The Progeny of Daedalus

by Jeffrey MacLeod

  There was not a noise.

  There was not a breath.

  There is no movement.

  The unbearable tension gives way to disappointment. Leda looked over her shoulder to Dad, confusion on her little face.

  “Well that was a flop!” Danae stated, almost with relief.

  But still no one moved. It was as if no one quite knew what to do.

  Then it begins!

  Just as Leda had described.

  A sudden reverberation that shakes stone and air alike. They all jumped, then froze. It set every nerve on edge.

  A great rumbling; a grinding; grating.

  While it goes on they are rooted to the spot, the vibrations rising from the stone floor up through their tense legs and setting their bodies to tremble.

  As long as it lasted they could not speak. Even had their jaws overcome the shaking to produce indecipherable sounds, they would have been inaudible over the great noise. The air was full, with no capacity to transmit any further sound waves. Surely it must have been heard in the village below. Perhaps even in Heraklion itself!

  How long it lasted none of them were certain. Probably only a few seconds, although it seems like minutes. But as it went on, their excitement escalated, along with their fear – fear of discovery, and fear because that which they had awaited so long was finally upon them.

  It stopped. A sudden silence, but the air still seemed to tremble a little, like an echo. Shocked faces are split by unreserved grins. They look one to another in disbelief and anticipation. But still no one moves.

  Leda was the first. She turned, squeezed between her sisters, stepped to the edge of the lightwell and, lifting herself on her elbows so as to see over the protective wall, looked down.

  Her intake of breath seemed to pivot everyone to face her. She was looking back at them with a triumphant smile; pure elation twinkled in her eyes like starlight. She fixed them on Danae:

  “Was it a flop Danae?” They all knew by her tone that it is not.

  A rush.

  Everyone to the wall. Everyone looking over. Everyone gasped!

  There it was.

  The lightwell remained, descending as it had before through four flights of stairs that formed a square around the broad aperture of light; however, they no longer stopped where they had. Everyone saw that below, where the floor of the lightwell had been, the stairwell continued, but now circular, a seemingly endless spiral like a corkscrew, around and around but plunging ever down into darkness.

  It is the entrance to the Labyrinth of Daedalus.

  “Oh my God,” said Dad softly, disbelief dumbing his voice, “it is really there.” Soft as it was, this statement still faintly echoed down the abyss, disturbing the silence that had blanketed it for over three millennia. They all stared down and listened until the echoes died away…

  That was the trigger. They all burst into animated exclamation.

  I can’t believe it!

  It was so quiet!

  We didn’t hear a thing!

  That’s unbelievable!

  I didn’t think it was there!

  You were right Leda!

  None of them were quiet now, and the cacophony of their chatter echoed down the stairwell, bouncing off the hard walls, intersecting and combining into a growing reverberation that began to build and repeatedly returned to them, snippets of different words and voices, again and again.

  “Sssshhhhhh!” Dad hushed them, his hands out, palms down, as if he was trying to physically push the echoes back down.

  …But it is too late; the sounds of their elation fills His ears…

  They all stopped and listened. It is incredible. For at least a minute their voices could be heard, echoing back to them, as if countless clones of their party were in the depths, calling up to them. Finally, after the phenomena had given them all immense amusement, the last echoes faded away to silence.

  “That’s so cool!” Danae says into the silence.

  That’s so cool…that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool… that’s so cool…so cool…so cool…so cool…so cool…so cool…cool…cool…cool…cool…cool…

  The girls beamed at each other. Even Jorge’s watery eyes glittered, as youthfully as any of them.

  Dad steps back from the stairwell and tugged at the girls from behind, drawing them back to him, out of the sound funnel that the descending stairwell created. When they were clear and facing him, and Jorge had followed suit, he hushed them again.

  “We might need to be careful girls, about the sound I mean. Of course it’s very cool, but won’t help with a stealth mission. I know there is no one to hear us at the moment, but if sound carries up as well as down then, unlikely as it is, if anyone passes tonight while we are down there, they will hear us.”

  Jorge was nodding his agreement.

  “It should be nice and cool in the Labyrinth,” Jorge said, sounding slightly sad, “I’m sorry I won’t be able to come in with you.”

  “That’s ok Jorge,” Danae commiserated him unconvincingly, “we will tell you all about it.” Dad put his hand on Jorge’s shoulder in a more genuine gesture, as he could imagine what it must be like for the old man; he had plenty of experience as the forgotten onlooker in the girls’ adventures. This seemed to prompt Jorge to action, somehow.

  “I will stay here and keep watch,” he added, “for much as I would love to come, I know that this is not my adventure.” His disappointment is very apparent, but so was his conviction. “I will look out for anyone,” he continues, “but it would be much safer if there isn’t a constant stream of echoes coming out.”

  Dad gave the old man a commiserative look.

  “Thank you, it is clear to me now that you really were …sent by the Gods.” Dad pulled a strange face and looks at the girls. “That sounds so lame, right? Sent by the Gods! It’s a cliché but in this instance…it actually is true!” He turned back to Jorge and spoke a little more seriously. “So thank you. You remember those instructions, but of course you should never have to carry them out?” The girls looked quizzically at Dad when he said this, but their father offered no explanation. Jorge said that of course he remembered them. Dad turns to the girls again, now smiling as excitedly as any of his daughters:

  “Great! Well, there seems nothing for it now but to enter the Labyrinth of Daedalus!”

  With some initial exclamations of excitement that echoed down the stairwell they turned and, Danae leading the way, descended the four flights to the ground level. There they all stop and gathered together; one more step down and they will be officially in the Labyrinth.

  Looking down they could see that what had appeared to be complete darkness from above, is actually dimly lit, thanks to the lightwell. The stairs descend down a great circular shaft, like a cylinder, their outer margin fixed against the wall, the inner enclosed by a parapet to prevent a fatal fall. They did not turn around a central spindle, but were open, turning around a shaft of open space, down which the light plummeted into the depths, like an axis of the world. Despite this central light shaft, it was so deep that from here they cannot discern the bottom, so the spiral stairs appeared endless. Danae stated the obvious:

  “That’s a long way down!”

  Ilia followed up with something only slightly less obvious, but much gloomier:

  “And will be much longer on the way up!”

  They allowed the mingled echoes of these statement to run out, the duration of which only emphasised the cavernous depths below them. Once they are at last silent, they all stepped back from the stairwell for the final preparation.

  “It reminds me of one of those drawings of endless stairways that you sometimes see, that seem to lead off into infinity.” Ilia sounded less daunted and more contemplative.

  “I know, exactly what I was thinking,” says Dad. “Interestingly,” and here he turned to Jorge, “the author Borges used the image in many of h
is stories.”

  “Indeed, I have,” Jorge nodded.

  Huh?

  For a moment, Dad regards him with serious confusion. But then he decided to let it go – now was not the time. The girls had not noticed – they were too mesmerised by the excitement.

  “Well, let’s hope it’s not endless,” he added with a smile, “because my old legs will not appreciate that!”

  “Well, I think I’m glad I’m not coming after all!” responded Jorge.

  “Thanks for the encouragement!”

  “Don’t worry Daddy,” Leda piped up, “you’re not that old! And if you get tired, I can help you!” She was clearly making fun of her father. He gives her a smile, then changed the subject.

  “Well, we had better get ready.” He loosened the daypack from his shoulders as he spoke, placing it on the ground, then squatted to rummage through it. “We won’t need to start using the thread until we get to the bottom of the stairs, because it will be pretty obvious that the only way to go is up. We’ll use the fishing line I think, and hope that is enough. If Theseus could do it with a ball of twine, we should get by with a kilometre of fishing line!”

  This was actually a major worry for Dad, that he had not shared with the girls. They have no idea how large the Labyrinth would be, and they needed to be able to retrace their steps to get out. Altogether he had about as much fishing line in his daypack as he could carry. He has chosen a heavy line so there was less chance of it snapping – 42 lb breaking strain – but that meant it is a thicker line and he could carry less of it. His back-up plan was chalk, with which he intended to mark the walls as well. Hopefully, between the two of these, they would safely escape. If they ran out of line, however, he had already decided that they would return rather than risk getting irretrievably lost.

  “We’ll tie ourselves together though, before we enter,” he says as he produced a roll of thick cord from the pack, “because we cannot risk getting separated.” Dad tied a belt of the cord around each of their waists; Dad first, Leda following, then Danae with Ilia bringing up the rear.

  “I would prefer to be both front and rear,” he said, “but clearly that’s impossible.”

  When he ties them, he allowed a separation of around two ells between each. This would be enough, he explained, to ensure they are not continually tugging at each other, but would also be enough to hang to the ground and tangle their feet should they get careless; so he recommends that they each hold on to the cord with one hand to gather up this slack. This done, they each retrieve their torches from their daypacks.

  “Don’t use them unless you must,” Dad cautions. “I will have mine on all the time, but it’s no point depleting the batteries in yours if you don’t have to. We have spare batteries, but we need to preserve everything we take as much as we can.”

  With these final preparations the tension is escalating dramatically. Something they had been building to for over a year was about to occur, and the girls are torn between utter terror and overwhelming excitement. The most important stage of their Quest so far; a mythical ancient structure that no one has seen for thousands of years; the possibility of finding a pair of legendary wings with which they could fly; it is nearly too much for them. Dad handed around some water and then asks them if they were ready.

  “Are you kidding Dad?” Danae responded without hesitation, “I was born ready!”

  “Lame, Danae!” Ilia objects drily; then she brightens. “But yes Dad, we are ready.”

  Leda nodded agreement as well, and will cling tightly to Dad’s free hand, their slack loops of cord held between them. Dad turned to Jorge:

  “Well Jorge, we shall see you …soon!”

  “I’ll be waiting,” he assures them.

  With that, Dad turns towards the stairs and, with his large torch in one hand and Leda’s hand in the other, he stepped towards the topmost step that led down, down, down, into the bowels of the Earth, where they would find the Labyrinth of Daedalus.

  He glanced at his daughters one last time. They are smiling back at him confidently, although Leda’s little hand is squeezing his tightly. He gave it a reassuring squeeze back, then takes a single, deep breath and slowly exhaled.

  “Alright then,” he said, his right foot hovering in preparation for the first step, “let’s do this!”

  He steps.

  Ancient Minoan Coin depicting the Labyrinth of Daedalus

  Chapter VII

  The House of Asterion

  Before me things created were none, save things

  Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.

  All hope abandon, ye who enter here…

  Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

  Leda hears a shocked intake of breath – it is Dad. She is surprised as well.

  She has just experienced that jolt, that disorientation that occurs when they use The Sight. But this time Dad is with her. He pauses on the first step, probably adjusting. She does not know what this means, but it feels like when she touched the urn earlier that day – a more complete transition. Are they actually there? Or are they just seeing this?

  She looks behind and she gasps also. She cannot see Danae or Ilia. She is looking into the throne room where they had been seconds before, but it is empty.

  She tugs at Dad’s hand and takes another step down, then another. He follows. She looks back again. Relief! Danae and Ilia have appeared and have also paused on the topmost step. Presumably they are adjusting to the same surprise.

  “Well this is weird!” says Danae with a grin. “You guys actually disappeared for a few seconds, until we stepped down as well. Then you reappeared and,” she glances back, “now we can’t see Jorge. But he is standing right there!”

  “We’re not touching anything,” Ilia adds, “but it feels like The Sight, or something even weirder!”

  “I know,” says Leda. “Weirder for Dad than us though I think!”

  They all look at him and he returns the look, still appearing somewhat bewildered. Leda giggles.

  “Yes,” he responds. “Very weird! Is this what The Sight is like?” They nod.

  “Sometimes,” Ilia says.

  “This feels like that time we were on Olympus with Apollo.” Dad sounds quite unsettled.

  “It’s ok Dad,” Danae tries to reassure him. “You’ll get used to it. It’s always a bit weird, especially at first.”

  “I wonder what it means though,” Ilia voices her concerns. “Does it mean we are standing at the top of the steps and just seeing this, or are we really here?”

  No one knows, but there seems to be nothing to do but continue.

  “I suppose we will find out,” Dad concludes. “Shall we?” His confidence seems to have returned.

  Clearly it is quite easy descending stairs, at least until the point that your quadriceps start to object to the controlled lowering of body weight; for this reason it is often easier to move downstairs rapidly – a type of controlled-falling. They are excited so the descent is swift, almost a skip. They glance over the low central parapet regularly, hoping to see an end to the eternal stairwell. It is not so much the depth that defies them, but the darkness. But as they descend and as their eyes adjust, they agree that it is not nearly so dark as they expected; the lightwell is more illuminating than they had given it credit for. But as they talk, these muttered conversations echo up and down the shaft; Dad looks uneasy.

  They have descended perhaps a couple of hundred stairs when Danae, glancing over the central wall, calls out:

  “I see a bottom!”

  The echo seems to agree; it is shorter and sharper before bouncing up, but resounds overhead and seems to disappear in that direction. They all look where Danae is pointing. Sure enough they can all see where the descending shaft of light ends, striking what appears to be a stone floor. It is at least as far below them as they have descended already, but the strange thing is, the stairs do not appear to go that far.

  “Are we looking down into a chamber or something?” as
ks Ilia. She does so in a whisper, but in the heavy silence it is loud enough to be heard clearly, and the whispering echo that follows is almost ghostly; it sounds like the dead are murmuring all around them.

  “That’s a bit freaky Ilia,” Danae objects. “Just talk normally!”

  Dad is staring over the parapet into the depths.

  “I think you’re right Ilia, it looks like a cavern or something.” Dad’s voice is quiet, but still it reverberates so much that the echoes of what he and Danae have said mingle for a long minute before drifting off to silence. They all wait for it to stop.

  “This is a bit irritating now!” Danae starts the echoing again.

  “Yes!” Leda agrees, “so stop saying things that aren’t worth saying!”

  Again they have to wait a minute or so before it is quiet enough to communicate, so they recommence their downward journey. A few more complete turns down the spiral and they pause and take another look; then Dad starts the noise over again:

  “It seems to have a very high ceiling, judging by the depth and the deep shadows around that patch of light there. And is that a big slab of stone in the middle of the floor?” They are all looking where he is pointing.

  “Looks like it,” Ilia agrees.

  “OK, well let’s get on and find out.”

  They continue down, slightly more cautious than before, and accompanied by the fading sounds of their own voices. Even their footsteps are creating endless echoing, so they find themselves treading very lightly. Every three or four turns of the stairs they pause and look down, until it is clear what is below.

  There certainly does appear to be a huge chamber or hall at the bottom. The shaft of light down the lightwell illuminates a circle of stone floor that is paved in very large blocks. In the exact middle of the lit area is a large rectangular slab of stone. Around the fringe of the more brightly lit floor the same paving can be seen to disappear into the darkness on all sides. They are now certain that the stairs do not descend into the chamber; they must turn off to one side.