Day of the Minotaur. Thomas Burnett Swann

a Minotaur. I could see in the dark, and my nose was as keen as a bear’s. I advanced warily but confidently hoof over hoof. I—

      Crunch!

      A rock struck my outstretched hoof. I roared with pain, hobbled on the other leg, and looked up to face my attacker, who was crouched on an overhanging ledge and readying another rock.

      I saw a chunky boy of about fifteen, with a large and very engaging head, a thicket of greenish hair, and pointed ears. The ears, to say nothing of the hair, marked him as a Beast. At least, half of him. I liked both halves. He was the kind of boy that one would like to adopt as a brother. Help him to carve a bow from the branches of a cedar tree and spear fish with a sharpened willow-rod and, at the proper time, introduce him to the Dryad, Zoe, and her free-living friends, who could teach him about a boy’s way with a wench.

      “Come down from there,” I cried. “What do you think you are, a blue monkey? I won’t hurt you.”

      “Oh,” he said, surprised. “You can talk, and in Cretan too.”

      “What did you expect me to do, moo or speak Hittite? As a matter of fact, your people learned their language from my people several hundred years ago.”

      “Till now I have only heard you bellow.” He was already climbing down from his ledge.

      I reached out and seized hold of him and, suddenly mischievous, delivered my heartiest bellow right in his face. He trembled, of course, but looked me straight in the eye.

      “You shouldn’t have come down so quickly,” I chided. “I might have been luring you down to eat.”

      “But you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

      “Don’t believe everything you’re told. If I had been a Cyclops, I would have smiled and coaxed and stirred you in the pot!”

      “What should I have done?”

      “Argued a bit. Asked for proof of my good intentions. Found out what I meant to do with you.”

      “But you didn’t eat me, and I saved time and questions. I want you to meet my sister.”

      My heart sank like a weight from a fisherman’s net.

      The sister of such a brother was certain to be a lady. Let me say at once: wenches have always liked me, but ladies shut their doors. I would frighten her, she would call me (or, being a lady, think me) uncouth and uncivilized. She would want me to comb my hair, shave my chest, and trim my tail. She would wince when I swore, glare if I tippled beer, and disapprove of my friends, Zoe, the Dryad, and Moschus, the Centaur.

      “Oh,” I said, “I don’t think she will want to meet me.”

      “She will be delighted. She thought she was going to have to pleasure you.”

      We walked to meet her while Icarus told me about their adventures. The meeting was to change my life.