Blood of the Heroes

by Steve White

  Perseus soon recovered—he had a very hard head—and afterwards he held up under the tedium better than any of them. His background hadn’t predisposed him to expect continuous stimulation, or robbed him of the ability to wait. He could sit cross-legged for hours, armored in a kind of patience latter-day humanity was to lose. Deirdre was able to draw on his reserves of strength as she spent more and more time sitting with him, although touching hands was the most they could do in the utter absence of privacy.

  Jason and Nagel could only peer out the slit of a window for distraction. They never saw any Teloi, but there were occasional ceremonies in the cleared area Nagel had spotted on the meadows at the foot of the east slope, toward the Kairatos River. On one of those occasions, Jason’s computer implant played what he had seen back for him in enlarged form, and he saw teenaged boys and girls vaulting over a charging bull, like Arthur Evans’ restored frescoes come to life. Afterwards, the bull was sacrificed with much pomp and even more gore. He started to congratulate Nagel on the confirmation of his theory that this was the bullring, but then thought better of it. Frustration at not being able to share Jason’s close-up view was not something the historian needed at this juncture.

  The end of their incarceration, when it came, was disorientingly sudden. With no more warning than a muffled sound of tramping feet in the passageway, the bronze-studded doors were flung open to admit a file of guards. They were herded into the corridor and marched back the way they had come, to the Grand Staircase and up two flights. They emerged into the central courtyard, where more guards were drawn up in the midafternoon sun, flanking an array of priestesses. Beyond them was the three-storied west façade, on whose upper loggias Jason spotted the deep-blue robe and golden headdress of the Minos. He seemed to be overseeing the proceedings, but from a distance. The prisoners were still under the jurisdiction of the chief priestess, who stepped forward and addressed them in a voice whose formality almost overlay its vindictiveness.

  “We have word from the gods,” she began, suggesting to Jason that the gods were physically elsewhere—on Kalliste or in their private dimension, he had no way of knowing which. “The ritual may begin anew—but under the sky, at the place of sacrifice. We are also permitted to punish any interruptions.” This last was accompanied by a glare at Perseus. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Deirdre lay a restraining hand on the Hero’s arm. He also saw the priestess who had stood beside the table in the Hall of the Double Axe. A slave accompanied her, bearing a kind of tray over which was draped a cloth, presumably concealing the cutlery.

  The guards formed up, boxing the prisoners in, and the procession wound its way through a narrow roofless passageway and through what Nagel muttered was the “North Entrance.” After a brief observance by the chief priestess at a sunken lustral basin to the left, they turned right and made their way around the palace and along a pathway leading down the eastern slopes to the bullring.

  The chief priestess evidently wished to expedite things, for the bull-vaulters were already performing. Even at this moment, Jason could only stare wonderingly at their athleticism and courage. One after another, they grabbed the horns of the charging bull, somersaulted onto its back as it tossed its head, then did a backwards somersault over its hindquarters, to be caught by the preceding boy or girl—it wasn’t always easy to tell which was which, despite the fact that they all wore a girdle and nothing else, for they were so young, and had approximately one percent body fat overlaying their wiry muscularity. Completely impossible to determine was the sex of the one who was being dragged off the ring, leaving a trail of blood from the hideous wound the goring horn had left. Jason was glad he’d missed that.

  The only unexpected thing was the sheer number of bull-vaulters. The frescoes had shown only one team in action. Here, they were operating in relays, for the object was to wear the bull down in a ritually acceptable way. This one was lathered, and visibly slowing. Soon he could move no more, and the priestesses’ male assistants moved forward to take him in hand. They led him, panting and heaving, to where another priest waited with the bronze original of the symbolic double axe.

  A small part of Jason appreciated the irony of the sympathy he found himself feeling for the magnificent beast, when he ought to be saving all his sympathy for himself.

  The chief priestess stepped forward and intoned a litany in the old tongue. The priest raised his axe—

  Something caught Jason’s eye, rolling across the ground and bouncing to a halt only a few yards away. The chief priestess noticed it too. Her fury at the impious interruption seemed tempered by puzzlement at what the bumpy, pineapple-sized plastic sphere was.

  Jason, however, was fairly sure he knew. It wasn’t the same as the twenty-fourth century riot-suppression models he was used to, but— ” Close your eyes! ” he yelled, and, before the guards could react, spread his arms wide and shoved all three of his companions away from the odd little object.

  Even through eyelids squeezed tightly shut, he was dazzled by the rapid, stroboscopic flashing of super-intense light. A pandemonium of screaming arose from those who had been blinded, those who had gone into seizures, and those who were merely in the grip of panic, almost as loud as the high-pitched bellowing of the bull.

  After ten seconds, the horrible flashing ceased. Jason opened his eyes and looked around. They were alone, for everyone else was either fleeing, or thrashing about in the throes of symptoms not unlike those of epilepsy, or crawling about sightless. The chief priestess, who had been looking directly at the grenade, was one of the latter. Jason had no liking for her, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel any satisfaction at her wails of despair as she clawed at the eyes she believed (inaccurately, she would later find) to be permanently blinded. He did feel satisfaction as he saw that the bull had broken free and was thundering away through the already panicked humans.

  He was still watching when all at once the universe turned to blurry shades of gray, and the noise ceased.

  “I was hoping you would recognize the weapon for what it was,” Oannes said quietly.

  Jason turned. The Nagom was removing a pair of goggles. He wore a bulky device strapped to his back.

  “One of the ‘area-effect’ versions you mentioned before?” Jason queried, indicating the backpack.

  “With a radius that can envelop all of us if we stay close together,” Oannes affirmed. “And incorporating a sonic privacy field, so that we are inaudible as well as invisible. But further explanations must wait.” The Nagom switched from Teloi to Achaean so that Deirdre and Perseus could understand. “Come quickly. There is a cave down by the river where we can hide. And I don’t think anyone will be venturing in this direction before tomorrow.”

  Jason gestured to the others. Deirdre and Nagel were blinking away the constellations of novas still exploding before their eyes, but at least they weren’t blinded. Neither was Perseus, who seemed able to function in the face of one more manifestation of the supernatural. They formed a tight group and hurried down the slopes, carefully avoiding the convulsing or moaning figures that littered the ground.

  As was the case with all the rivers of Crete, “river” was too strong a word for the Kairatos. In summer it was little more than a trickle, and even now it was best described as a stream. Likewise, Oannes’ use of the word “cave” gave too much credit to the overhanging rock outcropping to which he led them. There he eased his backpack to the ground and touched its controls. The world came back into focus.

  “I must conserve the energy source,” he explained. “And I have warning devices out, in case of any intruders.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Jason sighed. “And thanks are certainly in order. But about those ‘further explanations’ …”

  “Ah, yes. As you will have gathered, I made good my escape through the portal at Amnisos. I immediately set out for Kalliste—”

  “Across almost seventy miles of open sea?” Deirdre interrupted.

  “Remember, my species is full
y amphibious. And I carry food concentrates which keep the body going … without, unfortunately, appeasing the pangs of hunger. By great exertions, I was able to make the crossing in three days, even though”—a touch of vanity—“I’m not as young as I once was. There, I went to the cache I mentioned. It held, among other things, another undersea craft like the one we lost off Cape Taenarum. I returned here in only an hour or so, concealed the craft on the coast not far from Amnisos, and made my way here, where I have been awaiting an opportunity to free you.”

  Deirdre had obviously stopped listening after hearing where the Nagom had been. She spoke with tightly controlled urgency. “Oannes, when you were on Kalliste, what was happening there?”

  ” ‘Happening’ ? Well, I had neither the opportunity nor the time for observations. But my impression was that most of the ‘Old Gods’ are not currently present there. Presumably they are in—”

  “No, no, no! I mean volcanic activity.”

  “Ah, yes. The smoke rising from the island made it quite easy for me to find! As I understand, that smoke has been endemic since an eruption some months ago, and there have been occasional rumblings. Considerable damage was done at the time, but the people returned and cleaned up. The inhabitants of this part of the planet tend to be somewhat fatalistic about that sort of thing.”

  Deirdre was no longer listening to him. “The preliminary eruption … yes. And several months ago …” She looked up, and her eyes were haunted. No words were needed.

  She knows, Jason thought. It’s going to happen any time now—one of the most destructive natural events in the lifetime of the human race.

  Nagel hadn’t spoken in some time. He wore a look of intense thought. Now, abruptly, he spoke up in the Teloi tongue. “Oannes … what would happen if the idol concealing the portal device was destroyed?”

  Oannes’ nictitating membranes fluttered with surprise, as though he’d never thought of that. “Destroyed? Well, it is of course the only one they have. Extremely restricted access is, after all, the whole point to their private pocket universe. If it were destroyed, that pocket universe would be inaccessible until such time as a new device was constructed. That last is a purely theoretical qualifier, you understand, as the technology to construct such a device does not exist on this world.”

  “And if the Teloi were inside the pocket universe at the time?”

  “Well … they would, I suppose, be trapped there permanently. But this entire line of thought is purely academic. The device is extremely durable, for obvious reasons. And don’t forget the self-repairing capability that has enabled the Teloi equipment to last all these millennia. Any damage that could be done with the tools of the local human culture would be only temporary. Nothing would serve short of total obliteration by some truly cataclysmic force!”

  Nagel turned to Jason. They stared at each other.

  “Sidney,” Jason finally said, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  In the ensuing silence, everyone but Jason and Nagel looked bewildered—Deirdre and Perseus more so than Oannes, because the Teloi language was gibberish to them.

  “Perseus,” said Jason in Achaean, “there is something you must know. The lady Deianeira has a limited gift of foreseeing the future.”

  That which no one of Jason’s era could know awoke behind the Hero’s eyes as he stared at Deirdre. “An … an oracle?” he stammered.

  “No. It is only intermittently and unexpectedly that a god comes to her. But she has received a warning of an overwhelming punishment that the Fates hold in store for Keftiu, and for the Old Gods who are worshipped there.” Jason turned to Deirdre, who was quite clearly wondering what he was up to. “Tell Oannes and Perseus what you have told us about what is going to happen to the island of Kalliste.”

  Deirdre was now frankly confused at the sudden reversal of every cautionary thing she’d ever heard from Jason about sharing information with non-time travelers. But she played along gamely, and proceeded to relate the tale she had told him one evening on a restaurant terrace overlooking the Santorini caldera … but in the future tense, and within the limitations of Achaean.

  By the time she was finished, the sun was setting. Jason watched Oannes’ face in the shadows—the alien face he flattered himself he’d learned to read. What he read there now was an amused realization of the kind of “magic” by which Deirdre knew what was going to come to pass … and an understanding of what Jason and Nagel had in mind.

  But it was Perseus who broke the silence. “Poseidon Earthshaker must have brought this vision to you, Deianeira. Only he could alter the world in the way you have foreseen—and even he would need the help of Hephaestus, god of volcanoes. A whole island … !”

  “Yes!” Jason plunged into the opening. “It can only be Poseidon. And he is one of the New Gods: brother to your father Zeus.” Perseus nodded, to Jason’s relief; he’d been hoping the relationship was recognized in this era as it would be in later Classical times. “Well, then, this surely is a … uh, sign that the Fates have completed the doom of the Old Gods. And,” he pressed on, inventing freely and ignoring Deirdre’s dropped jaw, “Deianeira has received a further vision that we ourselves are to be the instruments of their downfall. We must steal their idol from this place and take it to Kalliste, so that it may be consumed in the fires Deianeira has foretold!” He hoped this wasn’t starting to sound more like Tolkien than Homer. Perseus’ look of openmouthed awe encouraged him.

  “Yes,” Oannes intoned for Perseus’ benefit. “I, too, see the Fates in this. I know of a … grotto on Kalliste where we can conceal the idol.” He and Jason shared a surreptitious eye contact of shared understanding.

  “Thank you, Oannes,” said Perseus simply. “We will need all the help we can get.”

  “You certainly will,” said Zeus.

  Well, so much for Oannes’ “warning devices,” flashed through Jason’s mind as they all whirled to stare at the eight-foot-tall figure standing beside the stream in the twilight. The Teloi must have countermeasures.

  With a motion almost too swift to be seen, Oannes snatched what looked like a small weapon from his utility harness. At the same instant, Zeus leveled a “head of the Hydra” at him. Neither fired. They stood locked in a standoff and stared silently at each other over their weapons, these enemies in an ages-long war of extermination that had burned its genocidal way across the stars. None of the humans dared move.

  The tension was like a drawn wire at its snapping point when Perseus finally spoke. “Father, I have asked for your help. I ask it again now. The sea god Oannes has already agreed to aid us.”

  Amusement lifted the corners of the Teloi’s wide mouth, although his weapon hand didn’t waver by a millimeter. ” ‘Sea god,’ is it?” he said in his own language. “I can think of other terms for the Nagommo!”

  “And yet,” Jason ventured, “you didn’t betray him when you had the chance.”

  “No,” the Teloi admitted, without letting his eyes leave the Nagom’s. “Any secret one possesses—including that of his presence—is a potential weapon. As such, I cannot afford to throw it away. Not at the present time.”

  “And I know why,” said Oannes. “These humans don’t understand the game you are playing. But I do … and I understand its urgency.”

  “Quiet, Nagom!” hissed the Teloi.

  Oannes ignored him and addressed Jason. “Remember when we spoke of the two generations of Teloi on this world? I told you that obscure environmental factors prevented the second generation, such as this one, from having children. I did not mention at the time that there are other effects as well. In particular—”

  “I said—!”

  “If you were going to risk trying to shoot me,” Oannes said serenely to his ancestral enemy, “you would already have done so.” He turned back to Jason. “As I was saying, the Earth-born generation’s lifespan is drastically curtailed. It is still long on my standards, and extremely long on yours. But
they cannot expect to outlive their elders.”

  Zeus’ expression made Jason wonder if Oannes’ confidence in his self-restraint was misplaced. But then his face cleared with an abruptness beyond the normal capacity of humans.

  “Very well,” he said evenly. “There is no point in denying it. My contemporaries and I have little to look forward to. And we have … certain resentments. So much so that I am even willing to act in concert with a Nagom.” He turned to the obviously stunned Oannes. “I will now put away my weapon if you are prepared to do the same.”

  For a moment, the two pairs of alien eyes remained locked. Then, slowly, the two weapons lowered. Jason knew he would never fully appreciate what that gesture must have cost Oannes and Zeus. He did know, without being told, that he was witnessing a moment unique in history.

  Zeus turned to Perseus and spoke in Achaean. “Perseus, I have heard your appeal for help. And you are right: the day of Cronus and Rhea and the rest of the Old Gods is over. I and my brothers and sisters—Poseidon and Hera and Ares and the rest—will not allow them to vent their senile envy on you.”

  This is getting deeper, thought Jason cynically. But then he saw the look Zeus was giving Perseus, and wondered. Hmm … Could it be that there’s more to this than just a Teloi power play? And could it be that the parental instinct wasn’t edited out of their genetic code quite so thoroughly after all? Do they need a substitute?

  Perseus met the Teloi’s strange eyes. “Father, I swore to establish your worship. I will keep my word, if you will take me to Mycenae.”

  “Mycenae?” Nagel echoed.

  “Yes! Deianeira has told us what will ensue from Poseidon’s destruction of Kalliste: earthquakes, tidal waves like mountains, darkness overspreading the daytime sky! If even half of it comes to pass, Keftiu will be prostrate. A small band of raiders who know in advance what is going to happen, appearing in the wake of the gods’ anger, will be able to seize Knossos, kill the Minos, and take control. There will be a new order among men, to match the new order among the immortals, with you, Father, recognized as the ruler of the heavens!”