For Roland C. Greefkes, extraordinary creator of magical flower gates, with many heartfelt thanks from Hannah and myself for our own enchanted protection.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Dedication
Maps
Theseus and the Labyrinth
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Five
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Part Six
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Glossary
Voyager online
About the Author
Also By Sara Douglass
The Crucible
The Axis Trilogy
The Wayfarer Redemption
Copyright
About the Publisher
Maps
Theseus and the Labyrinth
During the late Bronze Age, well over a millennium before the birth of Christ, the Minoan king on Crete held the Athenian king to ransom. Every nine years the Athenian king sent as tribute seven male youths and a like number of female virgins, the cream of Athenian society, to Knossos on Crete. Once on Crete the Athenian youths were fed into the dark heart of the gigantic Labyrinth, there to die at the hands of the dreaded Minotaur, Asterion, unnatural son of the Minoan king’s wife and a bull.
One year the Athenian king sent his own son, Theseus, as part of the sacrifice. Theseus was determined finally to stop the slaughter, and to this end he was aided by Ariadne, daughter of the Minoan king, half-sister to Asterion and Mistress (or High Priestess) of the Labyrinth. Ariadne shared with Theseus the secrets and mysteries of the Labyrinth, and taught him the means by which Asterion might be killed. This she did because she loved Theseus.
Theseus entered the Labyrinth and, aided by Ariadne’s secret magic, bested the tricks of the Labyrinth and killed Asterion in combat. Then, accompanied by Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedre, Theseus departed Crete and its shattered Labyrinth for his home city of Athens.
Prologue
Catastrophe
The Late Bronze Age
ONE
The island of Naxos, eastern Mediterranean
Confused, numbed, her mind refusing to accept what Theseus demanded, Ariadne stumbled in the sand, sinking to her knees with a sound that was half sigh, half sob.
“It is best this way,” Theseus said as he had already said a score of times this morning, bending to offer Ariadne his arm. “It is clear to me that you cannot continue with the fleet.”
Ariadne managed to gain her feet. She placed one hand on her bulging belly, and stared at her lover with eyes stripped of all the romantic delusion that had consumed her for this past year. “This is your child! How can you abandon it? And me?”
Yet even as she asked that question, Ariadne knew the answer. Beyond Theseus lay a stretch of beach, blindingly white in the late morning sun. Where sand met water waited a small boat and its oarsmen. Beyond that small boat, bobbing lazily at anchor in the bay, lay Theseus’ flagship, a great, oared war vessel.
And in the prow of that ship, her vermilion robes fluttering and pressing against her sweet, lithe body, stood Ariadne’s younger sister, Phaedre.
Waiting for her lover to return to the ship and sail her in triumph to Athens.
Theseus carefully masked his face with bland reason. “Your child is due in but a few days. You cannot give birth at sea—”
“I can! I can!”
“—and thus it is best I leave you here, where the villagers have midwives to assist. This is my decision, Ariadne.”
“It is her decision.” Ariadne flung a hand towards the moored ship.
“When the baby is born, and you and she recovered, then I will return, and bring you home to Athens.”
“You will not,” Ariadne whispered. “This is as close to Athens as ever I will achieve. I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and we only ever bear daughters—what use have we for sons? But you have no use for daughters. So Phaedre shall be your queen, not I. She will give you sons, not I.”
He did not reply, lowering his gaze to the sand, and in his discomfort she could read the truth of her words.
“What have I done to deserve this, Theseus?” she asked.
Still he did not reply.
She drew herself up as straight as her pregnancy would allow, squared her shoulders, and tossed her head with some of her old, easy arrogance. “What has the Mistress of the Labyrinth done to deserve this, my love?”
He lifted his head, and looked her full in the face, and in that movement Ariadne had all the answer she needed.
“Ah,” she said softly, “to the betrayer comes the betrayal, eh?” A shadow fell over her face as clouds blew across the sun. “I betrayed my father so you could have your victory. I whi
spered to you the secrets that allowed you to best the Labyrinth and to murder my brother. I betrayed everything I stand for as the Mistress. All this I did for you. All this betrayal worked for the blind folly of love.”
The clouds suddenly thickened, blanketing the sun, and the beach at Theseus’ back turned grey and old.
“The gods told me to abandon you,” Theseus said, and Ariadne blanched at the blatant lie. This had nothing to do with the gods, and everything to do with his lusts. “They came to me in a vision, and demanded that I set you here on this island.”
Ariadne gave a short, bitter laugh. Lie or not, it made no difference to her. “Then I curse the gods along with you, Theseus. If you abandon me at their behest, and that of your new and prettier lover, then they shall share your fate, Theseus. Irrelevance. Decay. Death.” Her mouth twisted in hate. “Catastrophe.”
Above them the clouds roiled, thick and black, and lightning arced down to strike in the low hills of the island.
“What think you, Theseus?” she yelled, making him flinch. “What think you? No one can afford to betray the Mistress of the Labyrinth!”
“No?” he said, meeting her furious eyes evenly. “Are you that sure of your power?”
“Leave me here and you doom your entire world. Throw me aside for my sluttish sister and what you think her womb can give you, and you and your kind will—”
He hit her cheek, not hard, but enough to snap off the flow of her words. “And who was it showed Phaedre the art of sluttishness, Ariadne?”
Stricken with such cruelty, Ariadne could find no words to answer.
Theseus nodded. “You have served your purpose,” he said.
He focused on something behind her, and Ariadne turned her head very slightly.
Villagers were walking slowly down the path to the beach, their eyes cast anxiously at the god-damned skies above them.
“They will care for you and your daughter,” Theseus said, and turned to go.
“I have served my purpose, Theseus?” Ariadne said. “You have no idea what my purpose is, and whether it is served out…or only just beginning. Here. In this sand. In this betrayal.”
His shoulders stiffened, and his step hesitated, but then Theseus was gone, striding down the beach to the waiting boat.
The sky roared, and the clouds opened, drenching Ariadne as she watched her lover desert her.
She turned her face upwards, and shook a fist at the sky and the gods laughing merrily behind it.
“No one abandons the Mistress of the Labyrinth!” she hissed. “Not you, nor any part of your world!”
She dropped her face. Theseus was in the boat now, standing in its stem, his gaze set towards the ship where awaited Ariadne’s sister.
“And not you, nor any part of your world, either,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “No one abandons me, and thinks that in so doing they can ignore the Game. You think that the Game will protect you.”
She hissed, demented with love and betrayal.
“You forget that it is I who controls the Game.”
TWO
Death came for Ariadne during the final stages of a labour that had stretched over three gruelling, pain-filled days and nights.
She felt the Death Crone’s gentle hand on her shoulder as she squatted on her birthing mat, her sweat-drenched face clenched in agony, the village midwives squabbling in a huddle on the far side of the dim, overheated room.
“They have decided to cut the child from you,” the Crone said, her voice low and melodious, a comforting counterpoint to her words. “They think that Theseus, not wanting you, will nevertheless be grateful for his child. See, now they hand about knives, trying to decide which would be the sharpest. The fastest.”
“No!” Ariadne growled, twisting her head to stare at the Crone who now stood so close to her shoulder. “No. I will not.”
“You must,” said the Crone. “It is your time.”
“And I say it is not,” Ariadne said, screwing up her face and moaning as another crippling contraction gripped her.
“You must—” the Crone said again, but stopped as Ariadne half turned and gripped the death’s claw resting on her shoulder.
“I will make a bargain,” Ariadne said. She glanced at the huddle of midwives. They were bent into a close circle, their attention all on the four or five knives they passed between themselves. First this one was held up to catch the flickering light from the single oil lamp in the room, now that, each blade’s cutting edge assessed for its worth.
Being simple women, untutored in the mysteries, they were unaware that the Death Crone stood so close among them, nor that Ariadne conversed with her.
“A bargain?” said the Crone. “But I want you. You. What could you give me to assuage my grief at leaving you behind?”
“I think we can come to a most singular arrangement,” Ariadne said, her words jerking out in her agony. “I can make you the best proposition you’ve had in aeons.”
The Crone was silent a long moment, her bright eyes resting unblinking on Ariadne as the woman twisted and moaned once more.
“I shall want far more than just ‘a singular arrangement’,” the Crone said. “Far more. What can you give me, Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth?”
The midwives had selected their knife now, and one of them, a woman called Meriam, had drawn out a whetstone and was sharpening the blade with long, deliberate strokes.
The frightful sound of metal against stone grated about the chamber, and Ariadne’s eyes glinted.
She spoke, very low and very fast, and the Crone gave a great gasp and stood back. “You would go that far?” she hissed.
“Will you not accept my bargain?” Ariadne said.
“Oh, aye, I accept. But you will destroy yourself, surely, along with—”
“You will have me one day, Crone, but it shall be on my terms, not yours. But if you want what I offer, then I beg two favours from you.”
The Crone laughed shortly. “And I thought you were to be doing all the giving.”
“I will need to see Asterion.”
“Asterion? The brother you helped murder? You would dare?”
“Aye. I dare. Tell me, is he in Hades’ realm?”
“Nay. Hades would not have him. You know this.” The Crone paused, her eyes on the midwives who were now slowly rising, their voices murmuring bitterly about the effort this Ariadne put them to. “Very well,” said the Crone. “I agree. I can send Asterion to you. And the second favour?”
“Push this child from my body that I may live long enough to play my part in our arrangement.”
“As you wish, Ariadne. But do not fail in your part of our agreement. I would be most disappointed should you—”
“I will not fail. Now, push this child from me…ah!”
The midwives stepped close to the straining woman on the birthing mat, Meriam at their fore, a large knife in her hand.
But as Meriam leaned down to push Ariadne to her back, the better to expose her huge belly to the knife, Ariadne screamed, and there was a rush of bloodstained fluid between her legs, and then the baby, hitherto unshiftable, slithered free.
Meriam stopped dead, her mouth hanging open.
Ariadne had sunk to her haunches, and now she looked up from her daughter kicking feebly between her legs to the gaggle of midwives.
“You may be sure that I will repay you well for your aid,” she said.
Ariadne rested that day, and when the sun settled below the horizon, she dismissed the woman who sat with her, saying that she wished to be alone during the night with her daughter.
Once the woman had gone, Ariadne put her daughter to her breast and fed her, and then rocked her gently and sang to her softly, so that she would sleep through the coming hours.
As soon as the infant slept soundly, Ariadne placed her in a small, oval wicker basket, covered her well with blankets, then placed the basket in a dark corner of the room.
She did not want Asterion to notice
the child and perhaps to maim or murder her in his ill-humour.
Once her daughter was attended to, Ariadne washed herself carefully, wincing at the deep hurt that still assailed her body, then reached into the chest of her clothes that Theseus had caused to be tossed on to the beach. She drew forth a deep red, flounced skirt which she bound as tightly as she could about her still thickened and soft belly, then slipped her arms into a golden jacket which she tied loosely about her waist, leaving it unbuttoned so that her full breasts remained exposed.
Having attended to her body, Ariadne now carefully painted her face. She powdered her face to a smooth, rich creamy mask, then lined her eyes with black and her mouth with a vivid red that matched her skirt. When that was done, Ariadne dressed her hair. For the finest effect she needed a maid to do it for her, but there was no one to help, and so she did the best she could, finally managing to bind and braid her glossy black tresses into an elaborate design that cascaded from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck.
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