The Reign of Wizardry

by Jack Williamson

  “Naked one, what silver have you?”

  At first he could not believe that he had heard that cautious, fearful whisper. He lay still, trembling and breathless on the harsh cold stone. It came again, faintly:

  “Doomed one, where is your silver?”

  It was real! Theseus tried to quiet his sick shuddering, sought voice and strength and cunning. Chilled with dread of some blunder that might destroy this last tiny hope, he gasped into the dark:

  “I have two hundred talents of silver—besides three hundred of gold, and twice that weight of bronze and tin, and forty jars filled with cut stones and jewelry—that Captain Firebrand took from a hundred rich ships of Crete and Egypt and the northern cities. It is buried on an island, and guarded with a wizard’s spell, and only the wizard and I can find it.”

  There was silence in the darkness. Theseus shivered to a fear that he had failed, that the guard had gone away. But at last the whisper came:

  “All the silver in the world, pirate—and all the gold and bronze and tin—would not buy one day of freedom for you. For the guard who set you free would doom himself to the justice of the Dark One. And all the treasure in the world could not save a man from the warlocks and the gods.”

  “But I don’t seek escape,” whispered Theseus. “I wish merely to bargain for a service. If I am going to the Labyrinth, I have no need of that treasure on the island. I am willing to betray its hiding place, for a service.”

  “What,” came the fearful whisper from above, “is that service?”

  “It is one that Admiral Phaistro alone can render.” Theseus brought bitterness into his voice. “I was betrayed by one of my officers—a man who had been my best friend. He seized command of my ship, and set me adrift on the helpless hulk to be wrecked on the rocks of Crete. I wish to bargain for revenge against the Dorian pirate, called Cyron the Game-cock. Only the admiral can give me that.”

  Black silence. A drop of water fell with a tinkling crash into a cold foul pool. Again silence. A sob of breath from above, and a muttered curse, as if avarice and fear battled in the guard. Doubtfully, at last:

  “How do I get mine?”

  “You can trust Phaistro,” urged Theseus. “If he comes here, the secret will be worth ten talents.”

  “Or my life!” came the mutter. Silence again, and the shattering ring of another water drop. “The admiral has need of your hoard,” came the yielding whisper. “I’ll tell him to come—if he dares!”

  Theseus shuddered with hope, turned weak again.

  “Wait!” he called. “Tell Phaistro also that it is useless for him to come, unless he can find and bring with him a certain Babylonian cobbler, who has lately arrived in Ekoros. The cobbler is a squat little yellow-brown man, with the features of a frog. His name is Snish.”

  “But what,” hoarsely whispered the unseen guard, “is the need of a cobbler?”

  “The cobbler is also a wizard,” breathed Theseus, “and my friend. He aided me to bury the hoard, and guarded it with his arts. Neither of us can find it, or give directions for the finding of it, alone. For each possesses only half the secret. That is the spell.”

  “I shall tell the admiral,” promised the guard. “But, pirate, if this is all a lie—” The threat died in his throat, and he muttered: “What further injury can be done a man already awaiting the justice of the Dark One?”

  There was silence. The drops of water crashed, loud as the fall of crystal towers. The shattering falls were far apart. The nerves of Theseus grew taut as he waited for each, and his body jerked to the shock, and again he waited through another tense eternity.

  A cold shadow of apprehension lay across his spinning, weary brain. For there was, in fact, no such buried hoard. All the loot of the pirate crew, in the time he had been with them, had not amounted to half of what he had enumerated. But a tithe of that had fallen to the share of Captain Firebrand. And he had spent it with a free hand in the markets and the wine shops of a dozen cities, had flung it, more freely yet, to people in want from the wars and the taxations of Minos.

  “All Cretans are liars.” That was a proverb spoken from Thebes to Troy. A race of liars might well become adept at detecting falsehood. But this invention was now his sole hope of life, and the reeling brain of Theseus clung to it grimly.

  Once he dropped into sleep. He dreamed that he had safely mounted the throne of Minos, that lovely Ariadne was his own. But she fled from him, into the Labyrinth of the Dark One. He followed, and found her amid the horrors of that dark, cavernous space, and kissed her. And she changed in his arms to Snish.

  The crash of a water drop awoke him, a nerve-shattering avalanche of toppling crystal peaks. He lay on the wet, foul stone, and waited in an agony of tension. The drops crashed and crashed again, measuring intolerable ages.

  Theseus thought that he was dreaming again, when he heard the scrape of a foot above. But there were cautious whispers and the muffled clatter of a sword striking stone. Lowered fearfully, he heard the precise, familiar voice of Admiral Phaistro:

  “Captain Firebrand?”

  “Yes!” Theseus gasped for breath. “Admiral—”

  “Silence!” The voice was stifled, frightened. “We’ll come down to you.”

  Still there was no gleam of light. A lock clicked faintly. Men whispered, breathed heavily with effort. There was a heavy creaking, a muffled brazen clang, a choked curse. He knew that the barred trapdoor had been lifted.

  Something splashed in a foul puddle beside him. He found the end of a rope ladder, steadied it, as someone descended. He gripped an arm in the darkness, whispered:

  “Who is it?”

  The reply was no more than a muffled buzz, but he recognized the nasal tones of Snish. The little wizard’s body was shuddering and clammy. His breath wheezed through tight wrappings about his head.

  “Silence!” The voice of the admiral was thin and dry with fear. “And we dare make no light, for the ears and the eyes of the warlocks are keen!’

  He dropped from the ladder beside them, found Theseus with quivering hands.

  “There’s no time to waste,” he gasped. “My marines found this cobbler in a shop. He says he is no wizard, and he was using another name than Snish. But he is a Babylonian. I shall remove his gag.”

  “He is the wizard,” said Theseus. “But let the gag stay. He can use his spell without words—if he wants to avoid being tortured for knowledge of the treasure on the island, and then, perhaps, flung to the Dark One.”

  Snish trembled more violently and emitted protesting nasal sounds.

  “Hush!” The admiral’s voice was a startled croak. “Don’t speak of—that one. Not here! For we are close above the Labyrinth.”

  His thin fingers sank frantically into the arm of Theseus.

  “And hasten!” he begged hoarsely. “Coming here, I risk my name, my position, my life. I myself am in danger of—that one. So speak quickly. Tell me where I can find your buried hoard. And where the fleet can trap this bearded Dorian—for the Gamecock has slipped through my hands again and captured another trader.”

  “Then come.” Theseus led the admiral away from Snish, toward the corner of the foul cell. “The wizard need not know my part of the secret. And his spell requires no words.”

  “Hurry!” Phaistro was trembling. “The odor of this place would sicken a rat! And the danger—”

  Theseus heard the sudden change in the admiral’s voice to tones eerily familiar. The admiral was abruptly taller than himself. The words became a startled gasp, and there was a sound of tearing cloth. Theseus thrust himself free of the frantic clutching hands, slipped back toward the ladder.

  “Help!” he shouted. “A trick—a trap! The prisoner has attacked me, stripped me!”

  His sobbing voice was the voice of Admiral Phaistro. He caught the ladder, that was already swaying to the mad climbing of Snish, swarmed up it at the little wizard’s heels.

  “Fools!” bellowed the admiral. “Stop him! He’s trying t
o escape!”

  But the admiral spoke in the voice of Captain Firebrand. He splashed frantically about the pools in the yet-unfamiliar cell, groping frantically for the ladder. Theseus reached the door, and quick, tense hands pulled him through.

  “Master, are you hurt?”

  “No, praise to Minos,” rapped the precise new voice of Theseus. “But the pirate’s treasure is all a lie—one worthy of a good Cretan. He assaulted me—planning, no doubt, to murder me under the darkness and escape in my clothing.”

  Unseen men were straining frantically. The massive bronze grate fell again, with a dull, heavy sound, muffling the screams and curses from below. Locks snapped. A slave wrapped Theseus in the loose robe that the admiral had laid aside before he descended the ladder.

  “Quick!” whispered Theseus. “We must escape before his uproar calls other guards! Or we’ll all face—that one! Firebrand’s hoard was a lie—but still I’ll see that you are all rewarded. Let’s get out of here!”

  Frightened guards led the hurried, furtive way through confused black passages, up long ramps, through a series of locked doors, and at last into one of the deeper palace magazines, where rows of huge jars held oil and wine. Finally a side door let them into an alley beneath the starlit bulk of Knossos, where a palanquin was waiting.

  Theseus relaxed, trembling, on its scented cushions.

  “Back home,” he said anxiously, “before we are discovered!”

  “But there’s no danger now,” said the servant, who had helped him into the litter, in the tone of one who enjoys his master’s confidence. “We have been aboard often enough by night. Men will merely laugh and whisper that the admiral is wooing his goddess again.”

  The servant made a hollow chuckle.

  “It’s unfortunate that the pirate lied, but at least the trickery was not all his own. If he knew that you had captured his old comrades two moons ago, sold his men to Amur the Hittite, and already sent the Gamecock ahead of him into the Dark One’s Labyrinth!”

  The servant laughed thickly in the darkness.

  FOURTEEN

  THESEUS LAY between scented sheets of fine Egyptian linen. He opened his eyes on a long room. The frescoed walls showed graceful girls in a harvest dance. Hinged window screens of tinted oiled parchment were open, to reveal a quiet garden where birds sang in pomegranate trees.

  The surroundings were all of rich luxury and high-walled security, but Theseus could not help a cold shudder of fear. He rubbed the smoothness of the sheets, and buried his face again in the fragrant pillow, afraid that he would yet wake up in the foul darkness of the pit.

  For the success of his desperate plan seemed still a dream. He could hardly credit, even now, the splendor of this hilltop villa, to which the frightened slaves had brought him. The midnight feast that the chamberlain had set still seemed a vision of his starvation-goaded brain—and he was ravenous again.

  But he remembered the chamberlain’s laugh about his old companions’ capture, the Gamecock already sent to the justice of the Dark One. That stiffened his dream into hard reality, sobered his incredulous joy. He was awake, all right, and he had things to do—Cyron had to be avenged!

  He sat up on the bed. A tin mirror propped on a marble table showed him the sharp, narrow face of Admiral Phaistro. He made a grimace at the bulging forehead, womanish red lips, and retreating chin It was not a face he liked—but still he was mutely thankful for the gift of Snish.

  “Did you call, master?”

  The chamberlain, who hid the confidences of Phaistro under a countenance of rigid disapproval, was bowing in the doorway.

  “Bring my breakfast,” Theseus ordered.

  “A quail’s egg?” asked the servant. “And barley water?”

  “Porridge with milk,” amended Theseus. “A broiled fowl, honey cakes, and fruit—” Astonishment broke through the chamberlain’s rigid face, and he cut short the order. “And send me the cobbler,” he said. “The man is versed in certain small Babylonian spells, and he has promised to brew a wonderful philter for me.”

  “The master requires a wonderful philter indeed,” returned the stiff-faced servant, “if he still aspires to the goddess. Your pardon, your breakfast! I rejoice that the master feels so hearty.”

  The bowl of porridge arrived—incongruously upon a long silver tray carried by two slaves. Snish came waddling behind them. Apprehension sat upon his seamed, wide-mouthed face, and his yellow popeyes darted about uneasily. Theseus sent away the slaves, and invited the little wizard to share his breakfast.

  Snish, however, was in no mood to eat.

  “Master!” he croaked, when his blinking yellow eyes had followed the slaves out of sight. “Do you know the peril that your mad plot has brought upon us?”

  “I can see a danger,” admitted Theseus. “If one man can get out of that pit, another can. And the presence of two admirals would make for confusion. Therefore, we must work swiftly. Try these Egyptian dates.”

  Bending fearfully, Snish shook his brown, bald head.

  “It’s worse than that, master!” he whispered. “Once your guise was broken—you must know that any close touch will turn you back to Captain Firebrand. And send us both to the Labyrinth! If these Cretan warlocks take us, my poor power will not serve again.”

  The whisper sank to a sobbing whine.

  “Why, master, did you have to set Phaistro’s marines after me?” He quivered, and tears sprang into the bulging eyes. “I had sold Tai Leng’s jewels, and bought a tiny shop on a good street, with last and hammer and needle. Business is better here than in Babylon, and I had learned to be contented.”

  Snish blew his nose on a loose corner of his loincloth. “I was happy, master,” he sighed. “I was busy all day—until the admiral’s men came in the darkness, and broke down the shutters of my shop, and choked me with gags, and dragged me away without one word of explanation to the dungeons under Knossos.”

  The yellow eyes blinked. “Remember, master, I am no bold soldier of fortune. I am merely a luckless cobbler, with no stomach for such adventures as this. And had I not repaid my debt to you, master, on the day the games were played?”

  “Try one of these honey cakes,” said Theseus. “So you did aid me? I had wondered. You profess to be only a minor wizard, and yet you tell me that you defeated the warlocks of Crete?”

  Snish shook his head, fearfully.

  “I am the very smallest wizard, master,” he protested anxiously. “My small powers are almost beneath the notice of the jealous warlocks of Knossos. Else they would have discovered and destroyed me long ago—as they will surely do yet, if you force me to defy them any further!” Paling, he shivered.

  “The arrow and the boomerang and the wizard’s shot went by me,” said Theseus. “How?”

  The yellow frog face faintly grinned.

  “It was through the same small art that you already know, master,” wheezed Snish. “After each god had launched his weapon, I changed you—too briefly for the eye to see the change—into the likeness of myself.”

  “Yourself?” muttered Theseus.

  “The missiles were all,” Snish told him, “aimed at your head. But Gothung was a tall man, and I am short. Therefore, the gods shot high. But I trembled lest they discover the trick!”

  Theseus stared for a moment at the seamed yellow face, and tried to curtain the doubt in his eyes. He had felt that an effort of his own, a reckless defiance of wizardry, had helped deflect those shots. But the tearful face of Snish was earnest.

  “These pickled olives are superb,” he said. “Try them. The trick was very clever, Snish, and I thank you for my life. If Ariadne hadn’t kissed me—”

  “But she did!” whispered Snish. “And here you have flung yourself back into the same danger—dragging me after you!” The whisper sank. “Tell me, master—what are your plans? Since you are now the admiral, shall we not take the swiftest ship in the harbor and sail while we can?”

  “No,” said Theseus, and the thin feat
ures of the admiral turned hard with resolve. “I came here to crush the wizardry of Knossos—to end the reign of Minos and the dominion of the Dark One. And I shall!”

  “Caution, master!” urged the fearful voice of Snish. “And don’t shout! The warlocks have very keen ears for any such talk as that. Haven’t you suffered enough from the folly of your purpose?”

  “But don’t you see?” protested Theseus. “The goal is already half won. As admiral, I am master of the wooden wall of Knossos. I can walk safely by Talos, the brass wall. There remains only the third—the wall of wizardry. That is all that stands before us, now.”

  “You are still Captain Firebrand!” Teeth chattering, Snish clung to the tall carved bedpost. “The warlocks had better look to their weapons—as doubtless they will!” He tried faintly to grin. “But perhaps Ariadne could tell you something about this wall of wizardry.”

  “Doubtless,” said Theseus, wistfully. “If a man might speak alone with Cybele.”

  Snish grinned more broadly.

  “Evidently, you are not familiar with the gossip in the servants’ quarters.” Anxiously, the little wizard caught the arm of Theseus. “Master,” he begged, “beware of her kiss! Or we’ll both end in the Labyrinth.”

  Theseus picked up the jeweled tin mirror and surveyed the thin, aristocratic face of Admiral Phaistro without enthusiasm.

  “Women,” he commented, “are very strange creatures. And goddesses, apparently, as well. When am I going to see her?”

  “You are expecting a message today,” Snish told him.

  “What else have you learned in the servants’ quarters?”

  “Your financial affairs,” Snish informed him, “are in a very bad way. You gamble recklessly, and spend tremendous sums for feasts and bribes, to maintain your position. You are deeply in debt to Amur the Hittite. That is why you were so anxious to secure the hidden hoard of Captain Firebrand. Amur, by the way, is coming to call on you this morning.”

  “The scorpion,” muttered Theseus. “Thank you, Snish.” He smiled. “Keep your ears open and your small arts ready to serve me—and perhaps you will live to be an honest cobbler yet.”