The Dancer from Atlantis (23 page)

Reid and Erissa took no more than half a dozen along in the boat. The dismasted galley needed oarsmen; why risk them ashore?
A large party would draw attention, without being large enough to deal with the consequences. Besides Dagonas and Uldin, they
had Ashkel, Tylisson, Haras, and Rhizon. There had been no chance to stow armor except for bucklers. Weapons were swords,
knives, a couple of pikes. Reid gripped his spear convulsively. It was the sole instrument with which he might hope to do
anything useful.

They moored at the stump of a pier and climbed over the wreckage. Tidal waves had left the ground soaked; muck lay ankle-deep
on the lower levels, chilly, plopping and sucking around sandals. Dust filled the air, the nose, the mouth. Sweat, running
down skin in the unnatural heat, made channels through that grime.

None greeted the landing. Doubtless Theseus would have the area occupied next morning in anticipation of his ships. At the
moment, though, he must have everything he could do, bringing Knossos somewhat under control.

‘He established himself – he will take what parts of the Labyrinth the quakes left standing.’ Erissa said, ‘The Minos he slew
with his own hand, our gentle old Minos. His patrols ranged about through the night, disarming citizens, herding many together
for slavery. Tomorrow he summoned his supporters among the folk. He made the bull sacrifice in token that now he was king.
The Ariadne stood beside him. Thus I was told, years afterward, by people who were there. The knowledge may help us now.’

‘It makes no difference,’ Uldin grunted. ‘What else would you expect? We’ll be avoiding patrols in any case.’

‘If one finds us,’ Dagonas grated, ‘the worse for it.’

‘We’ll go to your home first,’ Reid suggested to Erissa, ‘and
fetch the girl and as many more as we’re able. From them we can perhaps get better information about what’s going on. On the
way back, we can try to rescue others.’

That’s the most we can do, he thought. Pick up some human pieces. But how can this be? She thought she and I – in her father’s
house, in a city still at peace – where will we, then? How? When? Could time really be changeable?

It better not be. If it is, we’ll likely be discovered and killed. I’d never have dared this foray if I didn’t believe it
was fated that we rescue the dancer and afterward lose her.

He glanced at Erissa. In the failing light, silhouetted against a half-crumbled wall, she went striding as if to her bulls.
The cameo profile was held so steady that he could almost have called her expression serene. He thought: She would dare.

The road wound inland for a steep two or three miles. Above the reach of the tsunamis, most of the poplars that lined the
way still stood, though some were uprooted and gale-broken boughs were strewn about. Behind these trees, on either side, had
been the cottages of smallholders, the villas of the wealthy; but they lay in rubble. A stray cow wandered lowing – for her
calf? Reid couldn’t make out anything else. But dusk was upon him and vision didn’t reach far.

It did find Knossos, whose death flickered red and yellow across the clouds ahead. At last the fires themselves came into
sight, scores leaping above a black jaggedness of cast-down walls. When a roof fell in, sparks spouted as if from a volcano.
The roaring grew ever louder, the reek and sting of smoke sharper, as Reid’s band trudged on.

Knossos had not been defended. What need had the sea king’s people for fortifications ashore? Where a gate would elsewhere
have risen, the road branched off in several wide, flagged streets. The city had been a larger version of Atlantis. Erissa
pointed her spear down one of the avenues. ‘That way,’ she said tonelessly.

Full night had come. Reid groped along by flamelight, stumbling on fallen blocks and baulks, once in a while putting his foot
on what he suddenly knew for a dead body. Through the crackling he heard occasional screams. He squinted into the roil of
smoke but saw no one except a woman who sat in a doorway and rocked herself. She did not look back at him, she looked through
him. The man beside her had been killed by a weapon. Soot and dust rained steadily upon her.

Dagonas stopped. ‘Quick! Aside!’ he hissed. A second later they heard what his young ears had: tramping feet, clanking metal.
Crouched in the shadows of a narrow side street, they saw an Achaean squad go past. Only two men were in the full gear – nodding
plumes, shining helmets, blowing cloaks, armor, shields – that must have been smuggled along. The rest, numbering seven, were
clad in ordinary wise and carried merely swords, pikes, axes, a sling. Two were Cretan.

‘By Asterion – those traitors—!’ Ashkel’s blade caught the light in a gleam. Two comrades wrestled him to a halt before he
could charge. The gang went past.

‘We’ll scarcely meet more,’ Erissa said. ‘Theseus doesn’t have many here on his side. It’s only that none are left to fight
on ours. Those who might have rallied them, the nobles, were of course seized or slain immediately; and leaderless men can
do nothing except run.’ She started off afresh.

They met more dead, more grieving. Hurt folk croaked for help, for water; hardest was the necessity to pass them by without
answering. Or was the worst those glimpsed forms that scuttled out of sight – Cretans who feared this party was also among
the looters, rapers, and slave takers?

When they came to a certain square, Erissa halted. ‘My home.’ Her voice was no longer entirely steady.

Most of the buildings around had escaped extreme damage. The wavering hazy light of a fire some distance off showed cracked
façades, sagging doors, wall paintings blurred by dust; but they stood. On the one at which she pointed, Reid could just make
out that there had been depicted, triumphal in a field of lilies, the bull dance.

She caught his hand. They crossed the plaza.

Night gaped in the house. After knocking with his spear butt, peering inside at stripped and tumbled emptiness, Reid said
slowly: ‘I’m afraid no one’s here. Looks as if it’s been plundered. I suppose the folk fled.’

‘Where?’ Dagonas’ voice was raw.

‘Oh, I can tell you, I can tell you, friends.’ The answer drifted from within. ‘Wait and I’ll tell you. Shared sorrow is best.’

The man who shuffled out was wrinkled, bald, blinking from half-blind eyes. Erissa choked, ‘Balon.’

‘Aye, aye, you know Balon, do you?’ he said. ‘Old Balon, too old to be worth hauling off and selling – they pensioned him
in this family, though, they did, because he worked faithfully
over the years for a good master, yes, that I did. Why, the children used to come and beg me for a story…. All gone. All gone.’

She dropped her spear and pulled him to her. ‘Balon, old dear,’ she said raggedly, ‘do you remember Erissa?’

‘That I do, that I do, and will for what days remain to me. I hope he’ll not be too unkind to her. She might charm her way
into his graces, you know. She could charm the birds down out of the trees. But I don’t know, I don’t know. They said something
about him and the Ariadne, when they came for her.’

‘For who?’ Dagonas yelled.

‘Why, Erissa. Right after the quake and the darkness and winds, almost. She’d been telling about this man she met on Atlantis
– you could warm your hands at her happiness – and then the quake and – her father’s been ill, you know. Pains in the chest.
Weak. He couldn’t well move. So she stayed. Then, crash, there they were at the door. They’d been sent special. Theseus, they
said, wanted Erissa. They wanted loot and slaves. They got both, after they’d bound my little Erissa who was going to win
the garland and marry that foreign man she loved. But not old Balon. Nor his master. Master died, he did, right then and there,
when that Achaean tramped into the bedroom and grabbed mistress – said she wouldn’t fetch much but looked like she had a few
years of grain-grinding in her – yes, master’s dead in there. I laid him out. Now I’m waiting to follow him. I’d have followed
the rest of the family, I begged they’d take me along, but the soldiers laughed. So all poor Balon can do is wait by his master’s
bedside.’

Erissa shook him. ‘Where are they?’ she cried.

‘Oh? Oh?’ The servant squinted. ‘You look like her. You really do,’ he mumbled. ‘But you can’t be kinfolk. Can you? I knew
this whole house, I did. Every member, every cousin and nephew and baby in the Thalassocracy. They’d always tell old Balon
the news when they came visiting here, and I’d always remember. … They’re in some pen or other, I guess, under heavy guard.
You’ll not rescue them, I fear.’

‘Erissa!’ Reid demanded. ‘Her too?’

‘No. No. I told you. Didn’t I? Something special about her. Theseus, our conqueror, that is, King Theseus wanted her special.
He sent men after her right away, before she might escape. They’d had to fight on the way here, they told me; I saw blood
on them; that’s the kind of hurry they were in. I
don’t know why. The rest of the household, brothers, sisters, children, servants, they just collected incidental-like, along
with the loot. Erissa was what they really came for. I suppose she’s in the Labyrinth. Now can I go back to master?’

Mount Iouktas, where Asterion was buried, in whose cave shrine Lydra had had her vision, bulked ebon across the clouds. Approaching
from above – the least unsafe, when every path was beset – Reid could make out the palace against the burning further down:
Cyclopean walls, high pillars, broad staircases, sprawling over acres, grand even when half shattered. A few watchfires glowed
red in courtyards.

‘We’re out of our minds,’ Uldin grumbled. ‘Heading into a wolfs den, a maze where we could wander lost till dawn.’

‘Blood brotherhood,’ Erissa answered. Since Balon refused to seek the galley, she had masked herself; she moved with fluid
swiftness as before, but face and voice might have belonged to brazen Talos whom legend said once guarded Crete. ‘I remember
those halls. We should be able to get around in them better than the enemy.’

‘But for a single stupid wench—’

‘Go back if you’re afraid,’ Dagonas said scornfully.

‘No, no, I come.’

‘If she’s important to Theseus, she must be important to our side,’ Tylisson said. ‘Or at least we may kill a few Achaeans.’

They continued their stealthy progress. Reid went in the van beside Erissa. He saw her only as a shadow and a spearhead; but
bending close, touching the rough wool tunic, breathing a hint of her amidst fumes and cinders, he thought: She’s here. She
is. She’s not the girl she was, but she’s the woman that the girl became.

‘Should we go through with this?’ he whispered.

‘We did,’ she replied.

‘Did we? In just this way?’

‘Yes. I know now what really happened tonight. If we fail our duty – why, maybe I’ll never meet you again, Duncan. Maybe we’ll
never have had those moments that were ours.’

‘What about the risk to our friends?’

‘They fight in their own people’s cause. This hour is for more than you and me. Tylisson spoke well. Think. Why did Theseus
want that girl so badly? Because she’s full of strangeness; she’s
fated to return to herself. He – and Lydra, I suppose – dare not let an enemy of such unknown powers go loose. But having
taken her, will they not use her? She’s only a girl, Duncan. She can be broken to their will.

‘The free Keftiu on the lesser islands could be overrun. But if this Chosen One escapes him, Theseus will be daunted. He’ll
stay his hand, rest content with uniting Attica, leave the Aegean Sea in peace.’ For an instant, malice spat: ‘Yes, he’ll
become so shy of the Goddess’ faith that he’ll not dare use it for his statecraft as he now plans to. He’ll set the Ariadne
off where she can do no more harm.’

‘Hsh,’ cautioned Uldin.

Down on their bellies, they crawled along garden walks. Through leaves, Reid saw the nearest of the campfires. It cast its
glimmer around a courtyard, on a fallen pillar and a row of huge storage jars lined along the masonry. Two Achaeans sat drinking.
A royal slave scuttled to keep their beakers full; for him life hadn’t changed much. A third man must be on duty, because
he was fully equipped and on his feet. The light flowed off his bronze. He laughed and jested with his companions, though.
Reid caught a snatch: ‘– When the ships come tomorrow or next day, when we’ve ample men, that’s when the roundup really begins
and maybe you’ll find that girl who got away, Hippomenes—’ In a corner lay what the American thought were two asleep. He stole
sufficiently close by to discover that they were Cretans. Festival wreaths were withering on their temples, above blank eyes
and cut throats. Their blood had pooled widely before it clotted.

Hugging the wall, Erissa led her group to an unwatched side entrance. The first several yards of corridor beyond were tomb
black. Then they emerged in another at right angles, where lamps burned at intervals. Between doorways romped a mural of bulls,
dolphins, bees, gulls, blossoms, youths, maidens, everything that was glad. Erissa nodded. ‘I expected those lights,’ she
said. ‘The Ariadne, if no one else, would direct the laying down of such a thread so the conquerors can find their way along
the main halls.’

Shadows bulked and slunk, demon-shaped; but the air was blessedly cool and clean. They moved toward that section Erissa believed
was their likeliest goal. How full of life these corridors, these rooms must have been one day ago. The passage wasn’t straight,
it wound, wildly intersected.

A voice beyond a corner stabbed at Reid. Theseus! ‘Well, that’s done. I wasn’t sure I could.’

Lydra: ‘I told you my presence would ward you.’

‘Yes. I was listening to your prayers the whole while. Was I wrong to enjoy it? I did. More than I expected.’

‘You will not again, will you? Here
I
am.’

‘Enough.’

Reid risked a peek. Yards off was a door where two full-equipped warriors stood guard, spears grounded, swords at waist, shields
ashine in the lamplight. Theseus and Ariadne were departing in the opposite direction. The prince wore only a tunic and glaive;
his yellow mane seemed brighter than the bronze, and he walked with the gait of one who has taken more than a kingdom. Lydra,
in Cretan priestess garb, clung to his arm.