The Voyage of the Minotaur

by Wesley Allison

  Zeah realized that the dragon had crushed the whole pack of dinosaurs with one blow of its massive foot. The dragon lifted up the crushed body of one of the predators almost daintily to its nose and took a whiff. It casually tossed the body aside, which crashed to the ground far out of the man’s view. Bending down it looked Zeah over.

  “You speak Brech? Sprechen sie Freudan? Zvilat Zaeri?” asked the dragon. Its voice was like the rumbling of an earthquake.

  “I speak Brech,” said Zeah, his voice sounding unnaturally high in his own ears. “I speak Zaeri too. Some Mirsannan. A little bit of Freedonian.”

  “I never learned to speak Mirsannan,” said the dragon. “It’s not a language conducive to a forked tongue.”

  “I didn’t know there were any dragons in Birmisia.”

  “Hmm.” The deep rumbling sound was like boulders rolling down a hill. “You mean besides that little speck living with you?”

  “Yuh… Yes, besides him. How did you know about him?”

  “I can smell him on you. What is he, a dragon of gold or a dragon of iron?”

  “I… I don’t really know. Dragons are not my field of expertise. You know the um… lizardmen didn’t mention you.”

  “Of course they did. They call me Hissussisthiss, the god of the forests, and of fear, and flowers.”

  “Fla… Flowers?”

  “You don’t like flowers?”

  “Flowers are very nice,” said Zeah. “Thuh… thank you for rescuing me. Can… Can I go now?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Wha… Why not?”

  The dragon’s monstrous head lowered down until it was directly in front of the man. The dappled light falling through the broken trees reflected beautifully off the green-tinged metallic scales.

  “Why do you think?”

  “You’re not going to eat me?”

  “Look at me,” said the dragon. “Do you have any idea what the calorie requirements are for a warm-blooded body my size… that can fly… and talk… and think? You’re scarcely big enough to pick my teeth with. Besides I ate several very large dinosaurs just this morning.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “In… In… What kind of information?”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen humans, hundreds of years, and here you are… in my land… with strange weapons… and magic, oh yes, magic powerful enough to concern even me… and you have another dragon. Why a dragon? Is he a pet?”

  “I really don’t know what I can tell you.”

  “You can tell me everything. And you will tell me everything—everything you know.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Wizard

  “It isn’t working,” said Zurfina. “I tried a regeneration spell on the way back to the colony and now I’ve tried a wish. Neither one of them are doing a bloody thing.”

  “Why not?” demanded Iolanthe Dechantagne. “Aren’t you the world’s greatest spellcaster?”

  “It’s not a question of magic. At least it’s not a question of arcane magic. I think you’ve been cursed.” She looked at Terrence Dechantagne, sitting in a chair in his apartment, his eyes still covered with bandages. “I’m thinking your little reptile friend with the lizard talisman was responsible. You’re going to need a priest to exorcise that kind of curse.”

  “And Father Ian is dead,” finished Terrence.

  “Dead and dead,” said Zurfina. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to talk to a man about a dragon.”

  Iolanthe’s party had made its way back through the forests to Port Dechantagne the way they had come, and for Terrence it had been a particularly long trip. After only a few days he had felt much better. He had insisted on trying to walk, but walking blindly through the dense redwood forest, even with a guiding hand to help him, turned out to be much slower than having four men carry him on the stretcher. So he had relented and lain silently while he was transported along by others. Of course he wasn’t the only one. Corporal Bratihn was in the same boat. On the second day of their trek, they had found three missing soldiers, who had become separated in the great cloud of dust from Zurfina’s destruction of the lizardman city. They were uninjured and the addition of their labor in carrying the two wounded men, meant that a rotation of bearers could be established.

  It had taken ten days to return home. On the night of the full moon, just more than halfway back, Iolanthe had told Terrence the story of the attack on the colony, how Zurfina had created a magical pestilence to destroy the lizards, how she had discovered that he was a captive and was going to be executed, and how she had mounted a rescue mission, leaving to the sorceress just how he would be extracted and just how retribution would be laid down upon his captors. He made few comments. His mind was on how he had been duped into leading one hundred eighty men to their deaths. How his brother had been killed.

  Just before they had reached the colony, they had found Zeah Korlann. The way he was wandering around in the woods, seemingly dazed and quite confused, it had seemed impossible that he could have traveled faster than they had, even considering the burden of carrying men on stretchers. When Iolanthe had asked him where he had been and how he had traveled all the way back to the colony so quickly, he began muttering something about being carried across country by a dragon.

  “If you don’t want to tell us,” said Iolanthe, “then don’t.”

  As they had finished the last few miles of the journey, Zeah had related in an uncharacteristically erratic and undetailed way, the story of being captured by a dragon and being delivered to this spot in the forest, after having been carried in the monstrous claw of the beast as it flew across country. Terrence wasn’t sure whether to believe the story or not, especially without the benefit of looking into the man’s eyes, but Zurfina apparently believed it and planned to interrogate Zeah when they finally returned home, which they had, safely, the day before.

  “It will be another month before we find out if the church plans to replace Father Ian with another full priest, and I don’t know how much longer it will be before they send a replacement,” said Iolanthe. “You could wait.”

  Terrence didn’t say anything.

  “On the other hand, the S.S. Dormouse leaves for Brech tomorrow. You could be on it.”

  “The Dormouse? When did it get here?”

  “It arrived on the sixth. It was sitting in the harbor when we got home.”

  “I didn’t see it,” he said, knowing that this would hurt his sister, and knowing that she didn’t deserve it.

  Iolanthe was quiet for a moment, and then said. “You have to decide what you want to do.”

  “Do I?”

  “I think you should go back with the Dormouse.”

  “Blast it, Iolanthe! Leave me alone. I’ll decide when I decide.”

  His sister didn’t say anything. A moment later, Terrence heard the door close and he knew he was alone in his room.

  After sitting and struggling with himself for a few minutes, Terrence got up and shuffled across the floor to his trunk. He lifted it open and pulled out the tray inside, setting it on the floor. Reaching down to the bottom of the clothing stacked neatly within, he squeezed each roll of socks, searching for the one in which he had hidden the small indigo bottle. Finding the correct pair, he pulled out the bottle and removed the cork stopper. Holding it with one hand, he used the other hand to pull the bandages over his head. He tilted his face up to the ceiling and poured the contents of the bottle into the empty holes that were his eye sockets. He had been afraid that without eyes, he wouldn’t feel the effect of the drug, but his head began to swirl in the usual way, and he fell back to the floor. The tiny bottle fell from his hands and rolled to the far side of the room.

  Terrence woke up and felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. Everything was black. He was still blind. Still, something was different. He was not lying on the floor of his room. He was lying in the dirt. He sat up and felt around with his hands. They immediately brus
hed against plants. He knew what they were. They were the purple flowers that resided here in this strange alternate world. They were the purple flowers with a human looking eye in their center.

  He felt for a stem. When he found it, he followed it up the flower and felt for the eye. The flower closed in a conscious attempt to stop him from touching the orb. Peeling the petals back, he found the eyeball and ripped it from the flower, but it just squished into jelly in his hands. The plant let out an all too human sounding scream. He reached for another flower. This time he tried to be gentler as he removed the eye, but it too just squished into goo. Again and again, he tried to pry out one of the eyeballs. He knew that if he could just get one of them loose, he would be able to press it into his empty eye socket and his sight would be restored. But he couldn’t do it. He must have destroyed fifty of the flowers, but in every case, the eyes had been destroyed along with them.

  He felt a thump on the ground nearby, and then steps coming toward him. He heard a deep and gravelly voice.

  “What do you want, blind man?”

  “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  “Don’t you know?” The voice was right beside his ear.

  “No. No, I don’t know.”

  “There is no one else here. There has never been anyone else here. Who else could it be?”

  “Pantagria? You’re not Pantagria.”

  A sudden blow struck him on the side of the head and he was knocked over, rolling across the ground. He rose up on his hands and knees. The voice was right next to his ear again.

  “Yes, my dear Terrence, it is me. It is your Pantagria.”

  Terrence reached up his left hand and tried to touch the face speaking so close to his own. A hand grabbed him by the wrist. It was large and heavy and calloused. With his right hand, Terrence grabbed the wrist of the hand that was holding his. The wrist was thick and muscled and covered with long shaggy hair. Another blow landed upon his face, tossing him across the ground and sending blood flowing from what he was sure was a broken nose.

  “You’re not Pantagria!” he shouted.

  “No, I’m not Pantagria.” The voice was right next to his other ear now. “Not anymore. I’m all that’s left of her. I’m what Pantagria became.”

  “No, no, no. You can’t be Pantagria. Pantagria loves me. She would never hurt me.”

  “She hurt you the last time you saw her, when she struck you. She hurt you the time before that, when she cut you. And she hurt you before that—long before that. She’s always hurt you. She hurt you… I hurt you by making you love me. Don’t you see? You can’t love me. I’m not real. I’m just the drug—just the White Opthalium. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

  “No. That’s not true. This is a place I can come, a safe place. Safe.”

  “No. It’s never been safe. And now it will never be safe. I will never be safe. This is how I am now and how I will always be for you.”

  “But what happened to you?”

  “Poison.”

  “Who poisoned you? How could anyone poison you?”

  Terrence was hit again, hard, this time on the right ear. He fell crumpled to the ground.

  “They didn’t poison me,” said the gravelly voice. “They poisoned you.”

  “Poisoned me?” he gasped.

  “Yes, poison.” A massive clawed foot hit him in the side.

  “When? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Kesi,” said Terrence. “Suvir Kesi gave me the white.”

  “It’s time for you to go back now,” said the deep and gravelly voice again. Again he was kicked in the side.

  “Pantagria, I can help you.”

  “We’re done. If you come back again, I’ll kill you.” Another blow hit his side. He started to say something else. Another kick. He rolled across the purple flowers, crushing dozens. Another kick. He struck his head against something solid. He waited to be kicked again, but the kick never came. He reached out a hand to touch the thing that had struck his head. It was the bottom of a steamer trunk. He felt a wooden floor. He was back in his room again.

  Terrence felt around for the tray that he had taken out of the trunk. When he found it, he rummaged through it until he found the spare .45 caliber revolver he kept there. Opening the cylinder, he used his thumbnail to pull out one of the shells. It was good. He could smell the sweet taste of gun oil from the last time the pistol had been cleaned. He couldn’t remember when he had cleaned it last, probably when he had cleaned his other two pistols. It didn’t matter. He stood up on unsteady legs, feeling the pain of at least one broken rib. He staggered across the room, threw open the door, and stumbled out into, what for him, was darkness.

  Terrence staggered across the ground. He had a general idea of where Wizard Kesi’s apartment was in relation to his own, but he had taken no more than a dozen steps before he realized he wouldn’t be able to find it. He was totally disoriented and lost. Then he staggered right into someone. It was a man or an older boy, as tall as Terrence, but much more lightly built. He grabbed the man or boy’s arm.

  “Do you know where Wizard Kesi lives?”

  There was no answer. The person tried to pull away. Terrence pulled him back. Then cocking the pistol, he pressed the barrel into the unseen face.

  “Do you know where Wizard Kesi lives?” he demanded again.

  “Yes, yes. I know where he lives.”

  “Take me there now.”

  The boy, Terrence now surmised a boy of sixteen judging by the voice, guided him along through the barracks buildings. It wasn’t far. After only a few score steps they stopped.

  “It’s here,” said the boy.

  Terrence let go of him and reached forward to find a door and a doorknob. He could hear the boy starting to sob as he ran away. The door was locked. He took two steps back and kicked, intending to bust open the door, but he had stepped back so far that, though his booted foot hit the door, the force wasn’t enough to open it. Growling in anger he rushed forward bashing his shoulder against the door.

  The door did not splinter, as he had expected it to. The force of his body broke open the latch. But as Terrence went sprawling across the floor inside, the door swung on its hinges until it reached the wall behind it, then bounded back, slamming shut again. The wind was knocked out of Terrence’s lungs, and he heard the gun skittering across the floor.

  “Captain Dechantagne?” said Kesi’s accented voice. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  “You son of a bitch!” shouted Terrence from the floor. “You poisoned me!”

  “Oh, yes. That. I had forgotten all about that.” Kesi chuckled. “That was funny.”

  “I’m going to kill you, you bastard.”

  “No. I’m going to kill you. But you’ll have to wait a moment. You caught me right in the middle of something.”

  “Mmph.” The sound was a voice, a woman’s voice, strangely muffled.

  “Quiet now,” said Kesi. “I’m talking with the Captain.”

  “Who is that?” demanded Terrence, getting to his feet.

  “You know, this is perfect in a number of ways. It’s almost poetic. You see if it hadn’t been for you, I would never have been able to continue this little hobby of mine. You were so useful, pinning the blame on Maalik Murty. I was going to frame your brother, but you were right. Murty was a much more believable killer.”

  “You? You killed those women?”

  “Far more than you know. Uuthanum.”

  Terrence’s body was lifted up and tossed across the room like a rag doll. He hit the wall and then crashed down onto a chair, right onto the spot where Pantagria, or the thing that had been Pantagria, had kicked him again and again.

  “Mmph mmph.” The woman tried to speak again. She must have been gagged.

  “You killed all those women? The ones in Brech?”

  “Yes, I’ve been killing pretty young women as long as I can remember. It’s just good clean fun. It’s also been a sort of preparation, though I nev
er realized it until now.”

  “Preparation for what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why did you poison me?”

  “I can’t tell you that either.” Kesi chuckled again. “Mostly, because I can’t remember. Uuthanum.”

  Terrence felt himself fly up so hard that he hit the ceiling. This time, when he hit the floor, his crotch landed right on something hard and pointed. He doubled up into a fetal position. Both hands went to cradle his testicles, but instead found the object that had injured them—his own pistol. He grabbed hold of the grip, but couldn’t force his body to unbend.

  “Now, listen to this,” said Kesi. There was a ripping sound.

  “Didn’t catch it? Listen again.” Terrence heard the ripping sound again. The woman’s muffled voice screamed. It sounded somehow very far away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This is the really poetic part of it all. I’m killing the only woman who ever loved you.”

  “Iolanthe?” Terrence got to his knees once again.

  “You poor, stupid bastard,” said Kesi. “You still think your sister loves you?”

  Terrence lifted the revolver in his hand and fired in the direction of Kesi’s voice. The pistol was thunderously loud in the small barracks apartment. The wizard let out a shriek like a little girl, though Terrence couldn’t tell if it was because of fear or injury. He heard shoes running across the room. He fired again and heard glass breaking, then the sound of the door opening. He fired again. He knew Kesi was gone, but he didn’t know if he had managed to hit him or not. He could hear people shouting outside. He could taste the metallic cloud of gunpowder. Then he heard a whimper.

  Crawling forward, Terrence felt the body of a woman lying on the wooden floor. He felt her face. She had long hair, pulled up. She was blindfolded and gagged. He ran his hands over her face, but he couldn’t tell from her features who it was. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t remember what noses and chins should be shaped like. He was not good at being blind.