Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

Reid studied her as carefully as he dared. Lydra was in her later thirties, he’d been told: tall, stiffly erect, slender on the verge of gauntness. Her face, likewise lean, bore blue-gray eyes, arching nose, severely held mouth, strong chin. The brown hair had started to fade, the breasts to sag, though she kept part of the bull-dancer physique from her youth. She wore the full farthingale, the high brimless hat, the golden snake bracelets seen upon images of Rhea. A blue cloak was thrown over her shoulders. Reid felt like a barbarian in his Achaean tunic and beard.

Or was his unease because he distrusted her? He’d found a chance to tell Erissa: “A story persisted to my day that ... an Ariadne ... helped Theseus slay the Minotaur. What could be the truth behind it?”

Erissa had shrugged. “I heard—will hear—rumors that he and she were in conspiracy. But the only clear fact is that after the disaster she joined him in conducting sacrifice and later she departed in his ship. Well, what choice had she? He needed her to cast some thin legitimacy over his conquest of Knossos, and had the strength to compel her. She never reached Athens. He left her and her attendants on the island of Naxos. There, despairing, they gave up the pure faith and turned to a mystery cult. If anything, does such treatment not show that no bargain existed, that she was—is, will be—innocent?”

“But, well, I hear Theseus has been on Atlantis more than once, and messages often travel back and forth.”

Erissa had uttered a sad small laugh. “Why should he not cultivate the spiritual head of the Thalassocracy? She did have a Kalydonian grandfather. But fear not her ever serving in earnest a worldly cause. Her maidenhead was scarcely fledged when she had a revelation in the cave of Mount Iouktas. Since, she’s always called herself a bride of Asterion. After her bull-dancing days, she took the vows of a priestess—among them celibacy, remember—and served so devotedly that she was elated to regnancy over the Temple at the lowest age on record. I well recall her austerities. her strict enforcement of every observance, her lectures to us lay sisters about our vanities, levities, and laxities.” Seriously: “What you must do is convince her you are an agent of good, not evil; and that may not be easy, Duncan, darling.”

Right, he now thought, gazing into the implacable countenance.

“These are grave matters, touching on secrets that the gods withhold from mortals,” Lydra said. “And I do not mean things like your fire-spouter, or the iron and the horse riding that Diores spoke of. Those are simple human works. The moon-disk you bear on your arm, however—”

He had demonstrated his wristwatch yesterday and noticed how awed the attendant votaresses were. Though folk used sun and stars to mark off units as small as hours, these blades which busily scissored away each successive instant were too reminding of Dictynna the Gatherer.

He saw an opportunity. “Besides a timepiece, my lady, it’s an amulet which confers certain prophetic powers. I’d planned on giving it to the Minos, but maybe the proper repository is here.” He took it off and laid it in her hand, which closed almost convulsively around it. “The oracle did not come to us outlanders by chance. I can foresee terrible dangers. My mission is to warn your people. I dared not tell the Athenians.”

Lydra set the watch down and touched the Labrys talisman to her lips. “What do you mean?” she asked tonelessly.

Here we go, Reid thought, and wondered if he was about to destroy the world he had come from, like summer sunlight scorching a morning mist off the earth; or if he was only fluttering his wings in the cage of time.

Neither, I hope, I pray my agnostic prayer, he thought amidst the knockings of his heart. I hope to gain the influence I must have in order to do ... whatever is needful to, find those travelers from the future when they come, and thus win home to my wife and children. In exchange, can I not salvage a little of Erissa’s world for her? Or at least get her back to the one she salvaged for herself?

It is my duty. I suppose it is also my desire,

“My lady,” he said solemnly, out of a dry mouth, “I have been shown visions of horror, visions of doom. I have been shown Pillar Mountain bursting asunder in such fury that Atlantisi sinks beneath the sea, tidal waves overwhelm the fleet and earthquakes the cities of Crete, and the royal island falls prey to men who set chaos free to roam.”

He might have gone on to what he remembered from books not yet written: A sleazy reconstruction under the new rulers, who must surely be Achaeans and who had no wish to keep the peace either at sea or on land. The Homeric era to follow; would splendid lines of poetry really repay lifetimes of disintegration, war, piracy, banditry, rape, slaughter, burning, poverty, and glutted slave markets? Finally, that invasion from the north which Theseus himself was troubled about: wild Dorians bearing iron weapons, bringing the Bronze Age down in ruin so total that scarcely a legend would remain of the dark centuries which came after.

Lydra, who had sat still a while, spoke. “When is this to happen?”

“Early next year, my lady. If preparations can be made—”

“Wait. A fumbling attempt at rescue could be the very cause of disaster. The gods have been known to work deviously when they would destroy?’

“My lady, I speak only of evacuating the Atlanteans to Crete and everyone there inland from the coastal towns ... safeguarding the fleet—”

The pale eyes held most steady upon him. “You could have been misled,” she told him slowly, “whether by a hostile Being or an evil-seeking witch or a mere fever. You could even be lying for some purpose of your own.”

“You must have had a full report on me from Diores, my lady.”

“Not full enough, obviously.” Lydra raised a hand. “Hold. I make no accusation against you. Indeed, what I have heard, what I see in your expression, makes me think you’re likely honest—as far as you go—but you do not go very far, do you, strange one? No, something this drastic requires askings out, purifications, prayers, visits to oracles, takings of counsel, the deepest search and pondering that mortals can make. I will not be hastened. According to your own word, we have months before us wherein to seek the wisest course of action.”

Decisive as any man he had known, she finished: “You will stay on this isle, where sacredness holds bane at bay and where you can readily be summoned for further talks.

There are ample guest quarters in the wing reserved for visiting male—votaries.”

“But my lady,” he protested, “my friends in Athens—”

“Let them bide where they are, at least until we’ve learned more. Be not afraid for them. Winter months or no, I’ll find occasions to send messengers there, who’ll observe and report.”

The Ariadne imitated a smile. “You are not a prisoner, man from afar,” she continued. “You may walk freely about the main island too, when not needed here. I do want you always under guidance.... Let me think.... A dancer should suffice, a lay sister, young and merry to brighten your moods.”

Reid thought it odd how calmly she took his news. Had Diores ferreted out sufficient hints to give her forewarning, or was, she inhumanly self-controlled? Her voice snapped the thread of his wondering:

“I have in mind particularly a sister of excellent family whose name may be an omen. For it’s the same as that of your woman companion I was told about. Erissa.”

The bull lowered his head, pawed, and charged. As he ‘ came down the paddock he gathered speed, until earth shook and drummed with the red-and-white mass of him.