Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

Well, Reid thought dully, we’ll get a safe distance out, make a sea anchor from a sail and spar if the towed boat doesn’t suffice, and rest. To sleep, perchance to dream—what dreams may come?

Smoke still sooted heaven, but the sun’s ball, the color of half-clotted blood, rolled westward in it. Crete could be seen as a blurry mass at the gray-brown edge of vision. The wind had dropped for a while, the rain had ceased, the air lay thick and stinking. Waves chopped the galley in a whoosh and squelp. left it to rock and swing while they trundled onward. The waters were dark, sludgy, corrupted with cinders.

Northward, where. Atlantis had been, total blackness reared nightmare huge. Lightning scribbled swift symbols across it, but at this distance the thunders came only as a continued muttering.

They sat gathered on the top deck: forty-one young Minoans, naked or nearly so, slumped over their knees, grimed, bleeding from gale-blown grit, hollowed out less by fatigue—a few hours’ ease restored those bodies to tautness—than by that which had slain their Atlantis. Uldin squatted among them, flinching at each far-off blink and bang but his scarred features truculently set. Erect to confront them, dressed in sodden Achaean tunics, were Reid and Erissa.

The American dragged the words out of himself: “We had a forevision of the destruction of your homeland and Keft’s conquest by barbarians. We tried to give warning to your folk, and to the Minos. But unless those boats which left when we did weathered the storm, we failed altogether. Now what should we do?”

“What’s left?” a boy asked through tears.

“Life,” Erissa told him.

“We ... could seek Athens,” Uldin said. “In spite of everything—”

Dagonas sprang up and struck him across the mouth. He rose too, cursing, and drew his saber. Knives flew free of sailors’ belts. Erissa leaped. She caught Uldin’s sword arm and clung. “Stop!” she shouted. “Blood brotherhood!”

“Not with him,” the Hun grated. Dagonas poised, knife in fist.

Erissa sneered: “Especially with him, who manned an oar while you cowered and yammered like a eunuch.”

She released him. Uldin appeared to shrink into himself. He crept aside, hunkered down, and spoke no more.

Erissa returned to Reid. In the dull red-gray light, he saw that her nostrils flared and her head was carried high. “You shouldn’t have,” he stammered. “I—I was too slow, as always.”

She swung upon the crew. “Never give in,” she said. “Our colonies remain, on islands throughout these waters. They’re shaken, but most of them will abide. If we no longer rule the whole sea, we can rule our own lives while they last. We’ll seek a place—Rhodes would be best, I think—where we can start afresh. In the name of the Goddess!”

“That bitch who betrayed us?” answered the weeping boy.

Dagonas signed himself and gasped, “Be quiet! Do you want to bring down more wrath?”

“What worse can She do?” the boy said.

Erissa told them: “The law is that men must render account to the gods, but not the gods to men. I am not sure this is right. But it makes no difference. The Labyrinth has fallen. I will not forsake the Goddess in Her need.”

Dagonas, who had remained standing, went to the rail and peered through the gloom toward Crete. “Then let’s seek Rhodes,” he said. “But first—you have a namesake yonder, Erissa.”

She nodded. “We have many dear ones there, and room and provisions. Do you think we might try to rescue some?”

“As many as may be,” the young man said;, and even in this sullen illumination, Reid saw how he flushed, “but before all, the girl Erissa.”

The woman laid a hand on his shoulder and looked long into his face. “That’s Dagonas who speaks,” she said wonderingly.

Reid stirred. “You, uh, y-y-you think we can send a party ashore?” he stuttered.

“Yes,” she answered with the calm that had been hers for most of these hours. “I know that headland, therefore I know we can reach Knossos harbor before nightfall. Whatever Theseus is doing, has done, most of the city must yet be in chaos. A band of men, armed and determined, should be able to make their way.” The big eyes resting on him were the same clear green as would shine across this sea once more, come winter. “They will, you know.”

He nodded. I can’t lose, he thought, until after I have the girl back whose image dances among those funeral clouds. Later—well, later we’ll be free of foreknowledge.

He did draw old Erissa aside and murmur to her, “You haven’t any recollection, have you, of anyone on Rhodes this year who might have been yourself?”

“No,” she said.

“But then—”

“Then I will most likely never come there alive,” she said quietly. “Or something else may happen. Something else has in truth already happened, since the Knossos where I remember we had each other is no longer waiting for us. No matter now. Let’s do what we can, first for that girl—” She paused. “Strange,” she said, “to think of my-self as a being in pain and need of help.” Drawing breath: “First we do what we can for her and whoever else we can reach. Afterward we—you and I—maybe we can be happy, or maybe we can endure.”

Little remained in the harbor: snags of buildings, fragments of ships, broken corpses, strewn goods, mud-filled streets. Downward-sifting dust had covered all bright walls with grayness. The sun smoldered barely above those heights where Knossos lay. There stood pillars of smoke. The city was burning.

Reid, and Erissa took no more than half a dozen along in the boat. The dismasted galley needed oarsmen; why risk them ashore? A large party would draw attention, without being large enough to deal with the consequences. Besides Dagonas and Uldin, they had Ashkel, Tylisson, Haras, and Rhizon. There had been no chance to stow armor except for bucklers. Weapons were swords, knives, a couple of pikes. Reid gripped his spear convulsively. It was the sole instrument with which he might hope to do anything useful.

They moored at the stump of a pier and climbed over the wreckage. Tidal waves had left the ground soaked; muck lay ankle-deep on the lower levels, chilly, plopping and sucking around sandals. Dust filled the air, the nose, the mouth. Sweat, running down skin in the unnatural heat, made channels through that grime.

None greeted the landing. Doubtless Theseus would have the area occupied next morning in anticipation of his ships. At the moment, though, he must have everything he could do, bringing Knossos somewhat under control.

“He established himself—he will take what parts of the Labyrinth the quakes left standing,” Erissa said. “The Minos he slew with his own hand, our gentle old Minos. His patrols ranged about through the night, disarming citizens, herding many together for slavery. Tomorrow he summoned his supporters among the folk. He made the bull sacrifice in token that now he was king. The Ariadne stood beside him. Thus I was told, years afterward, by people who were there. The knowledge may help us now.”

“It makes no difference,” Uldin grunted. “What else would you expect? We’ll be avoiding patrols in any case

“If one finds us,” Dagonas grated, “the worse for it.”

“We’ll go to your home first,” Reid suggested to Erissa, “and fetch the girl and as many more as we’re able. From them we can perhaps get better information about what’s going on. On the way back, we can try to rescue others.”

That’s the most we can do, he thought. Pick up some human pieces. But how can this be? She thought she and I—in her father’s house, in a city still at peace—where will we, then? How? Could time really be changeable?