The Trials of the Minotaur

Part Two: The Oracle's Mortification (Chapter Eight)

The dreams that haunted the Minotaur’s sleep were, he had become convinced, not dreams at all but visions of the days to come. It was the barbarian king Thedeo who allowed him to discover the true nature of the dreams. For a very long time he had refused to countenance any thought that these strange night reveries were anything more than evidence of some strange inner compulsion that now haunted him in his blinded state. The apparent reality, the vivid detail of people and places he had never seen, he had dismissed as the fevered overworking of a broken mind. Perhaps it was that, but it was more as well.

Thedeo had continued his daily visits to the god’s temple and, after the birth of his son, had become even more unrelenting in his desire to know what the future held for him. He talked endlessly of the grandees and other nobility at court, whom he suspected of conspiring against him, trying to see what the Minotaur would say about each one. The Minotaur kept his counsel as best he could, speaking vaguely and paradoxically as always. However, the true nature of the visions became evident when Thedeo told him of his suspicions about one of his advisors, Athanari, whose family was rumored to have been involved in his mother’s poisoning.

One incident the king related to the god in particular seemed taken directly from the Minotaur’s dream of the previous night: Thedeo had caught Athanari whispering outside of court with another noble, a man he considered a friend. They had looked so guilty when he had happened upon them that Thedeo confessed he had lost his counsel and yelled at them both, accusing them and their families of grave misdeeds against the kingdom. The Minotaur had in fact seen a scene very similar to that, and what had followed, once Thedeo had calmed himself and apologized to both men, was that the two men had continued with their talk, Athanari gesturing vehemently to where the king had just exited. There had been some more argument and then a consensus had been reached and they had parted with a clasping of their wrists.

The Minotaur said nothing of this to the king, deciding to see what he might learn and use to his advantage with this new ability. In the end it was little, for his dreams were filled with the quotidian stuff of life, rather than the moments of great import that chronicles always reported augers as being witness to. Weeks might pass where nothing of significance occurred, and when something of consequence did take place there was little he could do, the events having determined their course by the time he next spoke to the king.

It seemed to him that the gods were mocking him with this gift, which more and more appeared a sort of curse. He had just enough divination to tantalize, not enough to actually use the power he claimed for himself. This did not surprise him, for the gods were well known for condemning those who pretended to their throne as he now was forced to. To continue to do so could only end in his doom, he knew, and yet he was helpless to stop now that he was entrapped in this temple and lies built within its foundation.

He longed to flee, but he had no idea where to go once he had escaped Alari. His renown throughout this land was such that he could not simply disappear into the countryside. Men and women came from all the nearby lands to witness his godhead. There had even been a few supplicants from Rheadd. Those had been a bittersweet moments, to again be worshiped by his people. In the end it only reminded him of his exile, just as his visions only served to remind him of the dark prison in which he now existed.

The only place in Alari that his visions were blind to was the temple itself, the gods’ cruelest irony. For here, where all those who followed him claimed his power as absolute, he had none, a fact made evident when Galrice came to him with word that she was with child.

“It has come as I dreamed it,” she said, rising to her feet after he had blessed her following their union.

He waited, not replying, and then she said, her voice trembling, “A godchild grows within me.”

“A blessing for us all,” he told her at last, glad for the darkness in which they were shrouded, for he did not trust his face in that moment.

“I shall tell the penitents tomorrow. We shall all join to see to the care of this child.”

“You honor me.”

That Galrice was with child should not have been surprising, given the nature of what they did each night, yet the Minotaur was still shocked at the news. It frightened him as well, for he was unsure how the barbarians would react when one of their own was impregnated by a god. Such stories were often told and written of – certainly the chronicles in Rheadd were filled with such tales – but there was a world of difference between a story told and this. He had no idea how they would react. Would he cease to be a god and become a mere beast, the deity inhabiting his flesh abandoning its earthly bounds? And what then?

His dreams that night were filled with blood. He saw Thedeo gather his most trusted soldiers to him, and at first light send them out to the homes of all the nobles, grandees and courtiers in Alari. They were dragged before the court while their estates were ransacked. One by one they were brought before the king, who condemned them all. Some men were executed, their heads taken to be displayed on the city walls, while others were tonsured and sent with their families into exile. The Minotaur hardly recognized Thedeo as he raged before the humbled grandees, spitting and crimson-faced. He seemed utterly changed from the man who abased himself before the god.

As soon as the Minotaur awoke the next morning he went to the tower above, ignoring the food that the Sufferer had laid out for him. There, if the vision had become reality, he knew he would hear the sounds of anguish in the city below. He stood and listened for a long while but heard nothing, no cries, and no sounds of looting or violence, just the city at the beginning of the day. Relieved, he returned below to his chamber and saw to his duties, expecting to see Thedeo that evening, where he might somehow turn this red tide. But that day the barbarian king did not come to the temple.

The Minotaur was so overwhelmed by his visions and the absence of Thedeo and what might even now be occurring in the city that when Galrice came before him as always he stood apart from her until she fell to her knees, weeping.

“Have I displeased the god?” she said once she had regained herself.

“You are a blessing and a light to me,” he said. “Have you not dreamed of what you carry? Do you now doubt it?”

“Never,” she said.

He considered her for a moment, listening to their breathing, which sounded in unison. “These are troubled times before us, and my gift demands much of me now.”

He stepped toward her and she rose to her feet expectantly. He seized her by shoulders, his fingers pressing insistently into her flesh so that she gasped in pain. “Are you prepared to abandon this place and flee to where the wind takes you?”

“Does my presence anger the god?”

“No,” he said. “You shall light the way for me as always. Be ready, for there are dark days before us.”

He waited until he felt her nod and then kissed her upon her hair, drinking in the scent that was there. He held her there a moment longer, even as she continued to weep, and then released her. She left him to the darkness and the vision that was to come.

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This is the sixteenth  chapter of the Trials of the Minotaur. I will post a chapter a week (there are over 30), but if you enjoy what you're reading and don't want to wait, you can buy this book at Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords. Thanks for reading.