Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

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.

“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?”