The Beast, The Bull, The Man and The Minotaur

Part One – The Beast

Beneath the beast's large head was there scrawled a litany of dashes, some he’d carved with teeth, some with claws, and others with the sharpened bones of those who had challenged him. The markings did not indicate days, nor lives taken, skulls crushed, fibulas decimated, no – they spoke of a different sum; the weight of a dream. To any other beast, they were lines, but to that monster, they were grass.

The beast had a thought, a stupid, naïve thought – the type only children ought to have; that if he covered the entire stretch of labyrinth, the ground beneath him would turn to grass, the stone above to sky, and the ghoulish maw of monster to the meat of man. Childish as it were, he did have the excuse of it having begun in his youth. Those days when the challengers did not come, back when he had a sister, and a mother – despite how deeply she loathed him.

Sat beside his sister on the coldest of nights, he had been startled with the idea when she’d turned to him and spoke, “Mother let me ride my horse alone today.”

He cocked his head at her and began to sign wildly, “What is that?”

“A horse, Asterion,” she’d said with a giggle, “how could you not know what a horse is?”

He shrugged, shrinking back; embarrassed.

“A horse is an animal, brother, a great, beautiful beast that can run faster than an eagle can fly, with hair softer than the fairest of maidens, and an elegance even the swans envy. You sit atop their back and they carry you through the plains.”

“Am I a horse?” He asked, hopeful.

“No, silly,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re my brother.”

“Animal brother? Beast brother?”

“Brother,” she said sternly, “my brother. One day, mother’s heart will thaw, and you and I will ride horseback through these walls.”

“Beast riding beast?”

She eyed him, too solemn and intelligent for a child, “You are not a beast, Asterion. If anything, the horses will favour you, because you have their eyes and their hooves – perhaps you will run faster even than them? Then maybe I can sit atop your shoulders, and we will not need the horses.”

The beast had thought about what his sister told him, about not needing the horses. His mother was firm in her assertion that he would never be free, and even his sister, well-meaning as she was, could not imagine a world in which he existed beyond these walls. No, there would be no plains for the half-bull, half-human amalgamation, no horses, no eagles, no beasts beside himself. Still, if these walls could be the plains, and his back could be the horse, perhaps his sister would keep coming. Perhaps the whispers of his getting too dangerous, too unpredictable, perhaps these would fade with the changing times, and maybe his sister would spend her days here with him, not out with the other creatures.

“You’re part man, are you not?” she asked him that night, “Mankind is unstoppable. Have you not heard of Icarus? If a man wants to fly, there exists not an anchor in the world that will keep him tethered.”

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“The beast is near, stay close,” said brother to sister.

The monster woke at the words, ears perking up. It had been an age since he had last smelt the musk of humankind, and despite having come to loathe them, even he could not fault them in their taste.

He crouched low to the ground, meandering through the walls closest to the centre of the labyrinth. The girl, he was sure, could be no older than seventeen, and thus only just his superior in terms of age, but the boy was a young man, a big man; the monster watched his shadow trail about behind his bulking frame.

“Come closer,” he thought with sickening glee, “how I’ve grown tired of licking sweat from these walls, I’ll have to pace myself – perhaps I’ll let the oaf run around a while longer; that’ll keep him fresh.”

The boy halted suddenly, as if sensing the devilish fate that lay before him, and the monster ashamed himself by flinching. Stupid, human inhuman – fear ought to be behind him by now.

“He’s behind this wall,” the boy whispered, blissfully unaware of how little his quietness aided him. The monster paused, straightened his back, and dropped low to the beaten ground.

He did not like the challengers to see him; stupid, ugly, worthless him. He could rip a man's head clean from his shoulders, hoist him from the ground with one mangled claw, split him in two with his teeth, but he could not break free from their laughter, their mockery. Sounds were scarce amid his tomb, but laughter echoed for decades, persisting even after their innards rotted to dust and their bones went brittle. He knew not why they came as they did, every decade – as sure as solitude, he knew only that they always did. Fourteen, he was sure, fourteen scraps of meat set loose in his labyrinth, hungry for a blood he often wished they’d spill.

Horror bathed the girl's face in black as his shadow dwarfed her. Disgust and loathing pulling taut the gaping terror of her expression. With one hand, he took hold of her neck, steadying her shoulder with the other, and then he twisted sharply, suddenly, twisted true and twisted right. The girl went limp against his palm.

Later, feasting on the few he’d stumbled upon, he would think of the girl and her horror. What had she expected, that a gaggle of uncoordinated youths could best him? He knew they told stories of his might, the human ones, but they must severely downplay his competence, underscore his capacity for pure monstrous strength. The girl hadn’t just been scared, she’d been angry. Angry? Humankind, he thought bitterly; oxymoron. They came for him, for his blood, and that is precisely why they would not get it.

The beast was pulled from his thoughts by a shadow encroaching upon his fireplace. The brother stood before him, shoulders shaking, eyes awash with tears. For a moment, they regarded one another, each trying to figure out who between them was predator, and who was prey. Then the boy knelt, ran his hands along the stone floor and swayed forward to press his face to its unforgiving solidity. There he stayed for a while, and then he rose, swayed on his feet, shook his head and said the words, “Why the ceiling? Why forbid us of a death beneath the stars?” before he drew forth his sword, positioned it beneath his belly, and sank forward atop its blade as though falling into bed.

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Part Two – The Bull

The beast drew a claw along the stone, and then another, and another still. It was important to him that he do it deliberately. Before him lay nothing but time and stretches of unmarred floor, and he did not wish to taint the project by bullishly fighting through it. Grass, he imagined, was a most beautiful carpet, and every single not-blade deserved his utmost respect. He refused to scratch about fanatically, all five claws eking along the floor of his labyrinth, not when it was the only thing to do within its walls, the only whisper of beauty about the stone.

He had just reached his self-decided quarter-way point when a sound drew him from busied stupor.

Hooves.

The monster rose, back pressed firm to the walls behind him as he peered around corners and listened intently. The challengers were not due for another year, and even still, they never brought beasts with them. They came alone, often unarmed – though the scars littering his back were a testament to the fact that he could not rely on this – and always on foot.

Still, as sure as the oppressive dark, those were hooves.

Had Minos sent another bull? Was he too old now, too soft, was he being replaced? No, no, that couldn’t be. If anything, perhaps it was a goat, something to bide him over until the next group of challengers arrived. After all, he hadn’t taken his fill last time, having grown nauseous after only the second warrior was all chewed up for reasons he could not understand.

The hoof steps drew closer, and the beast curled into himself. That was it; this thing was sent to kill him for refusing his food. He’d killed the youths, hadn’t he? What did it matter if he had not the appetite to eat them?

He should have worked quicker, he should have stuffed every inch of rotting human down his gullet, he should have pressed his hideous face to the fire and let it cleanse him of this foul visage. The beast wrapped his arms about his frame and shook, thinking back on what the boy said, about how nice it would be to die outside. If only he’d been allowed to feel grass even if it poisoned him, to touch the waves even if it meant being engulfed. What an honour, to die out there where every other creature was allowed to live.

It was as he grieved the death he had not been allowed, and a death he had not the power to allow others, that the steps came to a staggered halt before him, and as he raised his head to look upon death as his challengers had looked upon him, he was startled by the truth that lay in its place.

This was no monster, no vile creation. No, this creature was… beautiful. In place of the beasts jagged jaw were sloping lines, smooth skin, ears that stood straight up and black fur that collected upon her head and trailed down the taut skin of her rigid back. She had arms like he, and the hands of man, with crooked, bent, buckled fingers and long mottled claws. Her skin was a wispy grey, and her shoulders were popped at a strange angle that seemed almost deliberate in its tender posturing. It was as if she were dancing, or posing, or built from marble.

It was then that he was struck with an understanding, so sure and steadfast that it was as though a God had whispered it right into his ear: horse.

Truly, it made sense. He knew not where his labyrinth sat, but his sister had reached it on horseback, and so beyond these walls must be plains where creatures such as she roamed. Was it sincerely beyond the realm of possibility that a mindless animal might mistakenly find their way through the door?

The horse reared suddenly, stumbling backwards as she held tight to the walls. He reached to steady her with one fiendish hand, and he watched as she searched his form, her eyes catching on his horns, his hooves, his black hair and bright, white eyes.

“Bull,” he managed to force out, knowing not whether she spoke the language of palms, “man-bull.”

She nodded, then shook her head, then bared her teeth, and then disappeared into the labyrinth.

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Part Three – The Man

“Fili, tell me what it’s like to run?” He asked of her during a lapse in conversation. She was scratching the floor beside him, boredly working on her own patch of land.

The horse shrugged, eyed him with almost human disdain. She, he had learned, was receptive to no amount of charm, and yet the simple agitation she displayed warmed his heart in a way he could not yet understand. It was not his appearance that riled her, although it surely should have been, but rather his incessant desire to converse.

“Do not call me that. Besides, it is walking,” she signed casually, “but fast. I have seen you run. Foolish question.”

He shifted closer to her, and she kicked him slightly with her hoof. It ought to annoy him, but he couldn’t seem to grow tired of her. It wasn’t surprising, really, after lifetimes of solitude and confinement, a cruel and unfeeling friend was better than no friend at all. Her incessant cantering masked the laughter bounding about within the walls.

“To run on plains, without walls? What is that like?”

The horse smiled, her long maw drew back, a twinkle in her eyes, “like walking, but faster, but on a softer surface.” He huffed at this, swatting at her leg, and she suddenly, blissfully, laughed. He found that the sound must have grown on him, “your dream is to run on plains, hmm? Well, mine is to race you, how’s that? If we – when we get out of here, we’ll sprint until we collapse from the exhaustion of it, and then we can lay beside one another on the grass and you won’t need to ask what it is like to run without walls, Asterion, for you will have soared above them.”

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They got him in the belly. His fault, he supposed, for fleeing the fight.

Weaving through the stairwells of solitude, he traced each stretch by the familiar scratch against the underside of his foot. Left, then right, then left again and on and on through night and day, through bloodshed and bleary delusions. On they went, Fili tending to his wounds and Asterion scratch, scratch, scratching his way along the floors until finally, blissfully, the markings tapered off and the floor beneath him grew smooth.

Wordlessly, the pair sank to their knees, slowly and meticulously carving blades of grass into the harsh grey stone, gaining only inches at a time, wiling away the weeks, dedicated to this laborious task. He would not see the stars, but by the Gods, he would see this dream finished.

Icarus taking flight, sun sweeping his beaten brow, the beast chipped away, the bull drove his horns to the stone, and the man drew sword across its edges until after lifetimes of working, the final blade was drawn.

Fili said nothing, still on her hands and knees beside him, but as he turned to look at her, he noticed – for the first time, a door standing before him.

Cautiously, and without hope or agenda, he reached for it.

The world, at once, was bathed in light.

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Part Four – The Minotaur

The beast gazed out at the open plains, an ocean of newness that made him choke. Blue, that he recognised – blue like a whisper, blue like sleep, blue – the home of the birds, the flying creatures, blue awash with the soft fire, blue diluted with the angry steaming one, like blood but sweeter. Blue, blue and Gods – green.

Green he knew, green he had thus far caught glimpses of only in the eyes of his born-sister. Green, green, that was the colour of grass and leaves. How funny that green should be the colour of the floor, it was almost too lovely to tread on, and softer than he’d ever dared to dream.

Something boyish roared within his heart, and he wondered for a moment whether he might have died and been reborn.

Suddenly, the pain in his side was not so searing, and he realised – with a start – that the wound had begun to scab over. So encompassed had he been in his floor flicking ventures, that he had paid the healing no mind.

It was that thought that brought tears to his eyes. Never had he dared to dream of a life in the sun, only the vague hope of being allowed to die beneath it, and yet here he was and oh heaven, didn’t the air taste so sweet, weren’t the sounds so beautiful. Oh heavens, the calf screeched, oh heavens, oh Gods above, oh soft-fire and green floor and healing, healing, healing.

Fili was tugging at his arm, and he turned, only to instantly find what she was looking at.

Bulls, bulls and… another animal? Like her but with the body of a large hound. Elegant, galloping.

Oh, he thought, the truth hitting him square in his monstrous chest, real this time, correct where it had once been mistaken: horses.

Fili watched them run, and then turned to him, her green eyes sad and longing as she slowly, shakily signed, “I am sorry, Asterion, but to be called a horse, oh gods, I am a monster-”

Fili’s mane was blowing in the gentle breeze, and in the light of the soft fire, she reminded him so of his sister; strong and able and tied to him not through appearance, nor similarity, but blood. Whatever tainted sickness runs through me, so too does it beat within her, and my born sister, and my mother, and the bulls lapping at the stream and the horses grazing on the green and Icarus – fallen boy, death by hubris. Still, who could help but look out at this sky and want nothing but to touch it? Who could help but look to the ceiling and dream of stars? Am I not part man, he thought within his chest, am I not too a descendant of the dreamers and the builders and the inventors? Am I not a member of that foolish species that believes they can fly if only they dream of wings?

“Friend,” he signed, pressing his hand against his chest as his sister had pressed her palm to him, “my friend.”

Not all floors, he thought, were stone.

Not all wounds, it seemed, were fatal.

He staggered forward, hand still clasping Fili’s, and as they looked into one another's eyes, understanding dawned; there was now but one thing to be done.

The pair set off sprinting down the hill.