Odysseus in the Serpent Maze by Robert J. Harris Page A

perfect unison.
    Slowly the vessel turned, swinging about in a great half circle. Then it set off across the endless expanse of sea.
    “What could have started the ship?” Helen asked, still staring at the perfect precision of the oars.
    Odysseus sighed so loudly, they all turned to him. “I pulled a rod in the back of the boat.”
    “The stern,” Penelope said.
    He ignored her. “It went from one side to the other and then something gave a loud click. That’s when the ship began to move. Perhaps the rod was some sort of signal.”
    “A signal to whom?” Mentor asked uneasily.
    “About what?” asked Penelope.
    “And why?” Helen’s voice was unusually quiet.
    They could feel the gentle vibrations beneath their feet. At the same time there was a regular, metallic beat below the deck, like a smith hammering a blade into shape.
    “Someone has to be down there working the oars,” said Mentor.
    “Or some thing ,” Helen said. She shivered.
    “Slaves?” asked Penelope.
    Odysseus shrugged. “Why aren’t there any voices? How are they fed? Who brings them water? Who guards them?” Odysseus ran out of questions.
    “Maybe it’s not slaves,” said Helen. “Maybe it’s monsters.” She shivered. “Or ghosts.”
    “ Whatever it is—we need to find out,” Odysseus said.
    “Why?” Helen asked again.
    “Because we need to know who’s rowing. And where we’re going,” Penelope told her.
    “We searched the ship,” Mentor pointed out. “The only thing we found was the signal rod.”
    “We searched the sides of the ship,” Penelope pointed out. “We didn’t search the floor.”
    “Deck,” said Odysseus, but he nodded. Without waiting for the others, he dropped to his hands and knees and began crawling along the deck, checking out every crack and line in the boards.
    Penelope joined him and, a bit more reluctantly, so did Mentor. Helen turned away from them to stare again out to sea.
    It took a long time for them to crawl the entire deck, but at last Mentor cried out, “Here!”
    He straddled a barely visible square near the ship’s bow.
    The others ran over to see what he had found.
    “Is it a hatch?” Mentor asked.
    “What’s a hatch?” asked Penelope.
    “A door into the ship’s hold,” Odysseus said.
    “What’s a hold?” she asked.
    “There’s no handle,” Helen pointed out. “How can you open it without a handle?”
    Odysseus drew his dagger and knelt down. “With this.” He forced the point into the right side of the thin crack.
    “Don’t!” Helen cried, putting her hands on his shoulders. “You don’t know what’s down there. You might be freeing the souls of dead sailors. You might set a monster loose. You might—”
    “Isn’t it better to know than to sit here and tremble?” asked Odysseus, shrugging off her hands.
    “Trembling is better than dying,” Helen whispered, clasping her hands to her breast.
    Odysseus didn’t answer her. Instead he began to prise up the hatch, just enough so that Mentor could catch the edge. Then together the boys hauled the heavy door open, grunting as they worked.
    The metallic noise grew louder, and an oily smell wafted up from below.
    Odysseus stuck his head down through the opening.
    “Is it a hold?” Penelope called. When he didn’t answer, she added, “What do you see?”
    There were small points of illumination coming from the oar holes. That light was enough to see that the hold was full of wheels.
    Metal wheels with notches.
    Notches fitting into other notches.
    Long bronze rods moving between the wheels.
    Odysseus sat up. “It’s as though the metal itself is alive.”
    “Or some invisible monster is at work,” cried Helen.
    “Or spirits of the air moving the wheels,” Mentor added.
    Penelope folded her arms and bit her upper lip. “Perhaps it’s some intricate toy built by Daedalus himself.” She looked cautious. “We’d better not tinker with it.”
    Reluctantly Odysseus agreed. “Whatever it