“What?” asked King Minos. Curiosit y replaced disgust as he got to his feet, gently untangling himself from his wife"s embrace.
“It"s a half -human, halfbull, my Lord. I"m no expert, but it looks like a curse. I think we could learn more from the Elderly Council…”
“NO!” the king roared, making Nestor flinch. “No one can know about this. Thatthing,” he pointed at the cradle, “has to be killed! Or locked away!”
His subject stood unmoved, but only from the outside he looked poised. Inside, however, he boiled. He was childless, but he felt something like a fatherly instinct. It wasn"t the baby"s fault he looked like that, and the coldness from the usually gentle King Minos shocked and horrified him. Anger begged to rise to the surface, but he stood before the majesty of his ruler, not an equal. He had to watch his words, especially in a delicate situation such as this.
He pushed down his temper and gathered his thoughts. “My Lord, you are the most just and wise of kings, but I believe the child can be saved. I beg you,” he fell to his knees, “Let me find a cure.”
King Minos watched his head of security for a long time, the only sounds in the chambers the quite snorting of the monstrosity in the cradle and the quiet sobs of the queen. Finally, the king spoke.
“I don"t know why you care so much, but I will agree. Under certain conditions.”
“Yes, my liege?” “Firstly, you"ll find the architect Daedalus and co nvince him to build a retreat for this… thing,” said King Minos. “Secondly, if you fail to make him normal by his first birthday, I will sacrifice him as an abomination. Third, no one will know what happened here today.”
Finding the greatest architect in the whole of Greece would not be too much of a challenge, but to cure a Minotaur of its curse was another pair of sandals. And there was still the secret to keep. Due to his position, nobody would ask him what had happened in the royal chamber, but he had to be careful. How would he explain this to his wife?
He looked at the child, with its fur-covered legs and chest, its hideous, calf-like face. The baby was calm, black eyes looking up to meet his. Nestor thought it smiled at him. Horror mingled with a deep, fatherly instinct. He had to protect this child.
Eleven
The pain in Nestor"s hand had faded since he"d cli mbed aboard the boat, but he felt terribly cold. After a few knots, the bow lowered, and they descended into the icy water. It seeped through his armour and onto his skin, weighing on him as he and Charon were submerged. He remained firmly sitting in the boat, able to breathe despite descending farther and farther beneath the sea.
Fish, eels, and other sea creatures flitted past, scales shining in the meagre sunlight from above. Nestor"s hair floated around him. It was a strange and wonderful experience, which he would have enjoyed had he not known the challenge that lay before him. He had heard about the various achievements of his disciples and the incredible wonders of the gods, but it was the first time he had experienced such an adventure.
Still that sick feeling lingered, the deep sense of dread that had haunted him when he"d first set eyes on that Minotaur baby. This wasn"t a simple voyage on a mortal"s boat, underwater venturing aside. Nestor could sense the spirits harnessing the oars of this ghostly captain that rowed before him, his movements slow and unmotivated, as though every movement was a tremendous bother. What he felt was the death and suffering of the thousands of souls who had passed through here. They were passing through the realm between the living and the dead. He had the irresistible impression that for the first time in history, a living passenger was travelling here.
Charon pulled him out of his musings with his low, gloomy voice. “I guarantee your life only until you appear before the jury,” he said. “What happens to you will be decided there. And given that you"ve been having dreams of that drunk hobo Dionysus, I am sure that it won"t be a pleasant encounter.”
I doubt this pessimistic carrier even knows the meaning ofthe word “pleasant.” “Thank you, I appreciate it,” he said instead. He shif ted closer to the captain. “Can you tell me what happened to Lord of Hell?”
“I don"t know anything,” Charon"s painfully thin shoulders raised in a shrug. “I"m just doing his job. And the fact that you"re alive and you don"t have a coin for me means I am doing it poorly. We"re coming in,” he added.
Nestor suddenly felt a tide of heat pouring over his face, eliminating the oppressive cold. He sweated, though he was still underwater. A big black gate appeared in front of his eyes, though it was nothing that a human architect would be able to create. No living person made gates from skulls.
This gate was of a single skull, the remains of a Titan, as large as a mountain. One of the first gods to be overthrown by Kronos, perhaps? Asking Charon about anything would surely be answered with nothing but silence. But he had an idea.
“You do an amazing job,” he remarked. “How did you manage to bring down such a powerful creature as this?” After a long silence, he doubted his acting skills and decided that he wouldn"t find out, but Charon looked at him, the ghost of a smile in his white eyes. “Oh no, it"s not my work. It was the greatest carrier the gods knew. My papa, Ereb.”
…Papa? Of all the strange goings-on of the last hour, the glum carrier of souls uttering the word “papa” like a small child was the last thing Nestor had expected. Now he had two options: die laughing or strain his muscles like never before to let even the corners of his mouth twitch. Papa! He described a powerful god as “Papa!” This is too much! I won’t get through this. I’m about to explode.
He looked around wildly for something to distract him from what he had just heard. Strange silhouettes moved in the river; now there were fewer fish, and more of these strange, human-like shapes floating in the water. It was not a pleasant sight; all these souls looked unhappy and tired. Some of them, in the place where their faces should be, had black crevices, and others had expressions twisted in terrible grimaces or silent screams. Nestor"s urge to laugh died.
“Feeling… distinguished?” asked the captain, not looking at him.
“…I don"t understand.” “You"re swimming here comfortably on my boat, while your soul should be there, in the current.” Charon nodded at the floating souls surrounding him. “Luckily for you, it was cursed by a god. There"s a special place waiting for you.”
Nestor"s condition has changed in a split second from a cheerful and restraining laughter to a gloomy and frustration. Cursed? Fortunately? What the hell does that mean? The questions screamed in his mind. But he had to remain calm. He"d had a few hundred years to pour out his grief. There was no point in being angry.
It wasn"t long before another intriguing sight me t the travellers. An enormous beast with three heads appeared before the travellers" eyes, emerging from the gloom of the dark sea.
Cerberus, because that was the animal"s name, was, to put it simply, a dog. However, its size rather resembled an elephant. But even that did not reflect its form at all. Its three great heads with big, black eyes and even bigger fangs deprived observers of any illusions that this monster had something to do with man"s best friend. This three- headed beast threatened all the souls flowing through the Styx, telling them it would be better for them if they did not try to turn back from this path. As the boat passed the dog, it turned its heads sideways and observed the newcomers closely, enormous nostrils flaring as it sniffed. Then its huge tail suddenly… wagged. It was happy to see them. Nestor was very amused.
“You can"t be that bad after all, if the dog is happy to see you,” laughed Nestor. “Oh, me?” asked Charon, heaving a great sigh as though he was exhausted. “He hates me. He"s happy to see a living figure. The last one he saw was your student.”
“Well, yes!” He smiled. After all, one of Herakles" tasks had been to kidnap the great dog, Cerberus. But how had he managed to kidnap him and bring him here, to the bottom of the ocean? Herakles was incredibly strong, but even he"d had his limits. Nestor couldn"t imagine his student simply hauling the three-headed
beast onto his back and hauling it away.
“How did he do it?” He asked Charon. He was so pleased with the achievements of Herakles that it seemed to the outsider that he was already in the Elysian Fields and not in the middle of the river of the dead.
“This mongrel is so stupid that he fell for the prize trick of getting his belly scratched.” said the carrier, throwing Cerberus an angry look, white eyes narrowed.
Two of Cerberus" three enormous heads growled, showing fangs as long as Nestor"s arm. The third head was calm, even mindless, gazing around like it was in this place for the first time.
Nestor admired the beast, its fur rippling in the water, teeth bared as it glared with four eyes at the carrier. Charon ignored his canine foe, rowing at the same pace as ever through the murky sea. When the boat stopped, Nestor was snapped to the unpleasant reality that he was not here for fun. If something went wrong, he"d be stuck here forever. He glanced up at where the world of the living lay in wait, though now it seemed a thousand miles away.
“Where to now?” he asked, a little confused as this dark part of the ocean didn"t look much different to anywhere else they"d ventured thus far. Charon turned to him, white eyes empty and soulless, though Nestor could have sworn there was a ghost of a smile on his face.
“To Judgement, of course.”
Twelve
“Absolutely not. I refuse.”
“But why?” asked Nestor, crestfallen. “You"ll get all the gold you want.”
“I don"t care about the money! What you"re asking is madness!” Nestor wasn"t the type to anger easily, but Daedalus was trying Nestor"s patience. It had taken him much longer than expected to find the stubborn architect. He"d been convinced that allowing him to demand any amount of gold for building the labyrinth would be attractive offer for him, but this eccentric artist had no financial desires. To calm his nerves, the experienced soldier used an old breathing technique that his father, Agros, had taught him.
After a few deep breaths, when the rising anger threatening to burst to the surface was pushed back down, Nestor turned to the architect again. Daedalus had straight eyebrows that gave him a perpetual look of sadness, his light brown beard boasting an obnoxious curl at the end. Nestor longed to yank it and bellow his orders at the architect, but brute force wouldn"t work here.
“So what do you want?” he asked.
“I want to see it!”
“See what?” asked Nestor. He perhaps should have put more effort into pretending to be surprised, but he was so tired that he couldn"t make the effort.
“Ohoho,” said the architect, wagging his finger in Ne stor"s face. “By the gods! If you think me a fool, we don"t have anything more to discuss,” he whipped round with all the drama of an actor in theatre, and Nestor massaged the bridge of his nose to stop himself from strangling the man.
Daedalus ran up to the plans of some wheel and a strange knife, whispering to himself that these were really his own inventions. Nestor watched him, wondering if this was all some big act or if the architect was a little mad.
“Prometheus" wounds, I knew I wouldn"t be able to keep this secret,” he muttered. At hearing these words, Daedalus stopped his mumbling and whipped up his head, approaching the soldier with a new dance in his step, grinning like a cat that had snatched a fish from the fisherman"s net.
Nestor glanced around the architect"s stu dio. It was a hot day, and a light layer of sweat already sat on his neck. There was no one around except himself and the excited little man before him.
“Fine,” he said, approaching the architect and lowering his voice. “We have to lock a Minotaur in there.” “A Minotaur?” the inventor squealed so loudly that Nestor was sure all of Athens could hear him. “Shh! Don"t shout like that!” he hissed through his teeth, grabbing Daedalus by his skinny shoulder. It was all he could do not to give him a vigorous shake.
“Oh, yes, yes. You"re right,” he said much more quie tly, but he was practically jumping up and down in excitement.
“So, you agree to do it?”
“Yes, yes, naturally, naturally! But to tell you the truth, because of my nephew, I have to go away for a while.” “For a while?” asked Nestor in disbelief. “How long?” “Not so long I won"t be able to make a start on this project, I assure you.” Nestor didn"t even want to know what that meant. He collapsed into a nearby chair, more tired even than when he"d put the Fedrys crew down.
Thirteen
“How do you like having your own weapons used against you, Hephaestus?” asked Ares in amusement as his prey squirmed under the silver net. Six people stood behind the new king of Olympus,laughing at the man"s clumsy attempts to escape a trap of his own making. Recognizing the superiority of his own craftsmanship, the blacksmith gave up his wriggling and snarled at Ares, “So? You feel better, wifefucker?”
“Oooh,” several people groaned. Ares" smirk turned into a snarl at Hephaestus" remark and he went to give the tangled blacksmith a blow, but he was stopped by Donar, a tall man with a stocky beard.
“He down,” he rumbled in poor Greek, laying a large hand on Ares" chest. “You don"t kick.” Hephaestus let out a booming laugh, a bold move considering his predicament. “What is it, Ares? You couldn"t get Daddy"s approval, so you killed him and got yourself a new one?”
The god of war was boiling, fists clenched. He was the leader of the group, but all too often he became the subject of jokes and insults. Using breathing techniques that he"d learned from a Satyr long ago, he wrestled his temper under control.
“Listen to me, ugly,” he snarled. “We"re here because they wanted to meet you,” he gestured towards his friends, “and they were curious to see if you could do something. As far as I"m concerned, you should already be dead.”
“I"ll never help you!” Hephaestus yelled. “You defiled my wife! You"re all slugs! Murderers!”
“Calm down, brother,” said Ares. “You"re going to help us. And you know why?” Hephaestus struggled in his tangled net, but his brown eyes raised in curiosity at the siblings" words. “Enlighten me.”
“First of all, you have a gift for making weapons and improving them. They have a weapon for you like you"ve never seen before. Not from this world.”
Hephaestus" eyes widened, like he was imagining the long hours he"d spent at the anvil. The thought of a new project, something otherworldly no less, had piqued his interest.
“Secondly,” said Ares, “you don"t want any harm to come to your wife, hmmm?”
Doom of the Olympus “REBORN” The god of war regretted his words instantly. The blacksmith lit up. Literally. One moment he was lying helpless in the net, the next he was getting to his feet, his skin and clothes on fire, the net melting away as he burned like an enormous torch. Heat washed over the horrified watchers as the furious blacksmith reached Ares in a heartbeat, moving at lightning speed even Hermes, god of speed, would envy.
Ares gave a panicked scream as Hephaestus grabbed him by the neck, lifting him off the ground. He slammed the god of war to the ground so hard it trembled. Ares gasped, the wind bursting from his lungs, blood on his tongue.
“Haven’t you done enough to this family, little brot her?” Hephaestus bellowed loud enough to wake the volcano. If Ares" camaraderie hadn"t gone to help him, he"d have been dead in moments. Donar dashed to the burning man and tackled him with his shoulder. The blacksmith fell to the ground with a grunt, sliding a few good metres from the coughing Ares.
“Kill him!” the god of war tried to shout, but it came out a weak gurgle as he lay on the ground, massaging his throat.
“HALT!” shouted a woman"s voice. She was dressed in a remarkable coat of hawk feathers and a hood over her head, moving towards the brawling trio. “Make away!” She ordered, and walked very calmly towards the blacksmith, who was staggering to his feet, the flames on his body still burning as he eyed Ares with hatred in his eyes.
She approached him a few steps away and brought down her hood. Long, flowing hair the colour of molten gold
cascaded past her shoulders and down her back. A dainty nose and a delicate jawline graced her youthful face.
The flames surrounding Hephaestus petered out as his breathing slowed, his fists unclenching. He gazed at the newcomer with tenderness, his anger forgotten. He reached out his hand and gently stroked her cheek.
“Is that you, my love?” “Unfortunately not,” the woman gazed back with sy mpathy. “You must love her very much. I would give anything for that feeling,” she said, smiling sincerely. “But we need your help. Can you do that for me?”
Tears poured down the blacksmith"s cheeks. It had been a long time since someone had kindly asked him for help instead of simply giving him an order. He wiped away the tears. “Of course.”
Fourteen
“Are these handcuffs really necessary?” asked Nestor with reproach. “Shut up! You"ve taken advantage of my hospitality for long enough,” snapped Charon. “I"ll take you to the judges as I see fit.” Charon yanked the chain and Nestor stumbled, almost falling to the ground. He wasn"t sure, but he thought he saw Charon give a satisfied smirk. He didn"t find it surprising.
They passed more than one hundred souls on the way to the court. All of them stared with lost or sinister eyes, their skin ghostly and translucent, as though by being ripped from their bodies they were former shadows of their true selves. Their looks made Nestor feel guilty, because they had stood here for hours, days, or months perhaps, and he and Charon were cutting the line like they owned the place.
When they reached the end of the long line of souls waiting for judgement (or actually, the beginning of it) they pushed themselves in front of the first soul, who threw them a string of curses that Nestor had never heard before.
“Hey! I was here first! What in Zeus" name do you…?” Charon turned his white eyes towards the spirit, and it was immediately silenced, looking so reprimanded it was ready to go to theback of the line. Nestor couldn"t blame the tired spirit. What must it be like to have died and lost everything, only to have to wait in this gloom for the gods to judge your every living deed?
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