Twenty-nine

The young soldier Sarpedon was asleep in his bunk, dreaming that he had to perform some incomprehensible military exercise under the Butcher's eye. General Scamander was glaring at him, shouting orders in some language that Sarpedon had never heard before, and in another moment the general's temper was going to snap, and he was going to order some horrible punishment, worse than flogging.

In the dream the executioner had Sarpedon in his grasp, but at the last moment whipped off his hood, revealing a great bull's head on a tall man's broad-shouldered body. And suddenly all the military trappings of the dream were gone, as was the dread scaffold of punishment.

"My name is Asterion," said the bull's mouth in an odd voice. "Seek in the Labyrinth if you would find a friend."

A moment after that, Sarpedon woke up gasping, relieved beyond measure to find himself amid the sights and smells and sounds of the familiar barracks, much as he had come to dislike the place in waking life. And as for the Minotaur . . . he had never dreamt or imagined a monster yet as terrible as the Butcher could be in his wrath.

He had had the same dream, or one very like it, for several nights in a row. He could no longer try to convince himself that it was only an accident.

After another morning of waking life, having worked his way through routine duties, including a weekly inspection that required polishing of weapons and uniform metal, Sarpedon was off duty for the next half-day. He changed into a civilian tunic and made ready to set out as if for an ordinary foray into town.

Lurid rumors continued to circulate in the barracks, concerning the aborted ceremony of the Tribute, and what had really happened in the Labyrinth on that occasion. Sarpedon, as one of those who had actually been there when Theseus got away and their comrade Alex disappeared, told the truth as he had seen it. But soldiers, like people everywhere, tended to believe what they wanted to believe.

As he left the palace complex behind, he felt the ground quiver faintly beneath his feet. Sometimes strange minor tremors passed underfoot, and the breeze brought a sulphuric smell. Now and then in the air there hung a sound so deep it might have been the whole earth groaning. Other parts of the island were said to be shuddering with a volcanic oozing, in which Cerberus, dread three-headed guardian of the nether regions, was said to be crafting a new opening to the Underworld, somewhere in the mountains. No one on the island had ever seen Cerberus, but almost everyone claimed to know someone who had done so recently.

Sarpedon looked back over his shoulder. A wisp of cloud was indeed hanging over the high country, wisps of ashes in the air that city-dwellers breathed.

There was griping in the barracks, but then there was always griping. Sarpedon wondered how many of the others were nursing ideas as rebellious as his own. So far as he knew, none of those thoughts had yet broken out into barracks conversation, even among close friends. Units had recently been reorganized, people shifted around. There were strangers everywhere, and probably informers were among them.

One thing the men of the guard did talk about was the increasing presence on the island of mercenary troops.

"Who're they going to fight? Not a hell of a lot of doubt about that. The plan has to be to use them against us. The king must think we're unreliable."

"If the king's bringing in people like that, he already knows he doesn't want to trust us."

The official announcement from the palace had said that new mercenary troops were being imported, as a precaution against a threatened invasion, and against terrorism by unspecified foreign troublemakers.

The mercenary units were some which had a bad reputation, even among their kind.

On the day of the aborted ceremony, when Alex had run after Theseus, Sarpedon had followed Alex for a short distance into the Maze. But as soon as Sarpedon had lost sight of the man he was chasing, he stopped and turned back in fear of getting lost.

For a few hours, he had nursed hopes that some kind of coup was in progress, that a glorious conclusion of the day would see the usurper deposed, and, ideally, one of the princesses on the throne. Maybe their father hadn't been the greatest king who'd ever ruled anywhere. But he'd been a hell of a lot better than his replacement.

But then Sarpedon, along with many others, had been plunged into gloom when it very quickly became obvious that nothing remotely resembling a coup was taking place. And when you thought about it, it was hard to see any way that could have happened. A Palace Guard might manage to depose a king, especially an unpopular one, but how could any combination of mere humans overthrow a god? At the last minute, old Minos had tried to enlist some divine help to save his throne, but the best he'd been able to come up with was Dionysus, in an avatar who looked almost dead when he arrived—such were the facts, as Sarpedon had heard them, from one of the few people who'd actually been present in the great hall on that momentous night. You could hardly do better than recruiting Dionysus if your objective was to have a party, but winning a civil war against the God of Destruction was quite a different proposition.

When a quick roll call was taken, shortly after the debacle of the Tribute, and Alex still didn't show up, Sarpedon had been eighty percent convinced that his friend was dead.

But now he wasn't at all sure. Day after day had passed, with no announcement made of the discovery of any of the escapees, living or dead. Shiva made an appearance now and then, in the palace or flying over the city, often enough to squelch any germinating hope that he was gone for good. As for the Princess Ariadne, the official story put out soon after the event was that she had been kidnapped—again "troublemakers" and foreign agents were to blame.

When questioned by officers on the very afternoon of the great escape, and in several sessions after that, Sarpedon had stoutly denied having caught sight of Alex doing anything out of the ordinary on that day, or anything disloyal at any time. Nor had Sarpedon heard or seen anything else that might help in the search for the fugitives now.

He could tell his questioners truthfully, and with impressive conviction in his voice, that he had been as much surprised by that day's events as anyone else.

So far he had managed to divert suspicion from himself.

"I don't know what happened to Alex. Maybe he was kidnapped, like the princess, and Daedalus."

But the officers and Shivan priests who did the questioning were not so easily put off. They had fastened on the fact that Sarpedon and Alex were known to be friends. "I understand you went to town together fairly often?"

"Once in a while, sir."

"Did his girlfriend live in town?"

"I don't know that he had any particular girl, sir. When he had some money he went to the houses, just like most of us."

"Which house did he prefer? The one where men lie with each other, or with boys?"

"No sir, not that I ever noticed. Just the regular ones."

"The one for those who enjoy being beaten with whips?"

Sarpedon hadn't heard of any such establishment in Kandak, and had serious doubts that one existed. But he wasn't going to debate the point. "No sir."

They would stick with one line of questioning for a while, then switch abruptly to another, as if they expected to shatter his whole structure of lies by confusing him. Or maybe they were just doing it for practice.

"Maybe his girlfriend worked in the palace?"

"Sir, I don't know that he had any particular—"

"Tell me what you know about a slave-girl named Clara, personal attendant of the Princess Ariadne."

No official announcement had ever listed all the missing. But by now, everyone knew the names, and Clara's was on the list. "I've seen her around the palace. Everyone's seen her. Before the day when—"

"Ever speak to her?"

"No sir, not that I can remember—no sir."

"Take her to bed?"

"I—no sir."

"What about your good friend Alex the Half-Nameless? How close was he with Clara?"

"As far as I know, sir, no closer than I am. Was. Knew her by sight, and that was all. Never said anything to me about her. I can't remember ever seeing them together."

"Who else was a particular friend of Clara's?"

"Sir, I can't remember anyone. As I say, I hardly knew—"

"One of the men in your barracks, maybe?"

The interrogation sessions tended to run in a pattern. Eventually, after going over and over the same territory until Sarpedon thought he would go mad, they had told him to return to duty.

"Keep thinking about it, soldier. Maybe something will come to you. Wait, don't be in such a hurry to leave. Before you do, let's go over again what happened on the day of the insurrection, and the kidnapping."

And of course there still hadn't really been anything like insurrection on Corycus. The way things were going, though, it might not take much to start one. You could smell it in the air.

Sarpedon thought there would be no use trying to get aboard a ship and leave the island altogether—everyone knew the harbor was being closely watched. Maybe if you had a friend with a ship, or even a small boat, departing from somewhere else along the coast could be managed readily enough. But Sarpedon was out of luck in that regard.

Having made up his mind as to what he was going to do, he had gone into town, alone, taking care not to deviate from what he commonly did on his day off—except that today he was wondering if some agent of the Butcher's was following him. Once, only once, he looked back, casually, and could see no one.

For several blocks after leaving the palace complex he stayed on the route he regularly took on the way to his usual taverns and houses. But on reaching a certain point he suddenly turned aside, careful to maintain the same steady walking pace. He was now headed straight for one of the entrances to the Labyrinth, that as he remembered always stood open.

The few passersby seemed to be paying him no attention, and he ignored them as well. The opening ahead, drawing nearer with every stride, looked in fact quite ordinary, like an archway in the outer wall of the dwelling of any solid citizen. And it was still unblocked and unguarded. Evidently Shiva and his pet king had decided that if disaffected elements of the population wanted to lose themselves in the Labyrinth, they were welcome to it. There was nothing easier than to plunge inside . . . legend had it that once you got deep into the Labyrinth, there were fountains everywhere. You might be hunted down and eaten by the Minotaur, but you weren't going to die of thirst.

My name is Asterion. Seek in the Labyrinth if you would find a friend.

Shiva, getting a report from some creature of the Underworld, now knew with certainty that his informant had been wrong about the location of the Face of Dionysus. There could no longer be any doubt that a man who was not Shiva's preferred candidate had picked up the essence of the Twice-Born somewhere and put it on.

Shiva looked forward to imposing a punishment on Creon, for allowing himself to fall victim to this deception. More than likely it was all a part of the great plot against Shiva. He could not decide whether to have Creon arrested at once, and interrogate him under torture, or wait a little longer, until the details of the plot became clearer, and he could be certain of everyone involved.

Another chronic, major concern was the Face of Zeus. Was it really possible that the most valuable and powerful object in the universe was lying about somewhere, waiting for any human who stumbled on it to pick it up? Creon had suggested that too; more false information, very likely.

If it was indeed hidden in the Maze, who had put it there, and when? Certainly it hadn't been Zeus himself—even the most powerful deity in the universe could not remove his own Face from his head, and set it aside somewhere. Unless he did so in the accidental way that the previous avatar of Dionysus had accomplished exactly that feat: by crawling into a hole somewhere and dying.

Suppose some other god had come into possession of the Thunderer's Face—in that case, of course, the finder would be unable to put it on himself, and might well seek a hiding place. Or find a human ally to give it to. But, to what human being would this hypothetical deity be willing to entrust a power so much greater than his own?

There are certain regions within the Labyrinth that I, Asterion, consider unlikely ever to be penetrated by even the best-organized searchers from outside. I had taken myself to one of these zones in search of rest, but even there, I no longer felt entirely secure. When Shiva came looking for me, he would come by air, and at an altitude from which whole sections of the Maze would be simultaneously exposed to his penetrating gaze; and probably he would be able to muster additional powers that I had not yet even imagined. Dreams had shown me all too clearly that if the Destroyer made a determined effort to locate me, he would succeed.

Still, I needed sleep. It afforded me a kind of rest, even though I could not afford to be idle in my dreams. There was now a task before me that I feared and disliked, but yet I felt compelled to undertake it. It was now required that I try to spy on Hades himself.

Oddly enough I thought it helped my approach to Hades when I deliberately thought of myself as the Minotaur. That slavering monster was daring enough to try to interfere with the dreams even of a god like Hades.

Before I began to play that game, I viewed the feat as comparable to that of trying to find and enter the dreams of Zeus himself—which was one exploit the Minotaur had never quite managed to nerve himself to attempt.

Ever since I had been old enough to think at all, I had known an inner conviction, doubtless based on little more than a few hints and clues received in earliest childhood, that made me certain that Zeus was, or had been, my true father.

All the evidence indicated that Minos, my stepfather, had been a moral and reasonable man—as kings go. In contrast, my true father, the most powerful being in the universe, was generally acknowledged to be quite a lecherous monster, and traditionally his offspring over the centuries were legion.

There was every reason to believe that Ariadne shared the same parentage, and was indeed my full, true sister.

Though one might observe that there is not much family resemblance between my sister and myself.

The affair of Zeus with the mortal queen of Corycus had ended only with her death in childbirth.

Sometimes, as I grew older, I wondered whether the Thunderer had ever been able to feel grief. There were days when I wanted to meet him, face to Face, and demand from him an answer to that question. But lately I had grown uncertain of his very existence. Somewhere, of course, his Face must still exist; but quite possibly no one was wearing it.

But my latest dreams (besides allowing me to give Sarpedon directions to find me) had led me to an intriguing discovery, that I thought might be connected with Zeus. Actually finding him was not my immediate goal. My objective was much more modest and practical. What I needed was a messenger, to convey a certain item of urgent news unambiguously, and in waking life.

And at last I succeeded in intruding upon one of the visions that marked the slumber of the Dark God, Hades.

But very quickly my psychic surroundings grew so terrible that I was forced to withdraw, unable to endure that overwhelming presence even for a few minutes. The dream that engulfed me, defying all my efforts to control it, was almost sightless, filled with heat and the smell of sulphur, as well as with fear and discontent. And almost the only sounds in it were what seemed to be the sobs and screams of human torment.

When I awoke, I saw a human figure standing at a little distance, and I feared for a moment that my nightmare had somehow trapped me.

But when I sat up, and my mind cleared, I discovered to my relief that the truth was much simpler: I once more had a human companion. He stood before me a weaponless, weary, bedraggled youth, still wearing the uniform of the Palace Guard.

His voice was tired, and not so much afraid as filled with resignation. "Lord Asterion? My name is Sarpedon."

Slowly I got to my feet. "Yes, I see. I recognize you now."

"I am glad to hear that . . . sir." The young man took a deep breath and drew himself up. "Yesterday I deserted from the barracks. Last night I slept in the Labyrinth. I've had strange dreams, last night and before . . ."

I nodded. "And I have visited you in some of them. Otherwise you could not have found your way in here to me."

Gradually my visitor allowed himself to relax, and told me his story in some detail.

I in turn was grateful for any friendly human presence, and after we had talked for a while, I tried to relieve myself of my own most recent dream by telling it aloud. "I dreamt I stood on the brink of a black and empty nothingness. And what made it unendurable, was the fact that it was dark and empty by its own deliberate will."

The dreams of Hades, if one could call those sickly nightmares dreams, were profitless for an intruder, and I suspected they could be deadly.

"But enough about nightmares," I told my new ally. "I have good news for you as well."

The last time I had tried to penetrate the dreams of Dionysus, a surprise awaited me. I found myself in close contact with the mind of the young man I had known only as Alex; and what the mind of that youth had now become astonished me.

I was vastly cheered to discover that Alex, who was certainly no ally of Shiva, had now put on the Face of Dionysus. The fledgling immortal now stood in mortal danger, but at least Alex seemed to be aware of the fact.

And I came upon hints, obscure indications, that there was, after all, something of overwhelming importance in the Maze—in or near the center, where Daedalus had spent his fruitless months in search of something he could understand well enough to be able to investigate.

"I can try to communicate this discovery to Alex/Dionysus at a distance, in a dream. But we cannot wait to see if this attempt at communication succeeds. I badly need a messenger."