“What have you done?” She sobbed. “My beautiful Keke!”
But Theseus stood back from her, alertly watching the white headless bird. He saw it swell under the moon, and change. It became a man’s body, nude, dark, gnarled, hairy, shriveled with years. It was headless, like the bird, and thick black blood spurted from the severed neck.
Theseus found the shaggy black head, lying beyond the feet of Ariadne. He turned it over with his toe, so that he could see the face. Snarling up at him, hideous in death, he saw the dark, skeletal visage of Daedalus.
White and motionless, Ariadne made a small choked sound.
“No, I’m not ready to go with you to Egypt,” Theseus told her in a slow, grave voice. “I believe that I have another task to do. If you wish to wait, I’ll come back to you when it is done.”
He turned to Snish.
“Come with me again,” he told the popeyed, shuddering little wizard. “Find me the brass man, Talos. I want to see what he looks like—dead!”
The white features of Ariadne stiffened again with terror. Her mouth half opened. Her hands lifted in a frantic gesture toward her throat. Then it seemed that something paralyzed her. Her scream was stifled.
“I’ll wait,” she whispered.
And Theseus followed the quaking little wizard down the stair.
TWENTY-TWO
THESEUS WALKED close at the heels of Snish, down into the black, dusty workroom of the dead warlock. The trembling yellow wizard lit a new torch from a dimly glowing brazier, and Theseus saw that the black vulture was gone from its perch on the silver ball.
Snish was a sallow green with fear, and the torch fell out of his quivering fingers. Theseus picked it up and followed him down that narrow winding stair into the ancient pile of Knossos. He could hear the frightened clatter of the wizard’s teeth.
“Once, in Babylon,” came the sobbing nasal wheeze of Snish, “I was an honest cobbler. I had a wife who was faithful except when she was drunk—and that was seldom, for we were very poor.”
He stumbled on the narrow stone steps, caught himself. “Knossos will kill me yet!” he gasped apprehensively. “And I was happy in Babylon—if I had only known it—until that magician brought me his boots to mend. I wish that I had never heard of wizardry!”
He paused on a narrow landing, and his huge yellow eyes blinked fearfully against the torch.
“Master,” he croaked hollowly, “have you thought what you are doing? This brazen man has no humanity. He knows no pity. He may squeeze the life out of me, for letting you disturb his slumber. And he’ll surely destroy you, Captain Firebrand. In a thousand years, he has not been vanquished.”
His trembling hands made an urgent gesture. “Why don’t you forget this folly, master?” he wheezed uneasily. “Why leave your bones to rot in the pits of Knossos—when there is a goddess waiting for you?”
Theseus came up to him, clutching torch and sword. “I came to Crete to do a task.” His voice rapped hard. “It isn’t done. Lead on.”
With shuffling, uncertain steps, Snish guided him ahead. It began to seem a little ominous to Theseus that they came to no open court or shaft, saw no light burning, found no human being. Only once, for a moment, did they hear any sound—distant shouting and the far-off clash of arms.
“What is that?” demanded Theseus.
Snish paused and turned to listen, and it seemed to Theseus that his bulging yellow eyes were staring through the damp black walls. His huge bald head nodded slowly.
“That is your comrade, Cýron the Gamecock,” he said. “He has come to join your men, and they are hunting the last of the Minoan priests to their lairs. This night is indeed the end of wizardry in Crete!”
“Cyron?” Theseus stared doubtfully at Snish. “But I left him to hold the compound!”
Snish listened again, at the niter-crusted wall.
“The Gamecock is telling your one-eyed cook what happened. He left three women to tend the watch fires in the palisade, and laid an ambush for the Etruscans on the road from Ekoros. He convinced them that the people had risen against them. They took the compound and fortified themselves to wait for day.”
“Good old Gamecock!” Theseus grinned, returned to frowning soberness. “Lead on, wizard.”
He followed Snish, and the dim sounds faded. They descended into a dank, brooding stillness that Theseus well knew, from the time he had been in the dungeon. It was the silence and the fetor of death.
Following on closely, Theseus coughed from the acrid sting of decay in the air. He started to the dull, hollow echo of their footsteps. Suddenly it seemed to him that Snish, for a stranger newly come from Babylon, was ominously familiar with this dark labyrinth. He hung back, at a long hall’s entrance.
“Where are you taking me?” Apprehension croaked in his own throat. “Where is Talos?”
Snish pointed down the black-pillared hall.
“We can wait here, master.” His huge yellow eyes rolled uneasily, and his voice was a rasping whisper. “If you still seek to die. For Talos will come this way.”
Theseus looked anxiously down the lofty avenue of square black columns, but nothing moved among them. He listened, and heard only the hissing crackle of the torch and his own hastening heart.
“We’ll wait,” he said. “But how do you know that Talos will come?”
The yellow eyes of Snish blinked at him, gravely. “I’m a wizard,” wheezed the squat Babylonian, “if only a very minor one.” He came waddling back to Theseus, his ugly, wide-mouthed face pale and tense in the torchlight. “I know another small device, master,” he wheezed, “that can serve when Talos comes!”
Theseus stepped back, watchfully. “What is that?”
Snish reached out a quivering hand. “Give me your sword, master,” came his nasal rasp. “My insignificant arts can make it invisible, so that you will seem to stand facing Talos with empty hands. That small advantage might well decide the fight.”
But Theseus held the sword, set its bright point against the wizard’s middle.
“The Falling Star has served me well,” he rapped. “And it will again—as it is!”
The yellow flame of the torch flared brighter in the yellow eyes of Snish. They seemed to expand. Their glare, for a moment, was almost terrible. They reminded Theseus—But Snish was abruptly shivering and breathless.
“M-m-m-master!” he stammered faintly. “It’s T-T-T-Talos!” His quivering yellow arm pointed past Theseus, down the brooding hush of the black colonnade. “The b-b-b-brass man, coming—”
Gripping the sword, Theseus crouched and turned. There was only darkness between the rows of columns. He moved the torch, and silent, monstrous shadows leaped among them. But there was no gleam of brass, nor any tread of metal feet. Swiftly, he turned again.
Snish was gone. Where he had been, stood—Talos!
The brazen giant was bending. The torchlight shone on his bright, flexing skin, and his flaming eyes were huge yellow lamps. Splendid muscles bulged his colossal body, and tendons thrummed like lyre strings. The fist of Talos, knotted into a huge brazen mace, was descending in a swift and deadly blow.
Theseus ducked. He swung the Falling Star, putting all his strength into a swift, instinctive thrust. The mighty fist slipped past his shoulder. And the steel nicked the mighty beam of the giant’s forearm.
Theseus leaped back. “You—” he whispered. “Talos!”
His prompt defense had been all automatic. Now belated terror toppled upon him like a falling wall. Cold sweat covered him, and his quivering hand loosened on the Falling Star.
Talos crouched lower, uttering a tremendous brazen cry of pain and rage. It was like the bellow of some monstrous beast. Slow drops of liquid flame dripped from the slashed waist. They spattered into little blazing pools on the stone floor.
“Well, Captain Firebrand!” The sudden laughter of Talos was deafening thunder in the long hall, and his yellow-flaming eyes were brighter than the torch. “If you could see the look o
n your face!”
Both gleaming fists balled, he stalked upon Theseus.
“Talos, you see, was no fool, after all!” boomed that terrible voice. “For he was also the little Babylonian cobbler, who was always aiding you, Captain—to reach this moment of your destined death.”
The numbed brain of Theseus was groping back. The fearful little wizard, he realized, had always contrived to slip away just before Talos appeared.
The giant laughed again. “Snish came to aid you,” rolled the voice of Talos, “because it was written in the screed of time that a red-haired Greek should win in the games, and vanquish the Dark One, and slay Minos—and written also that then the wizardry of Knossos should prevail again!”
Talos crouched lower.
“With the aid of Snish, all the destined events took place with the minimum of harm. When they had taken place, we had hoped for you to leave Crete, with the daughter of Minos—who offered to give herself up to you, for her father’s sake. But you refused to go, and now your time has come to die!”
He brandished a mighty metal fist, and a drop of flame from his bleeding arm splashed the thigh of Theseus. He flinched, and the brass giant laughed again.
“Now, do you think that Talos was the fool?” The great voice rolled and reverberated among the massive black columns. “Or were you? Snish guided you past the wooden wall, and past the wall of brass. But, mortal, there is still the wall of wizardry. While it stands, Knossos cannot fall. Think of that—and die!” Bellowing like a brazen bull, Talos lumbered forward.
Theseus still shuddered from the shock of fear. The treachery of Snish had not completely surprised him, for he had clung to a resolve to trust no wizard. Yet it seemed to him now that he had let himself be guided to the door of final defeat.
He had accomplished nothing real. All his seeming victories had been no more than the moves of a toy man, in a game of the gods of Knossos. He was certain now, that the old woman had not been Minos. Talos, he thought, would surely kill him now. And the reign of wizardry would continue, as if he had never striven to end it.
Theseus leaped aside from the ponderous rush of Talos, and his eyes flashed down at the little black seal cylinder, hung by the thin silver chain at his throat. If Ariadne had promised him that wizardry could not prevail against the holder of the talisman, she had warned him, too, not to trust its efficacy.
Talos saw his glance, paused to laugh and roar a mocking question: “Mortal, was Talos the fool?”
No, Theseus thought, he himself had been, for Ariadne was a goddess of Crete. Her kisses must have been just one more move in the game. So must have been her gift of the black seal cylinder—and her lie that it was the wall of wizardry. Even her action in giving him the Falling Star when he went into the Labyrinth, he saw now, had only served to bring him here, face to face with Talos and death.
Ariadne, he bitterly perceived, had proved herself false. Mistress of wizardry herself, she had surely known that Snish was also Talos—yet had let him follow the little magician here, unwarned. Anyhow, Theseus told himself, woman or witch, her kisses had been sweet!
Talos rushed again, and Theseus struck with the Falling Star. The steel blade slashed a mighty fist; drops of liquid fire oozed from bright metal. The furious bellow of Talos shook the columns and dislodged a shower of plaster fragments. He charged again.
Again Theseus leaped aside, beneath the flashing sword. The great fist just grazed his shoulder. But still the force of it staggered him, its heat blistered his skin. He stumbled back, wiping sweat out of his eyes.
The battle, he saw, could have only one ending.
His thrusts were merely painful. They inspired a certain brief caution in Talos, and won him a few more breaths of life. But he could hope to inflict no mortal wound. Already he was tiring, staggering. And mounting rage was swiftly overwhelming the brass man’s caution.
Once his eyes flicked about, in desperate hope of aid or escape. But there was small possibility that his men could find him here—or aid him if they did. And Talos, huge yellow eyes blazing cunningly, kept between him and the entrance. He was helplessly trapped.
Theseus tried to side-step the next flailing blow. But, drugged with weariness and dread, he moved too slowly. The searing edge of the tremendous fist just touched his temple—and sent him spinning, to fall against the base of a square black column.
Red pain obscured his vision. His breath was gone. Struggling to drag himself upright, he found that the Falling Star was lost. He blinked his dimming eyes and saw the great foot of Talos come down upon the sword.
Hot brass hands reached down for the body of Theseus. He looked into the flaming eyes beyond them, and saw fearful, unexpected depths of rage and hate, and knew that those hands would twist his body like a rag, wringing out viscera and blood. But still he couldn’t rise.
“Captain Firebrand!”
His ringing ears heard that urgent golden voice, and his clearing eyes saw Ariadne. She stood at the black hall’s entrance, behind the brazen giant. The torch she carried flamed red against her hair, and green in her eyes, and white on her heaving breast.
“Captain—I lied to you!” Agony choked her. “Break the wall of wizardry!”
The bellow of Talos was raucously deafening. Frightful rage twisted the metal face, and hate flamed hideous in the yellow eyes. The giant dropped on his knees, and both gigantic fists came crushing down.
Theseus knew that he must obey Ariadne—if he had time! He snatched the little black cylinder, snapped the silver chain. Frantically his eyes searched for anything he could use for a hammer, to shatter it. But Talos knelt upon the sword, and there was nothing he could reach.
“Break it!” Ariadne was sobbing. “Do not fear for me. I have saved the secrets of my own essential science. Break it—now!”
Desperately, Theseus twisted at the talisman with his fingers. The hard black stone abruptly crumbled, as if turned to friable clay. It crushed into dust.
Talos stiffened, the great fists suspended.
Theseus heard a tremendous rumbling—like the bellow of some unimaginably monstrous bull, he thought, lost in some ultimate cavern. The floor pitched sharply.
“My daughter—” The great voice of Talos quavered queerly, a dying gong. “Why—”
The brass giant was tossed back across the heaving floor. Staggering, he struck a great square column. It buckled. Huge black stones came toppling down. The squared capital, which must have weighed many tons, caught Talos on the shoulders.
Theseus seized his torch and the Falling Star. He came swaying to his feet. The floor still bucked like a deck in a storm. Dust choked him. Walls were crashing everywhere, and that tortured bull still bellowed underground.
Gripping the sword, he lunged toward the brass man. But Talos, pinned beneath the fallen capital, was already dead—and changing!
The head protruding from below that immense black stone had become human again. But it was not the head of Snish. The face was round and pink and dimpled, crowned with fine white hair. The small blue eyes, even as they glazed, seemed to twinkle against the torchlight in a ghastly mockery of merriment.
“Minos!”
Theseus stumbled back, the torch trembling in his cold hands.
“Then what—what was the other? That old, old woman?”
Ariadne came slowly through the raining debris to his side. Though her cool green eyes were dry, she shook with stifled sobs. Quivering, she clung to him. As the bellowing in the earth sank away, he could hear her stricken voice.
“She was my mother. This—this was my father.”
Theseus kissed her dusty forehead, and turned her away, and led her through the hail of plaster and broken stone out into the long central court. A lurid yellow pillar stood roaring in the night above shattered Knossos, for the long west wing was already burning.
Shuddering suddenly, Ariadne clung to Theseus.
“What’s happening?” he whispered. “What caused all this?”
“The wall of wizardry was a strong spell.” She paused to sob, but then her voice was queerly calm. “It had guarded Knossos and my father from all harm, for many hundred years. It had been a dam against the stream of time. It had stopped needful change. Strains had grown against it, in the facts of history and in the very rocks beneath. The suspended laws of chance were waiting for revenge. When you broke the dam, you loosed the force of pent-up centuries—against my father’s throne!”
He peered at her, puzzled.
“Against yourself, too?”
“What do you think?” Her warm arms clung to him. Winking away her tears, she lifted her face. Beneath the blaze of burning Knossos, she remained white and young and lovely.
He shook his head uncertainly.
“Don’t you like my new sort of science?” Beneath the dying bellow of the earth and the roaring storm of flame, her low laugh was melodious and faintly mocking. “You see, I have learned to apply the laws of nature in a slightly different way. My true science shall prevail, where all the old magic has failed.”
Hesitant, he almost pushed her away.
“But I did it all for you, Captain Firebrand.” Her golden voice sank huskily. “I had learned the new science from old Daedalus, who dabbled in both kinds, but I broke the wall of wizardry for you. I should do it again. Because you have taught me that human truth is more splendid—more powerful—than all the tricks and illusions of magic. I renounce the power of wizardry—or almost all of it—for you.”
Her serpent girdle was under the hand of Theseus. He felt it abruptly stiffen. Looking down, he saw that the malefic glitter had gone from the ruby eyes. He caught the dead metal, straightened it, drew it away from her waist. Laying aside the Falling Star, he pulled her hard against him.
She kissed him bewitchingly.
If you've enjoyed this book and would like to read more great SF, you'll find literally thousands of classic Science Fiction & Fantasy titles through the SF Gateway.
The Reign of Wizardry Page 16