Ariadne(27)

I opened my eyes, suddenly fearful. The room was stiflingly hot, Pasiphae’s fingers had stilled and the braids she had wound around my head were heavy. I felt the rush of terror, the desolation of that sandy beach, for a moment suffocatingly real. I looked up and caught the bronze beams of Pasiphae’s eyes fixed directly upon me for the first time since the Minotaur’s imprisonment. For the space of a heartbeat, I could not wrench my eyes away. We were locked in a frantic silence; I could feel the weight of years of words unspoken. I wanted to yell at her, ‘I am leaving tonight! I will never see you again.’ But the words withered and died on my lips. The impassive, inscrutable glass of her gaze still did not falter.

Phaedra’s hand on my arm. ‘Your hair is beautiful, Ariadne,’ she was murmuring, and she pulled me to my feet. The world slid around me and I was queasy for a moment and then it righted itself. I felt Phaedra’s hand squeeze my arm, a warning. Do not topple everything. He is counting on you.

I cannot tell you how the rest of the day passed, only that it did. I had one task to carry out – to place Theseus’ club, which I had carried back with me the previous night and concealed beneath my couch, in the entrance to the Labyrinth. It was almost stupidly easy to do. No one guarded the doors, as there could be no one desperate or foolish enough to attempt to disturb the creature’s lair. No one liked to go near, to listen for the clatter of his hooves or the heavy gusts of breath. A long staircase sank into the bowels of the earth, cut into the rocks at the far wall of the palace, and at the bottom of the stairs, the mighty doors were bolted like a fortress.

It was the early evening when I made my way there. The air was thick with incense from the altars. Everyone’s attention was on the ceremonies taking place ahead of the sunset sacrifice. Offerings were heaped up in the temples and at the shrines to the gods, seeking the everlasting glory of Crete. Whilst my father beseeched the immortals to grant him ongoing power to bring all of Greece cowering to his feet, I descended those stone stairs to ensure his prayers were not granted.

The bolts upon the door were strong, of course, but there was a pattern to twisting and turning and lifting – a sequence that would baffle anyone else, but one I knew well. When Daedalus had built this colossus, he had shown me the secret to the locks so that the bolts would draw back easily; how to slip the locks without a sound. In preparation for today? Maybe. His mind was always working ahead, anticipating every twist and turn before it happened. How else could he have designed the Labyrinth in the first place? Had he known when he shut my brother up in here that it would be me who would open the doors to his killer one day?

I slid each bolt in sequence. Although their weight was immense, when opened in the correct order, each one drew back soundlessly, with no effort. The last clicked into place and the doors were unfastened. Silence within. I pressed my forehead to the ancient wood. No sound, no movement. Still I did not push open the door. I could draw the bolts back across. I could leave. No one would know. But then Theseus would walk in here in just a matter of hours and when he reached for his mighty club, he would find only bare walls. That proud, strong body would be tossed against the walls of the maze. Those cool, green eyes would stare sightlessly into the darkness whilst his flesh rotted away from his bones.

Sweat prickled across my forehead. Although the sun was slipping lower in the sky, the air still buzzed with humid heat. I watched my hand press against the door, as though it were not connected to my body. No hinges squeaked. All I had to do was pick up the club resting by my feet and take two steps forward.

I took a deep breath. A mistake. The heavy, putrid air from within the Labyrinth rolled towards me. That hideously warm darkness choked me, and as I gasped and coughed and tears blinded me, I was seized with terror. My body reacted before I could make sense of the sound. A heavy scuffling sound. A hoarse grunt. The scrape of horns against stone. Deep within that abyss, the Minotaur stirred.

He stirred, and that meant I had only seconds left. With no time to think, I fumbled for the club and launched myself into the stinking blackness. I felt my way to the edge of the doorway and dropped the club. The clamorous ring of the iron hitting the rocky floor echoed through the emptiness and I pressed my hands to my ears, biting back the scream that rose through my body as I heard the excited pawing of hooves and, from somewhere in that vast maze, the Minotaur’s long, low bellow.

The door had closed behind me. I groped for the handle. The darkness was impenetrable, I scrabbled at the smooth wood and could not see my fingers an inch from my face. My legs were buckling, my mind filled with panic and prayers. I was hammering on the door now, not caring if I was heard by anyone outside, thumping on that unforgiving wood like so many must have done before me.

Would he know me? My brother? If he got to me before I could find the handle, would he remember my smell? Would it make any difference at all? I could not tell now what was the roaring in my head and what was him. I knew that he was getting closer and my fingers would not work. I heard the dull slamming of his horns against the wall, so close behind me that I thought he must be upon me, and then my hand found the lever and the door pushed open and I was scrambling out into that fresh, sweet air – released from the foulness of the Labyrinth – and my hands were pulling the bolts back across in the right order. And then the doors were fastened. I sank to the ground against them. Somewhere, just inches of solid stone and wood and iron away, the Minotaur moaned with frustration and thwarted longing.