LA01. The Crown of Zeus

by Christine Norris

  Megan remembered how he had sniffed and listened, just before his tantrum. He was blind, but he could smell, and he could hear.

  That was how he found his victims; smell and sound. Harriet was covered with the rancid straw; he couldn’t smell her through it. If she remained still, he wouldn’t hear her. It was like she had disappeared. Megan watched the beast throw itself against the walls again and again, angry he had lost his supper. Probably why he hadn’t smelled Megan; he was focused on finding Harriet.

  Megan snuck up the passage, back to where the wall had fallen apart. She knelt and picked up some bits of mortar and small stones from the floor. With rocks cradled in the skirt of chiton, she stole back to her place in the doorway. The Minotaur raged on. She waited until he was on the far side of the room and slipped just inside the door. She pressed her body against the wall and crept to the nearest corner, afraid that the tiniest sound would give her away.

  Before the beast could sniff her out she took one of the rocks and threw it as hard as she could into the doorway across the room.

  The Minotaur stopped, his head cocked toward the sound. Megan threw another stone. It bounced off the wall inside the passage and echoed into the distance. She had two rocks left.

  Harriet stirred beneath her cover of straw. Megan held her breath and willed Harriet to be still. While the Minotaur was still distracted, she threw the biggest stone, and tried to make as much noise as possible. It pinged off the walls and floor and rattled to a stop somewhere down the tunnel.

  The Minotaur charged down the passage with a huff. Megan ran to Harriet. She pulled the stinking straw off, tossing it over her shoulder. Harriet woke up slowly, and Megan helped her to her feet.

  “Megan?” Harriet pulled a piece of straw from her hair. “How did you get here? Where am I?”

  “We’re in the Minotaur’s lair. And we have to go, now.”

  “We have to find Rachel.” Harriet’s legs shook. Megan had to hold her up or she would fall. “I lost her. We were running, and I tripped. I don’t know where she is.”

  Megan felt a little relief—there was still a chance Rachel was all right. “We’ll find her. How do you feel? Can you run?”

  “I think so.” Harriet rubbed her head. “But it’s so dark, how will we find her? And how are we going to find our way out?”

  Megan pulled up some of the slack on the thread and looped it around Harriet’s waist. “This will keep up together. Claire’s holding the other end outside. As far as seeing where we’re going…”

  Megan took Harriet’s hand and pulled her to the wall. “We’ll just borrow one of these.” She lifted one of the lit torches from its bracket. She handed the little carved box to Harriet.

  “Hold this.”

  Harriet looked at the lid, her eyes glued to the face on the top. “What is it? It’s beautiful.”

  Megan didn’t have time to explain; she hoped it was their clue. She wasn’t spending any more time looking for the clue if the box wasn’t it. They needed to get out of here. “We’re taking it with us. Just don’t lose it, okay?”

  Harriet looped the fabric of her chiton around it and tucked it tight. Megan led Harriet from the Minotaur’s room through the door the Minotaur used to bring Harriet in.

  Now that they had light, Megan and Harriet were able to move through the labyrinth easily. They looked for Rachel in corners, down intersecting paths and through holes in the walls. The only living things they saw were the rats that scurried away into the shadows. They walked in silence—neither wanted to let the beast know where they were.

  Megan stopped often to listen for movement—either the Minotaur’s clumsy steps or some person lost in the maze.

  “How long have we been looking?” Harriet whispered.

  Megan put a finger to her lips. “Shh. I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever find her?”

  Megan sighed—it was exactly she was thinking. When would it be time to stop looking and follow the thread back outside, to abandon their friend? Megan shook the thought from her head—not yet. She wouldn’t give up. “Come on, let’s keep moving. We shouldn’t talk anymore either.”

  They found Rachel down a long corridor, hiding in a corner, curled up into a ball. She sobbed quietly; her black hair fell around her like a curtain. Megan knelt in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. Rachel looked up, her face blotchy and her eyes red, and put her hand in front of her eyes to block the light from the torch.

  “Megan?” she croaked. “Is that really you? What are you doing here? Is Harriet with you?”

  Megan smiled and wiped Rachel’s cheeks with one hand. “Yes, it’s us.” She gathered Rachel in her arms and hugged her. “You’re all right now, you’re safe.” She pulled Rachel to her feet and brushed her hair out of her face.

  “I was so afraid.” Rachel hugged Harriet. “Once I lost you, I got all turned around and I thought I’d never find you again, and I’d never get out of here.”

  Megan looped the thread around Rachel’s waist. “Now that we’re together again, we are getting out of here. Right now.” There was a sudden noise; all three girls jumped.

  “I’m for that,” Harriet said.

  Megan turned back the way she had come, and the thread showed her exactly the way out of this waking nightmare.

  They came back to the Minotaur’s lair. It was still empty. Megan ran, and dragged her friends across the horrible room, into the narrow corridor and up the stairs. Megan stopped and leaned against the wall—she needed to take a moment. Crossing the monster’s lair gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  “It shouldn’t be far now,” she said. “As long as we don’t run into that thing we should be all right.”

  “You can say that again,” Harriet said.

  “No thanks.”

  They continued to follow the thread, and darkness closed in around them again. In the light of the torch Megan could see the path she had taken. It was nothing short of a miracle she had found her friends.

  “Megan,” Rachel whispered.

  “What?”

  “Do you hear something?”

  “No.”

  “Harriet?”

  “No, I don’t hear anything.”

  “Megan?”

  “Yes, Rache?”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Megan stopped. Without the noise of six feet shuffling along, it was very quiet. She did hear something. It was coming from behind them. It was running.

  Harriet’s hands trembled. “We have to hide.”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Megan said. “We’re in a straight tunnel.”

  “Then let’s run,” Rachel said. “Go!”

  The three girls bolted. Megan couldn’t hear anything except the sound of their feet and breathing. She looked over her shoulder. Whatever it was had caught up to them, it was just outside the circle of light from the torch.

  “Wait! Stop, please!” a terrified voice shouted. Megan rounded the next corner and grabbed Harriet’s arm.

  “Why are we stopping?” Harriet wailed. “We’ll be caught.” Rachel tried to keep running, but the thread pulled her up short. It still did not break.

  “What the—” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  That came from one of the three boys who ran into the light, along with one girl. All of them were breathing heavily; they bent over and clutched their sides.

  “Thank you for stopping,” one of the men said. “But we cannot linger. The beast is not far behind.”

  Megan grabbed the thread and put it into each of their hands. “Hold on to this and don’t let go. Link hands with the person ahead of and behind you. Rachel, you hold onto them. Harriet, please don’t lose that box. I’m not coming back for it.”

  Megan took her place at the head of the line. “Let’s get out of here.” She pulled the train of people along behind her. They walked at first but soon broke into a jog.

  “Run!” someone behind her s
houted. “It’s coming!”

  Megan pumped her legs as fast as she could. It was hard with six people in tow. The Minotaur’s grunts echoed behind them. The light swayed in front of her and highlighted the walls as they streaked by.

  Someone behind let out a blood-curdling scream. The thread around her waist cinched tight. “Ow, take it easy,” Megan said.

  “It’s not me,” Harriet said. “Rachel, quit it.”

  “It wasn’t me either,” Rachel said. “Whoever was at the end of the line tripped. I think we’ve lost them.”

  Megan stopped. “What do you mean, ‘lost them’?”

  “Keep going,” said one of the boys. “We can’t stop. The beast will be distracted, we can get away.”

  Megan realized what he was saying. She thought she was going to throw up again. Instead she took a deep breath. They had to take advantage of the poor person’s misfortune. “Right.” She steadied herself and started to run again.

  Finally she saw the exit, and there was Claire, waiting for them. When they emerged from the cave, each of them took a deep breath of fresh air.

  Claire dropped the ball of string, which didn’t look any smaller than when Megan had gone into the labyrinth, and wrapped her arms around her friends.

  “I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.” She wept into Megan’s shoulder. “I was terrified, actually.”

  Diona waited with Claire. She greeted Megan with a brilliant smile. “My friend, you are most certainly favored by the gods. I never would have thought it possible to escape the labyrinth of King Minos.”

  “We had help.” Megan loosened the thread. It fell around her feet and she sat on the ground, put her arms on her knees and gulped the fresh air. “If that woman hadn’t given us the ball of thread, I don’t think I would have been able to pull it off.”

  Diona picked up the thread and looked at it. “It is a gift from the gods.”

  “Perhaps.” Megan took the thread and rolled the loose end between her fingers. If I ever see her again, I’ll have to thank her. She laughed out loud. The woman wasn’t real, she was just another of Sir Gregory’s characters. It felt good to laugh. She didn’t remember the last time she had even felt like laughing.

  She stopped when she saw the two boys and the girl who they found in the tunnels. They spoke with Diona briefly, in hushed tones, their faces solemn. No doubt they talked about the ten people they had lost to the Minotaur.

  Leave it me to be inappropriate, Megan thought with a sigh. Harriet or Rachel would never have laughed when someone else was hurting.

  “What do you want me to do with this thing?” Harriet said. She pulled out the little wooden box that Megan had lifted from the Minotaur’s room and stared at it. “It’s so pretty.”

  “Where did you get that?” Claire asked.

  Megan pulled the box from Harriet’s grip; it took some doing too, Harriet didn’t seem to want to let go. “In the Minotaur’s lair. There’s something written on the bottom.” She turned it over. “I saw it in the cave, but the Minotaur showed up and I never did read it.”

  “What does it say?” Rachel said.

  Megan scanned the words, scrawled in black. “‘In the house of the daughter lies the Crown of the King’.”

  “It must be our next clue,” Rachel said.

  Megan looked at the words, and thought hard. What could it mean?

  Uh, I am so bad at this.

  Rachel, once again, was quicker on the draw. “Zeus was king of the gods. We’re looking for his crown. So maybe we’re looking for the house of his daughter? How many daughters did Zeus have?”

  “He had several.” Claire continued to stare at the box; something was strange about her expression, like she was preoccupied. “But only one, according to myth, was his favorite. She also happens to be Sir Gregory’s favorite, which is no coincidence I’m sure. Athena.”

  “Okay, where does Athena live?” Harriet asked. “Can we just ring her up and say ‘Oh, hi there, dear, do you think we could just come by and nip that crown from you?’”

  Claire gave Harriet a reproving look. “A god or goddess’s house on earth is a temple dedicated to them. The clue might be a reference to a Temple of Athena.”

  “Excuse me?” one of the boys said. “Did you say you were looking for a Temple of Athena?”

  “Yes,” Claire gave the box back to Megan. “Do you know where we can find it?”

  “There are many shrines to the Goddess of Wisdom,” he said. “But the largest is in our home city of Athens.”

  “Makes sense,” Rachel said. “Athens, Athena. How do we get there?”

  “There is a boat waiting to take us to the city,” the other boy said. He was tall and muscular with full lips and curly golden-brown hair. “It was foretold I would escape the Minotaur and return home.”

  “And who are you?” Megan realized she and her friends were being rude. Thinking only about the next clue, they had all but ignored the people who had escaped with them from the labyrinth. Megan hadn’t said she was sorry about the person the Minotaur took on their last dash from the maze. He had probably been their friend.

  “My name is Theseus.” He bowed to the girls. “I am the prince of Athens.”

  “Of course,” Claire whispered to the girls. “Theseus told his father that if he died in the labyrinth, his ship would return to Athens with black sails. If he lived, they would be white. Theseus killed the Minotaur and returned to Athens to claim his throne. But he forgot to change the ships sails from black to white, and his father thought he died, so he threw himself into the sea. That’s why it’s called the Aegean Sea; his father was Aegis.”

  “Don’t any of these stories have a happy ending?” Harriet said with a roll of her eyes.

  Megan ignored her and tried to decide if she needed to curtsey to an imaginary Greek prince. She decided not to, but put on her friendliest face. “Ah, okay, then, Your Highness. May we, uh, hitch a ride?”

  Theseus looked puzzled. “Hitch?”

  “She means, will you please allow us passage on your ship and take us to Athens?” Claire said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Megan said, mentally kicking herself. Not only hadn’t she been able to figure out any of the clues so far, she couldn’t even speak properly to a make-believe prince.

  “Of course.” Theseus shook his hair out of his eyes. “You saved me from the beast. It is the least I can do.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said. “We appreciate your generosity.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” The prince smiled; his teeth were white and straight. Megan thought he was what her father would call charming. Her knees suddenly felt like jelly.

  “We should go now,” Theseus said. “Before anyone discovers we’ve escaped. King Minos will be furious when he finds out.”

  He led the girls and the small group of survivors into the hills. They found the sun again once they were out of the valley, but it dipped low in the sky as they continued to walk. It peeked between the hilltops and made their shadows grow long in front of them. Megan shivered; it was getting chilly. She hoped it wasn’t much further to the ship.

  Soon they heard the lonely cry of seagulls, and the cool breeze that blew over them carried a scent of salt. At the top of the next rise Megan saw the ocean below, clean smelling and crystal blue. Between the hills and the sea was a crescent-shaped cove. Nestled within it lay a tiny village.

  The little band walked into town. Homes crowded in next to each other along a wide, deeply rutted dirt road. Most of the people Megan saw were women and children, or very old men. One woman held a dripping piece of cloth over a wooden wash basin, her eyes wide and mouth agape. Others stole glances at Megan and her friends from the shadows or around doors.

  Megan, Claire, Rachel and Harriet tried to look friendly. The prince and his friends kept their eyes straight ahead, their expressions unreadable.

  “Don’t talk to them,” Diona whispered to the girls. “We’re Athenians, and not welcome
.”

  “Bloody wonderful,” Rachel said.

  Along the shore, what must have been every able-bodied man in the village pulled nets and boats up onto the beach. Others dumped the nets, filled with fish, into long wooden boxes that sat in rows on the dune grass. Still others picked up the fish and took them to a table to be gutted and cleaned.

  “Oh, that stinks.” Harriet held her nose.

  “Quiet,” Rachel scolded. “We don’t want to offend them. Let’s just get out of here as quickly as possible.”

  Anchored offshore was a single ship. Theseus looked up and down the beach, and waved at a man sitting on the sand next to a small rowboat. The man waved back.

  “Come,” Theseus said. “The ship awaits.”

  They followed him to the rowboat. The prince and his friends climbed inside and helped the girls. When everyone was seated, the sailor and one of the men pushed the boat into the shallows, before they clambered into the back. All the men, including Theseus, rowed out to the ship.

  The long, low-lying ship rocked gently. Wood creaked as the waves pushed it from side to side. Megan was surprised at the size of it. It hadn’t looked so large from the shore. Men scurried across the deck.

  Their little boat was rowed over to two ropes that hung from the side of the ship. Theseus and the sailor tied the ropes to loops on the front and back of the rowboat. The boat was lifted, passengers and all, out of the water and onto the deck. Everyone jumped out; the crew cheered when they saw Theseus alive and well.

  Theseus raised his hands to those assembled “Thank you. I have returned, thanks to these four young women, sent to us by the gods. They saved me and the others of our countrymen you see before you. I owe them my life, and you owe them your thanks.”

  There was another cheer from the crew. Theseus put up his hands again, and the noise subsided. “Now, make ready to sail. We must go before King Minos discovers what has happened.”

  The crew went to work. Some unfurled the sails and others pulled up the anchor. While the crew got the ship ready to sail, Theseus led the girls to a door off the main deck, beneath the bridge.

  “We should be ready to leave soon. Here’s where you will stay.” He opened the door, and Megan gasped. Red velvet cushions sat on benches built into the walls, a large bed covered in purple brocade and silk sat in the center—and gold. Gold plates on the small wooden table, golden goblets and gold candlesticks. Small gold statues and urns reflected the last rays of the sun, which came in through the port side windows.