Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  She swallowed several times to keep her granola bar from making a run for it. “Anyone know how to get inside?”

  “Getting in is the easy part.” Pandora pulled one of the enormous brass handles, and the gate swung open easily, no ominous creak, no heavy burden they would have to share in. It wanted them to come in, and Cressida imagined the whole place thinking, “Oh thank goodness! I haven’t had someone new to play with in a god’s age!”

  And now, she commanded her brain, you will shut the fuck up.

  The gates swung open, and she craned her neck to see a long, featureless hallway. She thought maybe it had morphed into a modern prison with bars and gates, but then she noted the second hallway next to the first and another leading along both sides of the outer wall, each of them the same, featureless stone under the black sky, each with the same white hot torches lining the walls.

  She opened her mouth to ask what this was, but the excitement building inside her knew the answer before she did. “It’s a labyrinth.”

  “Yes,” Pandora said with a sigh.

  The others groaned, and Cressida wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with them. This was a labyrinth! Maybe even the labyrinth, the same one built by Daedalus and eventually defeated by Theseus.

  Home of the Minotaur.

  Her excitement banked a little, and she took a deep breath. “So, who knows the way through?”

  “We don’t want the center,” Pandora said. “We need to find the items we’re after.”

  “And you know where they are?” Cressida asked.

  They all looked to one another. “Vaguely,” Medusa said.

  Well, it wouldn’t be a quest if it wasn’t challenging, but still, she wondered if she would have been relieved or disappointed if one of them had pulled out a map with everything clearly marked. “I never expected a labyrinth in Tartarus. I thought there’d be like, fire or something.”

  Pandora nodded. “Me, too, the first time I saw it. I wanted a little lava.”

  “Lots of crags,” Arachne said. “Huge caverns full of suffering people. I mean, we may have done some bad shit in our lives—”

  “Speak for yourself,” Agamemnon said.

  “But down here is where they put the worst of the worst,” Arachne continued, ignoring him.

  “Worst?” Cressida shook her head. “Humanity doesn’t see Prometheus as a bad guy.”

  “Oh, he was pardoned ages ago,” Pandora said. “But you’re right. The people or…things caught down here aren’t really humanity’s enemies. They were born of nightmares, the creatures who wanted to send the world back to chaos. But they were also the creatures who challenged the will of the gods. A lot of the struggles that went on in the early days had nothing to do with humans at all, but that doesn’t mean that humans wouldn’t have been destroyed if the gods hadn’t taken action.”

  Cressida shivered, both at the idea of world-shaking mythological events going on around an unsuspecting humanity, and also at the fact that without the intervention of the gods, humans might have been a footnote in the wars between monsters. She wondered what other bullets humanity had dodged, how many other religions had their own warring deities. And how many of those deities actually cared about humans and didn’t see them as something outside of what was really important? Humans had been ambling on, evolving, minding their own business while an invisible world pulsed around them, occasionally touching their lives. Then the gods had come to need human thought, to be powered by human belief as the chaotic nothingness they were formed of came further to order.

  “When did they realize that human belief had started…powering them?” Cressida asked.

  “They didn’t want to believe,” Medusa said. “That turned out to be their ultimate punishment. They thought humans didn’t really matter, so as belief waned, so did they.” She looked around them. “Maybe that’s always how gods get replaced.”

  “Ah,” Arachne said with a grin, “but doing the odd terrible thing is guaranteed to get you thought about. Belief isn’t only powered by pleasant thought. The really nasty stories are how gods hang around. Now, let’s get moving.”

  She took one end of a length of string from the back pocket of her backpack and tied it to a bar on the trolley platform. It sparkled in the meager light, fragile looking, as if Cressida could snap it with a flick of her fingers. It trailed behind Arachne as she moved, the other end lost in her pack. When Cressida twanged on it, it held, vibrating and giving off a low hum. She thought of the invisible thread hooked to her lifeline and shuddered.

  Arachne shivered, too. “Don’t twang my string until we get to know each other better, baby.” She winked and followed as Pandora led them down the rightmost hallway. Pandora muttered to herself as they walked, and Cressida tried to recall everything she could about the original labyrinth. Theseus had been warned to go straight, but that was to seek out the center of the labyrinth, and as Pandora had said, they didn’t want that. Was the Minotaur here as it was in the myth? Maybe something even more dangerous?

  Medusa and Pandora had their heads together, occasionally arguing about the way. They took turn after turn down blank hallways, and Cressida began to wonder where the prisoners were. Maybe they’d all been released like Prometheus. Legend told of Zeus pardoning many of the Titans. Well, the female ones anyway. But some tales told of Cronos making it out and later guarding the Elysian Fields. And there were supposed to be guards here, but the only deterrent she’d seen was a long trip and a slightly grumpy conductor.

  As the labyrinth stretched on, everyone fell to silence except for the occasional disagreement between Medusa and Pandora. They had the same intense looks on their faces that said they were expecting danger. Tension had replaced Cressida’s excitement, and pain sang in her shoulders, but that might be from carrying her pack for so long.

  At her side, Agamemnon walked with his hand on his sword, craning his neck to see down each hallway, but the stone and the torches stayed the same, with no sound except for their footfalls and a gentle hiss as Arachne’s string played out of her pack. Time seemed to have even less meaning here than it did in Asphodel, and Cressida had to fight to keep her mind from wandering. Maybe the real hell was just eternal boredom.

  At last, Arachne sighed, and the sound was so loud, everyone started. Arachne threw her hands into the air. “What gives?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion.” Agamemnon dropped his hand away from his sword, but it crept up again. He rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand, and Cressida knew how he felt. She wanted to shrug out of the pack and rest a while.

  Pandora was frowning at the way ahead but still walking at a sedate pace, Medusa just behind her. “It has to be around here.” She glanced at Medusa. “Right? It has to be.”

  Medusa frowned before she gasped, her eyes widening. “We’re close.”

  “Demigod senses.” Pandora gave them all a knowing nod. “I knew they’d kick in when we were close enough.”

  “Wait,” Cressida said. “Does that mean you didn’t really know where we were going?”

  Neither Pandora nor Medusa answered. Arachne prodded Pandora a few more times, finally reaching out, but before she could grab Pandora’s arm, the way branched off to the side, to a round cul-de-sac with an enormous black box nestled in the middle.

  “Yes!” Medusa rushed forward and reached toward the box but then drew back quickly, as if she didn’t know how to proceed. The box stood high above their heads, as large as a school bus, and it gleamed like obsidian in the torchlight. Cressida walked around it, but it only reflected her distorted image in the chipped and pitted surface.

  “Is the weapon inside?” Arachne asked.

  Pandora studied the box and smiled. “Now can you see why Hecate hired me?”

  Arachne stared for a moment before she laughed. “Hot damn! If anyone knows how to open a box, I guess it’s you.”

  “Stand back.” Pandora ran her hands over the obsidian, and Cressida watched as closely as she d
ared. Medusa leaned forward, and Cressida knew she was straining to get a look at the harpe of Cronus, a sword so like the one Perseus had used to kill her.

  Pandora tapped the box along one edge, head close as if listening. She did this several times, stopping now and again for a little smack, a pat, a smoothing of fingers down its sides.

  “What’s taking so long?” Arachne asked at last.

  Pandora glared at her and gave the box a final tap. One of the sides fell over with a resounding crash.

  Everyone jumped back, and Pandora turned her chin up, a smug smile in place. “There hasn’t been a box crafted that I can’t open.”

  Cressida stared into the box at a wall of blackness as impenetrable as the darkness that surrounded the labyrinth.

  As she peered, though, it seemed as if this darkness had depth, a feeling of space, like the one time she’d gone spelunking, and her group had turned their lights off. It was utter, absolute blackness, but there was still the feeling of air, of space around them. This darkness went on into the box, though the torchlight couldn’t penetrate it, and when Cressida shined her flashlight in, the light bounced back at her.

  “Is it empty?” Agamemnon asked.

  Medusa reached but pulled back quickly. “It burns.”

  Cressida put her own hand down before it could inch forward. She noted a slight vibration and thought it might be from the box or maybe her pounding heart, but it didn’t relent, and she realized it was coming from the labyrinth.

  Agamemnon drew his sword. “What is that?”

  Medusa’s eyes widened. “Scatter!”

  Without waiting for an explanation, Cressida darted for the rounded edges of the cul-de-sac. Footsteps, she realized, running footsteps. “Oh God, the Minotaur!” They’d been wandering around his prison, and now he was running to find them, using his preternatural senses to come kill them. She hoped Medusa’s gaze worked against him or that Agamemnon was as good with a sword as the tales made him out to be.

  A giant rounded the corner, and Cressida’s brain reset. Three or four times her height, it didn’t sport the bull’s head she expected, but it more than made up for it with the fifty or so human-looking heads it did have. They sprouted as if barnacles from its many necks and chest and back. And as hard as it was to tear her gaze away from the heads, it was the arms that really drew the eye. Fifty lined each side of the giant, but she knew that more from memory than from counting them. There’d be a hundred in all.

  “Hecatonchires,” she whispered. Myth called him one of the Titans but disagreed on his fate, though as he reached for Arachne with his many hands, it seemed he was a guardian of Tartarus. He stood taller than the walls around them. How could they possibly fight him? And also, her brain reminded her with an insane little giggle, there are supposed to be three of them.

  Cressida ran into the labyrinth proper and felt a whoosh of air behind her. She flattened. Another of the giants rumbled through where she’d been standing. In the cul-de-sac, Arachne threw one of her gossamer strings, catching the Hecatonchires in the back and swinging around it. The string that led into the labyrinth was plastered to the wall, and Cressida ran to stay away from it, not wanting to snap it.

  The third Hecatonchires came around the corner to join the fight, and Cressida slid as she tried to change direction. Her feet came out from under her just as the Hecatonchires kicked. It roared in pain as Agamemnon clipped its departing foot with his sword. He caught hold of Cressida’s backpack and hauled her to her feet.

  “How in the world do you fight something like that?” he asked.

  When the Hecatonchires turned for them, Agamemnon leapt to the side, pulling Cressida with him. Bellowing made them turn. Medusa’s back was to Cressida as she stared down the first Hecatonchires. Her long, lustrous black hair had become a snarl of snakes. Her body seemed to shimmer. Wings sprouted from her shoulders and scales covered her skin, though she still had arms and legs instead of the half-snake body she sported in the movies.

  The first Hecatonchires faltered, trying to cover its eyes with its multitude of hands. It shuddered as if fighting the urge to turn to stone, and it let off another bellow that Cressida felt deep in her body as well as her ears. The other two Hecatonchires ran to help their brother.

  “Come on!” Pandora waved everyone toward the box, and they had no choice but to run that way or be torn apart by the many-handed Titans. Medusa backed toward the box, but the other two Hecatonchires were headed toward her.

  Pandora plunged into the darkness, crying out as she went, and Cressida hoped she didn’t meet her death in some inferno. Agamemnon hurried after her, but Cressida stepped toward Medusa, wanting to help if she could, though a greedy little voice said she didn’t need Medusa anymore. If Medusa was left behind, Cressida wouldn’t have to lure Perseus out of the Elysian Fields. Cressida faltered, but she couldn’t let Medusa die, not like this, not like anything. It would be like a light going out of the world.

  “Hurry up!” Arachne cried.

  Cressida risked a look over her shoulder. “But Medusa—”

  With a swear, Arachne threw another of those gossamer strands and caught Medusa around the middle.

  “Pull!” Arachne cried.

  Cressida hauled on it with all her strength, but it was the surprising strength of Arachne that made Medusa fly toward them, knocking all of them into the box together.

  Darkness surrounded Cressida, and she braced herself for heat, but burning cold engulfed her, stealing her air as if someone had stuffed her insides with icepacks. She cried out and heard an echo from Arachne. It felt like the world’s most epic polar bear dive, and when they landed hip deep in snow, she wasn’t surprised.

  However, the lack of surprise did nothing to help the shivering that drove all other thought away. She was the coldest a person had ever been, ever would be. Emperor penguins would give up on this cold. Killer whales would rate it too much to handle. Ice itself would declare, “Too cold for my blood.” It was the cold of deep space and black holes.

  Pandora pulled her upright while Arachne shrugged off Agamemnon’s help. Medusa stood from a snowdrift, fully human again. Cressida wrapped her arms around herself, but nothing would stop her teeth from chattering, and her muscles jumped and bunched to keep from freezing solid.

  Pandora grinned and gestured to the frozen landscape that surrounded them. “I guess it’s larger inside.”

  How in the world could she smile? But Cressida did look around, and bigger was right. They stood inside a glacier, all shifting spears of blue and white ice covered in layers of snow, a huge cave or crevasse, the edges hemmed in by cliffs of white ice, and all of it lit by a soft glow. It was as if they’d passed to a different world, but like the labyrinth, it was absolutely silent except for the sounds of their breathing and a gentle hum coming from a wall of blackness behind them, the doorway through which they’d entered.

  Pandora leaned close to Cressida’s ear again. “I once heard Zeus say his father hated the cold. It reminded him of empty space.”

  Cressida could only shiver. She worked her jaw enough to unfreeze it and tried to say, “I’m just glad Zeus didn’t put him somewhere where he’s constantly being eaten.” It came out in fits and starts, but she didn’t care if anyone heard. She knew what she meant. She tried to ask how Pandora and Medusa weren’t shivering like the rest of them, but her jaw wouldn’t obey again.

  Medusa caught her look and moved closer. “Don’t be cold, Cressida. It’s an illusion. You can think it away.” She gently took Cressida’s shoulders, and her touch burned like hot brands. Cressida couldn’t help leaning into her.

  Medusa stiffened, then her arms eased around Cressida’s shoulders, her soft T-shirt so warm against Cressida’s cheek. “I figured it out when I touched the darkness,” Medusa said softly. “There was nothing there to be cold. It’s just the idea of cold, a spell to put you in the right mood, and then you do its work for it. Like…Hecate’s basement.”

  Cressida snuggl
ed deeper into her embrace, resting against her shoulder and watching as Pandora tried to explain the same thing to Arachne and Agamemnon. They looked as baffled as she felt, though they didn’t hug one another. Cressida never wanted to step away from Medusa’s warmth, her strong arms. Their bodies fit so well together, curves to curves, softness to softness, and heat of a different kind bloomed through Cressida’s insides, even though the cold fought to seep through her backpack and into her bones.

  “Hold me tighter,” she mumbled.

  Medusa took her chin and made her look up. “This isn’t your punishment. It only looks cold, but it’s not really, and neither are you. It’s not your punishment, see?” She had two bright spots of color in her cheeks as if she was feeling something more than normal warmth, too. “Though I will admit, it would be nice to let you believe it so I could hold you a little longer.”

  Cressida couldn’t stop staring at her lips. There was something they were supposed to be doing, not just cuddling in the snow, but her brain felt frozen, too. She wanted to lie down, to get some sleep, and maybe when she woke up it would be warmer, especially if Medusa lay down with her, and there weren’t these pesky clothes in their way.

  Medusa put her warm cheek to Cressida’s and breathed in her ear. “Look around, Cressi. It’s not meant for you. It’s like a picture in a book.”

  Cressida told her overactive imagination that she knew she’d asked it to shut up many times, but it could go to work now. It could convince her she wasn’t freezing to death. She tried hard to think, to notice that the snow wasn’t melting where it touched her. The ice wasn’t shifting and cracking. She thought of movie sets, all the “winter scenes” where the snow hadn’t melted as it rested on people’s hair or touched their faces. She’d wondered what it had been made out of, thinking of all those beautiful actors and actresses covered in asbestos.

  The cold faded as if someone shut off a switch, but Medusa’s arms were still warm on her shoulders, her cheek hot on Cressida’s own.