The Trials of the Minotaur

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

The dreams began after the Minotaur had entered the temple King Thedeo had constructed for him. The temple was a spire lancing towards the sun, with a sole winding staircase spiraling up its center, reaching its pinnacle in a circular room open to the sun. As the Minotaur had been obscured by shadows and darkness in the cave, now he was concealed by the sun, which blinded all who approached him from below. Below the spire’s peak were his quarters, which none were allowed to enter, and below that the rooms of his most trusted penitents, Velthar the Sufferer and the woman Galrice. Each was charged with governing the penitents of their sex, as well as the general administration of the temple, such as managing the endless stream of supplicants who came before the god and the offerings they brought. Below their quarters were the offering rooms, where the gifts were kept and where rituals were carried out, and beneath that, at the tower’s broad base, were the dormitories where the other penitents slept, as well as rooms of worship.

The Minotaur rarely left the tower or his quarters, and then only to go below to speak with Velthar or Galrice. He preferred to maintain a careful distance with the growing number of penitents, worrying that the reality of his flesh and his other non-godly attributes would lessen their devotion. He still did not understand that among the barbarians these were merely aspects of any deity, for their gods often came among them as men, with the same inherent weaknesses. That he was both wondrous and profane was proof of his godhood, more so than any miracles he might perform.

He had dreamed before, of course, the usual sorts of dreams that all people had. Most he forgot before he even woke, and those that he could recall were mere fragments that amounted to little, with hardly any sense to them. They were nothing like the dreams those who came for his prophecies told him of, which he often wondered at, for he had never experienced anything like a fully formed thought in his sleep. He had assumed that these people had constructed these dreams more fully, whether consciously or not, after waking as they tried to make their sense of the random images sleep brought them.

After he had been blinded he had suffered nightmares, reliving again and again the day of his betrayal. Later in the cave, his dreams had been of his days in Colosi in the pantheon or at various revels. But here in the temple he dreamed no more of Colosi or Rheadd. Instead his dreams were filled with places he had not been and people he had not seen. From what Galrice had told him of Alari and the river valley below the city, it was this place that his dreams set him as witness. He saw the entire city, as though he were able to look down from his perch atop the temple at all the people going about the quotidian tasks of their days. Even Thedeo and his lords and advisors were visible to him within their palace as they conducted the tedious rituals of court, held audiences and conspired.

He saw them all, and recognized them somehow, though he had no way of knowing what they looked like and had only spoken to some of them. Strangely, he could not hear any of them speak. The whole city was silent when he witnessed it in his dreams – even the birds were without song. It was as though in his visions the sense that had been taken from him was returned, but only at the cost of the other that he now relied on. Though it all seemed so real, as though he actually had some means, through augury or otherwise, to secretly visit the lives of others, he gave what he saw little credence, except to wonder why his mind should be calling forth such workaday images and why he should be totally absent from them.

The dreams troubled him little, except for some mild worry as to why they should be so unceasing, night after night, as though he were living the city’s day in his sleep. Mostly they were forgotten in the tasks of his day, a tiresome drudgery that he grew to loathe, yet saw no escape from. Supplicants arrived from all corners of the barbarian lands to tell him their visions or the trials set before them and ask for the guidance of a god. He said less and less to them, often only a phrase or two, quoting what the gods had spoken to the great emperors of Colosi from the histories he had memorized in his childhood in Guthril. Often those who came before him were so overwhelmed with emotion, weeping and gnashing their teeth and trembling as though possessed by some demon or spirit, that he doubted they could hear or recall a word of what he said. Yet when they left they thanked him abjectly, with a need in their voices that frightened him.

Worse in their way were the penitents who came to join the worship at the temple under Velthar and Galrice. They were brought to him by one or the other, depending on their sex, and he was expected to test their belief, relenting only at the last moment and touching them so that they were joined to him. This often happened as the sun was setting so that the dying rays framed his massive body as they looked upon him from where they crouched in obeisance. They would chant or pray in the way of the barbarians and he would ask what had brought them before the god. Often it was said that he had spoken to them in their dreams, commanded them to come before them. Always he would say that he had, that there were important tasks for them, and then he touched them with a hand upon their head.

That moment always thrilled him, in a way that nothing had since his battles in the pantheon. For in that moment, as the penitent trembled, or fainted straight away at the mere touch of his hand, he felt something of the power that had been taken from him when he had been blinded. He could, he knew, command these people to do anything, set them to any task his heart desired, and they would do so unquestioningly. It was intoxicating and yet he asked nothing of them, leaving that to Galrice and Velthar, who each came to him to tell him of what they had done and to ask for guidance, which he sometimes gave and sometimes did not. It was enough to know that he could.

Galrice continued to visit his chambers each night, where she would repeat the ritual she had established in their first encounter, chanting an invocation and then disrobing and offering herself to the god to be touched. He would mount her, the frenzy of his lust mirroring that of the penitents who went into fits at the brush of his hand, while she was as unmoved as he in their presence. Nothing he did seemed to stir any emotion in her, yet she accepted it all, and when he questioned her, as he often did in the regretful aftermath of their ritual, she would simply say that he had chosen her.

“What did I choose you for?” he would say. It had begun as a question, but in the intervening months it had become more of a command.

“You have chosen me for union with the god. I dreamed it and it has come to pass.”

He would lay a hand upon her head after she said it, blessing her, and she would leave him to spend his night alone. They both might say otherwise, but the Minotaur knew that Velthar the Sufferer and Galrice the Chosen had in fact chose him. And though they might not realize it, it was they who led this temple and the faith they professed, no matter the power bestowed upon him as oracle and guide to all men. He, entrapped by his godhood, could only hope the path they chose was true.

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This is the thirteenth  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.