Percy Jackson and the Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan
He ran to the window and launched himself into the air.
King Minos laughed. ‘Well, so much for that Athenian.’
Theseus was halfway down when he wondered if he should’ve made some preparations … a parachute, or maybe a boogie board. He settled for a prayer.
‘Hey, Poseidon,’ he said. ‘A little help?’
He hit the water. That should’ve killed him instantly, but instead he sliced easily into the depths. The currents carried him down to the ocean floor. He spotted a glittering bit of gold in the sand and grabbed the ring of Minos.
Theseus kicked upward and broke the surface. He didn’t even feel winded. ‘Thanks, Dad!’
The waves carried Theseus safely to shore. A few minutes later, one of the waiters in the royal dining hall came running up to the king. ‘Um, sir, there’s a wet guy at the door, says he has your ring.’
Theseus burst in. ‘Ta-da! My lord Minos, I bring greetings from the second most powerful god, Poseidon. He says, “What else you got, loser?” ’ Theseus tossed the ring into the king’s soup bowl.
The Athenians laughed. Even the Cretans smiled and snickered.
King Minos tried to keep his cool, but it wasn’t easy. The veins on his forehead felt like they were about to explode.
‘Dinner is over!’ The king rose. ‘Sleep well, tributes. Tomorrow, you face the Minotaur. And our dashing friend Theseus will have the honour of dying – I mean, going in first.’
Princess Ariadne couldn’t sleep that night.
Her dad was so mean, putting the man she loved to death. She decided she couldn’t stand it. She wrapped herself in a hooded cloak and sneaked out of her room to visit her mentor, Daedalus, who lived in a workshop in the Labyrinth, imprisoned there by order of the king.
Over the years, Ariadne had become friends with the old inventor. He tutored her in maths and science. He listened as she complained about her parents (and you’ve got to admit her parents were messed up). Daedalus had built the Labyrinth, so he taught Ariadne how to navigate it safely – always go forward and to the right, and unravel a ball of string so you can find your way back out. At least once a week, she sneaked into the maze to visit the old man. Now she needed his advice to save her new boyfriend.
She arrived at the inventor’s workshop and explained her problem. ‘I have to help Theseus! I’ll show him your navigation tricks so he can get through the maze. But how can he defeat the Minotaur?’
Daedalus tugged nervously at his beard. He liked Ariadne. He wanted to help her, but he had a feeling this would not end well for any of them.
Ariadne gave him the big sad puppy-dog eyes.
Daedalus sighed. ‘Fine. Your boyfriend won’t be allowed to bring any weapons into the maze, but the Minotaur has two perfectly good weapons on top of his head. Tell your boyfriend to borrow them. Also, the Minotaur’s real name is Asterion.’
‘Wow,’ said Ariadne. ‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘Most people have. The Minotaur probably has. But Theseus might be able to use that name to confuse the monster. It may buy him a few seconds.’
Ariadne kissed the old man on the forehead. ‘You’re the best, Daedalus!’
Later that night, Theseus heard a knock on his door. He figured the guards were checking to make sure he hadn’t jumped out of the window again. Instead, when he opened his door, he found the Princess Ariadne, her face flushed, a simple traveller’s cloak over her royal gowns.
‘I can help you get in and out of the Labyrinth,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you how to kill the Minotaur. But I have one condition: if you succeed, you’ve got to take me with you when you leave. I hate Crete!’
‘I can work with that,’ Theseus said.
Ariadne explained how to navigate the maze. She gave him a ball of thread. ‘You’ll find the Minotaur in the centre of the maze. If you call him by his real name, Asterion, you might confuse him long enough to get the initiative. You won’t be allowed to bring any weapons, but Daedalus said you could use the monster’s own horns against him.’
‘Okay,’ Theseus said. ‘Or I could just use my hands. They’re registered as lethal weapons in twenty-seven countries.’
The princess’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘No, I’m kidding. I’ll use the horns. Thanks for the ball of string.’
The next morning, guards herded the fourteen Athenian tributes to the Labyrinth. The crowd of spectators was even bigger than usual. Everybody wanted to see how Theseus, the prince of Athens, handled his death sentence.
Theseus treated it like a party. He waved and smiled. He shook hands with the Cretans, kissed babies and stopped for photos with his admirers.
When he got to the entrance of the Labyrinth, he called his fellow tributes together for a huddle. ‘I’ll go in first,’ he told them. ‘I’ll get to the centre, unravelling some string as I go. You guys just take it slow. Hold on to the string. Once I kill the Minotaur, I’ll backtrack, collect you guys, and we’ll all go home alive. Ready? Break!’
The giant stone gates of the Labyrinth rolled open. The guards frisked the tributes for weapons, but nobody noticed Theseus’s thread, which he’d wrapped around his waist like a belt.
Theseus yelled, ‘Yeah, Labyrinth! Woohoo!’
He ran inside. The other Athenians followed, not quite as enthusiastically. The gates slammed shut, and the crowd outside waited for the first screams to pierce the air.
Theseus unwound his string. He tied one end to a torch sconce conveniently located by the exit. He reminded the other tributes not to stray too far.
‘Just mingle,’ he told them. ‘Talk among yourselves. I’ll be back soon.’
He headed into the maze.
The place was designed to be confusing. After four or five steps, Theseus would’ve been hopelessly lost, if not for his trusty string and Ariadne’s instructions: when in doubt, always go forward and to the right.
He made his way past spring-activated crossbows, pits full of poisonous spikes, corridors filled with rotating blades and hallways lined with mirrors that made him look really fat or really skinny. Finally the maze opened into a circular arena like a rodeo ring.
The Minotaur was waiting.
Thanks to his diet of red meat, steroids, candy and Tabasco sauce, he’d grown to be eight feet tall. With his bullish shoulders, neck and head, and his blood-red eyes and glistening curved horns, he made the Marathonian Bull look like a newborn calf. He was pretty scary from the shoulders down, too. His arms and legs were swollen with muscles. He wore only a loincloth. And the guy hadn’t had a bath or a manicure in twenty years.
The floor around him was strewn with broken chains and bones from all the prisoners he’d eaten over the years. Otherwise the arena was empty except for some hay to sleep on, a trough of dirty water to drink from, a hole in the ground for a toilet and a couple of old issues of National Geographic for reading material. No wonder the Minotaur was angry.
Theseus approached the bull-man. He wasn’t sure if he felt terrified, fascinated or just sorry for the monster. ‘Dude, your life must suck. You sure we have to fight? I could break you out of here and –’
‘ROOOOAR!’ The Minotaur charged. He’d been trained since birth to kill and hate. He’d been tortured, taunted and shunned. He wasn’t about to trust a human now.
Theseus dodged, but the Minotaur was fast. His left horn scraped Theseus’s chest and drew blood.
Theseus knew a lot of tricks for unarmed combat, but he quickly realized the Minotaur was stronger and smarter than any opponent he’d ever faced. He staggered back as the monster turned and charged again.
Theseus dived to the left. The monster anticipated it. The Minotaur backhanded Theseus across the arena.
Theseus groaned and clawed through the hay. Desperately, he grabbed a length of chain. As the Minotaur bore down on him, Theseus lashed out with the chain, wrapping the end around the monster’s horn.
Instinctively the Minotaur pulled away. Theseus yanked back with all
‘ARRROOOOOO!’ The Minotaur stumbled, but the broken horn was more startling than painful.
The monster planted his feet. He balled his huge fists and glared at Theseus.
For the first time in his life, Theseus felt doubt. He clutched the monster’s broken horn, but he wasn’t sure he would have time to use the weapon. The monster was simply too fast and strong. Theseus would never get close enough without getting torn to pieces.
‘Let’s talk about this, man.’ He slowly rose to his feet. ‘Doesn’t have to be this way. You’re not all monster. You’re part human.’
‘RAGGR!’ The Minotaur couldn’t think of anything more insulting than being called a human. He ran at Theseus, determined to trample him into hero puree.
‘Asterion!’ Theseus cried.
The Minotaur froze as if he’d been punched in the snout. That name … He knew that name. His earliest memories … gentle voices. A woman, maybe his mother? A comfortable nursery with actual baby food, warm blankets, a fire in the hearth. The Minotaur remembered a life outside the maze. He had a fleeting, warm sense of being human.
And, in that moment, Theseus stabbed him in the gut with his own broken horn.
The bull-man thrashed and wailed. His screams echoed through every street in Knossos. He tried to grab Theseus, but the hero darted away.
The Minotaur chased after him, but his legs felt like lead. The pain in his gut grew worse. His vision swam. The monster fell to his knees and collapsed. His last vision was of Theseus standing over him, the hero’s expression sad rather than triumphant.
‘Rest easy, Asterion,’ Theseus said. ‘Go to sleep.’
The monster closed his eyes. As he died, he drifted into a dream of warm blankets and kind voices.
Theseus pulled the broken horn from the monster’s gut. His clothes were soaked in blood. He wanted to tear down the Labyrinth brick by brick. He wanted to stab King Minos with Asterion’s horn. But he had thirteen other Athenians to think about. He had promised to bring them home.
He found the end of his string and followed it back the way he’d come. He collected his fellow tributes until all fourteen of them stood at the maze’s exit.
Normally, that wouldn’t have done him any good. The guards weren’t going to open the doors to let anyone out. But Princess Ariadne was waiting just outside the gates. She heard Theseus calling from within: ‘Helllooooo? Minotaur gone bye-bye. Can we come out now?’
‘Open the gates!’ Ariadne told the guards. ‘Your princess commands you!’
The guards did as they were told.
Theseus stepped out, followed by the other tributes. He raised the bloody horn so all the spectators could see. ‘No more Minotaur! No more tributes!’
The crowd grew silent. They might have turned on him. Things can get ugly when the visiting team wins. But the truth was the Cretans liked brave heroes and dead Minotaurs a whole lot more than they liked King Minos.
The crowd exploded with cheering. They ripped up their bull banners. They chanted THEE-SEE-US! over and over as they lifted the hero and Princess Ariadne onto their shoulders and paraded them down to the docks, where the Athenians’ ship waited. The city guards joined in the celebration. Ariadne’s younger sibling Phaedra, who happened to be in the crowd, shouted to her sister, ‘Wait, you’re leaving Crete? TAKE ME WITH YOU!’ So both princesses fell in with the Athenians.
There was absolutely nothing Minos could do except scream and stomp around his palace as the entire population of Knossos threw a party for Theseus, then escorted him to his ship for his return voyage with tons of gifts, Princess Ariadne and bonus princess Phaedra.
The ship sailed away that night. Their trip home was a massive three-day party. This time everybody played bingo. Trivia night on the lido deck got pretty wild.
If you want a happy ending, this would be a good place to stop reading.
Because, now that he was on top of the world, Theseus wasted no time turning into a dirtwad.
During the first night at sea, the Athenians were so busy partying that their ship ran aground on the island of Naxos. While the crew was doing repairs, Ariadne and Theseus had some kind of falling out. They’d been together less than twenty-four hours, but Theseus decided it wasn’t going to work. Maybe Ariadne was more serious about the relationship than he was. Maybe she drooled in her sleep.
Anyway, Theseus told Ariadne he was going to leave her on Naxos and sail home without her.
Cold, right?
Even worse, he claimed that Athena herself had ordered him to do it in a dream. Gee, honey, sorry, but a goddess told me I have to break up with you. Totally not my fault.
Yeah. Sure, buddy.
Worst of all? He immediately started dating Ariadne’s younger sister Phaedra.
Ouch.
Ariadne’s heart was broken, but things worked out for her in the end. After Theseus sailed away, the god Dionysus stumbled across her on Naxos. He fell in love with her, married her, and made her immortal.
Ariadne wouldn’t have wanted to marry Theseus anyway. As you’ll see in a sec, he turned out to be a failure at Husbanding 101.
The Athenians’ ship sailed on, but Theseus, distracted by all of the partying, made a typical ADHD mistake. He totally forgot about changing the colour of the sails to alert his dad that everything was okay.
The ship appeared in the harbour with black sails.
The people of Athens wailed and grieved. They assumed their tributes were dead, as usual. Old King Aegeus was watching from the tallest tower of the castle. When he saw that the sails weren’t fuchsia (or white, whatever) he was so heartbroken he threw himself into the sea.
Unlike Theseus, Aegeus couldn’t survive a twenty-storey fall. He died, and that part of the Mediterranean became known as the Aegean Sea after the old king.
Theseus docked in Athens. When he found out his dad was dead, he was totally bummed. They never even got to go to a ball game together.
On the bright side, Theseus was now king of Athens. He had destroyed all his family’s enemies, found a new wife, Phaedra (who was way hotter than his other new wife, Ariadne), and ended the Athenian tributes to Crete forever.
For a while, King Theseus was super popular. The ship he sailed home on was turned into a floating tribute to him, with a nice café and gift shop. The ship stayed in the harbour for centuries. Each time a plank rotted, the Athenians replaced it, until pretty much every piece of the ship had been swapped out several times.
The local philosophers, who had way too much time on their hands, started debating the ‘Theseus ship problem’. If you gradually replace every piece of an original with an exact copy, is it still the same object? I’ve wondered about that with celebrities who get too much plastic surgery. But Annabeth tells me I’m getting off track …
Theseus united Attica under the leadership of Athens. He had kids with Phaedra, and for a few years they were happy. But you know how it is when you’re restless and bored – you can’t leave well enough alone.
Of course, it wasn’t all Theseus’s fault.
He found a friend who was a bad influence – the kind of impulsive delinquent your mom always warns you about. Usually, I am that friend. For Theseus, it was a guy named Pirithous.
Pirithous was the chieftain of the Lapiths – a northern Greek tribe so wild they hung out with centaurs. Believe me, centaur parties are not for the faint-hearted.
Pirithous kept hearing stories about the strong, brave king of Athens down south. For a while, you couldn’t check the news without seeing headlines about Theseus this and Theseus that.
Pirithous got annoyed. ‘He can’t be that great. I’m going down there to call out this punk.’
He saddled his horse and rode to Marathon, where Theseus had captured the white bull long ago. Pirithous thought, Theseus thinks he’s cool for stealing one bull? I’m gonna steal every cow in town.
And he did. He rounded up all the cattle in Mar
‘You want your cows back?’ Pirithous said. ‘Why don’t you get your king to help you? Tell Theseus I’ll be waiting for him.’
Pirithous herded the cattle north.
News of the cattle-rustling incident reached Theseus, and he couldn’t let the insult go. He rode north all by himself. Pirithous wasn’t hard to find, since that many cows leave behind a whole lot of patties.
When Theseus caught up to Pirithous, they trash-talked one another for about an hour until they ran out of your mama insults. Then they had an epic smackdown. They broke rocks over each other’s heads. They threw each other off cliffs. They wrestled and swung swords and tossed grenades, but they just couldn’t kill one another. They were equally strong and fast and lucky.
Finally, exhausted, they sat down together and shared a bottle of wine.
‘To Hades with it,’ Theseus said. ‘If we can’t kill each other, we might as well be friends.’
There’s demigod logic for you.
Unfortunately, Pirithous got Theseus into all kinds of trouble. Every weekend the two of them went carousing – drinking, getting into bar fights and destroying entire nations. Theseus forgot his old philosophy about only attacking when he was attacked. He forgot about only using as much force as his enemies used against him. He just let loose and killed everything in his path.
Theseus would drag himself into the palace on Sunday night, and Queen Phaedra would be like, Where have you been?
‘Out.’
‘Were you destroying entire nations with Pirithous again?’
‘Leave me alone, woman! I was just trying to unwind. Gods!’
One time Theseus and Pirithous decided to make war on the Amazons, and Theseus ended up having a fling with Hippolyta, the Amazon queen. How that happened, I’m not sure, but they had a son together – Hippolytus. When the news got around, it didn’t go over real well with Phaedra.
She decided to take the kids and move into a different palace. Theseus sulked for a while. Then he did what he usually did to cheer up: he went to hang out with the Lapiths.