And this bestrode the 1400 B.C.—give or take a few decades—that archeologists assigned to the destruction of Knossos, the fall of the Thalassocracy.
Reid thought: I cannot tell her that I found what I read interesting, but not interesting enough to make me go there or even to read further.
“What are you talking about?” Uldin barked.
“We know the island will founder,” Reid told him. “That will be the most terrible thing ever to happen in this part of the world. A mountain will burst, stones and ashes rain from heaven, the darkness spread as far as Egypt The waves that are raised will sink the Cretan fleet; and Crete has no other defenses. Earthquakes will shake its cities apart. The Achaeans will be free to enter as conquerors?’
They pondered it, there in the curious peace of the sanctuary. Wind lulled, bees buzzed. Finally Oleg, eyes almost hidden beneath contracted yellow brows, asked, “Why won’t the Achaean ships be sunk too?”
“They’re further off,” Uldin guessed—
“No,” Erissa said. “Over the years I heard accounts. Vessels were swamped, flung ashore and smashed, and coasts flooded beneath a wall of water, along the whole Peloponnesus and the west coast of Asia. Not the, Athenian fleet, though. It was at sea and suffered little. Theseus boasted to the end of his life how Poseidon had fought for him.”
Reid nodded. He knew something about tsunamis. “The water rose beneath the hulls, but bore them while it did,” he said. “A wave like that is actually quite gentle at sea. imagine the Cretans were in harbor, or near the shores they were supposed to defend. Caught on the incoming billow, they were borne to land.”
“Like being in heavy surf.” Oleg shivered beneath the sun.
“A thousand times worse,” Reid said.
“When is this to happen?” Uldin asked.
“Early next year,” Erissa told him.
“She means in the springtime,” Reid explained, since Russia would use a different calendar from hers and the Huns, perhaps, none.
“Well,” Oleg said after a silence. “Well.”
He lumbered to the woman and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry for your folk,” he said. “Can nothing be done?”
“Who can stay the demons?” Uldin responded. Erissa was staring past them all.
“The Powers have been kind to us,” the Hun continued. “Here we are on the side that’ll win.”
“No!” flared Erissa. Fists clenched, she brought her eyes back to the men; the gaze burned. “It will not be. We can warn the Minos and the Ariadne. Let Atlantis and the coastal cities on Crete be evacuated. Let the fleet stand out to sea. And ... contrive to keep the cursed Athenian ships home. Then the realm will live.”
“Who’ll believe us?” Reid breathed.
“Can what is foredoomed be changed?” Oleg asked as softly and shakenly. His fingers flew, tracing crosses.
Uldin hunched his shoulders. “Should it be?” he demanded.
“What?” Reid asked in shock.
“What’s wrong with the Achaeans winning?” Uldin said. “They’re a healthy folk. And the Powers favor them. Who but a madman would fight against that?”
“Hold on,” Oleg said, deep in his throat. “You speak what could be dangerous.”
Erissa said, unperturbed, like embodied destiny, “We must try. We will try. I know:’ To Reid: “Before long, you will know too.”
“Anyhow,” the architect added, “Atlantis holds our only chance of ever getting home.”
XI
Rain came that evening, racing before a gale. It hammered on walls, hissed down off roofs, gurgled among cobblestones. The wind hooted and rattled doors and shutters. Clay braziers within the hall could not drive out a dank chill, nor could lamps, torches, and hearthfire hold night far off. Shadows crouched on the rafters and jumped misshapen across the warriors who sat along the benches, mutedly talking, casting uneasy glances at the group around the thrones.
Aegeus huddled in a bearskin and hardly spoke. The royal word was given by Theseus, massive on his right, and Diores who stood on his left. Of those who confronted them, standing, Oleg and Uldin likewise kept silence.
Reid and Gathon had had no beforehand conference; they had barely met, when protocol demanded that the remarkable newcomers be presented to the Voice of the Minos; but the instant he trod through the door and took off his drenched cloak, the Cretan’s glance had met the American’s and they were allies.
“What business with me was too urgent to wait until morning?” Gathon inquired after the formalities.
He spoke politely but gave no deference, for he represented Aegeus’ overlord. Less than a viceroy, more than an ambassador, he observed, he reported to Knossos, he saw to it that the terms of Athenian vassalage were carried out. In looks he was purely Cretan: fine-featured, with large dark eyes, still slender in middle age. His curly black hair was banged across the forehead; two braids in front of the ears and carefully combed tresses behind fell halfway to his waist. As well as tweezers and a sickle-shaped bronze razor permitted, he was clean-shaven. More out of consideration for the weather than for mainland sensibilities, he had left the plain kilt of his people for an ankle-length pleated robe. The garment looked Egyptian; the lands of Pharaoh and Minos had long been closely tied.
Theseus leaned forward. Firelight played across his sinewy countenance and in the carnivore eyes. “Our guests wished to see you as soon as might be,” he stated, rough-toned. “They told us of an oracle.”
“The Goddess’ business does not wait,” Reid declared. Erissa had described the formulas and explained how haste would lend conviction. He bowed to Gathon. “Lord Voice, you have heard how we were borne from our different countries. We did not know if this was by an accident of sorcery, or the caprice of a Being, or a divine will. In the last case, Whose, and what is required of us?
“Today we went forth, looking for a secluded place where we might talk. The king’s man who guided us suggested the Grove of Periboea. There the lady Erissa made oblation according to the Keftiu rite of the Goddess she serves. Presently a sleep came upon us that lasted for hours, and a dream. Awakening, we found we had all had the same dream—yes, even our guide.”
Oleg shifted his stance, folded and unfolded his arms. He had watched Erissa plant that vision in Peneleos. Uldin sneered faintly, or was it a trick of the light wavering over his scars? A gust of rain blew down the smokehole; the hearthfire sputtered, steamed, and coughed forth gray billows.
Gathon signed himself. However, his gaze, resting on Reid, showed probing intelligence rather than the unease which alloyed Aegeus’ pain and exhaustion, Theseus’ throttled fury, Diores’ poised alertness. “Surely this is the work of a Being;” he said levelly. “What was the dream?”
“As we have told my lords here,” Reid answered, “a woman came, dressed like a high-born Keftiu lady. We did not see her face, or else we cannot recall it. In either hand she carried a snake that twined back along the arm. She said, whispering rather than speaking, so that her tone became one with the hissing of the snakes: ‘Only strangers out of strangeness have power to carry this word, that houses sundered shall be bound together and the sea shall be pierced and made fruitful by the lightning in that hour when the Bull shall wed the Owl; but woe betide if they hear not!’”
There followed a stillness within the storm. In an age when everyone believed the gods or the dead spoke prophecies to men, none were surprised that a revelation had come to these who were already charged with fate. But the meaning must be anxiously sought.
Reid and Erissa hadn’t dared be more explicit. Oracles weren’t. Diores would probably have accused them of lying if his man hadn’t backed them; and he might well be skeptical regardless.