Collected short fiction, p.378
Collected Short Fiction, page 378
“Then greet the new god with a wifely kiss—for you are now his bride.”
The face of Ariadne went whitely tense, and the green eyes flamed. Theseus grinned again.
“We have already quarreled over the duties of motherhood,” he told Daedalus. “Let us now forgive her womanly temper. I shall find time presently to teach her the obligations of a wife.”
The warlock’s gnarled face twisted into a black mask of hate. His sunken smoldering eyes stared for a long time at Theseus, as if their sinister power would consume him. At last he turned, shaken as if with a stifled fury, to the stone ax on the altar.
“Being the hand of the Dark One,” he croaked hoarsely, “I offer the new Minos the sacred ax, whose twin blades are the crafts of war and the arts of peace, that is the token of the Dark One’s regency.” He reached for the worn ancient haft, but:
“Stop!” hissed the silken voice of Minos. “He is not yet a god!”
THERE WAS something impish in the rosy, dimpled smile, and the merry little eyes sparkled with an unwonted glee. Pink and stout without his robe, Minos bounced to the side of his daughter, whispered softly.
Apprehensively watching, Theseus saw the frigid white features of Ariadne break into a dazzling smile.
She looked back at him, and her green eyes flamed a merciless triumph. Eagerly, her golden voice pealed:
“Wait! I see my duty. The new god shall have the salutation that is due him!”
Eagerly, she came back to Theseus. The white dove fluttered for balance, and ruby eyes glittered from the twisting serpent-girdle. Smooth and white and warm, her arms slid around the tense shoulders of Theseus.
“My divine master!” Her voice was a golden taunt, suave mockery shone in her long green eyes. “A kiss!”
Theseus knew that Minos had trapped him. Desperately he sought escape. He caught the smooth shoulders of Ariadne, thrust her roughly back.
“You refused it,” he said. “Now wait till I am ready.”
But Minos smiled his pink baby-smile, and the blue eyes twinkled. And Theseus discovered abruptly that he was held fast by unseen bonds, as he had been in the arena.
“Now, my lord.” The eyes of Ariadne sparkled. “One kiss!”
Her long white body pressed close to his again, and he could make no move. Deliberately, her hot red lips sought his own, clung. Theseus abruptly felt the slackening of her arms, the new looseness of the white robe of Minos. And Ariadne stepped back from him, with mimic astonishment on her white face.
“Who are you, redhead?” her whisper mocked him. “And where is the godly spouse of Cybele?”
Released from those fetters of wizardry, Theseus looked despairingly down at his hands. They were lean and tanned—his own, not the huge sunburned hams of the Northman. They clenched, impotently. He heard the soft faint tinkle of the laughter of Minos.
“Here, Talos!” whispered the silken woman-voice. “Here is the prisoner you have sought—the pirate Firebrand! He has stolen my robe! Seize him! Throw him into the deepest dungeon, to await the justice of the Dark One.”
With a triumphant snarling sound, Daedalus tore the white robe from Theseus, wrapped it back about the pink pudgy shoulders of Minos. The rider was trembling with soft laughter, and the small merry eyes were almost hidden in his rosy smile.
“But we were placing my successor on the throne,” he sobbed through the laughter. “Where is the Northman?”
The floor creaked, as Talos strode toward Theseus. In the instant that was left to him, Theseus seized Ariadne, crushed her long body against him so hard she gasped with pain. “This is not the end,” he breathed, “my bride!”
Deep within him, however, he feared that it was. He recalled the calm wager of Minos on Gothung. Suddenly he was certain that the rosy, jovial little warlock had penetrated his guise at the beginning, that his victory in the arena and this delayed exposure had been but an idle gambit—a game to break the tedium that thirty generations of life must become.
The hot resistless hand of Talos crushed down on the arm of Theseus, dragged him away. Looking back, he saw that Minos still quivered with laughter. Ariadne was staring after him with a curious startled expression, her face white as the fluttering dove.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Reign of Wizardry
PART II
In the days of Crete, the Mighty! Theseus—hero of Greek legend—finds the secret of the Dark One, the Minotaur—
Before Greece was more than a wilderness, where semisavage tribes were struggling upward toward real civilization, the Island of Crete was the center of a mighty empire. Babylon was slipping downward, Egypt in one of her low periods—and Minos, Emperor of Crete, ruled the world.
A thousand years, legends said, he had ruled—and certainly he had ruled longer than the memory of any man. Three “walls” defended his empire, made Minos impregnable; the wooden walls of his navy, the brass wall of Talos, the Man of Brass, which, somehow, the wizardry of Minos had animated, and. finally, the wall of pure wizardry that had made Knossos, his capital, inviolable.
Theseus, a Greek forced to wander as an outlaw by the power of the Cretan armies and navies, was a pirate preying on Crete’s trade—and slipping through their navy’s defenses to attack again and again. Known as Captain Firebrand for his flaming hair, his whole aim in life is the destruction of Knossos, and its two cruel masters: Minos and the Minotaur, the half-bull, halfman creature, the Dark One of whom all—Cretan and Greek alike—live in unholy fear. Deep beneath the palace of Knossos, in the Labyrinth which is death and sacrifice to the Dark One to enter, lies the greatest power of Minos—fear! Fear of being sent to the Dark One!
Captain Firebrand captures a ship on which he finds a wizened, fearful little wizard, one Snish, who can, by magic, make himself appear in any form he desires. But Snish’s spells, as Snish himself humbly admits, are weak ones. And, since the Cretans have a monopoly of magic, furiously persecuting anyone who attempts to break in on their monopoly, Snish is fleeing constantly, but fruitlessly. He is pursued by ill luck and storms brought on by Cretan magicians. Snish’s spell of disguise can be broken, unfortunately, by close contact or a kiss.
However, with the help of one of Snish’s disguising spells, Theseus, by a ruse and the help of one of Snish’s ill luck storms, gets past Crete’s navy, passes even Talos, the Man of Brass, and reaches the city of Knossos in time for the games.
The games, in honor of the Dark One, are open to any contestant. If he wins three bouts—against man, bull, and “gods”—he displaces Minos, becomes the ruler of Crete, and takes Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, as his queen. The games have, however, been going off for a thousand years—-and Minos still rules. They are quite adequately “fixed.”
However, with some aid from Snish at critical instants—his spells aren’t strong enough to last long against the Cretan “gods”—their prime magicians, Minos, Ariadne, and Daedalus, Minos’ adviser and chief magician—Theseus, still in his magic-disguised form, sufficiently unfixes the games to win them!
Determined to destroy the ruining, deadening reign of wizardry and fear Minos has imposed over all the then-known world, Theseus, still in his disguised form, goes to take formally, the crown of Crete from Minos at the ceremonial banquet.
And at the ceremony, Ariadne kisses him—and Snish’s disguising spell is broken. Having won the games in the disguised form, the revealed Theseus was not the winner—and is taken to the dungeons as the pirate Captain Firebrand, with a death penalty on his flaming head!
XIII.
THE DUNGEON, lost somewhere beneath the rambling maze of Knossos, was not unlike that in which Theseus had awaited the games. A square, granite-lined pit, sunk deep in living rock, it was damp with dripping water, cold with a bone-piercing chill, foul with old decay. Theseus was alone in it.
No faintest ray of light, however, reached the pit to mark the passing days. No sound filtered to it from the life above. Theseus knew there must be guards somewhere in the stone-hewn passages above, but he heard no voice or step. The dungeon was a tomb of living death.
Lying in that other pit, before the games, Theseus had boasted that a man might escape from such a place—if he had to. Now, Theseus saw, he bad to. And he tried the plan that he had made.
He had waited endlessly for the guards to come with food. But no food was brought. He seemed as completely isolated as if he had been the only man alive. The justice of the Dark One, apparently, began with solitary starvation.
Theseus felt sure that it must be someone’s duty, however, to ascertain from time to time if he still survived. And, when every hope of finding escape by the strength of his own hands was gone, lie began calling at intervals into the blackness above:
“Ten talents of silver for a message to Admiral Phaistro!”
Ten talents of silver was four times a man’s weight of the most precious metal. One talent was vast wealth. Ten was enough to excite the cupidity of any man. But the voice of Theseus rang hollowly against the bare, hard stone, and died into silence, and there was no response.
He called the words again and again, until his voice was gone. He slept, woke, croaked his hoarse appeal, slept and woke again, and whispered it. Time was short, he knew, when his strength and sanity would last to carry out the plan.
“Naked one, what silver have you?”
At first he could not believe that he had heard that cautious, fearful whisper. He lay still, trembling and breathless on the harsh cold stone. It came again, faintly:
“Doomed one, where is your silver?”
It was real! Theseus tried to quiet his sick shuddering, sought voice and strength and cunning. Chilled with dread of some blunder that might destroy this last tiny hope, he gasped into the dark:
“I have two hundred talents of silver—besides three hundred of gold, and twice that weight of bronze and tin, and forty jars filled with cut stones and jewelry—that Captain Firebrand took from a hundred rich ships of Crete and Egypt and the northern cities. It is buried on an island, and guarded with a wizard’s spell, and only the wizard and I can find it.”
THERE was silence in the darkness. Theseus shivered to a fear that he had failed, that the guard had gone away. But at last the whisper came: “All the silver in the world, pirate—and all the gold and bronze and tin—would not buy one day of freedom for you. For the guard who set you free would doom himself to the justice of the Dark One. And all the treasure in the world could not save a man from the warlocks and the gods.”
“But I don’t seek escape,” whispered Theseus. “I wish merely to bargain for a service. If I am going to the Labyrinth, I have no need of that treasure on the island. I am willing to betray its hiding place, for a service.”
“What,” came the fearful whisper from above, “is that service?”
“It is one that Admiral Phaistro alone can render.” Theseus brought bitterness into his voice. “I was betrayed by one of my officers—a man who had been my best friend. He seized command of my ship, and set me adrift on a helpless hulk to be wrecked on the rocks of Crete. I wish to bargain for revenge against the Dorian pirate, called Cyron the Gamecock. Only the admiral can give me that.”
Black silence. A drop of water fell with a tinkling crash into a cold foul pool. Again silence. A sob of breath from above, and a muttered curse, as if avarice and fear battled in the guard. Doubtfully, at last: “How do I get mine?”
“You can trust Phaistro,” urged Theseus. “If he comes here, the secret will be worth ten talents.”
“Or my life!” came the mutter. Silence again, and the shattering ring of another water drop. “The admiral has need of your hoard,” came the yielding whisper. “I’ll tell him to come—if he dares!”
Theseus shuddered with hope, turned weak again.
“Wait!” he called. “Tell Phaistro also that it is useless for him to come, unless he can find and bring with him a certain Babylonian cobbler, who has lately arrived in Ekoros. The cobbler is a squat little yellow-brown man, with the features of a frog. His name is Snish.”
“But what,” hoarsely whispered the unseen guard, “is the need of a cobbler?”
“The cobbler is also a wizard,” breathed Theseus, “and my friend. He aided me to bury the hoard, and guarded it with his arts. Neither of us can find it, or give directions for the finding of it, alone. For each possesses only half the secret. That is the spell.”
“I shall tell the admiral,” promised the guard. “But, pirate, if this is all a lie—” The threat died in his throat, and he muttered: “What further injury can be done a man already awaiting the justice of the Dark One?”
There was silence. The drops of water crashed, loud as the fall of crystal towers. The shattering falls were far apart. The nerves of Theseus grew taut as he waited for each, and his body jerked to the shock, and again he waited through another tense eternity.
A cold shadow of apprehension lay across his spinning, weary brain. For there was, in fact, no such buried hoard. All the loot of the pirate crew, in the time he had been with them, had not amounted to half of what he had enumerated. But a tithe of that had fallen to the share of Captain Firebrand. And he had spent it with a free hand in the markets and the wine shops of a dozen cities, had flung it, more freely yet, to people in want from the wars and the taxations of Minos.
“All Cretans are liars.” That was a proverb spoken from Thebes to Troy. A race of liars might well become adept at detecting falsehood. But this invention was now his sole hope of life, and the reeling brain of Theseus clung to it grimly.
Once he dropped into sleep. He dreamed that he had safely mounted the throne of Minos, that lovely Ariadne was his own. But she fled from him, into the Labyrinth of the Dark One. He followed, and found her amid the horrors of that dark, cavernous space, and kissed her. And she changed in his arms to Snish.
The crash of a water drop awoke him, a nerve-shattering avalanche of toppling crystal peaks. He lay on the wet, foul stone, and waited in an agony of tension. The drops crashed and crashed again, measuring intolerable ages.
Theseus thought that he was dreaming again, when he heard the scrape of a foot above. But there were cautious whispers and the muffled clatter of a sword striking stone. Lowered fearfully, he heard the precise, familiar voice of Admiral Phaistro:
“Captain Firebrand?”
“Yes!” Theseus gasped for breath. “Admiral—”
“Silence!” The voice was stifled, frightened. “We’ll come down to you.”
Still there was no gleam of light. A lock clicked faintly. Men whispered, breathed heavily with effort. There was a heavy creaking, a muffled brazen clang, a choked curse. He knew that the barred trapdoor had been lifted.
Something splashed in a foul puddle beside him. He found the end of a rope ladder, steadied it, as someone descended. He gripped an arm in the darkness, whispered:
“Who is it?”
The reply was no more than a muffled buzz, but he recognized the nasal tones of Snish. The little wizard’s body was shuddering and clammy. His breath wheezed through tight wrappings about his head.
“Silence!” The voice of the admiral was thin and dry with fear.
“And we dare make no light, for the ears and the eyes of the warlocks are keen!”
He dropped from the ladder beside them, found Theseus with quivering hands.
“There’s no time to waste,” he gasped. “My marines found this cobbler in a shop. He says he is no wizard, and he was using another name than Snish. But he is a Babylonian. I shall remove his gag.”
“He is the wizard,” said Theseus. “But let the gag stay. He can use his spell without words—if he wants to avoid being tortured for knowledge of the treasure on the island, and then, perhaps, flung to the Dark One.”
Snish trembled more violently and emitted protesting nasal sounds.
“Hush!” The admiral’s voice was a startled croak. “Don’t speak of—that one. Not here! For we are close above the Labyrinth.”
His thin fingers sank frantically into the arm of Theseus.
“And hasten!” he begged hoarsely. “Coming here, I risk my name, my position, my life. I myself am in danger of—that one. So speak quickly. Tell me where I can find your buried hoard. And where the fleet can trap this bearded Dorian—for the Gamecock has slipped through my hands again and captured another trader.”
“Then come.” Theseus led the admiral away from Snish, toward the corner of the foul cell. “The wizard need not know my part of the secret. And his spell requires no words.”
“Hurry!” Phaistro was trembling.
“The odor of this place would sicken a rat! And the danger—”
THESEUS heard the sudden change in the admiral’s voice to tones eerily familiar. The admiral was abruptly taller than himself. The words became a startled gasp, and there was a sound of tearing cloth. Theseus thrust himself free of the frantic clutching hands, slipped back toward the ladder.
“Help!” he shouted. “A trick—a trap! The prisoner has attacked me, stripped me!”
His sobbing voice was the voice of Admiral Phaistro. He caught the ladder, that was already swaying to the mad climbing of Snish, swarmed up it at the little wizard’s heels.
“Fools!” bellowed the admiral. “Stop him! He’s trying to escape!”
But the admiral spoke in the voice of Captain Firebrand. He splashed frantically about the pools in the yet-unfamiliar cell, groping frantically for the ladder. Theseus reached the door, and quick, tense hands pulled him through.
“Master, are you hurt?”
“No, praise to Minos,” gasped the precise new voice of Theseus. “But the pirate’s treasure is all a lie—one worthy of a good Cretan. He assaulted me—planning, no doubt, to murder me under the darkness and escape in my clothing.”
Unseen men were straining frantically. The massive bronze grate fell again, with a dull, heavy sound, muffling the screams and curses from below. Locks snapped. A slave wrapped Theseus in the loose robe that the admiral had laid aside before he descended the ladder.
