“Oh girls!” It was all he could say. He seemed to comprehend almost immediately. He stepped towards the edge of the Lightwell and looked down, then back to them.
With some difficulty Danae manoeuvred to the platform at the topmost stair and, with the methodical care of someone who is determined to do something once and only once, she carefully set down on the stone floor. Her sisters were a second ahead of her, dropping as soon as it was safe. Jorge rushed to them.
“Girls!” he cried, arms outstretched and pity tearing his face at the sight of the distraught sisters. Leda was sobbing and Ilia was trying to speak, but her heaving chest would not allow it.
Danae did not hesitate. Her sisters safe she did not look at them twice. She stepped to the edge of the Lightwell, the great depths plunging directly before her. She folded her wings back on either side and then, like a diver intent on hitting the water head first, she leapt.
It was so fast that no one had noticed what she was doing, until she disappeared over the edge – then it was too late. Ilia cried out after her, but Danae was outracing Sound.
…She plummets like a bullet down a barrel; with her arms by her sides and wings folded back she offers no resistance. Her speed is phenomenal, and the dark hole of the oculus in the chamber far below ever more rapidly approaches. It is only a few seconds and she realises she must pull up or crash to her death. Although the wings are still new to her, they feel so natural that when she pulls up it is like a veteran skydiver that releases their chute only metres from the ground. Danae suddenly thrusts her wings wide and with an enormous rushing sound they take the air and halt her; she is just through the oculus and hovering.
The entire chamber is spread out below her. She scours it, but sees only a single figure; it is lying in the foetal position in the centre of the moonlit circle, unmoving.
Dad!
She glances around the hall one last time and, content that she is alone, plummets the last few metres to pull up and land lightly on the stone floor beside the body of her father.
The girls never learned how it was that he died, whether in combat or flight, whether hopelessly defiant or whimpering pathetically for a mercy that would not be given. They would have liked to think that it was brave, but wishing that does not make it any more likely to be true. Either way, the outcome was inevitable; he was no warrior, just a father. Asterion had faced and overcome some of the greatest heroes of the Bronze Age; this man would have posed no threat and, as insignificant as a spent candle, he was now snuffed out.
But there was a degree of mystery to his death. As Danae lands she can see that her father, lying on his side and curled around it, is with both hands clutching the hilt of the sword that he had lost, and that it is thrust completely through his chest, protruding through the back. He had retrieved it, but how had it ended lodged in his body? It looks almost like a suicide, although that could not be. The Minotaur must have taken it from him and used it to kill him; but if so, where now was the Minotaur?
In that instant Danae does not ponder these things; only a vague awareness of confusion sweeps over her. But her overwhelming emotion is grief. She is too late. It had all happened so fast.
Her tears, held at bay by her urgency, now come like a deluge and she slumps to her knees by his body and sobs. Struggling through her tears she fumbles with the harness straps and buckles; she cannot hold him with these things on. She manages to wrench herself free and cast them to the floor, then she lies down on her Dad’s body and holds him and weeps.
The Curse of Hera has begun to unfold.
Oblivious to her surroundings, Danae vents her despair through her heaving chest and flooding eyes. Had the Minotaur returned now he would have taken her completely unaware but, for whatever reason, He does not. She calls to her Dad over and over, but he is unmoved. Even as she cries she can feel his body cooling. He is gone.
One cannot cry forever; it is immediately therapeutic to weep, temporarily rinsing out your sorrow. After some time Danae sits up, wipes away her tears so she can see, and tries to focus her blank mind on what to do next. She needs to do something with Dad; she cannot just leave him here. But she cannot carry him and fly at the same time, and to try and carry him back through the Labyrinth was impossible.
She looks around her and back at Dad. The tears start to come again but she stubbornly refuses to give into them, forcefully blinking and wiping them away, then she takes a huge breath. She takes another.
Her eyes lock on the only object in the hall; the tomb.
That will do perfectly. Dad will have to share it, but the son of Daedalus will not make an undignified companion. And if the tomb does for Dad what it did for Icarus, it should preserve him until they can come back and retrieve him.
She corrects herself. Not Dad – just his body.
In that quiet moment she looks at her father differently. Grey. Cooling. Stiffening. Utterly motionless. Unresponsive. No flicker in the sightless eyes that are already starting to cloud. No stir of the unnaturally grimacing mouth. No movement of the chest. Just this lifeless lump that vaguely resembles what she used to call Dad. Everything he was – his chat, his humour, his passions, his love, his intellect – the difference between that and this thing lying before her cannot possibly be a bit of electrical current in the brain. He was more than this. Although she had never been convinced, in that instant she suddenly understands why people choose to believe in some form of immortality, because there is no way that this thing lying here is all that Dad was.
In fact, she did know better now, but had never really internalised it. Dad’s spirit would be moving on towards his next life. In Classics they had read the Myth of Ur; if any of that were true then Dad would have to travel through the constellations, then cross the great waterless desert, at the end of which he would encounter the River Lethe – the River of Forgetfulness. Before moving on to choose his next life, Dad would be tempted to slate his thirst in the river, and then be left to choose his next life with no memory of his previous experiences to guide him in the choice. Dad had always joked with them: when you get there girls, remember – don’t drink of the River! She leans towards him, kisses his cool cheek and whispers this advice in his ear now:
“Remember Dad, don’t drink at the River! Remember us and find us.”
She wants to kiss him again but the sensation is too unsettling. Besides, it is not really him. Telling herself this she stands up and finds that her mind is clearer. She has to dispose of what-had-been-her-Dad’s shell.
In her current mood it takes her no time to slide the tomb open and expose the coffin within. Dad will lie on this well, she thinks. She returns to him and contemplates the body for a moment. The sword must come out. She does not want to do this, but there is no way around it; she sits down in front of him, places a foot on either side of the sword, and grasps the hilts. With a grimace of distaste, she pulls; she is surprised how difficult it is to withdraw, but it comes reluctantly, smeared with Dad’s congealing blood. She casts the sword aside with disgust. The clatter is loud.
The wound leaks a little more and she hesitates, watching it. There is no way to avoid getting bloody. It is not that she is worried by the mess, she just does not like the idea of having her Dad’s blood all over her. But that cannot be helped.
She stands and, focusing the way she has learned, finds she can lift him relatively easily. It is cumbersome though, because he was tall and she is still only 15. But with steady, deliberate steps she carries him to the tomb and gently lays him down on top of the coffin. She looks at him lying there and he seems already more peaceful. Torn between incomprehension that he is gone and this new sense of conviction that he was more than this shell, she places a kiss on her fingertips and transfers it to his forehead.
This is the most difficult moment. She must close this box and shut him in. Leave him there in eternal darkness. Close him off from the world that he loved to explore so much. But it must be done, and she needs to get back to her sisters. Sh
e feels that she must say something, a goodbye or some fitting words, even though there is no one there to hear them. But her mind is blank.
Suddenly she has an image in her head; a small wooden watch stand that sits on Dad’s bedside table, a gift from Ilia, and inscribed on it some words that she now articulates:
“Time with you was the best, Dad.”
Then, with quiet tears trickling, she leans into the stone lid and slides it shut on her Father.
There is something terribly final about closing a box on a person; but then, she thinks, that is Death after all. She pauses a moment longer, then in a force of tremendous willpower, turns away. Part of her wants to stay there forever and keep him company, sitting with her back to the tomb and talking to him, comforting him in the darkness, but she knows he will not hear her again.
She fumbles through the straps and harness, but it is easier to get on second time around. She collects a couple of their day packs that have been discarded and forgotten on the floor and hooks them to her harness. Then she turns and pauses.
There is the sword.
The sword. That which took her Dad’s life; still smeared with her Dad’s life.
It repulses her. But she cannot leave it.
Without thinking further, she sweeps it up, quickly wraps it in some spare clothing and thrusts it forgotten into one of the daypacks.
She has no idea how important this action will be.
Finally, with one last glance at her Father’s resting place, she sets her face to the descending shaft of moonlight and, with the first great sweep of these magnificent wings, she launches into it.
The ease and speed are surprising. Without the burden of her sisters this is almost effortless. She cannot enjoy anything at present though and sets her face firm as she sweeps upward in a great spiralling ascent. The only sound accompanying her is the air rushing through her wings. All below is deathly silent. She has an urge to be with her two sisters, to hold them, giving and receiving comfort. She feels incomplete without them.
Very swiftly she approaches the same layer of moonlit haze at the top of the Lightwell and bursts through it.
Chapter X
The Quest Begins
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can…
Bilbo’s Walking Song, The Lord of the Rings
Even though they were looking down into the Lightwell, they did not see Danae coming; she emerged from nowhere. The girls could not explain it at the time and had no heart to consider it. Reflecting on it later they agreed that the Lightwell had somehow been one huge experience of The Sight and that, in descending into it, they had entered another dimension, either temporal or spatial. This also meant that, in some way, they had left their father outside of this world.
They had half-expected that Danae would reappear with their Dad, or tell them that he was ascending the stairs not far behind. The possibility that he might not return simply did not resonate with them. But as she emerged, one look at Danae’s face and the girls knew that this was no dream and that they had left him behind for good; their grief was complete.
With a couple of small flutters, she alighted on the edge of the topmost stair. The Wings dropped to her sides, her hands slipped out of the loop grips and she simply stood there, breathing heavily, her stern face staring sightlessly. Her two sobbing sisters ran to her and held her, but she did not react. She looked past them at nothing. With great difficulty they asked her: What had happened? What had she found? Where was Dad? But she remained stiff, unsure as to what emotion was appropriate; all she knew was that it must be extreme.
Finally, although they did not need to be told, she answered them. Her tone was as lifeless as the corpse she had left behind.
“He’s dead. He was alone. I put him in the tomb with Icarus.”
Ilia and Leda only sobbed more, chests heaving in great shuddering gasps. She let them cry for a while but, trussed up as she was, she felt removed from them. She needed to get out of the harness. Gently she raised her arms a little and they stepped back to give her space.
“Help me out of this thing, could you?” Undoing the buckles with her wings on was difficult enough in an open space like the great hall below, but in this narrower space with her sisters holding her it was impossible. As they stepped back Jorge came forward to help, removing the wings and harness and taking them to one side as the three sisters reunited in an embrace.
Leda was beside herself and could not speak, but she was desperately trying to say something – something important to her. Finally, Danae took her by the shoulder with one hand and held her at arm’s length, her other arm still around Ilia. Bending to her level Danae looked into her little sister’s distraught face.
“Bu…but…Da…Da…d…said…he’d…ne…ne…ne…ver…leave…me…”
Danae rarely felt sympathy for her sisters over the trivial issues of everyday life, but now Leda was crushing what remained of her heart.
“He never wanted to Leda,” she managed to say quietly. “He didn’t have a choice.” Then she pulled her sister to her again and held her shaking little body.
For those of us fortunate enough to be born into an affluent part of the world, it can be hard to accept any major loss. Our lives are so privileged; we spend it at school and in sport and on holiday; we spend it in leisure time and with activities that distract us from our indolent boredom. We sit for hours watching stories and more banal programs on screens in our living rooms, or scrolling through idiotic videoclips on our smart devices, or indulging in game consoles that allow us to savour what it might be like to have an interesting life. We open the refrigerator and stare languidly into it, wondering what we might like to eat, tortured by our First World problems. We complain about getting up too early on a Saturday for a sporting event, or about being asked to unpack the dishwasher. We are not exposed to the starvation that erodes your body and destroys your organs; we are not exposed to dangers that might tear your family and community apart, never to see them again; we are not exposed to death from illness or malnutrition or war. Even listing such things has no impact on us, because we have no point of reference that enables us to comprehend them. You have just read them, but they passed as mere words.
Yet, for the vast majority of the population of the world, and for the vast bulk of the history of humankind, suffering and loss are and have been ever-present. If you were fortunate enough to live through the year 542-543 AD, you were part of the lucky proportion of the planet’s population that survived the Plague of Justinian. In a single year it is estimated that a quarter of the population of the known world died of disease, from China across Asia to Europe and Africa. Imagine that – every family impacted; every parent lost children; every child lost a parent or grand-parent. But, of course, this was not distributed evenly, and in some areas the entire population was wiped out almost completely. Imagine a quarter of your family dead, with no one to console you because every other family you know has suffered equally. Friends, classmates, teachers – all dead: education ceases. A great swathe of the army is wiped out, along with the police force and half of the government with its aged politicians; law and order collapse and society descends into anarchy. Farming is devastated and production ceases so that, even if you did not die of the plague, your chances of dying of the famine that followed were also immense. The dead pile up in houses and streets, bloating and rotting, polluting the waterways, with no one to clear them, so that the corpses provide feed for the rodents that brought the disease in the first place. The devastation was so great that the Byzantine Empire was weakened never to recover. All this occurred in a single year.
Such plagues have struck again and again. Similar events are recorded as far back as 430 BC, when a plague destroyed two thirds of the population of Athens, turning the tide of the Peloponnesian war that Athens was waging against Sparta. In the Black Death of 1348
-50 an estimated 200 million died across Eurasia, and one third of the population of Europe was wiped out. It returned in 1360 and again in 1369. It is no wonder that the Reaper was ingrained in the psyche and popular culture of people in the Middle Ages.
Death from disease did not only come in the form of a pandemic; common and ever-present illnesses such as Small Pox and Tuberculosis, Measles and Polio, Malaria, Typhoid, Whooping Cough, dysentery and Influenza – any one of these might take their toll on your family and community at any time. And if not disease, then starvation could be as deadly, as crops fail and famine sweeps through, and people resort to scrounging for roots and grass and vermin – or worse – to survive.
Even if Nature left you unmolested, the manmade pandemic of War might not. In the ancient world, death from warfare was a common event. Perhaps you might have been a citizen of one of the wealthy cities of Carthage or Corinth in 146 BC, but if so your only options were death or slavery when the Romans razed these cities. The Romans did most things well, including destruction. They flattened both of these great and ancient metropoli such that not one stone was standing upon another, then scattered tons of salt across the earth to ensure the soil would never again be fertile. Then, just to be sure, their priests ritually cursed the sites. The populations were either killed or sold as slaves, so that not a single inhabitant remained. Imagine if that were done to London or New York today – not a single stone standing on another and the entire population dead or exported.
Were you a resident of what is modern-day France a century after these genocides, between 54 and 44BC, you had a good chance of being among the one million Gauls that were killed during Caesar’s campaigns, and had an equal chance of numbering among the one million that he enslaved and sold off across the Roman world. A promising civilisation just coming to fruition was eradicated to one man’s ambition. Through the centuries nothing changed. Had you lived in the path of the Turco-Mongol invasions of the 13th Century, somewhere along the path from China through Russia and Persia, through Eastern Europe and to the very gates of Vienna itself, your chances of survival were less than 50%; estimates of the numbers killed by Genghis Khan’s army are as high as 40 million, an immense number in what was a relatively sparsely populated world with no means of industrial slaughter.
The Progeny of Daedalus Page 22