Asterius was the true name of the Minotaur of Crete, meaning "starlight of thunder," and very few people knew this name.
In most cases, Lorne rarely used this obscure name either, preferring to call him "Minotaur" or simply "Little Bull."
However...
Lorne glanced behind him, his gaze landing on that shameless face.
Sisyphus, now under that gaze, felt an immediate chill run through him. He swallowed nervously, crossed his arms over his chest, and forced out an awkward laugh.
"H... hey, buddy, why are you staring at me like that, you're giving off real creep energy..."
As he spoke, the seasoned con artist quietly began inching backward toward the dark corner of the wall.
"Thud!"
But before he had taken more than a few steps, a muffled sound came from behind him.
Sisyphus went black before his eyes and toppled straight over, falling into the deep, blissful sleep of a newborn.
"Nicely done!"
Lorne raised his thumb, turning an approving look toward Thetis standing in the shadows.
The latter pressed her lips together lightly, withdrawing the arm she had shot out in the heat of the moment, a faint flush of embarrassment rising on her pretty face.
Such a rough move did not quite befit a lady's conduct.
That said, her hands did not pause in the slightest.
She proceeded to stack seven or eight suppression, confusion, binding, and deep-sleep curses one after another onto Sisyphus lying on the ground, before finally exhaling a careful breath of relief.
Reliable!
Lorne nodded repeatedly at Thetis's impressively professional display, his satisfaction with her visibly growing.
Having a teammate like this around to catch every loose end truly saved him a great deal of worry.
With the extra pair of ears nearby taken care of, he turned his attention back to the horned young man before him and used the name he was more familiar with.
"Minotaur, what are you doing here?"
"F... Father sent me... to help... help you..."
The latter bit out each word carefully, answering in halting fragments.
King Minos?
Hearing the person the Minotaur had mentioned, Lorne instinctively touched his cheek, feeling a trace of surprise.
"How did you know it was me who came?"
Both he and Thetis were cautious by nature.
From the moment they had descended into the underworld, they had kept their layers of disguise magic and defensive inscriptions stacked at no fewer than ten at any time.
Combined with the convenience of divine memory warping perception, everyone they had encountered along the way, whether the old swindler Sisyphus, the ferryman Charon, or Hypnos and his three thousand Oneiroi, had failed to see through their true identities.
The fact that the Minotaur had seen through his disguise at a single glance genuinely piqued Lorne's curiosity.
"Smell..." The bull-horned young man spoke in a low, rumbling voice, then raised a hand and pointed toward the faint, flickering silhouette hovering behind Lorne. "And... that..."
The Cretan Bull?
Was it divine resonance?
So that was it.
Lorne nodded thoughtfully and dismissed the Bull, his Second Avatar, to avoid any further complications.
After tying up those loose ends, he was just about to speak when the Minotaur made a sharp silencing gesture.
"Shh! People... people... above..."
Lorne immediately understood and quickly mirrored the Minotaur's movements, stepping away from the walls of the underground passage, sealing off his own presence, and crouching low.
Then the Minotaur pressed a hand to the ground.
Dark crimson patterns spread across the stone tiles and walls, as though reconstructing a sprawling, labyrinthine underground palace deep within this shadowed cavern.
The Minoan people had always possessed a natural gift for building labyrinths.
Their great mother goddess Athena carried the epithet "Lady of the Labyrinth."
And as the divine inheritor of Crete, the Minotaur likewise held the power to use the earth as his foundation, constructing and commanding a Labyrinth.
Ever since he and his father King Minos had fallen in battle and sunk into the underworld at the very base of the world, the Minotaur's power to lay out the Labyrinth seemed to have grown considerably stronger.
Especially here, upon this Field of Truth.
A quarter of an hour later, the noisy footsteps above gradually faded into silence.
The Minotaur withdrew his arm, rose to his feet, and slowly exhaled a breath.
"...Gone... but not far..."
Lorne nodded and asked.
"What now? How do we get out of here?"
"Follow... follow me..."
The Minotaur beckoned and led the way forward.
The surrounding soil shifted and compacted on its own, forming a solid passage.
Lorne hoisted Sisyphus off the ground, called over Thetis, who had been standing guard nearby, and followed without hesitation.
Half an hour later, a patch of grass quietly shifted.
The earth settled.
A pitch-black tunnel leading straight down opened up, and four figures climbed out one by one.
Lorne brushed off the mud and blades of grass clinging to him and looked back at the violet dream cocoon enveloping the better half of the Field of Truth in the distance, feeling a quiet wave of relief.
Thank goodness the Minotaur had arrived in time, using his knowledge of the terrain to dig a tunnel that led directly outside the barrier.
Otherwise, fighting Hypnos and his three thousand Oneiroi head-on to the bitter end would have most likely ended very badly for the three of them.
"Father... is waiting... for you..."
The Minotaur pointed ahead toward a fork in the road, then voluntarily hoisted the unconscious Sisyphus onto his back and took the lead.
At the far end of the Field of Truth lay the workplace of the three judges of the underworld: Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus.
Among them, King Minos, as the lord of Crete, had been renowned in life for his fair and strict rule of law.
Under his governance, Crete had grown into a prosperous and advanced nation.
He had died the earliest, held the highest standing, and served as the founding figure of the court, responsible for judging the mind.
Then there was Aeacus, the son of Zeus and the river nymph Aegina, and the father of the great heroes Peleus and Telamon.
He had been famed in life for his justice and piety.
When a prolonged drought struck all of Greece due to Zeus's wrath, it was Aeacus who was begged by the people to pray to Zeus for rain, and he succeeded.
After his death, he became one of the three judges of the underworld, responsible for judging conduct.
As for Rhadamanthus, he was another son of Zeus and Europa, elder brother of Minos, and the first-generation King of Crete.
In those early days, Minos had struck a deal with Poseidon the sea god and successfully seized power.
Rhadamanthus, as the former king, had been forced into exile on the island of Boeotia.
In time, he would marry Alcmene, the mother of the great hero Heracles, and after his death would become one of the three judges of the underworld, eventually reconciling with his younger brother Minos, taking on the responsibility of judging speech.
Together, the three of them kept watch in the palace at the far end of the Field of Truth, delivering verdicts based on what each soul had said and done in life.
When disagreements arose in judgment, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus would each decide independently first, and then Minos would cast the deciding vote to reach the final ruling.
Of course, since Heracles had not even been born yet at this point, the last of the three, Rhadamanthus, was naturally still living it up on the island of Boeotia, very much alive and well.
In order to establish the underworld's judicial system as quickly as possible and place a check on the authority of the gods, Lorne had quietly offered Hecate a rather unconscionable suggestion.
Specifically, that during the day, Rhadamanthus would continue living freely on Boeotia, handling disputes among mortals, while at night when he fell asleep, his soul would be pulled into the Field of Truth through the power of Hypnos, to take charge of adjudicating the cases of the underworld's dead.
Judging the living by day and the dead by night, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, no days off.
Toward this shamelessly exploitative arrangement, Hecate immediately agreed without the slightest twinge of conscience.
In Hecate's words, the man was going to end up working in the underworld sooner or later anyway.
Consider it getting an early start on learning the workflow.
And the goddess of crossroads had gone further still, adding an even more unconscionable precaution.
To prevent Rhadamanthus from leaking any secrets related to the underworld, after each day's work, he could be given a drink of water from the River Lethe, ensuring that when he woke, he would be completely hazy about whatever had happened in his dreams, remembering absolutely nothing.
Automatically wiping and recycling an employee, without ever paying a single wage.
Hecate's methods were truly textbook behavior of the sort of capitalist who deserved to be strung up from a lamppost.
Lorne did not hear how things eventually turned out, only hearing secondhand from two Cretan princesses who had fled to Athens.
Apparently, in the days when King Minos sent them dream messages, he seemed to be smiling with an especially particular kind of satisfaction.
"We're... here..."
As the Minotaur's low, rumbling voice reached him, Lorne pulled his thoughts back, smoothed away the faintly wicked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, arrived at the end of the central fork, crossed a hundred-odd stone steps, and walked into the solemn and imposing judgment hall.
All along the way, the underworld guards in their azure gold armor, gripping swords, shields, spears, and bows, paid no attention whatsoever to the Minotaur passing by or the three figures following behind him.
Lorne's gaze swept across the faces of each guard, a subtle smile surfacing in his eyes.
What a coincidence.
They were all familiar faces from Crete.
A moment later, the Minotaur ascended to the top of the stone steps, his arms corded with muscle as he heaved open the sealed stone doors.
"Those brought for judgment, enter..."
A deep, aged voice echoed through the vast and shadowed hall and the three entered in single file.
Then, dozens of meters of stone doors pulsed with glowing inscriptions and sealed themselves shut on their own, blocking out all sound and presence.
Silence reclaimed the surroundings, as though nothing had ever occurred.
And at that very moment, Lorne, now inside the great hall, looked around at the familiar architectural style and furnishings, and felt an oddly comfortable sensation, as though he had come home, opening his mouth on instinct.
"Your Maj..."
"Ahem, ahem!"
On the seat at the far end of the hall, the old man wearing a golden crown and white robes tapped his golden staff lightly and gave a soft, deliberate cough.
Lorne understood at once.
During working hours, one addressed by title.
He quickly corrected himself, assuming a respectful posture and bowing courteously.
"Your Honor, I hope you are well."
King Minos nodded in satisfaction, opened the case file on the table, and commenced the formal proceedings of the trial.
"The accused, Sisyphus, charged with blasphemy, fraud, and escaping lawful custody. The evidence is sufficient and consistent with the facts.
Since the fugitive has fled to this place, he shall be remanded to the court's temporary custody, pending subsequent handover procedures."
At a single glance from the judge of the underworld, the Minotaur in the hall understood immediately and hoisted the still-unconscious Sisyphus onto his back, heading toward the rear courtyard.
Lorne had no objections to this outcome.
Temporary custody was all it was.
Nobody said anything about whether some accident might not occur.
Besides, overseeing Sisyphus's punishment had originally been Hypnos's responsibility.
Even that dignified God of Sleep had failed in his duties.
It was perfectly understandable that the court of the underworld, which was only responsible for adjudicating cases, might have the occasional oversight, was it not?
"As for the two of you..."
Having concluded the first case, King Minos turned a long, quiet look toward the two figures standing before him, and delivered his verdict, professional and impartial as ever.
"The underworld is only responsible for judging the souls of the dead.
The living falls outside my jurisdiction."
With that, King Minos removed the immaculate white judicial robes symbolizing spotless impartiality and draped them over the back of his chair.
Both hands resting on his golden staff, he rose to his feet, a warm smile spreading across his aged face.
"It has been a long time, my scribe..."
The official business was concluded.
Now it was private time.
"Indeed it has, Your Majesty."
Lorne smiled in return with a nod, and reached out to bring Thetis forward with him.
(End of Chapter)