The Trials of the Minotaur

Part One: The Blind Minotaur (Chapter Eight)

The bird could talk as a man did, and it would not cease in its ramblings as they fled Colosi. Had he not been so weak and broken, the Minotaur would have seized it by the neck and ended its miserable life. It had begun its incessant chatter from the moment the two had arrived in the hovel.

“Beast is broken,” the bird said, for what must have been the tenth time. He imagined it as a crow or a raven, all black plumage and devious eyes.

“Hush,” the girl said to it in her plebeian accent. He could hear the creature ruffling its feathers on her shoulder in response.

While the bird prattled on variations of the same statement, the girl had remained silent more or less, whether from kindness or indifference he could not say. She had arrived without ceremony to find him lost in the fever of agony his still-bleeding eyes had him under. After nudging him with her sandal to see that he was still alive, she told him that she was to be his guide and that they would be leaving at nightfall. He had cursed her and said he did not have the strength for any journey and she had left. Just when he had started to believe that she had in fact abandoned him, she returned and fed him some gruel she had bought somewhere.

She had not said a word since, except to tell him when they were nearing an obstacle where he needed to take care, or to silence the bird. It seemed impossible to him that she, a plebeian of the worst sort by the sound of her voice, could be the savior his mother had arranged. Yet she had been true to her word thus far, and it was not as though he could make his way on his own.

Part of him had wished he had simply been left on that street in Colosi to bleed out or be taken by the imperial guard and executed the next morning. Better to end this now than to persist in misery, which seemed all that could be left for him in this world. He wanted nothing to do with this life so marked by desolation, the futility of his dreams laid bare. That he had thought he could stand against the Dethcalla, his very existence a mockery to them, and with all that they had at hand to destroy him, had been the very height of hubris. Nothing remained now but empty days, and then only if he reached exile, which seemed a dubious proposition given his condition.

Each step seemed like a leap off a crumbling precipice. He had lost count of the number of times he had stumbled and fallen. To her credit, the girl never relinquished her hold on his hand, though he moaned and cursed her and his feebleness, the bird nattering on. He could see, in his mind’s eye, the thing laughing at him and the girl raising a finger to her lips to shush it, trying to hold back her laughter as well.

Empty and sightless days, this was all that was left to him. This was now every day. His mind was a flurry of images, disconnected from his thoughts, overwhelming them. Each sound – the stirring of the branches in the trees, the sound of their feet on the path, or the rustle of insects – sparked all manner of color and form in his mind, dissolving and reforming at every instant. If he focused on a sound, any sensation – the infernal bird, for instance – he could force his mind to shape it, to see it. But everything else, there was too much sensation and not enough.

“Not a beast of burden, burdensome beast,” the bird cackled.

He cursed it, cursed them both, and cursed the Centaur, the Dethcalla, Barthil Vulgih and Thurir Drahil and his mother too. His words rang loud in the night, leaving a stillness in their wake. He sobbed in spite of himself, pus and blood and tears intermingling and flowing down his cheeks.

“How much farther?” he asked when he could stand the silence no longer.

He could feel her shrugging her shoulders through the hand that was cradled in his massive one. “It will take us most of the evening to get to the river.”

What river they were heading towards and what happened after they reached it was left unstated.

After some time the girl spoke again. “You needn’t worry. I meet my bargains.”

When they reached their destination the girl halted and then cooed softly into the darkness. After a time someone responded and she took the Minotaur by the hand again and led him forward. They made their way down into the river valley, branches scratching at his face and shoulders as they went. Somehow he kept his feet under him, in spite of the uneven ground, the sound of the river coming to his ears as ground leveled. They halted and the girl whispered a greeting, receiving one in return. The man who replied had a harsh voice, given to whispering, and he sounded very near.

“This is your passage,” the girl said. The man grunted in return and then the girl’s hand was gone, replaced by his hard, callused one. The Minotaur was led forward onto a small dock and then eased into a waiting boat. He sat down gratefully on the bench, exhaling more loudly than he had intended. The boat rocked gently as the man climbed in and then pushed off. He could hear the paddles dipping in and out of the water and the river’s calm passage; otherwise there was silence. Only the sluggish water beneath them seemed to be moving. He could feel its slight pull as the man worked the paddles, dragging the boat across to the river’s far side and what awaited him there.

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This is the eighth 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.