How should I choose? An alien, cold world with Icarus, or a world made alien and cold by his absence?
I did not climb the mountain that day, or the next, or the next. I could allow myself a little time at least, while they completed their own wings. In the torment of my mind I could do nothing but rove the Labyrinth, tracing and retracing its halls.
My mothers condition did not change.
Sometimes I sat in the Bull Pen, looking about and remembering my beloved brother. If I left this place I would be leaving even the memory of him; there would be nothing in Athens to remind me of him. Except Theseus, of course. Theseus, who was to be my powerful brother-in-law in this new life. Could I bear to be a subject in a land whose ruler had killed my poor Asterius?
The wild hatred and despair I had felt on his death had already subsided. Now I sometimes wondered if this were not the best ending for my brother. He had been twelve years old. Soon he would have been a full-grown male, with all the desires and passions of his condition. What would we have done then?
There was little ahead for Asterius but sorrow, I think. So I kissed the ribbons I had been wont to plait into his hair and shed a few brief tears. With all my heart I hoped that he was happy in the Underworld.
On the morning of the third day after I spoke with Icarus and Daedalus, I awoke with a clear mind and a powerful sense of urgency. It was as though a bell had rung in my head. I rose, washed, and dressed. Taking some bread and honey to break my fast, I began to walk toward the mountains as quickly as I could.
I had become possessed of the idea that time had grown dangerously short. Why had I not gone to the mountains yesterday or the day before? Would there be time?
I brought a small saw along with which to cut the saplings. Soon the trail became steeper and the saw banged against the calf of my leg. Sometimes I had to drop to my knees and crawl over steep boulders; I had chosen the shorter but steeper route.
Hurry! Hurry! I knew how foolish I was being. Once I found the grove of trees and cut a sufficiency of branches, those branches would have to be debarked and sawed into appropriate lengths. Then after they were delivered to Daedalus and they were bound into a frame would come the tedious job of attaching the thousands of feathers, one by one. It would take another day, at least.
Yet I knew that I must hurry.
At last, at long last, I reached the clearing on the side of the cliff where we had sat in the sun and laughed at Asterius’s antics. How cheerful and content I had been! Now all was in ruins around me.
The trees were those in which the Athenians had waited. I recognized them easily by their slender, whiplike limbs. I began cutting a tree by the very edge of the precipice, dropping branches into a pile by my side.
What made me look over my right shoulder, down into the chasm below?
I don’t know. Perhaps it was the memory of the hawk soaring in the updraft on that earlier, happier day.
I saw a man, flying.
He was below me still, but rising rapidly. It was Daedalus, I decided after a little consideration. His body was curled stiffly inward, like a dragonfly in flight. The big white wings did not beat against the air but were held out to the sides, catching the wind like sails.
Once Icarus had pointed out to me how the biggest birds, the eagles and hawks, would use these air currents that rise up the sides of cliffs to elevate their heavy bodies, and that was what Daedalus was doing now. He was close enough that I could just make out the features of his face, though not with any distinctness. I did not think he noticed me. His face was contorted with concentration; he was expending every ounce of energy he possessed to keep himself flying, to keep himself from being dashed onto the rocks below.
I looked down again into the abyss. There was Icarus, flying toward me.
Why did you not wait for me? I longed to berate him for faithlessness, but the blame was mine and I held my tongue. He would not have heard me in any case.
Never had I seen a face so full of joy. This! cried his eyes, his limbs, his whole body. This is what I was born and bred for. This moment and nothing else!
I knew it was true. His proper fate was not that of an exile, a dutiful husband to a girl without fortune, position, or beauty. No, here was his destiny, this leap into the sky, this gliding through the air.
I rejoiced for him, I swear to you.
He crested the cliff’s edge and went on rising. I believe he saw me, for his radiant smile widened.
Dazzled, I dropped my eyes from his glory.
What had happened to Daedalus? A moment later I found him. He had left the rising air currents and was now flying out to sea. He turned and beckoned Icarus to follow him, but Icarus was not attending.
Icarus went on and on, up and up.
At last he was nothing but a speck of darkness in a brilliant blue sky, headed straight into the sun.
I could look no longer; tears blinded my eyes. I nearly missed seeing the last of him. As he rose higher and higher, I suppose that the heat of the sun began to melt the waxen glue that bound the feathers to the frame. The frame itself disintegrated.
He spun around in a wide spiral and fell—not back to earth but into the sea. I was glad of that at least; it seemed a cleaner death.
Daedalus came
