The Ritual

The act doesn’t take long anymore. It’s a ritual now, carried out swiftly and efficiently in the quiet of my home. The first year, a loud, clanging bell announced the arrival of the ship and then played again when the sacrifices were released in here with me. There was ceremony, screaming in the streets above that would ring in my ears when someone would die. Since, though, there is no announcement, no screaming, just a solemn silence. A part of me hopes they’ll stop sending them soon, that he’ll let this punishment end. A part of me fears the same.

Even though they no longer celebrate the release of the sacrifices, I can still tell when they arrive. This is my home– how could I not? They tend to think if they don’t scream, I won’t notice them. I suppose it is true that those who do scream I am drawn to first, but who wouldn’t notice someone screaming their heads off? The walls of the maze cause the sound to bounce– if you know the angles, the turns, you can pinpoint any sound from anywhere else in the labyrinth. If you don’t, the sounds seem to come from every direction at once. I prefer when they don’t scream. It hurts my ears.

I never remember the first few I catch very well. The hunger is overwhelming by that point, and I’m blind, deaf, starving, helpless to it. Their deaths aren’t as delicate as I would like– their blood smears the walls, the floor. I have to come back when I’ve got a clearer head and clean it as best I can with what water I can spare and the cleanest remnant clothes I can take from them. I waste a lot of meat too, and I always regret it when food grows scarce. While the servants of the palace do drop food occasionally so that the survivors don’t die of starvation before I can get to them, they try to keep it away from me. I fare well until midway through the fifth year, typically. By that point the stragglers grow cocky in their abilities to survive and I grow too hungry to let them live any longer. Unfortunately for the survivors, my hunger doesn’t kill me nor weaken me. My sister has a theory that it’s because my birth was planned by the gods, that I’m protected. I think it’s because if starving me could kill me, I wouldn’t make a very good punishment.

The most recent release was only three years ago. I killed three of the sacrifices when they first arrived, and that kept me sustained for a year and a half, when I killed the fourth. The fifth sacrifice I ate was already dead when I found her seven months ago, but so much of her was already eaten by rats and vermin that I wasn’t satiated for long. Now, hearing another person straight ahead and down two lefts, I’m hungry enough that I don’t want to dodge him. If I kill and eat him, that’ll still leave eight for the next four years. I can ration it out, if I’m careful. If I’m precise.

Once I’ve made my decision, the ritual starts. First, I pinpoint where the person I’ve targeted is and how far away from me that is. The second step is always to make sure it isn’t one of my sisters. I know Ariadne’s scent by heart, deep in my soul, but on occasion she’ll bring one of our younger sisters to visit and I need to make sure I don’t accidentally target one of them in my hunger. Ariadne tries to announce her presence by calling for me– she’s the only reason I know our mother named me Asterius at all– but on occasion I’ll hear her voice echo around the the corners of the maze when I know she’s not around, when I know I’m just delirious from the hunger, so it’s not the clearest tell. Right now, however, I know it isn’t Ariadne or any of my other sisters. To start, it’s daytime. Even though it’s always dim in the labyrinth, there’s no mistaking the birdsong above. Ariadne only visits socially at night. Secondly, the person I’m smelling is male, and my brothers have never visited me.

The next step is to freeze and listen. If he knows I’m here, his breathing will be erratic, harried. This man is only sniffling. It could be from crying, or from the dust or the mold that grows on the walls. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t suspect that I can hear him, smell him, almost taste him. That’s good. I feel bad when they’re afraid longer than they have to be. It does mean, however, that I need to creep more quietly. My hooves make it more difficult, but I manage. I’ve had years of practice, after all.

I’m less than a fathom away from him now when I stop. The next part of the ritual is very important to me. Phaedra, my youngest sister, was actually the one who gave me inspiration for it. One night, maybe eight years ago now, she and Ariadne brought me some extra food, and stayed with me. We ate together, like a family, and Phaedra thanked Demeter for the bountiful harvest that provided the bread. The bread had gotten lodged in my throat and I’d thrown it up hours later, but her prayer stuck with me. Ariadne read me the stories when I was young, and she still repeats them sometimes, when the years drag on and the hunger becomes too much to bear quietly, so I know all the gods, every daimon and spirit. Still though, I was never sure who to give thanks to. Poseidon, Aphrodite, for the circumstances of my terrible birth? My mother’s husband, who cast me down here to help punish Athens?

In the end, with Ariadne’s help, I settled on three figures, and before each conscious kill, I close my eyes. I thank Daedelus, who built my home, who helped Ariadne learn to navigate it so she may visit me, who even aided in my conception and birth. I thank my mother, who bore the brunt of a punishment meant for her husband, and who loved me as long as she could and as well as she could anyway. Finally, I thank Moros, the appointed, impending doom that awaits all mortals in time. I do not pray for a swift death for my targets– I don’t need to.

When I open my eyes, my target has not moved. He still doesn’t smell of fear, which is no surprise. My decision, my reassurance, my approach, and my prayers take me a mere few moments at this point.

Before I leap forward, I take a deep breath. Long ago, I tried to convince myself that I could be human too, that I didn’t have to do this. Those days are long over. The most I can do now is make it quick.

When I spring forward, the man only seems to register me for a moment before I catch the hollow of his neck with the tip of my horn, slamming us both into the wall behind him. He’s dead before I even smell the blood– I heard the crack of his spine as my horn pushed through it. I’m glad it was fast, for his sake and for mine.

His body crumples to the floor when I shake him off my horn, and I try to hold off my hunger as best I can. I don’t like to leave the dead strewn about– it upsets the other sacrifices. Instead, I grab him and sprint, taking the most direct path to the center of the maze. I can move much faster when I’m not trying to be silent– it takes me no more than a few moments to reach my personal lair, the space the sacrifices never seem to reach. It’s here that the ritual ends, that I carefully lay down my paling meal. It’ll repeat again, in a few months when I can’t bear the hunger anymore, when my rationale is cloudy and my mind is monster again. For now, though, it’s over. I reach down, tear off one of his hands, and start to eat.