“So if I hadn’t been such a bloody idiot as to say Asterios’ name during a siege, then we should have been safe?” Jerry demanded.
Killer shrugged. “The Oracle did not exactly say that, but it implied it. And it did not tell me what else happened.”
“You tell us what is going to happen next, then we’ll bring you up to date,” Jerry said angrily.
“If you wish.” Killer gave Jerry a rueful smile. “I can’t take you back. The Oracle did not even wish me to come and see you. You know I like fights, friend, but not with the Oracle. But I argued! You see, you have issued an invitation. If you go back to Mera, then Asterios can come also.” Jerry hung his head and muttered curses. Ariadne put an arm around him.
“What about the rest of us?” Graham asked.
“Damn flies!” Killer said. “The rest of you don’t matter. I mean, you don’t count in this battle. It is between Asterios and Jerry, now— or between Asterios and Mera. I asked the Oracle about you; it said, ‘Their fate will be decided also.’ ” Jerry was staring at Killer with horror and, beneath his tan and his stubble, he was pale. She could feel him shiver. “You mean I have to fight the Minotaur?” Killer hesitated and then smiled, lording it over them from his perch, smiling a perfect set of teeth in a nearly handsome boyish face, spoiled only by that one red scar. “Well… you know where you are?” he asked.
“Near Knossos?”
Killer nodded, but that had surprised him. “I was told not to let you go any closer than this until you make your decision. You have a choice, friend Jerry— two ways to go. But both ways lead to the Labyrinth.” He seemed genuinely sympathetic.
Jerry gulped. “I am to be Theseus and kill the Minotaur? That doesn’t sound very likely, does it? It was still around for him to kill, and we can’t both kill it.” Ariadne hoped that if he had to be Theseus, she did not have to be the Ariadne of the legend.
“Perhaps you both can kill it,” Killer said. “This is not the real Crete, and probably Theseus was not either, right? It is a fake, like the cottage, a false Knossos made by Asterios-the-demon for another Asterios-the-Minotaur. Let me tell you what the Oracle said about the Labyrinth. It is an amphitheater. The people can watch. The Minotaur lives in a sort of shed in the middle, and there are walls around it.”
“A maze.”
“Right. So they put the sacrificial victims down in the maze, and the Minotaur comes out of its shed and hunts them around the maze until it catches them.”
“Good God!” Graham said, and they all exchanged horrified glances. “Public spectacle? And then it eats them?”
“It depends how hungry it is,” Killer said. Even he looked disgusted, and Ariadne thought it would take a lot to disgust Killer. “Sometimes it plays with them first, the Oracle says.” She thought of the horror in the cottage. “You mean it rapes the women, I suppose?”
“I don’t know,” Killer said. “Perhaps it rapes both women and men. Perhaps it likes to bite pieces off and then let them run some more. Maybe it tosses them on its horns. The Oracle just said that it likes to play with its victims. The people— the priests and Minos, the king— prefer to put in more than one sacrifice at a time; it is more fun, watching them all run around and laying bets on what the Minotaur will do. It takes three days to eat up a body.” She felt so nauseated that she thought she might be physically ill. The others looked no better.
Jerry licked his lips and made an obvious effort to stay calm. “Who are these victims?” he asked.
“Anyone they can get,” Killer said. “The Oracle said that if you were captured, as strangers, then you would be sent to the Labyrinth.” He smiled faintly. “You have two choices. One is to kill the monster, but there is another. You issued an invitation, but if you can get into the Minotaur’s house, then you cancel out the invitation.”
“Oh, bull!” Graham said angrily. “Silly games!”
“Faerie has its own logic,” Jerry said. “And that’s more logical than some things. You mean this shed in the middle of the Labyrinth?” Killer nodded. “Your door to Mera is in the Minotaur’s lair. All of you.”
“All of us?” echoed two or three voices, and he nodded once more.
“Either way, you all go to the Labyrinth. You are trapped in Asterios’ web and you will be drawn in, sooner or later. I am sorry, my friends!” He looked it, too. “I did not make these rules and I talked very hard to get the Oracle to agree even to this meeting.”
“If silver bullets from an automatic rifle won’t penetrate the Minotaur’s hide,” she asked, “then what will?” He shrugged. “That was the demon. This Minotaur may be only a monster.” Ariadne wished she knew Killer a little better— his eyes seemed restless; she thought he was beginning to lie, or at least was not telling everything. Jerry was so downcast, staring at the paving stones in front of his crossed legs, that he did not seem to be paying much attention.
“Technology doesn’t work,” Jerry growled. “So it would have to be a sword.”
“Not even steel,” Killer said. “This is Bronze Age; I brought a silver sword, which might do a little better. Old Venker made it specially, but it took him three weeks. Three weeks!” For a moment Jerry managed a smile. “You’re in better shape than I’ve seen you in years. No fighting for three whole weeks?”
“Nor wrestling, nor boxing…” Killer scowled. “The girls seem to like it.” Ariadne wondered what the boys thought— a Killer deprived of his usual brawling would likely have been the butt of much banter.
Jerry had gone back into his depression. “I wish I were a better man with a sword… So we go into the Labyrinth, and then I either fight the monster or try to get past it in the maze and into its den?”
“Not that simple,” Killer said. “This wand will send you there— all of you— if you wish. But the Minotaur will smell the faerie at once, and the demon part will come and it will know what you are trying to do. It will stay in its house until night. It can hunt by smell, you know, or the demon will sense where you are. It will not let you past.” Jerry muttered oaths and glanced despairingly at Ariadne. She hoped her smile of encouragement did not look too false.
“The other way,” Killer said, “is just to stay here. There is a procession on its way to the shrine for a ceremony and there are soldiers with the priests. They will be here in an hour or so. Then you will be put in the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur will not suspect— it will think you are an ordinary banquet, so you will be dealing only with the beast, not the demon, or so the Oracle says. But if I give you a sword, you will be disarmed, of course.” Jerry scrambled to his feet and walked away to the far side of the pool.
“Let ourselves be captured?” Graham said. “How do we know that we’ll all be put in the Labyrinth and not turned into galley slaves and concubines?” Killer waited for Jerry to come wandering back, then said, “The Oracle told me, ‘They will not be badly treated, because sacrifices are holy, and they will all go in together. It is rare sport to have five captives at once.’ If the Oracle says so, then it is so.” Jerry folded his arms under his cloak and stared bleakly at Killer. “Did it say whether we can succeed?” Again that faint shadow of deceit crossed Killer’s face “It said that you are probably not a good enough swordsman. And it said that the other way at least some of you should be able to get past and reach the center of the maze. Should, not will.” Then he twisted round to face Ariadne— and give her a chance to peer up his loin cloth if she wanted. She was so annoyed that she almost missed what he was saying. “The Oracle said that you could help.”