The Gatekeeper's Challenge (19 page)

“Yes,” the Minotaur said, sitting down on a stone ledge. “We’ll wait for you here. I think I’ll take a nap.”

Ariadne narrowed her eyes at Therese. “You
wicked girl! You tricked us! You put something in the cakes to make us sleepy!” Ariadne sat on the ledge, fighting sleep.

“I’m sorry!” Therese cried. “I was afraid I couldn’t trust you. I’m so sorry!” Therese staggered under the weight of her heavy shield and fell to the ground. She laid her head on her folded arms and went to sleep on the cold stone path, her last thought that the Minotaur would kill her.

Therese ran down a brightly lit hall, someone just ahead of her out of reach. Where was she? Shops lined the empty, narrow corridor that twisted and turned around vendor stands with handbags, toys, cell phones, and other products, creating a maze. She was inside a mall.

“Hey! Stop!” Therese turned a corner. Wait a minute, she thought, slowing down. Who am I chasing? And why? She rested her palms on her knees and caught her breath.

Hip appeared before her. “This is important. If you die in your dream, you die for real.”

“Why are you telling me what I already know?”

They both turned their heads toward the sound of slow, heavy footsteps striking the tile floor. Twenty feet away, in front of The Gap, stood the Minotaur.

Hip moved closer to her. “I can’t help you fight him, but if you kill him here in the dream world, you won’t have to face him in the Upperworld.”

“You mean that’s not a figment? That’s really him?”

“It’s him alright.”

“He looks mad.”

“Yep. He’s definitely mad.” Hip put a hand on her shoulder. “You of all people have a chance of succeeding. Use your power to kill him here, in the dream world.”

“Power?”
Therese looked back at Hip to find him gone.

The Minotaur strolled boldly toward her. “That was a mean trick.”

“Please forgive me, Asterion. I didn’t think you’d let me traipse through your home and come out alive. All the stories paint you as a vicious killer. Can you blame me?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I can. People would be better off if they ignored rumors and sought the truth for themselves before passing judgment.”

Therese took a step back with feet she could no longer feel as he moved closer. Her heart picked up speed, and she bit the inside of her mouth as she had this revelation: if I don’t kill him here, in this dream, he will kill me when he wakes. I’ve got to kill him before he kills me. I have no choice. She braced herself as he bent his horns toward her and prepared to charge.

She turned him into a white rabbit, the kind magicians pull from black top hats, but he immediately returned to his tall, massive form, his eyes a little more fierce. She thought of running away—this was a mall, a labyrinth of another kind—but knew the longer she put off the inevitable, the more likely she would wake and find her chances gone.

In her mind, she said to him, I’m going to kill you.

He snarled with a grimace. “You’re just a little girl.”

His words inspired her to take charge of the dream again. She willed herself into a warrior, modeled after Athena, and then drew her sword. Rather than strike forward, which would make her arm vulnerable, she used a maneuver Ares had shown her: she twirled around, picked up momentum, lifted her arm as she came around, and struck the beast’s side.

Although the blade wounded him, blood spilling across his ribs, he did not fall. He lunged at her. She shoved out her shield, her body perpendicular to him, as Ares had shown her, but the sheer force of his weight pushed her back, and she fell on the ground. When he lunged for her again, she turned herself into a snake and slithered between his legs to the back of him, returning to warrior form before he turned around. She took her sword and struck him at the neck, slicing through skin and fur, but again, he did not fall. He turned, and this time found her arm, and with terrifying strength pulled and flung her toward the ground.

Before she fell, she imagined herself as a rubbery, stretchy, malleable warrior, allowing her arm to be pulled past its natural length without causing her to tumble. She stretched her body out, like thick bubble gum, and wrapped herself tightly around him, but he pierced her with his horns, grabbed her arms, and tied them together before flinging her to his feet. She quickly untied her limbs, willed her sword and shield in place, but he caught on to her game and used his own will to manipulate the dream. He made his arm malleable and stretchy, maneuvered it past her sword and shield, and grabbed her by the neck, clutching his long fingers around her throat. Shocked, she looked at him, her mouth agape, unable to catch air. She tried to bring her sword across his arm, but, having learned from her, he bent it in all directions, easily missing her blade.

This is a dream, she reminded herself, and she turned herself into a puddle of water. She changed their landscape to that of a narrow cave, and she filled the cave with her water self, hoping to drown him. He solved the problem by becoming a shark.

I’m running out of time, she thought. We’ll wake up, and I’ll be screwed. She drained the cave of water in an instant, resuming her tall warrior form, and before the shark turned, brought down her sword. She shark flopped on the dry rocky ground of the cave, and for a moment, she thought she’d won, but before she could blink, the Minotaur was on his feet, ready to charge.

In that split second before he lunged for her, a number of options flew through her mind. She could make herself a bigger Minotaur than he, she could make herself Zeus and perhaps frighten him, or she could make herself fire and try burning him alive. But with each of these ideas came the thought of his c
ounter: he could make himself bigger, he could make himself a Titan, or he could make himself water. At last, a new idea struck her, and before he reached her, she transformed into Ariadne, his sister, and said, “No, Asterion!”

The Minotaur stopped, bewildered, his bull mouth hanging open. Before he came to the realization that he was being tricked, Therese, still in Ariadne’s form, drove her sword through the beast’s chest, driving it all the way through to the back.

“Ariadne!” the Minotaur cried as he fell back to the rocky ground.  He flailed his arms about, like a spider on its back. “You betrayed me. Again.”

The real Ariadne must have heard him call out for her, for she appeared in the dream across from Therese, her double. Ariadne looked confused, apparently unaware that she was looking at Therese in disguise.

“What have I done?” Ariadne shrieked. “Oh, Asterion, look at me!” She dropped on her knees at his side. “Please forgive me!”

But her brother was already dead, his thick bull’s tongue hanging from his sharp-teethed mouth.

Ariadne shrieked again, her hands on her brother’s unmoving chest. Then she stood and pulled the blade from her brother’s body. Therese thrust the shield forward, ready to defend herself, but gasped when, instead of attacking Therese, Ariadne drove the blade into her own heart and fell beside her brother.

Therese left the cave and stayed at her grandparents’ house with Blue, pretending he wasn’t a stupid figment, until the sleeping pills wore off and she awoke at the temple ruins in Knossos beside the dead bodies of the two immortal siblings. She put her hand to her mouth, unable to believe she had killed them. Why didn’t she feel victorious, triumphant? Tears formed in her eyes and she clenched her teeth, accidentally cutting into the soft flesh of the tip of her tongue. To the fallen bodies, she whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do this.”

She wasn’t finished yet; she still had to make it through the labyrinth, and she had to do it before her victims—is that what they were, her victims?—revived. She pulled the ball of yellow yarn from her purse and unwound it, leaving a long strand at the entrance, and then, flipping on the headlight at her visor, plunged into the dark maze.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Therese’s Prayers

Than laid a hand on the shoulders of each of the two siblings, Ariadne and
Asterion, as he led their souls from the palace ruins in Knossos, Crete to the Underworld. Relieved and exhilarated by the success of Therese, who still laid sleeping at his feet, and wishing he could sneak a kiss on her cheek without endangering her life, Than made a stupid joke to the Minotaur, for which he was instantly sorry, something like, “At this rate, we’ll have to get you a room of your own.”

Asterion
glared at Than and knocked the god of death’s hand from his shoulder.

“Sorry, man. Bull.
Bullman.” Than inwardly cringed at his horrible lack of tact. He’d never felt so giddy. For the first time since his father issued the five challenges, he actually believed there was a chance—however slight—Therese would succeed. “Sorry. This way.”

Not long after, he could hear her praying to him from the labyrinth. Her tone quickly changed from bewildered, “I can’t believe I’m still alive,” to regretful, “I can’t believe I killed them.” The more and more she expressed her sorrow over the souls he now helped board Charon’s ferry, the less giddy he felt.

“Asterion and Ariadne would have let me through, I bet,” Therese prayed. “I tricked them, angered them, and then killed them both. Ariadne may have held the sword, but I’m the one who drove her to use it. I don’t want to be this person I’m becoming, Than. I don’t want to kill the Hydra. Can’t I can win your father’s approval without having to kill anything?”

He found it interesting that her new fear was not, “The Hydra will kill me,” but “I must kill the Hydra and don’t want to.” Her victory over the Minotaur had given her confidence.
Maybe too much.

He left the two immortal souls on the banks of the Lethe River in Erebus and then sought his father.

Than
waited for nearly an hour in Hades’s empty chamber, passing the time by listening to Therese’s constant prayers to him, and was overjoyed to learn she’d navigated her way to safety.  Not long after, Hades and Hermes appeared at the golden table, in mid conversation.

“It’s a deal,” Hermes said, shaking the other god’s hand.

Once Hermes left Hades’s table and father and son were alone, Than said, “I need clarification.”

“Regarding?”

“When you said Therese must defeat the Hydra, did you mean ‘kill’ or ‘overcome’?”

Hades stood from his golden table and crossed the room to his son. “What’s this hair-splitting all about?”

“As you know, Therese succeeded in the third challenge. She killed the Minotaur and has just now made it safely through the labyrinth.”

“Yes.” Hades sat on his chaise lounge and regarded his fingernails. “I’m very pleased.”

“She’s proved she’s capable of overpowering and killing a beast, but it’s not her style. She doesn’t want to kill the Hydra.”

“Honorable trait.”

“But you hated that very trait last summer.”

“Death was deserved then; the Hydra is innocent and has loyally guarded the underwater entrance for centuries. I do not want her killed.”

“Then why challenge Therese to do it?”

Hades gave
Than a patronizing look.

“You expect her to fail. You want her to fail.”

“I did. I don’t anymore.” He bit a cuticle and once again regarded his nails.

Than’s
mouth fell open. A ball of heat arose in his chest. It was hope. A flame of hope. He gripped his hands behind his back and waited for his father’s next words.

“If she can make it past the Hydra into the Underworld through that entrance, she will have succeeded in the fourth challenge.”

Than rushed to his father’s side and took his hand. “Thank you.”

Hades jerked his head back with surprise. Than released his father, awkwardly, realizing he hadn’t touched him since he was a boy. He studied his father’s face, waiting to be mocked, but instead was given the smallest hint of a smile on his father’s lips, and for once the smile was not wry.

“I’ve just convinced Hermes to take your duties for two hours, so you can visit your red-haired girl in the flesh, as a reward for her accomplishment. You can clarify the fourth challenge to her then.”

Than found Therese curled up in bed, her wavy red hair a dark gold crown across her pillow, shimmering and dancing as the sobs shook her and her dog, who sat up a moment later, wagging his tail. Therese looked at Clifford, perplexed, and then turned to Than with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

“Am I dreaming?” she asked in the scratchy voice of someone with a cold.

He shook his head, his feet heavy because he, too, could hardly believe they were together. They both gazed at each other for a moment, incredulous. Then she climbed from the covers, wearing her “Durango Demons” t-shirt and very short shorts, and folded herself into him, slinking against him like a cat, her hair slightly damp and smelling of oranges. She tucked her warm face against his neck, her breath tickling his skin. His arms closed around her as her body went limp.