Read Online The White Bull by Fred Saberhagen - Free Book Online

though the uninitiated person walking in my place might not yet have fully realized the fact. In ten more paces there were only a few windows to let me see the land outside, and in twenty more paces the last of these apertures was gone, taking with it my last view of the open sea and the mountains.
    Now, for a little while as I proceeded, the roof of the Labyrinth was almost solid, cutting out the sky. Then roofed space once more became less common, and the light increased. At the same time the walls grew unscalably high and smooth, and the many branching passages, which had now entirely replaced rooms, grew narrower. There were steps and stairs to take the explorer up and down again, for no apparent reason. Soon the stranger walking here would no longer have a clue as to whether he was above or below the natural level of the ground. Only remote patches of sky, one of them now blue, one heavy gray with thundercloud, remained to give the explorer any light or perspective or mental hold upon the outside world.
    And now I, the designer threading my way unerringly and thoughtlessly, had entered upon the precincts of the real school where I was an outsider, the school that Theseus was fated to attend. Now once more the traveler was surrounded by rooms. Behind closed wooden doors, taut silence reigned. And now, only now, did I pass underneath a sign warning in three languages that the real Labyrinth, the dangerous core of deceit and confusion, lay just ahead.
     
    Scarcely had I proceeded fifty paces beyond the sign, turning in that distance half a dozen corners at different angles, before I was made aware by certain faint sounds that someone had now begun to follow me. A sudden stop and a quick glance back earned me one brief glimpse of long brown hair swinging from a girl's quick head, before she had dodged back around a corner, out of my sight.
    I waited for a few moments, but the girl did not reappear. Everything in this corner of the Labyrinth was silent, except for the singing of some very distant workmen. The students of the school were immured in their silent rooms like bees in cells of wax.
    There was no further sign of the girl. Presently I turned and went on my way again, at which point the furtive shuffle of those following feet resumed.
    With a sigh, I stopped and turned again. Seeing no one behind me, I called softly. "Just stay where you are, and I promise I won't hurt you." Then I walked back and peered around a corner.
    As I had expected, my follower was a student. A slender Athenian girl of about eighteen was leaning against the smooth stone wall, looking exhausted and defensive. I wondered how long she had been lost. Vaguely I thought that I could recall seeing this girl, at some time during the past year or two, among the score or so of the Bull's most advanced students.
    I was not eager to interfere in what was doubtless some assignment of school work for advanced credit. But at the same time it seemed cruel and unsympathetic to walk away from her without speaking. "Follow me, if you like," I suggested. "Then you will come out in the apartments of the Bull himself. Is that what you are trying to do?"
    The girl responded, weakly but quickly, with a gesture of denial.
    Still I was unable to let matters go at that. "Can I help you in any other way?"
    "No. Thank you, Master Daedalus. I have been assigned my own goal, and am supposed to find my own way, without help from anyone." She was not suffering deadly thirst or starvation—not yet, anyway—but I could see a great fear in her eyes. Not the sharp, immediate fear of a soldier entering battle, or a captive going to execution, but deep and vital all the same. Death was not in prospect, only failure, but abysmal failure could sometimes seem as dreadful as death, especially to the young.
    The two of us had nothing more to say to each other. I turned from her and went on my way, and heard no more of furtive feet behind me. Soon I came to the place where a large