Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

“Rein in,” Uldin said. “What’ll we do now?”

“Go on to Crete,” Erissa replied. “I can find my parents’ house, where I ... will be dwelling. And my father had ... has the ear of a palace councilor or two.”

Cold moved down from Reid’s scalp along his backbone and out to his fingertips. “No, wait,” he said.

The idea had burst upon him. “We’d take days to cross the channel in this boat, and we’d arrive beggarly,” he explained. “But yonder’s the new warship. And the crew. I know where every member lives. They’ve no reason not to trust me. That ship will speak for us, and, and maybe it’ll fight for Keft—Fast!” His oar smacked into the lagoon.

Erissa’s followed. She matched him stroke for stroke. Presently his arms ached and his wind grew short. “How shall they leave without the temple stopping them?” she asked.

We must be seaborne before the temple suspects any-thing,” Reid panted. “Let me think.” After a minute: “Yes. One lad can carry word to two more, who each tell two more, and so on. They’ll obey, at least to the extent of meeting at the wharf. And the first I have in mind will follow us anywhere we say, over world-edge if need be. Dagonas—”

He stopped. Erissa had missed a stroke.

She resumed in a moment. “Dagonas,” she said, and that was all.

“How’ll we proceed?” Uldin asked. Reid told them.

They tied up alongside the rammer and scrambled ashore. Nobody else seemed awake. Houses were pale beneath the moon, streets guts of blackness, Dogs howled.

The uphill run soon had Reid staggering, fire in his lungs. But he wasn’t about to collapse before Erissa and ... that swine Uldin.... “Here.” He leaned against the adobe wall, shivering, head awhirl. Uldin pounded on the door for what seemed a long while.

It creaked open at last. A household servant blinked sleepily, lamp in hand. Reid had gotten back some strength. “Quick,” he exclaimed. “I must see your master. And the young master. At once. Life and death.”

She recognized him. He wondered what was in his expression to make her quail. She couldn’t have seen Uldin or Erissa as more than shadows. “Yes. sir, yes, sir. Please come in. I’ll call them.”

She led the way to the atrium. “Please wait here, sirs, my lady.” The chamber was well furnished; this was a rich family. A fresco of cranes in flight made vivid one wall; by another, a candle burned before the shrine of the Goddess. Erissa stood for a bit while Reid paced and Uldin squatted. Then, slowly, she knelt to the image. Her hands were pressed together so tightly that, however uncertain this light, Reid could see how the blood was driven from the nails.

The appearance of Dagonas and his father brought her to her feet. Perhaps only Reid noticed how the breath went ragged in her throat or how red and white ebbed across her face. Otherwise she stayed motionless and expressionless. Dagonas looked at her, and away, and back again. Puzzlement drew a slight crease between his large dark eyes, under his tumbled dark bangs.

“My lord Duncan.” The father bowed. “You honor our house. But what brings you here at so strange an hour?”

“A stranger reason, and terrible,” Reid answered. “Tonight the Goddess sent these twain, who made fully clear to me what those dreams mean that have been their forerunners.”

He invented most of the story as he went along. The truth would have spilled more time than he, than anyone could afford. Erissa, a Keftiu lady resident in Mycenae, and Uldin, a trader from the Black Sea who had come to Tiryns, had likewise had troublous dreams. They sought the same oracle, which commanded them both to go to Atlantis and warn the foreigner in the temple to heed his own visions. As further evidence of wrath to, come, they were told that they would witness a human sacrifice during the journey. This they took to be the shipwreck of the vessel they were on, from which they alone escaped. An Achaean fisherman on the island to which they swam carried them here, in his boat—miracle in itself—but said he ought not to land on the holy isle; and when they brought Reid back, the fisherman was gone.

There could be no delay. Every person with any real civil, or religious authority was in Knossos. Reid must bring his warning to them and toithe Minos as fast as possible. Never mind what the Ariadne had decreed. Let the new galley be manned and provisioned and depart at once.

For the dream was that Atlantis would soon sink, in fire and wild waters. Let its people, break off their feasting, let them take every boat to sea and wait. Else they would join those sailors that the angry gods had already drowned.

“I—” The older man shook his head, stunned. “I know not what to believe.”

“Nor did I, until this final sign came to me,” Reid replied.

He had fabled and talked mechanically, his consciousness wandering; for he knew he would reach Knossos where the girl awaited him. Now his mind came back. The man and boy, aroused wife and children and servants who stood fearfully in the door, became real; they could love and mourn and die. He said to Dagonas, “Crete will suffer wide destruction too. Won’t you help me rescue Erissa?”

“Oh, yes, oh, yes.” The boy started off at a trot which quickened toward a run.

His father’s voice stopped him: “Wait! Let me think—”

“I cannot linger,” Dagonas answered. He did briefly, though, gazing at Erissa. “You look like her,” he said. “We are kin.” Her tone was faint. “Go,”

The ship could not start before there was adequate light to steer by. But it took that long to gather crew and supplies anyway. The food came from their homes, water from the public cisterns, by Reid’s command; he didn’t dare try dealing with officialdom. As was, be sweated while his boys hastened down the streets—torch in one hand, since the moon had descended behind the western hills, streaming like a red comet’s tail; bucket or bundle in the other, or tucked beneath the arm or slung across the shoulder—and thudded up the gangplank. Their families began to appear on the docks, an eddying of bodies in the gloom, an uneasy rustle of voices which rose and rose as questions received a grisly answer. This brought other, nearby house-holders forth. But most doors stayed shut. Folk slept well between their days of revelry.

Some decided to evacuate immediately. No few boats left, even before the galley did. Dagonas’ parents were not included. They meant to carry the news from home to home till the corrida started and later ask that a public announcement be made. The assault on Velas, when news of that got about, wouldn’t help; nor would offended lords spiritual and temporal who had not been consulted. But maybe the example of the hundred or so persons who were already afloat would inspire—maybe, maybe—

We’ve done what we can here, Reid thought. We’ll keep trying elsewhere. Sixty miles or thereabouts, to cross, and we average three or four knots. The boat from Athens that we’re towing for insurance cuts that down a bit, but no matter. because we’ll arrive by night in any case and have to lie out till dawn.

The east was paling. The ship’s crew cast off and stood to their posts. The sight of Dagonas’ father and mother, holding hands and waving, stayed with Reid until the thought came: In twenty-four hours, I’ll see Erissa.

She did not seek him until well after sunrise. He stood in the bows of the upper deck. The morning lay around them, infinitely blue: cloudless overhead, surging beneath in fluid sapphires, cobalts, amethysts, turquoises and in snowy lacework. A favoring wind heeled the ship over a little; the planks moved like the back of a galloping animal. Bow waves hissed, rigging creaked and whistled. The sun was shaded off by the bellying genoa; but elsewhere made sparks and shimmers and called forth the first pungency of tar. A pair of dolphins played tag with the hull. Their torpedo bodies would rush in until it seemed a collision was certain, then veer off, graceful as a bull dancer. Gulls mewed above the masts.