The First Edge Sings

Fiction - by L. M. Zaerr

I tried to wash the bull's blood off the Pillar of Vengeance. This was sacrilege, but Zeus doesn't bother with a woman past her prime. I knelt on the flagstones with a basin and rag I'd borrowed from a servant, my sweat-damp hair falling around me. Sunlight glared in the vast courtyard and pierced wedges of brilliance through the raised colonnade. The Pillar of Vengeance stood apart from the others, supporting nothing, and the winter sun was hot enough to release the putrid stench.

"Princess Ariadne?" A stranger knelt in a bloody puddle, the reddish water wicking up his linen robe. I'd seen him on the Bench of Tribute. Theseus. His brown eyes were just beginning to fade with age. Laugh creases radiated around them above his grizzled beard, but he wasn't laughing now.

"Seven youths," I said. "Athens pays Crete a tribute of seven youths, but you are not young."

"I'm younger than my father," he said, and he smiled.

I imagined laughing together with him. Foolish, and I knew it. "Your father sent my brother to be killed by a bull."

"That was twenty years ago," Theseus answered, as if time erased the guilt.

I grazed my fingertips along the flagstones where I'd taught my brother to ride a toy horse on wheels. "I loved Androgeos."

Prince Theseus didn't reply. He laid a hand on the pillar, which was lumpy and raw where I'd scrubbed. "It would seem that you alone on Crete dislike the double sacrifice. The blood won't come out. It's soaked into the plaster."

Even my sacrilege was useless. I dropped the rag into the basin and stood up on aching knees, squeezing my shoulder blades together to stand straight. "The bull didn't wrong us." The Athenians did, I almost added.

Next, he would offer eternal love. The Athenians always had when I was younger, hoping I'd save them from the Minotaur. He stayed on his knees, looking up at the pillar. "I could use a friend. Sit with me tomorrow at the ritual."

I'd never been tempted by love, but my longing for companionship echoed through the empty palace like a song. There was a catch, of course. I half turned away. "What would you ask your friend to do?"

"I want to end the Ritual of Vengeance," he answered, "but I don't put a price on my friendship."

I was afraid to say more to this man who must die, so I left without answering, not daring to look back to see his face. I threaded my way through cool passages to my chamber, where leaping dolphins lined the walls. A friend, I thought, sitting alone among the dolphins.

The next day, I wore a dress of overlapping layers, woven of red and yellow, tight around my legs, as if my clothes could protect me. I pushed between courtiers and servants around the colonnade to where the Athenians in linen robes sat stiff and formal, the three that remained.

Theseus stood to join me. "Will King Minos be angry to see his daughter among foreigners?" he asked.

"He ignores me, and others erase what I do." I nodded to the Pillar of Vengeance, now replastered and smooth across the courtyard. I half regretted telling him my insignificance, so I shifted the focus to him. "We treat you as guests, not prisoners. Why don't you run away?"

Theseus snorted. "If we fail to yield our tribute, mighty Zeus will again curse Athens with a plague, and more than seven will die."

"Zeus is not the only god," I said. "Can't Athena help Athens?"

Before he could answer, a drum beat loud. We sat down between two columns, shading our eyes against the sun. Across the courtyard, my father came forth from the shadows, thick-necked and strong, robed in purple. He sat on his splendid throne. A two-piped aulos played, harshened by the doubled melody not quite in unison. The drum beat faster, and I longed to be one of the youths down on the bright flagstones waiting for the bull in the days before the ritual turned brutal.

The bull lurched out of its pen, charging with that awkward rocking. A girl raced toward him, caught hold of his horns, and flipped over his back to land behind him and flee to safety. Theseus gasped beside me.

"She was late," I said. "Did you notice? She barely cleared the rear flank."

"You are a keen observer," he said. "You have watched your whole life."

"Watched? I was raised for this. As soon as I could run, they taught me to leap, to spin somersaults high in the air, to dodge a javelin. At fifteen, I was a bull leaper at the festival." I stopped, realizing why I was so angry, what I had lost. For a decade, I was the greatest bull leaper on the island of Crete. Until my brother died and the ritual changed.

Again the bull charged. A youth with the beginning of a beard raced to meet it. I remembered what it was like to push off with both feet, to see stone and sky spin, my gauzy garment and unbound hair fluttering in the wind, and then to land and spring away before the beast could turn on me.

"You must miss it," said Theseus, echoing my thoughts. "We have our own sports, and I was once a great contender." He laughed. "I wish I couldn't remember what it was like to be buoyant and untiring."

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Again, a leaper skimmed across the bull, diving with arms spread wide and chest lifted, then curling to roll and race away. "I do miss it," I said at last.

The bull raged on, and the leapers exulted. When the bull faltered, beginning to tire, the Athenians tensed. The wavering melody of the aulos faded, and the drum beat slowed. A mighty bellow rumbled beneath the courtyard and echoed in the hidden labyrinth.

My father raised his arm, and the handlers seized the bull and dragged him to the Pillar of Vengeance. The priest swung the double-headed axe. The first edge cut silent high into the air, and the axe balanced for an instant against the sky. Then the second edge fell, severing sinews, crunching through bone, a sudden rending of life. The axe cracked against the stone, and the heavy bull's head splashed to the flagstones. A boy caught blood that spurted from the stamping carcass. Even before the bull's body fell, the priest handed the king a wide brush.

My father dipped the brush in the vessel of blood and painted the fresh plaster with long, vertical strokes, from top to bottom. He worked his way around the pillar, finishing with not a drop of blood on his hand or his garment. The priest carried away the vessel. The Minotaur below roared its fury.

"Let the Athenian tribute come forth," my father commanded, and the people of Crete echoed his shout.

One of the Athenians, not Theseus, vaulted down onto the bright courtyard.

"Why do you let the others go first?" I asked. "Shouldn't a noble prince be first to die?"

I thought he'd take offense. He breathed in so fast the air whistled in his airways. "My father commanded that I be last to descend. To give me time to end this cruel tribute." I knew about a father's commands.

Four servants lifted rings drilled into a paving stone. They laid the slab aside, and the stairway down into the labyrinth stood open. All shouting died away. The Minotaur raged ravenous, the roar louder now with no stone to block the sound. It began as a throaty vibration, lower than the drum, then a frantic squeal, as rage erupted too powerful for the monster's voice to bear.

The Athenian set foot onto the first step, in full sunlight, then onto the next a little dimmer, and the next almost hidden in shadow. "He's brave," I whispered.

"Braver than I would be," Theseus murmured back.

My father's throne was empty. He never stayed to watch the descent of the tribute, but I always waited, grieving for the double death of bull and man, though the man's death paid for a kingdom's guilt. I watched the Athenian fade into the shadows. The Minotaur was silent. They lowered the trapdoor, and the thud of its closing reverberated below.

Theseus's tanned face was pale, the creases around his eyes deeper. "Tell me something," he said. His beard was trimmed close enough that I could see how tight his lips were pressed together.

"What?" I asked. How could I explain this ritual? Zeus ordained the tribute, but had Zeus commanded the slaughter of bulls? What could I say, when I doubted it myself?

But Theseus asked a question I didn't expect. "Why does the axe have two edges? You only need one to cut the neck of a bull."

He startled me into honesty. "Some say the rising blade sings in the wind, but I've never heard that song. The priest says the upstroke seals the fate of the Athenian tribute. I wonder if there's a balance, and we don't know what we may harm when we carry out our ritual. Twenty years ago, before my father imprisoned the Minotaur, they always let the bull run free after the leaping, and he returned to the herd."

Theseus grasped my arm suddenly. "Take me down there. At night. I want to know what I will face."

I shook away his grasp and stared at him. "You'll go down those steps soon enough. Why hurry your death? I don't want to die along with you."

Theseus leaned closer. His robe stirred my layered dress. "Aren't you curious?" he breathed across my temple. "The Minotaur must sleep sometimes. They say you've ventured into all the caves of Crete. Will you leave this one unexplored?"

"Scorpions and spiders are the worst I've found in caves, even in the great cavern where old Rhea hid my grandfather, if you believe that tale. But this labyrinth holds a monster."

He didn't answer, and he didn't move away. He'd stirred a loneliness that had grown through the decades since my mother died and then my brother. And I was curious about what lay below. "There's another way into the labyrinth," I said at last. "Meet me tonight outside the palace wall when the moon rises."

The waning moon was still half hidden when I led Theseus over the ridge, away from where the ships rocked at anchor. For ease of movement, I wore a knee-length linen shirt like the Athenian robes and a pouch tied around my waist. The path was rough, but I was used to nighttime excursions.

We skittered down to the water. The moon was higher now, and the sea reflected pools of silver, stretching and shrinking with the low waves. "We'll have to swim," I said, kicking off my sandals and slipping them under my belt. I waded in. "Zeus rules on Crete, but the realm of Poseidon surrounds us."

Theseus gasped. "The water is cold."

I plunged in, savoring the chill. Two arms of barren land stretched out into the sea. We side stroked toward the farthest, facing each other in the moonlight, pale disruptions of the liquid light. "This bay is where my grandparents came ashore," I said, wondering if anyone outside of Crete believed that story. "Zeus took the form of a bull when he made love to his stolen bride."

"Then your father is half bull like the Minotaur?" asked Theseus. "Maybe King Minos is the monster."

"A god can take many forms and still remain a god," I said and laughed. "By your logic, I'd be a quarter cow, though no one builds a labyrinth for a woman-cow."

He didn't answer, and I wondered if he'd noticed how the flesh below my jaw was settling into bovine curves.

"We're here," I said, setting my feet on a submerged boulder. I was always reluctant to leave the sea, surprised by my sudden weight when I pressed up into the air. Water poured from my clothes, and I stood tall, my garment clinging to the contours of my body, grown fleshy.

Theseus rose beside me, his legs and arms gaunt, his muscles ropy. I put on my sandals and trudged wordlessly up the slope, aware of the grit caught between my wet feet and sandals.

"You never married?" he asked, catching up to me.

"I've never even taken a lover."

"Because you're afraid? I don't think you'd bear a monster." He'd somehow guessed thoughts I hardly admitted to myself.

 I paused by an olive tree and took a soggy ball of thread from the pouch at my side. I tied the end around the tree trunk and strapped down the flap of the pouch. Now the thread would unwind as I moved away from the tree. "So we don't get lost," I said.

"Where is the entrance?"

I hesitated, suddenly reluctant to share my secret with a stranger. I wondered why I'd agreed to bring him. He seemed to understand my sympathy for the bulls, but he was Athenian. He'd have to die.

"Follow me," I said and slipped behind a jumble of rubble. I crouched through an opening hidden by a fold in the landscape and felt around for the oil lamp I'd ferried over tied to my head on my first trip. I kindled a flame. Theseus knelt beside me, though the rubble on the cave floor must have cut into his shins. Around us, as far as the lamp illuminated, rough passages led away, some too small to enter, some too tortuous. The largest passage dropped off and sloped deep into the earth. "What magic brought you here?" he breathed. "How did you find this place?"

"Listen," I said.

"I hear the pounding of the sea," said Theseus, "and another roaring. Maybe it's a trick of the echoes."

For a moment I listened to the ebb and flow of thunder. "I think it's the Minotaur snoring," I said at last. "You are right that he must sleep sometimes, like any other creature, and he's just feasted. We'll follow the snores to get to the labyrinth, but once we're in his lair we'll have to steer away from him. We're here to explore, not meet the monster."

"Then let's explore." Theseus pressed his palms against the cave floor and stood.

I vaulted down to the lower level, and even though I bent my knees, I felt the jolt. I led the way down the rough slope, unspooling my thread, listening to my companion's quiet scrabbling behind me and the rough rhythm of the monster's snoring. Sometimes I ducked and crouched forward when the ceiling came low. Sometimes I stumbled and clattered over loose stones, wondering if the noise would wake the Minotaur. Whenever the passage divided, I followed the snores.

At last, we came to a stone pillar carved like a leaping dolphin, its smooth body arching high. A thin ridge gave the illusion of a dorsal fin, and a dark indentation suggested an eye. This creature frozen mid-leap marked the farthest point of my exploration. The smaller ball of thread I'd brought before had given out on the verge of this discovery, and I'd had to trace my way back. In my pouch, I felt the new ball of wool thread still full. "The labyrinth begins here," I said.

The booming surf was softer here, and the roars of the monster more distinct. Theseus said, "If it thunders with every breath in, think what its voice must be like when it wakes and breathes out anger?"

"We can go back," I said.

"No. An Athenian is as fearless as a bull leaper." He smiled at me, but there was something hidden in his eyes, like a passage that led beyond the light of my lamp.

I turned and led the way on. A greenish light coming from the stone itself lit the passage dimly. I blew out my lamp to save the oil. Now the floor of the path was smooth and flat, and all grit and rubble had been swept away. The passage was formed of living rock, but the walls rose vertical and smooth. The ceiling was a rounded arch, and the tunnel was so narrow we had to walk one by one.

"The monster is no bigger than a man," said Theseus.

"Or a woman," I replied.

We came to more divisions, sudden turns to left or right or branching forks. Now that we were in the labyrinth, I tried to choose paths that led away from the snoring, but the passages twisted unexpectedly, sometimes curving until we crossed the thread we'd laid behind us.

A round hole like a window opened in a wall. I held up my lamp and saw a parallel passage running beside a raised pool of water, and a wooden ladder leading up to the pool.

I moved on. A blow smashed into my cheek and brow, so fast I had no time to dodge. I jumped back. The weapon clattered to the ground, and the snoring stopped. I couldn't see my assailant.

"What was that?" whispered Theseus, warm behind me.

"I don't know." I stooped and felt forward. Then I laughed under my breath. "It's a rake. I stepped on the tines. See? I broke one of them."

"Why would the Minotaur leave a tool to ambush strangers?"

"To warn it we're coming?" I asked. We stood still, listening.

A snort echoed through the tunnel. The snoring resumed. I edged forward, holding the rake in front of me.

"We should have brought a real weapon," Theseus murmured. He slipped past me and took the lead. I put down the rake and clutched back my anger, at myself for my weakness, and at him for seeing me weak.

We came at last to a large cavern. Here the light was red, and brighter than the passages that led here. "Like the forge of Hephaestus," Theseus whispered.

To me the light seemed welcoming. Two frothy structures rose in the center of the cavern, so unexpected that at first I couldn't identify them. I brushed past Theseus and moved closer. "They are trees," I said. "An olive and a date."

"Impossible!" he answered. "I've seen plants growing in a cavern. They reach long and yellow toward the sun, then wilt and die. No plant can thrive away from the light of the sun."

"Light shines here," I answered. "Daedalus built the labyrinth, and he had the skill to achieve this, but why would he plant trees for the Minotaur? It eats men, not olives and dates."

"Daedalus?" asked Theseus. The white threads in his hair and beard gleamed in the red light, and his eyes were invisible. "Isn't he the craftsman your father imprisoned? But he escaped by flying through the air. That's what the poets say."

"Poets lie. Daedalus was a hermit. He lived sealed off in a wing of the palace, not imprisoned. He strayed into the labyrinth after the Minotaur was captured, and the monster devoured him."

I led the way into a tunnel with another window ahead. Golden light flared through a round hole, making a disk of brilliance where it shone on the opposite wall. I was an arm's length from that window when the snoring stopped. I froze. A rhythmic groaning moved toward us, approaching fast, until the grumbling was louder than the blurring echoes.

I couldn't tell which way to turn, how to avoid the monster. The sound came from all around me, terrifying, so loud my ears rang. This was how the Athenians must feel, knowing any way they ran might bring them closer to the Minotaur.

A silhouette moved into the pool of light on the wall. A pointed arc, becoming two sharp strands of shadow. Then, unmistakable and monstrous, the profile of a bull's head with gaping mouth, like the bull heads severed from their bodies in the Ritual of Vengeance.

The disembodied head twisted until the curving horns rose symmetrical. The beast was staring through the window. I heard constricted breathing, slow and inhuman. The shadow grew until it nearly filled the disk of light. And in the window itself, shreds of light gleamed on a wet nose, broad and porous. Huge nostrils flared and exhaled. I felt the hot draft. The groan reverberated, deafening.

I spun around and nearly stumbled over Theseus bending to pick up the thread. He set off, letting the thread run through curled fingers. I followed, rewinding the ball, stepping from heel to toe so my sandals wouldn't scuff the stone. I glanced back at the disk of light. The monster was gone, but its groaning echoed loud.

A curve took us closer to the rumbling. Terror clutched my chest and throat for all my silent scolding that fear was perilous. We broke into a run, and I gathered the wool in great tangled loops and stuffed them into the swelling pouch at my side.

I glimpsed a dark shape in a side passage. The monster's throaty grumbling rose in pitch, sliding up to an earsplitting shriek. The sound wavered, and I imagined words in the clamor. You, I see you. The screech slid back to a rhythmic growl. Again, a bellow rose high and harsh, dipped, and subsided. You, I know you.

We passed the stone dolphin and threw ourselves into the cave beyond. The Minotaur's braying subsided to a rumble and faded into the distance. We slowed our pace, gasping through the rough passages beyond the beast's prison.

"How did the Minotaur come to be?" asked Theseus.

His voice trembled, and I was glad he had spoken first. I waited and breathed until I could answer in a steady voice. "No one knows. It lived in the hills and devoured many people before Daedalus made the labyrinth."

I felt the night air again moving through the passages, and I welcomed the pounding surf and the smell of salt. I began to relax, until Theseus spoke again.

"They say Pasiphaë mated with a bull and bred the Minotaur. Is it true?"

"They say that," I half growled, "but it's a lie. My mother died in childbirth, and the infant died with her."

We came out of the cave, and I untied my thread from the olive tree with unsteady fingers. When we reached the steep slope at the water's edge, I wanted to dive into the bay to wash away my fear, but I wasn't sure where hidden rocks might lie beneath the waves. Instead I clambered back into the sea and swam silent beside Theseus, watching the setting moon.

We arrived damp at the palace just before dawn. Before we parted, Theseus said, "Please help me."

If he had asked for help before, I would have turned away, but now I knew the terror he would face. I imagined him descending the shadowed stairs and fleeing through the labyrinth without a thread to guide him. So I lingered to listen.

"You are a child of Athena, not Zeus," he said, holding my forearm in a gentle hand. "You are wise and valiant. Help me defeat the monster. Sail with me back to Athens. You will be honored there, the source of our salvation. You will have companions, and you will never feel alone."

I stilled. He had guessed the longings of the decades since my brother died. Everyone on Crete seemed a stranger to me, even my father. How could it be that killing bulls and sacrificing of strangers held us safe in the protection of Zeus? I murmured, "Meet me at the Bench of Tribute tonight. I'll decide then if I will help you."

I went to my chamber, where dolphins leapt across the plaster, clean and free and wild. I fell into sleep, bathed in the eerie song that always filled my dreams.

I slept until I was almost late for the ritual and had to run. I sat on a bench near my father, as I had always done. "Why kill the bulls?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if the bench had spoken, and I marveled at the silence that had grown between us. He growled an answer, "A bull killed my only son."

I almost let habit hold me silent, but I had to know. "Why send the Athenians to the Minotaur? Why not kill them with the double-headed axe? Why let the monster live?"

"No more prattling, woman. I follow the decrees of Zeus, which is more than you have done. You refused to marry, and now you are too old to bear me a grandson."

It was as if I stood in the labyrinth again, facing a branching choice, and either way might lead me to a monster. How did my father know the decrees of Zeus? I had never heard the Thunderer's voice. Had he? Across the courtyard, Theseus and one other sat on the Bench of Tribute, waiting to be sacrificed.

I squeezed my eyes closed when they brought the bull to the Pillar of Vengeance, but without sight, the ritual was far worse. For the first time, I heard the axe sing a harsh squeal as the priest swung it up. The second blade whistled down, but I didn't hear it land. Instead I heard the bellow of the Minotaur below and the last snort of the bull's head, lacking lungs and breath. Then the stamping of heavy hooves and the calm swish of my father's paintbrush on the pillar.

I hurried away, even before my father left. I couldn't stay to watch the last Athenian but Theseus descend to the Minotaur.

That night, I waited until the watchman had passed, and then I entered the hall of axes. Two double-edged axes in heavy stands framed the door, the height of any man or woman. Each curving blade was as long as my arm. Even if Theseus had strength to heft up one of these, he could never swing it in the narrow passages of the Minotaur's prison.

But smaller axes filled the hall, hundreds of them, all sizes. Some were made of pure gold, and we poured wine over them at sunset on the longest day. Some were the size of a fingernail clipping, and these we buried in graves by the dozen, as if the dead had been brought low by a myriad of tiny sacrifices day by day.

I chose an axe the size of my leg and lugged it to the courtyard. I sat on the Bench of Tribute and waited without a torch or oil lamp. Theseus came stealing through the night in dark clothes and sat beside me.

"Can you lift the trapdoor?" I asked.

"I can," he said, not boasting.

I handed him the double-headed axe. "We call these labrys, which means fierce, and the labyrinth is named for them, a place to contain the fury of the Minotaur. With this weapon, you can kill the monster and end this bloody ritual. Hide it below, and it will be there waiting when you descend tomorrow."

"An axe?" said Theseus. "A sword would be better, easier to swing, and I'm used to a sword."

"It has to be an axe."

Theseus hefted up the stone trapdoor, and he even managed to set it down without noise. As soon as the door was open, we heard the monster snoring.

I handed Theseus a ball of thread. "It's new, not soggy and tangled like the one we followed last night. Stow it with the axe, so you'll find your way back."

"And you'll sail away with me?" he asked.

"I will," I said, suddenly sure. "Crete is no longer my home."

We clasped hands and parted.

I found refuge in sleep and dreaming.

I woke in the night determined to see the Minotaur before Theseus killed it. Even if it devoured me, I wanted one clear vision of the monster who had transformed the ritual of bull leaping into a pattern of loss.

I untangled my damp thread and rewound it, then hurried over the ridge and waded into the bay. I glided through flowing patterns of light on water, like a labyrinth that could not hold me, and the waves caressed my body. I almost forgot my terrible errand.

Dawn had brightened the sky when I tied my thread around the tree trunk and crawled into the entrance. The Minotaur was sleeping still, its snores rumbling through the passages. I made my way easily through the rough caverns to the leaping dolphin. I knew my way better now. I chose corridors by instinct and found a more direct route toward the Minotaur.

This time, the light was gold, and the cave walls seemed also gold, with glossy green just out of sight, as if the dark cave reflected the outer world and lush ferns grew here in the cave. I thought I heard a drumbeat, but it was just my heart.

I walked more warily now and found my way to the pool of water. I saw through the window where the rake had lain before, but it was gone. The pool flowed into a channel, and I followed the channel to a brightly lit cavern. There the water flowed into furrows, and a field of barley and wheat lay spread before me.

A stand filled with garden tools stood near me, and there I saw the rake I'd stepped on. The tines had been replaced with metal spikes that would not break no matter how unyielding the soil. Butterflies wavered through the air, and tiny insects buzzed in clouds like starlings flying nets through the sky. The air was warm as summer, and I basked there for a moment until a louder snore called me back to my purpose and I followed a path through the field to the mouth of another passage.

I came to a hall filled with long tables, each as high as the tight knot at the base of my sternum. Beyond the hall, a brilliant light in a curving passage promised open air and sunshine. I moved toward it among the surfaces covered with the instruments of a craftsman. On one table amphorae and stoppered vessels held colorful liquids. On another, I saw a sextant with hinged legs, a square like the builders use, and plans written in strange characters on sheets of parchment. This must have been Daedalus's workshop, where he designed the labyrinth before its prisoner devoured him.

I stopped at the mouth of the passage. The floor ahead flowed deep red, but without the dank smell of blood. The snores were louder now, and I could hear the differences between them, strange gasps and sudden stops as if the monster were struggling to breathe. I hesitated, then took a bold step into the blood.

It wasn't blood. I stood on a carpet. I reached down and felt the deep-piled wool. Why had Daedalus provided a carpet of honor for the Minotaur? At least the carpet hid all sound of my approach, and I could hear that I was very close. My fingers shook when I tried to untangle a knot in my thread.

I moved on. Just a glimpse, and then I'd hurry back through all those strange chambers that should be dark and were not. Just one glimpse of the monster.

The passage spiraled inward. As I rounded the tightest gyre, a gap ahead opened into a chamber lit bright and warm as if the sun shone there. I saw the foot of a bed covered with white fabric, soft and supple. A few more steps and I'd see the creature sleeping there.

I lifted a foot to move forward. A great gasp echoed, and the snoring stopped. I lowered my foot, and the soft wool pushed up against my sandal, an unstable surface. I didn't dare move. I longed for solid stone, though it would make my footsteps louder.

A shape blocked the light for a moment. The monster emerged through the opening and stood before me. Its body was that of a man in his prime, strong and supple, clad in a simple white robe and sandals. But the neck thickened as it rose, the muscles swelling into gristle and the massive head of a bull. Its horns curved long and sharp. Its nostrils flared as it snorted in my scent, and it snarled the double melody of an aulos.

I fled, not bothering to gather up the thread that marked my way. Sometimes I heard heavy steps behind me, shuffling on hard stone. Sometimes silence. I longed for a straight path to safety, but the labyrinth held me in its pattern, and I spiraled around and around. I heard a rhythmic thundering above. The ritual had begun.

The corridor opened into the workshop, but the Minotaur blocked my way, its human feet planted on the wool strand that led to safety. The monster's head was more massive than any natural bull's. Coarse hair curled between its horns, and its eyes were so far apart they bulged in profile, framed by bulky ridges and protruding ears. How had it passed me? I braced myself, knowing I could never meet death with the calm resignation of the Athenian youths.

I wondered how the Minotaur would charge on the legs of a man. Would the rhythm be different? The beast snarled in a breath, and I expected to feel hot vapor rush out as it skewered me on its horns. I hoped I would be dead before it devoured me. But with its exhalation it snorted my name. "Ariadne."

I stood bewildered, and it snarled again. "Sister."

With that word, my speech came back to me. "What are you?"

The man's hand, unnaturally pale, lifted a strange device from a table and set it in the bull's dark mouth. Human words in an eerie cadence came from the mouth, and I recognized the song I'd heard all those long years in my dreams. "I am Daedalus," he sang.

"You devoured that great craftsman long ago." I marveled that I could speak.

"I am a craftsman," he crooned, "but our mother was greater. Pasiphaë designed the palace where you live, and she taught me what I know."

"My mother died in childbirth," I shouted. The reverberation of my voice mingled with the hollow rumbling of the bull in the courtyard above.

The Minotaur sang on, "When I was born, our father Minos tried to kill me, the evidence of his heritage." The monster took a step toward me. I didn't step away, and he chanted, "Minos himself spread the rumor of our mother's perfidy. She hid with me in a wing of the palace, and she kept the king away with her devices. As I grew up, I watched you and Androgeos through a marble lattice, and I longed for you to cherish me as you did him."

"You are a monster," I exclaimed, unable to bear the tipping of my world. If I kept questioning, maybe I'd catch the monster in a lie. "If you are truly my brother, then where is our mother?"

The Minotaur's song became a wail. Then words filled it again. "Our father murdered her. When Androgeos died, the king's fury swelled until he broke through our mother's barriers. I fled from Minos and built this labyrinth. I thought I'd be safe from him, but he found a way in."

"You devour the Athenians," I said. "We hear you roaring when the bull thunders across the flagstones."

"I try to warn them. This device gives me a human voice, but this voice won't carry, so I roar as a bull to warn them."

Above, the bull clattered again across the stones, and I imagined an agile youth leaping over its body, evading slaughter. "Then what happens to the tribute? They never return alive from this labyrinth."

The monster lifted his muzzle, and for a moment I thought he would devour me. I imagined blood dripping from his chin. He roared his anger, even through the singing device. "Our father Minos descends and devours them."

"Then why don't you kill him? Why do you let him live?" I asked.

"My hands are soft and delicate, the fingers of a craftsman. My muscles are not trained for battle. My horns are sharp, but my neck can't hold my head steady when I tilt it down."

"Then why hasn't he caught you? Why hasn't he killed you?"

The Minotaur sang on, "King Minos enters the labyrinth as a bull, lacking human intelligence. He keeps only his fury. He slays the Athenians, but he can never find his way to me. When he has slaughtered the tribute and slaked his thirst for blood, he regains his human form and returns to the daylight palace our mother built for him."

"And you can't save the Athenians?" I demanded. "Even with all your clever craft?"

"My devices are nothing to his rage. By human blood, he keeps his human form through all the year until the days shorten and he feels the bull's blood strong in his veins."

A squeal sang through the caverns, the first edge of the axe. Then the double blow of axe and head on the flagstones above. Muted echoes of the cheering crowd resounded here below. I heard the trapdoor open and then close.

Theseus had entered the labyrinth.

"I have to stop him," I cried. "He's coming to kill you." I pushed past Daedalus and ran through the corridors. I untied my pouch and cast it aside so it wouldn't hold me back by the slow unwinding of thread. The labyrinth was familiar, like the patterns of my blood racing through my body. I knew the tingling windings of these caverns.

I sprinted across the golden field of grain and stopped by the vessel of agricultural tools. Theseus stood in the tunnel ahead, the axe clasped in his hands. He smiled when he saw me and hurried forward. But a huge bull charged out of a passage between us and veered away from me, threatening my friend.

The bull snorted and lowered its horns. Its feet beat a human fury, beyond what any beast could know.

Theseus raised the axe, and the first edge sang through the corridors. The axe head glinted in the life-giving light of the cave. Then the second edge fell. But the monster flicked away the weapon with its horns, and it clattered harmless to the floor.

"Run!" I shouted.

"And abandon my friend?" Theseus reached for the axe. The bull lowered its horns again, ready to skewer the Athenian tribute. I seized the rake from the stand and raised it high as I ran forward. I brought the tines down hard on the thick neck of the bull, and the sharp metal sank in.

The enraged monster tossed its head high. My reflexes were slower with age, but I was still trained to elude the anger of a bull. As the handle of the rake slammed down, I leapt back. The bull shook its head to dislodge my weapon. The rake swung back and forth until the shaft shattered against the stone. Yet still the tines bit deep into its neck.

Theseus leapt in between the horns of the bull and wrenched the rake away, leaving spurting wounds. In the golden light of the passage, the blood gleamed unnaturally bright. The monster stumbled and sagged heavily to the ground. Its head hit the floor, and one horn rang against the stone. As the creature died, its rough hide smoothed and its muzzle collapsed inward as its neck constricted. The bull shrank into the shape of a man, a strong man with a thick neck and hair plastered with gore, a body clad in royal purple. I recognized the features of my father Minos.

Theseus took my hand. "We've killed the Minotaur," he shouted. "Come. Let's leave before the people miss their king."

But I turned and fled, running back to find my brother. He wasn't in the workshop. I crisscrossed through the labyrinth until I found Daedalus by the pool. I reached out a bloody hand to him.

"You've done what I had no power to do," he sang. I couldn't tell if he condemned or approved me, but he took my hand in both of his.

 "My brother, I'll stay with you," I said, trying to drag him deeper into the labyrinth. "We'll hide forever here in the passages you crafted."

Before he could answer, Theseus came into sight, with his grizzled beard and grim face, carrying the axe.

"Wait!" I said to him. "This is Daedalus, my brother. My father was the monster."

Theseus called in a choked voice, "Only killing the Minotaur will end the Ritual of Vengeance." The axe squealed upward, glinting in the rich light of the tunnel.

Daedalus released my hand and sang, "I won't harm you." The voice device fell from his mouth. Unable to form words, he covered the tips of his horns with his palms and turned toward Theseus.

Theseus swept the axe sideways. Blood spattered into my eyes. When I could see again, the bull's head lay separate from the limp human body.

I picked up the voice device and held it in my open palm. "Didn't you hear him?"

"It had to die." Theseus dipped the axe in the pool. Blood curled through the clean water, and the irrigation channel ran red. "Come, Ariadne. Let's flee this island of monsters."

"You slaughtered a craftsman, not a monster." My accusation echoed back to me, and I knelt. I killed my father, I thought. I gave Theseus the axe to kill my brother.

Sandals scuffed on the stone. I heard Theseus pause, then walk away.

"Don't take the axe," I shrieked. "I am the true monster. Strike off my head." But Theseus was gone.

I wept. There was nothing else for me to do.

Silence vibrated in the emptiness, then a presence brimmed through the passages. A voice rumbled, "Beloved daughter." It was not my father's voice or my mother's. I listened to the echoes. A breeze carried the scent of incense around me.

Water seeped under my shins. I thought my tears had filled the passage, but then I realized it was the sea, swelling through the caverns of the labyrinth. Moving water, soft and cold, covered my calves and then my thighs. I stood up and the sea flowed above my waist. It pressed against me, fitting its shape to mine. I leaned into the water, ducking below to wash away the slaughter and loss. I didn't raise my head. Why go on living after all that carnage.

I didn't drown. Hollow lapping resonated like the voice, strong and welcoming. The water carried me away, through the winding labyrinth. My clothes caught on the branches of the olive tree and tore off. I held my legs together and my arms against my side, so I wouldn't block the force of the sea.

My legs bonded together, and my arms melded to my ribs. I was glad to be one, inseparable from myself. My body thickened, and the outer flesh hardened and smoothed away. No more was I like the lumpy plaster where I'd tried to wash away the bull's blood.

The tide carried me past the stone dolphin. I recognized the sleek curve arching high, and I knew what I had become. The current bore me out to sea, and I leapt joyous in the waves.

In the distance, a stranger sailed back to Athens. I swam the other way.

Now my song echoes the first edge of the axe, a warning against severing the sinews between human and beast.

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