The Maze of Minos by Tammie Painter

Author:Tammie Painter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fantasy fiction, fantasy ficiton, ancient rome
Publisher: Tammie Painter

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Iolalus

DESPITE GETTING UP to walk the length of the station platforms at each stop, my leg aches after enduring the long train journey from Athenos to Minoa. When the engine finally rumbles up to its terminus, Theseus and Odysseus follow me out of the carriage and both immediately gaze upward at the soaring buildings. I decided we should arrive a day early to allow me time to evaluate Minos and his kingdom, to assess what might really be going on here. I think of my last trip to Minoa with my cousin Hercules. I hadn’t been tortured by Eury yet and I was full of confident vigor. I wasn’t Solon, Portaceae was in near ruins, and I was in awe at the gleaming perfection of Minoa.

How different things are this time. Not only do I walk with a limp, and sometimes a crutch, but I now think Minos would be the one envying my home.

Passing from the train platform through the Minoan entry gate, the state of the kingdom makes me wonder if we are in the right place. Certainly one could ignore the dirt in the streets and the dead pansies drooping in hanging baskets, but it’s the change in the people that surprises me most. The Minoans once seemed to me to be the most carefree and confident people in Osteria. Before, you couldn’t turn your head without witnessing a joke being exchanged or a Minoan happily greeting his leader with admiration and respect. Now, faces hang as limply as the flowers above my head and, as he shuffles toward us, the only acknowledgement Minos receives from his people is men throwing scowls in his direction and mothers hustling their children away from the once great man.

And I do mean once great. Minos is a shell of his former jolly bulk. It’s as if he had been inflated with happy confidence and, now that his joy has gone, so has his heft. I wanted to hate him for what he’s doing, for making me even consider sending my polis into war against him, but when I see him all the anger dissolves into pity.

"I know," he says, greeting me with the shake of a hand that feels frail and cold. "I look like something that escaped from Hades’s Chasm."

I expect something smart to fly from Odysseus’s mouth, but he keeps surprisingly quiet. I’ve told him and Theseus all about Minoa and Minos on our journey here. After seeing the man before us and the conditions in the kingdom, my two companions probably think I was drunk beyond comprehension the last time I was here.

Minos looks around, confused. "The others?"

"They will arrive on tomorrow’s morning train. They wanted more time to say their goodbyes," I add to see his reaction. His color fades even more and he slumps as his chin begins to tremble. This is the maniac of Osteria? He’s a beaten shell of a man, not a tyrant.

Stirring me from my thoughts, Theseus nudges me and points just past the entry gate.

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