Asterios 

 

“…Why not come with us?” Aoi Qin extended a webbed hand. “It would be better out there, would it not? Certainly it would be. You would be able to see the sun, yes, the real sun.”

 

Asterios looked at the sky above, the false sky every bit as artificial as the walls.

 

He remembered the sun, dimly, in the back of his mind. He remembered seeing it long ago, back when the Labyrinth was only stonework, back before Daedalus built his mask for him, his clever mask which hid all his shame behind a face that could blink and move its lips. The sun was a light in the sky like the stars and the moon. It would fly over the walls and 

 

He remembered the sun being bright and warm.

 

He remembered reaching for the sun and praying to the god down in the distant sea to let him grab it so that he could take him away over the walls.

 

But that was so long ago…

 

“Why would I ever leave my home?” he replied at last. “Why would I ever do that?”

 

–Asterios to Aoi Qin, “The Labyrinth of Monsters.”

 

“Do not use his other name, unless you wish for him to hurt you. He is a demigod prince. His mother was Queen Pasiphae of Crete. His father…think what you will, but his father was divinity. It was created out of nothing by Poseidon. He, by extension, is divinity as well as royalty. Show him due respect.”

 

–Daedalus on Asterios

 

We don’t get to decide how we’re born and raised.

 

That’s a universal truth. Gunnar didn’t decide, Donald didn’t decide, Tanya didn’t decide, Amy didn’t decide.

 

It’s one of the most crushing truths of the universe–your path can be set, your capacities limited, and your destiny decided before you take your first breath.

 

Imagine if one of your parents was an animal, a four-legged beast.

 

Sounds ridiculous, right? Sounds like a joke?

 

That was the idea. The sea god Poseidon cursed Queen Pasiphae with an unnatural lust, and she forced her husband’s greatest asset, the inventor Daedalus, to devise a way for her to sate her lust.

 

Everyone laughed at King Minos and his Queen. That was the point. Poseidon wanted to inflict upon the house of Minos aa shame that would last aeons.

 

Now imagine you were the offspring.

 

Imagine the shame.

 

Imagine the rage.

 

“I Warn”

 

 

Have you ever wondered where the word “monster” came from? Have you ever wondered what it means? “Monster” means a lot of things these days. Usually it means something like “frightening, chaotic creature.” The kaiju of Japan are often translated as monsters. The Martin’s student Monster calls himself Monster because he’s constantly changing his form and refuses to adopt a “normal” form. 

 

“Monster” can also mean a misfit, someone that doesn’t fit in because they’re frightening, because they’re chaotic, because they’re not normal. The Monster League is one of America’s oldest superteams and was created to give misfits of all kinds a community–alienated ghosts, cursed alchemists, runaway creations, 60 foot people, and so many more have joined the Monster League throughout the decades.

 

But the original meaning of “monster” was a living symbol of a god’s will–usually the god’s displeasure and wrath. A monster was an omen written by divine hand in blood and flesh.

 

“Monster” comes from the Old French “Monstre” which in turn comes from the Latin “Monstrum,” which means “I warn,” as in “I warn of the anger of the gods.”

 

Asterios was a monster in the original sense of the word. Asterios was. He was a sign—a sign that Poseidon, god of waters, was very angry.

 

He is best known by another name–”Bull of Minos.”

 

The Minotaur.

 

But never call him this. It sends him into a rage, even aeons later.

 

He is not a bull. And he is not even a man. He is a demi-god.

 

His father was divine. What else his father was aside, his father was divine.

 

The only thing Asterios hates more than being called Minotaur is someone cracking his mask. His mask was a gift from Daedalus, his first friend and first teacher. It warps space, just like the Labyrinth he calls home, to fit his unique head inside a human-shaped visage. With his mask, Asterios’ eyes face forward, his crowns vanish, and his mouth articulates. And best of all, it doesn’t look at all like a mask. It looks like a human face. It looks like the face he could have had, had he been more fortunate.

 

Zeus–not the god, but the Monster League member named after the god–once made the mistake of cracking Asterios’ mask, and in return Asterios tore him to pieces, and then tore those pieces to pieces.

 

It was a very good thing that Zeus was a monster in his own right, a creation of the infamous monster of Dr. Frankenstein.

 

Monster Of Poseidon

 

 

Long ago in Crete, not the Crete of our world but of another where dryads frolic with satyrs in Endymion’s fields, a chariot pulls the sun through the sky, and Mt. Olympus rules over all, there was a king named Minos. 

 

King Minos ascended to the throne by being the favorite of the sea god Poseidon, patron god of the island of Crete. Minos was the one favored by the gods out of all his brothers, but the favor of the gods is not to be abused lest it turn to resentment.

 

Humans inflict horrific punishments for betrayal. Gods do the same but on a grander scale.

 

When Poseidon sent Minos a gleaming white bull as a sign of his favor, it was with the understanding that Minos would sacrifice it to demonstrate his thanks. Such a sacrifice would have said “I respect you, Poseidon, and know that it is by your favor that I am what I am.” But Minos was fond of the bull. There was only one like it in all the world. He decided that he couldn’t sacrifice it, and if he had the guts to tell Poseidon that he couldn’t sacrifice such a fantastic creature, things might have ended up okay. Poseidon, after all, created the bull. He might have been flattered.

 

But King Minos had to choose the worst possible option.

 

He tried to pull a fast one on a god.

 

The gods hate it when mortals try to trick them. It’s not so much the trick itself as the mortal having the gall to think it would work. When King Lycaon of Arcadia killed his own children and tried to trick Zeus into eating them, Zeus transformed him into a wolf. 

What Poseidon did to King Minos was much more creative and disturbing.

 

He gave his wife Pasiphae an insatiable lust for the white bull.

 

And here is where the legendary inventor Daedalus enters the story.

 

Daedalus, you see, was on the run from Athenian law who thought he killed his nephew Perdix by throwing him from the Acropolis. In reality, Perdix tripped, but they thought he killed his nephew over jealousy at his greater intellect. Daedalus fled to the island Crete where he was given lodgings and protection by King Minos. Daedalus had a vested interest in keeping the king happy. He constructed a beautiful dancing floor for Minos’ daughter Ariadne, he designed the ships of his fleet, he lined the walls of his palace with statues so skillfully sculpted they seemed alive, he did everything he could to earn the king’s favor.

 

But when Pasiphae told Daedalus to help her satisfy her cravings or else she would tell her husband he had touched her, Daedalus knew that none of his gifts mattered.

 

He helped her. What else could he have done? He constructed a kind of shell for Pasiphae, a wooden shell shaped like a cow. It worked on a similar principle to the cloaks worn by skinwalkers. She put it on, she became a cow, and nature took its course.

 

And then she got pregnant–as a woman.

 

King Minos had seen the shell. He knew only one man could build such a thing. But he knew better than to execute Daedalus. He knew he would need him for what was to come.

 

The child was born with an animal’s head.

 

He was the bull of Minos. The Minotaur.

 

Minos knew better than to kill the child. He knew Poseidon would inflict even worse punishments on his house if he tried to circumvent his punishment that way.

 

But he had to put it somewhere. Imprison it. Corral it.

 

It was grossly strong for a newborn. And it displayed a hunger for human flesh.

 

He did not have to vocalize his threat to Daedalus. It was silently understood that he was to use his much-celebrated intellect to ameliorate this problem or he would die.

 

Daedalus believed he had an answer, but he didn’t like it.

The Labyrinth is commonly thought of as a prison built to house the Minotaur. That’s not what it was. Originally, it was to be Daedalus’ first attempt at working with the spirit like he did material. He originally envisioned the Labyrinth as something like a gallery of the soul. It would be a hallway, and as the person advanced through the hallway, images taken from the soul would appear on the walls. The soul would unfurl like a painted scroll. Daedalus himself saw him learning the arts of Pythagoras as a child on his father’s knee, him forging the shield of Achilles, him being presented with the body of his nephew, and him fleeing the city that he loved.

 

It wasn’t called the Labyrinth then. It wasn’t called anything yet. He didn’t know what to call something so strange.

 

He had it partially constructed. He estimated that in three years or so it would be finished  He had planned to dedicate it to Athena, goddess of wisdom and Athens, and in this way he hoped to earn his way back into her city, but now King Minos was furious and demanded an answer to the Minotaur problem, and there was an aspect of the Labyrinth that made it the perfect prison:

 

It was infinite on the inside, finite on the outside–just like human soul.

 

If you didn’t know the trick to get out, you couldn’t. You simply couldn’t.

 

The walls would go on as long as your soul did. They would go on and on and on and while the outside walls remained the same, the inner walls stretched to infinity.

 

He promised King Minos he would have his prison in three years and did it in two, and just in time as the young Minotaur was proving too strong to be contained by conventional means. The Minotaur broke all chains, smashed all walls, but the Labyrinth was more than a series of walls.

 

A man who was caught snickering on the streets about “King Minos’ son” was used as bait to lure the Minotaur into the Labyrinth.

 

There was no need to place a door over the entrance. The Labyrinth didn’t need a door. But one was placed anyway.

 

And though the braying of the Minotaur could be heard night and day, the people of Crete could finally rest, more or less, knowing that the man-eater was contained.

 

Prisoner of the Labyrinth

 

 

The Minotaur ran through the Labyrinth, head down, horns forward, eyes closed. He ran like an animal, bellowing.

 

He did not know why he was running. He did not know a thing. He only felt things, and he felt that he was hungry.

 

Food. He wanted food. Man flesh and warm blood. Bones to crunch between his teeth.

 

Food was on the walls. Yet it was only paint. He’d scratch against the walls, gnaw at them, and continue running.

 

His soul was hunger and his hunger was endless.

 

Then suddenly, he would turn a corner and the Labyrinth would change.

 

It would show strange images that caught his attention–images of strange places and strange people.

 

Someone else was painting on his walls.

Someone who smelled delicious.

 

And they were quite delicious.

 

And then the images would fade as if rain had washed them away and the Labyrinth would return to images of meat and blood and bones and other tasty things.

 

And the Minotaur would charge down the halls, braying so that all of Crete could hear.

 

And this was how the Minotaur grew up.

 

Meanwhile, another tragedy befell the house of Minos, not by the hands of a god but by the hands of a man.

 

Minos’ only son, Androgeus, had perished in Athens where he had gone to participate in the Olympic games. Apparently, a bull had gotten loose from a corral and gored him to death.

 

It seemed like a divine punishment with the bull involved, but interestingly enough, it wasn’t. And that meant Minos was able to vent his rage, all his rage, all the accumulated, bottled rage of years out on Athens.

 

The beast in the Labyrinth was now the only thing he had that was like a heir, and the embarrassment and sorrow galvanized his wrath into something mythologically evil.

 

That Minos declared a brutal and bloody war against the city-state he wished to one day return to troubled Daedalus, but he again was powerless against his protector and patron.

 

The armies of Crete annihilated the armies of Athens, and with the city-state at his mercy, Minos demanded that they pay him a tribute three months of their best and brightest youth lest he destroy their civilization utterly and put every man, woman, and child to the sword.

 

And he knew just what to do with these tributes.

 

The Minotaur had grown from monstrous child to monstrous man, and with his larger body came a larger appetite. It was hard to find so many criminals and undesirables to feed the Minotaur, and everyone was someone’s son or brother or father meaning the more that were sacrificed, the more his people resented King Minos. But now with the Athenian tributes being sent on black-sailed ships every three months the Minotaur wasn’t a problem.

 

Minos believed that the Minotaur even had a use now. He was a symbol of strength–brutal strength, but strength nonetheless.

 

The threat of death was potent indeed. It had forced the proud Athenians to their knees. But threat of death by monster? That was wholly novel in the world of geopolitics. He might not even have to fight the next nation Crete made war against. They might surrender just to spare their children from the monster.

 

Something like peace prevailed in Crete for a few years…but then came the Athenian hero Theseus. Though he came aboard the black ships, he did not plan to die. Rather, he planned to slay the Minotaur by his own hand, to put an end to the living symbol of Cretan terror, and then return to Athens and dare the Cretans to wage war against a nation led by one with the blood of Poseidon in his veins.

 

Theseus didn’t need help with the Minotaur. He was a son of Poseidon. The Minotaur was the son of Poseidon’s animal. They were not comparable at all in divine might. But he did need help with the Labyrinth, because he did not know the trick, and the trick was the only way to escape it. To his aid came Ariadne, daughter of Minos, who fell in love with Theseus at first sight and believed him the only one that could end her father’s reign of terror. She knew the trick, and she learned it from Daedalus.

 

One night, she observed Daedalus sneaking out of the palace and followed him. She saw Daedalus touch the outer wall of the Labyrinth and vanish into it. She waited hours for him to reemerge, and when he did she demanded to know what he was doing.

 

What he was doing was teaching the Minotaur.

 

Originally, he only wanted to tell the Minotaur his name as favor to the Queen. She had named the Minotaur Asterios, because he was her son. Everything else about him aside, he was her son, and he deserved to have a name. But he was a newborn. He would not remember. And she wanted someone to tell him now that he was a few years.

 

She wanted him to know, if he could know, that his mother had named him Prince Asterios.

 

Daedalus entered the Labyrinth and told the Minotaur his name, escaping just before the gore-flecked monster grabbed him. Afterwards, he was seized with curiosity. He began to visit with the Minotaur, who, after he understood there was no way to catch a man who could escape back through the walls, began listening.

 

And after Asterios began listening, he began learning. He learned how to understand words and associate them with pictures. Daedalus would say “Asterios” and Asterios would point to himself. Daedalus would say “Labyrinth” and Asterios would point to the wall.

 

Daedalus believed he could one day build Asterios’ intelligence up to the point of a man. On that day, he would walk out of the Labyrinth not a beast but a prince, because the trick was mental control.

 

Retracing one’s steps in the Labyrinth did nothing. One had to retrace their thoughts, go back through the images on the walls. One had to place the memories back in order in their mind. If they could do this, the walls themselves would fade, having no power to keep one within the Labyrinth.

 

Ariadne hurried to tell Theseus. She didn’t care much for Daedalus’ project. She thought it was mad. The Minotaur ate people. Something like that would never be human. But she knew the secret now. If he could destroy the Minotaur, she could help him escape the Labyrinth.

 

But she was too late.

 

Angered by the eyes his daughter made at Theseus, King Minos started the “games” ahead of schedule, and the captives were herded into the Labyrinth.

 

Ariadne prayed to the gods. It wasn’t fair. She was so close. Theseus would stand a chance if he just knew the trick!

 

Her prayers were answered by a being now known as Sock, Master of Threads, but in those days he was called Clotho.

 

Clotho was one of the 3 Fates. He spun the thread of life and was, in truth, composed of that thread. He was composed of an Astral substance that resonated with spirits and thoughts.

 

Being a spiritual being, Clotho was able to navigate the spiritual place that was the Labyrinth. He unraveled himself into a golden thread and journeyed through the Labyrinth to find Theseus, both to tell him how to escape the Labyrinth and to give him a gift from Ariadne–a finely crafted sword, looted from Daedalus’ workshop.

 

When Theseus emerged from the Labyrinth coated in the Minotaur’s gore and carrying one of his horns as a trophy, it was assumed by all that the Minotaur was slain. Theseus himself claimed he had slain the Minotaur, crushed his windpipe in his hands, bashed his skull against the wall and heard a crunch, and delivered it a blow with his sword that nearly took his head clean off.

 

The Minotaur ran down the halls of the Labyrinth, but Theseus did not give chase. There were wounded Athenians to rescue from the Labyrinth, he did not have the time, but surely the Minotaur was not long for the world. And further proof came the next night when, for the first time in years, there was no bellowing coming from the Labyrinth.

 

Theseus, Ariadne in his arms and the Athenians at this side, walked to the harbor and took the black ships back to Athens. No one dared stand in their way, and Crete never again demanded tribute.

 

But Asterios was not dead. His soul did not go down to Hades. He was, after all, a demigod, and demigods are very durable. He was simply silenced from a horribly destroyed neck.

 

He wished he was dead. The agony he was in was mythological. A fragment of wet skull punctured his brain. His breath came in a blood-choked whistle.

 

He prayed to the gods. Daedalus had told him about the gods, how they held the destinies of men in their hands and how they would sometimes answer entreaties.

 

His prayers were answered by Poseidon, who stood over him, his sea-green eyes filled with pity and disgust.

 

With a wave of his hand, Poseidon healed Asterios. Poseidon figured there was enough of a connection between him and the monster to do this.

 

But that was all the connection afforded him.

 

“If you be truly Prince Asterios, as wise Daedalus would believe, then solve his Labyrinth. His Labyrinth is made of your heart. Master your heart, prove you are a man, and the Labyrinth cannot hold you. Walk backwards through your thoughts.”

 

And with that, Poseidon left Asterios to ponder his words.

 

Master Of The Labyrinth

 

 

Asterios walked the halls, as quiet as he could. The sound of his heartbeat echoed in his ears.

 

He was afraid that if he made too much noise, the man would come back and hurt him again.

 

He thought as he walked. He thought about the words Poseidon said to him. He thought about the Labyrinth, really thought about it. He thought about what could be on the other side. He thought about Daedalus and he thought about his mother.

 

It had been years since he thought about his mother.

 

He touched the walls. He studied their construction, the way it connected to the floor, the way it turned, the sound it made when he tapped on it with his fingers.

 

He thought about getting out.

 

The walls changed. No longer did they show food. They showed faces. They showed people. They showed Daedalus and his mother and people that didn’t exist but Asterios thought could exist.

 

They showed the man. That the man was outside occurred to him, and the thought made him stop.

 

But then he remembered the words of Poseidon.

 

If he was Asterios, if he was a man and not the other thing, then he would leave the Labyrinth.

 

Yes, he was Asterios. That was what Daedalus said he was. That was what his mother said he was.

 

He was Asterios, so he had to leave the Labyrinth. Was he not born outside it? Did that not mean he belonged there?

 

While Asterios walked the halls of the Labyrinth, Daedalus was, quite unknown to him, placed within a tower next to the Labyrinth with one window pointed tantalizingly at the sea.

 

King Minos was enraged with Daedalus.

 

The Minotaur dead. His only daughter taken by the prince of Athens. The Athenians in revolt.

 

Where was the legendary wisdom of Daedalus? Where was his matchless problem-solving?

 

Nowhere. And if King Minos couldn’t see Daedalus’ genius, he figured that no one should get to see Daedalus at all.

 

That his punishment wasn’t execution perhaps can be attributed to Queen Pasiphae. She remembered how he told her son his name before the Fates put him out of his misery. She was thankful, and talked to her husband in his defense.

 

He was placed in a tower to overlook his failure below and the sea beyond along with his young son Icarus.

 

It was the King’s intent that Daedalus and son would spend the rest of their lives in that tower, but Daedalus was too resourceful. He collected candle wax from lamps brought to him under the Queen’s orders so that he may read and birds from passing seagulls and from these things he fashioned pairs of wings for himself and his son which granted flight. They were crude, imperfect tools, but they were the best he could make with such limited resources.

 

Daedalus and Icarus escaped through the window one morning, and the wings worked. All the inventions of Daedalus worked. But Daedalus had warned Icarus that the wings had limitations. If they flew too low to sea, the rising sea spray would wet the wings and drag them down. If they flew too high, the heat of the sun would melt the wax and shatter the wings. They had to fly at just the right elevation to make it over the sea and escape Crete.

 

But as the popular legend goes, Icarus was too exuberant in his flight. In his joy, he forgot his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun.

 

Daedalus could do nothing but watch as his beloved son plummeted to his death.

 

When he landed, Daedalus didn’t know what to do. For the first time in his life, the great thinker had no answer to the problem that was before him.

 

He had loved Icarus. And now he was gone. And he didn’t know what to do.

 

In his grief, he began to seek out knowledge with a hunger he had never known before. What he was looking for in particular, he couldn’t say, and what he intended to do with what he learned, he didn’t know, but he wanted knowledge. Knowledge had always helped him. It was the guiding life of his life. If there was anything in life left for him, it was through knowledge that he would know the answer.

 

And so, for several long years, Daedalus learned all he could. He consulted oracles, philosophers, even the gods themselves, and eventually, Daedalus became the greatest thaumaturge his world had ever known.

 

And when he had learned all he could, he finally knew what he had to do.

 

Meanwhile, Asterios was wasting away in the Labyrinth.

 

They did not send food for him. They thought he was dead. But a demigod cannot die from hunger, and so he simply wasted away until his flesh hung from his bones and his body felt a painful weariness allover.

 

But worse still was the pain he felt inside.

 

He could not find the way out and it filled him with a pain he never knew. It was despair, though he did not know the word for it, and so he thought of it was a wound, because that was the closest thing he was familiar with.

 

He walked through his entire life. He walked through Poseidon, and Daedalus, and the wild animal time when all he thought about was meat, and mother. He walked through them all again and again looping them through his head again and again even as the images on the walls looped, even as the hallway itself looped. Everything was looped. His universe was looped. It was all one big trap he couldn’t escape and he wished it would just end, he wished he would end, he wished for starless night to descend on the entire world and put everything to sleep forever.

 

But the thought would pass. He would put one skeletal foot in front of the other, bones creaking with weary exertion, and he would continue walking, always walking, walking forever.

 

Sometimes his hunger grew so intense that the walls became like they were before Poseidon, nothing but images of his next meal, of his next victim, of dripping blood and twisted faces and shattered limbs…

 

And Asterios would push those thoughts down, push his hunger down, for he was resolved that his soul would never again be so simple, so brutal, so unbecoming of Prince Asterios.

And he would walk on, with the hunger pulling at this thoughts, and he would pull back.

 

This was the final, most challenging door, though he didn’t realize it until he was out. He had to tame his craving for human flesh to be free. He had to tame that part of himself that he was ashamed of.

And in time he did. When he dragged himself out of the Labyrinth, he pulled his hunger out behind him on a leash.

 

Never again would he taste the flesh of man. He had conquered the Labyrinth, and thus he had conquered himself.

They screamed when they saw him, screamed that he was the ghost of the Minotaur. They fell on their faces and prayed for the gods to save them.

 

They couldn’t know he had changed. They couldn’t know that nothing was left of the Minotaur, not even a ghost. He couldn’t tell them. His maw was not made for speech and his gestures were taken as the posturing of a wild animal ready to attack.

 

Something was wrong. Poseidon had said that he would be a man when he emerged. He was a man now, so why didn’t they treat him like a man? Why did they throw things at him and chase him with spears?

 

He prayed for Poseidon. He searched for Poseidon. But Poseidon never came.

 

Unsure what went wrong, unsure what to do, the Minotaur returned to the Labyrinth, now his Labyrinth, now no longer a prison but a shield to keep him from the outside world. Sometimes, he would journey out from his Labyrinth to steal food. Grass and the meat of lesser animals were his diet. He made a shrine to Poseidon in the heart of the Labyrinth and would steal things from Crete to add to the shrine. He took things that people seemed to like, though he couldn’t understand why. He took coins, and scrolls, and statues, and clothes, and placed them all at the feet of a trident he drew on the wall with his own blood. He thought that, perhaps, this was his flaw. He didn’t know the value of these things, and so he wasn’t fully a man. He thought that if he brought enough items together and offered them to Poseidon, Poseidon would tell them their secret value, and he would at last be a whole man.

 

It was all he could do. It was all that he could think to do.

 

Then one day, a great light engulfed his Labyrinth.

 

The Labyrinth was transported to Icaria, an island near where Icarus fell. But the island was just as displaced from the world as the Labyrinth. Asterios looked up at the sky, and the sky was like no sky he ever knew or imagined. It was filled with half-finished buildings and rooms, objects and structures that floated on a purple sky.

 

And standing before him was Daedalus.

 

Daedalus was just as surprised to see Asterios as Asterios was to see him. They had a lot of catching up to do.

 

Daedalus explained to Asterios that he was inside the second Labyrinth. He used his powers to move Icaria and the Labyrinth into this second Labyrinth to form a center where he could think and contemplate among the works of his past. Daedalus had grown much more powerful than he used to be. No longer just an old inventor, he was a great mage. In his long years of study, he came upon many secrets–the greatest of all being the secret of divine fire, the fire which the Titan Prometheus stole from the gods and was punished for, the fire which natural fire was but a pale imitation of.

 

Prometheus had hidden caches of the divine fire throughout the world, and Daedalus had found one. And better still, he understood the secret to making it obey him.

 

This divine fire was creative as well as destructive. In one world it was called samum, in another norea, and in another still sleg, but here it was called pyros, and Daedalus was what the gods had always feared–a mortal master of pyros.

 

But Daedalus wasn’t interested in challenging the gods or playing their games. He was an inventor. He made things, he didn’t squabble over things. So to avoid them becoming jealous over whatever he might do with his pyros, he created his own world, and took things from this world that he had attachments to. That was how the original Labyrinth and Icaria came to reside within the new Labyrinth.

 

Daedalus was fascinated with Asterios story of how conquering the Labyrinth caused him to overcome his hunger for human flesh. He had no idea it could improve someone like that. If it turned the Minotaur into a man, then certainly it could do the same for others.

Daedalus decided that this was to be their purpose. The new Labyrinth would not be a prison. It would be a test. They would, in the name of Icarus, seek out those who did not have the heart that he did, did not have the heart to live life to the fullest and fly for the heart of the sun.

To cope with his loss, Daedalus had decided that Icarus did not die in vain. His death was not tragic at all. In fact, Icarus died the best death anyone could have asked for. He died fearlessly and courageously. How he died was a model for how people should live. And now, with the second Labyrinth modeled on the first, he had the the perfect instrument to give everyone wings.

 

The Labyrinth would force those that ran it to confront their dark natures, the things that they otherwise would not face. They would face and overcome these things as they walked back through their thoughts and memories. They would emerge as free as birds and ready to fly through life unburned by their sins and defects.

 

Asterios no longer needed the shrine to Poseidon in the center of the first Labyrinth. He no longer needed someone to tell him what he should do to be a man. He had a purpose. He was the first Custodian of the Labyrinth. He would oversee the prisoners as they walked the Labyrinth and goad them towards self-discovery and self-mastery just as Daedalus and Poseidon had done for him.

 

Armed with a labrys axe and wearing a magical mask that hid his face beneath a human guise, Asterios stepped out of the first Labyrinth for the last time and stepped into the second.

 

It has been his home and domain for aeons now. Mark well where you step in the palace of Prince Asterios. It is your test, but his palace!

 

…By The Way…

 

 

In case you’re wondering what happened to the white bull, here is what legend has to say:

 

After fathering Asterios with Pasiphae, the bull was allowed to roam free around the island. Driven to madness by Poseidon, it killed indiscriminately, sometimes wiping out entire villages, but there was nothing King Minos could do. Even if he had some way to kill the bull, he wouldn’t dare risk Poseidon’s wrath.

 

Years passed. Asterios was born and placed in the Labyrinth. King Minos defeated Athens, the black ships brought tribute to feed Asterios, and the bull continued to roam and rage. The remains of his slaughters would be tossed over the walls into the Labyrinth for Asterios to eat.

 

When Asterios was presumed slain by Theseus, his father did not mourn the universally unmourned prince. He didn’t even know he was slain. He did not have the capacity to know, being only an animal.

 

A few years after Daedalus and Icarus flew from the Labyrinth, the legendary Hercules was tasked by King Eurystheus of Argos with 12 impossible labors to atone for killing his family in a fit of madness. Capturing the white bull was labor number 7.

 

Hercules brought the white bull back alive to King Eurystheus, who wanted to sacrifice it to Hera, but the queen of the gods decided that doing so would indirectly praise Hercules, and so declined. King Eurystheus was left with a raging, superstrong, bull to try and contain and found that he could not. The bull escaped one night, trampling down several buildings and people, and was seen around Marathon. Hercules planned to investigate, but he had 5 more labors to perform, and when he was finally free the bull has long left Marathon.

 

Where it is now, none can say.

 

The purpose he was created for was completed long ago. He has no reason to live, no reason to be, and perhaps he understood this in some dim corner of his mind and went somewhere dark and lonely to die. Perhaps he still rages, seeking out targets for a revenge neither he nor they understand. Maybe Poseidon’s rage has left his mind and he wanders as a simple animal, grazing and rutting like any bull.

Wherever he is, he is a misfit, perhaps even more so than his son, for he is a monster whose story has ended and whose symbolism has no purpose.

 

Custodian Of The Labyrinth

 

 

Asterios is by far the most loyal of Daedalus’ Custodians. The Boogeyman and the Harvestman serve Daedalus because he forces them to. Asterios serves Daedalus because he chooses to. He truly and earnestly believes as Daedalus does in the mission of the Labyrinth. He believes it can purge a man of his sins and guilt. After all, that’s what it did for him. He moved through the Labyrinth. He moved through himself until he solved himself, learned to control himself, and then he walked back through the Labyrinth, back through himself, and emerged the master of both.

 

It is said that the Custodians are Daedalus’ servants, but it is more accurate to say they serve Asterios who serves Daedalus.

 

The Boogeyman and the Harvestman, his fellow Custodians, use fear to force prisoners to walk through the Labyrinth. Asterios uses fear to, but in an indirect way. Asterios doesn’t need telepathy or biochemical agitators to make people afraid of him. He’s a 13 foot demi-god armed with a gigantic double headed axe called a labyrs. His weapon was crafted by Daedalus, and while Daedalus’ weaponsmithing skills aren’t mentioned as often as his other skills in classical texts, bear in mind that he created the shield of Achilles. His skills are on par with, and may even surpass that of Vulcan and the Cyclops.

 

Asterios’ labyrs is more than a fancy axe. It is a focusing instrument that allows him to draw upon the powers of his syncretic brethren.

 

There’s more than one Asterios in the multiverse. There’s more than one anyone in the multiverse, but beings of Astral worlds like Asterios share a mental and spiritual connection between their doubles, which are called syncretics. This syncretic connection is usually relegated to dreams. Humans dream of things that aren’t and can never be, but the gods and beings that exist in the realms of the gods dream of things that are.

 

Syncretic connections usually don’t go beyond dreams and occasional strange feelings in the back of a god’s mind, but with the proper power and knowledge, it is possible for this connection to go beyond mental static. Take for instance NUADA, who promises to bring us to the Kingdom by pulling a little power from the Dagdan Nuada to open the door. With his labyrs, Asterios can call upon the powers of countless other versions of himself.

 

Somewhere out there in the multiverse, there is an Asterios who was the son of Poseidon, brother of Theseus, and king of Crete. There is an Asterios whose horns were a crown. There is an Asterios who is loved by his subjects.

 

This the Asterios that this Asterios likes to draw power from, both to have it for himself and to take it from him. 

 

This power gives Asterios the godly authority of Poseidon with his labyrs acting like Poseidon’s trident. He can control and create water and storms. He commands all sea life as their lord.

 

Through his labyris, Asterios finally has the birthright he always wanted, “borrowed” from an Asterios that never knew his pain, never knew the Labyrinth, and in his mind were unworthy of the birthright because he had never known the Labyrinth.

 

Asterios was always distant kin to the lines of Hercules, Achilles, and Theseus, but kin nonetheless. But with Daedalus’ gift, he becomes kin to Poseidon.

 

And that is something he will be forever grateful for.

 

Do not expect mercy from someone who owes their master so much.