The Flame in the Maze

by Caitlin Sweet

“Alphaios!” Chara cried. He turned to her, his eyebrows arched and frowning at the same time. “Get away from her! Get away from her now!”

  “Chara?” Polymnia’s tone was puzzled, but she walked toward her purposefully and swiftly. “What are you going on about?”

  “Show him the obsidian in your hand! Show him!”

  “He knew I had it,” Polymnia said patiently, holding the shard up, still closing the distance between them. “I was going to teach him how to kill lizards, remember?”

  “Not lizards: people! Us, and the ones who came before us—and don’t say that was Asterion, because it can’t have been. He’s a bull now, all the time—you told us this yourself; he could never have arranged the bones in that passageway back there.”

  “Chara?” Alphaios said, as if she were the mad one. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?”

  Polymnia was very close to her now, and there was no way that Alphaios could have seen Polymnia’s hand, blurred with speed, jabbing the shard at Chara’s belly.

  Chara cried, “Alphaios: just get away from her!” and she spun and ran.

  Polymnia shrieked. She was right behind, panting, her bare feet drumming on the crystal. She shrieked again—and Asterion roared, so loudly that Chara could almost feel his hot breath on her skin—but she didn’t let herself falter, though surely he was nearer than he’d ever been, since they’d stood together outside the mountain’s door.

  When she was only steps from the altar chamber, gears began to grind. The floor beneath her lurched, and she sprawled into the chamber. As she was hauling herself up, Alphaios sprinted past her. Good, she thought, with a numbing flood of relief, and Maybe the corridor will stop her—but just as the crystal passage screeched its way up toward its next position, Polymnia dropped down between them.

  “What—no lizards?” said Melaina from one of the steps to the altar.

  Theseus strode toward them. Chara had to squint to make him out: the light was halfway between dusk and night. “What is this?” he demanded. “Chara: what—”

  Chara was choking on her own moist breath, but managed to say, “She’s mad! She’s the killer of Athenians!”

  Polymnia came silently up beside her. As she did, Asterion roared again. They all turned toward the sound—and suddenly there were hoofbeats too, pounding, louder and louder.

  Theseus said, “Did you see evidence of Polymnia’s treachery, Alphaios?”

  “No.” Alphaios’s eyes were darting from Polymnia to Chara to the mouth of the tunnel from which the hoofbeats seemed to be coming. “I was looking at the lizards; I only turned around when Chara called my name.”

  Chara’s chest burned. Her breath burned. She hardly heard herself when she said, “She sang about bringing us to Asterion one by one. She killed Phoibe: I found her skull in a corridor made of bones.”

  Polymnia was shaking her head. “Oh, Chara. I am sorry you are so confused.”

  “No.” Chara reached a hand out for Theseus. He looked as if he were far away, and he started when her fingers touched his arm. “Believe me, Prince of Athens. Asterion didn’t kill Phoibe. He didn’t arrange all those bones.”

  The hoofbeats were nearly upon them. “He is coming, at last,” Theseus said, putting one hand over Chara’s and reaching for the sword with the other, “and you would say anything to sway me from my purpose.”

  “No! I’m telling you . . .”

  The sword snicked to its full length. Melaina ran up the steps and hunkered down behind the tallest of the jars, where she picked up the dagger Alphaios had made. Alphaios ran for the jar next to hers and stood peering around it, his hands clasped beneath his chin.

  Chara walked to the mouth of the corridor.

  ::Daughter of Pherenike: step back.::

  She looked over her shoulder at him but didn’t move any more than that. She watched him raise the sword. She watched Polymnia wrap her fingers around it and she frowned, just as he did. Polymnia pulled, and the blade trembled and bobbed lower, and blood seeped between her fingers. She was smiling, her gaze fixed on the corridor. Theseus opened his mouth—but before he could speak with either of his voices, a shadow loomed in the passageway and roared one last, ringing cry.

  “Asterion,” Chara whispered. He was coming toward her—enormous and distended, his bronze horns shining in the strange, rippling light. Chara stumbled back because he was moving so quickly; because for him to see her clearly, she’d have to be away from him.

  I thought I’d cry I thought my legs would go weak and I’d fall I thought he’d know me but none of this is true

  She saw, as he galloped out between the columns, that the fur of his muzzle was matted and blackened. She saw that his nostrils were wet, and that there was a long wound on his front leg that was also wet, and pink inside. She saw that he wasn’t anything like a boy.

  The bull stopped running when he was fully inside the chamber. His great head swung, and his round eyes rolled. Mere steps away from him, Theseus wrenched his sword from Polymnia’s grip; she snatched at it again, with her bloody hand, her gaze steady on Asterion.

  “Asterion!” Chara’s voice shook, so she called again: “Asterion!”

  He pawed at the floor and sparks spat from the stone. The light above was dimming, and the fireflies had only begun to come out; she saw their green, blue and pink reflected in his eyes, but she couldn’t be sure that he was looking at her. She wasn’t sure—until he lowered his horns and charged at her.

  Theseus bellowed into the air and into Chara’s mind, and she fell to her knees. She held her head and hands up, and all she could see was one of Asterion’s horns, brighter and larger than anything else in the world. It swooped down toward her, and she wanted to scream—but instead she sang, in a thin, trembling voice, words that rose up from a day of sun and wind and laughter:

  The hermit crab’s got pretty clothes

  Alas, he hasn’t got a nose . . .

  Too quiet, she thought, as her stomach twisted and sickness surged into her throat. He won’t hear—but the bull pulled up short, directly in front of her, his wide nostrils flaring.

  “Asterion,” she said, steadily this time, despite the pounding of Theseus’s mind-voice within her. “It’s me. It’s Chara.” She lifted a hand but couldn’t reach him. He gave a snort and tossed his head.

  “No!” Polymnia cried. “My Lord! My Bull-god—Poseidon’s son—see who I have for you! A boy, two girls, a prince: my Lord, a Prince of Athens! They are yours, O Great One! And I shall slay them for you, as is my duty”—and Chara turned at last, because she felt Polymnia move toward her.

  Obsidian flashed, far closer to Chara than Asterion’s horn was. Before it could touch her, though, Alphaios leapt between them and knocked it away. Polymnia screeched and flailed, clawing at Alphaios’s eyes. Behind them, Theseus was gaping, the sword drooping in his hand.

  Chara turned back to Asterion. She rose into a crouch, and this time her hand brushed the fur at his neck. It was coarser and thicker than she remembered—but of course: it had been so many years, and so much had changed. So much; so little.

  “I know it’s hot here,” Chara said, as the bull’s head began to swing again. “I know you feel as if you can’t change back into a boy—a man. But you can. You must. You must, Asterion. Don’t be afraid.”

  An eye staring into hers. Breath on her forehead. It stank of meat but she didn’t turn away.

  “Asterion,” she said—and he spun, tossing his head, roaring a broken, shaking roar, and galloped toward one of the doorways. Theseus got there first, and raised the sword between them.

  “No!” Chara cried, scrambling up, running and tripping, hardly hearing her own panting over Polymnia’s and Melaina’s screams. The bull halted just short of the blade and stamped his front feet; she skidded around his bulk and grasped Theseus’s wrist.

  “No! No�
�you’ve seen! You’ve heard! She . . .” Chara gestured at the other side of the chamber, where Alphaios was holding Polymnia against him. She was writhing, scrabbling at his forearm, which was across her throat. His eyes met Chara’s; somehow the bleakness in them made her calmer.

  “My Prince: Polymnia was the murderer. Asterion . . .” She glanced at the bull, who was still pawing, his head cocked. “Asterion was a boy whose sister hated him and connived to put him here, where his godmark would hurt him. I wrote that letter to you, as she spoke the words. Gods forgive me, I helped her convince you he was a monster, because I thought she or you would lead me to him.” All of a sudden the words went hot and dry as cinders in Chara’s throat. She reached for Asterion’s muzzle; he spun once more and clattered over to the steps to the altar. He huffed, head down and facing away from Chara.

  Theseus stepped past her. He cut the sword through the air in a sweeping arc; she shrank from its wind. ::The princess lied. Polymnia lied. How can I know that you do not?::

  “Wait. Wait, and I’ll show you.”

  He swung the sword again, then lowered it so that its point was resting on the floor. He said nothing with either of his voices. After a moment, Chara walked slowly by him and circled all the way around the altar, so that she could approach Asterion from the front. She knelt before him, just out of reach of his horns, and put her hands on her knees.

  “It’s Chara,” she said. His head tossed and his huge body swayed.

  “My Lord!” Polymnia called, the words so high and cracked that Chara could hardly understand them. “My Lord: I am your servant! I have fed you! I have sacrificed to the Goddess for you, and prayed for your strength—and I have tried to use my godmark to bring you peace. . . .” She started to sing, raggedly. Silver left her mouth in thin ribbons that fluttered and faded before they reached Asterion. Alphaios’s arm tightened, and the silver vanished.

  The bull walked slowly to the waterfall. Polymnia hadn’t replaced the jar beneath it; he stood in the stream of it, until his head and shoulders were soaked. He shook himself, and water sprayed, lit by the fireflies’ colours.

  “My Lord!” Polymnia managed to choke the words out, despite Alphaios’s grip—and Theseus strode over to them, wrapped her long red hair around and around his hand, and pulled her face in close to his.

  “We should kill her,” Alphaios said in a hard, flat voice that sounded like someone else’s.

  “No,” Theseus said softly. “No: we will bring her to justice in Athens.”

  Her lips curled in a sneer, and she spat, “As if any of us will ever see Athens again.”

  Theseus tugged once more on her hair, savagely, and she gave a cry—and Asterion heaved himself to his feet. He struck the ground with his front hoof three times, quickly, and lowered his head, and Chara yelled, “No!” as he charged.

  She rose and ran, or tried to: she felt as if she were slogging through mud. Asterion was halfway to Theseus, but she’d been closer; she reached him as he turned, his sword already up. Asterion was right behind her. She whirled just as the blade was about to pierce Asterion’s chest, and Asterion’s horn was about to pierce Theseus’s. She called, “Asterion!” into his great, dark face, and he stumbled. The sword sank into his shoulder, and his horn screeched along the ground as he swerved away from them, wrenching the weapon from Theseus’s grip. Asterion’s legs buckled and he fell with a dull, echoing thud.

  Chara ran the three paces to him. She knelt and put one hand on his heaving side and one on his head, between his ears. Theseus leaned over her and pulled the sword out. Asterion bellowed and lashed, and Chara had to sit back so that his hooves wouldn’t strike her. Blood gushed from his flesh, coating his fur and pooling on the floor. He bellowed again, but this time she heard a voice beneath the bull’s—a higher, frightened voice.

  Beside her, Theseus raised his blade.

  “No,” she said, not taking her eyes from Asterion. “Wait. Please”—and everything faded around her—Polymnia’s screams, Melaina’s whimpering, the water sizzling on the stone—as Chara sang:

  “Nearly time” the small fish cried

  And tickled bigger fish insides. . . .

  Asterion’s eye rolled and stilled. He looked at her. His breath whistled as he panted. He rocked his body a bit, as if he were trying to rise, and fresh blood bubbled. This time his roar broke and turned into a keening sound she knew.

  “Asterion,” she said.

  He lashed again, differently, because his back hooves were lengthening, flattening, splitting into toes, and his front ones too, and his fur was retreating into skin that was dirty and bloody and covered in scars. His newest wound gaped and frothed beneath his right collarbone.

  His head was the last thing to change. It seemed to take a very long time. A slow, groaning noise that wasn’t from his throat, but from somewhere deeper, made her suck in her breath, and tears along with it. When the change was done, and only the bull’s horns remained, smaller, but still bright, she smiled down at him and sang:

  “I’ve missed you,” clicked the crab

  And the fishing crane clacked, “Me?”

  “Why yes,” crab said,

  “You showed me

  That there’s sky as well as sea.”

  He lifted his head, then let it fall. He gazed at her and wet his cracked lips with the tip of his tongue, which was also bleeding.

  “Freckles,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Asterion slept for a very long time. Maybe he isn’t sleeping, Chara thought as she watched him. She longed to touch his cheeks and forehead, his lips and hair, but a strange, new shyness kept her hands at her sides. Maybe he’s unconscious. Maybe his god is finally granting him rest that will help him. She stared at his wound, which Alphaios had dabbed at with a wet, almost-clean corner of his robe, and remembered Sotiria, who could have healed it.

  She started when Alphaios said, “Chara?” She glanced up and saw bright daylight on the rock above. “Do you still have Master Daedalus’s string? Theseus wants to tie her up with it.” He jerked his head toward Polymnia, who was slumped against a wall, her chin to her chest. Her arms were limp on either side of her, her bloodied palms up.

  Chara eased Asterion’s head from her lap to the ground. He moaned, and his eyes moved beneath their lids, but he didn’t wake. “Let me,” she said.

  The ragged end of the string cut, as she wrapped it around Polymnia’s wrists, and more blood smeared both of their skin, but Chara didn’t falter. “If I’d known what you’d do,” Polymnia said in a dull, dead voice, “I would have tried to kill you, that morning outside the mountain door. My hands were bound then too, but I would have tried anyway.”

  Chara said nothing, and looked only at the string.

  “Wait,” Alphaios said after she’d knotted it. He leaned forward to cut it with the blade he’d made himself, from the shell. “I want to do her ankles.”

  He wound the string even tighter than Chara had, and Polymnia gasped and reared back, hitting her head against the wall. Melaina laughed and drifted over to them, not limping at all now, carefully avoiding the place where Asterion was lying. “Difficult, isn’t it?” she said loudly to Alphaios. “When desire turns to hatred. When love becomes a rage so strong that you could kill—”

  “Melaina,” said Theseus wearily, “enough.”

  She ignored him and bent down over Alphaios’s shoulder. “She’s not even all that beautiful,” she said, and patted him on the shoulder.

  She is, though, thought Chara. She really is—and she remembered, with a rush of dread, how Asterion the bull had charged, after Polymnia had cried out—protecting her? Defending her? All these years; what were they, to each other?

  Asterion still hadn’t woken up by nightfall, though metal and stone screamed as two of the corridors changed, and Alphaios and Melaina shouted at each other about who s
hould bathe first, until Theseus commanded them to be silent. They retreated to opposite sides of the altar stone, and Theseus settled against the wall beside Polymnia. Asterion’s head was back in Chara’s lap. She tried to stay awake, and thought of that other time when she’d tried, and failed—and she failed again, because her weariness was too heavy to throw off.

  She woke to Polymnia’s voice, and air drenched in silver. She tried to spring to her feet, but couldn’t: only her ears seemed to be working. The song was enormous, everywhere; it had so many words that she couldn’t make out any of them. She heard blood in it, and night or ocean, endless and consuming.

  She dragged her eyelids open.

  Polymnia had managed to get herself to the middle of the altar. She was kneeling there, her bound ankles behind her, her bound wrists in front, her head thrown back to the moonlight. The silver flooded from her mouth in a spout that fell back on itself and down around her, and all of them.

  Alphaios and Theseus were staring, motionless, at her. Melaina was lying with her face turned to the wall, so Chara couldn’t tell if she was awake.

  The song squeezed Chara’s throat. It reached down into her chest and squeezed her heart. When Asterion stirred against her, she felt it, but only barely. She heard herself groan as she urged her gaze down to him.

  His own eyes opened. He frowned at her—in confusion, not pain. He sat up and looked around the chamber, blinking at the silver, and rose. He gaped at his hands and feet, tipping forward slightly.

  He didn’t remember he’d turned back, Chara thought muzzily, and, Her godmark’s not affecting him; I don’t understand.

  He straightened and walked slowly toward the altar. Polymnia’s song faltered as she lowered her head to look at him. The silver broke into foam around her.

  “No!” The word was thick and loud, from beast’s throat and man’s. Asterion stopped at the foot of the steps; Chara heard him panting, and saw his naked back heaving.

  Polymnia strained against Daedalus’s string, and fresh blood seeped down her hands. “How dare you?” she screamed—and the others began to squirm and stretch, as the song’s light dissipated. “How dare you help mere mortals when I helped you become a god? Answer me! How dare you—”