Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

That night Erissa came.

* * *

He was dreaming. He wanted to build a blastproof fall-out shelter because World War Three was now unavoidable and Atlantis was a prime target area but Pamela said they couldn’t afford it because Mark’s teeth needed straightening and besides where would they find room for those bulls which bellowed and tried to gore her whose face he couldn’t see and she sprang between their horns which were iron and clanged fie sat up. Blackness filled his eyes. He thought: Burglars! and groped for the light switch. The scuffling in the corridor ended with a thud. He was in the temple of the Triune Goddess and his destiny was being played out.

“Duncan,” ran the whisper. “Duncan. where arc you?”

He swung his feet to the cold floor and groped his way forward, barking his ankle on a stool. “Here,” he called hoarsely. These rooms had regular doors. When he opened his, he saw a lamp in the hand of Erissa.

She sped down the hallway. The flame was nearly blown out by her haste. But when she reached him, she could only stop and say, “Duncan,” and slowly raise fingers to his cheek. They trembled. She wore a stained tunic and a knife. Her hair was in the dancer’s ponytail; the white streak and its new neighbors leaped forth against surrounding shadows. He saw that she had grown thin. Her countenance was weatherbeaten and there were more lines than erstwhile in the brow and around the eyes.

He also began to shake. Dizziness passed through him. She laid her free arm around his neck and pulled his head down to her bosom. It was warm and, beneath the rank sweat of strife, smelled like the maiden’s.

“Dress.” she said urgently. “We must be gone before somebody comes.”

Releasing him, she half turned and half shrieked. Through the murk Reid made out Uldin, squatting above the sprawled form of Velas. Blood matted the Atlantean’s locks. He had been struck on the temple by the pommel of the Hun’s saber. Uldin had a knee under Velas’ neck and the edge to his throat.

“No!” Even then, Erissa remembered to set down the lamp. The same motion sent her wheeling full around and plunging up the hall. She kicked. Her heel caught Uldin’s jaw. He went on his back. Snarling, he bounced to a crouch. “No!” Erissa said as if she were about to vomit. “We’ll bind him, gag him, hide him in a room. But murder? Bad enough bringing weapons to Her isle.”

Uldin came erect. For an instant neither moved. Reid stiffened his knees and sidled toward them, wondering if he could get in under that blade. The Hun lowered it. “We ... swore ... an oath,” he said thickly.

Erissa’s own stance, of one ready to sidestep horns, eased a trifle. “I had to stop you,” she said. “I told you no needless killing. If nothing else, mightn’t the traces of it bring alarm too soon? Cut strips from his loincloth and secure him. Duncan, can you find your garments without a lamp?”

Reid nodded. Light would drift through his open door. Uldin spat on the fallen man. “Very well,” the Hun said. “But remember, Erissa, you’re not my chief. I swore only to stand by you.” He fleered at them both. “And, yes, now you have your Duncan, I no longer play stallion to your mare.”

She gasped. Reid went quickly back to his chamber. Fumbling in the half-illumination, he put on one of the Cretan outfits, boots, puttees, kilt, and cap given him here. Over it he threw his Achaean tunic and cloak.

Erissa entered. He could barely see how her head drooped. “Duncan,” she whispered, “I had to come. By whatever way.”

“Of course.” They stole a kiss. Meanwhile he thought: I’ll see her young self.

Uldin was dragging the unconscious guard into a room when they emerged. Reid stopped in midstride. “Hurry,” Erissa said.

“Could we take him along?” Reid asked. The other two stared. “I mean,” he faltered, “he’s a good man and ... has a small daughter.... No, I suppose not.”

They went out as the rescuers had come, by a side door giving on a wide staircase. Sphinxes flanked it, white under that low moon which frosted the descending garden terraces and the distant heights. In between, the bay was bridged by light that passed near the mountain’s foot. The Great Bear stood in the north, and Polaris, but that was not the lodestar in this age. The air was warm and unmoving, filled by scents of new growth and chirring of crickets.

Reid could guess how entry was forced. The temple’s men had never looked for attack. At night they posted one of their number in the corridor in sight of Reid’s quarters. Should trouble arise, he could wrestle with the prisoner till his shouts fetched reinforcement from the inner building. Erissa simply opened this unbarred door, peeked through and called him to her. She knew the layout, the procedure, and the words to disarm suspicion. When Velas got close, Uldin rushed from behind her.

She blew out the lamp. which had obviously been burning in the hall. (Velas would have carried it with him. She’d doubtless snatched it before it dropped from his grasp to the floor and shattered. How many would have had the thought or the quickness?) “Follow,” she said. He expected her to take his hand, but she merely led the way. Uldin pushed Reid, after her and took the rearguard. They shuffled down half-seen paths until they reached shore: not the dock, but a small beach where a boat lay grounded.

“Shove us off, Uldin,” Erissa murmured. “Duncan, can you help me row? He catches too many crabs, makes too much noise.” So she must have brought the craft in alone, the last several hundred yards or more.

The Hun also made a clatter getting around the dismounted mast and yard, and Reid’s stomach twinged. But nobody called, nobody stirred; in holy peace, the Goddess’ isle still slept. Very faintly, oars creaked in tholes and blades dripped. “Midbay,” Erissa told Uldin, who sat silhouetted in the sternsheets as quartermaster.

When they rested, becalmed under moon and mountain on glass-dark water, Erissa said, “Duncan, this whole winter—” and moved over against him. He thought ... he had too many thoughts whirling together ... he made himself know what she had endured for his sake, and was as kind as he was able.

The embrace didn’t take long. Uldin hawked. Erissa disengaged herself. “We’d best plan,” she said unevenly.

“Uh, I-I-let’s exchange information,” stumbled out of Reid. “What’s happened?”

In short harsh sentences, she told him. At the end, she said, “We docked today. Uldin stayed in the boat. If noticed, he’d be taken for an outland slave whose foot must not touch Atlantean soil. Otherwise there could have been questions. I took ashore a tale of distress and a bracelet to trade for respectable clothes.” (Reid remembered anew that this was a world without coinage—bars of metal were the nearest thing to a standard medium of exchange, and none too commonly used—and he wondered belatedly if that was what he should have introduced.) “I witnessed the dancing.” He had seldom heard such pain in so quiet a voice. She swallowed and continued: “In the merrymaking afterward, folk mingling freely in streets and inns, I had no trouble finding out what had become of you. Or what they were told had become of you. That story about your meditating was flat—clearly a lie. Knowing you were in the temple, I knew what part it had to be and how best to get there when everyone had gone to sleep. On the water, I changed back to this garb to spare the good that will be needed later. And we fetched you.”

“I couldn’t have done the same,” he mumbled. “Instead, I’m the fool who let out the secret.” He was glad his back was to the moon while he related.

In the end, she caught his hands. “Duncan, it was defined. And how could you have known? I, I should have foreseen, should have thought to warn—to find a way for us to flee Athens before—”