It had been a few years since Billy had been on a boat, mostly because they made him very sea sick. Hence why he leaned over the side of the rickety fishing barge and began wreathing into the waters of the Tyrrhenian.
Sergius eyed his friend and cringed. "I see Lord Neptune has not blessed you with a mariner's constitution."
When Billy was at last able to speak, he lifted his queasy head up from over the rail. "This is like that circuit cruise all over again. Complete with Italian muscle-daddy with a giant dick watching me hurl."
Serge scratched his head, turning to give the crusty boatman an 'all good' with his hands. "This sort of thing happens to you often?"
Billy wanted to answer, but another wave of nausea mixed with the actual waves of the ocean took hold.
Sergius let him be and sat glumly on a crate of sylvium
cuttings, bound for a neighboring harbor. Claudius had greased the palms of the
withered boatman, a hunched-over wretch with one eye and breath that would make
Cerberus whimper.
Thanks be to the gods Mido’s Isle is not
far-flung, Sergio thought,
with his head in his hands. He decided to spend the next hour or so whetting
his dagger. He suspected its bronze would be polished with blood soon enough.
The old sailor at the helm, satisfied that
the wind would do the rest of his labor, carrying the ship to the nearby isle,
at last crept over towards Sergius to make conversation. His bony fingers
interlaced, the living husk of a man grinned with all that remained of his
cracked, blackened, or yellowed teeth.
The voice that escaped that abyss of a
mouth was far more eloquent and refined than Sergius expected. “Ahhhh…if you two are bound for the Isle of Mad King Mido, then you all must be quite mad yourself. Or, perhaps have a score to settle with the old, greedy bastard.” The sage laughed
hollowly. “Or both!"
Since Bolly and Serge were both stuck together on this
barge of the damned, Sergius figured indulging the kindly ghoul would make the
next hour or so of his life less arduous before the true difficulties to come. “He
has something of mine, yes,” the former gladiator answered gruffly. “Something
important. More important than any treasure.”
Over by the stern, Billy groaned out, "Oh God...the textures."
The boatman raised his brow. "Is your friend--"
"He's fine," Serge said. He crossed his massive legs. "Tell me more of this Isle and this monster and I will throw in another coin for your trouble."
The boatman’s countenance changed. His
expression softened, as did his tone. He bade Sergius to join him at the bow.
The two men looked out towards a looming shadow, a smudge on the
horizon—Sergius knew at once that was their destination.
The old boatman gestured to that darkness. “Do
you know the story of those cursed shores, or King Mido’s dungeon of a thousand
chambers and a thousand more turns? Pray, do you know that tale of its
insidious beast?”
Sergius sighed. “I do not.”
The grizzly sailor spun his yarn. “King
Mido was an avaricious sort. Demanded tribute of the smaller islands around
this sea, til’ the Romans restricted his power to the isle and banned his
people from setting foot within the Republic proper. Just so, the gods
themselves did not take kindly to the King’s insatiable greed either, but he
did far more to stir their wrath.
“I suppose the real trouble started when
Mido cursed Fair Juno, Queen of Heaven, for giving his wife a barren womb—but
the problem lay not with the Queen, who by all accounts was kindly. She did all she could to sait her husband’s voracious appetite. The King had a rotten and withered
seed, poisoned by his own venomous nature, and so he had no heirs. Yet, Neptune
dissuaded the other gods from punishing King Mido, for he still sacrificed to
the sea for protection, as befitted a ruler of a small kingdom at the ocean’s mercy.
“Even so, the Lord of the Churning Tides
indulged his divine siblings and so decided to test the King. He sent him a
beautiful bull, with flesh as white as marble, for sacrifice…”
“Only for the covetous King to keep it for
his own,” Serge surmised, with a knowing smile. “I may be a brute, but I know
my poems and epics well. And I know that cruel irony is the divine’s most
favored weapon.”
The boatman was impressed. “Quite right you
are, strong one. Indeed, the King spurned the sacrificed, and as you guessed, Neptune
did not take kindly to this slight. The Lord of the Great Seas enchanted the
Queen so that she desired the bull and laid down with it. And so, the Queen did
give birth to a healthy sire—but the child, if you could call it
that—was not what the King expected. For the child was born strong, and without
deformity…save for its head, which was that of a bull’s.”
From the back of the boat, came a raspy, "Oh fuck, he's talking about the minotaur." Then, after a pause. "Wait a minute...if this is a paradox...and the minotaur is actually real."
Serge thought Billy might be the Fleet-Foot Mercury in disguise for how quickly he recovered, trotting over to the create. He wiped drool from his lip and said, "Minotaur."
Serge blinked. "Yes? What about--"
Billy placed his palms atop Serge's spacious knees and looked at him like a challenging gladiator. "You. Don't. Understand. Does the word 'bara' mean anything to you?"
"Is the lad touched?" the boatman asked.
"Probably," Serge answered, swatting Billy away. He raised his eyebrows. “A man that is half bull and half...man?"
"That's a redundant sentence," Billy pointed out. Serge backhanded him easily to the deck.
The gladiator continued. "Absurd! I have known men of deformity, many a great warrior in fact, and even Vulcan—the most ingenious of the gods—bears his disfigurement with pride, but the head of a four-legged creature? Still, the tale does ring familiar…”
"Laying down feels so much better," Billy sighed.
The boatman ignored him in favor for contuing histale. “It is said that the King, upon laying eyes
on his son, was driven mad. Yet, the Queen—whose heart was genuinely
good—nursed and cared for the child, until the beast grew too violent, and
slaughtered several of the palace attendants in a single night of blood and
misfortune. Instead of killing the beast outright, however, the mad King
ordered his architects to fashion a labyrinth from the deep-ground hollows of
the volcano that bore the cursed island. The King then tested his beast’s new
lair by sending the self-same builders and architects into its bowels, from
which they never returned.
“So, it is said, that the King believes he
will regain his fortunes and power, when nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine young
souls are claimed by the beast at the heart of the great maze.”
Serge leaned back and considered the fable. "A grim tale, the sort that children were wont to tell each other in the hopes of rousing up playful frights. Still, I have fought monsters before, but all have taken the shape of men."
The dark isle crept into view, like a spider slowly talking its prey across the green waves. Sergius crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “Then…one presumes this labyrinth is where Bren and his fellow captives have been consigned, on orders of the insane regent.”
The man stared Serge down with another
eerie grin. “A story to chill the bones, perhaps, and nothing more. For they
say there is a similar, accounts in Old Greece. Yet one wonders why King Mido
sends his thralls out to capture beautiful men and women, in particular. Perhaps…to
placate his ravenous son. Hehehe.”
Sergius was now very much looking forward
to meeting this so-called ‘beast’…if he did exist. It had been too long since
he’d encountered a real challenge. “Then I will be the one to slay the
creature,” Serge said proudly, mindful not to produce his usual, arrogant
pec-bounce (lest he stop the old boatman’s heart). “If Bren hasn’t already done
the creature already himself...”
