Odysseus in the Serpent Maze by Robert J. Harris

spearhead. He tucked them both inside his tunic for safekeeping. “Any danger averted is an adventure. If you live to tell the story.”
    “We’re not on dry land yet,” Penelope reminded them all.
    After an hour’s rest, they fell to eating again, but Odysseus was restless. He drummed his fingers on the deck.
    “What is it?” Mentor asked.
    “This ship. It puzzles me. I don’t like what I can’t understand,” Odysseus said. “There’s no mast. No sail. We can’t get at the oars. If there ever was a crew, how were they supposed to row anywhere?”
    “Good questions,” mused Mentor.
    “I’m just grateful we aren’t at the bottom of the sea,” Helen said.
    Penelope shook her head. “No, Helen, Odysseus is right to wonder. If we just sit here, becalmed, until the supplies run out, we’re hardly any better off than we were before.”
    “Except that the boat isn’t sinking,” Mentor pointed out.
    “So we die of starvation instead of drowning. Neither death gets us to the Elysian fields,” Odysseus said.
    “Is that all that men worry about?” Helen asked sharply.
    “Look, that golden key must have been left for a purpose,” Penelope said. “Let’s see if we can find a keyhole.”
    “A keyhole!” They all stood.
    “I’ll take the front of the boat,” said Penelope.
    “The bow,” Odysseus said.
    “You can take the back,” she added, ignoring him.
    “The stern,” Odysseus said.
    “And Helen the right side—”
    “Starboard.”
    “And Mentor—”
    “Port side. Left.”
    Penelope made a face at him, but it was clear she was also storing away the words for later.
    They each went to their appointed places. Penelope and Mentor searched with painstaking slowness, inch by careful inch. Helen lingered by the side of the ship, often staring out at the vast blue-green sea, with its white-capped waves.
    Meanwhile Odysseus began his search at the extreme end of the stern.
    Think , he cautioned himself.
    He noted that there was no great oar for steering the ship.
    Very strange , he said. So how does the boat stay on its course?
    He found a wooden shaft reinforced with bands of metal sticking out of a dark slit in the deck.
    Even stranger.
    He touched the shaft tentatively. It was solid. He tried to pull it up, but it remained as firmly rooted as an oak. When he leaned against it, to his surprise it moved stiffly from one end of the slit to the other.
    Strangest of all!
    The shaft locked into place with a loud click . After that, no amount of pushing or pulling on his part could shift it again.
    He grunted in disgust and had just turned his back on the useless thing when a great tremor ran through the ship.
    Helen screamed.
    “What’s happening?” cried Mentor.
    “What did you do, Odysseus?” Penelope called.
    “Nothing,” he said, a small line beginning between his eyes. “Except …” He was just thinking that he’d better tell them about the lack of steering oar and the strange shaft and the stiff movement, when his voice was suddenly drowned by a noise that shook the deck beneath their feet.
    Helen and Penelope clapped their hands to their ears. Mentor tried to shout over the noise.
    But Odysseus stood still, head to one side, puzzling out the sound. He’d heard a noise like that once before, when his father had ordered an inventory of his armoury. Spears, swords, shields, breastplates had been stacked into heaps. The clang of metal on metal had resounded throughout the palace for three days.
    It’s almost as if we’re standing on top of the god Hephaestus’ workshop , Odysseus thought.
    As suddenly as it had begun, the clanging and crashing ceased. There was a moment of stillness so intense, the four of them didn’t dare to breathe.
    And then, without warning, the ship lurched into motion as the great oars began to cleave the water with powerful strokes.
    The four scrambled to the right side of the ship.
    “Starboard,” Penelope whispered, looking down as the oars moved in