The Reign of Wizardry Page 2

  But Theseus snapped quick orders to the Mycenean slave-driver and the gigantic Northman at the steering oars. The pirate swept aside from the path of the racing Cretans, and came about in a swift, puzzling curve.

  The two Cretans, briefly helpless with oars shipped, crashed together. Before their slaves, screaming to the whips, could thrust them apart, the pirate drove with flashing oars against the side of the nearest. The bronze ram ripped through the planking, below the waterline.

  The Cretan archers loosed a storm of arrows. Slung stones hummed, burning sulfur made a suffocating reek. A gang of Cretan marines flung grapnel hooks, then crouched waiting with their nets and tridents to swarm aboard.

  But their roof of shields protected the pirates on the narrow bow. Axes severed the grapnel lines, and straining slaves backed the galley.

  The bronze beak retreated, and water poured into the Cretan galley. It listed sluggishly, a wave poured over the heavy prow, and it went down with chained slaves shrieking at the oars. Armor-laden men struggled briefly in the foaming sea.

  The other Cretan, meantime, had dipped her oars again. Before the pirate could move forward once more, the two long galleys veered together. Theseus shouted an order for the slaves on the exposed side to draw in their oars.

  The hulls crashed. Grapnels caught and ropes whipped tight. Bows twanged and slung stones drummed on shields. Smoke of sulfur and cordage and human flesh made a choking stench.

  “Board them!” shouted Theseus. “Sixty shekels of silver to the first man over the rail!”

  “Aye, Captain Firebrand!”

  Cyron, the dark-bearded Dorian, clutching sword and shield, leaped to the low rail of the pirate. For an instant he stood there, his voice lifted in a battle cry. Then abruptly the cry was cut short. He stood petrified.

  Upon the lofty after cabin of the Cretan, there had suddenly appeared a swarthy Minoan priest, wrapped in a long black sacerdotal robe. Above the uproar of the battle, his voice lifted in a wailing chant.

  At first he used the secret priestly tongue, while his thin hands lifted a silver vessel that was shaped like a bull’s head, and poured its foaming red contents into the sea. Then he changed to the common Cretan language, that Theseus had learned long ago from the traders who came to Athens.

  “O great Minos,” he wailed, “whose years are twenty generations, who is god of all the world! O great Cybele, mother of Earth and Minos and Men, whose dwelling is the most beauteous Ariadne! O great Dark One, whose name may not be uttered, who art bull and man and god! O great gods of Knossos, destroy these vermin who molest your faithful slaves!

  “Bright sword of Minos, strike!”

  The black priest held high the red-dripping vessel. And down from the silver horns leaped a blade of blue fire. Thunder crashed deafeningly. And Cyron, sword and shield slipping from his limp hands, dropped loose-limbed back to the pirate’s deck.

  TWO

  THE WHOLE battle had halted, to await the climax of the black priest’s invocation. That strange bolt broke a breathless hush, and then Theseus heard the triumphant shout of the Cretans. He heard the groan of anguish and terror that ran among the pirates, saw them falter before the swift massing of the Cretan marines. He caught his breath, and lifted the bright steel sword.

  “Follow me!” he shouted. “Follow the Falling Star—and stop the cowardly wizardry of Minos!”

  He flung aside his heavy 8-shaped shield, too heavy for swift action. Bronze body stripped to the loins, he raced across the narrow deck. A hissing arrow brushed his hair, and a stone stung his arm. The bright sword deflected another arrow, and he leaped from the deck.

  His feet spurned the rail. He leaped again from the roof of shields that covered a squad of crouching lancers, and stood upon the high cabin’s roof. His naked sword menaced the black Minoan priest, and his voice pealed out: “Where now is the magic of Minos?”

  He watched savage elation turn to terror in the smoky eyes of the priest. He saw the dark flash of cunning in them, and glimpsed thin hands pressing quickly on the eyes of the bull’s head vessel.

  His sword flashed. He heard a crackling sound, and saw a flash of blue, and caught a stinging odor. But the red-dripping silver vessel pitched out of dying hands into the sea. Severed clean, the priest’s head followed it.

  “Come!” shouted Theseus. “Follow the Falling Star!”

  He leaped down from the cabin, in the rear of the Cretan boarders. His steel parried an arrow, and cleft the archer’s throat. He snatched a bullhide shield from a dying lancer, and his sword slipped hilt-deep through another.

  “Come on!” his deep voice pealed. “For the priest of the Dark One is dead!”

  Under the eye of the limping Tirynthian cook, four men hurled a pot of blazing sulfur from a net. It spread blue choking flame. The Cretans stumbled back, some of them shrieking in agony. And the pirates swarmed after them, drove them against the busy sword of Theseus.

  The galley was taken—but briefly, for the unquenchable sulfur flames swiftly recaptured it. The pirates retreated from the asphyxiating blaze, with such weapons and other loot as they could snatch. Theseus ordered the galley rammed, to end the screaming agony of the chained slaves, and then turned to pursue the yellow-sailed trader.

  Now, after the battle was ended, he had a sudden sick awareness of the small margin by which death had passed him by. His arm was bleeding where the stone had stung him, and he found a long red mark across his ribs, where some point had thrust.

  And the Falling Star trembled in his hands, as he had time to recall the strange bolt that had struck down Cyron. Uneasily he remembered the rumors that Minos ruled the lightning. His own dread of the wizardry of Knossos was not all conquered.

  “Poor old Gamecock!” he whispered. “Perhaps you were right. Perhaps a man cannot defy the gods.”

  He dropped on his knees beside the bearded Dorian. He saw the tiny smoke that lifted from a smoldering spot on the stiff splendor of Cyron’s beaded cloak; traced the long red burn, branching like a tree, that scarred the pirate’s sword arm.

  “The warlocks have a power,” he muttered. “But you will be avenged, Gamecock.” His lean jaw was hard. “Because I’m going on until I die—or until the gods of Crete have fallen!”

  “Stay, Captain Firebrand!” Cyron gulped a long breath and opened his eyes. He sat up weakly on the deck, and his trembling fingers clutched desperately at the arm of Theseus. But Theseus was staring at his eyes. They were filmed and distended with horror.

  “Forget your mad ambition, Captain Firebrand!” begged the choked dry voice of Cyron. “For I have felt the magic of Minos, and now I know the power of the Dark One—and it is a terrible power!”

  “I know that it is terrible,” Theseus told him gravely. “That is the reason that it must be destroyed.” He grinned, and lifted Cyron to his feet. “You’re a tough one, Gamecock! I thought you were dead.”

  “Almost,” whispered the pirate, “I wish I were!”

  The trader was a broad ship, deeply burdened, with but seven oars on the side to aid her huge square sail. The pirate, with red sail set again and oars dipping briskly, swiftly overhauled her.

  A flight of arrows winged toward the pirate. But the trader carried no more than a score of freemen, to handle arms and sail. When Theseus promised to set them all alive upon the nearest land, her captain surrendered.

  “A strange name you have made, Captain Firebrand!” commented Cyron. “There was never another pirate in these waters whose word would take a ship!”

  “It isn’t men I hate,” Theseus told him. “It is the warlocks and gods of evil. We will set the captain and his men ashore on the headland, and leave them food and arms.”

  “A strange pirate, indeed!” Cyron grunted.

  As the yellow sail had indicated, the trader belonged to the merchant fleet of Amur the Hittite, whose house had become great under the protection of Minos. Her captain was a hawk-nosed, sallow-cheeked nephew of Amur himself. It seemed to Theseu
s that he had accepted capture with a curious and almost alarming indifference.

  The trader proved a rich prize. It was laden with gold and tin from the mines on the far northern rivers, and amber and hides and furs. In a narrow pen on the foredeck were three huge wild bulls from the plains of Thessaly. And lying fettered in the cabins were twelve strong youths and twelve tall, graceful girls, all blond-haired people of the north.

  Besides the slave girls, there was another woman found unfettered in the Hittite captain’s cabin—such a woman as none of the pirates had ever seen. Her skin was the color of gold, her dark smoldering eyes almond-shaped and queerly slanted.

  She was dragged out upon the deck with the rest, to await her lot in the partition of the loot. As the pirate smiths drew her hands behind her and riveted slave fetters to her slim yellow wrists, she stood tall almost as a man, looking past her captors with a proud contempt.

  “She’s a queen!” whispered Cyron. “There was never such a woman!”

  He joined the eager pirates that ringed her, staring with an unfeigned admiration. Pillared elaborately upon her proud head, her hair was black and lustrous. Her golden throat and her arms gleamed with jewels of green jade. A torn gown of sheer crimson silk hid few curves of her tall yellow body.

  When the one-eyed Tirynthian, who was also the cook, had done hammering the last rivet, he pushed her roughly. She fell, and her bare yellow knees were bruised on the deck. But she uttered no cry of pain, and in spite of the fetters she came back to her feet with a sinuous grace. Her long burning eyes came slowly to one-eyed Vorkos.

  “You are now the masters!” She spoke the Cretan tongue, with a limpid singsong accent. “But I am Tai Leng, a princess of far Cathay. I have a talisman of vision, and now I see the angry hand of Minos hanging like a black cloud over you.”

  Her smoldering eyes swept over the pirate crew, and her proud, yellow shoulders made a little careless shrug. “Before the sun is set,” warned her silken tones, “the greatest of you will be a prisoner in the power of Crete.”

  The one-eyed Tirynthian retreated uneasily, muttering that she was a sorceress and ought therefore to be burned alive. But Cyron hastily objected that no woman so beautiful should be wasted, even so, and the division of the spoil went on.

  This partition was made by a method the pirates had devised. White shells were counted out to each man, according to his rank and valor. Then the metal ingots, the slaves, and the other lots of plunder, were auctioned off for shells.

  The golden woman went high. Gothung, the blond steersman, organized a group of men to make a collective bid. Cyron offered all his share of shells, a heavy golden belt, and a fine silver bracelet. Finally, adding his precious purple cloak, he bought her.

  While the auction was still in progress on the trader, Theseus took the Hittite captain and his men aboard the pirate, and set them safely on the headland as he had promised. Still he was puzzled about the captain. His beady eyes had watched the division of his cargo with apparent unconcern. And they flickered now and then, Theseus had noticed, ever so briefly toward the southwest.

  Southwest was the direction of Knossos.

  When Theseus went back aboard the prize, he found Cyron standing on the foredeck, staring anxiously in the same direction. The bearded pirate turned with a start.

  “Captain Firebrand!” His voice was hoarse. “It is time for us to go. For I have spoken with the yellow girl I bought. And she laughed at me and promised me that tonight will end her captivity. The magic of Minos will rescue her, she says.”

  His voice dropped apprehensively. “The wizards of Knossos, the yellow girl says, have seen all that has happened. Minos will send a fleet, she says. Through the power of the Dark One, he will make a fair wind to speed the fleet. And he can even make a storm, she told me, to drive us back into the teeth of danger!” Shuddering, Cyron looked fearfully into the southwest.

  “It is true,” commented Theseus, “that our friend the Hittite captain was watching that quarter very hopefully.”

  “Then,” Cyron demanded, “we shall raise sail while we can?”

  “You may, if you think wise,” Theseus told him. “But I am going to Knossos.”

  “To Knossos—in Crete?”

  The eyes of Cyron grew big as moons, and he staggered a little backward.

  “Not to Knossos! Captain Firebrand, are you mad?”

  “Perhaps,” said Theseus. “But I am going to Knossos.”

  “In the name of all the gods,” gasped Cyron, “why? The yellow girl told me that Minos has placed a great price upon your head. You are the most feared pirate of the sea. But why walk into a cave of hungry lions?”

  Theseus rubbed his lean chin—smooth-shaven with the edge of the Falling Star.

  “I talked with the Hittite captain,” he said slowly. “What he told me has decided me to go to Knossos. For the nine-year period of the reign of Minos is within two moons of its end, and these slaves and bulls we had taken were intended for the games that take place then.”

  “But,” gasped Cyron, “Captain Firebrand!”

  “You must have heard the rule of the Minoan games,” said Theseus. “You know that they are played, every nine years, to choose the ruler of Crete. And if any man wins the contests, the old Minos must give up his life, and go down into the dread Labyrinth of the Dark One.”

  Theseus fingered the hilt of the Falling Star, and a tiny smile touched his lean, bronzed face.

  “The winner,” he said, “is declared the new Minos. The beauteous Ariadne, the daughter of the old Minos and the vessel of Cybele, will be his to claim. And his will be the Empire of Crete, all the treasure of Knossos, command of the fleets, and even the wizardry of Minos and the Dark One’s power.”

  Cyron stepped back, and his bearded face showed an awed frown. “But I thought, Captain Firebrand,” he muttered, “that you sought to destroy the wizardry of Knossos—not to take it for your own!”

  Theseus nodded gravely. “I shall destroy them,” he said, “when I own them.”

  Cyron abruptly seized his shoulder and tried to shake him. “Captain Firebrand,” he said hoarsely, “are you an utter fool? Don’t you know that Minos won the games and his throne a thousand years ago? And that no man has ever had a chance to win, in all the cycles since?”

  His voice was dry with dread. “Don’t you know that Minos is the greatest of the warlocks? That even the terrible Daedalus serves him? That he is immortal, and destroys with his wizardry all who might hope with skill and daring to win the games?”

  “I have heard all that,” Theseus said. “But I have never fought in the games at Knossos.” His blue eyes smiled. “And the Hittite tells me that Ariadne is very beautiful.”

  The Dorian answered the grin, grew solemn again. “Captain Firebrand, you can’t leave us now.” His voice quivered, broke. “It is but a year since you came to our northern rendezvous and begged to join us. But already you are my captain—and my brother.”

  His dark eyes looked hastily away. “If you must go to Knossos, Captain,” he whispered faintly, “then I … I’ll go with you!”

  Theseus smiled again, and took his hand.

  “No, Gamecock,” he said, “I shall go alone. But cheer up! When the time comes to loot the palace of Minos, perhaps you will be there.”

  Cyron blinked and grinned. “I’ll be there,” he choked. Suddenly, then, he started. His dark eyes widened apprehensively again. He stared at Theseus, and then away into the southwest. “Don’t joke with me, Captain Firebrand,” he begged. “Give the orders, and let us seek the northern islands with our loot.”

  His pointing arm was trembling. “See the sky in the direction of far Knossos, Captain?” His voice sank hoarsely. “How fair it is? And how angrily the clouds are piling in the north? I have felt the wizardry of Knossos, Captain, and I fear it!”

  The blue eyes of Theseus narrowed, swept the horizon. “It is a strange sky!” he said. “But I’m not joking, Captain Gamecock—for you are capta
in, now. Give your orders, and take your men and the plunder aboard. Let the men divide my share—and you may have the treasure in my cabin. Only leave me the hull of the trader, for I am going to sail to Knossos.” He studied the northward sky again. “I think the wind will be favorable enough.”

  “Captain Firebrand,” protested the Dorian, “I wish you wouldn’t—”

  Theseus turned, stopped the pirate with a sudden pointing gesture. Far away southwestward, across the flat blue sea, stretched a long line of infinitesimal black dots.

  “There comes the black-sailed fleet of Minos,” Theseus said, “sweeping fast on a changing wind. I am sailing to meet it. And, if you hope to outfly the wizardry of Knossos, Captain Gamecock, you had better take your yellow woman and set sail!”

  THREE

  THESEUS RETURNED to the pirate for the small leather bag that held his personal effects. Climbing back aboard the prize, he found that the preparations to leave it had halted. A score of the booty-laden pirates were standing in a staring ring about the mast. And Vorkos, the one-eyed Tirynthian cook, was kneeling to fan his fire, heating the point of a long bronze lance.

  Theseus pushed through the ring. He found Cyron standing angrily over a small yellow-brown man, who was bound to the mast. The prisoner was squealing in terror, trying to writhe away from another red-hot lance that the enraged pirate was flourishing in front of him.

  “Now try your wizardry!” muttered Cyron. “Against hot bronze!”

  Theseus stared in astonishment at the captive. He was almost a dwarf. Wide-mouthed, froglike, his wrinkled face was remarkably ugly. Terror had given him a faintly greenish color. His head was completely bald, but he had thick black eyebrows. Huge and yellow and white-rimmed, his eyes were popping out with fear.

  “Where did he come from, Captain Gamecock?” asked Theseus.

  Cyron sputtered incoherently. Theseus looked wonderingly back at the squealing prisoner. He saw with surprise that the little man was clad in torn fragments of crimson silk, that his scrawny brown arms and neck were laden with green jade and gold.