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of our present world, of capricious humans playing god and long-suffering artifacts enduring their whimsy. Hard not to identify with the situations created.
"Imagine Theseus making his way through these dark corridors," the guide said. "Knowing that at the end he will have to fight a supernatural beast for his life and the lives of his companions."
I shook my head. Not while discreet electrical lights shone on me, not when I knew the Minotaur was vegetarian and had the intelligence of a seven-year-old.
A high pitched, tremulous scream echoed through the chamber. It ended in a gurgle.
Ahead of us, the corridor bifurcated via doorways opening to the right and left of another horrendous fresco.
I froze in place, all my instincts alert. My heart raced.
Scene-setting, my mind said. But my senses protested it had been too realistic. Too real. The scream had sounded too present, too anguished to be part of the scene-setting.
My nostrils flared.
I caught the smell of the charnel house, the metallic tang of blood mixed with animal waste: the smell of sudden death.
"What! What is that?" Nary asked. "What I want out."
"Hey, take us out of here," Pol said. "My friend is" He stopped. "Where did he go?"
I looked around for the guide, as did other tour members. But we saw only each other's frightened expressions. Our guide had vanished.
"Where did he go?" A young teenage girl clutched at my arm with her hot, moist hand. "Where did he go?"
"He ran," Pol said.
"Out?" I asked. My voice sounded alien, disembodied. My heart beat too fast, up by my throat.
"I don't know." Pol shuffled back a step, opened his eyes wide. He looked restless and skittish as if he too could smell better than natural humans. As if he knew that somewhere close by people had died violently. "But he has to have run. He was here, and then not."
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