The Flame in the Maze

by Caitlin Sweet

  Minos growled a laugh, and it, too, sounded so terribly familiar. It’s just the two of you, Ariadne thought. Just like before, when he loved you and promised you the queenship, and you loved him. Only it’s not. Remember: he betrayed you, and he is mad, and you do not love him.

  When his laugh had faded into tendrils of silver smoke, Minos said, “They are all right—the people who worry about me. I am mark-mad. And my god and father, Lord Zeus, no longer wishes me to live in the world of men.”

  He wasn’t breathing hard, anymore. His words slid out of his cracked, blistered, bleeding mouth and he could have been sitting on his throne, leaning toward Ariadne with his fists on his knees, as he had so many times before. She closed her eyes to quell this image, or to pull it closer; she didn’t know which.

  “So I am going to give myself to my god.”

  She opened her eyes. “When?” she whispered, when he said no more.

  “In two months, on the festival of his birth.”

  “Where?” Though she knew, of course.

  “The place of his birth, child. The Great Goddess’s mountain.” This time his laugh trembled a bit, and a tongue of silver-blue flame slithered out between his teeth. “Since Daedalus built his box inside it, the mountain has belonged more to your mother’s god than it has to mine—and more to Athenians than Cretans. It is time that the people remembered Zeus. And they will, as they watch me burn myself to ash for him.”

  He stood up so quickly that Ariadne had to scramble to rise with him. He moaned and doubled over. His flesh seemed to fade and thin, until it looked transparent. Rivers of fire branched and boiled and overflowed; he was Zeus’s lightning and Apollo’s sun, silver and gold, red and white. She felt the heat of him pulse against her own scarred skin.

  “What if there is no need?” she said. “What if the power of your godmark”—your madness—“passes? What if you could live quietly, as some others do, when their gods give them rest?”

  He straightened and snorted, and fire trickled from his singed nostrils. “Rest? No. Their gods leave them—they remove their blessing, and their marks. A more desolate life I cannot imagine—to be pitied and feared, not for power, but for loss of it. No: my god feeds my strength, and demands my sacrifice. And I will obey.”

  Good, she thought. Though I’d rather have seen you pitied. “And what of the Athenian sacrifices, when you go?” These words rushed out as if she’d planned them. “You speak of fear—but King Aegeus will no longer fear us, then. He will stop sending the youths of his city here—and then the priestesses will demand that Asterion be freed. Who will do that? Where is the key?”

  Thick, rank-smelling fluid dribbled from Minos’s mouth when he smiled. “Your sister is the only key,” he said. “I commanded Master Daedalus not to fashion any other.”

  “What?” Ariadne forced herself to press her lips together, so that she wouldn’t gape. “But that is ridiculous! I—”

  “My King?” High Priest Hypatos was standing between the pillars of the gate, the bowman behind him. Ariadne blinked at the priest. His honey-coloured eyes looked like tiny, unlit coals. His beard, wrapped in golden thread, was so slick that Ariadne imagined she could see the olive oil dripping from it to the front of his black tunic. He could summon lightning and earth-cracking thunder, when Zeus wished it. Even when Hypatos wasn’t using his godmark, he was storm, lowering and dark.

  Minos’s bald head spewed flame as he turned. He lowered himself into a crouch as if he meant to spring, but he didn’t; he shimmered, still and silent.

  “My King,” Hypatos said again, stepping forward. “Please. Let us escort you somewhere—a place where you will be able to rest, beyond the prying eyes of your people.”

  “They fear me.” Minos spoke so quietly that even Ariadne, who was so close to him, had to strain to hear him. “You fear me. Perhaps even my wife fears me. None of you will make me go; none of you would dare provoke my god or me that way. Isn’t that right, Hypatos?”

  Minos’s light reflected off the priest’s eyes and turned them from coal to liquid gold. The two men stared at one another for what seemed like a very long time, until Hypatos blinked and looked down at his feet. “It is,” he said. Such short words, but it took them a while to rumble into silence.

  “My Lord King,” Minos said, as if instructing a child.

  Ariadne fell back a pace, dizzy with heat and dread and even excitement, because this almost always came with dread. Just as Hypatos opened his mouth to say something, though, her head filled with another voice.

  ::Princess! Listen . . . see what we . . . ::

  Suddenly it was not just Theseus’s words, throbbing behind her eyes and along her veins: it was images, too. This had never happened before, in all these long months, and he’d never warned her that it would, and she felt herself fall as the pictures came: a vast cavern ringed with pillars and gaping corridor mouths and no ceiling; a girl—no, a woman who was a girl, the last time Ariadne saw her, but who was now changed, except for the wild fall of her red hair; and Chara—Chara, by the gods, her own hair just a dark fuzz; Chara, crouched with her dirty, bleeding hands held before her . . . And something—something enormous and distended, with horns that shone bronze in a strange, rippling light—

  Asterion, some part of Ariadne breathed.

  Theseus said, ::We can’t keep him a . . . why did you not tell me what you did to . . . ::

  Chara was crying; her freckles looked smudged and blotchy. The red-haired woman was screaming, though Ariadne couldn’t hear her: just Theseus, shouting words that crackled and hissed and fell away as the bull-boy—the bull-man—who was her half-brother lowered his horns and charged—

  “Daughter? Ariadne? Little Queen?”

  She was curled on her side. She heard whimpering and knew it had to be from her, because Theseus’s voice was silent and Minos was talking—talking, talking as his godfire lapped at her skin. She didn’t open her eyes, which were full of wavering, dying lines that might have been a pillar or a horn.

  “Princess? Ariadne? Can you hear me, little love? I heard you—heard you cry out and fall—Ariadne?”

  Theseus hasn’t killed Asterion, as I commanded him to, she thought dimly. So I must get into the labyrinth. He promised to take me away with him. I need him. I need to get in—and I need to get up, right now.

  She opened her eyes as she pulled herself to her knees. The world tipped and steadied. Sickness bubbled into her throat when she stood, but she swallowed it. Her father gazed up at her with his black, unblinking eyes.

  “I am fine,” she said loudly, so that Hypatos and the bowman would hear her. “It was just the heat, making me weak. Your godmark, Father—it is a powerful thing. You know this.”

  No, she thought, oh, no indeed: I was listening to Theseus. Theseus, son of Aegeus, king of Athens, whom you blame for your own son’s murder. Theseus, who will get me off this island. Would you kill me, if you knew? Would you burn me to ash, then yourself?

  “Yes,” Minos said, so gently that she felt like his child, again. “I know this. I have hurt you in so many ways, and do not deserve your forgiveness. When I am gone, you will no longer have to endure it. The gods will soon grant all of us peace.”

  I’ll be gone long before then, she thought. “Yes,” she said. “I am sure they will.” She smiled at him, though he couldn’t see it, and she smiled at Hypatos, who did, and then she walked away.

  Chapter Two

  Phaidra was asleep. Ariadne had known she would be: it was the middle of the night, after all, and Phaidra had always slept so soundly that Deucalion had declared this her true godmark, to everyone’s great amusement. Ariadne stared down at her now: long, moon-silvered limbs; hair, both silver and gold, that flowed over the edge of the bed.

  “Phaidra. Get up.”

  The girl murmured and rolled onto her back. Fine little breasts, Ariadne thought. And
a fine little belly. I would smother her, if I didn’t need her fine little godmark.

  “Sister. Get up.” Ariadne tugged on a lock of Phaidra’s hair and she sat up, moaning and rubbing at her eyes.

  “Ari?” Her voice was muffled and rough, but when her eyes opened they were clear. “What do you want?”

  Ariadne walked to the window, which overlooked the road and the ragged hills and the glint of sea beyond them. Phaidra had a better view than Ariadne did, at the summer palace. Everyone had a better view than Ariadne did.

  “I need you to open a lock for me.”

  Phaidra stood up. When did she get so tall? She looks like one of Karpos’s statues: made of marble, but breathing and warm. Godsblood, I hate her.

  “You’ve never come to me before,” Phaidra said. “You’ve never asked me for anything.”

  Ariadne smiled. She made sure that the moonlight was falling on her face, so that Phaidra would see it. “Get dressed.”

  “I’ll do nothing for you.” Phaidra crossed her arms over her ribs, which made her breasts higher and fuller. “I can’t imagine why you think I would.”

  “Indeed.” Ariadne walked slowly back and forth in front of the window, her skirts whispering on the stone floor. On her third circuit she stopped and laid her hand on a pillar, which was cool and polished, painted with ferns and thistles that almost prickled her skin (Daedalus’s work, no doubt, or perhaps Karpos’s). She turned her face to the moonlit sky. “And what if I told you this lock would lead you to Icarus?”

  She had expected a gasp, or a thump as Phaidra fell to the floor. Instead there was silence. Ariadne glanced at her sister and saw her standing straight and pale, her gaze steady.

  “Icarus.” Phaidra’s voice was also steady.

  “Yes.”

  “Icarus is dead. He drowned more than four years ago when his ship was attacked by pirates. I was in the Throne Room when the messenger brought the news. Remember, Ari? I was there.” At last, a tremble. A tensing of the muscles in her arms.

  “I remember.” Ariadne crossed her own arms and took three steps toward Phaidra. Their elbows were almost touching. “But oh, Sister: there is so much you do not know.”

  She watched Phaidra swallow.

  “Tell me, Ariadne. It’s what you came to do. So do it.”

  Ariadne turned and walked to the doorway. “No, Phaidra dear. I’d rather show you. Follow me.”

  After a long, long moment, Phaidra did.

  Phaidra didn’t seem at all put out by the underground tunnel, which annoyed Ariadne, even as it relieved her. She couldn’t have borne a hysterical, snivelling companion—but Phaidra’s calm made Ariadne remember her own panic, the first time she’d crawled into this place. The damp earth, the skittering creatures, the sneer of Minos’s man Theron, who’d wanted to put his filthy hands on her, and taunted her because he couldn’t.

  “Faster,” Ariadne hissed. The tunnel’s walls sucked her voice away, but Phaidra heard her. Even though she said nothing, Ariadne was certain she’d heard her. Her lantern swung, and their shadows twisted together on the earthen walls.

  When she finally opened the trapdoor at end of the tunnel, the air was so fresh that Ariadne whimpered. She’d imagined this moment so often, in the years since her father had first brought her here. She’d imagined pulling the lever behind the great storage jars and striding the length of the tunnel and thrusting open the trapdoor that would lead to the pasture, the cliff, the ledge—but these were fantasies, only. She hadn’t needed to do it—not until now, when Theseus’s voice was silent again and Icarus and his father were the only people who could show her the way, once the door in the mountain was open.

  “Careful,” Ariadne said over her shoulder as she pulled herself up and onto the grass of the pasture—but Phaidra was already there, bending and straightening as if she’d been scrambling up out of tunnels all her life. They stood facing each other. A sea wind lifted their hair—the dark and the golden.

  “Take me to him, then,” Phaidra said, in a voice that was child’s and woman’s, both.

  “Stupid girl,” Ariadne said. “Impatient girl. I would make you wait—”

  “If you did not need me so much. Yes. So take me to him.”

  Ariadne wrenched herself around and walked toward the place where cliff met sky. Phaidra’s footsteps scuffed along behind her. She’s not a dancer like I am, Ariadne thought. Daedalus never made her a dancing ground in front of the palace at Knossos. She may be young and lithe and lovely, but she walks like an old man.

  Ariadne’s hands and feet found the cliff steps as if it hadn’t been years since the last time. She gazed up at Phaidra’s pale, open-mouthed face, said, “Come on, then. He’s down here.”

  The ledge was still sickeningly narrow. The sea still roared below it, hungry and dark. Phaidra’s eyes darted from her feet to the empty space that yawned just past them, and Ariadne smiled. Not as confident here as you were in that tunnel. Good. She pulled Phaidra down to crouch by the small, round, rusted door. “Here,” she said loudly, over the pounding of the waves. “Open it.”

  The girl leaned forward on the balls of her feet. She laid her hands on either side of the lock. She was shaking from fingertips to forearms.

  “Do not make me wait.” Ariadne pushed her words through gritted teeth. A trembling had begun in her own belly, though it had nothing to do with a fear of falling. “Phaidra. Do not.”

  Phaidra turned to look at her with a calm that she couldn’t, mustn’t be feeling. “I know how to get here now,” she said, her words measured and slow. “After I let you in, will you kill me?”

  Ariadne’s laugh trembled, but it didn’t matter; the wind snatched it away. “Godsblood, Phaidra: of course not!”

  “And what if I tell someone?”

  “Even if it was not him you told,” Ariadne said, with exaggerated care, so that she wouldn’t shriek the words instead, “our father would find out. It was he who put them here—yes, them,” she went on as Phaidra’s eyes widened. “Daedalus, too. And the king shared this secret only with me. He wanted no one else to find out. He’s mark-mad, little sister—utterly without reason. He would likely kill them, if you told, and perhaps you, too.”

  “I could come back alone. I could set them free.” Phaidra was thrusting her pointy little chin toward Ariadne as she had when she was a child, clinging as ever to their mother’s skirts.

  Ariadne laughed again, more loudly this time. “Ah, Phai; so silly! The king sends a man to them every month with food. Their disappearance would be discovered—and where would they have gone, by then? Where would they go that the great, mad Minos could not find them?” She put her hands on Phaidra’s shoulders and clenched her fingers to keep them from shaking. “You will not speak of this. You will not come back. But by the gods, you will open this lock—and if you do not hurry, I will knock you senseless, when you are done, and leave you here, and only I will see him.”

  The wind gusted; water crashed and foamed below them. My mother’s god, Ariadne thought. Lord Poseidon, ramming his childish fists against the cliff because I don’t revere him.

  Phaidra turned back to the door. Her hands hovered for another endless moment, and then they touched the rust-thickened lock. Silver godlight blossomed from her palms and fingers and spread like spider’s web across the metal. Even though wind and waves filled her ears, Ariadne heard the click as the lock opened. She lunged forward and pushed and fell into the passage she remembered, with its smell of wet earth and stale air. Her lantern dragged on the ground; when she lifted it, she saw an insect rippling up toward the ceiling, its transparent body joined to too many legs. She looked past it and saw the opening that would lead to him.

  “I did this for you,” Phaidra said from behind her. “Now take me to him.”

  It took no longer than a breath or two. The passage opened into a roofless cavern tha
t flickered with light: one of Daedalus’s old shell inventions, sitting on the stony floor, bathing the cavern in pink, then blue, then green, then gold. The stench of sweat and excrement made Ariadne recoil and press a hand to her nose and mouth. Phaidra straightened up behind her, apparently unaffected. “Icarus?” she called, into the gold-tinged darkness. “Icarus: it’s Phaidra. Where are you?”

  A shadow stirred, at the edge of the light. It was hunched and tall, spiky with feather ends and a beak—no: something between a beak and a nose. Ariadne hadn’t seen him in four years, but he was so familiar: he had just dropped down from the roof above her bed chamber; he was rocking back and forth between the stone horns above the courtyard at Knossos, and there was a honeyed oatcake in her hand for him, which she didn’t want to deliver.

  “Phaidra.” He didn’t sound the same. His voice had always been pinched and thin, but now it was splintered, too. Broken.

  He dragged himself into the guttering light. Phaidra took two paces and held out her hands to him and he stumbled, shambled, took them and leaned into her as if she alone could hold him up. He bent and touched his forehead to hers. “Phai,” he murmured, “gods, how you’ve changed,” and Ariadne just had time to think, When did he ever notice her? It was always me he watched, when he spun and cried, “Ariadne! Show yourself!”

  Phaidra pulled her hands free and backed away from him. Ariadne stepped forward. “Here I am,” she said. Her voice remembered him—remembered how to be sweet and smooth and deep. You’ve missed him, gods help you; you’ve missed this—

  Icarus shouted. It wasn’t a word, but it echoed, and Ariadne understood it. She took three more paces and stood before him, bathed in the light that was green, now—as green as new olive leaves, or the stone at the centre of her dancing ground.