Blood of the Heroes

by Steve White

  All of them, even Zeus, simply stared at the Hero, whose eyes blazed like openings through which could be glimpsed a soul made of pure fire.

  Nagel finally spoke, almost timidly. “Why Mycenae? Isn’t it a small, unimportant site in this era?”

  “That’s the whole point,” said Perseus, too excited to notice the historian’s slip of the tongue. “I can’t go to Argos or Tiryns—not yet. Acrisius or Proetus would kill me. But Mycenae is neutral ground between the two Danaid kingdoms. There, below the hill-fort, is the sacred ring where the descendants of Danaos are buried with their weapons and other possessions, lying together in death no matter how bitterly they feuded in life.”

  “Grave Circle

  B,” Nagel breathed.

  “I’ll issue a call to the warriors of the Argolid,” Perseus went on, “summoning them to a council at Mycenae. When they learn I arrived with you, Father, in your chariot, they’ll come! Acrisius and Proetus will go mad with rage, but they won’t dare to interfere. After the warriors have heard Deianeira’s prophecy from her own lips, I’ll have more would-be raiders than ships to carry them!” The Hero abruptly turned matter-of-fact. “Afterwards, when I’ve returned laden with the plunder of Keftiu, I’ll rescue my mother from Polydectes of Seriphos. Then I’ll settle accounts with Acrisius and Proetus, as I’ve sworn to do, and unify the entire Argolid.” A new thought occurred to him. “To set the seal on that unity, I’ll establish a new residence at Mycenae. And to mark the dawn of a new era for men and gods, I’ll start a new sacred ring for myself and my descendants. Acrisius and Proetus are pigs, but they carry the blood of Danaos, so I’ll let them and their sons be buried in the old one.”

  “Grave Circle

  A.” Nagel’s whisper held something close to ecstasy. “Overlapping in time with B, and containing grave goods from Crete. So that’s it! Yes, it all fits… .”

  “You seem to have it all figured out,” Jason said to Perseus—inadequately.

  “Except for one thing,” said Zeus. “My chariot can only carry two, including the driver. I can take you to Mycenae, but not this woman. You will have to make her prophecy live for the warriors of the Argolid.”

  Perseus turned a stricken look on Deirdre. Her own features wavered … but for less than a heartbeat. Then she met his look with one of steadiness.

  “Go, Perseus, and do what you must do. I’ll remain with Jason and Synon, and we’ll do what we must do: take the idol of the Old Gods to Kalliste.”

  “What?” exclaimed the Hero with bewildered indignation. “You must be joking, Deianeira! Leave you in danger? No!”

  Deirdre’s eyes were unblinking and her voice was level. “Perseus, in the glimpse of the future Poseidon granted me, I saw one other thing: I myself am going to survive what is about to happen. My fate isn’t played out. So you see, there is no real danger. I will be waiting for you here on Keftiu, where I should be safe.”

  “I know of a place, away from the coast and at a high altitude,” said Zeus. “Mount Ida, to the southwest of here, has a cave that is sacred to me. Any of the local people should be able to give you directions. And,” he added to Jason, “I have reason to think you have … a special talent for finding your way through these lands.”

  “Yes, you might say that.” Just to be on the safe side, Jason activated his display, and expanded the scale. Mount Ida showed clearly.

  “Then it’s settled,” Deirdre said to Perseus with a smile. “That will be our meeting point. I’ll be waiting for you, when you return as a conqueror.”

  Perseus’ expression went from awe to fierce exultation. “Yes! And I’ll find you!”

  Well done, Deirdre , thought Jason. That’s the way to get him motivated. But then he saw the look she was giving in return, and wondered if that was all there was to it.

  “Well,” he said, a little more gruffly than was perhaps strictly necessary, “while we’re on the subject of getting the idol to Kalliste … Zeus, can you get us a chariot? One of the cargo-carrying ones I’ve seen?”

  “No. I only have my own chariot. However, the idol is lighter than you might think. And the local priests have a frame for transporting it.”

  “Yes, we saw them use it at Amnisos.”

  “Well, using that, the four of you should be able to carry the idol to the coast. And they probably keep it close to the idol itself.”

  “Where is the idol, by the way?”

  “In a hall where various sacred images are kept, at the northwest corner of the palace.”

  “The Sanctuary Hall,” said Nagel automatically. “I remember now, it was from there that the priestesses entered the Great Hall on the day we arrived here. But that is on the second story. How can we gain access to it?”

  “There is an outside entrance to the second story at that corner. Late at night, there should be no one about except a few guards. Using the Nagom’s invisibility device, you should be able to approach unnoticed—especially tonight, when everything will still be in a state of disorganization after your escape.”

  “What if the portal automatically opens while we’ve got it?” Jason demanded.

  “I do not believe it is set to do so. But that is a chance you must take, if you dare.” The Teloi turned to Perseus. “And now, let us be gone. My chariot is nearby. Come … my son.”

  Perseus swelled with pride. Then his face fell as he remembered Deirdre. He turned to her and grasped her by the arms. “Remember your promise, Deianeira. And be sure I will remember mine.” He took her in the quick, hard embrace that was all he could do here in public, and then was gone, following the tall figure of his “father” into the dusk.

  *

  The antiglare goggles Oannes had used earlier also had a light-gathering setting, and there was a half moon in the clear sky. So even from within the cloak of refracted light, he was able to see his way through the night. The humans could only huddle together within the invisibility field and follow him.

  They skirted the northern end of the palace, with the amphitheater to their right. Just around the northwestern corner, a couple of shallow flights of steps led up to a small propylon where a couple of nervous soldiers stood guard against whatever had hurled those horribly flashing bits of the sun at the bullring. Oannes picked them off with the weapon he’d pointed at Zeus—an electromagnetic disruptor, now on stunner setting—and deactivated the invisibility field. They slipped though the doorway, crossed a corridor, and entered a fifty-by-thirty-foot hall with two rows of three columns running down its long axis. Oil lamps dimly illuminated the objects set against the walls—crude stone god-figures that must date back to the Neolithic Age. But the place of honor, under a row of four windows at the western end of the hall, belonged to the Teloi’s disguised portal device, seeming to loom larger than it really was in the flickering light.

  A hasty search revealed the stretcherlike carrier—basically, two very stout wooden poles with several leather straps between them—folded on the floor behind the device. They maneuvered the idol onto the straps, finding that Zeus had spoken the truth: the artificial “stone” was lighter than the real thing. It must, Jason decided, add to the thing’s uncanny quality in the eyes of the locals … and the slaves must surely be grateful for it. He knew he was, as they each took an end of a pole and bore it silently away.

  The moonlight was enough for the humans to see by as they hurried northward, first along the road they’d taken and then cutting left across country under Oannes’ direction. Then the moon set and they were entirely dependent on Oannes, with his light-gathering optics, to steer them across broken country. After several stumbles and near accidents, Oannes declared that it was almost dawn and that they must spend the day in concealment even though their goal was tantalizingly close. He found a secluded little field behind an orchard and they all sank gratefully to the ground beneath the dome of invisibility as the sun began to redden the eastern horizon.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” said Jason. It was, he thought, the lea
st he could do. Deirdre hadn’t uttered a word of protest, but she was clearly close to collapse. Oannes was in little better case; he was bearing the backpack privacy field generator, and as he had been known to point out, he wasn’t getting any younger. Nor was Nagel.

  They spent the day napping in shifts and eating Oannes’ food concentrates, which he assured them were harmless and fairly nutritious for humans, although lacking certain essentials whose absence would take a toll over the long term. Not that Jason could imagine subsisting on the stuff for the long term; Oannes hadn’t exaggerated its lack of satiety value. At least they had water, fetched from a nearby stream by Oannes, using his personal invisibility unit.

  Aside from making desultory conversation, their only amusement was watching through the distortion of the field as groups of soldiers passed by. Imagination failed at the hue and cry that must have gone up at Knossos when the idol turned up missing. Oannes held his weapon at the ready in case any of the patrols blundered through the boundaries of the field, but none did.

  As soon as night fell, Oannes deactivated the field, about whose sustainability he was beginning to worry, and they resumed their trek in darkness. It didn’t take long—although it seemed much longer—to cover the mile or so to a little indentation in the coast that didn’t deserve the name “cove.”

  “Wait here,” said the Nagom as they set their burden down on the pebbly beach. “I will bring my vessel.” With the abrupt, sinuous movement that Jason still found unsettling, he slid into the water he must have missed beyond all telling. A remarkably short time passed before his submarine’s illuminated bubble broke the surface.

  The four of them took the idol out through the shallows. Jason was struck—not for the first time—with the sensation that they bore a genie’s bottle, but with the “Old Gods” locked within.

  “I say,” groused Nagel as they manhandled the thing, “why can’t we just sink it into the sea? Then, when the portal opens at whatever time it is scheduled to do so—”

  “A delightful thought,” Oannes agreed. “But they have naturally foreseen such a contingency. The instant that water comes rushing in through it, the portal automatically snaps shut. And there is always a Teloi aircar aloft, with a sensor which can detect the distinctive energy signature of the portal opening, so they will know where to locate it. No, you were right the first time. It must be destroyed.”

  The Nagom boarded the submarine and set up a kind of winch. The humans maneuvered the idol into a sling, and Oannes brought it aboard. He then backfilled, moving the submarine out of the dangerously shallow water.

  “All right,” said Jason, turning to his fellow time travelers in the knee-deep water. “We need to make some plans. Deirdre, I’m sure Oannes will leave you some of his food concentrates. You may have to last on them for a while, before things have quieted down enough for you to risk scrounging from the local peasants. At least we don’t have to decide on a rendezvous; it may as well be this Mount Ida, where Perseus is going to meet you anyway. But we need to decide on—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Even in the moonlight, Deirdre’s eyes could be seen to flash. “I’m coming with you!”

  “But you told Perseus you’d wait for him here on Crete.”

  “I had to tell him that! Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone with Zeus. It’s just the way he thinks, where women are concerned. He can’t help it. You, on the other hand, aren’t supposed to have a Bronze Age mentality!”

  “But, Deirdre, we’re going to Kalliste. You said yourself it can explode at any time.”

  “Yes, that’s the whole point!” Her voice held something like exultation. “Do you think I’d miss this last chance to see the island as it was before the event?”

  And I thought Nagel was bad! Jason kept his voice down with an effort. “Deirdre, we’re not exactly going there for sightseeing. Kalliste is also the Teloi’s center of operations. This is going to be dangerous in ways beyond the chance of being vaporized by superheated volcanic gas!”

  “Oh. And I suppose just because I’m a woman—”

  Sheer exasperation made Jason forget the need for quiet. “That is not the issue, and you know it!”

  “Ahem!” interjected Nagel hesitantly. “Perhaps this is not the best possible time to—”

  Neither of them heard him. “It is so the issue!” Deirdre declared.

  “Only on your backwater planet! You’re still fighting a war that nobody else even remembers.”

  “Then why is it that you see nothing wrong with taking Nagel, who has no qualifications in geology or vulcanology but who does have a penis?”

  “I beg your pardon!” blurted the historian, his out-of-character attempt at peacemaking forgotten.

  All three were gathering their forces for crushing retorts when the soldiers appeared on the shore.

  They were without shields—doubtless considered unnecessary for dealing with unarmed fugitives anyway—so that they might carry torches. Jason had only a split second to realize that he might have noticed the approaching glow of those torches, had he not let himself be drawn into a contest of petulance. Then there was no time for self-reproach, as the commander barked a command in the tongue of Keftiu. The soldiers plunged into the water, torches borne high in their left hands while their right hands held spears in an underhand grip suitable for jabbing or throwing.

  “Run for it!” yelled Jason, with no particular confidence that he would be obeyed. At the same instant, he dropped into the shallows, breaking his fall with both hands and bringing his feet up and around in a sweeping motion that cut the foremost soldier’s legs out from under him. As the man fell face-forward in the water, Jason grasped him around the neck from above and gave a quick neck-breaking twist. Then he allowed himself a quick look around. To his surprise, Nagel was actually following orders and splashing toward the submarine. Deirdre, however, couldn’t have complied even if she’d wanted to; as it happened, she was closest to the main body of onrushing soldiers. She gave one of them a doubtless deeply satisfying kick to the crotch, then ducked a jabbing spear, grabbed the arm holding it, and sent the man flying forward with a very serviceable approximation of judo. The soldiers halted for a moment, stunned by this behavior. Then one of them collapsed, stunned in a very literal sense by Oannes’ neural disruptor.

  Jason looked behind him. The sub was heading straight toward him, coming in recklessly close. Oannes was pointing his weapon from above the windshield cowling.

  “Get aboard!” Oannes called, as he dropped another of Deirdre’s assailants. Jason saw the sense in it. He splashed toward the approaching craft.

  “Keep stunning them!” he called. Soon they’d break, leaving Deirdre free… .

  But then one of them grasped Deirdre from behind, around the waist, and swung her frantically struggling form between himself and the malevolent sea demon who rendered men unconscious from afar. Oannes’ aim wavered as he saw the impossibility of a clear shot in this light.

  The other soldiers, sensing safety, clustered behind the human shield and began hurling their spears. One of them glanced off the curved surface of the sub, just below the cowling, and sliced through the flesh and muscle of the Nagom’s left arm.

  “Get aboard,” repeated Oannes in a voice thick with pain.

  Jason had reached the vessel, and only now saw the impossibility of going back for Deirdre, even if he’d felt inclined to take on a squad of soldiers.

  “Go!” Deirdre yelled.

  Not clearly aware of what was happening, Jason let Nagel pull him over the side amid the clatter of other thrown spears. Oannes, one-handed, brought the sub around a hundred and eighty degrees and headed for the open sea, with the bubble closing above them. Then they all collapsed as the vessel’s artificial brain took over, submerging and proceeding on its preset course for Kalliste.

  After a time, Jason felt Nagel’s hesitant hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be all right,” the historian assured him. “Remember, Hyperion made clear
that he wants her unharmed. They won’t dare do anything to her.”

  “Right,” said Jason emphatically. He took Nagel’s hand in a quick squeeze to show he appreciated the historian’s attempt—including his omission of the fact that Deirdre’s usefulness to the Old Gods was as breeding stock with Perseus, whom they no longer had.

  Then they got busy attending to Oannes’ wound, and there was mercifully little time to brood.

  Chapter Twenty

  For a seventy-mile trip, the main limiting factor on a supercavitating submarine’s travel time was the need to slow down to a halt at the end. It was still pitch dark when Kalliste loomed ahead, a mountainous mass against the star-filled sky. The only illumination was the glow at the top of the mountain, which gave the rising smoke a sinister ruddy tint.

  Jason, watching it in the surface-view screen, reflected that Deirdre would have been disappointed at how little could be seen. But then he looked at the scrolling electronic map of the roughly circular island. It was about a dozen miles across, partly filled with a lagoonlike embayment from whose edge the volcanic mountain rose, and whose shore held a city which dwarfed the coastal town of Akrotiri to the south which the archaeologists would one day dig up. He tried to imagine what she would have given to see it. The thought didn’t help with the guilty self-reproach he was already feeling. He now admitted to himself that she’d had a right to come, and for a reason she hadn’t even raised: they were in search of her TRD, and no one had a greater stake in that.

  So he consoled himself with the thought that his implant was recording it all, for her to see when it was downloaded and played back—on the cheerful assumption that it ever was. And he occupied his mind by watching closely as Oannes manipulated the controls, doing his best to memorize what he saw. He also noted a flashing violet light on the map display. Their projected course led to it.