The Nadir of the Labyrinth

by Christopher DeRosa

Table of Contents

Part 1: Introduction

I blinked away the light of the sun. Days spent in the hold of the ship and in a cell deep below the royal palace made the sunlight a burning blight. I lowered my head and shuffled forward as best I could with my ankles chained together. The boards of the pier were rough and splintered with disuse. I could see the shadow of the bull’s head at the front of the ship, and I stifled a sob. I heard the others as they clinked along behind me. I knew nothing of them except their crimes, exclaimed to a crowd of rabid onlookers at the High City’s grand plaza.

That still did not feel real to me, though I had stood there before my people with the rest of the condemned, suffered through the same torments. The numbness of my feet and the sting of the wound left by a rock thrown by a peasant child reminded me that this was no dream. Executioners, with swords and whips in hand steered us onwards, off the pier and up a trail barely perceivable through the mud and weeds.

The air was still cold with the chill of winter and the meagre wraps of linen I had for footwear were quickly soaked through with frigid grime. I walked in a daze; my mind focused on the road before me rather than where it led. The chains around my ankles jerked as someone behind me stumbled. There was the crack of a whip and a gasp of pain, but still I looked down.

There, at the base of a low mountain was a sharp overhang of stone. The light from the sun barely crept down there. I looked up for the first time on this journey and could just make out, shrouded in shadows, a great stone door locked with three heavy crossbars. It looked as through it had always been there, carved from rock, plain and unadorned with a great handle of bronze rusted to the color of sea foam.

The executioners were afraid. I could see it on their faces. I had seen it on the faces of enough men to know the look, even on men like these with their bloodstained hands.

The door rumbled like an avalanche as it opened. I strained my eyes at the gloom behind the door and saw something huge and misshapen retreat from the light.

One of the executioners held the blade of his sword to my throat while another unshackled my ankles. They did the same with the other four condemned. My captor put his blade to my back and pointed to the door which oozed darkness like a wound in the world.

I went, and I heard the others follow. They padded softly with their linen-wrapped feet. Someone wimpered, but our wardens did not step forward with the whip. We stepped into the cavernous darkness, glimpsed wet, unworked stone that glistened for a moment in the sliver of light before the door slammed shut behind us.

There was a moment of shivering terror. The darkness within that vault was absolute. For a moment of panic, I wondered if the execution had already been carried out and I was dead. Perhaps the sounds of water dripping that echoed up through the gulfs of endless stone was truly the spray of the River Styx.

Then there was light, and I shielded my eyes from it as I had the sun. There was a cry of shock and a whimper. I looked up and saw my fellow condemned, truly, for the first time. Nearest to me was a grizzled man: full-bodied and bearded, he bore many scars on his face and hands.

Against the far wall was a young woman with tears in her eyes. Her hair was short, her skin tanned and her fingers calloused. A farm girl most likely.

A second man stood with his back to the wall. He shook and clearly not from the cold of the place. His eyes swiveled back and forth to each of us, as though he expected for one of us to carry out his execution ourselves.

Finally, nearest the door was a woman older than I, thin of body and face with her hair worn long. Her expression was that of hardened resignation. This sight was made all the stranger by the fire that burned on her hand. It danced between her fingers but did not burn them. Her voice was firm as she spoke.

“They should know that all a mage needs to make fire is a little blood.” The warden’s whip had caught her across the temple and blood ran freely down her face. The four of us could only stare for a long moment.

Finally, the grizzled man nodded. “Good to have some light, then.” His voice rumbled like a distant battle. He moved forward and tore a strip of cloth off the sleeve of the threadbare black clothes we all wore.

“Bandage for your head?” he asked. The mage bowed her wounded head and the man began to wrap the strip of cloth skillfully around her scalp, and he wiped the blood that still trickled down her chin.

The mage let him finish the binding before she spoke. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I startled you all.” She looked around at us, the fire twirled around her hand. I could see small droplets of blood rise up and dissipate into the flame.

The young girl slumped down on the floor, her knees held to her chest and her eyes fixed at the closed door. Her breath came quickly with silent tears. I looked to the door too, yet I knew it would not open again for another year.

“I’m sure you didn’t surprise her highness here. More than likely, she’s seen her share of magic.” The grizzled man grumbled.

“Yes, what a surprise to be joined by our princess, Elena,” said the mage. I looked at them all for a moment. I have been surrounded by sycophants my whole life. Caretakers and teachers, nobles, suitors and, of course, bodyguards. Yet then I found myself truly at a loss. The rehearsed niceties and ballroom witticisms seemed hollow in a stone grave.

“Yes... May I ask your names as well, you have me at a disadvantage.” I was resorting to a standby from my father’s court. It had always brought forth a perfectly rehearsed smile. It did not here. The older woman gave a short nod as a substitute for a bow.

“I am Penelope, a researcher at the school of mages. Ah, formerly now I suppose,” she said. The younger girl looked to me then; her eyes were red and full of tears. From my world of courtly politics, it was strange to see such unabashed hatred shown so plainly.

“Sophia.” She hissed more than spoke. She did not avert her eyes from me.

The large, bearded man spoke next. “Adrian is what my father called me. Now then, enough of that, we best be off. No sense in waiting here to starve.” The scars on his lips tugged at his skin as he spoke. He did not wait for us, rather he turned towards the dark tunnel that led down further into the ground.

Penelope turned to follow him and Sophia moved to stay in her shadow. Glad to have her hate-filled eyes off me, I fell in line behind them.

The fifth member of our group chose then to finally speak. He stayed to the dark, pale and ghostly. “Wait!” The shriek was shrill and quivered in the cold air. “We can’t leave! Isn’t that thing down there somewhere? Can’t... can’t you just use magic to open that door?” He pleaded and backed further towards the door.

“If that were an option,” Penelope said, “I would not be walking into the belly of the beast. I have every intention of escaping this maze, and I can promise you that we will not get out by staying here.” She gestured around the small cavern.

Adrian spoke up from further down the tunnel. “Besides, I don’t think you want to wait here in the dark. I found some folks who tried just that.” He emerged from the dark, clutched a skull in his outstretched hand, flakes of mummified skin still clung to it.

The silent man’s knees buckled at the sight. Sophia gasped and sobbed into her sleeve.

“Come with us and tell us your name,” I offered but the silent man shook his head, sniveling in the dark, paralyzed. Slowly, with one hand against a wall as though afraid to stand fully amongst the gloom, he began to follow us. We passed the pile of bones bones, two skeletons that had rotted in the dark for years.

Adrian called back to me. “So, princess, I have a question for you. Is there really a monster down here? The old king’s been peddling the story of the Minotaur for years. We weren’t just sent here to starve in the dark, were we?” Sophia looked to him, then me. She questioned me with her eyes.

“I can assure you he is here,” I said. “I know it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“Good,” Adrian muttered. “If it’s living down here, it can’t just live off the people your dad throws down here every year. Gotta have water and food. That means we will, too.”

Penelope responded flatly: “You assume that it is not sustained by the magic that created it. It may need neither of those things.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you could enchant us up some food then?” Adrian said.

“No, not without the proper materials. Blood for fire, a fern for the wind. Something cannot come from nothing,” she recited like a lecturer.

Adrian grunted. Behind us, the soft sounds of our fifth companion echoed dimly.

We walked for a long while down through the stone. The tunnel sloped and curved. It never dove straight down into the heart of the mountain. The floor was uneven and natural, carved only by centuries of moisture.

We came by the light of Penelope’s flame into a wide chamber with other passages that branched off at different angles, but all led deeper. The first chamber of the labyrinth. The sound of dripping water echoed around the chamber.

Penelope stepped towards the middle of the cavern and raised her flaming hand towards the ceiling. “Here, this at least should solve the problem of water,” she said. I looked up towards the ceiling and saw a pool of water, suspended upside down. By the light of the fire, I could see droplets of water rise from the floor to splash into the pool above.

Sophia gasped and Adrian made a sound like a gasp stuck in his throat. Penelope continued to speak.“Mages call it the Naiad’s Joke. Our studies have found that it occurs in places of great natural magic. It comes from a spring that bubbles up at the base of the mountain and, if our researchers are to be believed, the water should be clean enough to drink.”

Penelope reached up to the low ceiling and cupped a handful of water and brought it to her lips. The drops that trickled through her fingers flew up and splashed back into the pond above. Sophia moved to do the same.

Adrian cast his gaze around the room warily. “So, the Minotaur gets its water from here, does it?” he said, and flexed his muscular, scarred hands.

Penelope responded at once: “There are more pools down below leading to the spring. But it’s the spring that I’m interested in; it may flow out of the mountain. Now, I don’t know if it’s actually possible for a person to follow it outside this maze, but it is our only chance.” She watched the vague ripples in the pond above.

Adrian grunted again and reached up to sip from the stream.

Sophia finished her water, eyes dim. “Do you think that will work? The king’s beast will kill us just like the king has been saying for years. He wouldn’t let us escape.” Her voice was sullen, full of despair.

Penelope turned to her with a slight smile. “I will do anything in my power to escape this place. I cannot die here; I have business to attend to on the outside.”

“I hate this. I hate the dark, the rock. It feels like a grave.” Sophia’s tears ran up her cheeks again, dripped up into the pool.

I turned towards Penelope. “If I may ask, how do you know all this? My father has done everything he can to keep people from learning about this place. Even I did not know any of this.”

Escape had never seemed like an option for me when I had chosen to come here. I had assumed I would die. I thought I had been prepared for it until the mage had spoken those words. I saw Sophia glare at me out of the corner of my eye.

Penelope paused for a moment, deep in thought. “Well, I would be happy to tell you, your grace. In fact, it relates to why I am joining you here. But if I do, then you must do the same. I am very curious as to why the crown princess has been condemned to death like this. At the ceremony in the capital, your father cited your crime as treason. Even in a place like this, I cannot help but be intrigued.” Her grey eyes reflected the fire she held in her hands.

“Yes, I will explain myself,” I said.

“Good. Ah, but you asked first. Shall we rest a while then? I am tired from our descent.” She seated herself on a rock under the pool, and Sophia shifted closer to her. I joined her within the circle of firelight but Adrian seemed impatient; he paced back and forth, cast gazes at the many tunnels filled with darkness.

“Fine. But only for a moment,” Adrian said at last as he settled himself as well. Our fifth companion, still nameless, stayed outside the firelight with his back to a wall. Occasionally the chatter of his teeth or a whimper of fear carried to us. He would not join us and would cover his face when we turned to beckon him.

Penelope sighed and and began to speak. Her voice echoed around the chamber.

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2022 by Christopher DeRosa

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