The Minotaur

***Prologue***
Everyone had heard of King Minos, the king of Crete, and the terrible misfortune that befell him. It was also known that it was brought on by his refusal to obey Poseidon, god of the sea. Minos had been given a beautiful snow-white bull that had been rumored to be formed from the ocean’s foam. When Poseidon saw the bull’s majestic grace, he commanded Minos to sacrifice the glorious bull in his honor. Minos decided instead that he would keep this prized bull for himself to show his power. As punishment for Minos’ greed, Poseidon caused Minos’ wife, Pasiphae, to lust for the white bull. Pasiphae acted as if she were obsessed and eventually gave in to her desires. She tried numerous ways to get the bull to take her, but the bull rejected the female human body offered to him. Out of desperation, she had Daedalus build a wooden cow that she could climb inside of. This brought about the act Pasiphae so desired and the bull mated with what he thought was a cow. But Poseidon’s revenge was not over yet.
Pasiphae became pregnant from this encounter with what could only be called an abomination, half man-half bull. She gave birth and attempted to raise the child she named Asterion that in appearance had the torso and arms of a man, but the head and legs of a bull. Minos, ashamed by this dishonor, had a stone maze built under the castle. This maze was designed by Daedalus and his son Icarus to contain this demon child they called the Minotaur. They called it the Labyrinth.
Not long after the Labyrinth was built, Minos’ son was killed by the bull who had fathered Asterion. Aegeus, the king of Athens had given him this task and learning this, Minos declared war on Athens. Minos won the war and made the decree that the Athenians would pay homage by sending seven youths and seven virgin maidens to Knossos every year. These men and women were subjected to a cruel punishment. They were placed into the Labyrinth to be chased, raped, and eaten by the monster within.
The Athenians had been sending their children to Knossos for years, and they had finally had enough. Something had to be done to stop the senseless slaughter. This is where our story begins.

***Chapter One***

A long, sleek ship with black sails had departed from Athens and was sailing through the crisp sea water towards the rocky island of Crete. The rowers were sweating as they worked the heavy oars that moved the ship faster across the sea’s surface. This ship had black sails not because it was up to wrongdoing but because it carried within its hold the young Athenians doomed for the Labyrinth. It was a ghost ship inhabited by living people. But there was also another passenger on board. She was going to Crete in an effort to stop Minos’ unreasonable demands. Before too long, there would be no more children to send as tribute and Athens would become a city of age. Athena, the goddess of wisdom herself, had ordered her to go and settle the dispute.
The ambassador sat in a room below the deck and clung to the edge of her bunk with her back pressed against the cabin walls for some feeling of safety. She was terrified by the creaking of the wood as the ship rose up and down on the waves and tipped the room in every direction. Already it had been a week and she didn’t know how much more she could take. She could only hope that the ride would be over as soon as possible with no incidents for the sea had never been a friend to her. The never-ending feud between Poseidon and Athena only made it worse. Poseidon would love to take advantage of her vulnerability on his domain.
She tried not to think about that and focused on the solid bunk beneath her. With her eyes closed she could almost imagine that she was somewhere else. She jumped, startled out of her daydream, when she heard a quick rap at the door. She stood hastily as the cabin door was pushed open and tried to collect herself as best she could as the captain of the ship entered the room.
“Are you feeling any better, Raine?” the captain asked in a concerned voice.
“I’ll feel better once my feet are on dry ground again,” she answered with a small, slightly nauseous smile that disappeared as soon as the ship rocked and caused her to grab at the nearest immovable object.
The captain struggled to hold in his mirth at her predicament. She was a god’s chosen after all and he doubted it would be taken well.
“I have good news for you. Crete is in sight, so we should be docking in as little as an hour.”
Raine turned her head toward the captain and nodded at his statement gratefully. She would be glad to get off the ship even if it meant the start of the most difficult part of her mission.
After checking once more if she needed anything the captain dismissed himself and returned to the deck to supervise his crew as they drew closer to their home port and their cargo’s destination.
In the large store room beside the ambassador’s cabin, the fourteen Athenians sat quietly in their shackles. Their thoughts were occupied with the fate waiting for them because of their bad luck in the draws that chose each year’s sacrifice. All but one, that is. One man, sitting slightly apart from the others thought instead of his mission. He was determined to wipe out the cause of his city’s annual grief. He was determined to slay the Minotaur and bring back his head. Never mind that the city’s patron goddess had sent an ambassador. What could a woman do anyway? All he could trust was his own sword hand and that was why he had begged his father to be smuggled in with this year’s offerings. He was determined that nothing would get in his way.
When the boat finally docked, armored soldiers from Knossos boarded the ship and led the silent Athenians to the palace in chains. Raine watched them be led away and tried not to show her disgust at what Minos was doing. What kind of man killed children for sport? It had gone far past revenge. He was doing it all for the thrill of power it gave him. She was determined to stop it.
Her eyes wandered from the dock up to the massive city that had been strategically built into the cliffs. A sigh escaped her lips and she began her trek to the palace to make her appeal to king Minos and hopefully form a peace treaty. If the treaty failed, she was ordered to secure the end of this abomination in less friendly ways. She hoped her partner would be here before it came to that.

***Meanwhile***

Faith leaned against the back of the large black wolf she was riding on as she urged him to run faster. At a height just a little bigger than a large pony, the wolf was easily able to stretch his bound into a full out sprint. The dense forest foliage was no obstacle for him and he moved towards Artemis’ temple as quickly and easily as a fish could move through water.
Even this wasn’t fast enough for Faith though. She was worried about her best friend. She was supposed to have gone with Raine to Knossos, but Artemis had sent her to settle a minor skirmish at one of the Amazon villages first. It should have been over quickly but the enemy had kept the majority of its troops in the clearing outside of her territory and she had had to wait for them to venture into the woods to pick them off. She hadn’t had enough troops to take them directly out in the fields without a lot of casualties and so had been forced to wait and waste precious time.
Now Raine would be at Knossos by herself and that Faith didn’t like. She didn’t trust Minos to play by the rules after this long of being like a god to the Athenians. He wouldn’t stop just because a woman claiming to speak for Athena showed up and shouted “stop” at him. She wanted to be in Knossos as soon as possible. Something told her that something bad was going to happen. Besides, she needed to apologize for making Raine ride on the ship all by herself.
When the temple was in sight, she rode her large wolf straight through the entrance yelling Artemis’ name. Artemis arrived out of thin air, as all gods tended to do, into the center of her temple in front of the altar piled with today’s offerings.
“Faith, you’re back,” Artemis purred with a smile on her face.
Faith jumped off her wolf and ran into Artemis’ arms for a tight hug before he’d completely slowed down from his gallop. He panted lightly to catch his breath as he watched them exchange a deep kiss and then begin talking.
“Arty,” she began, calling the goddess by her nickname, “You need to get me to Knossos as soon as possible. Your mission took longer than I expected it to.”
Artemis tightened her grip around her lover’s frame and kissed her forehead. She wanted to keep her for herself but she knew she needed to send her. She didn’t want anything to happen to Raine anymore than Faith did. Raine was her favorite and only niece from Athena.
“I was hoping to get some time with you, but Raine will probably need help with her mission,” she sighed.
Knowing she had no choice but to take her beloved to her mission site, she tightened her grip and teleported them both to an unoccupied wooded area outside of Knossos.
“Be careful, Faith,” she pleaded and kissed her deeply first for goodbye and then for luck.
She smiled as she saw the grin and sparkle in Faith’s eyes that the kisses had brought.
“Don’t worry about me, Arty. You know that I’ll be fine.”
With one last hug and goodbye, Artemis disappeared. Faith knew that she was probably back at Mount Olympus moping to Athena about her absence.
Faith looked around until she could see the massive cliffs through the trees that supposedly harbored the fabled city of Knossos. She grimaced as she realized that getting in would be much easier than getting out. She could feel time pressing against her and without a further pause she began jogging in the direction she hoped the main gate was. If she was lucky, she would meet Raine before she made it to the palace but Faith didn’t hold her breath. She didn’t think luck would be on her side too much this time. She had a bad feeling about the whole situation.
Faith’s sense of direction didn’t fail her and she jogged out of the woods directly in front of the main road up to the higher city protected by the walls built into the cliff face. Getting past the guards was easy. Her well kept clothes and groomed appearance led them to believe she was of nobler status than the other riffraff jostling at the gates for entrance. Most of them cried to see the king or some other noble. Faith assumed they had some gripe that they wanted dealt with but that the nobles didn’t want to deal with it and had ordered the guards to let no one through unless they had an invitation. That was how it was everywhere. Things didn’t really change that much no matter what country she went to. She was glad her own Amazon nation was different. She worked hard as queen to make it so.
“I want to see the Minotaur be fed!” screamed a man at the back of the crowd.
The guards didn’t bat an eyelash even when the rest of the crowd took up the cheer. Faith tried to quell the nausea that rose at the bloodthirsty yelling of the crowd behind her and made her way towards the palace doors that were open for spectators. She assumed that all of the people allowed to watch this time were already there and that was why no one else was being allowed through unless they looked high class.
Now that she was in the high city, she started thinking of a way to help Raine. First she needed to know if she was in the palace yet or not. She turned back towards the dock and instantly picked out the Cretan ship that was annually sent to Athens to pick up the luckless sacrifices. The ship was docked and moored securely with the sails tied. From the looks of things, it had been empty for a while. She grimaced as she realized that Raine would have already met with Minos by now. She silently cursed the soldiers who had tried to invade her nation.
She sped up, lengthening her stride until she was nearly jogging in an effort to get to the palace as fast as possible. A young girl about the age of the Athenian sacrifices hurried across her path with a large basket of newly washed laundry. Faith stopped short as an idea popped into her head and she hurried to call out to the girl.
“Excuse me. I wonder if you have a cloak I could buy from you,” Faith asked kindly.
The girl jolted to a halt and nearly tipped over as her basket tried to continue with the momentum. Faith reached out a hand and steadied her before repeating her question.
“Mistress, I don’t know if my father would be happy if I sold one of his cloaks without his permission,” she answered demurely.
“Please, I will give you three times what it is worth so your father will not be angry with you. I really need it,” Faith half-begged, not bothering to try and haggle.
The young girl stared in shock at the generous offer before pulling a long black cloak out of the pile in the basket. Faith rapidly calculated what she thought the price should be based on her offer and what she knew of clothes prices in Athens. Then she pulled out her money pouch and dug out a handful of gold coins and offered them to the girl.
“I’m not really sure what the price is, but this should about cover it,” Faith stated while tipping the coins into the shocked girl’s hand and grabbing the cloak.
“Th-thank you,” the girl stammered, staring at the more than generous sum of gold contained in her palm.
Faith watched in amusement as she bit into each one to make sure they were real. Once she was satisfied she slipped them inside her bodice and shouldered the basket, hurrying into her house and closing the door. Faith chuckled and threw the cloak over her shoulders. People were so paranoid when they got any large sum of money. Money was hard to come by for most of them and she didn’t blame them for wanting to make the most of it. If she was in their situation, she would take precautions to make sure it wasn’t stolen as well.
Hurrying on, she quickly finds her way to the palace entrance and, finding no hindrance from the guards, walked into the expansive marble building. She immediately is faced with a large crowd that is cheering loudly. Without a pause, she slips between the people at the back and begins dodging her way towards the front. The view that greets her when the sea of people is no longer obscuring her vision makes her stop dead. Things were worse than she could have imagined.


Authors Note: Thanks for reading, please review and there is more on the way. I promise that this will get good soon. Plus, I'd like to know your takes. Won't be too long on the next chapter, so keep a look out ^^!

P.S---My g/f and I are editing the chapters and finishing the story up. We'll answer reviews if you leave one. Sorry but we've both been busy. --college is hard and time consuming--