He had studied the tiny object, that afternoon. To the eye it was no more than a common seal cylinder, cut of dead-black steatite, pierced lengthwise. Its design, engraved with an exquisite perfection, showed a bull-headed giant, seated on a throne, with men and women kneeling.
Was this, really, the wall of wizardry? His mind had dwelt upon the riddle. Had Ariadne told the truth about its power? Could it really give him Knossos? If the Dark One himself did not exist, what power could lie in a mere picture?
The green-eyed loveliness of Ariadne had haunted Theseus, through all the dark passages of the Labyrinth. He couldn’t make up his mind about her. She had been a scornful enemy—yet she had risked much to give him the Falling Star, so had saved his life.
Vessel of Cybele, she should know the illusion of love. In her thousand years or so, she must have loved too many men for any one to matter greatly. She was a member of the strange pantheon of Crete, and she knew that he planned to shatter her world. It was sheerest madness, he knew, to hope for any aid from her.
Yet the talisman was hanging at his throat, and her red-haired loveliness was smiling at him. Something mocked him, from her smile. Theseus tried to thrust it from his mind, and whispered to his sixty in the shadow of Knossos:
“We must destroy Minos, all his priests and warlocks, and the giant of brass. Daedalus must die—he is the most terrible wizard! But spare the slaves, the artisans, and all the common people—set them free with the word that there is no Dark One!”
“Aye, Captain Firebrand,” whispered the one-eyed Tirynthian.
“There are two others you must spare,” ordered Theseus. “One of them is Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who is the vessel of Cybele—she gave me the Falling Star, to slay the Dark One.
“The other to be saved—if we happen to find him—is a small Babylonian wizard, called Snish, the cobbler—because he is my friend.”
The pirates were well versed in the methods of raids by night. The sixty came up the hill as silently as shadows, and reached the artisan’s entrance. There was a short, savage battle with the Etruscans in the wardroom, but the most of them died before they were fully awake. Snatching new arms from the arsenal there, the sixty fought their way into the corridors beyond.
“There is no Dark One!” The battle cry pealed through the ancient halls. “Theseus, the Firebrand, destroyed him! Join us, to take the loot of Knossos! For the gods are doomed!”
Bewildered men and women swarmed excitedly out into the halls and fled again. A few of the palace artisans came to join Theseus, but most of them were too startled to do anything at all. Sleepy, swearing Etruscan soldiers and black lancer-priests gathered hastily at points of vantage ahead.
Five stories high and six acres in extent, with its maze of courts and light wells and corridors and stairs and magazines, a thousand years in the building, Knossos was itself a second Labyrinth, as confusing as the limestone galleries of the Dark One’s cavern temple.
Theseus himself was lost. But the artisans, and a slave who had served in the imperial household, pointed out the way toward the apartments of Minos. The sixty crushed through the stubborn groups of priests and Etruscans, fighting toward it.
The quick success of the raid began to seem slightly ominous to Theseus. His men met no barriers of wizardry, caught no glimpse of brazen Talos. And they pushed through to the megaron of Minos.
The Etruscans had gathered at the entrance for a final desperate stand. But elation of victory had turned the Falling Star to a darting flame of death, and the pirates followed it as they had done in a hundred other fights. The last Etruscan fell, and Theseus led his band through the splendid frescoed hall and into the bedchamber of Minos.
The startled ruler sat up on his magnificent canopied couch. Trembling and pale, his fat hands dragged the fine Egyptian linen up about his pink fat body, as if it could shield him from the dripping sword of Theseus.
The round baby-face had turned pale as the clutching hands, and it was not dimpled now. The little blue eyes had lost their merry twinkle, and terror glazed them. Thin and shuddering, the woman-voice shrilled:
“Spare me, Captain Firebrand! Spare my life, and all I have is yours to take. My treasury, my fleet, my empire! Only spare my life!”
Theseus held his lifted sword. He had come to kill a warlock. Here was only a fat old man, quaking with fear. Anger crackled in his voice: “Find a weapon! Fight for your throne!”
But Minos had gone speechless. A gross mass of pink flesh, he tumbled out of bed and sprawled, quivering and gasping, on the rugs. The light of the torches flickered over him. Theseus still withheld the sword.
“So this is the god Minos?” Scorn choked him. “The warlock who has reigned a thousand years, whose double ax is feared in Egypt and Cathay!” The Falling Star trembled in his hand. “I came here to kill you, Minos—to end the reign of wizardry. But I have never struck a kneeling, weeping man—”
“But I have, Captain Firebrand!” Vorkos, the one-eyed Tirynthian, strode forward. “Lend me your blade!”
He snatched the Falling Star. The bright steel hissed down. Severed cleanly, the white head of Minos rolled away from the gross quaking body, stared up mutely.
Head and body changed!
The Tirynthian dropped the Falling Star, staggered backward. Muttering fearfully, the pirates began to retreat toward the door. Theseus picked up the sword. He snatched a torch from a shuddering hand and bent to examine the thing that had been Minos.
Body and head were yellowed, waxen-pale, shrunk almost to naked bones. The body had been nearly bloodless—only a few black drops spilled from the severed arteries and veins. Only sorcery, Theseus knew, could have kept life in such a frame.
And the corpse—most incredible thing—was a woman’s!
Theseus strove to put down the crawling fear that hideous sight had set in him. He tried to hold the steel blade steady in his hand, gulped vainly at the dry hoarseness in his throat.
“See!” he croaked at his apprehensive followers. “Minos is dead!” He pointed with the black-dripping blade, and it trembled. “And he was no god. He wasn’t even a man. He was only an old, old woman!”
He moved with the torch toward the door. “We have conquered the gods of Crete!” He licked at his dry lips and tried again to swallow that hoarseness. “We have earned the loot of Knossos!”
“No, Captain Firebrand.” The voice of the one-eyed cook was a rasp of dread. “The victory isn’t won! For there is still the giant of brass, whose great feet can tramp us like vermin. There is still the wizard Daedalus, whose very glance can poison men. And still the daughter of Minos, who is a goddess and a sorceress.”
Theseus dragged his eyes away from the shriveled, yellowed thing that had been Minos. “Ariadne is my friend—my lover,” his dry whisper rasped. “Once she saved my life. Now we must find her—for her sorcery can aid us against the brass man and the wizard Daedalus.”
He wiped the Falling Star and led his apprehensive band out of the splendid bedchamber of Minos, Dripping the scant black drops, the withered yellow body of the old, old woman lay still on the floor behind them.
TWENTY-ONE
OUT IN the planless maze of piled-up rooms and halls and stairs, where one chamber might be two steps above another, or three below, Theseus seized the dusty black pigtails of a palace stonecutter, who had joined them, and menaced him with the Falling Star, demanding:
“Where are the chambers of Ariadne?”
The frightened artisan shuddered, promised voicelessly to show the way.
All the palace was buzzing now, a disturbed human hive. Lamps and torches flared down dusky corridors. Men and women and children, slaves and free artisans who dwelt and labored in the vast pile, were screaming, running everywhere. Theseus and his men came upon a dozen more Minoan priests striving to barricade a passage, and fought again.
The steel sword led the pirates through the barrier, and every lancer died. But a coldness of dread was creeping up the
spine of Theseus. It seemed to him again that success had been too easy.
Something was queerly wrong. A dozen riddles haunted him. Why had they met so few armed men—unless the palace was a trap? Where was Talos? What stand would Ariadne take? And what could he expect of the wall of wizardry? Why—most ghastly puzzle of all!—had Minos changed so strangely after he was dead?
The stonecutter led them to the spacious rich apartments of Ariadne. A sound of weeping met them, and they came upon a dozen red-clad temple girls. They were armed with bows and daggers, but they made no fight.
Theseus burst past them into the bedchamber. He tore aside the curtains, ripped the silken cover from the couch, flung open a great painted coffer, peered into the bath beyond. Ariadne was gone.
He seized one of the weeping girls by her scented hair, brushed her throat with the tip of the Falling Star, and asked the whereabouts of her mistress. The girl was speechless with fear.
“The goddess is gone!” she whispered at last. “She has fled—we don’t know where!”
Theseus released the girl, stood baffled.
“Captain Firebrand!” That thin nasal croak was familiar. Theseus turned swiftly toward the doorway, found the squat form of Snish. The little Babylonian’s yellow eyes were popping out with apprehension; teeth chattered in his huge mouth. “Captain Firebrand!”
“Snish—my friend!” Theseus greeted him with a relieved grin. “You’ve nothing to fear—my men have orders not to harm you. You’re all right? How did you escape, that night at the grove?”
The little wizard waddled toward him, eagerly. “One of Ariadne’s temple girls took a liking to me,” he wheezed, “and kept me hidden.” His enormous smirk showed huge yellow teeth. “Within limits, my small arts are useful in love!” The nasal voice sank. “Master, I have brought you a message from the goddess herself.”
Theseus felt a little eager shudder. “From Ariadne?” He stepped closer to Snish. “What is the message?”
The voice of Snish became a nasal whisper: “She is waiting in a tower on the roof. She begs you to come to her. I’ll show you the way. You must leave your men behind.”
For an instant Theseus stood still, weighing the Falling Star in his hands. He listened to the increasing ominous humming that filled the palace, looked from his grim, red-stained followers back to the pop-eyed frog face of Snish.
Decision steadied the sword. “Wait for me,” he told the one-eyed cook. “But, if I have not returned in the time it would take a bard to sing the battle song of Tiryns, take what loot you can carry and rejoin Cyron.”
“Aye, Captain,” muttered Vorkos. “But beware these warlocks!”
Turning to follow Snish: “Hasten!” whispered Theseus.
Waddling swiftly, the little wizard led him through a net of corridors and stairs and connected rooms so intricate that Theseus lost sense of direction. At last, pressing open a door where no joint had been visible, Snish led the way up a dark winding flight.
Abruptly, at that hidden door, all the humming confusion of the alarmed palace was left behind. There was no sound on that black stone stair—but the very silence was tense, menacing.
Theseus held the torch high with one hand and clutched his naked sword with the other. His companions, he knew, could never follow him here. He was alone. His blade touched the puffing little wizard.
“If this is betrayal, Snish,” he rasped the warning, “you shall be the first to die!”
The little Babylonian looked back against the torchlight, his seamed brown face both aggrieved and frightened.
“Master!” His nasal voice quivered huskily. “When I have risked my life to bring this message, can’t you trust me?” He shuddered to a long noisy sob, blew his nose. “Haven’t I proved myself? Haven’t I saved your life a dozen times?”
“Perhaps,” said Theseus. “Lead on—swiftly. I have warned you!”
The dark stair brought them up, at last, through the floor of a huge dim room. Dust set Snish to coughing, and the flaring torch cast eerie shadows into cobwebbed corners. Theseus peered hastily about, wondering.
The lofty walls were covered with racks of sealed, labeled jars that held papyrus scrolls. Stacked clay tablets made brown mountains. Long shelves were covered with odd-shaped vessels of metal, pottery, and glass. Sturdy, blackened benches bore implements of glass and polished metal, such as Theseus had never seen.
Perched upon a great, polished silver ball, that rose above a confusion of twisted black rods, gleaming copper wires and shimmering mirrors, was a huge black vulture. The bird’s carrion reek filled the room. It moved a bald red head, following them with a flaming, malignant black eye.
Theseus set the trembling point of his sword against the back of Snish. “Wait!” he gasped. “What place is this?”
There was something curiously froglike in the little wizard’s startled jump.
“This is the workshop of Daedalus, called the artificer,” he croaked. “But trust me, master—and put away your sword!” His popping yellow eyes blinked earnestly. “Truly, I am guiding you to the goddess. There is only one more flight to climb.”
“Lead on,” rapped Theseus. “But if we meet the warlock—he dies!”
The vulture made a raucous, startling scream, and the sinister eye followed them across the long dusty room. The torch found a narrow stair, and Snish led the way upward again. They came out upon a parapeted roof beneath the moon, and a gust of cold wind extinguished the burned-out torch.
Theseus stared ahead, speechless.
Before them, gleaming under the moon, was such a thing as he had never glimpsed or imagined. It was vaguely like a ship, for there were broad sails of white linen, and slender yards of polished wood, and rigging of thin, bright wire. But the sails lay horizontal. The thing rested upon flimsy-seeming wheels. There was no proper hull, but only a tiny cabin, in the midst of the spidery web of wood and cloth and metal. A door opened in that cabin.
“Captain Firebrand!”
It was the voice of Ariadne, strong and golden, yet with a husky little catch in it.
“You came—I knew you would!”
She climbed down flimsy steps. The full moon caught the red waves of her hair, strong enough to show color. Her white body was tall and sinuous as ever, intoxicating in a low-cut gown of clinging green. The serpent girdle writhed about her slender waist, and the ruby eyes glittered balefully.
She came swiftly to Theseus. Smooth bare arms slipped about him, drew him to her. Her face lifted, white and alluring under the moon. Theseus kissed her—but he kept a firm grip on the hilt of the Falling Star.
Her clinging lips drew reluctantly away from his. She caught his tense sword arm, drew him toward that fantastic, unsubstantial construction.
“I’m so glad, Captain!” Her voice throbbed huskily. “I have waited for you—and for Keke, my poor white dove, that was frightened by the fighting and flew away. But I’ll leave Keke.”
Her persuasive vibrant arm slipped around him again. “I knew that you would come to me, when your work in Crete was done. Because you promised. And I am ready, Captain. We’ll be in Egypt before dawn!”
Theseus held back. “What is this thing?”
“This is the most wonderful fruit of all the wizardry of Crete,” she told him. “It is a machine, that flies like a bird. Daedalus built it—and it is safer than the first, fragile machine, that killed his son. It is moved with an engine of fire, and it can lift us safely over the sea to Egypt, as fast as a vulture flies.”
Her warm arm tugged again. “Come, my captain!”
“But why must we go to Egypt?” demanded Theseus. “Tonight?”
“Don’t you see?” Her golden voice was muted, pleading, anxious. “It is because of what you have done. You have destroyed the Dark One. You have slain Minos. You have raised the people, against all the warlocks and the gods.”
Her warm body shuddered against him, and he felt the cold, writhing stiffness of the silver serpent.
; “Don’t you see?” She clung to him. “I must go, to save my life. The people would burn me in the temple of Cybele.” Her tremulous lips kissed him. “But I waited for you, Captain.”
Theseus crushed her tall, slim body against him, kissed her until they both were breathless. But he was watching Snish, over her shoulder, and he kept a good grasp on the Falling Star.
“Come on, my captain,” she begged huskily. “The machine is loaded with my jewels and all the silver it can carry. If you aren’t happy in Egypt, we can fly on, beyond, even to the edge of the world.”
But Theseus waited, watchfully. “I’m not sure,” he whispered, “that my task in Crete is done.”
Her tall body tensed against him, and: “You have killed Minos,” she protested quickly. “You have roused the people against the wizards and broken the power of the Dark One. What else have you to do?”
Theseus watched a white dove that came fluttering up out of the dark stairwell. It alighted on Ariadne’s perfumed hair. She lifted a white hand, brought it down to her lips, kissed its beak.
“My little darling Keke!” she whispered. “My poor white dove. Was it lost? Is it afraid? Does it want to fly with us, on the wizard’s wings, to Egypt?”
Cooing softly, the dove fluttered back to her shoulder. It cocked its head, and a bright eye looked at Theseus. That eye glittered under the moon. There was something familiar in its bright blackness, something—dreadful!
Ariadne reached for the hand of Theseus.
“Now, Captain,” her golden voice rang eagerly, “Keke has come back. Let’s go—before the people storm the tower or fire it.”
But Theseus had stepped swiftly back. The Falling Star was ready in his hand. As if itself alive, the steel blade flashed up through the moonlight, slashed off the head of the cooing dove.
The bird fell from the bare white shoulder of Ariadne. It fluttered on the roof and lay still. Her golden voice went sharp, in a cry of grief and anger.
The Reign of Wizardry Page 15