It sounded like our finish to me. I had a gagging vision of us two gazing into cobra eyes until our own were one with them. Golias must have had a similar notion, for his face tightened.
“Since when have you given orders here, Faustopheles? I’ll prepare to remain only when I hear I must from your master.” A second time he bowed to the mighty figure on the throne. “Great King and Emperor, I appeal for our rights.”
Several guffawed at this. The emperor stared at him.
“You have none, unless you have more power than we can muster.”
“By Delian Law we have one.” Golias was deferential but firm. “As your all but omnipotence knows, we have the right — under certain circumstances — to ask for a trial before we can be detained in the Pit. In this case the circumstances warrant a trial, as I’ll be glad to explain.”
“And I won’t be glad to hear. Delian Law, eh?” The emperor shrugged with the annoyance of greatness irritated at being reminded of a technicality which can’t well be disregarded. For a while he considered, drumming his fingers on the arm of his throne. Then his face brightened with the look of one who has found a way to adapt a technicality to his own service. “Your petition is granted.”
“No! Let me beseech your mightiness to change your mind,” Faustopheles cried. “Orpheus has influence with the Delian Court. He’ll go free.”
“Quite probably.” The emperor allowed himself a frosty smile. “But, knowing something of the fellow’s proclivities and intractable nature, I don’t want him around. I should be tempted to let him go anyhow; but it will look better if the court orders it. Meanwhile a proper decision will give us an unassailable claim to the other one. His case is something else again, and we shall insist upon — what’s the word now? — justice.” He raised his hand to point at his subordinate. “Handle the matter on our behalf.”
When Golias turned to follow Faustopheles out, I saw that he had a small harp slung over his shoulder. Last man, I felt panicky at the idea the door might be shut before I could get clear. I crowded Golias going through the narrow opening, and he snapped a warning.
“Careful about those strings, boy! We’re going to need that harp on the way back.”
A path led away from the door into a blank, twilit region. Presumably this was Golias’ means of approach, but it wasn’t the way he returned. Faustopheles picked us both up, took to his wings, and soared.
It was not, therefore, until we were striding in his wake along a corridor leading to the court room that Golias had a chance to give me a whispered briefing. “There will be no jury, just three judges. Don’t pay any attention to what Faustopheles said: they can’t be bought or influenced by anybody. Don’t say anything to them that you can’t back up. They may look old enough for dotage, but they know the exact score. Let me do the talking first, but when your turn comes, speak up strongly and to the point.”
“Right,” I nodded nervously, wishing there was time for a more detailed discussion. Faustopheles, however, was already entering the court.
The case ahead of us gave me a minute or so to examine the place. Except for the desk at which the judges sat, the chamber was bare of furniture. It had, however, several doorways other than the one we had used. The man being sentenced when we came in, for example, was escorted down a passageway marked “Limbo” before we were beckoned forward by a faceless attendant.
The judges were as old as Golias had indicated, but as keen-eyed also. “Your honors,” Faustopheles addressed them, as they silently looked us over, “I have brought two men who have appealed to the Master of the Pit for a hearing by you.”
The judge in the center stirred. “If they have already been in the custody of the Master of the Pit, it doesn’t sound like a proper case for this court.”
“I don’t think it is myself, Venerable Rhadamanthus,” Faustopheles agreed. He was falling all over himself to be polite and bowed as he spoke. “However, his imperial majesty thought it best to leave the decision to the wisdoms of yourself and your equally sage colleagues.”
“I see.” If Rhadamanthus was moved by the flattery, he didn’t show it. “And how did they come into the emperor’s hands?”
“I conducted this one to his capitol.” Faustopheles here pointed at me. “The other undertook to attempt his rescue.”
The three exchanged glances. This seemed to suffice for an agreement, for the presiding justice spoke with finality. “In the instance of the would-be rescuer we have jurisdiction. Following the instruction of precedent, we dismiss any case against him and declare him immune from either penalty or censure. The object of his zeal, having been brought to the Pit by one Faustopheles, in the natural course of his duties, must show cause why he should be allowed to appeal to this tribunal.”
I looked anxiously at Golias, but he had already started to speak. “As one no longer under indictment, I ask the privilege of acting as advocate for Shandon Silverlock, the prisoner. He is rightfully here as a man anxious to continue his pilgrimage to Hippocrene in accordance with the direct instructions of the Delian.”
“Ah.” The judges again went into consultation simply by glancing at one another. “We have jurisdiction,” the one on the right of Rhadamanthus said, “but I am moved to enquire why there is a case at all. If it is the will of the Delian that this man should proceed to Hippocrene, on what grounds does anyone take it upon himself to let, stay, or otherwise prohibit him from attaining his ordained goal?”
“Great and infallible Minos,” Faustopheles answered him, “as you, who know all things, well know, the Delian never takes the success of a postulant for granted. The only thing implicit in his instructions is that the attempt must be made. Success, which is not commonly achieved, is something the individual must win for himself.”
I saw by Golias’ face that Faustopheles had foiled his effort to have the case against me dismissed also, even before Rhadamanthus nodded. “Yes.” He nodded again, stroking his beard. “Yes. We will hear the case.”
“There are many grounds on which I base my claim to the person of this Silverlock,” Faustopheles began, “but in deference to the interests of this court, I will confine myself to stating why he should be prevented from faring nearer to Hippocrene. I ask for a judgment on that point solely, or rather what I request is a restraining injunction. My argument is built simply but indestructibly out of the fitness of things, itself a cardinal principle of Delian Law. A pity more people don’t realize that.”
After a malicious glance at Golias he went on. “A drink from Hippocrene is not something that can be purchased or handed over. It is not so much as on the gift list of luck. Please note that point. A fane protected by the rapine of chance was not meant to be found by dolts who somehow manage to lumber through, over, and around certain intervening obstacles. The Delian surely never intended that this should happen, or he would have taken steps to reverse the decision handed down in the famous cognate case relating to pilgrimages to Pieria. I offer it to the court as precedent.
“By ‘drink deep or taste not,’ the magistrate who handed down that important opinion plainly meant that only those capable of appreciating its worth should be permitted access to the facilities of the shrine in question. As appreciation in turn is a quality of experience, the issue must be found to devolve upon what the man has done to acquire this touchstone of values. Now I came to own the mind of the prisoner to such an extent that I know, among other things, his journeyings and doings since reaching the Commonwealth. I can faithfully report that, in proportion to what might be fairly expected of a postulant, the range of his experience is pitifully inadequate. Why, he has not striven among men on the banks of Xanthus — enough in itself to make his pretensions contemptible. He has not been at the court of King Noble, stood at Bazarov’s grave, visited old Goriot or Genji, or — ”
“It seems to me,” the third judge broke in, “that the court would be better able to assess the worth of the prisoner’s experiences, if we knew where he had been rather than
where he had not. This, I believe, we can learn better from him than from anyone else.”
“Assuredly, Venerable Aeacus,” Faustopheles agreed. “I am well content to have him voice his own condemnation.”
“Give a complete account but be terse,” Golias urged me. So, I began my defense. Before such judges I avoided special pleading and any attempt to magnify either the importance of my adventures or my own part in them. Still, as I reviewed my travels from the moment the Naglfar foundered, I gathered confidence. Lulled by my own eloquence, I felt that they must surely be impressed with my accomplishment. I therefore found the impassive silence which followed my recital doubly disconcerting.
After a while Minos cleared his throat. “There are, indeed, vast lacunae in the prisoner’s experience, which makes me doubtful whether he is qualified to continue. We must bear in mind the fact, I need hardly say, that if he is permitted to reach middle earth again, he will find only one short and most pleasant leg of his pilgrimage awaiting him; so that a favorable decision is tantamount to granting him access to the fane in question. Also precedent, as Faustopheles has justly reminded us, makes a restraining injunction mandatory in unworthy or only partially worthy cases.”
“May it please the court,” Golias said, while my mind was floundering in vain search of something to add in my behalf, “the point brought up earlier by the most learned Aeacus could and should be extended to cover more angles of this debate. He said, in effect, that a man should be judged on his own positive accomplishments rather than on what others have done that he has not; and I hold this absolutely so. Surely the prisoner has not been to many places, and they some of the mightiest that the Commonwealth affords. You can add to the list begun by Faustopheles that he has not forced the door of Jason’s house or lounged at Shandy Hall. No, and he hasn’t hid out with Martin Fierro, hunted the Sampo, backed up Charudatta, and so on until I could grow hoarse from naming a tenth of them.”
Golias dismissed them all with a gesture. “The fact is that, the Delian and yourselves excepted, nobody has been everywhere in the Commonwealth. Puck claims to have; but I think he’s bragging, though I grant him a wider experience than the rest of us.”
“Ah, yes, Puck,” Rhadamanthus said. He didn’t exactly smile, but his face relaxed an instant from its expression of inhuman non-partisanship. “H-m-m. Continue, pray.”
“I will, sir. Now as complete coverage is not to be looked for, we can turn from that and consider what can reasonably be expected. This man has gone the three essential ways, those of chance, choice, and the oracle. If he did not follow certain routes, that is merely to say that he did follow others. If he has dallied in some lesser places, no road links the greatest ones only, although of these he has seen a fair share.
“I will conclude by urging one thing. It is, I submit, no part of the Delian’s plan to have his lovely springs so fenced from seekers that they benefit nothing but the surrounding vegetation. A fane should be visited only by those fitted to honor it, true; yet it is also true that an unvisited fane ceases to be one.”
The succeeding hush tore my nerves apart. If Golias looked confident, so, too, did Faustopheles. The judges could not be read. Minos folded his arms and gazed downward. Rhadamanthus pressed the tips of his fingers together and stared at them. Aeacus rested his chin on his right fist. Then they exchanged glances, and the aloof manner in which they did so made my stomach quiver. I felt that if they judged the case strictly on its merits, I was bound to lose.
At length Rhadamanthus let his fingers slide along each other and rested the hands thus clasped on the desk. “In the opinion of my brother Minos,” he announced, “the prisoner, having failed to prove that he has earned the right to proceed, should be remanded to the custody of the Master of the Pit. I myself have some sympathy with this view.”
I hardly heard Faustopheles’ crow of victory. Vaguely I sensed that he reached for me; but he did not do so quickly enough to keep me erect. My knees gave way, yet the jolt with which I struck the floor had little to do with the fact that I lay still when I landed. Shock, moreover, had sealed my mind against taking anything further in.
In my state of semi-catalepsis it meant nothing to me that Rhadamanthus, after a pause, added: “Now, on the other hand, my colleague, Aeacus, inclines toward being persuaded by the argument of Orpheus, the learned counsel for the defense. I can see a degree of virtue in that argument likewise; and therefore, in the collective mind of this court, there is a reasonable doubt that we should be fulfilling our high function by interfering with the pilgrimage of the prisoner. It is our ruling, then, that he shall be released to proceed if he can, and for whatever it will bring him. The next case, please.”
30
Good Company and Hippocrene
THE JUDGES paid no attention to Faustopheles’ rage of protest, and neither did I. In point of fact I was still out of reach of any call on my emotions as Golias hurried me away.
The transition from joy to despair is often swift; but joy in its turn does not rush to fill the vacancy left by prolonged misery. Dulled by the pain of healing, I didn’t try to talk on the way out from the lower world, and I may not have thought. I have only a hazy recollection of being ferried over a subterranean river by an old fellow sculling a scow. I don’t recall much more of our encounter with a dog, nearly as big as Garm but with three heads, which went to sleep when Golias strummed his harp.
The turning point didn’t come until we had emerged from a cave into a patch of woods. Not that I immediately realized that it actually had come. The temperature was comfortable, but it hadn’t been oppressive in the region we had just left. The light was dim, but not more so than in most of the places below ground. The trees were leafless, but I had been too long in a place where nothing grew to expect anything else. It required a noise, or rather a joyous jumble of noises, to stir my balance wheel and set my gears in motion once more.
I absorbed the sounds, at once sweet and shrill, piercing and haunting, for some while before I identified them.
“It’s the peepers,” I whispered.
“Correct,” Golias told me. “Woosh! I’m tired.”
He seated himself on a small boulder, but I remained upright, sniffing and staring. Now I recognized that the air had a current of life running through it, that the gloom was due to honest twilight, and that the barren trees would soon be in leaf again. I shook my head unbelievingly.
“What happened to the winter?”
“You lost it in the Pit.” He grinned and yawned. “Are you hungry?”
“Not yet,” I said slowly, remembering that I hadn’t eaten since my meeting with Faustopheles, “but I think I’m going to be.”
“Well, stretch out and get your strength back from the earth, and in a few minutes I’ll find out whether I did a good job of caching the emergency rations I left behind when I crashed the Gate to Orcus here.”
He built our camp fire on a ledge, not far from the cave, which overlooked a valley. While he cooked I was active in another fashion. One moment, propped on an elbow, I watched night settle in the lowlands west of us, bringing out lights from houses and towns strung along a river. At another I flopped over on my back to feel the wind run over my face and to watch stars brighten against the deepening sky. Best of all, I would roll over on my stomach and inhale a corps of lively, interlaced odors. And all the time the peepers sang of the wonderful beginning of things and of the even more marvelous possibilities stored by the future.
“I feel good,” I suddenly announced.
“If you don’t during Dione’s Watch, you never will,” Golias assured me. “Let’s hope you can say the same thing after you tackle this grub.”
“How did you know you’d find me with the Master of the Pit?” I asked, as I reached for my portion.
“I didn’t; but I found you hadn’t been sentenced. If you weren’t there, you were no place I could reach you — I couldn’t navigate the Tartarean Lake — so it was the only place to try. You see, when
I thought it safe to come out of hiding after teaming up with Tyl, I looked up Tiresias, who told me you’d gone into the Pit but hadn’t come out yet. Fortunately,” here Golias bit into a corn dodger, and I could hardly hear him, “Glasgerion and Amphion aren’t the only ones who can do things with a harp.”
“They are not,” I agreed, worrying the thick piece of bacon I held in my fist. Winning out, I swallowed a chunk. “What happens next?”
He waved his knife toward the lights in the valley. “We’ll go on to Gandercleugh tomorrow and cut into the road to Riders’ Shrine there. It’s a good day’s walk.”
It was also a good day for walking under the soft, straying clouds and amidst the gay shrubbery blossoms which lined the road all the way to town. Gandercleugh was a pretty little village, but its best feature, as far as I was concerned, was the Red Lion Tavern. If my appetite had been only tentative the night before, the day of exercise had fully revived it.
It developed that one Ambrose, landlord of the hostelry, was an old friend of Golias’. “Mr. Shandon,” he said, when we had been introduced, “we have excellent food here, and you’ll get it in season — which is not so soon that the house can’t make money out of you in other ways. Now you look like a man, and I say this in the mournful knowledge that not everyone has the soul and genius for it, capable of a craving for good liquor.”
I hesitated. Wholeness was too new a thing for me to feel sure I was ready for any sort of celebrating.
“Why, I haven’t been drinking lately.”
“Poor fellow,” he sympathized. “But you’re willing to improve yourself, I’ll wager.”
If it was sales talk, it was better done than is usually the case, for he succeeded in looking as though he was generally interested and friendly. He pleased me, and I let him see it.
Silverlock (Prologue Books) Page 40
