“Lord?” I asked.

  There was a scrape of metal, a glint in the candlelight.

  I raised my head higher and the glint was like the blaze of fire. I blinked as tears welled in my eyes from it.

  A hand reach out as leathery sounds accompanied its movement. The hand touched me on the shoulder. “Take courage, Damon the Athenian. You must see what I’m about to give you. Rise and stand.”

  Despite the fear, I brought my knees up and climbed to my feet. All the while, I kept my eyes downcast. I stood in the dim candlelight.

  I perceived a knife, a blade, a finely tooled weapon resting on a stool at the edge of the candlelight.

  I looked up. I saw the Dark One.

  He indeed was bigger than I was, perhaps half again as tall with much broader shoulders. He wore a headdress—I believe it was a headdress. Oh, Zeus, let it please be a headdress. It was of a great bull with horns. The eyes burned with demonic power.

  I yelped and looked away, trembling with fear.

  “Do not look at me again unless you desire a slow and terrible death. Afterward, I’ll feast upon your entrails.”

  I couldn’t respond. I believed him.

  “Look at the knife.”

  Trembling, looking up, I studied the knife on the stool.

  The metal wasn’t coppery or the color of bronze. It was silvery. I would have looked up and questioned him. Instead, I waited.

  “You gaze upon star metal. It came to Earth as a falling star. A metalsmith found it and brought it to me. Here, I forged it. Some might call it iron, but it is not like the brittle iron of Earth. It has a unique quality. You must plunge the knife into the breast of the acolyte of the strange god. You must kill him. You must rip open his stomach and pull his entrails from it until he suffers and howls in agony. By slaying this one, you’ll avenge the gods.”

  “How’s it possible for me, a mortal man, to slay one so powerful?”

  “Do you dare to question me, Damon the Athenian?”

  I reconsidered, shaking my head.

  “He’s mortal like you, but he’s an acolyte. He has come from the East and brought the ways of his strange god with him. This god calls himself Him Most High. But he is not most high. It is a lie, and I will prove it is a lie by sending you, Damon the Athenian, to kill the acolyte.

  “Listen now, attend me closely. You’ll surely meet him and mustn’t let him beguile you by his ways. You must take the knife of the fallen star and plunge it into his breast. You must rid the Earth of this acolyte lest the power of Him Most High spread in the lands of my brothers. And lest his ways penetrate throughout the world. No, I have decided to put a stop to this. Even as you go and study the land of Canaan as Minos has bidden you, you will see many strange sights. I am now foretelling your future as I’ve studied the Runes of Power. You, out of all the servants of Minos, are the most likely to succeed in this task. You’ve been trained in the arts of war. You’ve been trained in the arts of sly observation.”

  “Does this acolyte have a name, Great One?”

  “You’ll know him when you see him. You’ll surely understand exactly who it is. At that moment, you must strike, never hesitating.”

  I stared at the heavy blade on the stool. I could feel the charge of the Minotaur penetrating my heart. I would slay this fool of a strange god.

  “I lay this doom upon you, Damon the Athenian. If you fail me, you’ll die. There, in the land of Canaan, you will die, never raising boys and girls of your own. It’ll be the end of your bloodline. Do you accept this quest?”

  I trembled as I considered what he was demanding of me. I also felt great pride. I was a good warrior. I was skilled and now I was given a mighty task. What treasures awaited me if I completed this task? Thoughts of that stirred my ambition.

  “I gladly accept.”

  “Then you must swear on your gods, you must swear on your blood and on our head.”

  This I did in fear and trembling.

  “Good,” he said. “Take the knife and put it in its sheath.”

  I took the heavy blade, almost a sword. It was a blade of great worth. I sheathed it and bowed low before the Minotaur, the horned Dark One of the Maze below the palace.

  That was the beginning of my great mission.

  Chapter Two

  Three days later, I left Knossos in a merchant tub with a Captain Asterion, a friend of Minos. He was a rich merchant with several ships to his name, deciding to captain this vessel personally, perhaps at the secret order of the Minotaur. Such was my belief at the time.

  I was soon to learn differently.

  We headed east, and for a day and a night sailed without sight of land, crossing choppy waters. I was used to voyages north where a ship hopped from one island to another. Usually, we beached for the night as the sailors ate their dinner and rested on dry land.

  This time, we sailed across the Great Sea with a fair wind and cloudless skies. At night, the stars blazed and wind slackened. In the morning, the wind picked up and we sped faster. So far, the voyage had proved gloriously uneventful.

  I took out my knife that midmorning, hefting it. Battle dagger was a better name. I polished and oiled it, thinking about the Minotaur’s orders.

  How should I go about finding the acolyte of the strange god? The Minotaur said I’d know him when I saw him. Therefore, he implied I should trust to fate and strike when the moment came.

  That wasn’t my way, however. I was a warrior and trusted to a good plan.

  Like the first day, the second passed uneventfully.

  I had two attendants, younger men of Athens chosen after my time. They were thinner and dark haired like many Athenians, and were skilled with the spear. Their task was to guard me and take care of basic chores, freeing me for the mission.

  I’d called the vessel a tub. It wasn’t large nor was it small. It had a single broad sail, a broad bottom like an older woman and was broad of beam, tubby. No warship, this, but a merchant vessel filled with various goods.

  How Captain Asterion planned to make a profit didn’t concern me. Nor did I particularly worry about which ports he wished to see. He was my ride to the land of Canaan, nothing more.

  That afternoon, Asterion beckoned me to where he stood at the tiller on the poop deck.

  Like many men of Knossos, he was slender, dark haired, with corded forearms and leathery hands from years at the tiller and plying the oar with the men.

  That being said, there were few oars on the merchant tub. We relied on the sail and wind.

  Asterion engaged me in small talk.

  He had a gray beard and shrewd brown eyes. He smiled as he spoke and pointed out seabirds and a school of passing, leaping dolphins. Long ago, he said, they’d been men. Poseidon had changed them into dolphins.

  He called a slave, instructing him, and soon we had a cup of wine together.

  “It will be another night before we reach land,” Asterion said. “Perhaps you’d like another cup of wine to pass the time.”

  “An excellent suggestion,” I said.

  We had several cups and then several more. I’d noticed him watering his wine when he thought I wasn’t looking. That was fine with me, as I spilled some of mine or poured it over the side when he wasn’t looking.

  Was either of us drunk? Did Asterion think my wits would slip after drinking too much wine? He began to ask sharper questions, so the answer appeared yes. He was deliberately trying to get me drunk.

  I’d found on many occasions, as the Sea King’s ear, to use my opponent’s own weapon against him. If he proffered me a slave girl so I’d tell her secrets in bed, I questioned her about her master. If he attempted to get me drunk, as Asterion was doing, I asked drunken questions as if I were a fool, and often learned more than I would have otherwise.

  A man often drops his guard as to what he says when dealing with a drunken lout.

  Thus, in my apparent inebriation with Asterion, I asked a few questions of my own. I learned he was on Minos’s High Council, making him a councilor of the Sea King and thus an important person.

  Asterion’s questions turned to the Maze under the palace and if I possibly knew what it was like down there.

  Why would the Sea King’s councilor ask that? I pondered it as I laughed foolishly, demanding more wine, grabbing the flagon from the slave and pretending to guzzle.

  Could the Sea King be at odds with the Minotaur? I’d never considered that, but did now. Had Minos sent me below against his will? That was intriguing and maybe terrifying—for me.

  I laughed, asking, “You’ve never been down to the Maze?”

  Asterion eyed me, shaking his head.

  “Well. Do you know about the Minotaur?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “You’ve met him?”

  “No. …Have you?”

  That sealed it. Asterion was searching for information. Did that imply the Minotaur hadn’t told Minos my mission? Why would the Minotaur have kept it secret? Or was this more a power play between the two rulers of Knossos?

  If Asterion was a king’s councilor, didn’t that imply wits on his end? Did the sly merchant believe I was drunk, or did he see through my pretense? If he saw through, he might only think he did.

  I laughed as if addled and thus avoided answering the captain’s question about meeting the Minotaur or not.

  “Did you hear me?” Asterion asked.

  I turned from him, staring out to sea.

  I think Asterion tired of my drunken folly. His voice hardened as he said, “I heard you’ve gone into the Maze.”

  I turned to him, smiling drunkenly and knowingly. He wasn’t going to let this go. How best—?

  “Pray you never do,” I said in such a way that it could be construed a threat.

  Asterion studied me.

  What did he see? What did he think?

  “Let’s drink more wine,” he said. “Let’s drink to the Maze of the Minotaur.”

  I’d had enough of this and was weary of the playacting. However, I didn’t wish to offend a king’s councilor or to clue Asterion to the fact I knew what he was doing.

  I’d use foolish antics to put an end to the questioning.

  I thus threw my arms into the air like a madman and gave a wild war-whoop. I grasped the railing and vaulted off the tubby vessel, falling and plunging into the sea.

  I heard a shout as my head bobbed up.

  On the ship, sailors ran to the rigging, pulling ropes that hauled up the sail. That way, the wind couldn’t catch it and propel us. The tubby vessel slowed as it left me.

  In my childhood, my father had taught me how to swim. I swam toward the waiting vessel, marveling at the greatness of the sea and the frailty of our wooden ship. There were barnacles and seaweed on the bottom of the merchant ship. What a daring thing to take a ship like that into the Great Sea and sail across it for days and nights as we were doing. Captain Asterion and his crew had courage.

  Two sailors threw a net over the side, some of it trailing in the water. I swam up and grasped the wet net, hauled myself closer and then clambering up the side like a monkey I’d seen in the Sea King’s garden.

  Asterion stood waiting with a frown and a towel, handing the latter to me. “Why’d you do that, Damon? We’ve lost time because of it.”

  I laughed, maintaining my act for a little longer. “The wine went to my head. I need a swim to refresh.”

  After drying myself, thanking Asterion for the wine and towel, I went to my two attendants, lying beside my cloak and spear. I stared at the sky until I fell asleep, the wind billowing in the sail, propelling us east across the deep blue sea.

  Chapter Three

  That night I studied the stars, particularly the belt of Orion. I thought about my boyhood and how my father and uncles had taught me to be brave, always attack, never to show my back to the enemy.

  I remember the day they’d delivered me to the warriors of the Sea King. My father had clapped me on my back, clearing wishing to impart a final word. In the end, he’d bowed his head in shame and turned away. I’d walked up the gangplank with the other tribute children, leaving Athens forever and going to my new life.

  Now I was even farther from home.

  Was the Minotaur right? Were there giants in the land of Canaan? Who would I see first, the giants or the acolyte of the strange god? If I saw the acolyte first and slew him openly as the Minotaur suggested, how would I ever reach his so-called brothers? How did one like him have brothers? Was I to believe other gods had come down to Earth and had children with mortal women?

  The next morning as the sun rose, we changed our heading and began to head south by southeast. Asterion said we’d avoid the Hittites, trying to reach Canaan’s coastal lands.

  Two hours later, I spied mountains in the distance.

  At the same time, a lookout who sat on the yardarm of the sail’s mainmast, pointed in the direction of land, yelling in alarm.

  Many of us rushed to that side of the ship, scanning the sea. I saw it. So did others.

  It was low ship, if one can call it that. It was long and narrow, lacking a sail or any kind of decking. It was more a giant canoe with many oars splashing the sea as the vessel struggled toward us.

  My first attendant had the sharpest eyes among us. “There are men rowing, thirty by my count.” My attendant shaded his eyes from the sun. “They’re bearded men, wearing rags, with an air of desperation. I see spears, knives and shields glittering among their legs.”

  “Pirates,” Asterion said behind us.

  I turned to him.

  “Pirates,” Asterion said again. “They want to board and loot a ship of the Sea King. Alas, we don’t have any galleys to protect us.” He looked at my two attendants and me, turned and looked at the crew.

  “They’re rowing faster,” my attendant said. “They’re gaining on us.”

  Asterion stroked his beard.

  I believe I divined his thoughts. There weren’t many warriors aboard our ship: my two attendants, me and two others of the captain’s crew. The rest were sailors and Captain Asterion himself. The sailors would be meat for the warriors. Thus, we had five against thirty, and those thirty strove with their cockleshell of a craft to reach us.

  Fortunately, Asterion was a shrewd shipmaster. He brought our tubby vessel about, changing course until we sailed away from the pirates, sailing as close as we could to the wind.

  My first attendant said the pirates were dropping behind.

  Fifteen minutes later, however, the wind slackened and our merchant tub lost most of its speed.

  I heard a distant hurrah from the pirates. They’d struggled after us the entire time, perhaps hoping for this. The slackened wind must have given them zeal and extra strength. Their cockleshell of a vessel made up the distance they’d lost and more. Hand over fist, the sleek rat of the sea—the pirate galley—zeroed in on our tub. Too soon and they’d bump against our hull, swarming aboard.

  I eyed them.

  Would thirty desperate pirates so far from shore let us live? Would they butcher us? Or worst of all, would they tie us up and later sell us into slavery? Would I end my days tilling soil in a distant land where I didn’t even know the language of my masters?

  Resolved, I went to my belongings and belted the sheath and dagger of the fallen star to my waist. The heft of the weapon felt good at my side. I took up my spear. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought along a shield. So I went to the captain and acquired one from him. It wasn’t a huge eight-shaped shield as the warriors of my land used, but a smaller one barely covering my torso.

  My attendants had similar spears and shields, with copper or stone-shod knives, none of bronze.

  The two warriors of Asterion were armed similarly to my attendants.

  We went to the place on the tub nearest the approaching pirates, watching them pull their oars and close with us.

  Several pirates noticed us, shouting to each other. Others looked up. It didn’t mar the rhythm of their rowing. A few began to shout insults at us. A few laughed in mockery. Five against their thirty, what were we thinking?

  “We have high ground,” I said to my attendants and two ship warriors.

  That wasn’t exactly true, as there was no ground in the sea. We had the higher elevation and wooden planking to shield our legs. They’d have to scramble up, standing on their unsteady narrow galley. Under such circumstances, five might well fight off thirty.

  “We’ll slaughter them,” I said.

  Asterion’s two looked at me dubiously. They seemed frightened.

  “Take courage,” I told them.

  “They’re wolves of the sea,” one said.

  “We’re the Sea King’s warriors,” I said.

  He opened his mouth to reply.

  “Save it,” I said angrily. “If you lack courage, give your weapons to the bravest sailor. He can stand in your place.”

  Perhaps the ship warrior didn’t care for the thunder in my eyes. He closed his mouth, shrinking from me, content to watch the nearing pirates.

  My heart began to beat with anticipation. I glanced at my two attendants. What was this? They both looked fearful. “Courage, lads,” I said tightly. “We’re warriors of Athens. We’ll defeat these so-called sea wolves.”

  The one with sharp eyes nodded.

  The other whined, “There are thirty of them.”

  I could feel Asterion’s two listening to the exchange. Shouting at the lads wasn’t going to instill the bronze I needed in their bellies. Maybe we five couldn’t fight off thirty desperate pirates. I needed a different idea—

  I laughed with feigned indifference. “Thirty dogs, aye, but not thirty aboard ship. Climbing the gunwales will prove their undoing and death.”

  “We can’t cover every approach,” my frightened attendant said.

  I’d had enough of this. Imagine, bickering in the face of the enemy. Besides, I wasn’t sure I cared to die in the company of such cowards.

  “I’m tired of waiting,” I said. “Perhaps we should take the fight to them.”

  “Don’t be mad,” Asterion’s warrior said. “We’ll use our spears to keep them at bay. Our shields will block their thrusts. In time, they’ll tire and fall away.”