The Reign of Wizardry Page 6

  “That is his last folly,” rolled the brazen voice. “For Minos knew that the pirate would approach this coast last night, and he sent me to destroy him.”

  The brass man abruptly halted, and his flaming eyes flashed cunningly.

  “Talos is no fool,” he boomed. “Are you not one of the pirates yourself, seeking to escape before the admiral takes you for the games or the Dark One?”

  “Ask Captain Firebrand,” advised Theseus, “when you find him.”

  “I shall ask him,” roared the brass man, “before I pick the limbs from his body. And if you have lied to me you won’t escape. For, mark you, Talos is no fool!”

  He waded past the spar. The waves came hissing up over his shoulders. They made white steam about his head, and covered him. Briefly his bright head came up again, as he crossed a bar, and once more vanished.

  The spar touched gravel. Theseus splashed ashore. He looked back, wondering what had become of Snish. The little wizard popped out of the water and came stumbling up the beach. His seamed face was blue, and he sobbed painfully for breath.

  “Splendid, Gothung!” he gasped. “You lie like a Cretan, already. But I thought I would drown before the brass man passed. Let’s get out of sight before he returns.”

  They crossed a wide dusty trail, where enormous prints of metal feet were spaced three yards apart, and started climbing up the steep forested hill beyond. Theseus broke the way, and the short-legged wizard fell panting behind.

  Presently a distant brazen reverberation reached Theseus, and there was a far-off crashing among the trees.

  With a miraculous second wind, Snish overtook him. “Our brazen friend,” he wheezed, grinning, “who is no fool!”

  But Talos did not overtake them, and presently Theseus and his companion crossed the wooded summit and came into view of the valley beyond. Flocks grazed on grassy slopes. Low hills were green with vines and olives, and a stream, below, wandered through fields of wheat and barley. The bright-walled houses of a distant village peered through the groves.

  “A beautiful land!” sighed Snish. “It is as fair as the plain about my own far-off Babylon.”

  “It is a beautiful land.” The voice of Theseus was grim. “Its beauty slumbers, fast in the bonds of an evil wizardry. But we have come to set it free!”

  They went on down into the valley. Snish begged Theseus to leave the Falling Star hidden beside the way. The sword was too splendid, he said, to be carried by any common shipwrecked mariner; it would betray them.

  Theseus would not abandon the weapon. But he wound the inlaid hilt with a rawhide thong, to disguise it, and stained the bright blade with soot.

  A shepherd gave them a breakfast of barley cakes and ripe cheese and sour wine. When they reached the village, Snish found the chief merchant of the place, and sold one of his green jade bracelets for a handful of silver shekels.

  From the village they followed the westward road, toward Knossos. It was a good, stone-paved way. Trains of laden donkeys plodded along it, and sometimes they met a noble in chariot or palanquin.

  As the wandering Northman, Theseus spoke to the travelers they met and the peasants toiling in their little fields and vineyards by the way. He found them a busy, pleasant folk; yet all of them were haunted, it seemed to him, with an unceasing dread of the dark powers that ruled Crete.

  Terror came into their eyes when a Minoan priest went by, carried by silent slaves in a black-curtained litter. The blue pinch of hunger was on many faces, and some spoke hopelessly of crushing tithes and taxes. All the young folk hid, when a file of black lancers passed, lest they be seized to perish in the games at Knossos.

  That night Theseus and the yellow wizard reached the highway that ran southward from Ekoros to Bandos, the second city of Crete, whose revenues were enjoyed by the noble Phaistro. They slept at an inn on the highway.

  When they came out of the tavern, next morning, Snish gulped and stared at a notice that a scribe was painting on the plastered wall. The scribe signed it with the double ax of Minos, and Theseus read:

  A reward of twenty talents of silver will be paid from the imperial treasury for the head of a certain Achean pirate, called the Firebrand, who was recently cast on the shore of Crete. The guild of magicians, in addition, offers half a talent of silver for the head of a minor Babylonian wizard, believed to be with the pirate.

  Snish had turned a pallid green. Theseus caught his trembling arm, and led him out of the little circle of staring pack drivers and peasants, and down the road toward Knossos.

  EIGHT

  KNOSSOS, the dwelling of Minos, was itself a city. The greatest and oldest and most splendid palace in the world, it stood upon a low eminence beside the Kairatos River, three miles above the harbor town. Built and rebuilt for a thousand years, it covered six acres, and its mass rose five stories above the long central court. The wonders of it were known in every land, and the guarded magazines beneath it were rumored to hold the greatest treasure hoard ever gathered.

  To seaward of Knossos lay the city of Ekoros, which was the metropolis of Crete. Scattered all about upon the low hills were the villas of the nobles, the great merchants, and the more powerful magicians, their gay-painted walls gleaming through groves of palms and olives.

  The harbor town, below Ekoros, walled the river’s mouth with docks and warehouses. There lay the trading ships that sailed to Egypt and Troy and Mycenae and Tiryns and a hundred other coasts, to carry wine and oil and purple cloth and bronze tools and the graceful pottery of Crete, to bring back silver and gold and amber and tin and furs from the north, copper and murex-purple from the islands, papyrus and incense and grain from Egypt, even silk and jade and pearls from the far-off east.

  Theseus and Snish paused for a time where the road topped a hill, looking across at the vast rambling maze of the palace, and the crowded houses of sprawling Ekoros, and the busy shipping in the harbor beyond. At the outskirts of the city, below the palace, they could look down into a long oval bowl whose sides were tiers of seats.

  “That must be the place of the games,” whispered Theseus. “I shall fight there. And, when I have won, all this will be mine!” He made a broad gesture, over the palace and the city and the harbor, and out toward the sea. “And the reign of the warlocks and the Dark One will be ended.”

  “Easy words,” returned the cynical nasal voice of Snish. “But the doing will take more.” His frog-face grinned. “How are you going to get into the games?”

  “They are open to any who would challenge the reign of Minos.”

  “But none ever do,” said Snish. “Now Minos is searching for Captain Firebrand, because he has a prescience of what might happen in the games. If you volunteer to fight, it will take no wizard to penetrate the guise of Gothung!”

  Theseus tugged at the wide thick brush of his yellow beard.

  “Then I’ll not volunteer.”

  A woodcutter overtook them, driving two donkeys laden with faggots. They spoke a little with him, asking the questions that strangers would ask, and presently he pointed out a grove of olives upon a low hill.

  “That is a sacred grove,” he told them. “In the midst of it is a little temple, that covers the most ancient shrine in Crete.” His voice lowered, and his gnarled fingers made a quick propitiatory gesture. “For it is there that the womb of the Earth-Mother opened, and Cybele came forth in her human likeness to be the mother of mankind.”

  His short whip cut viciously across the nearest donkey’s rump.

  “I have seen Ariadne,” he boasted. “With her dove and her serpent, she comes to the shrine in a white-curtained palanquin.” He cut at the other donkey’s belly. “Ariadne is the daughter of Minos, and the vessel of Cybele. She is a sorceress, and a goddess, and her beauty is as blinding as the sun.”

  His brown face twisted into a leer.

  “When my wood is sold,” he told them, “I will have three drinks of strong wine, and then I am going to the temple of Cybele.” He grinned, and his cr
acking whip brought blood from the nearest donkey’s flank. “Three drinks of wine, and any temple slut becomes as beautiful as Ariadne.”

  Theseus nodded at the panting Snish, and they strode ahead again.

  “Perhaps Ariadne is a goddess,” he said softly. “But, nevertheless, she is going to be mine—for she is part of the prize that belongs to the victor in the games.”

  “Or a part of the bait,” croaked Snish, “that the warlocks use to lure men into the arms of death!”

  They crossed a stone bridge, and came into Ekoros. This was the poor section of the city, where dwelt the lesser artisans, small shopkeepers, and laborers from the docks. Flimsy buildings, three stories high, confined a powerful stench to the five-foot street.

  Most of the street was a foul, brown mud, the rest a shallow open sewer in which a thin trickle of yellow slime ran through piles of decaying garbage and reeking manure. Flies made a dark cloud above the ditch, and their buzzing was an endless weary sound.

  Gaunt women trudged through the mud with jars of water on their heads. Screaming hucksters carried little trays of fruits and cakes, brown with crawling flies. Blind beggars screamed for alms. Slatternly dark women screamed conversations out of windows and doorways. Naked brown babies, standing in the mud, screamed for no visible reason at all.

  Or perhaps, Theseus guessed from their bloated bellies and pinched cheeks, they were hungry.

  “Crete is a splendid empire.” His voice rang hard above the shrieking din. “Knossos is the most splendid building on earth, crammed with treasures of art. The nobles and the merchants and the warlocks lounge in their green-shaded villas. But these are the people of Crete!”

  “And a foul lot they are!” Snish held his nose. “They make even the slums of Babylon smell like a garden in bloom. We have money; let’s get on to a better quarter.”

  He quickened his pace, but Theseus stopped him.

  “Give me the money.”

  Reluctantly, Snish surrendered the little handful of tiny dump-shaped silver shekels. Theseus began buying the stocks of astonished hucksters, passing out dates and honey cakes to beggars and shrieking children. Intelligence of this incredible bounty spread swiftly, and soon the narrow street was packed. Snish tugged fearfully at the arm of Theseus.

  “Caution, Gothung!” he croaked faintly. “Men with prices on their heads should not gather mobs about them. Come—”

  A horn snarled, and his voice died. A hush fell upon the street, disturbed only by gasps and fearful murmurs. The silent mob began to melt past corners and into doorways. A woman slipped to the side of Theseus.

  “Come with me,” she whispered. “Hide in my room until the Etruscan guards are gone. I want a strong, brave man again. Once I was in the temple of Cybele. But the high priestess turned me out, because men said that I was more beautiful than Ariadne!”

  Theseus looked at her. She was bent a little, and the white-powdered shoulders revealed by her open bodice were thin with years; the rouged face was holloweyed and haggard.

  “Here is money.” He dropped the rest of the rough silver coins into her lean hand. “But I am seeking Ariadne herself.”

  “You think I am too old.” Bitterness cracked her voice, and her fingers closed like brown claws on the silver. “But Ariadne is ten times my age, and more! It is only sorcery that gives her the look of youth and beauty.” She tugged at his arm. “But come,” she urged, “before the goddess overhears our blasphemy. For here she is!”

  Then the horn sounded again. The woman fled, lifting her flounced skirt from the splashing mud. Magically, the street had cleared. There was only a lame, naked child, that the rush had pushed into the gutter. It tried to run, fell, lay still, as if too frightened even to scream.

  “Come, Gothung!” The voice of Snish was a husky rasp, and his face had turned yellow-green. “This street is no place for us.”

  Theseus shrugged off his clutching arm, strode back toward the silently sobbing child. But the horn blared again, and two black stallions came prancing around a bend in the street.

  They filled the narrow way, and the bronze greaves of their riders brushed against the walls on either side.

  “Make way!” an angry voice barked above the jingle of spurs and bits. “Make way for the white palanquin of Ariadne!”

  “Run!” Snish overtook Theseus. “The Etruscans—”

  “But the child!”

  Theseus ran back, toward the brown, naked infant, lying petrified with fear on the edge of the gutter. He was too late. It shrieked once, under the great hoofs, and lay still again.

  Trembling, Theseus snatched the bits and stopped the horse. He looked up at the swart, helmeted rider. Dark with anger, the Etruscan dropped the silver horn to its thong, tugged furiously at a long bronze sword.

  “Wait,” Theseus said softly. “Let the people get out of the way.”

  “Loose my bits, gutter rat!” roared the Etruscan. “For this outrage, you will be flung into the games.”

  “Probably,” said Theseus. “But there is no haste.”

  The other horseman, meantime, had cleared his own saber. He swung down with it, savagely, at the bare, magically blond head of Theseus. But Theseus leaned under the neck of the horse he held. And the dark-stained Falling Star, whipping up, slashed the Etruscan’s fingers and sent the bronze blade rattling into the gutter.

  The wounded Etruscan made a bellow of rage and pain. The other jerked and spurred his mount, attempting to ride down Theseus. But Theseus clung to the bits, swung clear of the pawing hoofs. And the steel sword, with two swift strokes, severed girth and reins.

  The saddle slid down the back of the rearing horse. The Etruscan sat down upon it, violently, in the open sewer. There was an unpleasant splash and a louder buzzing of flies. In a moment, however, the man was on his feet, gripping his saber and mouthing soldierly curses.

  Theseus released the unsaddled horse, and crouched to meet the Etruscan. But steel had not touched bronze, when a woman’s voice, clear and full as a golden bugle, pealed to them:

  “Hold! Who halts my guard?”

  Theseus saw that a rich palanquin, carried by four sturdy, panting slaves, had come up behind the disarmed horseman.

  The white curtains were drawn open, and its occupant was sitting up on her couch, to look out.

  Ariadne!

  Ariadne of the white doves, sorceress of the serpent! The woman in the palanquin, Theseus knew, could be no other. Daughter of Minos, and divine vessel of the All-Mother, Cybele.

  “Who dares halt Ariadne?”

  Her proud voice was a golden melody. It touched an eager chord in the heart of Theseus, and he stood with wide eyes drinking in her loveliness.

  Her skin was white, white as the dove on her smooth, bare shoulder. Her full lips were red as hot blood, her eyes green and cold as ice. And the hair that foamed about her shoulders was a flaming splendor.

  Her hair was red, redder than the locks of Captain Firebrand had been. Soft lights rippled and flowed in the thick wavy masses of it. It was a cascade of shining glory, falling over her long, white body.

  Theseus struggled for breath. He had sworn to win Ariadne, as a trophy of victory in the games. Now he made a hot renewal of the oath. He saw that she was worth all the storied wealth of Knossos, that her beauty was a power vast as the wizardry of Crete.

  Briefly, Theseus wondered if she were as old as the woman of the street had said, and he saw a confirming shadow of wisdom and weariness in her cold, green eyes. And he thought that none but a goddess could ever have been so beautiful.

  A gasping curse brought him back to himself, and he found the unhorsed Etruscan close upon him. He crouched, and the Falling Star flashed out to parry the long bronze saber.

  “Stop!” Ariadne’s golden voice pealed out again. “Let him speak.” The cool, green eyes surveyed Theseus haughtily. “The savage is clever with his blade. Ask him his name, and what he seeks in Crete.”

  “I have ears.” Theseus rang his steel
defiantly against the saber. “Tell her that I am Gothung, a wanderer from the north. Tell her that I came to Crete to hire my sword to Minos. But say that, having seen the people of Crete, I would fight for them instead.”

  Her splendid head tossed angrily, and she shouted:

  “Call another detachment, and take the insolent Northman!”

  Nursing bleeding fingers, the mounted man spurred his horse down the street. The one on foot came at Theseus, with bronze saber upflung. But the steel blade turned the stroke, a swift slash opened his arm to tendon and bone, and the saber dropped in the mud.

  Theseus leaped forward, menaced the palanquin slaves.

  “Set down the litter,” he commanded.

  At the point of red-dripping steel, they obeyed. Theseus ripped aside the white linen curtains, and looked in upon Ariadne. Clad in a flounced green gown, her long white body sprawled lazily on the cushions. Her cool green eyes met the hot eyes of Theseus, without hint of fear.

  “When my rider comes back with aid, Northman,” she said softly, “you will regret your insolence to a goddess.”

  “Meantime, I am the master.” The flat voice of Theseus was equally soft. “And the All-Mother should display compassion. Get out.” His red sword gestured. “Pick the dead child up out of the gutter.”

  She lay still, and the green eyes turned frosty.

  “No man would dare!” she whispered.

  The palanquin slaves gasped mutely as Theseus shifted the sword, and reached his red-dripping hand through the curtains. Her white arm went angrily tense under his fingers, but he dragged her out into the muddy street.

  “Northman!” Her quivering words were almost soundless. “For this, you shall feed the Dark One!”

  “Perhaps,” said Theseus. “But pick up the body.”

  Tall, defiant, the red handprint bright on her skin, she made no move. Theseus shoved. She went sprawling sidewise into the sewer, thrust white hands into its reeking muck to check her fall.

  Breathless, silent, she got slowly back to her feet. Flies swarmed dark about her, filth dripped from her hands and her gown. She tried to scramble out of the ditch. Theseus met her with his red steel.