Chapter One

Four thousand twelvemonths heretofore, a unique culture flourished on the island of Crete. Today, we call the habitants, boatmen and artificers who inhabited Crete Minoans, after their fabled king Minos. Archaic epics say the island was a locus of divers conundrums. The most acclaimed account tells of an animal called the Minotaur. This animal, half-human and half-bull, inhabited a broad maze below Minos' palace and chewed boys and girls sent to the king as tribute from Athens. Thus is the scene set for our tale!

It had been many decades since the Gaels had been expelled from Egypt. It had been seven and twenty twelvemonths since the Cretan Bull had slain a son of Minos. It had been eleven twelvemonths since Heracles finished his twelve labors.

From Scythia, where the Gaels had settled after their expulsion from Egypt, had come a Gael in search of adventure. A mere youth of sixteen twelvemonths, his name was Gann. He was red haired, ruddy skinned and had mismatched eyes: the left being blue and the right green. He was lean and of average height. When his people lived in Egypt they had dressed in the Egyptian fashion, since the Gaels had settled in Scythia they had adapted to the Scythian style, which consisted of padded and quilted leather trousers tucked into boots and open tunics for both genders.

As the ship he was on approached Crete, Gann thought of all that he had heard about this place. Admittedly, he had heard very little. All he knew of was the Minotaur and who ruled Crete: Minos, Lord of Crete, Emperor of Knossos and Ruler of all the seas between Greece and Egypt.

Gann believed that Minos must have been an old man. How old he knew not. Gann's father had told him that Minos had been ruling Crete since before Gann's birth. How long Gann did not know nor did his father.

When the ship arrived, Gann first noticed everyone was staring at him. The Cretans were at least other foreigners such as himself paid him no mind. It seemed that the Cretans favored colorful, fancy clothes and hairstyles. The men wore loincloths while the women wore form-fitting, bell-shaped dresses. Both men and women kept their hair long and the women had arranged theirs into elaborate hairstyles.

"What be this fellow?" asked a fellow Gann's own age.

"He dresses and looks like a Scythian yet there is something non-Scythian about him." Commented one of the fellow's compatriots. Goidel Glas, father of the Gaelic race, had been born of an Egyptian woman and fathered by a Scythian. The observation about him was certainly something that correct. He may have dressed and looked like a Scythian but he was not one.

"What are you?" asked the first. "Some spy masquerading as a Scythian?"

"I am a Gael." Replied Gann, his voice deep.

"One of a race expelled from Egypt!" exclaimed the first. "Your kind betrayed your Egyptian kin by being friends with the Hebrews, a race of slaves! Get ye gone, you dog!"

Gann merely turned the other cheek. He continued on his way.