The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

One by one, the others lit their torches and joined Diomedes in the low antechamber, where the stale air was cold and smelled of damp earth. By the light of his struggling torch, Eperitus could see that the floor and walls were of mud and had not been dressed with wood or stone. The ceiling, too, was bare and had been broken in several places by the roots of the dead olive tree on the hillside above. At the back of the chamber, directly opposite the entrance, was a deeper darkness that he knew led down into the depths of the maze. He sensed a faint current of air coming from it, like the breath of something ancient and evil, and shuddered as it touched his skin.

Odysseus approached the passageway with his torch, revealing a roughly hewn arch and a steeply sloping tunnel beyond it. He peered down into the darkness, sniffed at it, then turned to the others.

‘This has to be the way to the maze. It’s too narrow for spears, so bring your swords only. And that old shield of yours will never fit down there, Eperitus.’

Though the half-moon shields of the others could easily be slung across their backs, the heirloom Eperitus had inherited from his grandfather was tall and bulky and would only prove an encumbrance in such a tight space. Reluctantly, he slipped it from his shoulder and laid it with his spear against a wall of the chamber.

‘Why do we need our weapons, anyway?’ said one of the Argives, leaning his spear next to Eperitus’s. ‘It’s just a tomb, after all.’

‘A warrior should never be without a weapon, Trechos,’ Eperitus answered. ‘Even in the houses of the dead.’

‘It’s the curse Odysseus is worried about,’ added another Argive, a veteran warrior called Epaltes who had lost an ear and two fingers during the long years of the war. ‘My wife was from Pisa, and she always said how the tomb was filled with riches befitting a great king like Pelops, but that they were protected by a terrible guardian. There’s someone, or something, down there and Odysseus knows it. Ain’t that right, Eperitus?’

Eperitus adjusted his sword in its scabbard and said nothing. Then Odysseus signalled to him from the archway, where he was waiting with Diomedes.

‘We want you to listen, Eperitus,’ Odysseus said. ‘See if you can hear anything.’

‘Silence!’ Diomedes ordered, instantly stilling the chatter among the men.

Eperitus took Odysseus’s torch and entered the mouth of the passageway, taking a few steps down into the consuming darkness that neither the flaming brand nor the thin daylight from the entrance could penetrate. It reminded him of the Stygian caves of Mount Parnassus, where long ago he and Odysseus had been guided into the presence of the Pythoness, the priestess of Gaia who had prophesied to them in riddles. He shut his eyes and concentrated.

At first, all he could hear was the fizz and sputter of the torches behind him, mingled with the suppressed breathing of fifteen other men crowded into a confined space. Then the sounds faded, pocketed away in another part of his consciousness as he pushed out with his senses. He could feel the gentle breath of chilly air rising from deep below the hillside, drawn naturally towards the comparative warmth that had spilled in from outside. Then, as he reached further and further down into the darkness, he felt the soft, absorbent earth of the tunnel suddenly give way to walls of hard stone. These branched out into narrow corridors that twisted and turned and left him quickly confused. He had found the maze and his senses could penetrate no further, except to register the faint echo of scuffling and scratching coming out of the stillness.

‘Do you hear anything?’ Diomedes asked.

Eperitus nodded. ‘I can hear rats.’

‘That’s all? Then there’s nothing else?’

‘That I can’t say, Diomedes. The tunnel leads down to more tunnels, which my senses cannot follow. The only way we’re going to discover what’s down there is to look for ourselves.’

‘Then let’s not waste any more time,’ Odysseus said, taking his torch from Eperitus’s hand and pushing past him into the tunnel.

Chapter Seventeen

THE MAZE