Keepers of the Labyrinth (14 page)

21

A
s the door closed behind them, wooden arms moved and flint clicked.
Pop, pop, pop.
The passageway came alive with pools of light, glowing out of rounded stone cups that protruded from the walls. Roots hung from the ceiling, draped down above them like extended arms—knobby, withered fingers reaching, begging for help. Rocks hobbled up from the ground, stretching to extract themselves, as if every bit of life longed to escape this place.

“This was a terrible idea,” Sydney said through gritted teeth. “I can already see this was a terrible idea.”

Lil jumped over a loosened stone and ran forward, her eyes searching. She wasn't sure for what exactly, except that the path would be guided by the labrys. She knew that, and she knew they had to keep moving. When they came to the first corner, Lil looked to the left, then to a tiny passage on the right.

Sydney reached to her waist and unclipped her device. She flipped it on. “Maybe we can see it on satellite. Commence trilateration,” she said into the gadget. She held the device between them and worked at clearing her glasses with her other hand.

NO
SIGNAL
flashed across the screen. Sydney shook her head, sighing loudly.

“That was a good idea,” Kat said, patting her shoulder.

“Please do not patronize me,” Sydney said, rolling her eyes as she placed the device back in her pocket.

Lil waved the torch back and forth, searching the walls. Some of it was covered with a sticky slime. “Do you see it?” she asked.

“I think here,” Kat said, rubbing the wall to her right. A moment later, the labrys appeared from the dirt covering that had shielded it.

“Good eyes,” Charlie whispered.

They hurried down the hallway, and Lil wiped away the cobwebs that filtered down from the ceiling. Something skittered in the shadows, and she wondered what types of animals had made their home down here. The tunnel narrowed as she peered into the darkness, pushing the torch ever forward.

As they rounded the next corner, she spotted three doors. They each had a dark strip of cast-iron metalwork splaying out in a wedge shape from their hinges.

“Here it is again,” Lil said, raising the torch. This labrys, more obvious than the last, was drawn on the face of the center door.

Kat placed her fingers to it, rubbing them together. “Feels like charcoal.”

Lil ran the torch to the right and to the left. No handle. “How do we get in? No latch.”

“Of course there's a latch,” Sydney said. “Up there.”

Lil straightened, lifting the torch to the root-clotted ceiling. A massive spiderweb caught and sizzled like a hot coal. And behind it was a stained-glass window, dimly lit, covered in soot or dirt. This one, unlike the ones in the manor, was small and circular, and the image inside it was the head of a bull. The edges of the horns seemed to be decorated with flecked gold, sparkling despite the dim light of the hall. Lil flicked the torch to the right and saw the unlit sconce wrapped with roots. She reached for it.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Charlie said, grabbing her wrist.

“But the labrys,” Lil said.

“Ah,
oui,
” Charlie said, her eyebrows rising, “but look.” She gestured toward the wall. Just to the right of the door was another inscription. Like the previous one, it was set up like the Rosetta stone: different prints at the top leading down through languages of the world. Lil squatted as Charlie moved a root to the side.

“See,” she said, pointing toward the last verse.

Lil read the English out loud.

“Follow to the Mi
notaur,

Son of Minos
, full of lore.

Choo
se right and walk th
at way,

Or accept yo
ur death today.”

“The Minotaur,” Lil said.

“Are you reading the same thing I'm reading?” Sydney said, looking over her shoulder. “‘Or accept your death today.'” She swallowed hard, the twists in her hair bouncing on their own.

“Take a deep breath,” Lil said, trying to stay focused on the subject at hand. It would all come clear, she told herself. She hadn't been impulsive. Bente had called this a clue. And Lil knew. Lil knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would learn something more here. Something important.

Charlie pulled her notebook from her back pocket. She gripped a pen cap between her teeth and yanked the pen free, copying the passage quickly. Lil reached up, grabbed the sconce and tugged.

The wooden door swung open, but not silently like the other had done. It creaked, and then a low moan sailed toward them from the shadows, bristling the hair on the back of Lil's neck. It was a cry that descended into a whimper. A human voice, full of mourning.

22

H
oratio pushed against the door, but the boulder stuck hard.

“Fe, help me,” he said, his shoulder aching.

He dug in his heels with all his strength as Felice pulled her satchel from around her shoulders. She swallowed, placed her gun in the back of her pants and met him up against the door. Horatio felt the boulder give, his feet moving forward an inch.

“We're losing them and we're losing the key!” he shouted, his body surging with rage. “We will never find it!”

“Stop,” Felice said, calmly pulling the ancient scroll from her bag.

He stepped away from the door, trying to clear his head. “Right, right. We must think. We must use what we've been given.”

He clutched his gold pendant, trying not to picture Byron, still lying on the stairs. He had retrieved the gift given by Ares that hung around his dead brother's neck. And reached into his pocket, now, to grip the lava rock. Remembering Ares' words. “. . . ash from the volcano of Thera that destroyed those who strove to destroy Zeus. This is the protection that Zeus offers you on your quest for immortality.”

“We are protected,” he said quietly, as he sent a silent prayer to the lord.

“Are we?” Felice said, unrolling the cartograph.

“Don't, sister,” Horatio said, his voice coming out deeper and more menacing than he meant it to. “Don't lose your faith. Not now.”

Felice fell silent as she surveyed the cartograph, but he saw her jaw working. His mind raced despite himself. How had things gone wrong so early? How had the heathen woman wounded his brother so easily, especially since he was the one carrying the symbols of protection? Poor Byron, poor, poor baby brother.

“He's at peace now,” Felice said, as though reading his thoughts. “Perhaps his role, his destiny, was to fall so that we could continue.”

Of course. “You are correct,” he said, realizing that she was right. They all had a purpose.

Felice looked away, then pressed the cartograph flat against the wall. Horatio panned the beam of the flashlight over it. The lines were faded, of course, from being so old, but they had the benefit of being burned directly into the hide.

Felice traced a line. “Do you see it, 'Ratio? There is one other way to get up to the first passage,” she said. “This crosses the Minotaur chamber, and we don't need to move the boulder to access it.”

“Let's go,” Horatio said.

Felice rolled the map quickly and placed it back into her satchel, then swung the satchel over her shoulder.

“Wait!” Horatio stood slowly. “We meet them there, we take the key. Continue to the chambers on our own. No loose ends, just as Ares would have it done.”

“I am not Ares,” Felice said.

Horatio studied her face as Felice looked to the side. He pictured Byron lying dead on the ground, killed without remorse by the Protector. He felt a tug at his heart.

“They are not the same as us. Even the young ones. They are not family like we are. And they will not spare us.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I need you with me. Clearheaded. Precise. Just as Ares says. They are a small sacrifice in the greater arc of destiny.”

Felice paused, but a moment later pulled her gun from her belt and nodded.

“Fine, but not for Ares,” Felice said. “For Byron.”

“Indeed,” Horatio added.

They moved swiftly down the hall and headed for the Minotaur chamber.

23

T
he girls stepped inside the chamber. Lil went first, holding the torch high with a trembling fist. They circled in the pool of light, which seemed to dim with each step they took, diminished by the darkness around them. The door creaked and shut behind them, and the cry began again. This time it was louder and much closer.

M
mmmm—mmmmm—mmmmm.

Lil spun, searching, trying to see past the torchlight.

“Hello,” Kat said, her voice quiet. “Is someone in here? Are you all right?”

No answer came. As they circled, Lil spotted a protrusion on the nearby wall. An identical one marked the opposite side of the door. They looked just like the wells that they had seen in the outer passage that had burst with fire. Were they oil wells? She swung the torch, dunking the flame into it. A river of fire coursed around the wall. When it hit the corner, it split, sending a path vertically along torches while the other half traveled toward the next corner. Lil could see it raced along a narrow trough, and as it did, the room was revealed. The angry face of a bull loomed out of the shadows. She jumped back, careening into Charlie, who clutched her arm.

“It's not alive,” Charlie breathed.

Mmmmm
—mmmmm—mmmmm.

The cry rose up again, and Lil turned, searching. It was coming from the other side, wasn't it? It seemed like it was everywhere. She searched, scanning more bulls' heads across the far wall.

“Over here,” Kat said from the opposite side of the room.

Lil hurried to her, stopping midstep as she looked past the largest bull to a man. Her body tensed, and she felt as though she had been drenched in ice.

“Be careful,” she said, grasping Kat's arm and pulling her back.

Mmmmm—mmmmm—mmmmm.

Lil watched his shoulders shake as the cry circled the chamber once more.

“It's okay,” Kat said. She leaned forward and touched his shoulder. The figure didn't move. Just continued to weep. Lil stepped closer. He was tall, standing about two feet over her, and as she neared, she could see up into his face. His cheeks had tracks running down them as though he had been crying inky tears. And in the wavering light, Lil thought he trembled.

Mmmmmmm—mm—mm—mm.

The moaning echoed again, and this time the man's shoulders jolted. One of his hands went to the urn next to him while the other pressed his cheek.

Mmmmmmm
—mm—mm.

His shoulders trembled, then his hands jolted back to position by his sides, and Lil expected him to look up at her. He was so real, and yet the way he moved—he was not human.

Sydney stepped past her and knelt down next to him. Lil grasped at her. “Careful.”

But Sydney lifted his right foot as he trembled again. The moaning started and then stopped as Sydney pressed one of her hands into his knee. “This is an automaton,” she said. She jerked her hands away, and the moaning started again. She wiped her hands along her shirt. “A very old and disgusting, greasy one. Let me see that,” she said, gesturing toward Lil's torch. Lil handed it to her. “See?”

Lil and Kat got down close as Sydney pulled the torch toward the floor. Lil could see a small bellows underneath the automaton's foot that led back into the wall. Hiding behind the automaton was what looked just like an organ pipe. As the foot pressed down, the air went through the pipe, and a second later the familiar moan started.

“Gross,” Lil said, tentatively touching her fingers to the skin. It felt greasy and firm against her fingertips.

Sydney pushed her hands into her sleeves. “I'm assuming it's made from wood with some sort of animal hide over it to cover the joints. We must have triggered the mechanism when we opened the door.” She swallowed as if trying not to gag. “It's—it's an interesting design.”

“Yeah,” Lil said. “Interesting.” She felt only slightly relieved.

Lil grasped the urn and pulled herself up as Sydney handed the torch back to her. As she did, she noticed the automaton's hand descending to its resting spot on the lip of the urn. His fingertips were covered in soot. Kat leaned over the opposite side, reaching in. She pulled out a piece of ash and stared at it quizzically.

“Charcoal?” Kat said.

Lil stepped toward the center of the room to have a broader look. The walls were dark. She'd assumed it was the color of the stones, but at a second glance, images seemed to take shape before her eyes. Sooty images, drawn on thick. Lil tried to connect the dots. The bulls' heads were the most obtrusive parts, but she hadn't noticed that their bottom halves were sculpted out of stone, chipped into shape from the wall itself. There were multiple variations. Some had the legs and body of a man that rose into the head of a bull. Some became a bull at the torso, leading up to the bull face. Some were all bull on the right and all man on the left. Lil's eyes fell to a hammer and chisel in the corner. It was resting on the floor, handle leaning against the wall as if an artist had just completed a project.

Besides the bulls, the room was fairly simple. There were embellished urns in each corner, and there was a simple stone desk where Kat and Sydney now stood.

“These must have been for different pigments,” Kat said, running her index finger around the inside of what looked like a very old mortar and pestle.

“What do you think of that?” Sydney asked.

Kat looked to another small stone bowl and then a third. “See how this one has a red hue?” She tipped the closest one so they could see. “It's barely visible, but this looks to me like sinopia—red ochre—”

“Ochre?” Sydney said. “Like iron?”

“Exactly,” Kat said, looking up.

Lil squinted to see the red hue. It matched the faded color of the paintings on the walls.

“They would have crushed it and mixed it with water to make paint,” Kat said.

“And what's this?” Sydney said, holding up a bull's horn. Kat took it and scrutinized it. She studied one side, then flipped it and studied the other. Then she went back to the urn next to the automaton, pulled out a piece of ash and slid it into the end of the horn. As if it was made to fit, it lodged there, making a writing utensil, like a pencil but bigger, thicker.

Kat gestured toward the walls covered in charcoal. “It's like an ancient art studio.”

What would an art studio be doing in the underground labyrinth, and why was it in a room with hideous bulls' heads attached to the wall and a crying man next to them? Lil wondered as she scanned the chamber once more. It was as if the room was split between grotesque and beautiful, trying to balance itself somehow.

“That's all very interesting,” Charlie said, uncrossing her arms. “I mean, you know I like old stuff as much as the next person, but”—she eyed the door through which they had entered—“what does this have to do with the inscription? The Minotaur?” She gestured toward her paper, popping the cap of her pen on and off quickly.

And what does it have to do with Bente and Mom? Lil wondered. “Read it again, would you?” she said.

They circled to the center of the room.

“Follow to the Mi
notaur,

Son of Minos
, full of lore.

Choo
se right and walk th
at way,

Or accept yo
ur death today.”

“Well, what do we know about the Minotaur?” Lil asked.

The girls rehashed their lecture with Colleen. Charlie had, naturally, been paying the most attention.

“The story goes that the Minotaur was half man and half bull.” She gestured toward the bulls' heads. “That he was created when Pasiphae coupled with a bull.”

“Oh yeah,” Sydney said, scowling. “I tried to delete that from my memory.”

“It's mythology,” Charlie said. “Anyway, he was exiled to the labyrinth and eventually killed by Theseus.”

Lil stared down at the paper.
Choose
right and walk that
way, or accept your
death today.
“Well, there are multiple Minotaurs here,” she said, eyeing the bulls. “We have to choose the right one. How do we differentiate?”

“The Minotaur is depicted in a few different ways, but generally with a man's body and a bull's head. I think we can rule out these,” Charlie said, pointing to the ones that were half bull on the right or the left and half man on the opposite side. She stepped to the right, standing in front of the bull with a human body. “The Minotaur is usually depicted like this in paintings and stories.”

“It does seem like the most obvious,” Lil said. Then she watched as Kat drifted down the line, placing her hand on each animal's face.

“Yes,” Kat said, “but why is this room filled with art?”

“Well, someone had to create these,” Charlie said. “Maybe they just left their tools.”

“Maybe this is just a haunted house,” Sydney said. “And no one created these at all.”

“They do look authentic, though,” Charlie said, picking up an urn.

Kat nodded and stepped in front of the automaton. “You know, one time, we had a Greek mythology exhibit at the museum. And every time I looked at the Minotaur paintings, all I could see was Theseus attacking an innocent animal. Minotaur did not hold a weapon in any picture I saw of him. He just stood with head bowed, a dagger at his brow. Ready to die.”

Lil looked at the automaton. “But
he's
not a bull.
He's
a man. If the myth says choose the Minotaur . . .”

“What is the English word
lore
?” Kat mused. “It's story, made up, right?”

Lil cocked her head to the side. “Yes, fable or story.”

“Son of Minos . . . ,” Kat said. “Full of lore.” She reached toward a string around the automaton's neck.

“But doesn't that work for all the stories in Greek mythology?” Charlie asked.

“It just seems to me,” Kat said, peering up into the automaton's tear-stained face, “that if anyone has reason to cry, it would be the Minotaur. He's not accepted by Minos. He's exiled to a dark labyrinth. People are sent to destroy him.”

“But he's a monster,” Charlie said.

Kat shrugged, grasping the string and pulling it forward. A hood at the back of the Minotaur's neck rustled, and Kat lifted it. “Perhaps he's a man, turned into a monster in story.”

Lil's mind spun. “At the entrance,” she continued, “it said, ‘Everything you think you know, abandons you within.' Maybe Kat's right. Maybe the Minotaur was a man, not a monster.”

Kat lowered the hood so it landed on the crown of the Minotaur's head. Lil could see it was a headdress. Kat adjusted it so that the horns wavered and settled.

“Are you suggesting,” Charlie said, her eyes twinkling in the candlelight, “that we are supposed to abandon the writings handed down from the Greeks altogether? There is nothing about the Minotaur being a man.”

“Let's not be hasty. I'd rather not ‘accept my death today,'” Sydney said, quoting the last line of the riddle. “If we choose wrong, we die.”

“But Kat's right,” Lil said, joining her in front of the automaton. Kat adjusted the eyeholes. The animal hide popped forward an inch, securely hugging the cheekbones of the automaton. There he stood, topped with the ornamental headdress. He fit along the wall better now, crowned with the hide and horns, blending more naturally with the other minotaurs. His hand came down on the urn once more. A loud sound echoed through the chamber like a rope being yanked through a pulley. The bull statues spun away, revolving into the shadows, replaced by stone from ceiling to floor. The automaton dropped to one knee. A string unwound at the nape of his neck as he descended. A warm breeze blew back the girls' hair as a dimly lit stairwell formed and locked into place behind him.

Lil gulped and stepped over to the stairwell. A stone at eye level jutted open like a drawer. And there, nestled inside, was a wooden charm about the size of Mom's necklace. Lil's mouth went as dry as ash as she pulled it from the shadows. It swung free on a leather thong, revealing two horns, crossed at the points.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

Kat took the necklace in her hands and examined it.

“I think I hear footsteps,” Sydney said, racing over to the others.

Lil glanced at the door, heart kicking into her throat. Could Bente's murderers have moved the boulder all by themselves?

“Look,” Kat said, pointing toward the casing where the pendant had just been. Lil lowered the torch. There in the inlay was the faint, sooty imprint of the double-headed ax.

A bolt of hope drove through her.

“It's the right way,” Charlie said.

The footsteps came again, louder this time.

“Hurry.” Lil turned toward the stairwell.

Three shots rang out behind them, and Lil heard the stained-glass window shatter and fall to the ground. The girls dove into the passageway, and Lil scanned her body, wondering if a bullet had met its mark. Her thoughts flashed to the gun and to the machete and to Bente and to death and to the horn symbol, which she had never seen before. A thousand puzzle pieces, with no way of sticking them together. And imminent death at their heels. She hurried forward, pushing Kat, Charlie and Sydney onward. She peered behind her as the automaton started his low hollow moan once more as they plunged deeper into the labyrinth.