People loyal to "our true queen, Phaedra" were determined to put her on the throne, and to depose the usurper and his gang.
I, Asterion, with the help of Sarpedon and a squad of guardsmen, continued to do my best to stand guard over Daedalus, as the Artisan concentrated on his investigation of the locked door.
As dawn approached, I had withdrawn from the area where Daedalus was working. Feeling a weight of weariness, I withdrew to one of the remoter fastnesses of my domain. There I lay down on a couch of stone, well-padded with moss, and was soon asleep. Almost immediately I plunged into a kind of nightmare, in which Theseus had captured Edith again and was trying to wring secrets out of her.
Other people and gods well known to me were taking part in the dream as well, but I was encountering only their images, not their minds. Some of them, I knew, were dead. There were Shiva and Dionysus, the old King Minos and the new—
There was Theseus, again, shouting a challenge and waving from some elevated place quite near the Labyrinth—
The dream changed abruptly, and I was alone with Daedalus.
The Artisan was talking earnestly, trying to reveal some great secret; but with all the noise and shouting, I could not make out a word of what he said.
Presently I dreamt of my sisters too—and realized suddenly that what was happening was something more than a dream.
Out of sleep I fell, cold and disoriented, into the world of wakefulness, where as always I was immediately bothered by the lack of control. Even before my eyes were open, I was aware that Ariadne and Phaedra were nearby, calling my name, beseeching me to come and help them. There was shouting in the distance, and the sounds of fighting.
I rose to my feet, stumbling clumsily for once, as dreams became entangled with reality, and lumbered away.
I dashed around a corner and there they were. Ariadne immediately ran forward and threw herself into my arms.
When my gaze fell directly on Phaedra, she shrank back involuntarily. It had been many years since she had laid eyes on her brother.
All she could get out in her confusion was, "You were much, much smaller when I saw you last."
Then slowly, while Ariadne and I embraced in greeting, our older sister moved forward, obviously in awe of the gigantic, bull-headed and beardless figure dressed in kilt and sandals. But she took the hand that I stretched out to her.
I made sure that the pressure of my fingers was very gentle. She did not seem startled by my odd voice when I said, "My sister. Now you shall be my queen."
"My brother."
"I suppose," said Ariadne, "that you two have never actually seen each other before."
"Not strictly true," her sister said.
"Not true?" Ariadne was amazed.
"No." The elder sister's gaze remained fixed on my face. "In fact you are one of my earliest memories. I remember feeling so—so terribly sorry for you."
She told the story to us then. Phaedra had been about four years old when I was born, and had only the haziest and most fragmentary memories of that time. She had not, of course, actually witnessed her mother's death.
Ariadne would have been only two, unable to remember anything at all.
Phaedra as a small girl had had at least one long look at the horned and monstrous infant. In the realm of fact and logic, that horror was of course intimately entwined with the fact of her mother's death. But in the memory of the four-year-old, the two events had nothing directly to do with each other.
Princess Phaedra would not have chosen to bring up that subject now, but there seemed no way to avoid it. And maybe a direct confrontation was really for the best.
"After that we were kept apart," she said to the bull-man.
His huge head nodded slowly. "Yes. Sometimes I wonder that our father on earth, King Minos, did not kill me on the spot, when mother died. But I suppose he had received some omen, some warning against that."
"Minos was not a ruthless man. And I believe he loved his queen. Even as she loved all her children."
Ariadne, as she grew older, had not been prevented from seeking out her brother and spending time with him.
The visits had started early, with the connivance of a nurse, who had been the early wet-nurse of the monstrous infant, who thought that siblings ought to know each other.
Naturally both girls had been forbidden to wander in the Labyrinth, as children in general would be, by their parents. But Ariadne's special talent had enabled her to find ways around the prohibition, while her older sister, naturally more inclined to follow rules, had stayed in the palace grounds like a good girl.
When King Minos eventually learned that Ariadne had made several visits to her brother, he had been shocked at first. But then he had not forbidden the meetings.
I doubt that my foster father Minos ever laid eyes on me.
Whether he did or not, he could never bring himself to acknowledge that such a creature might be one of his family, or bring it into the palace.
Ariadne had to leave us, to go on with the all-important business of her visions and her web. But Phaedra stayed with me for a time, and for the first time in our lives we could begin to know each other.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alex was intimately aware of Dionysus's chronic reluctance to engage in battle. The God of Many Forms had been a hunter, in the past, and might someday hunt again—but being a warrior was something else again. When, as now, the god faced unavoidable armed conflict, his overwhelming reaction was not so much fear as a sense of his own total incompetence. His instinctive preference was to enter combat, if he must, moving at high speed aboard his chariot. On the other hand, Alex the simple soldier, considering the situation as unemotionally as possible, quickly decided that such a conspicuous presence in the sky would only make him a better target for Shiva's lancing rays of death. Staying close to the ground, where he could at least try to shroud himself with greenery, might make the enemy's task a little harder.
In this question it seemed that Dionysus readily yielded to the superior experience of his human component.
As to what direct action the God of Joy—the Great Party-Goer, as some irreverently called him—might be able to take against Shiva, or any other divine opponent, his Dionysian memory was anything but reassuring. He was no better at fighting than he was at puzzle-solving. Alex's divine partner could command no armament to match the Third Eye. His chances of being able to turn the God of Destruction into a dolphin, or working any similar transformation on him, were practically zero. On the other hand, driving Shiva into a frenzy might be all too easy to accomplish, and might require no effort at all. But Alex was not at all sure that that was the result he should be trying to achieve.
Now the young man could better understand the behavior of his predecessor on that cold night, half a year ago. As soon as Shiva had shown his face in the great hall, the previous avatar of Dionysus had simply turned and fled for his life. It hadn't done him a bit of good, of course—save that it had prevented the Face of Dionysus from immediately falling into Shiva's hands.
The only effective weapon he could use against Shiva must be his wits; but the sharpest wits in the world could be quite helpless unless provided with something material in the way of tools.
The twin leopards could be deadly fighters against any ordinary opponent. Unfortunately Alex could find no memories to suggest that the magical beasts would be able to stand long against Shiva, let alone kill him.
Reluctantly he summoned his inhuman auxiliaries, intending to give them instructions on what to do if he, the present avatar of Dionysus, should fall in battle. His predecessor seemed to have decreed certain behavior along that line, if only indirectly.
If Fate granted him the chance to pick his own successor, whom should he choose?
It would not be Ariadne, even though Faces seemed almost indifferent to the gender of those who wore them. Alex could not give her to satyrs and maenads, who were always beckoning their lord to dances and orgies. His soul recoil
ed from the image of Ariadne in that role. Nor could he hand over to her the Face of Zeus, if that should fall into his hands. To enter into such intimate union with the Ruler of the Universe, to become the Thunderer, must change her, or any human being, beyond all recognition; somehow, even her death would be more bearable than that.
When Silenus appeared, in his usual role as spokesman for the entourage, Alex issued his own orders. "If I am killed, I command you to pick up the Face I now wear, and carry it to the soldier, Sarpedon. If that proves impossible, bring it to Daedalus. If you cannot do that either—to one of the princesses." He added those last words with great reluctance. Still he could not bring himself to consent to Ariadne's melding herself, body and mind, with anyone, human or divine, besides himself. As for Phaedra, Alex still thought the elder sister should be queen of Corycus, not a goddess.
But who else was there worthy of being trusted with such power? Asterion came to mind. But Dionysus found it hard to believe that Asterion's bull head would ever be able to wear a Face. Asterion was too much the son of Zeus to partake of the nature of any other deity.
We will not desert you in the battle, Lord! Silenus managed to infuse his wheezing protest with tones of deep sincerity. He even sounded vaguely offended, as if Alex had suggested that the satyr might value his own personal safety higher than his god's.
Dionysian anger flared. "Whether you might desert me is not the question. Why do you persist in misunderstanding? What I am talking about is the need to prevent Shiva or Hades from gaining control of this." And Alex raised a hand to touch his forehead. Then he added, "If you do run away, don't go too far."
The ancient satyr looked sadder than ever. If any of us survive the battle, master, we will do then what we must do.
Neither Alex nor Dionysus found that very reassuring, but it seemed to be the best that either human nature or divinity could hope for.
Memory assured Alex that it was undoubtedly a very long time since any sprite or satyr had been killed by violence, but they were certainly not immune to such an attack. Not when it came on the scale employed by Shiva.
Trying to make war against Shiva might be hopeless, but against merely human opponents the Twice-Born had every reason to expect success. In the memory of Dionysus Alex discovered that one effective method consisted in the god's driving opposing soldiers mad, causing them to kill each other.
This scanning of the past evoked certain related memories, including scenes of cannibalism, which so revolted the young man that he turned his thoughts quickly away from them.
His main task continued to be the defense of the princesses, and of Daedalus, who must be protected from interruption as he worked.
Anxious to know what success Daedalus was having, Alex went to look, and found him still hard at work upon the puzzle-lock. At the moment the investigator had his ear pressed against the shell-like surface, face scowling in concentration, while his fingers tapped and probed at various places on the mechanism.
Watching the Artisan now, Alex got the impression of a man who was making progress on a job, though Alex would not have been able to say exactly what made him think so.
If the enemy did not yet know that Daedalus was present, and in what kind of task he was engaged, then it was worth some considerable effort to keep Hades and Shiva and their creatures from finding out.
On the plus side, Alex again had the chariot and leopards available for his own tactical use. But he wanted to keep them hidden as long as possible.
Alex had not yet called forth the chariot when he found himself facing a company of mercenaries, the really bad ones from the company of Captain Yilmaz, men who, as Sarpedon informed him, had been used by Perses to interrogate people suspected of disloyalty. They were following the marked pathway leading to the center of the Maze, and in the process getting uncomfortably close to the site where Daedalus still labored. Of course it was still possible that they would never reach it, but it was dangerously exposed to discovery.
Nestor, who knew these men professionally, saw them approaching, and came running up, out of breath, to deliver a warning about them.
Drawing on his own experience as a soldier, his familiarity with the men in the ranks, Alex understood that most of the men in any fighting unit would be terrified at the prospect of face-to-face combat with any god. The only ones not terrified would be the berserk, some of whom were likely to show up in any fight.
Taking a cue from Apollo, he did not pursue the soldiers who ran away from him. But he could not ignore those who were brave enough, well-disciplined enough, or simply vicious enough, to try to stand and fight. Also any orderly retreat would be difficult in the Maze, and the troops might well feel that they were cornered.
He knew he must do all he could to weaken the usurper's human army, before he had to meet Shiva, an encounter that would more than likely result in his own death.
Reacting with professional instinct, the mercenaries sent a concentrated hail of projectiles at him, arrows and slung stones, and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that one such missile might do his human body injury. Sprites and satyrs, virtually immune to such gross physical attacks, formed a defensive screen before their god, and his own powers, almost without conscious effort on his part, could deflect stones, turning them into ripe fruit even as they flew.
Turning his human opponents permanently into animals would take more time and effort than he could spare just now, with much greater demands upon his powers looming in the near future. Recalling commands from some of the Twice-Born's earlier memories, Alex inflicted on some of his opponents a temporary transformation. Hogs grunted and squealed and ran. Even when those men returned to human form, they would remain out of action, in shock, for some time.
But he must not become too absorbed in this business to watch for Shiva. Turning away, Alex left his company of sprites and satyrs to conclude the skirmish. Capering phantoms immune to sword and spear and arrow, they first distracted the remaining enemy troops, then maddened them into frenzy.
The satyrs especially took on martial forms, brandishing illusory weapons.
As Alex turned away, Silenus began blustering in a position of assumed leadership—waving a broken wine bottle, as if it were a sword. Alex knew that he would be perfectly willing enough to relinquish what he thought of as his command, as soon as it began to appear genuinely dangerous—but that was hardly likely to happen until Shiva or Hades came on the scene.
Soldiers infected with new frenzy began trying to catch and rape and kill the phantom females, or come to grips with taunting, leaping, chanting goat-men. Instead the mortals only crashed into each other, and in the growing madness of their rage, took out their frustrations upon each other's solid flesh.
What had been a squad of working professionals quickly fragmented into a swarm of individuals—but instead of separating, those individuals quickly came together again, in an orgy of mutual destruction.
Alex took note especially of one pair, locked in a desperate death-grapple.
The voices of the straggling mob rose in a cacophony of screams, threats, howls and insane laughter.
Alex/Dionysus stalked away. His mind was quivering, thoughts jumping, with the burden of his own divine madness. Resolutely he refused to think about the horror he was leaving behind him. He had to straggle hard to free his own mind of the craziness he had invoked, and part of him remained revolted at his own nature.
Alex closed his eyes and leaned against a wall. The God of Madness must not be undone, defeated, by his own nature. I am more than a God of Madness. I was a human being before I became a god, and a human being I still remain. And I always will.
When Alex opened his eyes, the world was reasonably steady once again.
His invisible escort swirled around him again. They were highly excited with the results of the just-concluded skirmish, exulting in the bloody deeds they had provoked. To these inhuman servants the only thing that seemed to matter in the war was the degree of frenzy to
which the participants could be driven.
Alex, and for a moment even Dionysus, was repelled by this attitude.
Dionysus, like any other god, could not long hold any emotion, any wish, unless it was shared by his human avatar.
Alex hurried to catch up with Ariadne. He called her name, but received no answer. She was nowhere in sight, and sprites and satyrs reported anxiously that they had lost contact with the princess.
He also wanted to make sure that Daedalus was still on the job, and see if he was any closer to success.
There came a distant shouting, as of the enemy in triumph. Shiva had paused to visit destruction upon some rebel formation.
Alex could only hope that Ariadne and Phaedra, and Daedalus as well, might find some place of safety with Asterion.
Because now at last Shiva was in sight, airborne astride the great bull Nandi, gripping in both hands indeterminate shapes that must be weapons. The mouth of his death's-head face was open in a howl of rage. The necklace of skulls was swirling with the speed of the Destroyer's motion through the air.
Alex turned at bay to face his deadly enemy. At all costs he must avoid leading the killer to the woman he loved.
His soldier's instinct urged him to pick up a spear that had been dropped by one of the squad of scattered and slaughtered mercenaries. Alex the soldier felt a shade less terrified, with hilted metal in his hand. But he might as well have saved himself the trouble. The world seemed to dissolve in a burst of white light, eating into his eyes and brain like acid.
The first lance-thrust of light from the Third Eye hit the chariot directly and knocked it out of the air, spilling its divine occupant rudely on the ground.
Alex lay stunned, god-powers at an ebb, waiting for the next blast to sear away his life.
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