The Dancer from Atlantis

XI

Rain came that evening, racing before a gale. It hammered on walls, hissed down off roofs, gurgled among cobblestones. The wind hooted and rattled doors and shutters. Clay braziers within the hall could not drive out a dank chill, nor could lamps, torches, and hearthfire hold night far off. Shadows crouched on the rafters and jumped misshapen across the warriors who sat along the benches, mutedly talking, casting uneasy glances at the group around the thrones.

Aegeus huddled in a bearskin and hardly spoke. The royal word was given by Theseus, massive on his right, and Diores who stood on his left. Of those who confronted them, standing, Oleg and Uldin likewise kept silence.

Reid and Gathon had had no beforehand conference; they had barely met, when protocol demanded that the remarkable newcomers be presented to the Voice of the Minos; but the instant he trod through the door and took off his drenched cloak, the Cretan’s glance had met the American’s and they were allies.

“What business with me was too urgent to wait until morning?” Gathon inquired after the formalities.

He spoke politely but gave no deference, for he represented Aegeus’ overlord. Less than a viceroy, more than an ambassador, he observed, he reported to Knossos, he saw to it that the terms of Athenian vassalage were carried out. In looks he was purely Cretan: fine-featured, with large dark eyes, still slender in middle age. His curly black hair was banged across the forehead; two braids in front of the ears and carefully combed tresses behind fell halfway to his waist. As well as tweezers and a sickle-shaped bronze razor permitted, he was clean-shaven. More out of consideration for the weather than for mainland sensibilities, he had left the plain kilt of his people for an ankle-length pleated robe. The garment looked Egyptian; the lands of Pharaoh and Minos had long been closely tied.

Theseus leaned forward. Firelight played across his sinewy countenance and in the carnivore eyes. “Our guests wished to see you as soon as might be,” he stated, rough-toned. “They told us of an oracle.”

“The Goddess’ business does not wait,” Reid declared. Erissa had described the formulas and explained how haste would lend conviction. He bowed to Gathon. “Lord Voice, you have heard how we were borne from our different countries. We did not know if this was by an accident of sorcery, or the caprice of a Being, or a divine will. In the last case, Whose, and what is required of us?

“Today we went forth, looking for a secluded place where we might talk. The king’s man who guided us suggested the Grove of Periboea. There the lady Erissa made oblation according to the Keftiu rite of the Goddess she serves. Presently a sleep came upon us that lasted for hours, and a dream. Awakening, we found we had all had the same dream—yes, even our guide.”

Oleg shifted his stance, folded and unfolded his arms. He had watched Erissa plant that vision in Peneleos. Uldin sneered faintly, or was it a trick of the light wavering over his scars? A gust of rain blew down the smokehole; the hearthfire sputtered, steamed, and coughed forth gray billows.

Gathon signed himself. However, his gaze, resting on Reid, showed probing intelligence rather than the unease which alloyed Aegeus’ pain and exhaustion, Theseus’ throttled fury, Diores’ poised alertness. “Surely this is the work of a Being;” he said levelly. “What was the dream?”

“As we have told my lords here,” Reid answered, “a woman came, dressed like a high-born Keftiu lady. We did not see her face, or else we cannot recall it. In either hand she carried a snake that twined back along the arm. She said, whispering rather than speaking, so that her tone became one with the hissing of the snakes: ‘Only strangers out of strangeness have power to carry this word, that houses sundered shall be bound together and the sea shall be pierced and made fruitful by the lightning in that hour when the Bull shall wed the Owl; but woe betide if they hear not!’”

There followed a stillness within the storm. In an age when everyone believed the gods or the dead spoke prophecies to men, none were surprised that a revelation had come to these who were already charged with fate. But the meaning must be anxiously sought.

Reid and Erissa hadn’t dared be more explicit. Oracles weren’t. Diores would probably have accused them of lying if his man hadn’t backed them; and he might well be skeptical regardless.

“How would you read this, Voice?” Theseus asked. “What do those think who were given it?” the Minoan responded.

“We believe we are commanded to go to your country,”

Reid stated. “In fact—no disrespect to our hosts—we think ourselves bound to offer what service we can to him who is their sovereign.”

“Had the gods intended that,” Theseus said, “they could better have sent a Cretan ship to Egypt for you.”

“But then the strangers would never have come to Athens,” Gathon pointed out. “And the, message does sound as if somehow they’re destined to ... bring sundered houses together.... Ill will has flourished between our countries, and the passage of time has not much bettered things. These men come from so far away that their motives are less suspect than might otherwise be the case. Hence they may be the go-betweens who make it possible that the will of the gods be done. If the Bull of Keft shall wed the Owl of Athens—if the lightning of Zeus shall make fruitful the waters of _Our Lady—that suggests an alliance. Perhaps a royal marriage between Labyrinth and Acropolis, from which a most glorious king will be born? Yes, these people must certainly go to Knossos for further talks. At once. The season’s not too advanced for a good ship and crew to take them.”

Abruptly Uldin snapped, “I think not!”

You son of a bitch, flashed through Reid.

His anger died. The Hun knew they were faking, knew they were trying to reach a land whose downfall was prophesied. He had argued bitterly in the grove that to take the losing side—a race of sailors at that!—was lunatic enough, but to add blasphemy suggested demonic possession. He had only been won over to the extent of pledging silence when Reid explained about contact with Atlantis being essential to winning home. Now his fears must have convinced him that that chance wasn’t worth the risk.

Oleg glowered at him. “Why not?”

“I—well—” Uldin straightened. “Well, I promised Diores I’d undertake certain matters. Do the gods want broken promises?”

“Do we indeed know what their will is?” Theseus put in. “The oracle could mean the very opposite of what my lord Voice suggests. A warning of disaster if, once more, an unnatural union is made.” The teeth flashed in his beard.

Gathon stiffened at the hardly veiled reference to a dirty story the Achaeans told about how the first Minotaur was begotten. “My sovereign will not be pleased if he learns that a word intended for him has been withheld like a pair of helmets?’ he said.

Impasse. Neither side wanted the other to have the cast-aways, their possibly revolutionary skills and their surely enormous mana. Nor did either want an open quarrel, yet.

Diores stepped forward. He raised his arm. A smile creased his leathery visage. “My lords,” he said. “My friends. Will you hear me?” The prince nodded. “I’m just an old skipper and horsebreeder,” Diores continued. “I don’t have your wise heads nor your deep learning. Still, sometimes a clever man stands by the steering oar trying to figure out what’s ahead of him and gets nowhere till his dolt of a shipmate swarms up the mast and takes a look. Right?”

He beamed and gestured, playing to his audience. “Well, now,” he drawled through seething rain, yammering wind, spitting flames, “what have we got here? On the one hand, we have that the gods have naught against these good folk dwelling amongst us Athenians, seeing as how nothing bad has happened because of that. Right? On the other hand, we have that the Minos is entitled to see them too—if it’s not dangerous—and we think maybe the gods gave ‘em their sailing orders today. We think.” He laid a finger alongside his nose. “Do we know? These be shoal waters, mates, and a lee shore. I say row slow and take soundings ... also for the sake of the Keftiu, Voice Gathon.”

“What do you propose?” the Cretan asked impatiently.

“Why, I’ll say it straight out, like a blunt-spoken old woodenhead does. Let’s first learn what those think who know more about the gods, and especial—like the Keftiu gods, than we do here. I mean the Ariadne and her council on Atlantis—”

Theseus sat bolt upright. His hand cracked down on his knee. The breath rushed between his lips. Reid wondered why he was thus immediately kindled to enthusiasm.

“—and I mean further that we shouldn’t risk sending the lot of ‘em, the more so when stormy season is on us. Why not just one who’ll speak for his friends, which friends I hope include everybody here tonight? And—m-m-m, wouldn’t y’ say Duncan would be best to go? I mean, he’s the wisest of ‘ern, no offense to Uldin and Oleg. Nor to lady Erissa when she hears about my remarks. Thing is, she don’t know anything the Ariadne don’t. But Duncan comes from the farthest country; he was the man who could understand what the dying wizard had to tell; he can make fire spurt in his fingers; I don’t know what all else, except that they look to him for advice about mysteries, and rightly, I’m sure. Let him go talk to the Ariadne on Atlantis. Between ‘em they’re bound to heave clear this fouled anchor we’ve got Right?”

“Right, by Ares!” Theseus exploded.

Gathon nodded thoughtfully. He could doubtless see the plan was a compromise which allowed the Athenians to keep hostages and exploit their knowledge, more useful than Reid’s. However, this was a portentous, ambiguous affair; caution was advisable; and the Ariadne did have the Keftiu in her spiritual keeping.

This is what was foreordained, Reid knew. The sense of fate took him again, as it had done beneath the moon on Kythera; but now it felt as if he were a raindrop hurled along on the night wind.

They left a lamp burning. The glow caressed Erissa like his hand. “Does it make me look young?” she whispered through tears.

Reid kissed her lips and the hollow beneath her throat. She was warm in the cold room. Her muscles moved silkily across his skin where they touched each other on the bed; the odor of her was sweet as the meadow of the nymph. “You’re beautiful,” was the single poor thing he could find to say.

“Already tomorrow—”

A day had passed in preparing for the voyage. He and she had spent it together, and the hell with what anybody thought.

“We dare not wait, this time of year.”

“I know, I know. Though you could. You can’t be wrecked, Duncan. You’ll come safe to Atlantis. You did.” She buried her face against his shoulder. He felt the wetness of it. Her hair spilled across his breast. “Am I trying to cheat that girl out of a few days? Yes. But no use, is it? Oh, how glad I am we know nothing about what happens to us after next springtime! I couldn’t bear that.”

“I believe you could bear anything, Erissa.”

She lay breathing awhile. Finally, raising herself over him and looking down, she said: “Well, it need not be utter doom. Why, we may even save my people. We may be the blade the gods use to trim back a destiny that grew crooked. Will you strive where you are, Duncan, as I’ll strive here while I wait for you?”

“Yes,” he promised, and in this hour, at least, he was honest.

Not that he believed they could rescue her world. Or if they were able to—if human will could really turn the stars in their courses—for to change what had been would be to change the universe out to its last year and light-year—he would never condemn Bitsy to having never been born. Yet might he not imaginably find a door left open in this cage of time?

Erissa fought to achieve a smile, and won. “Then let’s mourn no longer,” she said. “Love me till dawn:’ He had not known what loving could be, before her.