The Dancer from Atlantis

XII

The eeriness of the fate that waited for him could not take from Reid all his wonder at coming to lost Atlantis.

It rose from a sea which today was more green than blue, whitecaps running like the small swift clouds above. Approximately circular, a trifle over eleven miles across, the island climbed in rugged tiers from its coasts. Where cliff or crag stood bare, the stone showed blacks, dull reds, and startling pale pumice below. From the middle, the cone of the mountain loomed in naked lava and cinders. A trail could be seen winding up to the still quiescent crater. A lesser volcano thrust from the waves not far offshore.

At first view the overlay of life was unspectacular. The word that crossed Reid’s mind was “charming.” Fields, autumnally ocher, were tucked into pockets of soil; but most agriculture was orchards, olive, fig, apple, or vineyards which now glowed red and purple. Still more of the steep land was left in grass, pungent shrubs, scattered oak or cy-press made into bonsai by thin earth and salt winds. Reid was surprised to see that it pastured not the elsewhere omnipresent goats, but large red-and-white cattle; then he remembered that this was the holy place of the Keftiu and Erissa (today, today!) danced with those huge-horned bulls.

Farmsteads lay well apart. Their houses were similar to those in Greece or throughout the Mediterranean countries, squarish flat-roofed adobes. Many had exterior staircases, but few windows faced outward; a home surrounded a courtyard whereon the family’s existence was centered. However, the Keftiu were distinctive in their use of pastel stucco and vivid mural patterns.

Fisher boats were busy across the waters; otherwise no vessels moved except Diores’. A cloud mass on the southern horizon betokened Crete.

Reid drew his cloak tighter about him against the chill. Was Atlantis no more than this?

The ship rowed past a lesser island which, between abrupt cliffs, guarded the mouth of a miles-wide lagoon. Reid saw that the great volcano stood in the middle of that bay. He saw, too, that here was indeed a place legend would never forget.

Off the starboard bow, a city covered the hills that rose from the water. It was at least as big as Athens, more carefully laid out, delightful to the eye in its manifold colors, and it needed no wall for defense. Its docks were mostly vacant, the majority of ships drawn ashore for winter. Reid noticed several hulls being scraped and painted on an artificially widened beach some distance farther off; others were already at rest in the sheds behind. A couple of warcraft, fishtailed and eagle-prowed, were moored at readiness, reminders of the sea king’s, might.

Here in the sheltering heart of the island, water sparkled blue and quiet, the air was warm and the breezes soft. A number of small boats cruised around under sail. Their gay trim, the women and children among their passengers, marked them as pleasure craft.

Diores pointed to the Gatewarden isle. “Yonder’s where we’ll go,” he said. “But first we tie up at town and get leave to come see the Ariadne.”

Reid nodded. You wouldn’t let just anybody onto your sanctum. The isle was superbly landscaped; terraces bore gardens which had yet some flowerbeds to vie with arbors turning bronze and gold. On its crest spread a complex of buildings, only two stories high but impressively wide, made from cyclopean blocks of stone. These were painted white, and across that background went a mural frieze: humans, bulls. octopuses, peacocks, monkeys, chimeras, a procession dancing from either side of the main gate to the pillars which flanked it. They were bright red, those pillars; Erissa had told Reid the column was a sacred symbol. Another sign was inset in gold over the lintel: the double ax, the Labrys. The third emblem curved on the roof above, a pair of great gilded horns.

“Will we have a long wait?” he asked. A part of him marveled rather sadly at how, no matter what adventure or what contortions of destiny, most time got eaten up by ordinariness. However taciturn his forebodings had made him on the voyage here, he had not been spared hours of prosaic chatter. (And no serious talk. Diores had skillfully avoided letting that develop.)

“Not us,” the Athenian said, “after she hears we’re from Prince Theseus.”

That mention of heir rather than king hauled Reid’s attention to the sharp gray-bearded face before him. “Are they close friends, then?” he flung out.

Diores squirted a stream of saliva leisurely over the side. “Well,” he said when he had finished, “they’ve met now and again. You know how the prince has traveled about. Naturally he’d look in on the Ariadne. Be rude not to, wouldn’t it? And she’s less of a snob about us Achaeans than you might look for, which could be helpful. Got a bit of Kalydonian blood in her, in fact, though born in Knossos. Ye-e-es, I expect we’ll be well received.”

The unseasonal arrival of a ship drew a crowd to the wharf They were a carefree lot. Teeth flashed in bronzed faces, hands flew in gestures, words and laughter spilled forth. There was no evidence of poverty; Atlantis must wax rich off the pilgrimage trade as well as its mundane industries; yet the Greeks had spoken to Reid, with considerable envy, about a similar prosperity throughout the realm of the Minos.

Of course, by,the standards of Reid’s milieu, even the well-to-do here lived austerely. But how much genuine well-being lay in a glut of gadgets? Given a fertile sea in a gentle climate, surrounded by natural beauty, free of war or the threat of it, who needed more?

When the Minoan worked, he worked hard, often dangerously. But his basic needs were soon taken care of; the government, drawing its income from tariffs, tribute, and royal properties, made no demands on him; how much extra toil he put in depended on how big a share of available luxuries he desired. He always left himself ample time for loafing, swimming, sport fishing, partying, lovemaking, worship, joy Reid had gotten the distinct impression that Keftiu, 1400 B.C., had more leisure and probably more individual liberty than Americans, 1970 A.D.

The harbormaster resembled Gathon but wore typically Cretan garb; a tightly wound white loincloth which doubled as padding for a bronze girdle; boots and puttees; wraparound headgear; jewelry at neck, wrists, and ankles. He carried a staff of office topped with the double ax, and a peacock plume in his turban. His fellow males were clad likewise, though less elaborately. Most went bareheaded, some had a small cap, some chose shoes or sandals or nothing on the feet, the loincloths might be in gaudy patterns, the belts were oftener leather than metal. Both sexes wore those cinctures; they could be seen around otherwise naked children, constricting the waist to that narrowness admired by the Keftiu; only the elderly gave their bellies room to relax.

Diores nudged Reid. “I must admit, mate, Cretish girls put on a brave show,” he leered. “Eh? And it’s not hard finding a wench who’ll tumble, either, after a bit o’ fast talk, maybe a stoup o’ wine or a bauble. I wouldn’t let my daughters run loose like that, but it does make fun for a sailorman, right?”

Most women were dressed merely in ankle-length skirts; they were commoners, bearing groceries or laundry or water jugs or babies. But some more fashionable types had crinolines elaborately flounced; and embroidered bodices with or without a gauzy chemise, that upheld but did not cover the breasts, and stone-studded copper, tin, bronze, silver, gold, amber ornamentation; and saucy little sandals; and as wide a variety of hats as ever along Reid’s Champs Elysees; and makeup of talc and rouge for more areas than the face. When the Achaean crew shouted lusty greetings, the younger girls were apt to giggle and wave handkerchiefs in reply.

Diores and Reid explained to the harbormaster that they had official business with the Ariadne. He bowed. “Of course, sirs,” he said. “I’ll dispatch a courier boat at once, and you’ll doubtless be received tomorrow morning.” He rested a bright glance on Reid, obviously curious as to what manner of foreigner this might be. “Meanwhile, will you not honor my house?”

“I thank you,” Reid said, Diores was less pleased, having looked forward to a rowdy evening in a waterfront inn, but was forced to accept too.

The streets lacked sidewalks; closely packed buildings hemmed them in between walls or booths. But they were wide, reasonably straight, paved with well-dressed stone. A market square displayed a stunning mosaic of octopus and lilies; at its center splashed a fountain, where children played under the eyes of mothers or nurses. The outdoor cleanliness was due to a sophisticated drainage and refuse disposal system. The workaday bustle recalled that of Athens but was somehow more orderly, easygoing, and happy. And it included sights unknown among those Achaeans who had not adopted Cretan civilization—shops offering wares from as far as Britain, Spain, Ethiopia, or India; public scribes; an architect sketching on papyrus his rendering of a proposed house; a school letting out, boys and girls together carrying styluses and waxed tablets for their homework and not appearing to be exclusively children of the rich, either; a blind lyrist playing and singing, his bowl at his feet for donations of food

“Like rainstorms on an autumn sea, Sun-stabbed by spears of brazen light, Your whirlwind love nigh capsized me. Like rainstorms on an autumn sea, You’ve left a gentle memory.

Come back and whip the billows white Like rainstorms on an autumn sea, Sun-stabbed by spears of brazen light!”

The harbormaster’s house was large enough to require two patios for ventilation. Its rooms were decorated with ..escos of animals, plants; waves in the lively and naturalistic Cretan style. Floors were pebbled cement covered by mats; you removed footgear before entering. Pamela would have admired the furniture: wooden chests, bedsteads, and chairs; round-topped stone tables; lamps, jars, braziers of different sizes and shapes. The workmanship was exquisite, the colors pleasing. A niche held a terra-cotta image of the Goddess in Her aspect of Rhea the Mother. The entire family washed themselves, knelt, and asked Her blessing before dinner.

After Aegeus’ board, Reid rejoiced in well-prepared seafood, vegetables, wheat bread, goat cheese, honeycake for dessert, an excellent wine. The conversation was that of a civilized host, especially interested in astronomy and natural history, who didn’t mind letting his wife and their offspring join in. No one got drunk and no slave girls waited in the guest chambers. (In fact, while slaves were common elsewhere in the Thalassocracy, they were forbidden to be brought to holy Atlantis. There a servant was usually the daughter of poor parents, paid in food, lodging, and an eventual dowry.)

Lying in a bed too small, Reid wondered how the Kefiiu, preservers of law and peace, carriers of a trade that brought prosperity to every realm it touched, clean, friendly, mannerly, learned, gifted, totally human, would come to be remembered for a man-devouring monster in horrible corridors. Well, he thought, the victors write the chonicles, eventually the legends.

He opened his eyes. For the sake of fresh air, he’d left the door to the adjoining courtyard open. The night was clear, murmurous, frosted with stars. But up across them reared the black mass of the volcano; and it had begun to smoke.

Lydra, the Ariadne of Atlantis, touched Reid’s brow. “In the name of the Goddess and Asterion, blessings.” Her formal words were flattened out by the wariness that looked from her eyes.

He bowed. “Forgive an outlander, my lady, if he does not know what is proper behavior,” he said awkwardly.

Silence fell and continued in that long dim room. At its southern end, the door giving on a light well was closed against rain. Opposite gaped darkness, a hallway leading deeper into the maze of the palace-temple. A mural on the south side showed Her three aspects together, Maiden, Mother,, and Hag. On the north side, human figures who had the heads and wings of eagles escorted the dead to judgment. The pictures had all the Cretan realism, none of the Cretan joyfulness. By flickering lamplight, they seemed to stir. Smoke from bronze braziers curled before them, sweetened by sandalwood but stinging nostrils in this bleak air.

“Well.” The high priestess, sought her cushioned marble throne. “Be seated if you wish.”

Reid took a stool beneath her. What next? he wondered. Yesterday he and Diores had been received with ritual courtesy. Afterward a pair of consecrates gave the American a guided tour of the publicly showable areas while the Athenian and the Ariadne were closeted alone for hours. That evening, back at the harbormaster’s house, Diores was evasive: “—Oh, she wanted the gossip from our parts. And I had orders to ask about getting the Temple’s help toward liberalizing the treaty—like letting us keep more watercraft for protecting our interests in the Euxine where the Cretans don’t patrol—you know. She’ll see you in private tomorrow. Now have another cupful, if our host’ll be that kind, and simmer down.”

Reid studied her as carefully as he dared. Lydra was in her later thirties, he’d been told: tall, stiffly erect, slender on the verge of gauntness. Her face, likewise lean, bore blue-gray eyes, arching nose, severely held mouth, strong chin. The brown hair had started to fade, the breasts to sag, though she kept part of the bull-dancer physique from her youth. She wore the full farthingale, the high brimless hat, the golden snake bracelets seen upon images of Rhea. A blue cloak was thrown over her shoulders. Reid felt like a barbarian in his Achaean tunic and beard.

Or was his unease because he distrusted her? He’d found a chance to tell Erissa: “A story persisted to my day that ... an Ariadne ... helped Theseus slay the Minotaur. What could be the truth behind it?”

Erissa had shrugged. “I heard—will hear—rumors that he and she were in conspiracy. But the only clear fact is that after the disaster she joined him in conducting sacrifice and later she departed in his ship. Well, what choice had she? He needed her to cast some thin legitimacy over his conquest of Knossos, and had the strength to compel her. She never reached Athens. He left her and her attendants on the island of Naxos. There, despairing, they gave up the pure faith and turned to a mystery cult. If anything, does such treatment not show that no bargain existed, that she was—is, will be—innocent?”

“But, well, I hear Theseus has been on Atlantis more than once, and messages often travel back and forth.”

Erissa had uttered a sad small laugh. “Why should he not cultivate the spiritual head of the Thalassocracy? She did have a Kalydonian grandfather. But fear not her ever serving in earnest a worldly cause. Her maidenhead was scarcely fledged when she had a revelation in the cave of Mount Iouktas. Since, she’s always called herself a bride of Asterion. After her bull-dancing days, she took the vows of a priestess—among them celibacy, remember—and served so devotedly that she was elated to regnancy over the Temple at the lowest age on record. I well recall her austerities. her strict enforcement of every observance, her lectures to us lay sisters about our vanities, levities, and laxities.” Seriously: “What you must do is convince her you are an agent of good, not evil; and that may not be easy, Duncan, darling.”

Right, he now thought, gazing into the implacable countenance.

“These are grave matters, touching on secrets that the gods withhold from mortals,” Lydra said. “And I do not mean things like your fire-spouter, or the iron and the horse riding that Diores spoke of. Those are simple human works. The moon-disk you bear on your arm, however—”

He had demonstrated his wristwatch yesterday and noticed how awed the attendant votaresses were. Though folk used sun and stars to mark off units as small as hours, these blades which busily scissored away each successive instant were too reminding of Dictynna the Gatherer.

He saw an opportunity. “Besides a timepiece, my lady, it’s an amulet which confers certain prophetic powers. I’d planned on giving it to the Minos, but maybe the proper repository is here.” He took it off and laid it in her hand, which closed almost convulsively around it. “The oracle did not come to us outlanders by chance. I can foresee terrible dangers. My mission is to warn your people. I dared not tell the Athenians.”

Lydra set the watch down and touched the Labrys talisman to her lips. “What do you mean?” she asked tonelessly.

Here we go, Reid thought, and wondered if he was about to destroy the world he had come from, like summer sunlight scorching a morning mist off the earth; or if he was only fluttering his wings in the cage of time.

Neither, I hope, I pray my agnostic prayer, he thought amidst the knockings of his heart. I hope to gain the influence I must have in order to do ... whatever is needful to, find those travelers from the future when they come, and thus win home to my wife and children. In exchange, can I not salvage a little of Erissa’s world for her? Or at least get her back to the one she salvaged for herself?

It is my duty. I suppose it is also my desire,

“My lady,” he said solemnly, out of a dry mouth, “I have been shown visions of horror, visions of doom. I have been shown Pillar Mountain bursting asunder in such fury that Atlantisi sinks beneath the sea, tidal waves overwhelm the fleet and earthquakes the cities of Crete, and the royal island falls prey to men who set chaos free to roam.”

He might have gone on to what he remembered from books not yet written: A sleazy reconstruction under the new rulers, who must surely be Achaeans and who had no wish to keep the peace either at sea or on land. The Homeric era to follow; would splendid lines of poetry really repay lifetimes of disintegration, war, piracy, banditry, rape, slaughter, burning, poverty, and glutted slave markets? Finally, that invasion from the north which Theseus himself was troubled about: wild Dorians bearing iron weapons, bringing the Bronze Age down in ruin so total that scarcely a legend would remain of the dark centuries which came after.

Lydra, who had sat still a while, spoke. “When is this to happen?”

“Early next year, my lady. If preparations can be made—”

“Wait. A fumbling attempt at rescue could be the very cause of disaster. The gods have been known to work deviously when they would destroy?’

“My lady, I speak only of evacuating the Atlanteans to Crete and everyone there inland from the coastal towns ... safeguarding the fleet—”

The pale eyes held most steady upon him. “You could have been misled,” she told him slowly, “whether by a hostile Being or an evil-seeking witch or a mere fever. You could even be lying for some purpose of your own.”

“You must have had a full report on me from Diores, my lady.”

“Not full enough, obviously.” Lydra raised a hand. “Hold. I make no accusation against you. Indeed, what I have heard, what I see in your expression, makes me think you’re likely honest—as far as you go—but you do not go very far, do you, strange one? No, something this drastic requires askings out, purifications, prayers, visits to oracles, takings of counsel, the deepest search and pondering that mortals can make. I will not be hastened. According to your own word, we have months before us wherein to seek the wisest course of action.”

Decisive as any man he had known, she finished: “You will stay on this isle, where sacredness holds bane at bay and where you can readily be summoned for further talks.

There are ample guest quarters in the wing reserved for visiting male—votaries.”

“But my lady,” he protested, “my friends in Athens—”

“Let them bide where they are, at least until we’ve learned more. Be not afraid for them. Winter months or no, I’ll find occasions to send messengers there, who’ll observe and report.”

The Ariadne imitated a smile. “You are not a prisoner, man from afar,” she continued. “You may walk freely about the main island too, when not needed here. I do want you always under guidance.... Let me think.... A dancer should suffice, a lay sister, young and merry to brighten your moods.”

Reid thought it odd how calmly she took his news. Had Diores ferreted out sufficient hints to give her forewarning, or was, she inhumanly self-controlled? Her voice snapped the thread of his wondering:

“I have in mind particularly a sister of excellent family whose name may be an omen. For it’s the same as that of your woman companion I was told about. Erissa.”