The Minotaur's Lament

Asterion stood in a clearing. In the place he assumed to be the middle of the great Labyrinth, though of course there was no way he could be sure. Daedalus had built the Labyrinth to be infinite— a shifting mass of walls and rooms which knew no end. Procedurally generated so that no so-called “sacrifice” ever found their way back to the beginning. Only further, and deeper in. Into this room.

Don’t forget: you’re here forever.

Asterion knew the room itself likely shifted and moved to different locations in the maze to achieve this task. Different positions, relative to the outside world, that is. But in the Labyrinth, the outside world doesn’t matter anymore. Once you’re in the Labyrinth, the Labyrinth is the world, and Asterion, cloaked in blood-soaked leather skin, is Death, the only thing that can remove you from this world. This room might not even be the room, the same one he remembered. The room itself might construct and deconstruct as he wandered these halls.

The room.

The room he had found his first night here, sobbing and bellowing and begging the gods to be kind. When he had been pressed into service of the king— his adopted father— as the punishment for treachery. Others’ treachery, whatever the king dreamt up. His treachery— Asterion’s— a false accusation, woven into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He was told that he had eaten human flesh. Of course, he hadn’t, but his punishment would fix that. He would wander the maze, and his only source of food would be the “sacrifices” the king sent into the Labyrinth to be devoured. And so, he had held off as long as he could, until starving and desperate and mad, he had succumbed. Thus, his crime was committed. Thus, his punishment was just. The king’s lie was made truth. The false accusation was only false until it wasn’t.

Asterion remembered well that day. The first day he’d tasted human flesh. Because he’d learned a lot about humans that day. He’d learned how easily their bones snapped in his grip. How easily their self-assured bravado melts into animalesque panic when you take their spears from them, and throw said weapons over the Labyrinth walls, off into some inaccessible corner of the shifting complex. How they taste— somewhat like pork, though a bit gamey. Not really that meaty either, when you consider their overall size. A lot of body weight wasted on bone and organs. Though the memory of that taste had made him wretch that first week, now, some eternity later, he could muse about it idly. Imagining how much better it might taste with a side of vegetables. Or on bread. Or with a few spices. Or gods forbid, if he could just have it cooked once in a while. He hadn’t much cared for rare meat as a child, and his current situation certainly hadn’t improved his impressions of it. But more than anything, what he’d learned about humans, was the duality of man. The way the thinking, reasoning human became a blubbering, squirming primate when faced with fear, or pain. When faced with death, or the mere threat of it. An observation which he found particularly interesting, because he had learned something about himself that day, too.

He had learned that he had a similar… peculiarity. A similar duality. He learned that day, that somewhere deep inside him, locked away in the labyrinth of his soul, there was another creature waiting. Something base, and primal, and feral. Something which, when he got too hungry, or too angry, or too scared, found its way out. A raging bull, all adrenaline and testosterone, fire and hate. A hungry, thirsty, angry, savage beast, which would take over him, relegating him to the back of the chariot to watch as it steered his bovine body. Something which delighted in the howls of pain and squeals of fear issued by its punishers. Something which painted the walls red with their entrails. Something which delighted in the feast they provided.

The men brought to the maze, when they first entered, were as wolves. They prowled the Labyrinth, eager for the kill, as though they would be the ones to finally slay the monster. All the others had failed, but they, they would succeed. They worked their way towards the center, towards his room. This room that he considered his sanctuary; his respite from the sins he was forced to commit in the rest of the maze. In the rest of the world, as far as he was concerned. They prowled like a pack of wolves, giving chase to a rabbit. But, when they found him, when the sacrifices and Asterion both came face to face with their doom in the other, something peculiar happened. The wolves became rabbits, terrified and twitching, driven before the pack. And the rabbit they had been hunting became a wolf, snarling and vicious and tracking them down one by one by their scent, even as the Labyrinth eagerly brought the sacrifices to him.

When faced with death, the hunters became food. And Asterion…

Asterion became the Minotaur.

The men sent into the maze would find a mild-mannered half-man, half-bull creature, which would regard them sadly, because it knew what would come next.

The men would raise their weapons.

And the raging bull would charge them.

If, just once, the men tried to speak to him… Tried to reason, or tried to understand what they were seeing, they would find a very different creature. They would find that the famed monster of the Labyrinth loved poetry, and had even written his own. That he played the lyre, though not as well as a professional could, of course. That he had studied philosophy. That he could read, and write, and even do math. That the creature they feared would gore them to death would much sooner bore them to death as he discussed the nature of man, or love, or law, or power.

But, of course, they never did.

And when the thing inside of him saw those weapons, glinting in the light, it made its presence known.

He had tried to resist it, the first few times. Tried to keep it swallowed down as long as possible, tried to beg and plead and reason with his punishers.

He didn’t bother anymore.

He glanced over towards the lyre he kept in this clearing. He had brought with him two things— one representing each of his parents. The lyre had been his mother’s. She was the one who had taught him to play. And though it had been nearly her full height, he found that it rested easily on his knee.

He’d hit a bit of a growth spurt during puberty.

He strummed a few notes cautiously, soaking in their solemn beauty. He couldn’t remember the old songs he’d been taught, and he was nothing of a composer. So he would just sit, and strum, little individual notes which sometimes found strange intervals and imperfect harmonies and beautiful chords and melodies that composers dared not dream of, lest their disregard for the proper sound of music anger the gods. He strummed, for how long, he didn’t know. He had a way of losing himself when he played, almost like when the raging bull inside of him took over. But when the bull took over, he lost himself because he wasn’t himself. When he played his lyre, he lost himself because he was fully himself. Time had no meaning in the Labyrinth anyway. Just as the only place in the Labyrinth was here, the only time in the Labyrinth was now. Nothing from the outside permeated these walls in a way that allowed him to tell the time, and he never needed to or cared to.

What would he be late for?

The only passage of time that he still felt was that the moments with the lyre were too short, and the moments hunting the sacrifices stretched on into infinity. So it was this time as well. He could hear the machinery of the labyrinth whirring and shuddering and clanking within the walls. And that could only mean one thing— New sacrifices. The labyrinth was already shifting and turning, guiding the latest batch to their doom. To him.

He sighed and put the lyre down. He looked over at the other thing he owned.

A large, two-sided battle axe. A human warrior would have been lucky to lift the thing with both arms, but he rarely found the need to wield it with more than one or the other. This had been the item his father had given him for his eternal stay here. A backhanded “gift” to be used as Asterion carried out the task which his adopted father had planned for him. He lifted the axe and examined the blade. On one side, the image of a brazen bull, issuing fire and smoke, and on the other, a snow-white bull. This was the other insult the mad king of Crete had left him with. Get it? The axe was from his adopted father, emblazoned with the image of his real father. So that he could never forget. So that he would always know.

He had never been wanted.

He had never been his father’s child.

He was merely livestock, being raised until it was time to become a beast of burden.

He felt his hatred for his father rise up inside him. His hatred for his family, for humans. His hatred for the gods themselves. He fed it like bellows feeding a furnace, and he could feel the fire rising in his chest. Could feel flames licking at the corners of his vision, at the corners of his mind. He had gotten so used to this, to winding himself up like this, that the brazen bull inside him was already stirring by the time he lifted the axe, hefting it over his shoulder. This feeling, the cold handle in his hand, the weight of the blade on his shoulder, was so familiar. So reminiscent of every other time.

The beast inside him felt it too, and knew.

Knew that it was time to take over.

Knew that it was time to hunt them down.

Knew that it was dinner time.

And so the Minotaur of Crete hissed a growling, sinister laugh under his breath, and walked into the Labyrinth, leaving the peace of his sanctuary behind.