The Door in the Mountain

by Caitlin Sweet

  There was a beaten track across the hills; she saw it now, in almost-daylight. Two priestesses passed them, as she and Icarus were running along it. She felt their eyes on her, and knew that if she turned she’d see them turning too, staring, the sheaves of wheat in their arms maybe dipping a bit.

  Icarus slowed and stopped when the highest of Knossos’s horns came into view. He leaned over, his fists on his knees, and spat repeatedly into the dust.

  Chara saw that feathers had started to sprout on his arms and legs. His body wants him to fly, not run, she thought. Of course he’s jealous of Asterion.

  The horns looked black against the sky, which had lightened to blue. “She’ll be furious with me,” Chara gasped, angling her head so that she could see Icarus. He straightened and wiped his mouth with the back of one stubbly hand.

  “She will.” He smiled crookedly. “With you. She won’t have noticed I was gone at all.”

  “Icarus,” Chara began. That was all. Just his name, and her hand, briefly, on his shoulder, and the two of them walking back to the palace as the sun flooded everything with gold.

  Phaidra was waiting for Chara and Icarus at the eastern gate. When they reached her, she tipped her pale, pretty face up to Chara and said, “You’re in trouble. My sister’s been looking for you since she woke up. The whole palace knows it.”

  Chara turned to Icarus. “Go, before she sees you. You could still—”

  “Oh, she’s seen you.” Phaidra gestured behind her at the steps. She was gazing at Icarus. “She’s been up on the third storey, watching for you. I ran, to reach you first. To warn you.”

  Chara heard Icarus sigh. “Another time when wings would be very useful,” he said in his pebbly voice, and then Ariadne was above them, framed between the shadows of the gate’s horns. She paused. Chara couldn’t see her eyes.

  When she reached them, she didn’t speak. Her hair was full of pins whose ends jutted out at odd angles. Because I wasn’t there to put them in for her. Chara felt a stab of something made of both pity and amusement, and her stomach twisted.

  Icarus bobbed on the balls of his feet. Phaidra looked from him to Ariadne, her mouth a little open. Chara wanted to lift a hand and pat at her own hair, which she knew was even more matted than usual, and probably smelled of damp moss, but she kept her arms at her side.

  “Come,” the princess said at last. The word was flat and quiet.

  They followed her into the palace, as people glanced and whispered, and down to a small storeroom that held only a low table, a chest and a glowing brazier. The room seemed even smaller when they were all standing in it.

  Ariadne leaned against one of the doorway’s columns. “Where have you been?”

  I could lie, Chara thought, and felt even more sick. I should. “Looking for Asterion,” she said. Beside her, Icarus stiffened.

  Ariadne’s mouth sagged open for a moment before she snapped it shut. She pushed away from the column as gracefully as if she had been dancing.

  “Looking for Asterion,” the princess said. The spaces between her words seemed to echo more loudly than the words did.

  “Indeed, yes,” said Chara, as Icarus hunched forward and pressed his pointy chin to his chest. “I could repeat myself, if you wish.”

  She could no longer feel the sickness in her belly because her chest was burning. She imagined her breath emerging as hot and bright as Minos’s; imagined it falling on her skin and searing bright pink welts like Asterion’s into it. Then she thought, No, Freckles: you’re not godmarked—just foolish.

  Ariadne paced to the doorway. “Icarus—” she began, turning.

  Chara said, “I made him come with me. He said no at first, but I begged him to.” She glanced at him. He cocked his head and met her gaze. His thin lips parted and pressed together again.

  “Well, then, girl: only you will be punished.” Ariadne walked back to them. She ran a finger along Icarus’s cheekbone and down to his jaw. Even though she wasn’t touching him, Chara felt his shiver; it stirred the air between them like a wave beneath water.

  “Only you,” the princess repeated. She withdrew her hand from Icarus’s chin and leaned down a bit to set it lightly on Chara’s tangle of hair. “Shall I shall throw you out of the palace? Is that what I should do?”

  “No, Daughter.” Pasiphae drifted in from the corridor.

  Like smoke, Chara thought, clenching her fists. Like a dolphin skimming just under the surface of the sea. How does she do it?

  Ariadne’s hand lifted from Chara’s hair. The princess smiled, and her face looked as beautiful and cold and still as the funeral mask from the mainland that Chara had seen once, among Daedalus’s things.

  “She is Pherenike’s daughter,” the queen continued. “I valued Pherenike. And I promised her, as she lay dying, that I would see to the wellbeing of her child.”

  Chara stared up into Pasiphae’s face; watched her lips forming Pherenike’s name. Mother, Chara thought, as she hadn’t in so long—and that last image returned to her: Pherenike tossing fitfully on a dirty blanket, pouring sweat and blood as Chara tried to hold her.

  Pasiphae took Chara’s chin in her hand, so gently that Chara almost didn’t feel it. “And she is young. You, Ariadne, will teach her the obedience she will require, if she is to continue to live among us.” She gazed down at Chara. “Do you wish this, child? To continue living among us?”

  Chara swallowed. She nodded and couldn’t look away from the queen’s green eyes, though the fire in her had gone and she wanted to. “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s just . . .

  it is that I miss the prince. That is the only reason I was disobedient.”

  Pasiphae’s smile was as warm as her daughter’s was cold. “Your affection for my son does you credit. But he is beyond you now—beyond all of us. And you belong to the Princess Ariadne. You neglected to serve her, in your pursuit of a god who must not be found.” She let go of Chara’s chin and her smile vanished. She said sharply, to Ariadne, “Very well, then. Punish her as you see fit—only do not hurt her too badly.”

  “But,” Chara began—and that was all, because Pasiphae was already drifting away, and Ariadne was opening the chest and leaning over to lift something out of it. A slender branch, Chara saw when Ariadne turned to face her.

  “I shall enjoy this,” she said, and stepped toward Chara.

  Her voice is trembling, Chara thought, but she knew better than to hope.

  Icarus made a gasping noise. “No,” he whispered. “Ari, do not—”

  The princess snapped the switch. The sound of it leapt from wall to floor to ceiling to the chattering space in Chara’s head.

  “Bird-boy.” No trembling, now. “If you protest—if you try to go or stop me—I will have the captain of the king’s guard beat you. In front of the statue of Androgeus.” She waved the switch in lazy arcs and it whined.

  Chara watched Icarus press his chin into his shoulder. He’d put his face under a wing if he could, she thought, and longed not to care about this.

  Ariadne pulled Chara’s bodice up and off with one hand (it was too loose, as all her bodices were). “Over there.” The princess jerked her badly coiffed head at the low table in the corner.

  A three-legged bowl stood on the table. Chara looked at it, imagined it falling, as the princess thrust her onto the cool, smooth stone. She imagined herself twisting away, running from Ariadne and Knossos.

  No, she thought as the princess did thrust her onto the cool, smooth stone. The bowl didn’t fall. I can’t. I’ll lose him, too, if I do.

  For what seemed like a very long time, nothing happened. Chara squinted up, saw Ariadne’s raised hand, and her face. Her eyes were wide, as if she were afraid or trying not to cry—but just as Chara was thinking how impossible either of those would be, the princess blinked and scowled. The switch came down on Chara’s back. The sting was so deep that the numbness that came after it did noth
ing to take away the pain.

  “Promise me”—lash—“that you will serve me truly. That you”—lash—“will not try to leave me, for whatever reason.”

  Chara moved her head and felt the dampness of her own saliva against her cheek. Ariadne is the way to Asterion. Ariadne is the way.

  “I promise.”

  Another lash. Chara squeezed her eyes on tears.

  “What did you say?”

  Chara drew a shuddering breath. “I promise,” she said again, louder. She tensed her shoulders and back, waiting for the next blow. She strained to hear the whistle of the descending switch.

  All she heard was Icarus. He keened and keened; through a blur of tears and sweat, she saw him rocking back and forth, his hands waving as if he were trying to swim.

  He came to her later, as she was lying face down on her pallet. She knew he was there because he was sniffling, and his talons scratched her when he laid them on her shoulder. “Chara,” he whispered. She rolled her head so that she could see him. Otherwise she was motionless. Her bare back throbbed whenever she breathed, wherever the cool night air touched it.

  “I’m sorry. . . .”

  She shrugged one shoulder and felt her skin crack. “No need for both of us to suffer.”

  “But,” he said in a rush, “I will, a bit: she’s sending me away. To the Goddess’s mountain.”

  Chara stared at him with one eye. His edges were wavering. Maybe he’s a fish, not a bird, she thought. Maybe that’s been the problem all along.

  “That’s not so bad,” she said. “You’ll get to see the labyrinth. And your father.”

  “But I’ll miss it here. I’ll miss . . .” He twitched and bit his lip. Chara gave a low, raspy laugh and he leaned down, so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “Be good with her,” he said. “If she imagines she controls you, she won’t think to distrust you.”

  Chara was so tired that she didn’t have the strength to say, “I know.” She only thought it, as he rolled his shoulders back and rose and slipped away.

  Later still, the princess bent down beside Chara’s pallet. Her teeth glinted as she smiled. “One more time,” she murmured. “Will you serve me truly, from now on?”

  Chara licked her lips, which were cracked and tasted of blood. I’ll be the most biddable slave ever known to sky, earth or sea. Until you lead me back to Asterion, I will.

  “Yes,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ariadne loved to watch Karpos work. Sometimes others watched with her, and other times, especially rainy ones, she was almost alone. He hardly ever looked at her, but she was certain he knew she was there. She watched the sweat run in gleaming rivulets down his back and belly; she watched him walk around the great block of marble, staring at it as if it were a door to the Underworld, with Androgeus waiting on its threshold. And Androgeus appeared, chisel-stroke by chisel-stroke. Minos said nothing more about mistakes when he visited the site, and so his son grew steadily clearer and brighter.

  “Gods, how beautiful he is,” Diantha said one day in spring.

  “Karpos or my dead brother?” Ariadne laughed as Diantha scowled.

  “Your brother,” she grumbled. “You know perfectly well that Karpos and I aren’t lovers anymore.”

  Ariadne squinted at Karpos, who was squatting on a scaffold, brushing his hands over the stone that was becoming Androgeus’s shoulder. “I don’t remember: why is that?” she said.

  Diantha flushed. “He found me appealing but not alluring.” She cleared her throat. “That’s what he told me, anyway. I don’t think he enjoys girls at all.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean he’s not beautiful,” Ariadne said. “You have to admit, Yantha—he’s the handsomest man at the palace. You were a lucky girl, while you had him.”

  Diantha spun on her heel and walked up the stairs into the courtyard. Ariadne stretched her arms above her head, her fingers clasped and straining into the warm, sweet wind.

  One day when she arrived at the dancing ground, there was such a crowd that she could see only Androgeus’s chest and head. She picked her way along one of the spiral pathways, and people stepped back to make room for her. One of Daedalus’s workmen was standing with Karpos at the foot of the scaffolding.

  “What is this?” she said, loudly enough that most of the crowd would be able to hear her.

  They both turned to her. “My Lady,” the workman said, a little breathlessly. He was sweating, but not nearly as prettily as Karpos was. “I’ve come from the Goddess’s mountain. I’m here for two weeks or so—I injured my back digging, and Daedalus sent me back to heal. I’m just telling Karpos here—well, everyone here, I suppose—about our work.”

  “And what, precisely, are you telling him?”

  The man wiped his hand across his brow. His eyes leapt and darted, lighting on everything but her. “Well, Princess, about how it’s . . . well, it’s amazing, is what it is. The caverns inside, and the carvings—the staircases that go down into the belly of the earth and up to where the sky would be, if the mountain opened up . . .” He cleared his throat. “But that’s about all I can say. Daedalus made us swear we’d not give too many details to anyone outside.”

  Ariadne smiled—at Karpos, not at the shifty-eyed workman. “That is as it should be. It is a sacred place, and its mysteries should be secret.” And this sacred place was my idea, she thought, turning her eyes back to the man. I should be seeing the carvings and staircases, not you.

  “Yes, Princess,” he said. “That’s just what Daedalus says—and it’s why he won’t let any of us see how all the parts fit together. We each have our own place to work in, and he leads us in blindfolded. No one knows the whole plan except the Master and his son.” He cleared his throat again. Ariadne wriggled her fingers to keep from scrabbling at his throat. His son. Marksblood, why did I send Icarus there, to see these things I can’t?

  “And now,” the workman went on, almost stuttering in his haste, “if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to speak to Karpos and his apprentices about this likeness of your royal brother—for we’ve all heard of it, at our camp, and my fellows wanted me to bring back reports of it.”

  “But of course.” She laid her hand lightly on a fold of the statue’s loincloth and felt it crinkle—soft, cool cloth that looked like stone. “We’re so very proud of our Karpos, and grateful for the honour his godmark does our family.”

  “I see what you’ve done,” she heard the workman say to Karpos, as she turned away. “Just here, and here, where the veins run deep within the block—gods, this must be rough going! You’re nearly done now, though. . . .”

  But Karpos wasn’t. It was Androgeus’s face that slowed him. He knelt on the scaffold, his hands held up and dribbling silver godlight onto the marble. Ariadne began to watch him at night because the light was so beautiful then, turning the dark shapes around it to water. Karpos’s skin, the statue’s skin, the space between—all bathed in rippling silver. Sometimes she danced while he worked, or tried to. She spun slowly, lifting her arms into air that was now heavy with early-summer rain. She looked up at him and rejoiced in his stillness. He hardly ever raised his chisel, during those days and nights. He stared and stared, lifted his hands and lowered them again; once he slammed his fist against the scaffold’s wood with a crack that made Ariadne’s heart race.

  He’ll never be done, she thought. My father will punish him—and her heart raced even faster.

  “You enjoy watching me, Princess,” he called one night. She was bent over, weaving her arms so that their shadows looked like seaweed caught in a current. His voice startled her upright.

  “I do.” She tossed coils of hair over her shoulder and stepped into the circle of light that was spilling down from his fingers.

  “Somewhat as Icarus enjoyed watching you, when he was here at Knossos.”

  She laughed.
The sound seemed to echo in the darkness. “I’d have you flogged, if you didn’t amuse me so much.”

  “If you had me flogged, who would finish this?”

  “Perhaps my father should find someone else, anyway. You don’t seem up to the task, for all the godfire that’s leaking out of you.”

  He leaned on the scaffold’s railing. His clasped hands still dribbled silver. “Oh, I’ll finish it,” he said evenly. “My god will show me how.”

  “You’d best hope so,” she said, and walked away from him before he could say some other calm, infuriating thing.

  The next morning he was still on the platform. “His apprentice-boys say he never went to bed,” whispered Phaidra as Ariadne joined her on the usual step. Ariadne said nothing. She watched Karpos’s hands slide over Androgeus’s jawline and up to his brows; she watched Karpos bend for the chisel and hammer and set them to the marble. Dust fell in waves. Every time the hammer hit the chisel’s haft, she flinched.

  “Mistress,” Chara murmured once, from the step below Ariadne, “shall I fetch you some water?”

  The princess didn’t look at her slave. The girl had been extremely attentive since she’d been beaten nearly a year ago. This attentiveness unsettled Ariadne, though it should have pleased her. She waved a hand dismissively in Chara’s direction and said nothing.

  An hour later, Androgeus’s eyes stared at her through a shimmer of dust and heat.

  King Minos was summoned. He strode past Ariadne—as he always seemed to do, now, though she had no idea why—and stood at Androgeus’s feet. Karpos swung himself to the ground. For a time no one spoke or moved. At last Minos lifted a fire-veined hand to Androgeus’s, which was cupped and empty, and touched its fingertips. As he did, a bird fluttered down toward him. It hovered, its iridescent green and blue wings flashing, and then it landed in Androgeus’s palm. One of the fingers twitched. Androgeus’s eyes blinked once, slowly. Ariadne heard Minos’s gasp, even though the whole of her dancing place lay between them.