An Excerpt from Chapter 57 from the Mask of Minos, Bruno’s Inferno

It was late afternoon, and the island was over a mile out to sea, maybe more, and looked small at first. Harry thought it looked a lot like Alcatraz, and as they neared it the sea grew dark as wine and the sun faded like thin pale honey. There was more to the island than merely the stout castle. From a distance, it looked as though a dank mist labored over the shoreline, and the young man spoke bravely of how it terrified the locals. “They are afraid of ghosts.” He scoffed.

“You’re not?”

He held his chin out. “I am from Athens,” he said as if there were no ghosts there. “My uncle lives here, and he needs my help fishing.” He was nearly six feet tall, with a wiry frame and dark wavy hair combed back and held in place by the salty air. He wore no shirt, and he had strong sinewy muscles. Theseus would look like this, Harry thought—proud and fearless. For a belt, he used a scrap of rope pulled tightly over grey canvas chinos. His shoes were sandals, worn and thin. And he smiled….

“Why do they think there are ghosts here?” Harry asked at last much louder.

 The boy’s face lost its luster and he looked at Harry with greying eyes. “The legend of the Master of the Hill,” he said. “

“Master of the hill?”

“Long ago, maybe a thousand years or more he came from over the sea—from the Crusades in the east, and lived in the ruins of Knossos, and gave gifts to the locals who were poor because they had to pay tribute to the terrible pirates who lived on this island.

“Then, as he became very popular, he grew in strength, and though he had only a handful of soldiers still with him, he crept ashore in the darkness and when the pirates were asleep, he took this island for his own. They say he found some great magic in the old palace of Minos. He slaughtered four hundred of the pirates and their women with his bare hands and cast their bodies on the rocks below the cliff.”

Count Bruno. Harry looked at the island as the young man spoke and saw the castle high up on the eastern shore sitting close to the steep edge. It looked miserable, rotten with decay and neglect. Only some jagged remnants of its old buttresses and walls remained to see. Below, the waves beat furiously against the jagged rocks.

“I thought he came with many soldiers.”

“He had only one ship left, the others had long gone home with their spoils, but still he won a victory over the fierce islanders who were soldiers themselves back from victorious raids on the islands. It is said they had brought back Amazons from the north to take as their brides.

“Sometimes, at night when the air is still, we can look out and see lights coming from it, like stars floating over the castle.”

Harry smiled. “Stories,” he chuckled.

“Stories,” said the young man, “but who is to say what is true and not?’

 True to those who believe it because they want to believe it and so it was and is. And they passed it down to other generations until it became a legend, and all legends are rooted in facts.

“Those he did not kill,” the boy continued, “he enslaved, and they finished the castle you see here.”

They went in silence for a time and the rocky shore drew close. “I’m surprised no one ever came to live here.”

“Others have tried,” the boy said, his voice full of excitement like he was telling a story to an audience of captivated children, “but the sea is commanded by the castle and the ghost rules the land. It is a challenge among the youngsters to come here and fish the forbidden shores. Very good for octopus, and shellfish, but storms happen quickly and sometimes, they never come back.” No one spoke for a time and the boy’s face looked sternly ahead. Harry knew the boy lied about his bravery.

“The main entrance is there.” He pointed to an area still out of sight on the north side. The water heaved up and against the rocks, and from where they were it looked to Harry, at least, impenetrable, and to his right it was calm.

Harry looked at the dreaded place as if he expected something to happen, like a door to open out of the jagged edifice and release a fiery dragon, but he had no magic lamp, no patron god looking over him, there was no army of skeletons rising up to march with him and avenge their slaughter; he was after no golden fleece but something more valuable than that, something tangible. “Then let’s go to the other side.”

A wave rose up and crashed against the walled cliff, and the young fisherman spit, and looked up at the sky and sped away.

“It’s better we land on the softer shore with the forest,” he said and pointed.

 What had been clear blue water, was murkier the closer they got to land. The mist seemed to rise off the surface like it was being pulled and swirled by the hand of Poseidon. They came past the rocky shoals to where the beach was white and wide, and there they saw a pier sticking out into the breaks in a little cove where no waves came. They made for that. As it came nearer, it was evident the pier was old and in disrepair, and the nearer end of it dipped into the water.