Collected Short Fiction, page 371
“It is true,” commented Theseus, “that our friend the Hittite captain was watching that quarter very hopefully.”
“Then,” Cyron demanded, “we shall raise sail while we can?”
“You may, if you think wise,” Theseus told him. “But I am going to Knossos.”
“To Knossos—in Crete?”
The eyes of Cyron grew big as moons, and he staggered a little backward.
“Not to Knossos! Captain Firebrand, are you mad?”
“Perhaps,” said Theseus. “But I am going to Knossos.”
“In the name of all the gods,” gasped Cyron, “why? The yellow girl told me that Minos has placed a great price upon your head. You are the most feared pirate of the sea. But why walk into a cave of hungry lions?”
Theseus rubbed his lean chin—smooth-shaven with the edge of the Falling Star.
“I talked with the Hittite captain,” he said slowly. “What he told me has decided me to go to Knossos. For the nine-year period of the reign of Minos is within two moons of its end, and these slaves and bulls we had taken were intended for the games that take place then.”
“But,” gasped Cyron, “Captain Firebrand!”
“You must have heard the rule of the Minoan games,” said Theseus. “You know that they are played, every nine years, to choose the ruler of Crete. And if any man wins the contests, the old Minos must give up his life, and go down into the dread Labyrinth of the Dark One.”
Theseus fingered the hilt of the Falling Star, and a tiny smile touched his lean, bronzed face.
“The winner,” he said, “is declared the new Minos. The beauteous Ariadne, the daughter of the old Minos and the vessel of Cybele, will be his to claim. And his will be the Empire of Crete, all the treasure of Knossos, command of the fleets, and even the wizardry of Minos and the Dark One’s power.”
Cyron stepped back, and his bearded face showed an awed frown. “But I thought, Captain Firebrand,” he muttered, “that you sought to destroy the wizardry of Knossos—not to take it for your own!”
Theseus nodded gravely. “I shall destroy them,” he said, “when I own them.”
CYRON abruptly seized his shoulder and tried to shake him. “Captain Firebrand,” he said hoarsely, “are you an utter fool? Don’t you know that Minos won the games and his throne a thousand years ago? And that no man has ever had a chance to win, in all the cycles?”
His voice was dry with dread. “Don’t you know that Minos is the greatest of the warlocks? That even the terrible Daedalus serves him? That he is immortal, and destroys with his wizardry all who might hope with skill and daring to win the games?”
“I have heard all that,” Theseus said. “But I have never fought in the games at Knossos.” His blue eyes smiled. “And the Hittite tells me that Ariadne is very beautiful.”
The Dorian answered the grin, grew solemn again. “Captain Firebrand, you can’t leave us now.” His voice quivered, broke. “It is but a year since you came to our northern rendezvous and begged to join us.
But already you are my captain—and my brother.”
His dark eyes looked hastily away. “If you must go to Knossos, captain,” he whispered faintly, “then I . . . I’ll go with you!”
Theseus smiled again, and took his hand.
“No, Gamecock,” he said, “I shall go alone. But cheer up! When the time comes to loot the palace of Minos, perhaps you will be there.”
Cyron blinked and grinned. “I’ll be there,” he choked. Suddenly, then, he started. His dark eyes widened apprehensively again. He stared at Theseus, and then away into the southwest. “Don’t joke with me, Captain Firebrand,” he begged. “Give the orders, and let us seek the northern islands with our loot.”
His pointing arm was trembling. “See the sky in the direction of far Knossos, captain?” His voice sank hoarsely. “How fair it is? And how angrily the clouds are piling in the north? I have felt the wizardry of Knossos, captain, and I fear it!”
The blue eyes of Theseus narrowed, swept the horizon. “It is a strange sky!” he said. “But I’m not joking, Captain Gamecock—for you are captain, now. Give your orders, and take your men and the plunder aboard. Let the men divide my share—and you may have the treasure in my cabin. Only leave me the hull of the trader, for I am going to sail to Knossos.” He studied the northward sky again. “I think the wind will be favorable enough.”
“Captain Firebrand,” protested the Dorian, “I wish you wouldn’t—”
Theseus turned, stopped the pirate with a sudden pointing gesture. Far away southwestward, across the flat blue sea, stretched a long line of infinitesimal black dots.
“There comes the black-sailed fleet of Minos,” Theseus said, “sweeping fast on a changing wind. I am sailing to meet it. And, if you hope to outfly the wizardry of Knossos, Captain Gamecock, you had better take your yellow woman and set sail!”
III.
THESEUS returned to the pirate for the small leather bag that held his personal effects. Climbing back aboard the prize, he found that the preparations to leave it had halted. A score of the booty-laden pirates were standing in a staring ring about the mast. And Vorkos, the one-eyed Tirynthian cook, was kneeling to fan his fire, heating the point of a long bronze lance.
Theseus pushed through the ring. He found Cyron standing angrily over a small yellow-brown man, who was bound to the mast. The prisoner was squealing in terror, trying to writhe away from another red-hot lance that the enraged pirate was flourishing in front of him.
“Now try your wizardry!” muttered Cyron. “Against hot bronze!”
Theseus stared in astonishment at the captive. He was almost a dwarf. Wide-mouthed, froglike, his wrinkled face was remarkably ugly. Terror had given him a faintly greenish color. His head was completely bald, but he had thick black eyebrows. Huge and yellow and white-rimmed, his eyes were popping out with fear.
“Where did he come from, Captain Gamecock?” asked Theseus.
Cyron sputtered incoherently. Theseus looked wonderingly back at the squealing prisoner. He saw with surprise that the little man was clad in torn fragments of crimson silk, that his scrawny brown arms and neck were laden with green jade and gold.
Theseus caught the angry Dorian’s arm.
The Cretan fleet is coming,” he warned. “And the storm is gathering swiftly in the north. If you hope to get away, Gamecock, it is time for you to go!”
Cyron dropped the hot lance on the deck and tried to master his wrath. He glanced apprehensively at the long far line of black sails across the south, and shouted at the cook to hasten his fire.
“We’ll be going, Captain Firebrand!” he gasped. “But first I am going to burn the eyes out of this small wizard.”
“Where did a wizard come from?” demanded Theseus. “And what happened to your golden woman?”
Cyron gulped for his voice, and kicked viciously at the small brown man’s shin.
“There was no golden woman,” he muttered. “There was only this evil little wizard. He moaned and picked up his buskined toe, which had struck the mast. “He had taken the woman’s guise, to save his cowardly carcass from harm.”
He spat at the little brown man.
“I sought to kiss the golden woman, and she changed in my arms. Into—that!” He trembled with rage. “To think that I gave all my share of the prize, and my jewels, and even my purple cloak—to buy a grinning ape!”
He tweaked the small man’s nose.
“Anyhow, I shall have the pleasure of burning out his eyes—and I am going to enjoy it!”
THE PRISONER emitted another screech, and twisted desperately against the ropes. His bulging, yellow eyes rolled fearfully, and fastened upon Theseus.
“O, Captain Firebrand!” His voice was a high nasal whine. “O greatest of the pirates, whose honor and audacity are spoken even in my own far Babylon! Oh, save me!”
Theseus hooked thumbs in his belt, and shook his red head. “I don’t like wizards.”
The yellow eyes blinked at him hopefully. “But I am the most insignificant and powerless of wizards,” came the frantic piping plea. “My spells are only the feeblest and most useless. None of them can harm any man. If I possessed the powers of the warlocks of Knossos, would I be here, bound, tortured?”
The yellow eyes rolled fearfully to Cyron, and Theseus stepped a little nearer. “So you were the golden princess?”
“I was,” whined the little man. “That spell is the greatest of my powers, and even it is feeble. For every touch weakens it, and a kiss will break it.” He was watching Cyron, and his voice became a frantic gasping. “I meant no harm, Captain Firebrand. I used the guise only to save my miserable life. Aid me, captain, and I shall be your slave. You can command my tiny magic. Only save—”
Cyron came back with a red-hot lance, and his voice lifted into a shriek.
Theseus gestured the angry pirate back. “Wait, Captain Gamecock,” he begged. “Let me speak to this small wizard. There is a saying that magic is best fought with magic. And I fight the wizardry of Crete.”
Cyron flourished the glowing blade impatiently. “But I bought this wizard,” he muttered. “Surely his eyes are mine, to burn out when I like. And probably his spells will be just as useful after he is blind.”
The little man squalled thinly.
“All the treasure in my cabin is yours, Gamecock,” said Theseus.
“You can buy one of the blond slaves.”
“They are not like the golden princess,” muttered Cyron. “But you may speak to him, before I enjoy the small pleasure that his wizard’s trick has left me.”
Theseus stepped closer to the squirming prisoner, asking: “Who are you, and how came you aboard?”
“My name is Snish,” whined the little yellow-brown man, eagerly. “I was born in far-off Babylon. There are many wizards and sorcerers in Babylon. But none of them is so great as the least warlock of Crete. And I was the smallest and feeblest of them all.”
“In that case,” inquired Theseus, “why were you sailing to Crete?”
“It is an unfortunate matter of the weather,” Snish told him.
“The weather?”
THE LITTLE WIZARD rolled anxious yellow eyes at Cyron. “Only the most advanced and gifted sorcerers can actually rule the elements,” he explained uneasily. “Minor magicians, however, have sometimes been able to establish substantial reputations upon the natural uncertainties of the weather, merely through fortunate coincidence.
“Now it was one very dry summer when I embarked upon my career in Babylon. The fields were parched about the city, the canals were dry, and the river was too low for irrigation. Under such circumstances, I was unwise enough to undertake contracts to bring rain.
“Every similar drought, I knew, had been ended at last by rain—and some enterprising magician had been able to claim the credit for it. Therefore, I built a mud tower in the fields, and burned herbs on the top of it, and sacrificed a kid, and kept vigils under the stars, and waited, like the farmers, for rain to come.
“But there was never such a drought in Babylon. The sky by day was like a hot copper bowl, and the stars were jewels at night. The young corn withered and blew away on the wind, and the starved cattle died, and men with donkeys made fortunes selling muddy water in the streets of Babylon.
“My clients began to grow impatient. In vain I discussed with them the phenomenal difficulties that faced my enterprise, and trebled my fees. Finally they demanded the return of all they had paid me. The money, unfortunately, was already spent. But my clients departed, without it, and took their problem to another magician.
“This other magician was a stranger, who had arrived in Babylon only recently—almost on the day, in fact, that the drought began. Very little was known of him. But a sudden rumor had swept the city that he came from Crete, and had studied the arts of Daedalus and Minos.
“The stranger offered, for a fabulous sum, to bring rain on this very night. My former clients were desperate. They went to the Hittite usurers, pledged their lands and slaves and cattle and even their wives, and borrowed the stranger’s fee.
“That night it rained.
“I knew then that the stranger possessed the power that I had claimed, and that his superior arts must in fact have been responsible for my failure. I sought for him, intending to ask him to take me for an apprentice. But I found that he had already departed. None knew how or where he had gone, but a huge strange bird had been seen rising through the storm clouds.
“Returning through the muddy streets to my own dwelling, I found that some of my angry clients had come there to insist upon return of their fees. I found it therefore expedient to assume the guise of a woman and leave Babylon also, astride a donkey.”
The Dorian pirate made an impatient gesture with his smoking lance. The little wizard shuddered in the ropes that bound him to the mast, and Theseus held out a restraining hand.
“Wait till you know my peculiar misfortune,” begged Snish. “Idle stranger from Knossos must have cast some powerful spell upon me, which he neglected to lift before he departed. For all matters concerning the weather remain unfortunate for me.
“My travels since I left Babylon have been extensive and usually unwilling. I was put ashore near Troy some moons ago by an Egyptian captain who had begun to suspect that my presence aboard his ship had something to do with unfavorable winds.”
Cyron came with a hot lance from the fire. “Let me at him, Captain Firebrand,” he begged. “The Cretan fleet is bearing down upon us—this lying little wizard is trying to talk us all to death. Let me burn his eyes out, and go.”
“Wait, Gamecock.” Theseus stopped him, and turned back to the shuddering little wizard. “If you have such cause to fear the warlocks of Knossos,” he said, “you had better explain why you were sailing for Crete! And talk fast!”
SNISH rolled his bulging yellow eyes. “I was coming to that,” he wheezed anxiously. “I found myself friendless in Troy. In Babylon, before I so unwisely sought to change my trade, I had been a cobbler. I sought employment in the shops of Troy, but I could find nothing, and hunger presently forced me to make a living with my small arts. I began to make certain prophecies to the clients who came to me—with results that proved unfortunate.”
Snish shook his bald, brown head regretfully, and his eyes rolled at Cyron, who was watching the southward sea and flourishing the hot lance with increasing impatience.
“You see, even Troy has been compelled to yield tribute to Minos, and many were inquisitive about the future of Crete. Now, whatever one may actually read of the future—and it is said that the warlocks of Crete can survey it with considerable certainty—it it is almost invariably the best policy for the seer to ignore his actual findings, and tell his clients merely what they wish to believe.
“I assured the Trojans, therefore, that Minos is doomed, and that all the splendor of Crete will one day be forgotten, and that Troy will one day be the mistress of the world—I ignored certain grave indications in the stars as to the fate of Troy itself, save to warn the Trojans to beware of horses.
“I had no rivals in Troy, for it is but a small city, and for a time I was very successful. Too successful, in fact, for my fame reached the ears of the Cretan resident. He sent for a Cretan priest, and the priest had me arrested.”
Snish shuddered against the ropes. “It appears,” he said, “that all the practitioners of magic in the dominions of Minos are organized in a compact and jealous guild. No wizard outside the guild is allowed to practice. Unwittingly, I broke the law. I was being taken to Knossos, to face what is called the justice of the Dark One.”
The little Babylonian trembled and turned slightly green. “Perhaps you have heard of the justice of the Dark One,” he gasped. “It is the most fearful fate that can befall a human being. For the-victim is sent beyond human justice. He is trust into the black Labyrinth, beneath the palace of Minos, that is the dwelling of the Dark One. And that evil deity, it is said, devours both body and soul of all who enter there.”
Snish repressed another shudder, and blinked hopefully at Theseus. “I had induced the Hittite captain to post a bond for me,” his shrill voice hurried on. “And I hoped that he could be persuaded to escape from the convoy tonight, and sail for Egypt. But that would have brought all the wizardry of Knossos upon my trail.”
The yellow eyes of Snish followed Cyron’s smoking lances. “It is most fortunate for me, Captain Firebrand, that you took the ship,” he wheezed hastily. “That is, if you can dissuade this pirate from his evil intent toward the smallest, the kindest, and the most insignificant of wizards. Save me, Captain Firebrand!” His voice became a squeal. “Let my small magic serve you!”
Cyron tugged at the arm of Theseus, and his fingers trembled. “Let me at the wizard,” he begged huskily. “For the fleet is coming fast, and the northward sky has an evil look.”
“Wait, Gamecock,” urged Theseus. “Perhaps I can use his magic.”
Snish stirred hopefully in the ropes. “Indeed you can, Captain Firebrand.” His yellow eyes lifted to the rising black clouds. “And I suggest, Captain Gamecock,” he shrilled, “that you had better leave me, soon. Because, as I told you, I have difficulty with the weather. That storm is doubtless following me.”
Apprehension had mounted above Cyron’s cooling wrath. He flung his smoking pike down upon the deck, and shouted at his men to make ready with the sail. “Take him, Captain Firebrand,” he muttered. “But watch him. For no wizard can be trusted—not even such a cowardly dog of a wizard as this!”
He leaped to the pirate’s deck, and axes flashed to cut the lashings. “Farewell, Captain Firebrand!” His shout came hoarse and strained. “Beware the wizard!”
THE RED SAIL went up—for there was still a breath of wind in the south. The Mycenean’s long whip came to hissing life, and flashing oars pulled the galley toward the northward strait, to meet the coming storm.
