The Place
The Labyrinth is a maze of black stone, and the maze is 5 km wide, and the corridors run 200 m deep in the stone. The stone of the maze is black where the corridors are kept, and the black breaks where the Minotaurs have walked, and the break is the maze's only light. The black of the stone is the maze's only ground, and the ground is where the strength is kept. The air in the maze is kept, and the kept air is white where the stone holds it, and the white moves through the corridors in the slow breath of the stone. The white of the kept air is the maze's only light, and the light is what the stone keeps in the corridors.
The corridors are cut in three tiers, and the tiers are where the Minotaurs keep their strength and their very long, very quiet oaths. The deepest corridor, the Long Way, runs 2 km end to end, and the red of the strength glows in the walls where it runs, and the red is the maze's only fire, and the fire is what the strength keeps in the stone. No one who has walked it has come back with the whole of himself. The maze does not echo, because the stone takes the sound in and keeps it, so the corridors sound like a place that is holding its breath. The walls of the maze are smooth where the strength has passed, and the smooth is the maze's memory, and the memory is what the stone keeps. The entrance to the maze is a single door of black stone, and the door is kept by the oldest Minotaur, and the keeping is the maze's only welcome. In the deep of the stone, where the kept air is thickest, the white turns blue, and the blue is the maze's way of saying the air is kept. This is the place where the strength is the only honest thing, and the strength is the maze's only harvest.
How They Live
The Minotaurs keep the labyrinth in the stone, and the stone is the maze's only house and the corridors are the maze's only room. The corridors are cut by the strength, which is the Minotaurs' only tool, and the strength cuts the black stone as easily as air, and the cutting is the maze's only building. Food comes from the outer corridors, where the Minotaurs take the small game, and the strength is what they eat when the game is thin, and the eating of the strength is the maze's way of keeping the hunger. Water is drawn from the kept air, and the kept air gives its water to the Minotaurs in the slow breath of the stone, and the giving is the maze's way of keeping the day. Light comes from the white of the kept air where the stone holds it, and the white is the maze's only lamp.
The defense is the maze, and a visitor who steps into the corridors is already inside the word, and the word is the alarm, the welcome, and the sentence. The day is measured by the strength, and the strength is also the calendar, because the maze is the only clock the oath needs. The rite of the maze is the Long Way: when a young Minotaur walks the 2 km end to end and comes back with his whole strength, the maze names him, and the name is kept in the stone, and the keeping is the maze's only word.
People
Home of the Minotaurs, whose labyrinths are counted by strength, and the Minotaurs of the maze number in the hundreds of heads that keep the corridors. The oldest Minotaur holds the single door, and rank in the maze is decided by how far one has walked in the Long Way, and the walking is the maze's only rank. No light is welcome in the corridors but the kept air, because the light that comes from outside burns the word, and the burning is the maze's way of keeping the strength. A visitor who has walked one corridor and come back calls it the holding stone, and he says the maze there keeps the strength and the strength keeps the oath, and he says the black of the stone there is the only ground that keeps its word.
In Stories
The place where the strength is the only honest thing, and the thing is the word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the end. Uaellaen walked one corridor of the maze in the first year, and the stone kept his strength for the walking. He came back with his whole of himself, and the door did not ask him back.