Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl (ereader with android txt) 📗

downstairs. I was trying to avoid thinking about a more pressing concern—how I was to obtain possession of the key. For, somehow, it had been agreed on between us that I would do this thing for Ariadne.

One thing I had determined without pausing for consideration was that if I obtained possession of the key and if Ariadne managed to arrange a means of escape from Kefti, I would insist on personally seeing Theseus conducted out of the Labyrinth. I did not know whether or not I could trust my sister with Asterius’s life; I knew I could nor trust Theseus.

I wished more than anything to be able to put the matter away from me, to forget it for a little while at least. But I knew that when Ariadne had determined something she was like a dog on a rat. I would not be released until either one of two things occurred: she held the key in her hand, or Theseus was dead.

I considered the problem. Where might Daedalus have hidden the key? What if he kept it on his person? But no, I did not think he would go so far. He would not expect that anyone would wish to free Theseus other than the Athenian slaves, and they had not the freedom to wander about the maze searching for him.

He would keep the key somewhere concealed but close by, where he might lay his hand upon it quickly when so directed by the queen. I did not think that the place of concealment would be in their bedroom, where he spent so little time. Rather, it would be in the big, untidy room where he and Icarus labored every day.

I was glad to feel freed of the necessity of searching the bedroom. At the thought of being discovered there, handling his and Icarus’s private possessions, a wave of humiliation dyed my cheeks red. It would be bad enough looking through the workshop.

I hastened there, however, wishing to complete a task so distasteful as quickly as possible. To my relief no one was there. The fire was out, and no signs of ongoing activity warned of their imminent return. Daedalus and Icarus were perhaps looking over the site where a new fountain was to be erected in the western courtyard. I uttered a swift prayer of thanksgiving to the Goddess and began my search.

As usual, the room looked as though it had been ransacked. Heaps of objects were scattered all over the floor, the long table, and one of the windowsills. Prepared paints, discarded brushes, knives, and carving tools. Lengths of wood, broken shards of pottery, odd scraps of cloth. Metal fasteners, three saws of varying sizes, a pair of tongs, a long-handled razor, and six tweezers laid out in order of length. A pile of animal hides, stiffened with age. The remains of three meals, furred over with mold. Several pottery mugs with the dregs of old wine lingering in the bottoms. Stacks of clay tablets with diagrams hastily sketched on their leathery surfaces. A bowl containing olive pits, a metal toothpick, and a large seal stone depicting a lion with his paw on a dove.

After I had made one complete circuit of the room, carefully picking up and replacing each item I encountered, I sank down onto a mound of overstuffed sacks on the floor, discouraged. How anyone could find anything in this chaos I could not imagine. Nor did it seem possible that objects of great beauty rose out of this trash pit on a regular basis.

Truth to tell, I did not even know precisely what I was searching for. Locks and keys are rare; secrecy is thought to give greater security than a mere mechanical device for protecting items of value. I had therefore only the haziest idea of what a key might look like. It ought to be small, I thought, smaller than my hand, and made of wood or metal.

I began to pick through the pile of clay tablets for want of anything better to do. I did not believe that I would find the key under them, but if anyone came in this would seem a reasonable, though prying and officious, activity for me to be engaged in. Besides, it gave me a chance to think.

Most of the tablets were boring—engineering calculations and architectural designs—but some were rather amusing, and I became distracted from the question of where the key might be hidden. I recognized several as being executed by Icarus, who had marked them with a tiny sketch of a falcon in the lower corner. I pored over these for some time, tracing with my finger the lines scratched in clay, which represented a hunting cat bent over a pool of fish—a design for a jewelry box, perhaps.

Something inside the sack on which I sat was pricking my bottom—several somethings, in fact. Upon investigation I found that the sack, as well as the three sacks underneath that, contained large quantities of feathers. Feathers?

I shifted the pile of tablets again, looking for a particular one. Yes, here it was, a man with wings. He was shown in front and back view, and to the side was drawn a framework partially covered with layers of overlapping feathers.

I stared incredulously from the tablet to the sacks and sacks of pigeon feathers. My eye traveled farther and found leaning against the wall a wooden frame exactly like the one in the picture, except that it had no feathers on it. Had Daedalus gone mad?

“I see you have discovered my hiding place, Princess,” said a voice close to my ear.

I shrieked.

Daedalus stood before me, his head cocked to one side.

“W-what?” I stammered. “Hiding place?”

He said nothing, just stood looking at me. I looked down and found that my investigation of the feather sacks had uncovered a dark, wedge-shaped crack in the floor. One of the stones that made up the floor had been removed and then improperly replaced before being covered up with feather sacks. Stooping