the Hall of Barabbas was dark. It looked like some of the illuminated characters on the walls had burned out or dimmed. There was a portion of the corridor that looked almost completely unlit, and I resolved to move through that patch of darkness as quickly as possible. I was just about to enter the shadows when Midnight jumped in front of me, growling and snarling. The dog wore a certain, lop-eared goofy expression when he wasn’t mad. That changed in the blink of an eye. Saliva dripped from Midnight’s muzzle, and his eyes burned with an internal fire.
What now?
I glanced back once to make sure that Barabbas was truly dead. His body was right where I left it.
I heard the flies buzzing nearby and smelled something that reeked of rot and sulfur and malice. I knew that smell.
The minotaur stepped out of the shadows and made a deep lowing sound that caused the hair on my arms to stand at attention. Although the creature was fearsome, I couldn’t help noticing the deep gashes in its upper thigh and the scratches across its face. Midnight had held his own with the minotaur and jumped in front of me, preparing to do so again.
The two creatures squared off against each other, baring teeth and snorting ferociously. The minotaur scraped its horns against one wall, delighting in the sparks it made. It repeated the ritual on the opposite wall to show how mighty it was. Midnight didn’t seem deterred or intimidated by the creature‘s show of bravado. Instead, he seemed ready to fight.
“Be careful.”
The dog turned and gave me a dubious expression that would have seemed almost comical under different circumstances. When he turned to face his opponent, he was all business again. The deep, menacing growls coming from the back of his throat were enough to scare me. The minotaur, however, didn’t react as I expected. Instead, he did something that surprised me.
He spoke.
“I have no quarrel with your dog. You are the one I’ve been sent here to deal with.”
The creature struggled to form human words with a bovine tongue, but I understood it.
“You speak?”
“Among other things.” The minotaur’s voice was a low rumble. “I’m not sure how that dog found its way in here. It doesn‘t belong. It‘s not in the blueprint.”
I didn’t know where the dog was from either, but I wasn’t going to tell the minotaur that. “Where am I?”
“You are trapped inside of a maze that I preside over. Think of this as a set of trials and tribulations tailored specifically for you.”
“But why me?”
The bull snorted, briefly disturbing the halo of flies that circled its head. “You ask me that as if you don’t know.”
“Karen.” The minotaur nodded.
“Sin isn’t free. There is a price for everything.”
“I thought that was for God to judge.”
“Who’s to say that God didn’t commission the building of this place?”
“You say that as if you don’t know.”
The minotaur snarled. “My knowledge of this place isn’t all-encompassing. I only know what I’m meant to know, and those are the rules.”
“Rules?”
“The rules of your maze. You would do well to remember them. Number one: You have the power to save or to condemn. Number two: Entire worlds will be built or destroyed based on the choices you make. Number three: One way or another, you will die here.”
“I’m going to die.” I spoke softly as the implications of that statement set in.
“The rules say so, but there are reasons to persevere.”
“What kind of reasons?”
“You will be subjected to a series of tasks. Your family will suffer or not depending on how well you do here inside the labyrinth.”
“Not my family,” I whispered. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You are the head of your family. They pay the price for the decisions you make.”
“What kind of tasks do I have to complete?” I feared the answer.
“Have you ever heard of the Roman Emperor Trajan?”
I shook my head.
“Are you familiar with the kind of fighting that took place in the Roman Coliseum?”
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Gladiators battled to the death,” I said. “But I don’t know much about them.”
“You’ll know more when we’re through.”
“I’m not a fighter,” I protested.
“You must learn to become one and quickly.”
“You said yourself that I’m going to die in here anyway. What’s the point?”
“You may interpret what I said in any way you want,” the minotaur said. “But the fight is one you will want to win. There is much at stake here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you