The Reign of Wizardry (8 page)

His short whip cut viciously across the nearest donkey’s rump.

“I have seen Ariadne,” he boasted. “With her dove and her serpent, she comes to the shrine in a white-curtained palanquin.”
He cut at the other donkey’s belly. “Ariadne is the daughter of Minos,
and the vessel of Cybele. She is a sorceress, and a goddess, and her beauty is as blinding as the sun.”

His brown face twisted into a leer.

“When my wood is sold,” he told them, “I will have three drinks of strong wine, and then I am going to the temple of Cybele.” He grinned, and his cracking whip brought blood from the nearest donkey’s flank. “Three drinks of wine, and any temple slut becomes
as beautiful as Ariadne.”

Theseus nodded at the panting Snish, and they strode ahead again.

“Perhaps Ariadne is a goddess,” he said softly. “But, nevertheless, she is going to be mine—for she is part of the prize that belongs to the victor in the games.”

“Or a part of the bait,” croaked Snish, “that the warlocks use to lure men into the arms of death!”

They crossed a stone bridge, and came
into Ekoros. This was the poor section of the city, where dwelt the lesser artisans, small shopkeepers, and laborers from the docks. Flimsy buildings, three stories high, confined a powerful stench to the five-foot street.

Most of the street was a foul, brown mud, the rest a shallow open sewer in which a thin trickle of yellow slime ran through piles of decaying garbage and reeking manure. Flies
made a dark cloud above the ditch, and their buzzing was an endless weary sound.

Gaunt women trudged through the mud with jars of water on their heads. Screaming hucksters carried little trays of fruits and cakes, brown with crawling flies. Blind beggars screamed for alms. Slatternly dark women screamed conversations out of windows and doorways. Naked brown babies, standing in the mud, screamed
for no visible reason at all.

Or perhaps, Theseus guessed from their bloated bellies and pinched cheeks, they were hungry.

“Crete is a splendid empire.” His voice rang hard above the shrieking din. “Knossos is the most splendid building on earth, crammed with treasures of art. The nobles and the merchants and the warlocks lounge in their green-shaded villas. But these are the people of Crete!”

“And a foul lot they are!” Snish held his nose. “They make even the slums of Babylon smell like a garden in bloom. We have money; let’s get on to a better quarter.”

He quickened his pace, but Theseus stopped him.

“Give me the money.”

Reluctantly, Snish surrendered the little handful of tiny dump-shaped silver shekels. Theseus began buying the stocks of astonished hucksters, passing out dates
and honey cakes to beggars and shrieking children. Intelligence of this incredible bounty spread swiftly, and soon the narrow street was packed. Snish tugged fearfully at the arm of Theseus.

“Caution, Gothung!” he croaked faintly. “Men with prices on their heads should not gather mobs about them. Come—”

A horn snarled, and his voice died. A hush fell upon the street, disturbed only by gasps
and fearful murmurs. The silent mob began to melt past corners and into doorways. A woman slipped to the side of Theseus.

“Come with me,” she whispered. “Hide in my room until the Etruscan guards are gone. I want a strong, brave man again. Once I was in the temple of Cybele. But the high priestess turned me out, because men said that I was more beautiful than Ariadne!”

Theseus looked at her.
She was bent a little, and the white-powdered shoulders revealed by her open bodice were thin with years; the rouged face was holloweyed and haggard.

“Here is money.” He dropped the rest of the rough silver coins into her lean hand. “But I am seeking Ariadne herself.”

“You think I am too old.” Bitterness cracked her voice, and her fingers closed like brown claws on the silver. “But Ariadne is
ten times my age, and more! It is only sorcery that gives her the look of youth and beauty.” She tugged at his arm. “But come,” she urged, “before the goddess overhears our blasphemy. For here she is!”

Then the horn sounded again. The woman fled, lifting her flounced skirt from the splashing mud. Magically, the street had cleared. There was only a lame, naked child, that the rush had pushed into
the gutter. It tried to run, fell, lay still, as if too frightened even to scream.

“Come, Gothung!” The voice of Snish was a husky rasp, and his face had turned yellow-green. “This street is no place for us.”

Theseus shrugged off his clutching arm, strode back toward the silently sobbing child. But the horn blared again, and two black stallions came prancing around a bend in the street.

They
filled the narrow way, and the bronze greaves of their riders brushed against the walls on either side.

“Make way!” an angry voice barked above the jingle of spurs and bits. “Make way for the white palanquin of Ariadne!”

“Run!” Snish overtook Theseus. “The Etruscans—”

“But the child!”

Theseus ran back, toward the brown, naked infant, lying petrified with fear on the edge of the gutter. He
was too late. It shrieked once, under the great hoofs, and lay still again.

Trembling, Theseus snatched the bits and stopped the horse. He looked up at the swart, helmeted rider. Dark with anger, the Etruscan dropped the silver horn to its thong, tugged furiously at a long bronze sword.

“Wait,” Theseus said softly. “Let the people get out of the way.”

“Loose my bits, gutter rat!” roared the
Etruscan. “For this outrage, you will be flung into the games.”

“Probably,” said Theseus. “But there is no haste.”

The other horseman, meantime, had cleared his own saber. He swung down with it, savagely, at the bare, magically blond head of Theseus. But Theseus leaned under the neck of the horse he held. And the dark-stained Falling Star, whipping up, slashed the Etruscan’s fingers and sent
the bronze blade rattling into the gutter.

The wounded Etruscan made a bellow of rage and pain. The other jerked and spurred his mount, attempting to ride down Theseus. But Theseus clung to the bits, swung clear of the pawing hoofs. And the steel sword, with two swift strokes, severed girth and reins.

The saddle slid down the back of the rearing horse. The Etruscan sat down upon it, violently,
in the open sewer. There was an unpleasant splash and a louder buzzing of flies. In a moment, however, the man was on his feet, gripping his saber and mouthing soldierly curses.

Theseus released the unsaddled horse, and crouched to meet the Etruscan. But steel had not touched bronze, when a woman’s voice, clear and full as a golden bugle, pealed to them:

“Hold! Who halts my guard?”

Theseus
saw that a rich palanquin, carried by four sturdy, panting slaves, had come up behind the disarmed horseman.

The white curtains were drawn open, and its occupant was sitting up on her couch, to look out.

Ariadne!

Ariadne of the white doves, sorceress of the serpent! The woman in the palanquin, Theseus knew, could be no other. Daughter of Minos, and divine vessel of the All-Mother, Cybele.

“Who dares halt Ariadne?”

Her proud voice was a golden melody. It touched an eager chord in the heart of Theseus, and he stood with wide eyes drinking in her loveliness.

Her skin was white, white as the dove on her smooth, bare shoulder. Her full lips were red as hot blood, her eyes green and cold as ice. And the hair that foamed about her shoulders was a flaming splendor.

Her hair was red,
redder than the locks of Captain Firebrand had been. Soft lights rippled and flowed in the thick wavy masses of it. It was a cascade of shining glory, falling over her long, white body.

Theseus struggled for breath. He had sworn to win Ariadne, as a trophy of victory in the games. Now he made a hot renewal of the oath. He saw that she was worth all the storied wealth of Knossos, that her beauty
was a power vast as the wizardry of Crete.

Briefly, Theseus wondered if she were as old as the woman of the street had said, and he saw a confirming shadow of wisdom and weariness in her cold, green eyes. And he thought that none but a goddess could ever have been so beautiful.

A gasping curse brought him back to himself, and he found the unhorsed Etruscan close upon him. He crouched, and the
Falling Star flashed out to parry the long bronze saber.

“Stop!” Ariadne’s golden voice pealed out again. “Let him speak.” The cool, green eyes surveyed Theseus haughtily. “The savage is clever with his blade. Ask him his name, and what he seeks in Crete.”

“I have ears.” Theseus rang his steel defiantly against the saber. “Tell her that I am Gothung, a wanderer from the north. Tell her that
I came to Crete to hire my sword to Minos. But say that, having seen the people of Crete, I would fight for them instead.”

Her splendid head tossed angrily, and she shouted:

“Call another detachment, and take the insolent Northman!”

Nursing bleeding fingers, the mounted man spurred his horse down the street. The one on foot came at Theseus, with bronze saber upflung. But the steel blade turned
the stroke, a swift slash opened his arm to tendon and bone, and the saber dropped in the mud.

Theseus leaped forward, menaced the palanquin slaves.

“Set down the litter,” he commanded.

At the point of red-dripping steel, they obeyed. Theseus ripped aside the white linen curtains, and looked in upon Ariadne. Clad in a flounced green gown, her long white body sprawled lazily on the cushions.
Her cool green eyes met the hot eyes of Theseus, without hint of fear.

“When my rider comes back with aid, Northman,” she said softly, “you will regret your insolence to a goddess.”

“Meantime, I am the master.” The flat voice of Theseus was equally soft. “And the All-Mother should display compassion. Get out.” His red sword gestured. “Pick the dead child up out of the gutter.”

She lay still,
and the green eyes turned frosty.

“No man would dare!” she whispered.

The palanquin slaves gasped mutely as Theseus shifted the sword, and reached his red-dripping hand through the curtains. Her white arm went angrily tense under his fingers, but he dragged her out into the muddy street.

“Northman!” Her quivering words were almost soundless. “For this, you shall feed the Dark One!”

“Perhaps,”
said Theseus. “But pick up the body.”

Tall, defiant, the red handprint bright on her skin, she made no move. Theseus shoved. She went sprawling sidewise into the sewer, thrust white hands into its reeking muck to check her fall.

Breathless, silent, she got slowly back to her feet. Flies swarmed dark about her, filth dripped from her hands and her gown. She tried to scramble out of the ditch.
Theseus met her with his red steel.

“The child,” he said, “All-Mother!”

For a moment her green eyes stared at him. They had turned dark, and something glittered in their frosty depths. Her dripping hands clenched, and slowly relaxed. Silently, then, she bent and lifted the small, brown body in her arms.

Theseus caught her elbow, helped her back to the palanquin.

“Thus, Cybele,” he whispered,
“you have begun to prove your motherhood. But the proof is not done, and we shall meet again when the games are played.”

The red lips moved, but she spoke no word.

Another horn snarled, and the drum of hoofs and the rattle of weapons came down the narrow street. Gripping the Falling Star, Theseus turned away from the white palanquin. He glimpsed the pallid face of Snish, peering furtively from
the doorway of a wine shop.

“Well, cobbler,” he shouted, “there was no need to volunteer!”

T
HESEUS MADE
a necessary gesture toward his own defense. In fact, the Etruscans being the fighting men they were, he was able to make the gesture quite vigorous, with no danger of escape.

An officer in a chariot whose axle spanned the street, was followed by a dozen men on foot. He left the chariot at the corner, with a slave to hold the horses, and led six men up the street. The others
vanished, and Theseus guessed that they were going around the block to take him from behind.

A dozen alleys and doorways beckoned, but he brushed the humming flies off his red hands, and waited quietly. Three tall, notched shields made a moving barrier, from wall to wall, and long bronze blades lifted through the notches.

Waiting, Theseus snatched another glimpse of Ariadne. One of the palanquin
slaves stood ready to assist her back into the litter. But she was standing in the mud beside it, the child’s brown body, dripping blood and filth, still clutched against her. Her green eyes were fixed on Theseus.

“Wait, slave!” Theseus caught her muted golden voice. “Let me see the Northman fight.”

He fought. The Falling Star was thin and keen enough to probe far through the bull-hide shields,
and the narrow slippery way hampered the rigid formation of the Etruscans. One man, and then another, slipped down behind the wall of shields.

If he had really sought escape, Theseus knew, he could have leaped through the wall when it wavered. But he waited for men to replace the fallen, waited for the second wall to form behind him. And he heard the ring of Ariadne’s voice:

“Take the savage
alive, for the games!”

The probing steel found a heart behind the second barrier. But the walls came inexorably together. Bronze blades reached Theseus, from before and behind. But it was a mace that reached over the rawhide wall, and crushed him out of consciousness.

With bitter mouth and splitting head, Theseus came back to life in a dungeon whose fetor was thicker than the street’s. This
was a square pit, twenty feet deep. The walls were polished, well-fitted stone, unscalable. A faint, gray light came through a grating in the roof.

Dimly, that light revealed his five companions, groaning or snoring on the bare stone floor. They were all condemned criminals, he learned, waiting for the games. A slave who had been indiscreet with his master’s wife. A palace scullion who had got
drunk and burned a roast. An unemployed carpenter who had stolen bread. Two merchants who had neglected to pay certain tithes to the Dark One. They were all hopeless as men already dead.