They walked until the red light of the open doors faded away behind them. They walked until darkness swallowed them like the mouth of a whale rising up to meet them, leaving them with nothing but the meek light of the lantern hanging from Ganymede's crook. It drifted over the walls as he turned to the imps and asked, "Can you do dogs?"
"What?" Pain asked. Black smoke coiled around them as they stretched out snouts, fur and tails. "Of course we can!"
"What's the scheme?" Panic asked, now shivering in the form of a green and bug-eyed whippet. Pain, a tiny creature with bow legs and a snubbed nose, panted heavily at his side. Ganymede crouched down to their level and stretched the fabric of his tunic in front of their noses. As their snouts twitched, Panic raised a brow. "Seriously? That's your big-" He snapped as rigid as a weathervane, one paw off the ground, his tail sticking out straight behind him. "It's that way." Ganymede rose to his feet and strolled past them with a smug smile.
"Let's get this over with - this place gives me the creeps."
Their voices bounced off the archways and bending columns as they sometimes descended and sometimes ascended the stairways, passing beneath hacked and thuggish tunnels leading to unknown depths and crossing over bridges that spanned nothingness. The dim light swinging from Ganymede's crook cast an ever-shifting light around their feet, and like sonar bounced from the walls in a simple binary; sometimes there was something there, something the light simply sped off into the blackness of the void. The space and darkness that surrounded them seemed to be the same thing, rather than one filling the other.
Since Minos had opened the door they had not seen the ceiling.
"So, how long have you worked for Hades?" Ganymede asked. Pain sat in the crook of his arm as Panic followed the nose he had pressed to the ground.
"Since forever," Pain replied.
"He kinda built us," Panic added, not looking up. Pain nodded as best he could with no neck.
"It was an entry-level position."
They followed the scent down a new stairway, each step bringing them down to cooler, wetter, darker air. Ganymede checked his lantern's oil.
"And he never made any more of you, huh?"
"He can't make living stuff anymore," Pain said. "He whipped us up before Zeus sent him down to the Underworld."
Ganymede glanced down at the teacup pug draped over his arm. "So Zeus made him the way he is? I thought he just saw the obvious heel and joined the dots."
"I think it's a little of column A, a little of column B."
"Huh..." Ganymede slowed his pace, then concluded, "Still, god of death isn't a bad gig."
Panic's snout rose from the dirt, and even though his limbs jittered and his eyes rattled against his weird little body, he corrected him with a snooty, "Actually, he's god of 'the dead'."
"Oh, shut up."
Panic's head bolted upright, his ears sticking straight into the air.
The wide mouth of the tunnel ahead of the vanished, the light of Ganymede's lantern no longer hitting any solid surface. The darkness ahead of them yawned into a chamber of unknown size, the only sound being Panic's claws as he skittered backwards with his tail between his legs. Setting Pain down on the floor, Ganymede took his staff in both hands and thrust the light out as far as it could go.
The room ahead, a man-made cavern whose dome reached up too high to be seen, rose slowly before them in low, flat steps. Each plane stretched out like a stage, each covered in scattered furniture, torn rugs, and what looked like small cages stacked in the gloom. They inched inside, following the silent, swinging light.
A low sound rumbled just barely at the threshold of their hearing. They crept forwards, passing those cage-shaped things and realising that they were ribcages. Panic skittered away from a gaping skull as Pain struggled to heft his back legs up the step behind them.
Their light revealed a hunched shadow on the highest, furthest platform. It breathed slowly, a mass of fur and muscle blurred by the darkness, all apart from the angles of its horns - each one the size of Ganymede's arms and as sharp and solid as an axe. Behind it, a gleam of gold caught the light.
"The cup!" Panic whispered.
The minotaur's huge body blocked access to the altar, or whatever it was that clearly stood in the very centre of the Labyrinth. It was the only thing of artistry in the entire maze - a marbled, filigreed stone table with strange creatures carved into each leg. They looked far worse than either Pain or Panic, like something seen out the corner of one's eye after a nightmare. A grand, stone chandelier dipped down and almost touched the surface in a cruel stalactite, descending in a great wave from the blackness.
The cup - a golden chalice the size of a trophy - rang with divine presence and reflected the lamplight like honey. It stood in the very centre, untouched by everything around it.
"What do we do?!" hissed Pain.
The minotaur's eyes flew open. They glowed as white and flat as the moon. Ganymede and Panic took one step away from their unfortunate teammate.
"He's blind!" Ganymede whispered as quietly as he could. A look passed between himself and the shaking whippet, a plan forming instantly, and neither of them willing to play the worst role. Ganymede blinked. Panic blinked back. Then, with an easy shrug, Ganymede yelled;
"Hey! Ugly!" The lantern swung wide as he took a run at Pain's panting form. "Fetch!" Pain went soaring through the air with a loud and ugly yipe. The shadow rose its massive head, as blunt and invincible as a rock wall. A bellow shook the air. Dust fell onto their heads like snow and the whole world rocked beneath their feet. The minotaur gave chase, roaring with the inhuman power of an oncoming train.
Panic raced like a ribbon to the top of the steps and jumped for the cup. His teeth glanced from the metal and knocked it down with a gong-like clang onto the ground. He followed after it, knocking and snapping around the handles and stem as it rolled all across the floor.
Pain was between the beast's teeth when it turned, as Ganymede's sandals slipped against the stone, and as he banked so sharply for the echoing noise-maker that the lantern flicked from the end of his crook. It shattered into pieces, and darkness swallowed them all.
"Hermes?" Zeus' patristic voice sounded from the other end of the god's handheld mirror. "What're you doing all the way in Crete? Shouldn't you be in the Underworld?"
Hermes fluttered under the shadow of a titanic statue. Tasked with holding up part of King Minos' disfigured palace, the bull-human hybrid's sharp and buckling stone muscles strained beneath the marbles eaves, a figure so large that the diminutive god seemed to be speck beside its sandals. "Uh, yeah - see, there might have been a hitch in your plan! You see, Hades doesn't have the cup..."
"What?!"
Hermes flinched the mirror away from his face. "Yeah - he sent that kid here to find it and..." Wings lowering him to the ground, his eyes rising up to the flared snout of the statue, he continued, "That maze is supposed to be impossible, right? I mean, I can't go in there - I'd never even get past the first intersection."
Zeus gave a grunt of agreement. Hermes stood in silence as the king of the gods ran a hand over his beard and mulled his options over. The red murk of the city crawled down the back of his tunic and made his toes curl. Air passing through the arcade behind him moaned with voices he was sure he couldn't hear, telling him to leave what didn't belong to him alone.
"Okay, Hermes," Zeus finally spoke, "here's what we're going to do."
Hermes leant forward with relief as his wings pushed him back off the ground. He fell back down again the moment he heard Zeus' plan, eyes flying wide behind his glasses. "But- but sir!"
"That's an order, Hermes!"
King Minos slumped in his throne as the shadows of his gods stretched across the ground. His bulging eyes passed around the chamber but rested on nothing, his attention on the echoes of emptiness that came from the doorway of his Labyrinth.
Riding the trill of his wings, Hermes flew down the long, red carpet that cut the throne room in half, and came to a halt in a small explosion of feather. "E-excuse me! I asked at the desk but I think everyone's out to lunch - are you the king in charge around here?"
Minos started upright. Gathering his immense robes around himself and pushing himself forward, he declared through his golden teeth, "Another emissary! Of course, of course! We always heed the call of the gods!" He bowed low, remaining sat, swallowed in scarlet. The movement sent the smell of rot rolling towards Hermes and he tried not to retch.
"Er... right." Hermes didn't dare let his feet touch the ground in this place. "So, odd question..." He wrung his hands together and grinned with no enthusiasm. "Could you... close those doors?" He flicked a panicked hand towards the gaping black hole of the Labyrinth, refusing to turn towards it as if it were something from a nightmare.
"Close it?" Minos' eyes somehow widened more. "But the god of the dead commanded it open!"
"Yeah... but the god of Olympus wants it shut. Just until a certain little brouhaha has passed, you know?" Then, off-script, he stammered, "Not- not forever."
"The king of the gods?!" Minos threw himself back, rearing like a circus bear to bellow, "Shut the-!"
"Hold it." A third voice drawled as, slowly, a hand pressed the throne room's main doors shut. Hades emerged from the darkness, eyes-first.
Hermes fumbled at his helmet. "Hades! Shouldn't you be in the Underworld?!"
Hades slunk over the marble floor and tossed his arm around Minos' throne. "Hey, I'm a grown man," he said, "I can wrap my own toga and everything." Then he levelled his attention on the king. "Don't listen to that guy - what, you think he looks trustworthy?" He chuckled, all teeth, as his pupils shrank to pinpricks to stare down at this mortal. "In that skimpy little dress? Please." Raising a finger, he gestured in a lazy circle to the twisted and many-armed figures half-visible around them. "Aren't I a little more your style?"
Hermes yanked his caduceus from its sheath and brandished it as best he could. "Zeus outranks you, man! Don't make this harder than it has to be!" Hades snarled and span to face him.
"Me?! This could have been so easy if you'd just-"
"Zeus' orders!" Hermes puffed his chest. "And that's fin-ack!" Hades snatched him by the front of his toga.
"Nobody's closing that damn gate until I get what I came here for!"
A roar shook the doorway of the Labyrinth, as low and devastated as a tortured animal but with all the fury of a full-powered steam engine. All three snapped to face it, before all three yelled out at once,
"SHUT THE DOORS!"
Ganymede raced through pitch darkness. The minotaur's bellow swallowed any sound his sandals might have made, any sound of his heavy breathing. It rang from the walls, rang in his teeth, rang through any plans he might have been trying to form in his head - it filled the darkness. It was the darkness. The walls, the floor, his hands, had all been replaced by a blackness that roared like the entropic end of the universe had forgotten to extinguish him along with everything else. He only knew when he hit a new turn in the maze when he crashed and spun off against it, and he only knew he still had the cup because it was clenched in his fist.
"Pain!" he cried, though he couldn't hear his own voice. Hooves quaked the ground behind him with such force that they threw off his stride, and he could tell by their growing strength that they were gaining on him. "Panic!"
He had already lost them - they had already left him. Another bellow pummelled his eardrums. Fear electrified his fingers, rage burned the roof of his mouth. He let out a scream; one long, furious, hateful screech into an uncaring black void, refusing to die without declaring that no matter what the universe might have objectively decided, he still mattered. Hot breath hit the back of his bare legs.
The sounds widened. The air cooled. Though he couldn't see, he knew he was running across an open bridge and that on either side of him gaped a sheer drop.
He veered, sprang, and threw himself over the edge. The bellow sucked up above his head, and this time he clamped his free hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. The monster might just keep charging if it couldn't hear where he had gone.
The wind whistled past his ears and then he hit the ground. His body flew apart on impact, limbs bouncing over stone, his head sent flying in one direction and his legs another. The orientation of the world meant nothing without his sight - up, down, inside and outside were surreal and ultimately unimportant concepts as the ground hit his nerves from a dozen different angles - the front of one thigh, the back of another, one hand landing palm-down and the other palm up. His head finally rolled to a stop in a mess of blond hair like the dismembered head of a doll.
"Great," he whispered to himself as elsewhere in the dark his hand patted around for his other pieces. "Just perfect."
He heard something snub-nosed and canine wheeze just above his head. Relief flooded his chest a few feet away as joy overtook the dread in one momentary flash. "Pain! Are you there, pal?" A wet nose hit his ear and all his scattered limbs clamped up in disgust. "Hey!" He winced, then opened an eye. "Boy, am I glad to see you!"
"Don't try and pretend that we're cool!" Pain snapped. "We're not cool!"
Ganymede's arm dragged itself to his torso and popped itself into his shoulder. He grinned up at where he assumed Pain's squat face hovered as he waited for his body to collect itself. "I know, I know, we were all pretty out of line," he said, "But hey! That's part of being a team, right?"
"Throwing each other under the chariot at every opportunity?"
"Yeah!" Ganymede broadened his unseen, white smile. "Because you're a guy I can trust to take it with grace and noblesse- wait, what're you doing?!" Pain shoved his snout against his temple and started to roll him forward.
"You're about to go over another ledge, you jerk."
"No! No-no-no-! Pain!" Ganymede gave a panicked laugh, "Listen! You don't wanna do that! You can't get out of here without me!"
"Uh-huh."
"I'm not kidding! And what about after we get out of this stupid pit?!"
A soft breeze trailed up through his hair, and he realised that another drop lay only a few feet away. Mercifully, the rolling paused. Feeling his body pulling on his last leg, he took a deep breath. "You think Hades will be happy to hear you lost the only leverage he's got?" It was more of a gibber than a sensible plea for reason, "You think Zeus'll show leniency to the two gross little monsters that tried to kill his kid and overthrow Olympus? Because that's who you'll be dealing with if you don't have both me and the cup!"
Pain's paw rested on top of his head and rocked him idly back and forth like a soccer ball as he considered his options.
"Who- who even knows if Hades will get you guys out of Crete if you don't have me around?" His voice rose to a frantic laugh. Then, feeling Pain's paw start to lift, he screeched, "Pain!" He heard dirt fall from beneath him, and trickle down far, far below. "By the gods don't you dare throw me over!"
Hands snatched Pain off the ground. He wriggled and clawed in instant terror before Ganymede's headless body shoved him under one arm and pinned him there with a deliberate pump of his elbow. He grabbed his head and, after screwing it back on, he smirked lovelessly down at him. "Better watch your back now, Fido."
Pain snarled an ineffectual and high-pitched growl. Ganymede gave him a leering pout of sympathy. "Aww..." Reaching down, he picked up the cup and shoved it into his satchel. Then, just for good measure, he throttled the dog into a headlock, gritting his teeth. "Sorry to spoil your fun, you little psychopath." Relieving some of the pressure, he continued, "How about you sniff us out the exit?" He heard Pain splutter, fall limp, then wheeze out,
"Forward, then left."
"Great," he said. "Isn't teamwork fun?" He started this new hike for the exit, giving one loose ankle a careful, mid-air stretch, before noticing a growing dampness against his arm. "Oh gross, you're all slimy."
"You booted me!" Pain exclaimed, "Into his mouth!"
Ganymede sprinted down the halls with Pain tucked beneath his arm. The raging cry of the monster still rang out from nearby passageways, and although the endless echoes made pin-pointing it difficult, it was near.
"That way!" came Pain's raspy whisper. Ganymede banked left, hitting his shoulder against stone, then fled on. Finally, in the distance, a speck of white light appeared - so small that it seemed like a star sitting on the horizon. His heart leapt to his throat as hope zapped down to his fingertips.
"There!" he hissed. His speed doubled, hair streaming out behind him. Finally, the vaguest impressions of the walls and floor dashed past his feet. Finally, he could see his fist pumping back and forth and the halo of Pain's fur coat. Those impressions flushed crimson as the star grew to the size of a red mosaic tile. Pain gave an excited yap as it continued to expand.
But still the walls roared. Black openings that lead off from the main passage passed them by, and every one of them threatened to reveal an emerging snout. Pain's heart quickened against his fingers.
"We're gonna make it!" he cried.
Then the light began to narrow. For a moment the concept was so awful that he couldn't fathom what he was seeing. "Wait!" His voice broke. "What're you doing?!"
Pain's body went rigid. "They're locking us in!"
Through the bellow he could now hear the rumbling of stone as the gigantic doors rolled closed. The ground shook with the war-drum sound of hoofbeats.
The gears in Ganymede's head span, ripping logic apart into threads and running them for their accuracy. The feeling of Pain's pulsing chest against his hand made his fingers twitch, and with fury at himself and all the unjust darkness, he realised that questions of trust no longer mattered. He was not making it to the door. Pain might.
He yanked the imp up so he could look him in the eyes - he was frothing at the mouth. "Don't forget!" he yelled over the noise, "You need me!" Pain's frantic panting stopped. He cocked his head. Ganymede swung him up over his shoulder, then flung him towards the thinning red beam like a baseball.
Pain shot through the air with a scream as the door slammed shut. Unable to stop himself in time, Ganymede crashed into the seam and tumbled backwards onto the floor. Rolling upright onto his elbows, his hair falling around him in a straggling drape, he tried to catch his breath to the sound of the world ending.