The Minoan Rhapsody

The Labyrinth

She walked among them, hugging, shaking their hands. She addressed everyone by their name and gave best wishes to their loved ones who she also knew the names of. She smiled while struggling to contain her tears.

Chalya had a heavy heart. Queen you are. Alone we stay.

The ships were boarded, the Brows taken down and the mooring lines retrieved. Their sails were unfurled, revealing in their center the large silhouette of a ram's head painted in gold.

Pasiphae raised her eyebrows. "What is that all about?"

"Your brother's idea," Chalya answered. "A ram's golden head is the new symbol for Colchis."

Pasiphae lifted the corners of her mouth. She heard the puppy's playful grunt. "I agree. I like it too."

#

Icarus turned left and then right, stopping at a dead end. He turned around, only to find he had circled around a block of houses. Take me to the crows! His exasperation grew out of the frustration of not finding his way back to the palace. He stepped on some crates, trying to see above the rooflines. All he could see was row after row of houses and buildings, one resembling the other, all painted in white with red-clay tile roofs. Let me go back to the harbor. He couldn't find his way back. He was lost.

He sat down on a bench and placed his forearms on his knees. Think! The silence was absolute, but for the trickling sound of water running through a canal by the side of the street. His eyes lit up and decided to follow the flow of water. The canal turned, left and right, but never to a dead end.

He reached a ramp. He took a sigh of relief. At last, this ramp should take me to the Palace. He followed the running water through the ramp. He hesitated. I am walking downhill. I should be going uphill, to where the Palace is! Each side of the ramp had bare walls which grew taller as he continued. The ramp narrowed and led to a dark tunnel. Just follow the stream.

He took a deep breath and ventured inside the darkness. As he left the tunnel entrance behind, it became pitch black. He was underground. His hand constantly tapped the wall to his right, walking slowly until he reached a wall in front of him. Tapping both walls, front and right, he noticed they were not smooth. Am I inside a cave? He knelt, placing his hand in the water stream. It continued through a hole in the corner. Icarus shut his eyes tightly. Together with the stream, he discerned a very faint hum echoing to his left. He followed it. The stony tunnel branched out to other tunnels and zig zagged in disorienting fashion. It didn't matter as Icarus couldn't see in the darkness. He followed the sound. Step by step, the humming grew louder. I've heard that before. A right turn and Icarus eyes opened wide – a flickering light ahead.

Torches lit up a gigantic cavern, as wide as the Palace's Plaza. It was packed with the Keiftu. Every single resident of Knossos and beyond, rubbing shoulders, toe to heel. Dressed in their whites, but not with their masks and hoods, they swayed from side to side, humming the same tune they had during bull leaping.

Icarus remained in the shadows, his mouth open, his eyebrows raised as he witnessed a strange ritual..

Facing the crowd, Arija, the Head Priestess, stood from a plain stone throne and walked up to a wooden altar in front of her. A wicker basket was on top of it. Arija opened it and took out two live snakes. The serpents coiled themselves on each hand. She stretched her arms to her sides.

The crowd's hum turned to a chant which Icarus could not decipher.

Two large men carried the heavy head of the black bull that Cukra killed. Each man grabbed the head by each of its recurved horns, each the length of a man's arm. They struggled to place it on top of the creaking altar. The men grabbed a rope, hanging from a metal ring secured at the caverns ceiling and tied the horns with it. They both stepped behind Arija and in unison pulled the rope lifting the bull's head just above the Head Priestess.

Arija stepped below the hanging head.

The crowd went silent. They knelt and recited a prayer in some unrecognizable tongue. They bowed repeatedly to Arija, snakes hissing in her hands, the giant bull's head above her own.

Icarus stepped away, back into the darkness. He tried to hear the water stream again but had no luck. He walked for what seemed like an eternity. The arch of his feet began to hurt. "No, no, no!"

"Are you lost?" A voice from the darkness asked.

Icarus was startled. He tried to look hard into the darkness, trying to identify the approaching man.

"You are not from here are you. If you were, you wouldn't be lost."

"I just want to find my way back to the Palace."

"We don't have many strangers here. Unless you are a laborer, and if you are you will die."

"I am Icarus, son of Daedalus."

"My pet? Is that you?"

Icarus suddenly recognized the voice of the man standing right in front of him. "Anare?"

"Now what are the chances of me finding you here," the young Keiftu chuckled. "The Athenian hero who saved a child from a fire."

"I heard what you said."

"Well aren't you going to thank me?" Anare touched Icarus face.

"Let me be!" He slapped Anare's hand off. "I just want to get out of here and I want you to leave me alone."

"I can do that. Let you roam endlessly through these tunnels and caves until you die."

Through the darkness, Icarus saw Anare's teeth as the Keiftu smiled at him.

"Or you can be my pet again." The Keiftu stepped forward and grabbed Icarus between his legs. "You did like it, didn't you?"

Icarus grabbed Anare's forearm with both hands, squeezing it hard.

"For you, there is no way out without me," Anare continued. "One way or another, your Athenian sweetness is mine."