The Maze - the Lost Labyrinth (9 page)

The man I saw in that eye was a man I had seen on and off for the past year and never thought much about. Only this time he wasn’t wearing an angel mask.

“Darrell Gene Rankin?”

I was both enraged and mystified. I had never said much to my neighbor across the street other than a passing ‘Hello’ or a ‘How’s it goin’?’” I had certainly never done anything to warrant the systematic targeting of my family for destruction.

“I don’t understand.”

“Watch,” the creature said. “You will.”

Like a movie advancing frames, the scene shifted to show Darrell Gene sitting alone in his living room, staring out the picture window, watching my family. We were happy. He obviously wasn’t.

The next sequence showed Darrell Gene surreptitiously stuffing a folded note into our mailbox. Abruptly, I saw Darrell Gene with a cellphone camera, watching me through a set of binoculars, then back in his house listening to demons who were speaking to him through his electronic devices.

“Is this for real?”

“Your true enemy can be very subtle in his manipulations, but he can also be very overt. The serpent‘s temptations are diverse and varied.”

“None of this makes sense. You’re a creature from mythology and you’re talking about Christian principles. What does a character from a Greek fairy tale know about the serpent?”

“What you see is a representation. Nothing more. I could put on a different face if you’d like. Maybe I‘d be more effective if I masqueraded as Kali, the Hindu god of death.”

In a flash, the minotaur transformed itself into a haunting tanned figure with six arms, all of which held sabers that could cut me down just as effectively as the scythes in the Hall of Barabbas.

I shook my head. “No. That‘s not necessary.”

“Osiris then?” The minotaur changed himself from a six-armed god of death to one resembling an Egyptian pharaoh.

“I don’t care what you look like. Death is death regardless of the form. I could die just as easily from anthrax as I could a couple of rounds from a Smith and Wesson.”

Suddenly the bull-creature stood before me again. “As you wish.”

“What should I call you?”

“I’ve gone by many names. Asterion is the one that best fits this masquerade. Of course if this appearance stops being effective, I’ll change faces until I find the one that makes you quake.”

“I‘m not sure I could ever get used to something like you, but the way you look isn’t important. Right now I want answers more than anything. You still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with my family?”

“Do you love your wife and son?”

“Of course I do! More now than before.”

“Do you think your wife feels the same way about you?”

I was taken aback by the question. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how Amy felt about me anymore.

The minotaur’s eye shifted away from Darrell Gene Rankin and focused on Amy. She knelt at the foot of her mother’s bed, rocking back and forth on her knees and sobbing profusely. She was praying. Had I been there, I would have wrapped my arms around her and told her that everything was going to be all right. Of course, it’s difficult to be a source of solace to your wife when you’re also the source of her pain.

I thought back to the mirror image of Barabbas then fast-forwarded to this most recent image of Amy crying her eyes out. Suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to see myself as a cold, heartless murderer. I hadn’t physically harmed my wife, but I had effectively killed her spirit with my actions.

In the blink of an eye the minotaur held my heart in his hand instead of his own extracted eyeball. He made a fist and squeezed until tears streamed down my cheeks. My chest felt like it might explode at any moment. I gasped for breath as I shared Amy‘s heartbreak.

“That’s because of me.” My lower lip quivered. Then I thought about what I’d said and realized I was wrong. My voice became steel. “No, that’s not because of me. Darrell Gene manipulated things to hurt her. He made it look like I was cheating. He drove that wedge between us.”

“And he kidnapped you and drove your car to Karen’s apartment?” The minotaur had a small amount of mirth in his voice. “Isn’t that correct?”

That hurt. Badly. But it was true. “No,” I admitted. “I did that on my own.”

The minotaur nodded, satisfied. “You know the score now. You know who one of your enemies is, but there are others who aren‘t confined to prisons of flesh and bone. Your family is in jeopardy now. That much should be apparent. The task I have for you may affect this.”

“A fight to the death.”

The minotaur nodded again. “The stakes are these. You will fight an opponent of my choosing. Your canine friend may help you. If you win, someone on the side of light will pay a visit to Darrell Gene Rankin and implore him to consider his actions. That will buy you some time.”

“And if I lose?”

“If you lose, Darrell Gene will deliver this to your wife.”

The minotaur’s outstretched hand no longer held my wounded heart or an all-seeing eyeball. Instead, it held a picture of me standing outside Karen’s apartment.

“You-you can’t do this! This picture is misleading!”

“The decision isn‘t mine to make,” the minotaur said. “That’s the way this place works. I’m lord here. And it’s my duty to make sure the rules of the maze are upheld.”

“It’s not fair!”

“Don’t forget that you are the one who opened the door to this place.”

I gritted my teeth. “Show me who I have to fight.”

“As you wish. Follow me.”

Chapter 14

With trepidation, I followed Asterion down the long hallway. Midnight padded along behind me, keeping a safe distance from the minotaur.

Asterion seemed to know exactly where we were going and how to get there. I didn’t bother trying to keep up with each twist and turn. I was already confused enough as it was. Thankfully it was only a short while before we’d reached a wrought iron gate interlaced with ivy.

“Have you learned to navigate the walls yet?” Asterion asked me.

I shook my head. “I’ve played around with the symbols a bit, but obviously I haven’t found the escape.”

“Watch and learn.” He located three glowing numbers. “Sixty-six. Three. Twenty.”

Abruptly, the wrought iron gate swung open on well-oiled hinges.

“I don’t understand.”

“The sixty-sixth book in the Bible is Revelation. The third chapter and twentieth verse says, 'Behold I stand at the door and knock.'”

“So these numbers represent passages in the Bible?”

“Among other things.” Asterion didn’t bother to elaborate. Midnight and I followed the creature through the door. It felt like we were deliberately walking into a trap, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The amphitheater spread out before us looked like a bowl that had been carved out of the earth. Rows of benches circled the arena, but no one was there to sit on them. A throne of bones sat higher than anything else and looked out over the battlefield. I assumed this was where Asterion was going to sit. I imagined Nero playing his fiddle on a throne like that as he watched Christians being fed to the lions.

“This is where you will fight---and possibly die.”

I shot Asterion a look. “You really know how to fill a guy with hope.”

“Hope is not my sole purpose.” Asterion uncovered a stone table filled with weapons. “Choose carefully.”

The table was filled with swords, knives, archery supplies, axes, spiked clubs, maces, morning stars, whips, and lengths of rusty chain. No warrior would have trouble trying to outfit himself for battle. Unfortunately, I was no warrior.

In addition to the standard array of weapons, there were also several items that didn’t seem dangerous no matter how they were used: a bouquet of roses, a vial of a clear liquid that might have been water, a wooden flute, a plate of small pastries, a pocket watch, and a notebook. Given the popularity of Biblical allusion in the maze, I nearly asked the beast where the sling and five smooth stones were. Somehow, I didn’t think Asterion had a sense of humor.

“Any hints on which one to choose? Maybe I should eat the pastries first for strength. Wash it down with that vial of water. Play a little tune on the recorder. Consult the pocket watch for the number of minutes I have left to live. And write a goodbye letter to my wife and son in the notebook.”

“You forgot about the roses,” Asterion said dryly. “Those would be for your grave.”

“Or I could give them to you in appreciation of your overbearing menace and your out-of-this-world personality.”

“This is not a laughing matter!”

“If I’m going to die anyway, I might as well laugh. Besides, I’m just trying to decide what weapon to pick.”

The minotaur shrugged. “You, better than anyone else, know what your strengths are. However, I‘m certain that knocking on the doors of old girlfriends is not a skill that will come in handy down here in the fighting pit.”

“Touché.” Apparently the minotaur did have a sense of humor. I was really starting to dislike him. Midnight barked and let it trail off into a growl. It was clear he didn’t like Asterion either.

I picked a sword up off of the table and was surprised by how heavy it was. The war hammer was the same way. Neither of those seemed very suitable for fighting. I left the bullwhip and cat o’ nine tails alone too. I’d owned a bullwhip as a boy and had never been able to wield it without accidentally lashing myself in the face or on the backside. The mace was a very short-range weapon, which ruled it out: I didn’t want to get any closer to my opponent than absolutely necessary. I was already going to be at a serious disadvantage because I wasn’t a fighter.

I just didn’t know what to choose.

“Can I at least see my opponent first?”

I didn’t really expect him to agree, but the minotaur nodded. He touched a few more numerals on the glowing walls and caused another door to open. He walked through the entrance calmly and emerged, struggling to haul something into the arena that seemed to be his equal in strength. The chain separating the two was pulled tight, and the cacophony coming from the darkened doorway sounded like a tub full of angry babies. Puzzled, I looked at Midnight and wasn’t surprised to see the dog look back at me with bewilderment in his eyes.

Midnight’s bewilderment quickly changed to anger. He barked at whatever was on the other end of that chain, and much to my surprise, something barked back.

“Your opponent.” Asterion dragged the beast into the light.

At first I wasn’t sure I was seeing clearly. The dog was bigger than any dog had a right to be, but it wasn’t the creature’s size that gave me reason for pause. The dog had three heads, each of which seemed angry and ferocious and eager to rip me to little bloody pieces.

“Cerberus.” The three-headed dog lunged and strained at the chain- it was all Asterion could do to keep the creature in check. He finally tethered the beast to a stake that had been driven into the ground for just such a purpose. That paltry security measure didn’t fill me with confidence, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine Cerberus ripping that stake out of the ground and reducing me to hamburger. I eyed the weapons on the table a little more carefully, wondering why there wasn’t a machine gun or a grenade launcher among the choices.

Midnight growled at our opponent, sounding harsh and abrasive like an engine running without motor oil. Nothing seemed to scare him, and he was doing his best to get his bluff in. It made me feel better, but only a little. Cerberus barked at us in reply, sounding like an entire pack of rabid dogs.

Midnight tensed beneath my hand, ready to fight. “Not yet,” I grabbed at the scruff of his neck to keep him from rushing at Cerberus in a mad frenzy.

“This dog normally guards the gate to Hades. Today he’s serving a slightly different purpose. ”

“Shouldn’t he be getting back to his post? All of the souls might escape.”

The minotaur didn’t laugh. “I only meant that he’s an expert on death. The Greeks feared him tremendously, as should you.”

“What is it with this place and mythology? If I had known I’d be coming here, I would have read up on my history a little more, maybe even watched a few episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess.”

“There are hints of truth everywhere if only you know where to look. The Greeks and Romans knew this as well as anyone.”

“Good for them,” I said. “That’s why they’ve done so well over the years.”

“Cerberus waits to devour you.”

“I’m sure I’ll give him a stomachache.”

“You may view this creature in one of two ways. At the very least, he is a vicious creature who thirsts for your blood and will not hesitate to rip out your throat at the first opportunity.”

“I think I’ll take what’s behind door number two instead. That first option doesn’t sound too appealing.”

“Cerberus is also a figurehead of sorts. A representation of your life.”

Out of all the things the minotaur could have told me, this was one thing I wasn’t prepared to hear. “Explain yourself.”

“All I will say is this. No man can serve two masters---or in this case three.”

“Thanks, Yoda.”

“That’s all I’m prepared to say.”

I sighed. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to face the flesh-and-blood version of this beast and figure out the rest later. Somehow, I‘m pretty sure that representation over there is ready to eat me for lunch.”

“Choose your weapon,” Asterion urged. “The time is at hand.”

“What should I pick?” I asked Midnight.

“You should understand him better than me.”

The dog looked at me with sympathy and picked the recorder off of the table with his teeth.

“Seriously?” I sighed. “Maybe I’ll bore him to death by playing some old Jethro Tull.”

The dog offered the flute to me again. I had read about Cerberus before and knew why the recorder was significant. In one of the stories from mythology, Cerberus had been put to sleep by the music of a flute. There was no way I was going to try that approach. Number one, I wasn’t a flute player. Number two, I was sure Cerberus would rip me limb from limb before I could even get the instrument to my lips.