The Sea King’s Daughter

by Barbara Michaels

  “…then we kill the goats, one for each, and it is over. That is all.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and watch them slaughter some poor little goats,” I said. I didn’t dare look at Jim.

  “You’re crazy,” he said, in a strangled voice. “Crazier than she is, worrying about goats, when-If you think I am going over there in front of forty staring women and-No way!”

  “You’d rather die?” I inquired sweetly. “That’s my line. Only I wouldn’t rather die.”

  “Trust a woman to turn any crisis into a personal insult,” Jim said. “That’s not the problem, and you damn well know it.”

  “We could pretend,” I said. I was feeling a little giddy now that the danger I had feared seemed to be without foundation.

  “Maybe you could,” Jim said.

  “No,” I said, watching Helena carefully arranging wilted blossoms across the foot of the stone couch. “I guess I couldn’t. Kore, you’ve got to do something. Talk them out of it.”

  “There’s a knife in my pocket,” Jim said urgently. “Cut me loose.”

  “You make such fuss,” Kore said petulantly. “Such a little thing! You are lovers, young and strong. Why can you not-”

  “Kore!” I said emphatically.

  She wasn’t as carefree as she pretended; the firelight reflected from the perspiration that covered her face. With a movement that was half shrug, half shiver, she spread out her flowing skirts and under their cover began to fumble in Jim’s pocket.

  The process seemed to take forever. Apparently the high priestess was supposed to do some writhing around; except for a few casual glances, the women paid no attention to us. Kore cut the ropes on Jim’s feet and was reaching for the ones that bound his arms when one of the women called out. She was carrying a load of twigs toward the fire; now she stopped, pointing toward the sky. To my incredulous relief I saw a star.

  “Look,” I said. “The air is clearing. Maybe…”

  “The wind has changed.” Jim struggled to a sitting position. “What a piece of luck! That should blow the clouds away from the island, out to sea.”

  “Tell them the gods have changed their minds,” I said to Kore. “Isn’t that a good omen? Tell them!”

  “I try.” Kore got to her feet.

  “Damn it, finish this job first,” Jim demanded, squirming.

  Kore paid no attention. She was still holding his knife when she raised her arms and called out in a high, shrill voice. The women stopped work to listen. Some of them seemed to be impressed by her arguments. They hesitated, glancing uncertainly at one another. But the general opinion among the hard-core members seemed to be that the evidence was inconclusive.

  Kore sat down again and went back to work on the ropes. “They say no,” she reported.

  “So I gathered. Hurry up, will you?” Jim’s voice sounded strained. “I have a feeling…”

  I had it too-the queasy, quavery shaking of the entrails that was becoming only too familiar. The women had hoped to summon the gods and they had succeeded in arousing the greatest of them all.

  The ground began to rock gently. Then the sky to the north caught fire. A column of flame shot up amid a roar of erupting gas. In the livid, unearthly glare every blade of grass, every twig stood out as if outlined in fire.

  The women broke. I don’t know whether it was superstition or natural fear that made them flee; most of them had families, and they knew what might follow. Or perhaps they interpreted the spectacular demonstration as a sign that the gods weren’t pleased with the proceedings.

  A few of the toughest women lingered. Helena was one of them. A glowing lump of magma struck the ground behind her; she glanced at it and then looked at us. Her expression turned me cold, and in the extremity of the moment it seemed to me that I could read her mind. Maybe the gods were getting impatient because the sacrifice was delayed.

  Kore was crawling around on the ground, trying to find the knife, which she had dropped in her terror. Jim was struggling, trying to free himself. Helena was stalking toward us, glaring. Redhot stones were falling. Then, through the chaos, a voice rose, in a bellow whose volume made it impossible to identify the speaker.

  “Police!” Kore gasped. “It is the police!”

  “It can’t be,” Jim gasped back; he was still struggling. “There aren’t any-Kore!”

  But Kore was gone. I had never seen her move so quickly. The few remaining women had dispersed too. We were alone in the clearing. And the rocks were still falling, red-hot coals of magma from the tormented entrails of the volcano. I was struggling too-a senseless action, but I couldn’t help it, it was horrible to be unable to move amid the hail of molten debris. A stone hit the ground six feet away, spattering fragments. One of them stung my leg. I was screaming-I’m not ashamed to admit it-and my eyes were shut tight.

  When I opened them again, it was like waking from tormented sleep to the reassurance of reality. The clearing was utterly peaceful. The stars shone down, blurred by lingering dust particles, but serene and steadfast. Then I saw Jim and I knew the nightmare wasn’t over.

  His final struggle to free himself had succeeded. His wrists were scraped raw, but his hands were unbound; they rested, lax and empty, on the dusty ground. Dust grayed his hair as he lay face down. There was no sign of the rock that had struck him.

  There was no rock, because he had not been hit by a rock.

  Slowly, shrinkingly, my eyes moved up from the booted feet of the man who stood beside me-up, all the way, till they reached his face, with its magnificent, spreading moustache.

  “So it was you,” I said.

  Sir Christopher stuck the gun in his belt. He had been holding it by the barrel.

  “I was the police, yes,” he said. “The women were too distraught to realize that the official forces of the island have many other problems on their hands just now.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said.

  “So Keller has broken his silence.” Sir Christopher stood musing for a moment. “I thought he might. How unfortunate for you.”

  “But this is so unnecessary,” I groaned. “I thought Frederick was the traitor. If you hadn’t given yourself away by knocking Jim out-”

  “You aren’t thinking,” Sir Christopher said reprovingly. “You may have been misled, but you are the only one. You are an undisciplined child; eventually you would accuse your father, and as soon as he learned what really happened thirty years ago, he would have known I had…”

  It was strange, how he avoided a direct admission. It wasn’t caution; who could hear him now, except me? Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. He could commit the act and kill to conceal it, but he couldn’t say it.

  “You mean,” I said, “ Frederick could prove he was innocent?”

  “My dear girl,” Sir Christopher said impatiently, “when there are only two suspects, and one knows he is innocent, he knows who must be guilty! Yes; he could have proved that he was on the other side of the peninsula, in the company of a dozen men, during the crucial period. And he is vicious enough to expose me. He is a cold, unfeeling man. I couldn’t risk that. Even if I were not imprisoned, my career and my family name would be destroyed.”

  “Not to mention all those titles you are looking forward to. I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to promise to keep quiet?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Sir Christopher moved behind me and began tugging at the bonds that held me to the tree.

  “This is your fault, you know,” he said in a petulant voice. “I tried my best to induce you to leave Thera. Without you, Frederick would have been forced to end his operations and he would never have encountered Keller. It was imperative that I prevented a meeting between them. Keller has become distressingly unstable these last few years, and I feared the sight of Frederick might move him to clear his dirty little conscience. When I learned that Frederick had made plans to come here, I had to move heaven and earth to arrange my own dig. Then that wretched boy wrote asking to joi
n me. I could hardly refuse without appearing small-minded, could I? I had no reason to expect that he would pose a problem; his name was not the same, and he and Keller were unlikely to meet. Had I realized how much he resembles his uncle, I might have acted differently; but frankly I can’t see it myself, I don’t know why Keller… Damn these ropes!They seem to be wire wrapped in cloth. Some ritual invention of Kore, no doubt. Her insane cult has been extremely useful to me. But if it had not existed, I would have discovered other means. The ability to make use of the means at hand is a sign of intelligence.”

  “You were the one who staged the accidents,” I said. “The avalanche, the booby trap, even the shot yesterday… That was aimed at me, not at Keller.”

  “Stop squirming,” Sir Christopher snapped. “This is difficult enough without your making it harder.”

  I started to ask why he was bothering to free me, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas that might hasten the inevitable end. It would have been so simple for him to drop one of those handy chunks of magma on my head. Then I realized that he was as anxious as the women must be to conceal any signs of his activities. If I was found dead under these conditions, there would be an investigation, and someone would be held responsible. An investigation was dangerous; some shrewd policeman might stumble on a hint of Sir Christopher’s activities. But there would be no need for an investigation if I was found some distance away, unbound, and mashed by a fall or avalanche. Keller would keep quiet in order to protect Kore. Jim might be suspicious, but…

  I felt as if someone had clamped a giant fist around my ribs. Selfish concern for my own skin had blinded me to Jim’s danger. Had he seen the man who knocked him out? If he had not, and if Sir Christopher could be convinced that Jim didn’t know of his uncle’s betrayal, he might let Jim live. It would double the risk to kill us both.

  I thought furiously, so preoccupied that I was only vaguely aware that the wires were loosening. I couldn’t blurt out a flat statement of Jim’s ignorance, that would be as bad as asserting the opposite.

  Then I saw something that made me forget my dilemma. The fire was dying down, so the something was only a shadow, visible for a moment above the low ridge that surrounded the ancient amphitheater. It had looked like the shadow of a man.

  I used to pride myself on my ability to react quickly in a crisis. But this was a crisis of monumental proportions, and I had only a few seconds to convince Sir Christopher that Jim was unwitting and to distract his attention from the rescuer-if it was a rescuer, and not just a shadow in my mind… I was further handicapped by myweakness, which was apparent as soon as the ropes fell away from my body. I was stiff as a board and my hands had gone numb. When I tried to stand I toppled over sideways, like a rigid statue of a seated woman.

  A man jumped over the ridge and landed, knees bent, on the floor of the amphitheater. He was carrying a rifle, one of Keller’s, but he wasn’t Keller. He was my father.

  “Stand still, Chris,” he called, raising the weapon to his shoulder. “Drop the gun.”

  “You wouldn’t dare shoot.” Sir Christopher’s voice came from the air six feet over my head. “You never were that good a shot, Frederick. Will you risk hitting your daughter?”

  “At this range I think I have an excellent chance of missing her,” Frederick answered calmly.

  I started beating my hands against the ground, trying to get some life into them. Frederick was quite capable of risking a shot; his monumental ego and his indifference to my welfare would overcome any qualms a normal man might feel. When I remembered the battered condition of his right arm I had even less confidence in his aim. I managed to roll over and raise myself on one elbow.

  “I’ll shoot the girl,” Sir Christopher shouted.

  “With a bullet that can be shown to come from a gun registered to you?” Frederick gave one of his nasty sneering laughs. “Go ahead.”

  Sir Christopher fired-but not at me. He shot at Frederick, and hit him. I saw Frederick stagger. He dropped the rifle, but he kept on walking. Sir Christopher shot again. By this time Frederick was so close I saw the blood spurt. My own was at freezing point; it was terrifying to see him come on, apparently undisturbed by the wounds, like some vampire out of a horror show. Sir Christopher was shaken too; his next shot was a clean miss. The fourth one struck the ground as I hit his ankles with my shoulder. He stumbled forward, off balance, and Frederick fell on him.

  The pistol was on the ground not far from me. I tried to pick it up, but my hands were still clumsy. The two men were rolling around on the ground. It was the first time I had ever seen a real honest-to-God fight-not a rough and tumble, but a struggle to the death. It made me sick.

  I abandoned the gun. I wouldn’t have fired it anyway; humanitarian considerations aside, I couldn’t risk hitting the wrong man. I started fumbling around for a rock that was big enough to knock Sir Christopher out. Then Jim, whom I had momentarily forgotten, rose up off the ground like Lazarus, and hurled himself into the fight.

  He had no trouble separating the combatants; Frederick was flat on the ground, with Sir Christopher kneeling on him and trying to beat his face in. Jim yanked his erstwhile boss to his feet and unleashed the most beautiful right hook I’ve ever seen. Then I reached Frederick.

  The first thing I noticed was his right hand, which lay twisted on his chest in the middle of a spreading bloodstain. The fingers were swollen to twice their normal size. I don’t think he could have gotten one of them through the trigger guard, much less squeezed the trigger.

  He didn’t move or open his eyes, not even when my tears started splashing down on his face.

  III

  The Red Cross arrived the next day. Whenever I get discouraged with the human race I remember that time, when people from all over the world pitched in to help. The volcano had subsided; I had seen its last defiant outburst in the amphitheater, but there had been a lot of damage and injury. Huge waves had hit some of the coastal villages.

  An efficient Swedish nurse made arrangements for Frederick to be taken off by helicopter. The road to Phira was practically demolished, and he couldn’t have stood any more rough handling. He had been unconscious since dawn, but he had revived, after we brought him back to the villa, to say a few characteristic words.

  “I see no reason…to become maudlin,” he had wheezed, when I started thanking him.

  “You saved our lives,” Jim said, because I couldn’t talk too plainly. “And deliberately risked your own. Sorry, I’ve got to say it, whether you like it or not; that was a very brave thing. I saw most of it. I was conscious, but it took me a while to get moving.”

  Frederick ’s lip curled. “Waste time,” he muttered. “Statement. Chris. Names of men who were with me…”

  “It’s unnecessary,” Jim cut in. “Save your breath, sir. Keller has agreed to testify.”

  “Good.” Frederick ’s smile was only a shadow of its former self, but it was distinctly malicious. Then he fainted.

  In addition to his injured arm, which had not been improved by his activities, he had two bullet wounds, one through the chest and another in his right thigh.

  “I can’t see how the hell he kept on moving,” Jim muttered, as we turned away from the bed. “Come on, Sandy. Lie down for a few hours. Kore will sit with him.”

  Kore nodded reassuringly at me. She was dressed for the role of angel of mercy in a simple little Dior dress that was probably the plainest outfit she owned; her hair was pulled severely back and she wore almost no makeup. She was wearing her diamonds-there is a limit to the personality change anyone can make-but the golden serpent bracelets were nowhere to be seen. She blinked as she caught my eye, but that was the only sign of embarrassment she showed, then or ever.

  She had redeemed herself the previous night; we’d have had a rough time if she hadn’t come sneaking back, stung by a belated attack of conscience, to see what had become of us. Or maybe Keller had acted as her conscience. After hearing her story he had set out at once for th
e amphitheater. They arrived while Jim was tying up Sir Christopher with the handy ropes that had been used on me, and I was trying to give Frederick first aid. Keller had been a pillar of strength; he had constructed a litter out of branches and the embroidered covering of the sacred couch, and after we got Frederick to the house he had worked over him for almost an hour.

  He talked as he worked, his account oddly interspersed with curt directions to Kore, who was acting as his nurse. He talked as if he had thirty years’ stored-up conversation to unload. We heard it all. His admiration for the young men who were fighting for their countries as he would have fought for his, had their circumstances been reversed; his contempt and disgust when Chris had come to him with his offer.

  “It is accepted procedure,” he insisted, while his hands moved with quick efficiency over Frederick ’s body. “Your uncle was the leader, Poseidon himself, it was he whom we wanted; and with two of the three out of action, the underground would be severely crippled. I had no choice. Never did I regret the action. I regretted only the necessity for it. And then to find that Poseidon was one whom I knew and admired…”

  In the last few hours of his life, Vincent Durkheim had come to trust the man who was about to kill him. The feeling between them couldn’t be called friendship, but in some ways it was more intense than ordinary friendship. Keller’s tormented conscience, their mutual interests, and the need of a dying man for comfort and human warmth… I can’t explain it or understand it, but I believe it happened. The result was that Durkheim told Keller of his discovery on Thera.

  “He died bravely,” Keller said. “You cannot comprehend, you young people-it was the last of the popular wars, the war to which we marched with banners flying and patriotic slogans firing our minds. The glamour soon faded; there is no romance in killing or being killed. But there was courage, and he had both kinds-the long, uncomplaining endurance of hardship, and the silent acceptance of his own end. He never knew that one of his friends had betrayed him. I spared him that, at least. His death made an enormous impression on me. I was already questioning some of the orders I had to carry out…”