The Land of the Gods
"Should our food be coming soon?" I heard from the other side of the dim room. I looked to the wall adjacent to the one I was leaning against. Apart from a solitary window, it was identical to the other three. Large cut stones, carefully arranged and covered with moss and imperfections. It was a room designed for one purpose, holding those sentenced to spend the rest of their days within its boundaries. Its minor flaws, like asymmetrical stones, and angles that weren't a flawless ninety degrees became more obvious every day. To others they are forgivable, and even to criminals who have spent years within the walls, seemingly unnoticeable. However, to their craftsman, they were signs of sloppiness, and a lack of perfection. That is who I was. A man trapped within his own creation.
My name was Daedalus. A man sentenced to live the rest of his days within this small chamber. There were only two exits from this room. A lone window, which led to a frightening plummet into the rocks and crashing waves below, and an iron door that was embedded into the wall on which I rested. The door was previously designed to lock from the inside of the cell. An odd design for a prison, yes? However, on the other side of this heavy slab was the Labyrinth. A maze of rock and darkness that also bore the signature of my creation. This was for many years not just a maze, but a home for a monstrous creature. The beast was, too, a product of my design. I created the means for the Queen of Crete to conceive a child with King Minos's beloved Cretan Bull. The child was a hellish culmination of all the Gods' anger. It bore the head of a bull, and the body of a human. A horrible monster called the Minotaur. As it grew older and more ferocious, I created the Labyrinth to house the beast, while designing it to confuse and disorientate the poor souls sent in every nine years as the monster's sustenance.
The door was now locked from within the Labyrinth. The Minotaur had been slain, and much in same the way I played a role in its birth, I also orchestrated its death. I gave my aid to a young man named Theseus. It was simply enough to present him with a single ball of yarn. He was sent in as a member of the Minotaur's feeding group. However, he went in with the belief that he would be the one to slay the beast. Despite my predictions, he was successful, and by trailing the ball of yarn I provided behind him, he managed to navigate his way out of my Labyrinth. When my treachery was discovered by King Minos, I was sentenced to spend the rest of my days within this small cell, forever beside my greatest work. My only regret, is that my son, Icarus, was doomed to share the sentence alongside me. He was imprisoned in the chamber as well, where we would both sit and wait for death.
I looked out the window, seeing the sun was just about reaching the peak of its daily arch. It would only be minutes before our meals came and attempted to quench our hunger for the rest of the day. This was also one of the hardest times of the day, as the sun would be at its highest, and thus heat the room to a near swelter. Having a cell so close to the sea caused the cooling spray of the ocean to reach our small chamber, but only on the stormiest of days, and the wind today was a still as the stone that kept us away from it.
"It won't be much longer, Icarus," I replied. "I will let you have a portion of my meal. I don't want you at risk of starving." Icarus looked at me and slowly rose to his feet. He was dressed like me, wearing nothing but a torn robe, which would dissolve into nothing but threads before his sentence ended.
"I've told hundreds of times, father!" he shouted back. "I will never take your food, no matter how repeatedly you offer." He turned away from me and walked towards the window. He looked out over the ocean, seeing ships in the distance going about their everyday business. He put his forearms across the sill and leaned over, resting his chin on them. I looked towards him in time to see a snow white feather float down from the heavens and fall onto windowsill next to my son's elbow. He glanced at it and slowly reached for it. He picked it up and twirled it in his hand, taking in every last detail about it. He looked back out the window and up at the clouds above, staring enviously at the doves and gulls passing by overhead. He sighed and stepped away from the window. He made his way to me and knelt down so his stare was level with my own. He held the feather out to my chest. I reached with one hand and took it from him, and then slowly turned to my right and rested it in a pile along with hundreds of others just like it.
"I don't know why you collect those," he said to me with a small chuckle. "It would seem the confinement is starting to drive you mad." I looked down at the pile and ran my hand through the feathers, causing a few of them to flutter up into the air and then gently glide back down into place.
"It would be hard for someone outside of my mind to comprehend," I said calmly. "When I sat at the right hand of the King, I was a collector. When I sit, a convict condemned to a stone room beside my only son, I am still a collector. I simply need to make do with what I have." Icarus stood up and turned to the door. He shook his head and pointed through the thin metal bars into the stone hallway.
"Look at what you constructed, father," he snapped. "You are not a collector, nor were you ever. You are an inventor. You were the greatest in all of Greece, and I know that Daedalus is still somewhere within you." I pushed off the floor and stood up. I was feeling almost angry, which I blamed solely on the hunger and dehydration.
"An artist cannot make a masterpiece with no medium!" I cried back to Icarus. "We have nothing, Icarus! We have our clothing, a meager amount food, and a pile of feathers used solely to keep me from completely succumbing to insanity!" Icarus turned away from me and shook his head.
"Then why not, father?" he asked quietly. I leaned in so I could better hear his voice. "Why not try and escape from this place?"
"What nonsense are you speaking?" He looked at the door, pondering while he did.
"The guards!" he cried. "When they come to deliver our food, we will subdue them. Take their weapons and armor." He looked back to the window and ran to it, filled with a new life. "Or the sea. We could jump. If we have the Gods on our side we could survive the fall." I put my hand on my forehead, trying to calm myself. Icarus got like this every so often, where he would get so headstrong that rationality would completely disappear.
"It's that 'acting without thinking' mentality you have that will get you killed one day, Icarus," I stated. "The guards come in numbers every day. They would have no hesitation or difficulty in beheading us on the spot. As for the jump outside, it's far too risky. Even if you somehow made the leap past the rocky shore, the impact with the water would surely cripple you. Not to mention I know you better than anyone, and you have never been able to swim in a lake, let alone a sea like this." I approached him and put my hand on his shoulder. "I refuse to see my son die before me. I will see that you get out of here, as long as you promise that you will always listen to me. I would never steer you wrong, Icarus." He looked into my eyes and smiled before giving a quick and comforting nod.
"I know, father." There was a loud bang behind us, making us jump and almost lose our footing. A man dressed in heavy armor stood in the doorway, holding half a loaf of bread and a small wooden bowl of water in his hands. Three other guards stood behind him, with their hands on their swords. The guard leaned over and placed the objects of the floor, kind enough to not spill any of the water. He then turned around and grabbed something from one of the other men behind him. He turned and stepped into the room, holding a wax candle in his hands. We had a holder next to the window which usually housed a candle for when it got dark. Our previous one had burnt out, and every month or so the guards would replace it, as well as light it when they brought our food. If the wind was harsh enough to extinguish it before darkness came, we would spend the night without vision. The guard placed the candle into the holder and lit it. The small flame grew and flickered on the wall. I knew this candle would not go out tonight with the wind being as still as it was. The guard then turned and made his way out of the room. He closed the door behind him and capped his visit with the sound of the lock reengaging.
I walked to the window of our cell and looked out over the sea. I saw the gulls flying near the waves, before tilting their wings and taking off over the top of the Labyrinth and disappearing from sight.
"You look at the birds the same way I do," Icarus spoke out. He took his place by my side and watched the birds escaping away from our prison. "If only we could fly as they do. Escape to them is simply a way of life." I, too, shared his hope. Every day I thought about jumping from this window, plummeting towards the water and praying that I would sail away into the sky. Over the isle of Crete, and the Labyrinth that it would be my
"I will not call you a fool for wishing, my son," I said quietly. "But we, as humans, were not meant to fly. There is a place for Gods, and there is a place for us. Our place is here." Icarus sighed and turned from the window. He walked towards and door and slowly grabbed the bread from the ground.
"So this is our place for eternity?" he asked. "Among the rats and the roaches? While the Gods watch from on high with the birds?" He ripped a bite off of the loaf and then trudged to the corner of the room. He fell against the wall and slumped down into a heap on the floor. "We were not mean to fly," he murmured to himself, with a hint of annoyance. "A demon man with a bull's head used to stalk the hall of the Labyrinth." I put my back to the window and folded my arms.
"Why do you speak of the Minotaur?" I queried. Icarus closed his eyes, perhaps feeling it was time for a nap. However, before he drifted away, he groaned the final words of our discussion.
"All I say, is that stranger things have happened, Daedalus." I soaked in his last statement. While the premise of a flying man was ridiculous, his argument left no openings for debate. Everything he said was true. Stranger things have happened. Men were not meant to move heavy objects across the land… but we created the wheel. Men were not meant to traverse the seas… but we created the boat. So why couldn't a man conquer the skies as well? I turned slightly to my right, in time to see something flicker in the sunlight. It was another white feather, floating down from the heavens and landed lightly next to me. I knelt down and picked it up, observing it carefully, before looking to my large pile of similar specimens. I looked downwards, seeing a thread snaking its way off of my clothing. Just when the crazy idea I was having started to fade away to nothing more than other sign of insanity, I heard a soft cracking from behind me. I turned to see the candle, flickering every so subtly on the walk. A small drop of wax dripped down from its dip and fell harmlessly to the cold stone below. I lifted the feather I had towards the candle and twirled it around, letting it bathe in the light of the fire.
"Men are not meant to fly," I whispered to myself. I looked at Icarus as he grunted lightly, most likely dreaming of the world outside our chamber. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I made the Labyrinth, I had made the Minotaur, but this boy, lying on the other side of the room, was still my greatest creation. I held the feather tightly in my hand and looked out the window next to me. "This is where we will end, Icarus." I knew he couldn't hear me. It was probably better that way. "Either I will die trying… or Icarus and Daedalus will leave this prison as Gods."
"You're a madman!" Icarus cried. "You know that don't you?" Icarus stood behind me, naked as the day he was born. His robe been taken to cover up our window, in an attempt to keep any wind from making its way inside, and keep any warning light from escaping outside. Before me was my robe, up in flames. The coarse material that it was comprised of kept it burning for a long time, but I was still racing against time. The guards had just left after dropping off our daily meal, and I had only one day to finish my creations before they returned. I grabbed one feather at a time, lacing it with thread from Icarus's clothing to another feather, before using a small dab of wax from the candle to fix them together. I had convinced the guards that during a physical argument between my son and myself, the candle had been thrown from the window and was lost. The guards saw it their heart to provide an old man and his child a replacement candle, giving me twice the amount of wax for my project. I melted the wax over the fire and fastened the feathers together piece by piece, careful not to waste a single drop.
"You said it yourself, Icarus," I stated. "I am not a collector, I'm an inventor. It is my passion to create the impossible and achieve the unreachable."
"But this is something a man was not meant to achieve! You can't believe a bundle of feathers sewn together with thread and set in wax will make a man into a bird, can you?" I started on the second row of feathers, ignoring my son's exclamations.
"The chance is worth the time and the work," I replied. "If I succeed, we escape. If I don't, at least we go on knowing that we tried." Icarus shook his head and sat down next to me and the fire. The room was quickly heating up, and every so often I had to lifted Icarus's robe off of the window in order to filter out the smoke, before lowering it again and returning to my work.
"You know I will always believe in you, father," he spoke softly, "but I feel like we are about to venture into an area that does not belong to man." I continued to the next row, coming to the end of the first of four wings.
"We will be forgiven, Icarus," I reassured. "We only need these to escape. We will not use them again afterwards. While we fly, we will be mindful of the Gods, and know enough to stay in our place. The second you encroach on their land, you wish death upon yourself." Icarus nodded and closed his eyes.
"I will leave you to your work." He put his back on the floor and put his hands behind his head. I worked on into the night, fixing together feather after feather. Just as midnight approached, I had finished the first set of wings. They were a glowing white and created with nothing but perfection in mind. Using straps made from what was left of my clothing, I fastened them to my back. I had other straps fashioned to the center of the wings, which were meant to wrap around my biceps and control my flight. I looked down at Icarus, sleeping silently on the floor. If he woke and saw his father right now, he would think he was dreaming. I held my arms out, noticing the wings were surprisingly light, and barely impeded my normal movements. I ripped my arms down to my hips, surging air towards the floor around me. The pressure briefly lifted me into the air, before it dissipated and I dropped back to the ground. I did it again, provoking the same reaction. The faster I move my arms up and down, the longer I remained in the air. The concept was sound, and the design seemed flawless… but there was only one way to truly test this. I looked to the window and slowly approached it, ripping Icarus's robe out of the way. This was the moment, the one I had been dreaming off since the day I was imprisoned. I stepped up onto the sill and looked down at the jagged rocks below, which were covered in white foam with the surge of each new wave. I looked out over the sea and closed my eyes. I leaned forward, and tipped my body over the edge. My last thought was of Icarus. Though the Labyrinth would remain much longer than he, I prayed that Icarus would be the legacy that remained in the people's minds. I fell.
I could feel the rush of the air tearing across my head. My ears were assaulted by a horrific combination of the wind and crashing waves below. I used all of my strength to force my arms upwards, despite the power and energy of the wind around me. I was in the hands of the Gods now, and I could only pray that they felt pity for me. I straightened my arms and the wind crashed into the underside of the feathers. My downward momentum started to slow, and the deafening wind lessened. I forced my arms downward and just as my hands collided with my hips, my fall came to a sudden halt, and I began rising instead. I opened my eyes to see the water below doing everything in its power to pluck me from the sky. I flapped my arms, and again I rose into the sky. I turned my head to the window of my cell getting smaller in the distance. They worked! My wings! My creations! They actually worked! The birds flew by me, making their way out to sea. Suddenly they seemed less magical than before, and now were nothing more than a pack of animals, doomed to forever be jealous of me. I lowered my left arm and raised my right, turning me and facing me back towards the jail I had just successfully escaped. I flew towards the dark hole in the side of the Labyrinth and flapped my wings furiously before contact. They slowed my momentum and made me hover just in front of the sill.
"Icarus!" I cried. "Icarus wake up, boy!" Icarus shot from his slumber and sat erect. He started at the window and his eyes grew as wide as the sky. He leapt to his feet and ran to the sill, standing only feet from me as my body moved up and down in opposition to my wings. He looked all around me, seeing if there were any parlor tricks at play, but this was no joke.
"Father!" he screamed. "You've done it!" I placed my foot onto the sill and stepped back into the room, carefully folding in me wings so the stone wall would not damage them. I planted myself back on the ground and fell to my knees. I was breathing heavily and sweat poured from my forehead. It was tiring, but it was exhilarating.
"Son! We're free!" I slowly got to my feet and turned to my boy. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close to me. "Your wings will be completed before sunrise! We will fly together before dawn!" Icarus had tears running from his cheeks that rolled down my shoulders when we embraced. I pushed him away in excitement and turned back to the small fire that had the second candle resting next to it. I took off my wings and handing them to Icarus. I grabbed another pile of feathers and prepared to get back to work. In a few hours it would be the day people remembered as the day Icarus and Daedalus flew from the Labyrinth. It would be the day that Icarus and Daedalus walked in the land of the Gods.
I looked down at the rocks and water a hundred feet below me. I had done this before… but no amount of practice could prepare you from taking this plunge. You throw your life into the hands of the Gods, and only if they felt amused by our performance would they let us make it to freedom. I turned back to my cell, seeing Icarus strapping his set of wings onto his back. Though I was proud of both my son and my invention… and couldn't fight the biting of fear in the back of my mind. My only son, my prodigy, my legacy, was about to put his life at risk, backing his decision on nothing more than my word. I stepped into the room and approached my son, lifting my hand and cupping it around the back of his head. I pulled him forward so his forehead pressed against my own. I held him there for a moment, hoping that having our minds so close would somehow transfer my knowledge to him. That he would be able to control these creatures on our backs as well as I did. My success depended on my son. If he did not make the journey alongside me, I would never know freedom. The guilt would be my prison, and the wings would be nothing more than regret crafted together with thread and wax.
"Let us depart, father," he said calmly, with a slight twinge of excitement buried underneath. He turned his head to the window, smiling at the blue sky before him. I let go of his head and put my hand on the sill.
"You will again know freedom, Icarus," I said. "But only if you obey my every word." Icarus looked back at my eyes and nodded. It seemed like my words could be seen escaping the other side of his head, but I had to do my best to make them sink in. "If you don't obey me, you will be lost, Icarus. I cannot lost my son."
"I will obey you, father."
"Promise me, Icarus. Swear to the Gods that you will listen to me." The happiness seemed to fade in Icarus's eyes when he saw the seriousness of my warnings. He looked at the wings on his back, suddenly questioning their effectiveness.
"Is there something wrong with your creation?" he asked, fearful. I looked outside once again as the sun began to reach its highest point. It was a particularly warm day, which did not work in my favor. The wind, however, was swirling over the sea, giving us plenty of fuel to easily make it to land. My destination was Sicily. A long trek, but one I thought seemed plausible without become too tired. The sun grew brighter and hotter with each second, and the waves became more violent as they jumped from the surface of the sea.
"The very objects used to create these wings are also what could destroy them," I responded. "If you fly too high, the heat of the sun above us will melt the wax once again, and the wings will no longer hold their rigidity." Icarus looked up at the sun, nodding as he did. "And if you fly too low, the waves could leap up, dampen the feathers, and destroy their usefulness." Again Icarus nodded, but this time as he looked downwards to the water below. "There is a middle area, son. This will belong to us. It is where flying men have earned the right to navigate."
"I understand, father," he replied. He stepped up onto the sill and look down at the rocks. I could see the small hairs on his back stand up from fear, as if trying to pull him back into the chamber. I could see him starting to lean forward, letting the wind take him and throwing his fear away. I closed my eyes, not able to bear the sight of my only son throwing himself from a cliff. He fell. I heard nothing, but when I opened my eyes, he was gone. I ran to the window and looked over the edge. The water churned just like always below me, smashing against the rocks and retreating back into the sea. There was a single feather floating in the waves, rocking back and forth. I frantically looked for Icarus, and what I hoped would be a struggling swimmer, and not simply a corpse.
"Father!" I heard. I looked upwards, and there he was. Flying like a dove overhead, turning in circles and flipping in all directions. I was helpless to suppress a smile when I saw my son defying all the truths that man was forced to live with. I too jumped to the sill and leapt off of the side. Just like before, the wind lifted below my wings and ascended me into the sky. So there I was, flying beside my son over Crete. The Labyrinth was below us, helpless to retake what it once owned. We were the envy of Greece, the pinnacle of mankind. We flew towards the center of Crete, praying that Minos was looking outside at that moment, witnessing his two captive reach a point where they could never attained. I shouted to Icarus, trying to throw my voice past the wind.
"We've done it, boy!" I cried. "Let us head for Sicily. Make our way to freedom." Icarus nodded his head and wheeled around in the air. I followed close behind as we made our way towards our destination.
The sun's peak had come and passed, but it was still shining all of its heat down upon us. Icarus was flapping his wings in a rhythmic manner, bobbing his body up and down, as if he was dancing in the sky. I smiled as his joy, and, too, felt myself wanting to celebrate. I could see a small island approaching in the distance. This would not be our home, but it would be a nice place to rest.
"This is incredible, father!" he yelled. "We are Gods! We are the envy of all mankind!" He was being naïve, but he was allowed to be. I started to approach him, wanted to discuss my plans of touching down on this approaching body of land. I kept my eyes front, but slowly arched to the right. However, when I reached his position, he was nowhere in sight. I looked back and forth, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
"Icarus!" I screamed. "Icarus!"
"Up here!" I looked upwards and saw the silhouette of Icarus, bathed at its edges by the sunlight. "It's amazing from up here! You can see everything!"
"Icarus!" I shouted. "Come back down here!" Icarus looked down on me and shook his head.
"Just a little higher!" he begged. "I could see the entire world. Places that man was never seen!" He started to get smaller as he rose higher into the sky.
"You are encroaching on an area that doesn't belong to us!" I pleaded. "Come back, Icarus! Please come back!" Icarus was beyond the limits of my voice. My cries and pleas went unheard to anyone but myself. He continued to climb into the heavens in an attempt to ensure that all of mankind was below him. He was still directly above me. My heart started to quicken and I questioned whether I should climb after him. Just as the decision was made to chase the headstrong adolescent, I felt something cool splash across my face. Had I flown too low? Was the water leaping up? I looked down, seeing the sea was well below me. Again I felt the liquid splash on my skin, but this time it was warmer. A third splash was followed by a lone feather floated down in front of me and resting onto the water below. I looked upwards and saw a storm of feathers and wax begin to rain upon me. I knew what was happening. I knew what was no inevitable. The silhouette grew larger, and its cries suddenly became much too clear.
"Father!" he screamed. "Father! Help me! Father!" Icarus fell past me, feathers tearing from his wings and fluttering into the sky. I tried to turn, but before I could even slow myself he had broken the surface of the sea and, with one final cry, disappeared below the water. The ripples from his impact resonated away and slowly disappeared. A circle of feathers and thread floated in the water around the site of the impact. I fought my every urge to dive in after him. I would be nothing more than another casualty if I entered the water in pursuit. Circled overhead several times, watching for any signs of my son. If I saw a single splash, a single ripple in the sea, I would no longer be able to fight the urge to try and rescue him. I prayed for this. I prayed that any minute I would be hopelessly diving into the cold water, knowing that there was a son left to save. The longer I waited, the less I saw. The feathers all floated away and soon it seemed like this spot in the ocean was no different than any other. I turned away and flew towards the small island before me, leaving a trail of tears in my wake. We were not Gods. I knew it, Icarus affirmed it. He stepped on their toes, and they put him back in his place. As the tears continued to flow down my cheeks, I was reassured that I was no more of a God than he.
When I arrived at Sicily, the night was young. It was a lonely landing. Not the way I had envisioned our great escape from Crete. I held a funeral procession for my lost son. A boy that few will remember. A boy that was destined to carry on my name, and one day live to be greater than I had ever been. I immediately started a new construction. Icarus was always a musical one, dancing when the time was right and humming countless tunes when we sat imprisoned in the Labyrinth. In his honor, I built a temple dedicated to the God of music, Apollo. In this temple, I hung up my wings, offering them to the God with the hope he would take them away. The small island I rested upon was given the name Icaria, in hopes that it would prove a place of rest and sanctuary for all travelers that happened upon it. I looked at the wings before me, hanging on the wall in my new temple.
"They are quite the invention, Daedalus," a voice spoke from behind me. I recognized the tone, so the act of turning around was made pointless. I closed my eyes and nodded my head.
"Yes they are, Cocalus," I replied. The King stood by my side and put his hand on my shoulder.
"And this temple," he began, "this temple is immaculate! A fitting shrine to house your greatest creation!" He hit me firmly on the back and turned away. I sighed and looked at the shining white feathers before me once again.
"You're mistaken," I said solemnly. King Cocalus looked back, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "This is simply where I have chosen to hang up my wings. They are just another instrument to prove that man was not meant to walk in the land of the Gods." I turned around, looking out the door of the shrine and over the massive body of water beyond it. Every day I would stand by its shores, watching the many birds fly peacefully in circles overhead, kings of the world that they earned. And every day a single feather would float by, and just as quickly disappear again into the sea. "My greatest creation," I corrected, "he has a new home now."