The Reign of Wizardry (13 page)

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,” rapped 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.

“Quick!” whispered Theseus. “We must escape before his uproar calls other guards! Or we’ll all face—that one! Firebrand’s hoard was a lie—but still I’ll see that you are all rewarded. Let’s get out of here!”

Frightened guards led the hurried, furtive way through confused black
passages, up long ramps, through a series of locked doors, and at last into one of the deeper palace magazines, where rows of huge jars held oil and wine. Finally a side door let them into an alley beneath the starlit bulk of Knossos, where a palanquin was waiting.

Theseus relaxed, trembling, on its scented cushions.

“Back home,” he said anxiously, “before we are discovered!”

“But there’s no
danger now,” said the servant, who had helped him into the litter, in the tone of one who enjoys his master’s confidence. “We have been aboard often enough by night. Men will merely laugh and whisper that the admiral is wooing his goddess again.”

The servant made a hollow chuckle.

“It’s unfortunate that the pirate lied, but at least the trickery was not all his own. If he knew that you had captured
his old comrades two moons ago, sold his men to Amur the Hittite, and already sent the Gamecock ahead of him into the Dark One’s Labyrinth!”

The servant laughed thickly in the darkness.

T
HESEUS LAY
between scented sheets of fine Egyptian linen. He opened his eyes on a long room. The frescoed walls showed graceful girls in a harvest dance. Hinged window screens of tinted oiled parchment were open, to reveal a quiet garden where birds sang in pomegranate trees.

The surroundings were all of rich luxury and high-walled security, but Theseus could not help a cold shudder
of fear. He rubbed the smoothness of the sheets, and buried his face again in the fragrant pillow, afraid that he would yet wake up in the foul darkness of the pit.

For the success of his desperate plan seemed still a dream. He could hardly credit, even now, the splendor of this hilltop villa, to which the frightened slaves had brought him. The midnight feast that the chamberlain had set still
seemed a vision of his starvation-goaded brain—and he was ravenous again.

But he remembered the chamberlain’s laugh about his old companions’ capture, the Gamecock already sent to the justice of the Dark One. That stiffened his dream into hard reality, sobered his incredulous joy. He was awake, all right, and he had things to do—Cyron had to be avenged!

He sat up on the bed. A tin mirror propped
on a marble table showed him the sharp, narrow face of Admiral Phaistro. He made a grimace at the bulging forehead, womanish red lips, and retreating chin It was not a face he liked—but still he was mutely thankful for the gift of Snish.

“Did you call, master?”

The chamberlain, who hid the confidences of Phaistro under a countenance of rigid disapproval, was bowing in the doorway.

“Bring my
breakfast,” Theseus ordered.

“A quail’s egg?” asked the servant. “And barley water?”

“Porridge with milk,” amended Theseus. “A broiled fowl, honey cakes, and fruit—” Astonishment broke through the chamberlain’s rigid face, and he cut short the order. “And
send me the cobbler,” he said. “The man is versed in certain small Babylonian spells, and he has promised to brew a wonderful philter for
me.”

“The master requires a wonderful philter indeed,” returned the stiff-faced servant, “if he still aspires to the goddess. Your pardon, your breakfast! I rejoice that the master feels so hearty.”

The bowl of porridge arrived—incongruously upon a long silver tray carried by two slaves. Snish came waddling behind them. Apprehension sat upon his seamed, wide-mouthed face, and his yellow popeyes
darted about uneasily. Theseus sent away the slaves, and invited the little wizard to share his breakfast.

Snish, however, was in no mood to eat.

“Master!” he croaked, when his blinking yellow eyes had followed the slaves out of sight. “Do you know the peril that your mad plot has brought upon us?”

“I can see a danger,” admitted Theseus. “If one man can get out of that pit, another can. And
the presence of two admirals would make for confusion. Therefore, we must work swiftly. Try these Egyptian dates.”

Bending fearfully, Snish shook his brown, bald head.

“It’s worse than that, master!” he whispered. “Once your guise was broken—you must know that any close touch will turn you back to Captain Firebrand. And send us both to the Labyrinth! If these Cretan warlocks take us, my poor
power will not serve again.”

The whisper sank to a sobbing whine.

“Why, master, did you have to set Phaistro’s marines after me?” He quivered, and tears sprang into the bulging eyes. “I had sold Tai Leng’s jewels, and bought a tiny shop on a good street, with last and hammer and needle. Business is better here than in Babylon, and I had learned to be contented.”

Snish blew his nose on a loose
corner of his loincloth. “I was happy, master,” he sighed. “I was busy all day—until the admiral’s men came in the darkness, and broke down the shutters of my shop, and choked me with gags, and dragged me away without one word of explanation to the dungeons under Knossos.”

The yellow eyes blinked. “Remember, master, I am no bold soldier of fortune. I am merely a luckless cobbler, with no stomach
for such adventures as this. And had I not repaid my debt to you, master, on the day the games were played?”

“Try one of these honey cakes,” said Theseus. “So you did aid me? I had wondered. You profess to be only a minor wizard, and yet you tell me that you defeated the warlocks of Crete?”

Snish shook his head, fearfully.

“I am the very smallest wizard, master,” he protested anxiously. “My
small powers are almost beneath the notice of the jealous warlocks of Knossos. Else they would have discovered and destroyed me long ago—as they will surely do yet, if you force me to defy them any further!” Paling, he shivered.

“The arrow and the boomerang and the wizard’s shot went by me,” said Theseus. “How?”

The yellow frog face faintly grinned.

“It was through the same small art that you
already know, master,” wheezed Snish. “After each god had launched his weapon, I changed you—too briefly for the eye to see the change—into the likeness of myself.”

“Yourself?” muttered Theseus.

“The missiles were all,” Snish told him, “aimed at your head. But Gothung was a tall man, and I am short. Therefore, the gods shot high. But I trembled lest they discover the trick!”

Theseus stared
for a moment at the seamed yellow face, and tried to curtain the doubt in his eyes. He had felt that an effort of his own, a reckless defiance of wizardry, had helped deflect those shots. But the tearful face of Snish was earnest.

“These pickled olives are superb,” he said. “Try them. The trick was very clever, Snish, and I thank you for my life. If Ariadne hadn’t kissed me—”

“But she did!”
whispered Snish. “And here you have flung yourself back into the same danger—dragging me after you!” The whisper sank. “Tell me, master—what are your plans? Since you are now the admiral, shall we not take the swiftest ship in the harbor and sail while we can?”

“No,” said Theseus, and the thin features of the admiral turned hard with resolve. “I came here to crush the wizardry of Knossos—to end
the reign of Minos and the dominion of the Dark One. And I shall!”

“Caution, master!” urged the fearful voice of Snish. “And don’t shout! The warlocks have very keen ears for any such talk as that. Haven’t you suffered enough from the folly of your purpose?”

“But don’t you see?” protested Theseus. “The goal is already
half won. As admiral, I am master of the wooden wall of Knossos. I can walk
safely by Talos, the brass wall. There remains only the third—the wall of wizardry. That is all that stands before us, now.”

“You are still Captain Firebrand!” Teeth chattering, Snish clung to the tall carved bedpost. “The warlocks had better look to their weapons—as doubtless they will!” He tried faintly to grin. “But perhaps Ariadne could tell you something about this wall of wizardry.”

“Doubtless,”
said Theseus, wistfully. “If a man might speak alone with Cybele.”

Snish grinned more broadly.

“Evidently, you are not familiar with the gossip in the servants’ quarters.” Anxiously, the little wizard caught the arm of Theseus. “Master,” he begged, “beware of her kiss! Or we’ll both end in the Labyrinth.”

Theseus picked up the jeweled tin mirror and surveyed the thin, aristocratic face of Admiral
Phaistro without enthusiasm.

“Women,” he commented, “are very strange creatures. And goddesses, apparently, as well. When am I going to see her?”

“You are expecting a message today,” Snish told him.

“What else have you learned in the servants’ quarters?”

“Your financial affairs,” Snish informed him, “are in a very bad way. You gamble recklessly, and spend tremendous sums for feasts and bribes,
to maintain your position. You are deeply in debt to Amur the Hittite. That is why you were so anxious to secure the hidden hoard of Captain Firebrand. Amur, by the way, is coming to call on you this morning.”

“The scorpion,” muttered Theseus. “Thank you, Snish.” He smiled. “Keep your ears open and your small arts ready to serve me—and perhaps you will live to be an honest cobbler yet.”

Waiting
to receive Amur in the great dusky hall, Theseus could not check a little shiver of apprehension. The Hittite, with his golden power, was almost as obnoxious as the warlocks. Hawk-nosed and sallow, lean-limbed and big-bellied, Amur left his palanquin in the court and bowed as he entered the hall.

“Your most humble slave, lord admiral.”

For all his fawning smirk, however, his voice held a veiled
arrogance. Too small, too close together, his black eyes glittered, watchful and ruthless.

“Your slave beseeches upon you the favor of the gods.” The husky voice had an almost oily softness. “And he regrets that his own dire poverty forces him to mention a certain small matter—that your notes are due again today, for five hundred talents of silver. Will it please the lord admiral to repay his
slave that insignificant debt?”

Theseus met those snakelike eyes.

“The money isn’t ready today,” he said. “You will have to wait. As you know, the expenses of my position are heavy.”

“Well I know it!” Amur abandoned the mask of servility, and his voice became a venomous hiss. “I’ve paid them for the last ten years.” He shook a lean, yellow fist. “But I’m through paying them, Phaistro. Unless
those notes are paid, Minos will have a new admiral—and the Dark One a new guest!”