until he had come to a spur of the rugged shore. Alone, he had went in to explore its hollow.

Pale morning light laid bare a triangle of silt and pebbles, and in its center, the cedar chest. It was the height of his knees, perhaps the length of him from foot to shoulders. Its latches had been closed. Had Ariadne enlisted the help of her priest to shut her inside or had it been done by some other ally from the palace? Theseus kept his step light as he approached the chest, glancing at the shadowy edges of the cave, wondering if that conspirator had lingered.

From the cavern’s depths, a murky silhouette emerged. It was tall, broad and moving with a distinctive lurching gait. The prince’s heart turned light. Asterion had found his way through the engineer’s duct and onward to the beach. He carried himself timidly at first and looked upon Theseus when they could see one another in the light. Theseus brought him the bolt of linen he was carrying so he could clothe himself. He helped him drape it around his waist. Dressed then in the Athenian style, Asterion looked as noble as any military champion.

Now there was the matter of the princess. They stepped over to the chest, and Theseus unlatched its brass fixtures. He threw open its lid.

Dressed in fancy robes and a shawl, the princess unfolded her arms and looked up at him. Her face brightened. “You came.”

He glanced at Asterion and nodded. Asterion rounded the chest to stand beside Theseus and show himself.

“Good morrow, sister.”

Her face shrunk up in a hateful glare. Theseus took her arm and pulled her out of the chest, holding her fast lest she try running out to the beach to cause a stir.

She railed at Theseus, “What is this? You would choose a freak of nature over me?”

“One thousand times,” he told her.

“You’ll never survive your journey back to Athens,” she told him. “I’ll tell my father what you have done. He’ll send his warships after you.”

Asterion faced his sister. “Try,” he said. “How will you answer when he asks how you discovered it? Sneaking down to the beach to consort with his enemies?” Ariadne gnashed her teeth at him. In that moment, any doubts about her cruelty vanished from Theseus’s head. She hated her younger brother and wanted to destroy him. Asterion harassed her further, “Or has the king already discovered your moppet back at the palace? How should you like to explain that to him?”

Ariadne turned to Theseus, taking on the part of a woman in distress. After all that she had done, that ploy could not penetrate his heart.

“What was your plot?” he asked her. “To kill me and my sailors on the open sea? Did your priest lend you some magic to do so?”

“No. I only wanted to run away,” she insisted. “To escape the evil priest. To escape my father.”

A more likely story had occurred to Theseus. “Or perhaps you hoped to rile up support to overthrow your father. Betraying his secret. Casting yourself as an innocent victim.”

She reached to grasp his face tenderly. He shrugged away from her.

“You ought to be put to death for the murder of Androgeus. For the attempt on your half-brother’s life.” Indeed, he had thought about doing so, but he could see that Asterion did not wish it. “Consider this an act of charity. Return to the palace. You and your father belong together. And if you stir up Minos to attack Athens, the world will know of your father’s deceit, from the truth about your mother’s death to the conspiracy to pretend she still lives.” Theseus released her and pointed his gaze into the cavern, which must have concealed some passage back to the palace. “Go,” he told her. “If you are quick, you might be able to find your priest and undo the treason the two of you had planned.”

She tried him one last time with a pleading look. Then she scowled at both men and disappeared into the shadowy cavern.

That left the matter of stowing Asterion in the chest. He was much bigger than his sister, but happily he was able to fit with his legs bent and his head turned so that the top could close over his horns. Theseus gave his friend one last encouraging look before shutting him in the chest and latching it fast. He would be horribly uncomfortable for a while. When they made it out to open sea, Theseus would check on him in the storage hull, open up the chest to allow him to stretch out, bring him water and some food.

Maybe, if his crew could be persuaded, Asterion could have his freedom on the ship. Theseus knew that would be a tricky conversation. As much as he had encouraged Asterion, he could foresee the proud Athenian sailors having prejudices against him. They did not know him as Theseus did.

With great effort, he dragged the chest out of the cavern and very gradually made progress down the beach. Good gods, he had not realized what a labor it would be. With all the strength of his arms, he could only pull the chest a couple of yards until he had to rest his muscles and gather his breath. When he made it closer to the ship, he would call out to his crew for help. He’d say one last trove of treasure had been delivered to him at a secret ceremony. No man would think to question him. If they asked him about the weight, he’d say the chest was filled with coins.

Then, after they had stowed it away with the rest of his winnings, after they had pushed out to sea, caught the wind in their sails, and finished congratulating themselves, Theseus would grasp a quiet moment to tell the men the whole of his tale. He’d done better than killing the Minotaur. He had freed him. And for saving his life, Theseus pledged he would see to Asterion’s safety. He was responsible for him now, and if his countrymen could not accept it, well, they could stop at an island along the way and leave the two of them.

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