“How would you read this, Voice?” Theseus asked. “What do those think who were given it?” the Minoan responded.
“We believe we are commanded to go to your country,”
Reid stated. “In fact—no disrespect to our hosts—we think ourselves bound to offer what service we can to him who is their sovereign.”
“Had the gods intended that,” Theseus said, “they could better have sent a Cretan ship to Egypt for you.”
“But then the strangers would never have come to Athens,” Gathon pointed out. “And the, message does sound as if somehow they’re destined to ... bring sundered houses together.... Ill will has flourished between our countries, and the passage of time has not much bettered things. These men come from so far away that their motives are less suspect than might otherwise be the case. Hence they may be the go-betweens who make it possible that the will of the gods be done. If the Bull of Keft shall wed the Owl of Athens—if the lightning of Zeus shall make fruitful the waters of _Our Lady—that suggests an alliance. Perhaps a royal marriage between Labyrinth and Acropolis, from which a most glorious king will be born? Yes, these people must certainly go to Knossos for further talks. At once. The season’s not too advanced for a good ship and crew to take them.”
Abruptly Uldin snapped, “I think not!”
You son of a bitch, flashed through Reid.
His anger died. The Hun knew they were faking, knew they were trying to reach a land whose downfall was prophesied. He had argued bitterly in the grove that to take the losing side—a race of sailors at that!—was lunatic enough, but to add blasphemy suggested demonic possession. He had only been won over to the extent of pledging silence when Reid explained about contact with Atlantis being essential to winning home. Now his fears must have convinced him that that chance wasn’t worth the risk.
Oleg glowered at him. “Why not?”
“I—well—” Uldin straightened. “Well, I promised Diores I’d undertake certain matters. Do the gods want broken promises?”
“Do we indeed know what their will is?” Theseus put in. “The oracle could mean the very opposite of what my lord Voice suggests. A warning of disaster if, once more, an unnatural union is made.” The teeth flashed in his beard.
Gathon stiffened at the hardly veiled reference to a dirty story the Achaeans told about how the first Minotaur was begotten. “My sovereign will not be pleased if he learns that a word intended for him has been withheld like a pair of helmets?’ he said.
Impasse. Neither side wanted the other to have the cast-aways, their possibly revolutionary skills and their surely enormous mana. Nor did either want an open quarrel, yet.
Diores stepped forward. He raised his arm. A smile creased his leathery visage. “My lords,” he said. “My friends. Will you hear me?” The prince nodded. “I’m just an old skipper and horsebreeder,” Diores continued. “I don’t have your wise heads nor your deep learning. Still, sometimes a clever man stands by the steering oar trying to figure out what’s ahead of him and gets nowhere till his dolt of a shipmate swarms up the mast and takes a look. Right?”
He beamed and gestured, playing to his audience. “Well, now,” he drawled through seething rain, yammering wind, spitting flames, “what have we got here? On the one hand, we have that the gods have naught against these good folk dwelling amongst us Athenians, seeing as how nothing bad has happened because of that. Right? On the other hand, we have that the Minos is entitled to see them too—if it’s not dangerous—and we think maybe the gods gave ‘em their sailing orders today. We think.” He laid a finger alongside his nose. “Do we know? These be shoal waters, mates, and a lee shore. I say row slow and take soundings ... also for the sake of the Keftiu, Voice Gathon.”
“What do you propose?” the Cretan asked impatiently.
“Why, I’ll say it straight out, like a blunt-spoken old woodenhead does. Let’s first learn what those think who know more about the gods, and especial—like the Keftiu gods, than we do here. I mean the Ariadne and her council on Atlantis—”
Theseus sat bolt upright. His hand cracked down on his knee. The breath rushed between his lips. Reid wondered why he was thus immediately kindled to enthusiasm.
“—and I mean further that we shouldn’t risk sending the lot of ‘em, the more so when stormy season is on us. Why not just one who’ll speak for his friends, which friends I hope include everybody here tonight? And—m-m-m, wouldn’t y’ say Duncan would be best to go? I mean, he’s the wisest of ‘ern, no offense to Uldin and Oleg. Nor to lady Erissa when she hears about my remarks. Thing is, she don’t know anything the Ariadne don’t. But Duncan comes from the farthest country; he was the man who could understand what the dying wizard had to tell; he can make fire spurt in his fingers; I don’t know what all else, except that they look to him for advice about mysteries, and rightly, I’m sure. Let him go talk to the Ariadne on Atlantis. Between ‘em they’re bound to heave clear this fouled anchor we’ve got Right?”
“Right, by Ares!” Theseus exploded.
Gathon nodded thoughtfully. He could doubtless see the plan was a compromise which allowed the Athenians to keep hostages and exploit their knowledge, more useful than Reid’s. However, this was a portentous, ambiguous affair; caution was advisable; and the Ariadne did have the Keftiu in her spiritual keeping.
This is what was foreordained, Reid knew. The sense of fate took him again, as it had done beneath the moon on Kythera; but now it felt as if he were a raindrop hurled along on the night wind.
They left a lamp burning. The glow caressed Erissa like his hand. “Does it make me look young?” she whispered through tears.
Reid kissed her lips and the hollow beneath her throat. She was warm in the cold room. Her muscles moved silkily across his skin where they touched each other on the bed; the odor of her was sweet as the meadow of the nymph. “You’re beautiful,” was the single poor thing he could find to say.
“Already tomorrow—”
A day had passed in preparing for the voyage. He and she had spent it together, and the hell with what anybody thought.
“We dare not wait, this time of year.”
“I know, I know. Though you could. You can’t be wrecked, Duncan. You’ll come safe to Atlantis. You did.” She buried her face against his shoulder. He felt the wetness of it. Her hair spilled across his breast. “Am I trying to cheat that girl out of a few days? Yes. But no use, is it? Oh, how glad I am we know nothing about what happens to us after next springtime! I couldn’t bear that.”
“I believe you could bear anything, Erissa.”
She lay breathing awhile. Finally, raising herself over him and looking down, she said: “Well, it need not be utter doom. Why, we may even save my people. We may be the blade the gods use to trim back a destiny that grew crooked. Will you strive where you are, Duncan, as I’ll strive here while I wait for you?”
“Yes,” he promised, and in this hour, at least, he was honest.
Not that he believed they could rescue her world. Or if they were able to—if human will could really turn the stars in their courses—for to change what had been would be to change the universe out to its last year and light-year—he would never condemn Bitsy to having never been born. Yet might he not imaginably find a door left open in this cage of time?
Erissa fought to achieve a smile, and won. “Then let’s mourn no longer,” she said. “Love me till dawn:’ He had not known what loving could be, before her.
XII
The eeriness of the fate that waited for him could not take from Reid all his wonder at coming to lost Atlantis.
It rose from a sea which today was more green than blue, whitecaps running like the small swift clouds above. Approximately circular, a trifle over eleven miles across, the island climbed in rugged tiers from its coasts. Where cliff or crag stood bare, the stone showed blacks, dull reds, and startling pale pumice below. From the middle, the cone of the mountain loomed in naked lava and cinders. A trail could be seen winding up to the still quiescent crater. A lesser volcano thrust from the waves not far offshore.