Ariande's Web

by Fred Saberhagen

  "I can always find what I need, my love." The princess smiled at him proudly. "Especially in here."

  As far back as she could remember, the Princess Ariadne had always been willing to put aside the comforts and privileges of her high birth, for the sake of an adventure—she had endured considerable discomfort for the sake of much less exciting outings than this one promised to be. And this, of course, was vastly more than a mere escapade. For Theseus, she would have sacrificed everything she had, her very life.

  In a few minutes, when they had reached the Deep Pool, Daedalus greeted them with relief. Asterion and the young soldier, Alex, were still nowhere to be seen, and the newcomers reported that Alex had not been in the palace. The princess and her lover huddled democratically with Clara and the child of the Artisan. They were all about to put their lives into the hands of Daedalus, relying utterly on his word that he would be able to provide them with an effective means of escape.

  Icarus was a study in wide-eyed, silent fear, caught from the tension among the adults around him. He clung close to his father as much as possible.

  All of them but Theseus were now sitting, while he paced nervously on the edge of what Asterion called the Deep Pool. The artificially constructed basin, some ten paces long by five wide, looked fresh and was evidently filled and drained by unseen subterranean flows. It was a surprisingly large body of water compared to the few other ponds Ariadne had seen in the Labyrinth—though after years of roaming in that immense complexity, often by herself, nothing she discovered there really surprised her anymore.

  Right now, her instinct urged her to trust to Daedalus; but when she gazed into the unplumbed depth of water before her, she knew that she could find her own way to the sea if that ever became necessary. Closing her eyes, willing her thoughts into the proper channel, she could see the beginnings of the thin, ghostly filaments that would lead her to the correct path. Though it wasn't possible just yet to see which way they led . . .

  The agreed-upon time to begin the next stage of their journey had now arrived, the sun was several handsbreadths above the eastern wall of the little courtyard. But still, two of the group's original seven had not appeared at the meeting place.

  Theseus told the others he had no idea whether Alex might have been among the detail of soldiers from whom he had just escaped.

  "I thought that one of them kept watching me, and then the same one took a cut at me when I ran. But the fates were with me, and he missed."

  "About middle-sized, with a straggly brown beard?" Daedalus inquired.

  The prince stared thoughtfully at the older man. "He might have been. I wasn't paying much attention to the details of anyone's appearance."

  Ariadne and Clara were worried about what might have happened to Asterion. But the princess comforted herself with the thought that her brother had never seemed firmly committed to joining in the escape, and had probably simply decided at the last minute not to go. Knowing him as she did, she would not have been much surprised if it were so.

  Clara, despite her mistress's earlier command to do no packing, had managed to tuck under her dress a small belt pack with what she considered a few essentials. There were now some dried dates in a kind of purse that ordinarily held for the princess a mirror, a hairbrush, and a few cosmetics, all trinkets that had been left behind.

  Theseus suddenly halted in his pacing, and announced commandingly, "We can't wait any longer. Whoever is not here by now is probably not coming."

  The princess quickly agreed. "You're right, we mustn't wait."

  If Ariadne was not determined to wait for her brother, no one else was either. And certainly no one was going to suggest a delay in hopes that the young soldier, Alex, might, after all, be able to catch up with them. Nor was there any real discussion of his possible fate. He might have lost his way, might have been killed or captured, or perhaps had simply lost his nerve at the last moment. As Theseus observed, "Anyway, he didn't know the place of rendezvous, or the escape route. He won't be able to tell them much."

  For Ariadne, the fact of overwhelming importance was that her lover Theseus had managed to get this far, and for the moment he was out of danger. It seemed to the princess that her whole life was now invested in her concern for his welfare. As long as he was safe, nothing and no one else, herself included, counted for very much.

  It would have been almost impossible for anyone to accidentally stumble on Daedalus's secret way, even had there been daily visitors to the site of rendezvous, which there certainly were not. People might have camped here for years and caught no inkling that it existed. Now, speaking quickly, in a low voice, the Artisan explained how he, trying to determine for himself how large saltwater fish could have come this far inland, had spent some time investigating. Once he had located the underground stream, he had fashioned a secret entrance, at the edge, just below the water-line in the deep pool that Asterion had once described as being long and deep enough for swimming.

  Immediately agreeing that they should wait no longer, Daedalus quickly explained to the others what they were about to do. Then he, with his son clinging to him, drew a deep breath and slid down into the dark waters of the pool and disappeared, with scarcely a ripple, under the water-lily pads that covered a portion of its calm surface.

  Without hesitation Theseus, still clothed in the cloak and kilt of sacrificial garments, and with his captured sword in hand, drew a deep breath and went after the man and boy. One after another, the other members of the party followed, each keeping the one ahead in sight. Each ducked underwater, groped along the side of the pool beneath an overhang, slid through a hole, and popped up again on the other side of the wall, where the pavement was higher than that immediately surrounding the Deep Pool. There they all found breathing space, though there was no room to stand up properly. They were in a dark and clammy cavern, where the noise of running water was somewhat louder than it had been on the surface, while the occasional shouts of soldiers in the distance had faded almost to inaudibility. Only enough of the brilliant morning sunlight filtered in through chinks and crannies in the upper rounds of masonry to turn the cavern into a half-lit grotto.

  When it came Ariadne's turn to immerse herself in the pool, a stray thought momentarily crossed her mind: what a thorough way to ruin one's fine clothes. There was a curious satisfaction in the image.

  When all five had crowded into the dank little cavern, Daedalus murmured a few words of encouragement and led the way again, his son still clinging tightly to his back. This time the Artisan plunged boldly into the descending course of the underground stream, managing to keep his head above water. Theseus, as if jealous of the leadership position, kept close behind him. Here the current was swifter. Water gurgled and rushed around them, sometimes as high as the adults' armpits.

  Now and then, in muttered comments, the Artisan tried to explain how water from mountain springs flowed in diverse channels through the Maze, across its almost-level tableland, while other streams had been diverted to the streets of the city. Various aqueducts and channels had been added over the centuries.

  From time to time Theseus raised a hand, calling a halt so he could listen carefully for sounds of pursuit. His cloak, now water-soaked, was weighty but he did not discard it. Each time, after only a slight pause, he shook his head and motioned them on again. There was no sign that anyone was coming after them.

  Now and then the slave-girl, Clara, took a turn at helping the child through some of the more difficult places, and Daedalus looked at her gratefully. Ariadne noted the fact in passing; in these circumstances, she herself certainly did not need the constant attendance of her slave.

  After perhaps an hour underground, sometimes wading, sometimes crawling over wet rock, the party had reached a half-lit cavern a little bigger than most of the similar rooms they had passed through. Here, as they paused for a rest on a dry ledge, the Artisan told the others about the hot-air balloon he had put together, the fire that kept it inflated, and the timing mech
anism, involving a slow-burning rope, he had devised for its launching. If all had gone well, the balloon should have risen in morning sunlight from near the middle of the Maze, and should even now be riding the prevailing winds out to sea. The idea was to deceive the army of searchers, who by now were sure to be hunting the escapees, into believing they had made an aerial escape.

  "Look!" It was an urgent whisper from Icarus, who stood peering up through a crevice in the masonry, at the world outside. "Look!"

  Looking up through other gaps, where tree roots met the pavement overhead, Ariadne and one or two others were able to catch a glimpse of the Artisan's balloon. The princess saw a crude sphere bound in some kind of ropes, with a basket hanging beneath it, soaring overhead. There were dots, that at such a distance could be mistaken for human heads, showing just above the basket's rim.

  The slave-girl, having seen the balloon, turned openmouthed to stare at its creator. She obviously found Daedalus interesting.

  Theseus, a new respect in his tone, said to him, "It seems that going through the air might be a better, faster way than this."

  Now they were getting under way again. The Artisan replied, "Watch out for the bottom here, all slippery mud. No, my balloon was not even large enough, you understand, to carry one man, let alone a party of five or more. And it will come down, as soon as the air inside cools off. A balloon, or any flying device, big enough to bear us all away would be a vast project—though a truly interesting one." For a moment Daedalus could not keep himself from being distracted by the challenge of such a task.

  Once more the party moved on. Ariadne kept close behind Theseus, and close behind her came the slave-girl, tugging the child along by the hand.

  There were places where the stream, in its long rush seaward, went through ancient culverts, one of which it almost filled. Fortunately a sufficient breathing space remained open along the top.

  Now and then their guide muttered and mused that parts of this escape route seemed to have been designed, by some ancient engineer, to serve the function of a runnel, and other parts were only the natural course of the stream bed.

  Who knew, thought Ariadne, how many hundreds of years the little creek might have been flowing here—or any stream anywhere, for that matter? This one had been at it long enough, certainly, to carve its way deeply into the ground, forming a channel that enabled a few big fish to swim all the way up into a portion of the Maze. Any fish ascending as far as the Deep Pool were evidently required to leap up one or more waterfalls in the process.

  When they had stopped once more to catch their breath, Daedalus explained that in the course of his earlier reconnaissance down this stream, only a few days ago, he had briefly toyed with, then quickly discarded, the idea of improvising some kind of boat. For most of its length the channel was simply too shallow and narrow for that to be practical. A true underground stream of more than minimal length would have made breathing apparatus necessary, but fortunately that was not the case.

  After about a mile of progress, carried out in a generally southwesterly direction, Ariadne was sure that they had left the Labyrinth behind them. Looking up through the occasional aperture, past natural rocks, exposed roots, and spiderwebs, it was no longer possible to catch a glimpse of its distinctive walls or pavement. Neither were they beneath the grounds of the palace, or the city, both of which lay in a different direction. The route now seemed to lie beneath a rocky wasteland, and the spaces that let in light and air were mere crevices between outcroppings, or piled boulders. Here and there, at the bottom of an otherwise almost impenetrable ravine, the little stream came fully out into the open for a few yards, before it once more plunged under the earth.

  Ariadne, more familiar than anyone else in the party with the island's overall geography, announced that she knew approximately where they must be. "Little or nothing grows here. The land above us is good only for grazing goats."

  By dint of walking, crawling, clambering, occasionally swimming, once or twice going underwater again, the fugitives continued their descent, almost all the way to the small stream's inevitable junction with the sea. Eventually it would become a creek, which must find its way down to the marshy wetlands, and then the sea.

  Daedalus gave his estimate that the whole journey would be about three miles long. At the best rate of progress the little band of fugitives could manage in the circumstances it took them more than two hours.

  Once the slave-girl asked her mistress timidly, "What do we do when we reach the sea?"

  Ariadne was silent for a time, hoping someone else might come up with a better answer than she had ready. But no one did, and at last the princess said, "If there's no useful ship or boat immediately available—and of course we can't count on there being one—we must find a hiding place, and wait."

  For a moment Clara seemed on the point of asking: Wait for what? but then she let it go in silence.

  Two days before the morning of the escape, Theseus, with some help from Ariadne's sympathizers, had dispatched by secret means a message, to a man he said was an officer in his father's navy. It would of course take time for that message to reach his pirate cohorts, and more time for them to respond. But Theseus hoped that they would come looking for him on a series of nights, beginning only a few days from now, on a certain practically uninhabited stretch of the island's rugged coast, long familiar to pirates and smugglers.

  The trouble was that that stretch of coast was halfway around the island from the area in which Daedalus's discovered tunnel seemed to be about to bring them out. But Ariadne had been given some encouragement by her brother as well; her lover had not been the only one trying to arrange transportation.

  Theseus was aware of the difficulties, but remained grimly optimistic. "We'll get to a place where we can be picked up. Or we'll find a way to take a boat from someone."

  After struggling down the narrow waterway for several hours, more often than not wading in its bed, picking their way with difficulty down slippery rocks beside the falls where the salmonlike fish came leaping up, the fugitives reached what was undeniably the end of the tunnel, blocked by a coarse grillwork of thick, rusty metal bars. Just beyond that the stream emerged into full sunlight, then went wandering on, beyond a fringe of small trees, to lose itself in a marsh, under an open sky. A gull cried in the distance, and they could hear the encouraging sound of surf on hard rocks. Theseus, gripping the bars of the terminal barrier, announced hopefully that if he craned his neck he could just see a blue sliver of watery horizon beyond the reeds and bushes of the marsh.

  From inside the tunnel it was possible to see occasional furry movement in the middle distance. Daedalus called attention to the fact that there were mutant beavers living and working in the waters that drained the Labyrinth. The stream the fugitives had been following emptied here into a kind of wetlands. From the nature of more distant vegetation, it appeared likely that the area soon became a salt marsh, and would be a good place for pirates or other surreptitious folk to land.

  Evidently some authority had once at least suspected that the stream offered a pathway directly into the heart of the Labyrinth, and had attempted to seal it off. Rusted iron bars as thick as a man's arm, some underwater and some above, ran both horizontally and vertically across the opening where the small stream debouched at last into the open air. There was plenty of space between the bars for fish to go in and out, but not nearly enough for people.

  The others all looked at Daedalus. "This is the 'final barrier' you mentioned?" asked Theseus.

  "It is." The Artisan proceeded calmly. He had carefully studied the details of this problem on his earlier scouting trip, and it was soon obvious that he had been thinking the matter over ever since.

  "We need a tool," he said. "And on my first visit I marked one that I believe we can use."

  Taking from a pouch attached to his belt a small coil of thin, strong-looking cord, he handed it to Icarus. Now, moving at his father's orders, the boy squeezed his small body throu
gh the largest of the irregular openings in the grill, and went splashing off downstream toward the fringe of trees. When he got there he followed directions called to him by Daedalus. Soon he had knotted one end of the cord to a green log or pole, as thick as a man's arm, that lay where it was visible from the end of the tunnel. Ariadne, watching, supposed it was probably a small trunk chewed down by beavers.

  Icarus had to draw his little knife, and work industriously at the log for several minutes, trimming off twigs that got in the way of his knot-tying. Meanwhile his father, watching from behind the iron bars, continued to call out instructions and encouragement, while the others managed to keep quiet.

  As soon as the boy had a firm knot in the right place, he ran splashing back to the end of the tunnel, swimming through a couple of deep spots in the stream, carrying with him the free coil of the cord, unwinding it as he came.

  Moments later the Artisan had the loose end in his hands. Drawing it taut, he raised it to one of the higher openings in the coarse grill, then engaged in some skillful and energetic tugging. In response, the distant pole leaped up, and began to progress in fits and starts toward the grating.

  Icarus, who had run back again to stand beside the pole, now kept pace with it as it moved, and when necessary cleared its pathway of minor obstacles. Now and then he helped with a tug or push on the weight that would have been too great for him to lift or drag unaided.

  Ariadne, not fully understanding the plan as yet, still let out a whispered cheer as the slim log came loose from the last entanglement of brush. A minute later it came sliding right up to the bars. Working together, with hands extended through the grating, Theseus and Daedalus turned the log endwise and pulled it through, a process delayed by the necessity of hacking off one more branch.

  Once the two men had the long lever in their hands, inside the tunnel, they needed only moments to force one end of it into the gap between one side of rock and the nearest bar, only a few inches distant. Then, using a conveniently located bulge on the side of the tunnel for their fulcrum, they leaned their weight against the free end of the lever formed by the log.