The next morning, just as Crane had told them, Arleen, J.J., and the rest of the sacrifices were taken to the labyrinth, a huge, sprawling structure which seemed to continue on for miles. The sun glistening off its white stone walls was almost blinding, and carrion birds circled overhead, cawing to each other, and occasionally landing to feed on the remains of some previous sacrifice. The double wooden doors at the entrance opened to a long room which stretched out so far, you couldn't see the end of it. The children were shoved into the room, and then the doors were shut and bolted. J.J. looked up to see the copper bull's head above them, and shouted, "Hold your breath and run!"
The children hurried from the first room just as a strange, yellow gas began to pour out of the copper head.
"Now what?" demanded Alice, when they had left the entrance hall, looking around at the endless, identical walls of the maze in front of them.
"Now you all stay here," said Arleen, handing her the spool of thread she had borrowed from Crane. "And keep hold of that," she added, tying the end of the thread around her wrist. "J.J. and I are going to explore the labyrinth to see if there's anything in here that can help us get out. We can't go out the way we came in, but that doesn't mean there's not another way out somewhere in this maze, maybe via one of these riddle rooms. Maybe it's just that nobody's survived long enough to find it."
"Aren't you afraid of the nygmataur?" asked Alice.
"No," retorted Arleen. "And you shouldn't be either. It's not real. If you see it, it's just a hallucination caused by the fear gas, so try and remain calm. We'll be back as soon as we can."
"Enough people have died in here," said J.J., examining the skeletons slouched among the chambers as they walked from room to room. "Maybe one of them will have something useful on their corpse. Or maybe we can make a ladder out of these bones," he added, eyeing the open sky far above them, well out of reach.
"That'll be plan D or something," replied Arleen. "I'm not really interested in trying to climb up a rickety bone ladder. But I guess we could use that thread I borrowed to tie the bones together if all else fails."
"Yeah, plan D," agreed J.J., picking up a bone. "For desperate."
"J.J., look," said Arleen, pointing to some writing on the wall up ahead. "I think it's a riddle."
They looked to see an inscription carved into the wall, and a room ahead of them whose floor was covered in tiles with various letters on them. The inscription read: The strongest man there ever was, a hero who twelve labors caused, will hold you up and gird your steps, so you do not fall to your death.
"Well, that's nice," commented J.J. "And if all the riddles are this easy, we're in good shape. Because the answer's Hercules, of course."
"Right," agreed Arleen, examining the tiles in front of them. "H…," she said, stepping onto the first stone, which remained stable. "E…R…" she continued, hopping from stone to stone. "C…"
She screamed as the stone she was stepping to suddenly collapsed. J.J., who had been following close behind her, shot a hand out and caught her arm. She clung on to him, looking down into the dark pit of nothingness below.
"You know what, Leenie?" he called. "It's technically Heracles in Greek, isn't it? Not Hercules!"
"Thanks for reminding me now!" retorted Arleen, as J.J. pulled her out of the pit.
"No harm done," said J.J., stepping over to the A, which remained steady.
"Easy for you to say," muttered Arleen. "What kind of nutjob would be that pedantic over a stupid name?"
"Nygma, I guess," replied J.J. "I'm sure he likes things to be technically correct above all else. He seems like the type."
They crossed the room without further incident, and wandered along the blank walls of the labyrinth some more, with each twist and turn looking exactly like every other twist and turn. "I can see why people get lost in here," commented J.J. "You'd go crazy being stuck in here for a long time."
"Yeah, I hope we starve to death first," said Arleen. "And at least we'll be with Mom and Dad again in that event, so that's good."
"Yeah," agreed J.J. "But then we'll be stuck with them being mad at us forever for not telling them we were heading off on basically a suicide mission."
"Mom will actually stay mad about that forever too," agreed Arleen. "Which is why we can't give up. We've got to get everyone out of here and prove ourselves heroic, or suffer a fate worse than death – Mom's eternal rage."
…
Meanwhile, in the Underworld, Harleen was listening to Catwoman as she ranted about her relationship problems with Batman, secretly counting her blessings that her husband wasn't similarly open about their marriage vows.
"When I asked him how many kids he had, he said he didn't know!" Selina exclaimed. "He didn't know! And he didn't see why I was upset about it – he said I should understand that he needs as many natural allies as possible when the great war comes, which is probably the most pathetic excuse I've ever heard for why a man would play around like that!"
"That sounds really rough, Selina," Harleen commented. "I can't imagine what it would be like to think Mr. J was just going around fathering children with mortal women. Of course he can't actually do that, since they'll die if he touches them and all, but I still don't like to imagine it."
"It really makes you paranoid," agreed Selina. "To not have any idea what he's up to. You just see attractive women everywhere, and wonder if he's made a move on them yet, or if it'll just be a matter of time. And I can't kill every woman he looks at, although I have killed a lot."
"Yeah, we know," said Harleen. "Mr. J does all the paperwork for their deaths, remember? Not that he needs more things added to his plate with the war on…"
"You know what I think?" interrupted Selina. "I think Batman started this whole war to distract me from what he's been up to! He's hoping to keep my attention fixed on Troy while he goes off and does whoever he wants! What are the deaths of a few thousand mortals to him, as long as he's free to do whatever he wants to do?!"
"Yeah, that does sound like Batman," agreed Harleen. "Speaking of wars, I'm just gonna go check on Mr. J," she said, standing up and hurrying from the room. She breathed a sigh of relief at having gotten away from Selina's seemingly interminable complaints about her husband, and headed for the throne room, where her own husband was overwhelmed with work.
"How's it coming, puddin'?" she asked, coming over to him and massaging his shoulders.
"As well as it can be – how's the cat?" asked Joker, not looking up.
"Making me happier than ever that I married you," retorted Harleen, kissing him. "Of course you don't have time to get up to grand romantic affairs anymore, not even with your wife."
"I'm sorry, pooh – I'll be more available soon," said Joker. "It's just been a particularly bloody battle today. One day one side will run out of men to kill, so the other side will win purely from a numbers game, but it's not today."
They suddenly heard Budandlou barking loudly from the gates to the Underworld. "Can you check and see what he wants, pooh?" asked Joker. "I might have forgotten to feed him, but there should be plenty of souls waiting out there for him to chow down on."
"Sure. Maybe Selina and I can take him for a walk to cheer her up," said Harleen. "Although I know she's more of a cat person."
Selina reluctantly agreed to join Harleen in taking Budandlou for a walk. "You could keep a three-headed guard dog like this up on Mount Olympus, and then it could bark whenever Bats was going out, so you'd know…" Harleen was saying, as she and Catwoman approached the gates of the Underworld.
"Selina! I didn't expect to see you down here!" exclaimed Killer Croc, who was lounging in the River Styx next to the locked gates. Budandlou was barking and growling at him, but he clearly wasn't intimidated by him at all, and suddenly let out a roar, snapping his jaws, which shut Budandlou up. "I just came from Mount Olympus, and I thought you'd be there," Croc continued, turning back to Catwoman.
"Well, I'm not, and Batman knows why!" snapped Selina.
"They're kinda feuding at the moment," explained Harleen.
"I guess these things happen when you're together for hundreds of years," replied Croc. "No long-term relationship is smooth sailing all the time…"
"Yeah, she's just found out that he has tons of kids from other relationships," interrupted Harleen. "So she's understandably pretty peeved at him."
"Oh. So you know about his visits to my realms, huh?" asked Croc. "And the water nymphs?
"What water nymphs?" demanded Selina.
"Speaking of kids, are yours here yet, Harley?" asked Croc, hastily changing the subject.
"Here?" repeated Harleen, confused. "Why would they be here? Mortals can't come to the Underworld unless they're dead."
"Oh no, I'm sure they're not dead," said Croc. "I just thought they would have proved themselves heroic by defeating the nygmataur by now, and that Batman would have granted them godhood. I told him to watch them after I encountered them heading for Crete…"
He suddenly clapped a hand to his mouth. "Oh…darn, I wasn't supposed to tell you that…"
Harleen just stared at him. Then she screamed, "PUDDIN'!" at the top of her lungs.
"What, what?" demanded Joker, racing out of his throne room. "So much for death being peaceful…"
"The kids are in trouble – they've run off to Crete to fight something called the nygmataur!" shrieked Harleen.
"What on earth is that?" demanded Joker. "They told me they were just going to steal some apples!"
"Apparently it's a half-bull, half-man, flesh-eating monster," explained Croc. "Doesn't sound like something I'd wanna encounter, and I'm a half-crocodile, half-man, flesh-eating god."
"Puddin', you gotta go rescue them now!" shrieked Harleen. "I can't leave here because of that stupid deal we made with Batman, but you can! You gotta go now before it's too late!"
Joker nodded, rushing toward the gates of the Underworld. "And take Mother with you!" shouted Harleen after him. "We never should have locked her up in the first place!"
"No, Harl, I can handle this on my own," said Joker, turning back to her. "And she's gonna be real mad about being stuck in Tartarus and all…"
"You go get her now!" shrieked Harleen. "And I don't want to hear another word! If the kids need someone to physically rescue them, you can't do it without killing them! And I don't want them ending up dead from you trying to save them! So go get Mother, and apologize to her, and let her take her anger out on you however she wants! She can't kill you, so just put up with whatever she does to you with a smile!"
"Easier said than done," muttered Joker, as he reluctantly headed for Tartarus. "I've got a feeling I'll wish I could be killed by the time she's through with me."