Alex spent what seemed an interminable series of hours impatiently watching for a ship, meanwhile trying to stave off hunger by nibbling such fruit and mushrooms as he could find, and were not too bitter to be eaten. Once, when the tide seemed at its low, he went down to the beach, to search for shellfish in the shallows. The effort proved futile, shellfish being absent while other small creatures darted away over the sandbanks before he could try to grab them; had he been able to retain his knife, he would have tried to whittle a fishing spear.
In this manner he passed the remainder of the day. Most of his hours were spent in the shade, out of the broiling sun, brooding on the possible meanings of the various things the Dionysian spirits had said to him, and on the problem of what he was to do if he should never hear from them again.
The moon was getting on toward full, appearing vague and blue in the eastern sky before sunset; and when, after sunset, Alex watched it from his high place, it made a vast shimmering on the sea, like silver burning. When he slept, choosing for his bed the anteroom of the shrine or temple, he tried to keep watch in his dreams for the Lord Asterion. But such visions as came held nothing that he could recognize as helpful, and when he awoke even their trivial content had slipped from his memory like water from a clenched fist.
As Alex had expected, he did not have very long to wait for the next ship. On the second morning after his own arrival, two of them appeared in rapid succession. First a small trader, rather nondescript, entered the harbor. Then within the hour a larger vessel, of perhaps twenty oars, hove into sight, blocking the entrance.
Watching as closely as he could from his vantage point in a tree well up on temple hill, perhaps two hundred yards above the harbor, Alex didn't like the look of the bigger vessel, with the ominous painting on its bow. He had no personal experience of pirates, but like everyone else had heard some hair-raising stories.
Anxiously he shifted from one observation post to another, working his way closer to the beach, trying to get a better look at what was happening. A few people were milling about down there, but he couldn't see any of them very well. He had about decided that he must work his way closer still, when he observed three people, energetically making their way inland together. In the lead came a nearly naked man whose brown hair was turning gray, closely a young woman and a child, neither of them much better clothed. Already the three had put a substantial screen of vegetation between themselves and the people on the beach. They were all looking back frequently over their shoulders as if in fear of pursuit—there was none—and were coming toward Alex at a good pace, though they had not seen him yet.
Quickly he decided that he must question these folk, and dropped down from his tree.
The trio had not come much closer before he realized that there was something familiar in the woman's appearance.
Alex had never actually seen the Artisan, who had spent almost all his time on Corycus in the middle of the Maze; but this man certainly fit the descriptions he had heard of Daedalus.
The man and boy stopped in their tracks, staring at the naked man who seemed to have popped out of nowhere, perhaps thinking they had come upon some savage native of the island. But the slave-girl hardly paused, having recognized Alex at once.
And Alex was now close enough to be certain that she was Clara. Eagerly he looked downhill past the girl, nursing a faint hope that the princess might be following her slave in flight. But it was not to be.
As soon as Clara had finished the necessary introductions, she said to Alex, "We had given you up for lost. What happened to your clothes?"
"They're gone. I couldn't help losing them, I had a long swim getting here. I very nearly drowned—and I didn't know whether any of the group managed to get away or not. Tell me, where is the princess?" It came out as an urgent plea.
"Down on the beach." The slave, sounding not terribly concerned about the fate of her mistress, turned her head slightly in that direction.
"Really? Is she—is she—?"
"She was quite all right a few minutes ago, hanging on her lover's arm. But I had no such protector there."
Meanwhile, Daedalus was squinting at the gold and silver medallion, which still hung on Alex's naked chest. "I made that ornament for the princess, soldier. May I ask how you come to have it?"
Alex straightened his shoulders. "The Princess Ariadne gave it to me, sir. It's the one thing I was determined not to lose, even if I drowned."
"She simply made you a present of my handiwork?" Daedalus seemed to find this difficult to understand.
"It was a reward, sir. I was able to tell her something she considered very important."
"But how did you get here?" the Artisan demanded of him. "Don't tell me you swam all the way from Corycus."
"No sir, hardly that far. But you may find the true story not much easier to believe. I was helped by the powers of Dionysus, though the god himself is dead. How about yourself?"
The three new arrivals on the island took turns in relating the essentials of their own journey. Among them the newcomers had nothing in the way of a spare garment to lend Alex, being themselves down to the minimum in that regard. The fine linen shift in which Clara had begun her journey out of the Labyrinth had been shredded in a number of places, and was in danger of disintegrating entirely. The man and boy were still wearing the leather aprons in which they had begun their flight, and Icarus had lost his sandals somewhere. Nor had they any food to offer the other castaway, and hope dimmed in their faces when he related the difficulties of foraging.
While Alex led them on to higher ground, the three offered more details of their escape. There was some discussion of the recent arrival of a pirate ship, and the different reactions of Theseus and the Princess Ariadne.
On being reminded of the princess, Alex once more scrambled up a tree, and strained his eyes studying the people on the beach in the sun-bathed harbor. He was a little farther from them now, much too far away for ready identification, but all the people he could see down there now looked like men.
Daedalus, grunting, clambered up beside him, squinted into the sun, shook his head, and said, "The ship we arrived on is lost, I fear. The pirates have surely taken her over. And I believe the crew of our ship has joined them."
"But what will happen to the princess?"
The older man remained calm. "That the fates must decide. The last I saw of her, she was still clinging quite willingly to her handsome prince, who is quite nonchalant about his real profession as a pirate. She may well be regretting her attachment by now."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well . . ."
Both men dropped down from the tree. Alex was mightily upset, having to face the fact that the princess would be taken aboard a pirate ship, by her lover Theseus, who had turned out to be no better than a buccaneer himself. Alex feared for Ariadne's safety—nor did it ease his concerns to hear that in spite of everything she still clung closely to her lover's arm.
In his helplessness he reacted by becoming unreasonably angry with Clara. "Could you not have stayed with her?"
The girl gestured awkwardly. "I don't know, sir, what good that would have done."
"No. No, you are right, of course." Alex raised both hands and tugged at his hair. "Oh, gods! If only I could do something!"
It crossed his mind that he might, of course, run down to the beach even now; if the pirates did not kill him at once, and if they were willing to take him aboard their ship, he might at least be near the princess for a while. But how could he be of any possible use to her under those conditions?
It seemed that, short of being able to summon some kind of human army or navy, only the powers of a god had a chance of helping Ariadne now. Therefore, before he, Alex the Half-Nameless, could be of any use, he must gain the strength that the helpers of Dionysus had promised him—but to do that he must somehow reach the proper island, and the proper temple!
Another look in the direction of the beach, and the two ships, confirmed tha
t all the people there seemed to be getting along peacefully, at least for the moment. Daedalus, counting heads at a distance, confirmed that the entire crew of the merchant had decided to join the more irregular enterprise.
"Which is not really surprising," the Artisan observed. "The distinction between trade and piracy is often somewhat unclear, and many seafaring men change back and forth several times during their professional lives."
"I suppose so. But . . ." Alex was not comforted.
In a little while, everyone on the beach had gone peacefully aboard one or another of the two vessels. Soon both hoisted sails, and tacked their way out of the harbor, carrying with them Alex's last chance to attend the princess as a mere human. It now seemed to him that on the deck of the larger ship, he could make out a bright speck that might well have been sunlight on Ariadne's light brown hair.
After watching the two ships out of sight, the refugees agreed that there was little they could do now but wait for yet another ship to put in. When one that looked like a decent trader arrived, one that was not Corycan, they would emerge from hiding and ask to be taken aboard.
"If only we don't all die of hunger first," Icarus complained.
Alex led his three new companions back to the heights, near the place where he had been waiting alone, where they established a kind of camp.
Restless Icarus soon returned from a mushroom-hunting foray into the brush, with the announcement that he had discovered someone's broken house—it was of course the same building that Alex had already started to examine.
Daedalus, perpetually and professionally curious, went to see, pulling some vines away from the crumbling masonry that he might have a better look.
"Practically useless as a shelter," he observed.
The building was mostly ruined, but the Artisan thought that the paintings on the wall-remnants depicted some worship of a sun-god. No one else could tell what the dim and doubtful figures were supposed to be doing.
Daedalus soon produced flint and steel from a waterproof oilskin wallet that he carried attached to his apron's belt, and quickly had a small fire going in a slight hollow of sandy ground. There was a notable lack of things to cook, but at least a symbol of civilization had been established.
The Artisan told Alex that his ultimate goal was to reach a certain mainland kingdom, Megara, whose ruler had once offered the Artisan a place of honor at his court. There he could hope to bring up his son in reasonable safety and stability.
The slave-girl asked, "And will there be room in that household for me, as well, my lord?"
Alex was somewhat surprised to see how familiarly the Artisan reached out a callused hand to stroke her hair. It was the gesture of a man who knows a woman well.
"There had better be," Daedalus said. "I grow fond of you indeed." When his fingers touched her slave's collar he added musingly, "We must soon find a way to get this off."
In his continued desperation regarding the Princess Ariadne and her fate, Alex soon found himself confiding in the others more details of his search for the Face of Dionysus.
After their evening meal of roots and berries, augmented by some eggs Icarus had pillaged from a nest in a tall tree, Alex asked Daedalus, whom he considered a wise and trustworthy older man, for his advice.
The question now having been raised, of what a man ought to do if offered the chance to put on a Face, Daedalus said without hesitation that he would definitely refuse.
"Would you really?"
The Artisan nodded slowly. "I find that merely being a man presents me with quite enough problems; I have no wish to assume those that must come with being a god." With a finely splintered twig he picked out a bit of eggshell from between his teeth.
Alex found this attitude hard to understand. "But think of the powers one would gain!"
"And what have the gods ever done with all the powers they have accumulated? Do they experience great happiness? Contentment? Such glimpses as we catch of their lives do not encourage that idea." Daedalus picked up a handful of sand, letting it sift through his fingers. "There are other ways for a man to increase his capabilities. To find a plan for dealing with the universe."
The slave-girl, on the other hand, proved to have a head full of glorious daydreams that she yearned to put into effect, if she were ever given the chance.
"If I could only be Artemis—" At that point Clara broke off, evidently deciding that some of her dreams were still best kept private. To cover the sudden pause, she turned to the youngest member of the group. "What god would you like to be, Master Icarus, if you had the choice?"
The boy looked up with shining eyes. "I want to be Ares!"
"Bad choice," his father growled, "Who've you been listening to? Ares means war, and war destruction. Any fool can kill, and break, and burn."
Icarus was subdued, but did not appear entirely convinced that his selection was a bad one.
Clara had returned to her own dreams, and was fingering her simple metal collar. "But what would a goddess do, if she found herself wearing one of these?"
"I have no doubt that it would be gone, in the next instant." The Artisan nodded briskly. "Yes, I must find a way to get that collar off your neck."
Alex offered no comment. In most lands ruled by law, or by the authority of a monarch, the removal of the badge of slavery, by any mere mortal human, would of course be seriously illegal; but on this island, he supposed, the only lawmakers were the pirates and the gods. Certainly the Princess Ariadne would not begrudge her favorite companion a chance at happiness.
Daedalus was looking at him shrewdly. "What of your future, soldier? We would all of us like to help the Princess Ariadne, who has done her best to help us. But we don't even know where she's going now, or where we may be tomorrow. It's quite likely that none of us will ever see her again. Under the circumstances, you may find it hard to continue your devotion."
Alex explained that the sprites and other Dionysian powers had revealed to him that the Face of Dionysus was hidden in some Temple of Apollo, on some island. "But I don't know which temple, or where to look for it. They were gone again, off into thin air, before I could find that out."
"That is unfortunate," the Artisan observed. "There are a thousand islands in the Great Sea, as a conservative estimate, and shrines to the Sun-god can probably be found on most of them. Not to mention the countless numbers on the mainland."
Alex nodded wearily, and glanced at the broken wall nearby. "I doubt this ruined structure was the temple they had in mind. Or that this island was their original goal, because when I was riding in the chariot we had to alter course to get here; and here I am, and I see no Face. And I very much doubt that the temple the powers were talking about is on Corycus, or they wouldn't have carried me so far away. Besides, I don't think the island where the usurper rules contains any temples to Apollo."
Daedalus shook his head. "Not any longer. Shiva, may all three of his eyes go blind, has seen to that."
When night fell, the fire was allowed to die down; the air remained reasonably warm, and the Artisan felt confident of being able to kindle another when required.
Alex soon found himself alone, Daedalus having indicated in certain polite but definite ways that he and his woman would appreciate a bit of privacy, to make sure of which they retreated out of sight, a little distance down the hill. Well, that was natural enough. Clara was well-shaped and young, and her torn dress was definitely provocative. Had Alex not been obsessed with thoughts of his princess, he would very likely have been trying to persuade the slave-girl to spend some time alone with him.
Sleep would not come at once, and the young soldier soon found himself sitting upright in what had once been the main entrance of the ruined temple—or perhaps shrine—staring out at a sea exotically silvered by moonlight. He was hoping without much hope for some return of the Dionysian sprites, when a slight noise nearby made him turn his head, to see small Icarus emerging from the bushes.
"Hello," said Alex.
"Hello." The boy was naked as an egg, having evidently shed his leather apron in preparation for sleep. "They are keeping each other warm over there, and they wanted me to go somewhere else."
"I see. Well, you are welcome to stay here, if you like. It seems I am to have no other visitors."
Icarus sat down close beside Alex, and immediately reached out to finger the medallion hanging on the man's chest. "My father made this," he said. "I watched him do it."
"Yes, I know. We were talking about that, but I suppose you weren't listening. He gave it to the Princess Ariadne, and she gave it to me."
"Why?" the child demanded.
"To reward me. As I explained to your father, I was able to tell the princess something that she . . . considered to be very important."
"What do you keep in it?" the boy asked curiously.
"Keep in it?"
"Yes. Don't you know? It opens up. Like this." Shifting position, the son of the Artisan worked on the medallion momentarily with two small, nimble hands, and suddenly it sprang open, the thin disk of silver that formed its back separating from the equally attenuated circle of gold that made the front. Only a single hinge of ingenious construction, practically invisible, still joined the two halves together.
And something, a certain object that had been folded with eerie skill, compressed with supernatural cleverness, into the thin secret compartment between the gold and silver—that something now fell out, to land on Alex's right thigh.
It was a transparent thing, roughly the breadth and thickness of a man's hand, and it felt warm and tingled when it touched his skin. Alex made an odd sound in his throat, and a moment later he had jumped to his feet, clutching in both hands what he knew must be the Face of some god—doubtless Dionysus.
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