Free Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl

people dwell, down in the darkness and the heat of the earth, there lives a gigantic bull. The Bull in the Earth is the dearly beloved husband of the Lady Potnia, She Who Made All Things.
    "The Lady loves her people, the Keftiu, but she also loves the Bull. These two loves do not always harmonize with each other. The Bull is as large as a mountain, and his breath is a roaring flame hot enough to melt stone. If he were allowed his freedom he would surely kill each and every one of the Keftiu. The Lady therefore keeps the Bull pent up within the earth, where he cannot destroy her people.
    "Often the Lady goes to visit her lord deep in the bowels of the earth. This is why the people of Kefti seek to honor their Lady by placing offerings inside any of the thousands of sacred caves that thread their blind paths through the roots of our island. We likewise wish to show reverence to the Bull in the Earth. We love him for his beauty and power and we also fear him, even shut away as he is. For when the Lady does not visit her lord for a time, he becomes restive. He turns in the darkness and tosses his horns, and the ground above him quakes and buckles. Buildings crumple and fall, and the fire of the Bull's breath sweeps through the ruins. Many of our people die when the Bull is angry.
    "When your grandmother was a girl," said Graia, "the Bull in the Earth grew so furious that much of the Palace of Knossos was leveled. Hundreds died in the wreckage of the Labyrinth, and thousands died in the countryside around, and in the towns and palaces of Malia, Zakros, Festos, and Kydonia. The palaces are rebuilt now, grander and larger than before, but we do not forget."
    She explained that since there is little we can do to urge the Lady Potnia to visit her lord if she does not choose it, we perform many ceremonies to appease and entertain the Bull in the Earth, hoping to keep him quiet and amused in the event that his lady should be absent longer than his liking. He is a fierce creature, and his pleasures are likewise fierce. So, several times a year, bulls are sacrificed in his honor amid much ceremony. And once a year, in the early summer, there is the Festival of the Bulls.
    My brother Asterius is the son of the Bull in the Earth. They say that my mother, in her grief over the death of Androgeus, begged the Goddess to help her get revenge against Minos for leaving her son to die in a strange land.
    She Who Made All Things would not lightly refuse such a request from her high priestess. The Lady therefore entered into my mother's body and took possession of it. As one they descended into the Underworld, where the Bull dwells. And in due course my brother was born, half man and half bull.
    That is why my brother appears before the people once a year at the Festival of the Bulls.
    The Bull Festival would be very different from yesterday's brief, sad rite of the Presentation. It was a happy occasion and one of my favorite festivals; I looked forward to it the whole year. Nor was I alone in this: all over Kefti young women and men had been preparing their entire lives for the festival, when they would face the bull before the entire court of Knossos.
    The bull dance is glorious. However often I see it, it makes me want to weep for sheer pleasure. It is everything in life that is beautiful and brave.
    When Icarus and the Athenians hailed me the day before as "Bull Rider," they were being kind. I had performed only the simplest of the feats to be displayed here—that of riding the bull without injury—and I had done so without grace or style. The great bull dancers and those who admire them would have thought little of such an exhibition.
    What a crush of people filled the Bull Court! I sat with my family—except Ariadne, who was preparing to perform the Dance of the Serpents for the opening ceremonies—on a balcony off our living quarters. Servants moved silently about, offering barley water and wine, grape leaves stuffed with