Queen's Ransom: The Golden Bulls of Minos

by Isabel Wroth

*****

  As soon as the horn sounded, and the gateway hissed open, Antemion made his move to kill. He charged with an open-mouthed roar that sounded somewhere between a bellow and a scream.

  An ugly, intimidating sound, Antemion's goal clearly to use his brute strength to push Dhega through the gates and into the first wave on oncoming hazards.

  It was never the same, what waited just beyond the Red Gates. Today it was a wall of serrated spinning blades.

  Committed to the charge, Dhega sidestepped at the last possible moment, twisting his upper body out of the way, and Antemion flew past, losing half the length of his horns before he could throw himself back out of reach.

  The crowd booed loudly. Not one step beyond the labyrinth, and already Antemion was wounded. Dhega snorted and chose his path, the wall closing behind him as it always did, leaving him alone.

  He wanted to look up to find Jalia, knowing she was above and watching, but he couldn't take his eyes off the moving walls and instruments of death waiting to take him from his queen.

  It was so difficult to hear it above the whirling and the noise of the crowd, but it was there, a rhythm, a tick, a way to find the heart of the labyrinth.

  He hummed the song under his breath he had memorized from his childhood, the rhythm matched perfectly to that subtle ticking sound.

  Every four seconds, a weapon within the maze moved. Blades thrust, fire pulsed, the ground opened up to reveal pits that stank of decaying bodies and the pikes they were skewered on, chains hung with spiked balls swung back and forth, spears thrust across the space between walls, rotating disks with razor edges spun up from the ground or horizontally along the walls.

  Every eight seconds, the walls of the labyrinth shifted, and for the following four seconds, nothing moved.

  Four seconds of death, eight seconds of movement, four seconds to live, eight seconds of movement, four seconds of death, eight seconds of movement, four seconds to live.

  One miscalculation, one miscount, and he was dead. The only way to survive was to hum and move.

  If he could make it to the center of the labyrinth, there was a lever which brought the constant whirling of the maze for sixty seconds and left a pathway open to the only escape possible. A straight shot, one chance.

  Four seconds of death, eight seconds of movement, four seconds to live.

  *****

  Jalia had lost the ability to sit still and was pacing back and forth on the dais, unable to take her eyes off Dhega.

  It had been two hours, and somehow despite everything within the maze trying its damnedest to kill him, he was still alive. Constantly on the move, tirelessly advancing, and so far, hadn't been harmed.

  Even more amazing, Antemion was also still alive. His horns ground down to half their length and bleeding quite a bit from a gash in his chest, but still alive, and gaining ground.

  "—quite remarkable."

  "Never seen anyone last this long, except the king."

  "Do you think Antemion has a chance?"

  "I thought for sure it was over the moment the fool charged,"

  Jalia could hear them talking, the doubt in the voices of the princes who thought she couldn't hear their whispers.

  Daegana was too satisfied, poorly hiding his smirk, and it wasn't just her lack of control that had him sitting there with such a devious look on his face. He'd had a hand in orchestrating this, she was sure of it.

  The crowd gave a collective gasp, which made Jalia whip around to find Dhega and Antemion had met somehow in the center of the labyrinth, the one thing the entire maze revolved around and had begun an aggressive fight. Flying fists, insane roars, kicking—

  "Ha! Did I not tell you, Marchesa? What a show!" Daegana had trouble enunciating with a mouth full of food, and Jalia didn't dare look away from where her man was fighting for his life.

  Fighting for her. She didn't have to do anything other than point, and the next words out of Daegana's mouth were ones of protest as he was bodily hauled out of his chair and out of sight.

  Jalia hadn't ever seen such a brutal fight, though she supposed it was made so much more awful to watch, because someone she loved had just been spun to the sand by a powerful blow to the face.

  Dhega gave every bit as good as he got, but Antemion was insane. A creature possessed.

  "Here it comes," someone said below her, a particular note of satisfaction in the tone to say whatever was about to happen, they'd seen before.

  She realized what it was seconds before Dhega made his move, and she braced herself. Slowly but surely, Dhega had been allowing Antemion to turn and herd him back toward the gnashing, shifting walls of the labyrinth.

  It would have worked better had Antemion not been missing half his horns, but Dhega made it happen.

  His muscles bunched with effort, shining with sweat and blood as he gripped Antemion's horns and used the power of his upper body to throw Antemion into a set of spiked rollers that grabbed hold of him and pulled him between the spinning blades, gruesomely turning his body into nothing more than pulp.

  But Antemion had decided he wasn't going to die alone and clamped both hands around Dhega's forearm. Jalia watched helplessly as Dhega tried to save himself, to pull away, choking on the bile that clawed its way up her throat.

  She saw the moment Dhega made a decision to save his life, and his arm disappeared in a spray of blood, swallowed up to the elbow by the ravenous machine.

  The labyrinth moved, and Dhega fell back to the sand where it was safe, bleeding to death before her eyes. Hands caught her as her legs went out from under her, held her up and got her back to the cold stone seat,

  "It's just an arm, Jalia. We've got everything on the LUX to fix it. He's gonna be fine."

  Croft was trying to help, and somewhere in the back of her mind, he was right. The infirmary on the LUX had so many settings and advanced capabilities, regrowing a mangled arm was no problem.

  It would be a problem if Dhega didn't get up, and he didn't have two more hours of blood left in his body to navigate back through the maze.

  He didn't have two minutes. The agony on his face, the way he struggled to get up...Jalia heard herself cry out, thinking it couldn't get any worse.

  *****

  Struggling to stay conscious was harder than it was to find his feet. Dhega could feel his body shutting down, the pain radiating up what remained of his arm so excruciating he could barely breathe, let alone move.

  His body was slicked with sweat, every surge of his heart pumped more of his blood across the sand, making him shiver with growing cold.

  He had minutes, maybe less to figure out a way to survive this, and he would. It was only a hand. He could still hold and touch his woman with only one hand.

  Click, click, WHOOSH!

  The familiar sound penetrated the haze of agony, and with nothing else to stop the bleeding, no other choice, Dhega stumbled toward the flames roaring through an open doorway and thrust his arm into the fire.

  Four seconds to live, that's all it would take, but four seconds had never been so long, or so terribly painful. He was glad the volume of the crowd drowned out the sounds he made.

  Dhega threw himself back into the safety of the center just before the wall closed again, rolling over to his back, his entire body convulsing around the blistered, stump of his arm.

  The scent of his own burning flesh...the pain...he couldn't focus. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe,

  I need you to come back to me.

  Jalia's voice whispered across his tortured senses, flashes of memory flickering in and out between the unending waves of pain to bring him fragile moments of relief.

  The sound of her laughter. The smell of her hair. The sweet rush of her breath across his chest while she slept. Her smile. The feel of her lips beneath his.

  The peace he felt in her embrace. The sound of her shrieks of terror as the little fish had swam around her ankles that day in the sea. How she had so trustingly submitted to him even in the
grip of her fears.

  Her.

  The reason his heart beat.

  Nothing had ever been so difficult as it was to force himself to his feet again or to ignore the pain beating relentlessly through him.

  His remaining limbs were weak, unresponsive to his commands, but it was right there. The lever that would stall the engine beneath his feet for sixty seconds.

  Dhega used the lever to steady himself, to drag in as much air as his lungs would allow, shaking his head to try and clear his vision.

  He looked up at all the faces staring down at him, their feet and hands stomping out a thunderous rhythm as they chanted his name, urged him to survive, but he only wanted to see one beautiful face.

  He found her, standing at the front of the shaded pavilion, so beautiful it was an agony of a whole other kind to look at her.

  Dark hair, blue eyes, soft, fair skin. He could see the tears on her cheeks, the pleading in her expression, silently begging him to come to her. Her lips moved, and though he couldn't hear what she said, he felt it.

  I need you to come back to me.

  He couldn't fall. He couldn't fail. She was waiting for him.

  One minute was all he had to get back to her. One minute to live.

  Dhega threw the lever and ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "Shh, shh. Don't move. Just lie still a little while longer."

  Dhega felt her gentle hand sweep across his jaw, her lips on his face. The nightmare clawing at him faded away as she continued to whisper in his ear.

  He relaxed beneath her touch, dragging the scent of her deep into his lungs as he struggled to open his eyes, needing to see her. Needing to reassure himself she was here, safe.

  "Jalia?" was that twisted, ugly rasp his voice?

  He felt her shift, her arm moving to lay across his shoulders, her palm cradling his cheek.

  "I'm here. I'm right here. Don't move."

  His vision was blurry for a moment as he blinked, again and again, to bring the space into focus.

  He was lying on something warm and strangely soft, a ring of bright light hovered above him, an odd cylinder with three mechanical arms was in constant motion at his right side, but before he could look, Jalia turned his face firmly toward her and distracted him with her tearful smile.

  "Hi," she whispered, her thumb in moving across the apple of his cheek. Her eyes were red from crying, exhaustion stamped on her features, her dark hair twisted into a haphazard knot on her head, but still, she smiled at him with love and relief in her expression.

  "Where are we?"

  "We're in the med-bay on board my ship. You were hurt, but you're going to be just fine. Back to normal in a few more hours. Are you in any pain?"

  Dhega tried to decide whether or not he was, but quickly realized all he could feel was the warmth and pressure of her arm on his chest, and her hand on his face.

  Though he wouldn't have been able to tell if he was moving or not, as he had no control of his limbs. It was the strangest, most disconcerting sensation he had ever experienced.

  He told her so, and she sniffled, nodding like that was perfectly normal, and urged him again to lie still.

  "Do you remember what happened?"

  He tried to recall how he had come to be here, how he had been hurt, but his thoughts were as unresponsive as his body.

  "No?"

  "It's alright. When the sedative wears off, and you're back on your feet, it'll come back. Close your eyes, just rest. I'm here. I won't leave."

  He was tired. So damn tired. He couldn't speak above a whisper now, but he felt the curve of her lips when she pressed a kiss to his brow.

  "I love you,"

  "And I love you," she whispered back.

  *****

  What was it about humans that drove them to turn their hair and eyes strange colors? Dhega sat on the peculiar table in the medical room on board Jalia's ship, staring at the young girl with odd red and silver eyes who bent over his arm, her short, violently blue hair held back from her thin face by goggles she wore strapped to her brow.

  Her right arm was made entirely of metal, and she was so short she wouldn't come to the middle of his chest.

  Jalia identified the creature as Angel Eyes, smiling at her with obvious fondness while the little one poked and prodded at his open palm with a slender wand that made his muscles seize and jump with each touch.

  "Any pain?" she asked, gripping and massaging his arm as though feeling for something out of place. His arm that yesterday had not been whole.

  The wheels of the labyrinth had torn his limb apart, consuming everything from his elbow down, and today it was as if the grievous wound he had sealed with fire had never been.

  Jalia called it the wonders of technology.

  To Dhega, it was a miracle.

  "No."

  "But you feel the contractions of your muscles? The prick of the wand?" Angel Eyes asked, tapping each of his fingertips one by one.

  "I do. It feels strange."

  Her odd mechanical looking eyes rolled up to meet his, her head tilting curiously.

  "Define: strange?"

  Dhega shrugged, wiggling his fingers, making a fist at her instruction. "I see you touch me with the utensil, but feel it seconds later. Like a delay."

  He looked to Jalia to gauge her reaction, but she was still smiling at him, giving his shoulder a soothing rub.

  "Half your arm was just regrown, handsome. It'll take a few more days for your nerve endings to settle and sync with your brain.

  “You might feel a tingling sensation now and then, maybe an itch. Completely normal. Just keep an eye on your fingertips for discoloration.

  “These machines are top of the line, but sometimes little veins collapse, and the blood flow isn't correctly regulated. If that happens, another few hours in the stim-cell will fix you right up. How about the rest of you? Muscle aches? Pain?"

  He shook his head, rolling his shoulders, tipping his head back and forth to crack his neck, taking a few deep breaths. He felt better than good.

  Dhega felt incredible. Refreshed, starving, but well rested and experiencing not a single twinge of discomfort to remind him of all he had suffered.

  Antemion had broken a few of his ribs, his fist crushing Dhega's lower lip while simultaneously breaking a few of his teeth.

  Dhega should have had raw, reddened flesh from his elbow to bicep from having pushed his amputated limb into the fire to cauterize it, yet his body showed not a single sign of having been so abused.

  "Nothing. I feel as though yesterday hadn't happened at all."

  "I wish it hadn't," Jalia informed him tightly, her smiles having disappeared into a scowl to conceal the trembling of her lips.

  Angel Eyes was forgotten as he reached for Jalia, drawing her from his side to the space between his thighs, wrapping his arms around her tight enough to make her moan softly in his ear.

  "It's alright. It's over."

  She nodded, clinging to him as though she couldn't bear the thought of ever letting go. He would have pulled her up onto the table with him and taken advantage of the flat surface—strange mechanical girl or not—if someone hadn't cleared their throat to get his attention. Dhega opened his eyes and glared at the offender, but such a death stare was lost on Nivir.

  He saw relief on the face of his old friend, "Apologies for disturbing you, the princes grow impatient and will begin to cannibalize themselves if they are made to wait much longer."

  "They can go to hell!" Jalia insisted hotly, and while Dhega couldn't disagree, they had duties to attend to.

  He rubbed deeply at the quivering curve of Jalia's spine, pressing a kiss to her shoulder, "Tell them we will be out in a moment."

  "More than a few moments," Angel Eyes declared, "Jalia needs to freshen up. You can't go out there looking like you haven't slept in two days."

  Jalia gave her pilot slash healer a rather rude suggestion as to what she could do with herself, but Angel Eyes just laughed
.

  "Come on, a quick wash, five minutes in the chair, and you'll both walk out of here looking aces. You want them to be impressed by the tech, so use it."

  "Yeah, yeah. Fine." Jalia grumbled, nuzzling at his throat.

  "And your man needs some clothes."

  "I have them," Nivir announced, and with one more squeeze to her quivering body, Dhega released Jalia, adoring how she looked back at him one last time before disappearing down the curved hallway.

  "This truly is a ship of wonders, my king. I am very pleased to see you all in one piece."

  Dhega gave a ghost of a laugh, looking down at his arms, unable to tell he had ever suffered any trauma. Jalia had explained her machines could clone bone cells, rebuild muscle tissue, blood vessels, skin.

  She had waved her finger imperiously at him while informing him searing his own flesh in the fire was all that had saved him and chastising him in the next breath because she had been forced to watch while Angel Eyes had cut the burnt tissue away to allow the machines to make repairs.

  Dhega didn't wholly understand how such a thing was possible, but he had no room to feel anything other than grateful he could touch Jalia, comfort her, with both hands.

  "No less pleased than I am." he took the trousers Nivir handed him, his favored sleeveless robe, and arched an eyebrow at the small pot of paint and the knife Nivir had.

  The captain of his guard, his friend, opened the jar to show him the red paint inside, grinning as he pressed it into Dhega's hand and bade him sit. He did, and Nivir used the knife to notch another ring around the base of his left horn.

  "What's happened while I've been asleep?"

  It was always disconcerting to feel and hear the scrape of the blade against his horn. The sensation enough to make a shiver trickle down his spine.

  Nivir's voice was tight with concentration, his tongue comically coming back and forth across his lower lip while he carved.

  "Not all the princes believe you're still alive in spite of Jalia's reassurances you're not only alive, but perfectly whole.

  “Turju and Kalphius have conspired together to force the princes to vote as to who is the best candidate to take your place, which of course means all of them have voted for themselves, but having just seen you run the Red, none are quite willing to commit.