When the red orbs had blinked on in the darkness Kalliste froze like a rabbit being stalked by a fox. The clop-clop sound and the snorts grew louder. She was too terrified to run. Her feet seemed to be glued to the floor.
Then came the bellow. Part human moan. Part the bawl of a huge animal. The unearthly sound echoed off the walls of the dark chamber and triggered her flight response. She turned and fled.
The thing gave chase. The reddish glow cast from behind by the burning eyes helped show the way, but it also indicated that the thing was about to catch her.
She drew on every ounce of strength in her body, and seemed to be outdistancing her pursuer when the sole of her right sandal came down hard on a round object that moved underfoot. It was like stepping on a bowling ball. Her ankle twisted and she pitched off to one side. Her arms wind-milled in the empty air. The tumble was ripe with the potential for broken bones, but Kalliste crashed into what felt like a pile of dry kindling that snapped under her weight and cushioned her fall.
She rolled off to one side and the thing barreled past Kalliste instead of over her. Then came a metallic crash that sounded like an SUV in a collision test. Kalliste pushed herself up on her knees and watched, spellbound, as the beams from the twin red orbs pointed up, then off to one side, then at the stone wall. The thing finally seemed to regain its balance. It spun slowly around. The probing eyes found Kalliste and moved in her direction.
In the quick glimpse of pale light she saw that she had fallen onto a heap of bones. Dried flesh still clung to some of them, including the grinning skull that’d tripped her up. If she didn’t move she’d end up like the thing’s previous victims. Kalliste was up and running. She almost fell again on the scattered bones, but managed to stay on her feet. Again, she was surrounded by a rosy halo as the thing gained on her.
A stone wall loomed up at the forward edge of the sweep of light. She saw a dark rectangle in the wall. A doorway. She plunged through the opening and her extended hands slammed into a second wall. She groped her way along the rough stone surface until she found another doorway. Kalliste stepped through the portal and followed the wall right, then left, until she emerged into a tunnel lit by flickering sconces.
The thing was too big to follow her through the narrow passageway. She could hear it snorting and clomping around in its lair. She stood there catching her breath, her mind whirling. Had she nearly been killed by the Minotaur — the legendary half-man, half-bull that guarded the heart of the Labyrinth? The bones she’d tripped over and the odor of rotting flesh indicated that others had been less fortunate. She had leaned back against a wall to rest, and that’s when her legs turned to rubber and she slid down to a sitting position.
Curling up on the hard surface, Kalliste waited for the mad hammering of her heart to slow down. She pulled the tablecloth tighter around her shoulders. The thin fabric provided a degree of insulation from the cold. She still shivered but her teeth stopped clacking. She got to her feet and ran her fingers over her arms and legs. Both elbows and one knee were bruised, but if she hadn’t fallen she might not be alive.
She unwrapped the tablecloth and held it under a sconce. Her heart fell as she saw that the diagram she’d hastily drawn was smeared from contact with the moist floor. But it was then that she realized a map of the Maze was constantly with her — carried around inside her head. She let her mind drift back through the years. She was a little girl again, sitting at a desk in her bedroom, studying the script and lines written on her grandfather’s scroll. She pictured the Maze and saw that the passageway she was standing in led to a stairway. Could this be the way out of the Labyrinth? Seemed logical.
She pushed on and passed a number of portals. According to the map in her head, the doorways led to dead ends or would take her back the way she came. A few minutes of walking brought her to a set of steel doors. The Maze diagram indicated a big room on the other side of the doors. There was no handle or lock, but to the right of the doors, where the up-down button of an elevator would be located, was a green, glowing double-edged axe around six inches from top to bottom. Kalliste pressed her palm against it. Nothing happened. She stared at the axe, thinking it was identical to the medallion hanging around her neck. Of course! She leaned close and pressed the medallion against the weapon carved in stone. The doors silently slid open.
Kalliste stepped through the portal and the doors shut behind her. The atmosphere was cool and dry. She detected the same type of cloying odor she’d smelled in newly-opened tombs that contained centuries-old air and desiccated bodies.
The vast chamber was lined on all four sides by red and black columns that bowed out slightly in the middle, as was common to Minoan architecture. Panels decorated the wall spaces between the columns. She had seen similar scenes on the frescoes from Thera and Knossos depicting warships, battles and sacrificial processions.
The smell of decay became even stronger. She kept going, drawn by her curiosity, and discovered the source of the odor, the mummified remains that rested on two parallel rows of stone platforms.
She walked between the silent biers and saw that the corpses were adorned with jewelry made of gold and precious stones. Carved into the front of each platform was a sacred horn design. Since Minoan religion was matriarchal, Kalliste guessed that the mummies were probably high-ranking priestesses. She counted forty mummies in all, twenty on each side. At the end of the walkway that passed between the mummies was a stone altar surmounted by two swept-up horns.
To either side of the altar was a cylindrical metal stand that held a double-edged axe. Kalliste gazed at the granite throne that sat on a raised dais behind the altar. A mummy sat upright in the throne. The skeleton and skull were held in place with thin metal straps. The teeth revealed by the fleshless lips set the mouth in a permanent grin. Ivory eyes stared out of the dead sockets. The mummy wore the traditional ruffled skirt of a Minoan priestess, but the breasts that would have been revealed by the open bodice were lost in the leathery folds that enveloped the protruding ribs.
The mummy’s bony hands rested on the cranium of the skull that lay in her lap. The ragged hole in the crown suggested the skull’s owner had died a violent death. Kalliste wondered who the skull belonged to and why it had been given such an important placement. It was almost like a trophy. The thought hit her like a thunderbolt. Lily had said that an ancient priestess had vanquished King Minos before sailing to exile in Spain. Could she be looking at all that was left of her long-ago royal ancestor?
Reality intruded. She was still in extreme danger. Once the alarm was raised, she’d be cornered in the Maze and dragged back to this evil place for the sacrifice. She was tantalizingly close to the exit stairway. No time to waste. Turning, she ran back between the silent rows of the ancient dead.