"My father, King Aegeus, was the unhappy man to whom the task fell of selecting the seven sacrificial victims when the boat with the black sail departed each nine years for Crete. He was hated by the people for this, especially so since he was the one man whose own children were exempt from the deadly lottery. Anxious to prove myself in battle and test my courage, and to silence those who accused my unhappy father of being unjust, I volunteered to go, thereby sparing at least one family the agony of seeing a child depart on the ship with the black sail never to return."
"Yet you believed that you would return," said Jason. "You knew that right was on your side and therefore you would prevail."
"Well, that may be so," Theseus said, "but I have always put my faith in the strength of my own sword arm than in the power of right. I believed that since the Minotaur was a creature born of flesh, then it could be killed as any other creature born of flesh. And I believed also, as I continue to believe, that life without a challenge is a kind of death. I told my father that I would do my utmost to destroy this Minotaur, for if the Minotaur were killed, then the tribute would be ended. And I told my father that the same ship on which I sailed for Crete would return with a white sail hoisted to tell of my victory, or the black sail to tell of my failure and my death.
"Now King Minos had no love for the fearsome creature in his labyrinth. He could not order it killed himself, but if a stranger to whom the bull was not a sacred animal were to kill it, neither Minos nor any of his subjects would have profaned against their faith. For this reason, Minos allowed the young men who went into the maze to carry whatever weapons they desired. Still, he was confident that no one would succeed, for none who entered the labyrinth ever came out again into the light of day.
"King Minos had a beautiful daughter whose name was Ariadne and when she saw me, Ariadne fell in love with me." Theseus tipped back a wine skin and squeezed out a purple stream which struck his chin before it found its way into his mouth. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand, smacked his lips and broke wind profoundly.
"As a youth," he said, "I was not uncomely. Shortly before I was to go into the labyrinth, Ariadne came to me with a spool of thread. She told me to unwind the thread from the spool as I went through the maze, so that when I had killed the Minotaur, I could return the way I came by following the thread. It seemed such a simple thing, I was amazed that no one had thought of it before. Yet I had not thought of it myself, so perhaps it was not so simple.
"When the morning came, the seven of us went into the labyrinth. There was much wailing and weeping among my fellow sacrificial victims, but I told them to keep behind me and to avoid stepping on the thread, lest it should break and doom us all to be forever lost. We wandered for a long time through the maze, going from one passage to another, all the while descending ever deeper until I began to think that Hades itself lay not far ahead. It was cold within the labyrinth and damp. Our torches showed us bats in great numbers hanging from the ceiling. As we passed, they swept down upon us screaming and the maidens screamed as well, as did some of the youths.
"Rats were all around us like a furry carpet, undulating and chittering, crawling up our legs and dropping on our bodies so that we had to beat them off us with every step we took. As we went deeper, we began to pass the bones of those unfortunates who had gone before us and had been devoured by the Minotaur. I saw that many of these bones were splintered, as if struck some powerful blow, and that they had all been gnawed upon by fearsome teeth."
Theseus picked up a pork rib and gnawed at it savagely, then wiped the grease off on his legs.
"Among the bones also lay weapons, swords and spears and shields that had done their bearers not one bit of good. The shields, I saw, were buckled, hammered by strong blows. The swords were blunted and the spears were broken. And before long, in the depths ahead of us, we heard the echoing bellows of the creature, which smelled our scent and roared its hunger. "My thread had run out to the end and now naught but the spool itself remained. I bid the others wait and went on ahead alone, trying to mark the way so that I could find them once again when-and if-I started to return. With my shield on my arm, I held the torch aloft and proceeded slowly, cautiously, not wishing the creature to surprise me, but by now its cries had ceased and there was deathly silence in the maze, broken only by the sounds of water dripping down from overhead."
Theseus stood and stepped forward slowly, acting out the last part of his tale. He had picked up his shield and he now held it close to his body. His hand rested on his sword hilt and he crouched low, as if anticipating combat.
"Suddenly, the passage ended and I was in a cavern, a large central chamber lit by torches set high into the walls. Before me was a heap of bones piled higher than a man, some still with bloody meat upon them, and crouched upon that heap of bones was the most fearsome apparition I had ever seen. It was as tall as Chiron and as powerfully built as Hercules, with arms like tree trunks and a chest big as a keg of wine!
"Blood from its grisly meals was matted on its haunches and upon its shoulders; where a man's head should have been, there was the head of a ravening bull with wild red eyes and great, terrible horns, each longer than my armspan! Foul insects crawled upon it and vermin scurried among the remnants of its victims. It saw me and it stood, towering above me, and I felt its fetid breath. Its bellow was a deafening roar that echoed through the chamber and turned my blood to ice! I quickly unsheathed my sword...."
As he spoke, Theseus suddenly drew his sword out of its sheath with a wide, fast sweeping motion and several of the Argonauts were saved from being decapitated only by ducking their heads at the last moment.
"It charged, bellowing as it came, and I threw my torch at it, hoping to strike its face and blind it so that I could step in and make the killing thrust, but it reached up a massive arm and batted the torch away."
Theseus made a batting motion with his sword and knocked one of the torches out of its sconce. It flew across the room and fell at the feet of Pollux, showering him with sparks. He started batting at his head, fearful that his hair would be set on fire and Castor thoughtfully emptied his wine goblet over his twin brother's head.
"It swung at me!" Theseus shouted, his voice ringing in the cave. "I ducked beneath the blow, slashing at its midsection with my sword-"
A bowl of fruit was struck a devastating blow and it went clanging against the wall, spilling apples, pears and figs in all directions. Delaney caught an apple one-handed and bit into it. As the battle progressed, the roast pig was skewered; a quick cut and thrust separated a loin which Argus grabbed and bit into with gusto. The venison was hacked; a table was overturned.
"Its bellows filled the cavernous chamber as we met, exchanging blows and punishing each other! My shield was battered and dented, my sword blunted on its horns! It bled from a dozen wounds and still it came at me! I raised my sword high over my head- "
And as he raised his sword high over his head, Hercules caught Theseus by the wrist, forestalling further destruction. "And then you k-k-k-k-"
"And then you killed it!" Hylas finished for his master.
"No, I-" Theseus paused as Hercules frowned down at him. "Uh, yes, then I killed it," he said quickly and Hercules released him.
"After that, it was a simple matter of following the thread back to the entrance of the labyrinth and finding a warm welcome in the arms of Ariadne. We boarded the ship which had brought us all to Crete and set sail for home, full of festive spirit. Unfortunately, our spirits were so high that I forgot what I had told my father and I neglected to put up the white sail. Aegeus saw our black sail on the horizon and, thinking I had perished, became so grief-stricken that he threw himself into the sea. Thus, I vanquished the Minotaur and became a king."
"Handy little lapse of memory he had there," Delaney said to Andre.
Idmon shook his head. "Do us all a service, Castor, and do not ask Theseus to tell any more stories of his exploits. We are all guests here and his tales are hard upon th
e housekeeping."
The Argonauts all laughed and Theseus scowled at first, then joined in the laughter.
"I, too, have a tale to tell," said Chiron and they all fell silent as their old teacher spoke. "I dreamt that I was taken by the gods and transported to Olympus, where the Immortals all surrounded me. I stood within a chamber full of light while they asked me many questions and the magical creations of Hephaestus, creatures of living metal, gamboled at my feet. They wished to know of the affairs of mortals. They asked me about you, Jason, and you, Theseus, and you, Hercules. They asked if mortals still believed in gods and I was saddened that they feared our loss of faith. They spoke about a quest of which I knew nothing and they spoke about a crew of heroes who called themselves the Argonauts. Then they returned me to my home here on Mount Pelion without any word of explanation and it was here that I awoke, thinking it was all a dream of portent."
The massive centaur looked down at them from where he stood at the head of the long table, while his youngest pupil, a child named Achilles, ran a comb through the hairs of his long tail.
"There is truth in what Idmon has told us," the centaur said. "The gods pose challenges to us in dreams. Who is to say that this is not a dream in which the gods are speaking to us, moving us about like game pieces on a board for their own purposes? What mortal can discern the thoughts of an Immortal? You are the Argonauts and you are upon a quest, just as the gods spoke of in my dream.