Ariande's Web

by Fred Saberhagen

  If this was the real world, I thought, I wanted no more of it. In my innocence I then imagined that I had really begun to understand what the real world was like.

  After the figure in the monstrous costume had been driven out into the outer darkness, the young soldier Alex, who was in the room but taking no part in the fighting, recognized the slave-girl who served the princess that he worshipped from afar.

  She had run out into the street, following the costumed Minotaur, and Alex ran out after her.

  "Clara?"

  The sound of her name stopped her in her tracks. She stood looking over her shoulder, waiting fearfully. In the distance sounded the whistles and rattles of the Watch. Alex knew he had a little time in which to act before they could arrive.

  "You serve the Princess Ariadne, don't you? I've seen you with her more than once."

  "Yes." Now Clara turned fully around.

  "How lucky you are!"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Why? Because—because you can be near her, every day."

  The girl paused for what seemed a long time, as if she were unsure just what to make of that. At last she said: "Your name is Alex, is it not? A soldier of the Palace Guard."

  "Yes." Then, as if involuntarily, the secret that had been poisoning him for half a year burst out. Still, his voice was so low that no one but the girl standing directly in front of him could hear. "Tell your mistress I must see her."

  "Why?"

  "There is something of great importance that she needs to know."

  "What?"

  "Something about her father, and the way he died."

  "You must see her. Very well, I'll tell her that."

  "And, slave-girl—repeat to no one else what I am telling you!"

  Clara nodded, wide-eyed. The young soldier got the impression that what he had just said had frightened her, perhaps more than the fight itself.

  Clara had already screamed, and run away in the direction of the palace. She had seen that I was loose, and knew I could certainly run fast enough to overtake her.

  Some man with a loud voice was bellowing, "The Watch is coming. Look out for the Watch!"

  I ran, my very manlike feet in sandals pounding the pavement in the direction where I had seen the young girl who was my escort disappear. I can move very quickly, and I had no fear that they would catch me, unless they came on cameloids.

  How ironic it would be, I thought, if I became bewildered, lost my way in the city, and had to ask directions back to the Labyrinth. But once I was out in the street, I looked up to see the familiar stars and moon. They had followed me out of the Labyrinth as if they intended to stay with me, and now they were on hand to guide me home.

  Chapter Six

  On returning to the palace, the slave-girl Clara found, as she had expected, that her mistress was waiting up in their shared bedroom for her report on Asterion's adventure.

  As Clara closed the door behind her, the Princess Ariadne pushed aside the small harp on which she had been practicing, and jumped to her feet. "What happened? Come in and tell me everything!" She blew out the single candle, leaving the room to the moonlight that entered by the high window.

  With the doors closed, the two young women were as safe from being overheard as it was ever possible to be inside the palace. While discarding her costume and mask, Clara hastened to pass along what the young soldier had said to her in town.

  Ariadne was immediately fascinated, but wary. "It couldn't be some kind of trap, could it?"

  "I really don't see how, my lady. That would mean someone knew I was going to be there, and arranged for Alex to tell me what he did. But neither the Lord Asterion nor I were sure where we were going, until we were well on our way."

  "Did anyone recognize him?"

  "I really don't know, my lady. I couldn't tell. Many people looked at him strangely, of course . . ."

  "Of course."

  Quickly the princess decided to take the risk of arranging a secret meeting between herself and Alex, at a time when the young soldier would be off duty again, and might be expected to be in town enjoying himself.

  "First we must find out when he will be off duty again."

  "I expect I can easily do that," said Clara. "I know a certain corporal, who keeps track of the rosters."

  * * *

  A day later, Alex received a summons to a meeting, whispered to him by one of the greasy kitchen scullions, who managed to catch the soldier alone as he was leaving the small mess hall. For the next twenty-four hours his head was awhirl with the news that the princess wanted to see him. At the end of his next shift of guard, on being relieved from duty, instead of walking into town or back to the barracks, he made an excuse of weariness that separated him from his fellows.

  Then, still in his workaday uniform though without armor and unarmed—only guards on duty were allowed to carry weapons inside the palace—he walked around the huge building, entering the grounds through a side entrance at a good distance from the barracks.

  In the gardenlike expanse just inside the gated wall, he was met by Clara, dressed inconspicuously in ordinary servant's garb, who seemed to be waiting for him.

  "Good day," Alex offered timidly.

  "Good day to you, corporal."

  "I'm only a private." His lack of any insignia of rank was plain enough.

  Clara smiled faintly, and Alex supposed she had only been trying to flatter him a little. She said, "The princess is waiting for you. Come this way."

  As he followed the slave girl, it occurred to Alex, not for the first time, that there must be many members of the royal household, even as he knew there were in the barracks, who loved the princess, though some of them had not cared for her father all that much. Certainly most of them cared even less for her ambitious uncle and his terrifying god. One thing Alex was sure of was that there could be none who loved the Princess Ariadne more than he.

  Somewhat to his surprise, his guide led him not into one of the side doors of the palace itself, but in almost the opposite direction, along a small gravel path that curved across a corner of the parklike grounds. Now he could see that they were headed straight toward one edge of the mysterious Labyrinth, which here immediately adjoined the palace grounds. The Maze's outer wall of stone, tall and slightly curving, loomed up ominously ahead of them. Soldiers were warned frequently against ever entering that realm on their own.

  "We are going there?"

  His escort tried to be reassuring. "The princess goes into the Labyrinth almost every day. She's done so for a long time, and no one takes notice."

  "Why does she go in every day?"

  He expected to be told that what her royal highness did was none of his business. But Clara responded readily enough. "Mostly to see her brother."

  Alex, like the great majority of the Corycan people, and of visitors to the island, had never set foot inside the Maze. What little he knew about it came almost entirely from the legends and the stories. It was a vast construction, sprawling over some four square miles. It was also the home of the legendary Minotaur, and the almost equally legendary Artisan, Daedalus—and rumor had it that for the last six months the god Shiva had also made the Labyrinth his chief place of residence.

  At any given time there were sure to be two or three different rumors, stories, jokes, circulating in the barracks about the horrible monster who dwelt inside the Labyrinth—and two nights ago, in town, he had seen for himself someone, or something, who . . .

  But it was going to take more than a Minotaur to frighten him when he had a chance to be of service to the princess.

  Now the arched entrance to the great Maze was looming close ahead of them. "They say," said Alex to the slave girl, "that there are monsters here."

  "People say many things that are sheer nonsense," Clara told him briskly. Without slowing her pace, she turned her head to give him a penetrating glance. "There is no monster in the Maze—unless perhaps you mean a certain god. The only mortal creature who l
ives there is the brother of the princess. You saw him the other night, when he was in costume."

  "Yes. All right." Alex nodded. If the being he had encountered in town two nights ago was not to be considered monstrous, whether it was costumed or not . . . well, so be it.

  He paused briefly, on the very threshold of the arched doorway. Ahead were blank walls, and a quick choice to be made of sudden turnings. "Is this the same part of the Maze where the people of the Tribute are being held?"

  "No, they're over there." With a slight movement of her head the girl seemed to be indicating some other section of the Maze.

  And even as she made that gesture, she went in. Alex followed, keeping close behind his guide, who led him first beneath a grating that striped the sky with iron bars. They turned right at the first branching of the passageway, then left at the second. In these early stages the passage between tall walls of smooth stone was so narrow that Alex walked with his elbows almost brushing on each side. Then abruptly the overhead grating was gone, but the way was wider, so wide that a man could not hope to climb by bracing himself between two walls.

  Three more turns inside the Labyrinth, three choices of branching roofless corridors, brought Alex and his guide to a place where the walls opened out a little more, making a kind of narrow courtyard. The soldier felt his heart leap up inside his chest. The Princess Ariadne, today almost as plainly dressed as her servant, was seated there on a stone bench, waiting for him, while the afternoon sun awakened glories in her light brown hair.

  Alex dropped to one knee on the pavement. This was the woman he had come to worship, helplessly, beginning on the first day he saw her. His escort had somehow vanished, and it came upon him with overwhelming force that now he and the Princess Ariadne were utterly alone, surrounded by the grotesque, curving pattern of the tall stone walls, as if this were only some fantastic daydream. Alex assumed that Clara had remained nearby somewhere, probably keeping watch to see that they were undisturbed.

  "Your name is Alex?" Her voice was achingly familiar; of course he had heard her speak in public now and then.

  "Yes, my princess!" For a moment he was afraid that the words were going to stick in his throat.

  Of course she was not going to offer her hand to a mere private soldier. Her marvelous eyes were well-disposed toward him, but they were not patient. "Yes, I think I can remember seeing you on duty now and again, as a member of the Guard." She paused to draw a breath. "Last night you told my servant that you knew something about my father's death."

  So, he had made some impression on her memory! The revelation was immensely heartening.

  "Yes ma'am." In his own ears, every word he said sounded utterly stupid.

  The eyes of the princess were not only kindly, but enormous. They were pools in which a man might lose his way forever. Under their gaze, Alex made two false beginnings to his story, tried a third time and was not doing well. Eventually she had to prompt him. "So you were there, in the great hall, on the night of my father's murder?"

  "Princess, I was there. One of the men guarding the main door, when you came in."

  "I remember only that there were some soldiers. Never mind, tell what you have to tell."

  And Alex, with much sincere worship, finally told his story. It was not, of course, the version of events the general had forced upon all witnesses, but the version his own eyes had seen.

  It needed a couple of minutes to stammer through. When Alex was done, and the eyes of the young woman before him were clenched in tears, he added, "Gracious lady, I am so sorry to reopen the wound . . ."

  "The wound has never closed." She wiped her tears away, and in a few moments it was almost as if they had never been. She said to the young man before her, "I thank you with all my heart, for telling me the truth, when no one else has dared to do so. You may stand up. Yes, now I seem to remember seeing you in the great hall that night. I would like to give you a present to show my gratitude."

  "All I want is the chance to serve you, Princess!"

  "The gods know that I may call on you for help. But you should have something finer and more immediate than that." And, rising to her feet, she impulsively pulled a small medallion up on the golden chain by which it hung around her neck. It looked like a thin disk of gold, between two and three inches in diameter, one flat side welded somehow to a disk of silver of the exact same size. Both gold and silver circles bore in low relief an image of the sun, surrounded by intricate fine metalwork suggesting leaves and vines.

  "Come closer," she commanded.

  And when Alex had nervously edged closer, so close that he hardly dared to breathe, the princess reached out and with her own hands put the chain around his neck. On each side, her fingers touched his skin. "You will probably be safer if you wear it inside your shirt, where no one will notice."

  Obviously she was not familiar with living conditions in the barracks; but Alex could not possibly have raised any objection at this point. "Yes, my lady."

  Somewhere in the distance, probably in some remote portion of the palace grounds, one of the officers of the guard was shouting something at his men. The voice was a familiar sound, but at the moment it had nothing to do with Alex.

  And now, having sealed his loyalty even more tightly than before, the princess insisted on his going over once more the events of that terrible night. This time she craved more details, in particular the identities of the other soldiers and servants who had been there at her father's death, and who had never come forward with the truth.

  "You can give me their names, can you not?"

  "I could, lady, and of course I will if you command it. But . . ." Alex slowly shook his head.

  "Would any of them be willing now to tell me the truth, as you have done?"

  "Great princess, I think that's very doubtful. I don't know about the servants, but I think that after what the general said to us, the other soldiers almost certainly will be too much afraid."

  Suddenly Ariadne seemed to be really looking at him for the first time. "But you are not. You are willing to disobey orders, coming here and talking to me like this."

  "Majesty, lady, for you—I would do anything. I . . ."

  "I thank you again for your loyalty," said the princess, her attention sliding away from him again. Then her gaze shifted, sliding over Alex's shoulder to a point not far behind him.

  He turned to see the Minotaur regarding him, standing on two human legs not ten feet away.

  No trace remained of the facial paint the monster had worn two nights ago, so his head and face were even more inhuman than Alex remembered them. The loose garments of carnival costume were gone, the huge body clad in little more than a kilt, leaving the massive chest and shoulders exposed in their coating of short cattle-hair, in black and white. Here was the beast of legend, in the full light of day.

  Ever since that night six months ago, when he had witnessed the arrival in the kingdom of two gods, Alex had been ready to accept, to believe in marvels when he saw them. Now his blood seemed to freeze in his veins. He couldn't interpret the expression on the Minotaur's face, if that inhuman countenance could be said to have an expression at all. Alex's first impulse was to reach for the sword he wasn't wearing, following an instinct to defend the princess.

  If either the princess or the monster noticed the aborted movement of his arm, they paid it no attention. Instead they exchanged with each other a few words of almost casual conversation.

  Then the terrible, frightening figure turned to Alex, and said in its strange voice, towering over him, "I am the Lord Asterion. We recently saw each other in town."

  "Yes. Yes, lord."

  "You have spoken to others about my presence there?"

  "No . . . sir."

  "If you would serve the Princess Ariadne, you will say nothing. About last night, or about this meeting here today."

  "I will say nothing, Lord Asterion."

  "Then you may go."

  As soon as the soldier had been escorted
away by Clara, Daedalus emerged from the place of concealment from which he had been watching, and bowed deeply before the princess. The slave-girl had kept him waiting until the coast was clear. Icarus had been left in the care of the woman who usually looked after him whenever his father was busy.

  Ariadne wasted no time in getting to the point. "Theseus wants to meet you, Artisan—you know who Theseus is?"

  Daedalus made a perfunctory bow. "Your brother has told me, my lady. Let me say that I advise against it, unless there is some reason stronger than mere curiosity. The fewer meetings we have, the less chance that anyone will suspect our plot. My suggestion is, let the Lord Asterion go back and forth, and act as go-between."

  "That sounds wise," said Ariadne cautiously, and looked to her brother.

  The horned head nodded in agreement. Then Asterion asked, "Daedalus, have you devised a means of escape we might all use?"

  The Artisan cleared his throat, and spoke with modest satisfaction. "It was your mention of the deep-sea fish, my Lord Asterion, that gave me the essential clue."

  "How is that?"

  "They are a kind of fish who spend most of their lives in Poseidon's domain of deep salt water, but once or twice in their lives ascend freshwater streams to spawn. Somehow those fish in what you call the Deep Pool must have got there by following an underground conduit, open only at intervals to light and air, all the way from the coast of the island to a place well within the Maze."

  Having deduced this much by logic, Daedalus, bringing his son with him, had spent almost a full day following the hidden stream, down to within sight of the sea, and within the sound of its waves.

  "It was not a very long walk—say three miles down to the sea, and three back—but over most of the distance it was not possible to move quickly."

  Then Daedalus had warned his child fiercely to say nothing to anyone about having recently seen the sea.