The Reign of Wizardry (15 page)

“I must. Can you forgive me?”

“I … I don’t know.” She was sobbing; he held her in his arms. “I love you, Firebrand.”

Then Theseus glimpsed the sky through the arch, and said: “The morning star is rising.
I must go—if I can pass these enemies. And—if the third wall is what you told me—by tonight I shall be upon your father’s throne!”

She rose with him from the rushes. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “Wherever you go. Because I have betrayed my trust, and I can’t face my father’s anger.”

“No.” Theseus put her gently from him. “The danger is too great, until I have won.” He kissed her. “There is
a better way.” He grasped the silken bodice, ripped it. “If Minos finds that you have lost the wall, it was taken from you by trickery and force, and through no fault of yours!” He crushed her in a last embrace. “Now go—I’ll give you time to leave the grove. Farewell!”

Waiting, after she had vanished through the arch, he unclasped the thin chain, tossed the tiny cylinder of the third wall upon
his palm. If enemies were indeed waiting outside, it might be more secure, for the time, anywhere than on his person. Another apprehension shadowed him: if Minos found it unwise to carry the wall, it might be equally unwise for him.

After a moment he crossed the little altar, lowered himself into the chill, musty fissure beyond. If Cybele had indeed been born from it, he thought, she must have
emerged prematurely. For the crack narrowed swiftly, until it wedged his feet and caught his exploring fingers.

He found a tiny recess, well hidden from the surface, and thrust the cylinder and chain deep into it. The talisman would not be discovered by accident, he knew, unless some worshiper profaned this most sacred spot in Crete.

And knowledge of the hiding place, he felt, might well be
a more secure advantage than possession of the wall upon his
person. Ariadne had kissed him tonight—but she must have been the daughter of Minos for nearly a thousand years.

He dragged himself out of the dank-smelling fissure, leaving a few bits of skin, and hurried out of the temple, through the starlight and shadow of the ancient silent grove, toward the tree where he had left Snish waiting.

“Here, wizard!” he called softly. “Restore the admiral’s guise!”

But silence replied. A louder call brought no answer. Theseus searched beneath the tree, peered up into the branches, ran to the next. But Snish was gone. Panic clutched at the heart of Theseus. Without the little wizard’s aid, all he had won was gone. He was trapped again, without disguise.

“Here he is!” A sharp voice ripped through
the night. “Take him.”

Theseus stood motionless, shuddering. For that was the thin, angry voice of the admiral himself. Phaistro had escaped from the dungeon and the likeness of the doomed pirate—and, of course, had soon discovered where to strike. Ariadne, Theseus guessed with a new sinking of his heart, had known of the escape and the danger; why hadn’t her warning been more definite?

Dim
shapes flitted through the shadows of the olives.

“The pirate!” cried Phaistro. “Take him alive, for the Dark One!”

T
HESEUS HAD
come weaponless to the tryst; even the admiral’s bronze blade he had left in the palanquin. For an instant he half regretted that he had left the wall of wizardry, wondering if its power might now have served him. But he set himself empty-handed to the matter of escape.

“Greetings, admiral!” he shouted into the shadows. “But you may find you had done better to keep the shape
of Captain Firebrand!”

He crouched as he shouted, sprinted down a dim avenue of
olives. The shrill voice of Phaistro screamed angry commands behind him, and scores of men burst out of shadow clumps.

Cast nets spun about Theseus. He leaped them, ducked them. But one tripped him, and he went down painfully. A panting marine was instantly upon him. He grasped the haft of a thrusting trident, twisted
it, heaved, sent the Cretan reeling into the darkness.

Kicking out of the net, he ran again. Three marines stood up before him. He flung the trident like a spear. The middle man went down. Theseus leaped between whirling nets, and ran on down toward the river.

The uproar pursued, and torches flared against the pale glow of dawn. No more men appeared ahead, however, and he began to hope that
he had evaded Phaistro’s trap. Once across the river, he could doubtless find some temporary hiding place; he might make himself a disguise less fickle than those of Snish; there would be time to plan whatever new attack that possession of the wall of wizardry might make possible.

But, even as he went at a stumbling run down a narrow, dry ravine, doubts returned to check his feet. Had Ariadne
betrayed her father—or him?

“No!” he sobbed. “That couldn’t be!”

He remembered the vital pressure of her clinging body, the hot magic of her kisses. He believed she really loved him. But, if he had a purpose more important than love, so might she. A goddess would hardly betray her own pantheon. After all, she was doubtless about fifty times as old as she looked—and the vessel of Cybele, besides!
A kiss couldn’t mean so much to her!

He paused for breath in a clump of brush—and abruptly all hope of escape was shattered. For a deep, brazen bellow rolled above the shouts of the men behind. He saw a torch carried high as the trees. Its rays glinted on the gigantic metal body of Talos.

The brass man came lumbering down the ravine. The flame-yellow of his eyes was as bright, almost, as the
torch. Rocks crashed, and the ground quivered under his tread. Theseus crouched lower in the brush. For an instant, breathless, he dared to hope that Talos would go by. But the crashing stopped abruptly, and the giant stood above him like a metal colossus.

“Captain Firebrand,” boomed that mighty voice, “you are
taken again for the Dark One. Probably you think you are clever. But you shall not
escape me—not with all your tricks and masks. For Talos is no fool!”

The ravine’s bank, at that instant, gave way beneath the giant’s weight. He sat down ignominiously in a cloud of dust. Theseus leaped to his feet, darted on toward the river.

But Talos, moving in spite of his bulk with a terrible swiftness, recovered his footing. With three crashing strides, he overtook Theseus, caught his
arm in a great hand whose metal was almost searingly hot.

“No, Captain Firebrand,” rumbled the giant. “This time you shall certainly meet the Dark One. Talos can promise you that. And you may find, after all, that you are the fool!”

That blistering, resistless hand held Theseus until the admiral and his men came up in the gray increasing light of dawn. Phaistro trembled with a fresh rage to
discover his own embroidered robe upon Theseus—somewhat torn from the race down the ravine. His marines stripped Theseus.

“Never mind your nakedness, pirate dog!” He spat. “Men need no clothing in the Labyrinth.”

Theseus was presently conducted back toward the town. Sharp stones and briers injured his bare feet—for Phaistro had recovered the beaded buskins. Marching in a hollow square about
him, the marines kept prodding him with their tridents. Talos stalked watchfully behind.

Hopefully, Theseus wondered about the fate of Snish. He saw no evidence that the little wizard had fallen into the trap. Perhaps his ever-belittled arts had still served to save him. But there was scant likelihood, Theseus thought, that Snish would come voluntarily to his aid—or small chance, perhaps, that
he could defeat the wizardry of Crete again, even if he tried.

The sun had risen by the time they came through groves and vineyards into view of the great ancient pile of Knossos. The admiral, carried in his palanquin before the marching marines, shouted back at Theseus:

“Look well at that sun, pirate—for you won’t see it again. Men don’t come back from the justice of the Dark One.”

They passed
the dark Etruscan guards standing rigid at the entrance, and came into the winding confusion of the corridors of the palace. Night fell upon them again, for the sun was not high enough to cast its rays into the shafts. Lamps still flared in dusky passages.

A group of black-robed Minoan priests met them, armed with long bronze-bladed lances. Their leader reported to Talos:

“Minos is ready to
sit: in judgment at once. The prisoner will have no chance to escape again. He is to be brought without delay to the hall of the Dark One.”

The marines fell back, and the black priests formed another hollow square. Lances drove Theseus forward again, and Talos stalked behind.

They entered none of the courts or halls that Theseus had seen before. The priests took up torches from a niche beside
the way, and lit them from a red-flaring lamp. Unfamiliar turnings took them into long descending passages. There were no light wells, and the air had the dank chill of perpetual darkness.

At last they came to a massive double door of bronze. It was ornamented with huge bulls’ heads, of the same metal, and green with age-old damp. Talos strode ahead of the priests, and his metal fist thundered
against it.

At last the door opened silently, and the lances urged Theseus into a long, narrow hall. Its walls were massive blocks of Egyptian basalt, illuminated only with the dull, varicolored flicker of a tripod brazier.

Upon a low dais, beyond the brazier, were three black stone seats. Black-robed Daedalus, the hand and the voice of the Dark One, sat in the center. White-robed, rosy face
dimpled merrily, Minos was on his right. On his left, in green, sat Ariadne—motionless.

In the brazier’s uncertain light, Theseus stared at her. She sat proud and straight upon the basalt throne. The white perfection of her face was serenely composed. Her eyes shown cool and green against the flame, and she did not appear to see him.

The white dove sat motionless on her shoulder, and its bright
black eye seemed to watch him. The serpent girdle gleamed against her waist, slowly writhing, and the eyes in its flat silver head were points of sinister crimson.

Theseus tensed himself against a shuddery chill along his spine. He tried to draw his eyes from the enigmatic vessel of Cybele. It was hard to believe this the same being whose kisses had been so fervid in the ancient shrine.

While
half the black priests stood with ready lances, the rest knelt, chanted. The reverberation of a huge brazen gong—deep
as the bellow of some monstrous bull—set all the hall to quivering.

Theseus stood, stiffened and shivering, until at last the gong throbbed and shuddered into silence. The three stood up, upon the dais. Framed in fine white hair, the rosy face of Minos dimpled to a genial smile.

“We, the lesser gods, have heard the charges against this notorious criminal, the Achean pirate, called Firebrand.” The woman-voice was soft; the small blue eyes twinkled merrily. “It is clear to us that the weight of his crimes demands the prompt judgment of the Dark One.”

Fat pink hands fingered the silk of his robe, and he smiled jovially at the tall, naked body of Theseus.

“Therefore,” he
chuckled softly, “we remand the prisoner to the Labyrinth that is the dwelling of the Dark One, to face his eternal justice.”

He turned, and his blue eyes twinkled into the dark, skeletal visage of Daedalus. “Do you, the hand and the voice of the Dark One, concur?”

The hollow, musty voice of the gnarled warlock grated: “I concur.”

With his rosy baby-smile, Minos turned to Ariadne. “And you,
vessel of Cybele, who is daughter of the Dark One?”

Breathless, Theseus watched her. The green eyes came slowly to him. Some tremor of her body made the white dove shift its balance. But her eyes remained remote and cold, and her golden voice said faintly:

“I concur.”

The dancing eyes of Minos came back to Theseus and the tall bulk of Talos, waiting rigidly behind him.

“The gods concur.” Laughter
sparkled in his liquid voice. “Now let the door to the Labyrinth be opened, so that the prisoner may cross the threshold of the Dark One to face his judgment.”

Talos moved startlingly, like a statue abruptly animated. But Ariadne, with an imperious little gesture of her bare white arm, froze him into inert bright metal again.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ve a gift for the prisoner.”

Minos and Daedalus
turned swiftly upon her. The pink, cherubic features of Minos forgot their dimpled smile, and the seamed dark face of the high priest twisted into a mask of frightful wrath. Protesting whispers hissed.

From beside her on the black throne, Ariadne lifted a long roll of papyrus.

“This is a copy of the ‘Book of the Dead,’” said her even golden tones, “that was brought by the Pharaoh’s ambassadors.
It is intended for the guidance of the soul beyond the gates of death.” Her laugh was a tinkle of mockery, and the green eyes were cold. “I believe that Captain Firebrand will have use for it.”

The merry eyes of Minos and the hollow, flaming ones of Daedalus peered at her doubtfully. Minos made a little, impatient bouncing motion on his black throne. The rusty voice of the warlock croaked:

“The prisoner has no need of it. It is the custom that men should meet the Dark One as they came from his daughter, naked, with empty hands. And even the soul required no guidance beyond the Dark One’s dwelling, for it will be consumed.”

But the pink, chubby body of Minos was shaken with abrupt merriment. “My daughter jests,” he sobbed. “Remember, the prisoner is her enemy. Let him take the scroll
of death—and go ahead to use it!”

The slim white arm of Ariadne extended the scroll’s long cylinder. Theseus came forward silent, and took it, contriving not to betray its unexpected weight. He searched her white, lovely features for some hint of understanding. Her face remained a serene, proud mask.

“Go, pirate,” she said. “The Labyrinth is open.”

Already shivering to the abrupt penetrating
chill that had invaded the black hall, Theseus slowly turned. He saw that Talos had stooped to grasp a huge bronze ring-bolt fastened to one of the great square basalt blocks that paved the floor, was lifting.

Gleaming bronze limbs and torso splendid with bunched swelling muscles, Talos heaved mightily. The huge stone came slowly up, before the dais. A dark, acrid fetor rose up from the black
space beneath, and a stillness of awful dread fell upon the hall.