Lost in the Labyrinth, Patrice Kindl [read novel full .txt] 📗

the thread and was dragged roughly through an opening into what I dimly sensed was a small room, a cell, perhaps, like the one that imprisoned Theseus. Something hard and sharp pressed against my neck.

“Who goes there?” demanded a hoarse whisper. “Speak and identify yourself or I’ll cut your throat.”

The hand over my mouth loosened slightly.

I swallowed, trying to conquer a quaver of terror.

“It is—”

“Keep your voice down!” commanded the man. “Whisper!”

I lowered my voice, but not by much. “It is I, Princess Xenodice of Knossos, daughter of Queen Pasiphae. I descend in an uninterrupted line from the Goddess Potnia, whose dwelling place and temple this is,” I said. “If you do me any harm whatsoever, you will suffer greatly.”

“Pah!” There was someone else in the room, and that someone did not like my answer.

Nor did the man who held me.

“I swear they slept,” he said, and I thought that he addressed not me but the other person. “They should all of them have slept like the dead.” He turned his attention back to me. “You shall not be hurt, Princess, unless you speak. If you make one more sound, you will die.”

I went still. I had thought that it was Theseus who had captured me, but now I was not sure. Who, then, was the second person? Ariadne? No, there was no point in bringing him the clew of thread if she then remained to guide him. She would be waiting in the ship until he joined her with his comrades.

Besides, intuition told me it was a man. It seemed to me that the man in the corner commanded and the man with the knife obeyed.

I felt cold bronze on my throat. The knife had been turned so that the flat lay against my skin.

“Sssh,” came a warning from the darkness.

I too waited, listening. Footsteps in the hallway approached the chamber in which we stood. They passed, and continued on in the direction whence I had come. We waited, then followed after.

It had been a long journey down into the earth. Returning to the Bull Pen with a knife to my throat seemed a voyage without an end. I was forced to walk crammed up against this strange man, who clutched my arm with one hand and the knife with the other. I could smell his nervous sweat, hear his ragged breath in my ear. If he was Theseus, he was at least as frightened as I was.

The other man walked noiselessly behind us.

Gradually, the halls through which we passed lost their absolute darkness and tomblike chill. The prevailing odor became less earthy; I smelled lamp oil and last night’s dinner. The floors were smooth and cool under my bruised feet. I began to believe that I knew where I was.

The knife was still pressed into my flesh. It had not slipped or faltered in our long walk. If I cried out, if I tried to pull away, it could be turned on me in an instant. We were approaching the Bull Pen now, I was certain—the scent of hay and straw now intermingled with the other odors. I did not know what I was going to do.

I began to hear the rumbling, reverberating snores of my brother, so like the growls of a wild animal in its den.

I saw a light ahead, one that flickered and wavered as though carried in the hand of someone walking ahead of us. We were overtaking the person whose footsteps had passed our door in the deep maze. Suddenly the man who held me stopped. His hand came up and covered my mouth again. Other hands came and took me from him. After a moment of confusion, I realized that I was now held prisoner by the man who had followed us through the darkness.

The little scuffle occasioned by this transfer alerted the one who held the lamp. The light ahead of us paused, remained stationary in the entrance to the Bull Pen.

“Theseus!” The cry came from the man ahead, the one who had held me until a moment ago. No longer hushed, his voice rang out clearly. “A gift from the gods of your fathers!”

There came a clang and a clatter, as something metallic hit the floor and skittered down the hall toward the light. Now I could dimly see that a man held the lamp. He hesitated, then bent and picked the object up, examining it in the lamplight.

It was the knife.

Under the smothering hand I opened my jaws wide and bit down as hard as I could. The hand dropped, the man who held me uttered a smothered oath, and I screamed.

“No!”

I fought like a mad creature. Why had I not realized before that the knife no longer menaced my throat?

I sought to do as much damage as I could. I drew my knee up and kicked savagely backward at the man’s groin. My elbows pummeled his gut, and when I was able to twist a little sideways my fingernails searched for his face and eyes.

For one brief moment, I thought that I could fight free. The ferocity of my attack had taken my opponent by surprise, and I knew I had hurt him: he groaned and cursed in a most satisfying manner. But almost immediately the other man, the one who had forcibly escorted me up from the deep maze, came to his assistance. I kicked and bit, but to no avail. After a few agonizing moments, we three ended up in a heap on the floor, with myself undermost.

I could not move. The combined weight of two adult men nearly crushed the life out of me. We lay there, panting.

It was in this humiliating and helpless position that I heard my brother’s death cries.

They seemed to go on and on, small sounds, not loud. First a thud and then a smothered cry, over and over again. A final thud and then a sigh. Later I learned that, not content with killing my brother as he lay in