Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

But when he told Erissa, she, was undismayed for some reason.

The fall weather continued pleasant, crisp air, sunshine picking out the gold of summer-dried grass and the hues of such leaves as had started faintly to turn. The wagon, mule-drawn, was indeed easy to ride in. The driver was a big young man named Peneleos, who addressed his passengers courteously though his glance upon them was ice-blue. Reid felt sure that, besides muscles, he had been chosen for especially keen ears and a knowledge of Keftiu.

“Where to?” he asked as they rumbled from the palace.

“A quiet spot,” Erissa said before anybody else could speak, “A place to rest alone.”

“M-m, the Grove of Periboea? We can get there about when you’ll want your midday bread. if you’re a votaress of Her, my lady, as I’ve been told, you’ll know what we should do so the nymph won’t mind.”

“Yes. Marvelous.” Erissa turned to Oleg. “Tell me about Diores’ farm. About everything! I’ve been penned. No complaint against the most gracious queen, of course. Achaean ways are not Cretan?’

She has a scheme, Reid realized. His pulse picked up.

Keeping the conversation neutral was no problem. They had a near infinity of memories to trade, from their homes as well as from here. But even had the case been different, Reid knew Erissa would have managed. She wasn’t coquettish; she drew Oleg, Uldin, and Peneleos out by asking intelligent questions and making comments that, sparked replies. (“if your ships, Oleg, are so much sturdier than ours that the ... Norsemen, did you say? ... actually cross the River Ocean—is that because you’ve harder wood, or iron for nails and braces, or what?”) Then she listened to the reply, leaning close. It was impossible to be unaware: of her sculptured features, sea-changeable eyes, lips slightly parted over white teeth, slim throat, and of how the light burnished her hair and the wind pulled her Achaean gown tight around breasts and waist.

She knows men, Reid thought. How she knows them!

The sacred grove was a stand of laurel trees surrounding a small meadow. In the center lay a huge boulder whose shape, vaguely suggestive of a yoni, must account for the demigoddess Periboea. To one side stretched an olive orchard, on the other a barley field, both harvested and deserted. In the background Mount Hymettus dreamed beneath the sun. The trees broke the wind in a lullaby rustle, the sere grass was thick and warm. Here dwelt peace.

Erissa knelt, said a prayer, divided a loaf of bread and laid a portion on the boulder for the nymph to give her birds. Rising, she said, “We are welcome. Bring our food and wine from the wagon. And Peneleos, won’t you remove that helmet and breastplate? We can see anybody coming miles away; and it’s not meet to carry weapons before a female deity”

“I beg her forgiveness,” the guardsmen said. He was less chagrined than he was glad to take off his burden and relax. They enjoyed a frugal, friendly lunch.

“Well, we were going to talk over our plans,” Uldin said afterward.

“Not yet,” Erissa answered. “I’ve had a better idea. The nymph is well disposed toward us. If we lie down and sleep awhile, she may send us a dream for guidance.”

Peneleos shifted about where he sat. “I’m not sleepy,” he said. “Besides, my duty—”

“Of course. Yet you also have a duty to learn for your king what you can of these strange matters. True?”

“M-m-m yes.”

“It may be that she will favor you above us, this being your country and not ours. Surely she’ll be pleased if you show her the respect of inviting her counsel. Come:’ Erissa took his hand. He rose to her gentle tugging. “Over here. On the sunlit side of the rock. Sit down, lean back, feel her warmth. And now—” She drew from her bosom a small bronze mirror. “Now look into this token of the Goddess, Who is the Mother of nymphs."

She knelt before him. He stared bemusedly at her and the shining disk and back. “No,” she murmured. “The mirror only, Peneleos, wherein you will see that which She wills.” She turned it slowly.

Good Lord! thought Reid. He drew Oleg and Uldin away, behind the big stone.

“What’s she doing?” the Russian inquired uneasily. “Hsh: Reid whispered. “Sit. Be quiet. This is a holy thing.”

“A heathen thing, I fear.” Oleg crossed himself. But he and the Hun obeyed.

Sunlight poured through murmurous leaves. The sweet smell of dried grass lifted like smoke to meet it. Bees hummed among briar roses. Erissa crooned.

When she came around the boulder, none of her morning’s cheerfulness was left. She had laid that aside. Her look was at once grave and exalted. The white streak in her hair stood forth against its darkness like a crown.

Reid got to his feet. “You’ve done it?” he asked.

She nodded. “He will not awaken before I command. Afterward he will think he drowsed off with the rest of us and had whatever dream I will have related to him.” She gave the American a close regard. “I did not know you knew of the Sleep.”

“What witchcraft is this?” Oleg rasped.

Hypnotism, Reid named it to himself. Except that she has more skill in it than any therapist I ever heard of in my own era. Well, I suppose that’s a matter of personality.

“It is the Sleep,” Erissa said, “that I lay on the sick when it can ease their pain and on the haunted to drive their nightmares out of them. It does not always come when I wish. But Peneleos is a simple fellow and I spent the trip here putting him at ease.”

Uldin nodded. “I’ve watched shamans do what you did,” he remarked. “Have no fears, Oleg. Though I never awaited meeting a she-shaman.”

“Now let us speak,” Erissa said.

Her sternness brought home to Reid like a sword thrust that she was not really the frightened castaway, yearning exile, ardent and wistful mistress he had imagined he knew. Those were waves on a deep sea. She had indeed become a stranger to the girl who remembered him—a slave who won free, a wanderer who stayed alive among savages, a queen in the strong household she herself had brought to being, a healer, witch, priestess and prophetess.

Suddenly he had an awesome feeling that her triune Goddess had in all truth entered this place and possessed her.

“What is the doom of Atlantis?” she went on.

Reid stooped and poured himself a cup of wine to help him swallow his dread. “You don’t recall?” he mumbled.

“Not the end. The months before, yours and mine, on the holy island and in Knossos, those are unforgotten. But I will not speak of what I now know will be for you even as it was for me. That is too sacred.

“I will say this: I have questioned out what year this is, and put together such numbers as the years since the present Minos ascended his throne or since the war between Crete and Athens. From these I have reckoned that we are four-and-twenty years from that day when I am borne out of Rhodes to Egypt. You will soon depart hence, Duncan.”

Oleg’s ruddiness had paled. Uldin had retreated into stolidity.

Reid gulped the sharp red wine. He didn’t look at Erissa; his gaze took refuge on Mount Hymettus above the treetops. “What is the last you clearly remember?” he asked.

“We went to Knossos in spring, we sisters of the rite. I danced with the bulls.” Her measured, impersonal tone softened. “Afterward you came, and we—But Theseus was already there, and others I cannot remember well. Maybe I was too happy to care. Our happiness does live on within me.” Quieter yet: “It will live as long as I do, and I will take it home with me to the Goddess.”

Again she was the wise-woman in council: “We need a clearer foreknowledge than my clouded recollections of the end, or the tales about it that I gathered later, can give us. What have you to. tell?”