Authors: Fred Saberhagen
Meanwhile both of us had noticed, though neither of us had paid much attention to, some sounds like distant thunder, which seemed to me unnaturally steady and prolonged. And while Theseus exulted at the strange behavior of our guards—they were leaving us to ourselves for long hours together—I wondered if this might be an ominous sign. It was as if both queen and Bull, and perhaps their soldiers also, were occupied with other matters and had no time for us.
Eventually one of the jailers did come around to bring us food and water, which were customarily passed in through a slit at the bottom of each door. As soon as the man had come into a properly vulnerable position, a huge fist came smashing through the solid-looking though greatly weakened wood of the cell's door. I could see nothing of the ensuing struggle, but I could hear the victim's yelp of surprise, and with a little imagination I was able to visualize the succeeding struggle.
Our plan worked. Moments later the young king was opening my cell door with a key he had just taken from the guard. When I saw Theseus again he was already carrying a sword much needed as a weapon.
Theseus was still suffering the psychological pressure of confinement, and we moved quickly as we made our way out of the dungeon portion of the Labyrinth. The continued scarcity of guards at first puzzled us almost as much as it delighted us. But we had not gone far before distant shouts and other sounds, running feet and the rattle of arms, gave us to understand that some kind of revolt against the power of queen and Bull was already under way or at least imminent, and the men were needed elsewhere.
My secret exit was far distant from this por-tion of the Labyrinth, and thus no use to us at all. The nearest way out lay just beyond the chamber in which we had been questioned by both queen and Bull, and after a hurried consultation with Theseus I led the way in that direction.
The chamber was deserted now, the cabinet in which my wings had been placed locked but unguarded. In a moment Theseus had forced it open. The wings were a part of his plan—as soon as we were able to get outdoors, he intended to have me use them to scout.
The windows in this meeting-chamber were not quite big enough for us to crawl through, but through them we had our first look at the sky for several days. What we saw gave us pause. The plume of smoke from distant Thera's volcano, that for many years had hung intermittently upon the northern horizon, had now greatly increased above its ordinary volume. Again now, even as we watched, that sound as of continual distant thunder came ominously to our ears. While struggling to escape our cells both of us had been much too concerned with other matters to pay much attention to these distant phenomena. But now I studied them and I liked them not.
"Hark! What was that?" Theseus paused, listening to a new and different sound, even as we were on our way out into the next corridor.
"It might be real fighting."
When we listened attentively we could hear shouts of alarm, much closer now, in the open portions of the Labyrinth. There was an even louder uproar, farther off in the streets of the town and courtyards of the House.
And then in the next moment the northern sky was lighted, briefly, as if by some unnatural dawn. The light grew in the space of a breath to equal that of the sun itself, behind distant clouds. The decline began at once, but it was much more gradual.
"What was that?"
This time neither of us could guess an answer to the question.
Only a few minutes after the strange light came the first shock of the tormented earth; the ground swayed like taut sailcloth beneath our feet, so that both of us cried out in surprise. In several places the walls of the Labyrinth broke down, fine masonry of a Daedalian bond crumbling and shattering like mud walls. Stone fragments rained about our heads. The water that ran perpetually beneath some of the floors splashed up through drain-holes, making perfect little fountains that lasted for no more than two heartbeats.
In a moment the little fountains had vanished again, but the grumbling and the shifting of the earth went on.
"Look! There!"
I looked, up in the sky. It was the flying machine of Dionysus once again, glittering away from Crete through distant air, presumably headed for some quieter island.
And yet again the ground lurched and quivered under our feet. Some of the walls around us were collapsing entirely, and we bolted through the newly created apertures for the open air.
Tremors tormenting the subterranean foundations of Crete were nothing new—just Poseidon Earth-Shaker flexing his muscles again—but shocks of such violence were certainly extraordinary. And today the initial shock was followed in three or four minutes by a horrendous noise, of a kind that I have never heard at any other time, before or since, that which I pray all the gods of earth and sea and sky I may never hear again. All I can say in the way of description is that it resembled a whole battery of distant thunderstorms raging at once, and with an ominously different quality in the thunder.
Theseus and I, climbing our way out of the half-ruined Labyrinth over one after another of its broken walls, found that no one was paying any attention to our escape, though we were in sight of several of the queen's guards and soldiers.
Nor, in fact, did we pay these potential enemies much attention either. I saw Theseus staring into the sky, a look on his face that I had never seen there before. I raised my own gaze to the heavens.
A dark cloud, racing toward us over the sea from the north as swiftly as the magic vehicle of Dionysus had fled away, was overspreading the whole lower third of the sky in that direction, in the process blotting out the northern horizon entirely.
Theseus was murmuring the names of gods, as if he were appealing to them for help, one of the few times that I have ever heard him do so.
The roar of human voices that went up from the streets of the town grew stronger gradually, but still it was tiny by comparison with the world-sounds that had preceded it.
As we made our way from palace and Labyrinth, and through the town, we were met by numbers of people, civilians of both sexes, of all classes and ages, all of them running in blind panic.
Some at least of these distraught citizens were headed for the Temple of Poseidon, and I saw one group of them vanish into the broad, dark doorway, two blocks away. Only moments later, another earth-shock brought the great lintels and roof-beams of the temple crashing down, and I am sure that all inside it perished.
Theseus stopped to harangue the people remaining in the street, grabbing them by the arms and forcing them to listen when he could. He even made some headway among those not totally blinded by panic, convincing a dozen men or so at least to take up such arms as they could find and follow him. It was their duty as Cretans, he told them, to rid this, their beautiful island, of the queen and monster whose unnatural union had provoked the gods almost to the destruction of the entire world.
Before an hour had passed, my friend the king and hero had placed himself once more in command of an army, albeit only a small and rudimentary one.
Initially our small army looked as if it might achieve some success. This profitable skirmishing lasted until the following day, when my heroic friend led his hastily organized force against the palace and it ran into some disciplined resistance from the queen's guard. Then, like other inspired mobs, it melted away like mountain snow brought down into summer's heat.
Despite the best leadership that Theseus could exert, most of the poorly-armed rabble that were his followers turned and fled at the first volley of arrows. Shortly afterward the King of Athens and I, with a mere handful of adherents, found ourselves in an alley of the city, trying to reorganize. Even the omens in the sky had turned against us for the time being; the great cloud in the northern sky had slowed its advance, the sun was shining brightly, and for the moment the earth beneath our feet was quiet.
Following our rout, a company of soldiers had pursued us from the palace, and now they pressed an attack. Just as we were on the verge of being overrun completely, panic began and spread swiftly in the enemy ranks, and I was sure that they were being attacked somehow from the rear.
In a few moments I had my explanation. Our long-sought comrade Heracles burst into view, riding a wild bull that he had somehow tamed into carrying him. He steered the beast by twisting on its horns. His mighty left hand sufficed to manage this, while with his right he swung his huge log-club, and thrust with it. Bronze armor dented in and crumbled under his blows, and human flesh was mangled. As in the fight at sea, his own body seemed almost impervious to weapons.
In what seemed no time at all, the company of guards who had been on the verge of defeating us were killed or scattered. Now the hard core of revolutionaries, a dozen men or so, who had remained with us were much heartened, as well as being better armed with weapons picked up from the fallen soldiers.
Now a different cloud, higher up the northern sky and composed of slower-moving darkness, appeared to be threatening to engulf the entire heavens eventually.
During that first period of active fighting I had made no effort to put on my wings. At first Theseus had wanted to keep his winged man as a surprise weapon, in reserve; and then when things began to go badly, danger had been so close and immediate on every hand that I had feared to put down my weapons long enough to fasten straps. But now, on the orders of Theseus, I put on my wings again at last, and soared into the smoky air to reconnoiter.
A couple of slung stones passed my way before I had attained very great altitude, but the arm of Talus was not behind them, and they represented only a minor threat. When I had climbed through the air for the better part of an hour, I was able to see a great deal.
The whole island of Crete, or at least a very large portion of it, was now in a state of general revolt. Flying close to the ground, I exchanged shouts with two of the rebellious leaders, informing them of the presence of Theseus near the palace, and urging them to press on in that direction. Nine out of ten who saw me flying only stared at me, but a few were still capable of rational thought and communication, and I had hopes of these, which I reported to my lord when I rejoined him shortly before sunset.
By morning our small army had again grown considerably, and it was greatly augmented by more fearful citizens after the dawn had come up frighteningly red and dim. Throughout the morning the sun struggled behind a thickening veil of darkness that had now come to dominate almost the entire sky.
Still the elite troops guarding the Labyrinth remained loyal to the queen, and were too strong for us to engage successfully in a direct attack; even Heracles, who led our initial charge, was stunned by a hurled rock in the first minutes of the fight. His bronze helmet was bashed in, and his head suffered a blow that would have crushed any ordinary human skull.
We had to drag our strong man away to save his life, and the morale of our irregular forces suffered greatly as a consequence. Heracles, to our great relief, soon regained consciousness, but for some hours he remained almost helpless. Out of necessity we retreated again, and sought hiding places in the buildings of the ruined city. That ruin was proceeding rapidly; what the earthquake had so far failed to destroy, fire and war were quickly starting to devour.
Whenever I climbed to a high place, or took wing on another scouting expedition, I could see that most of the palace and the Labyrinth still survived.
Fortunately by the next morning Heracles appeared almost as good as new, save for the gash on his head. Theseus, wisely as I thought, decided to hold him in reserve, until our army as a whole should appear to have a chance of standing up to the regular troops in a pitched battle.
During the subsequent hours and days, as long as the unnatural darkness continued to dominate the skies of Crete, Heracles kept our spirits up by refusing to be overawed by any of the outrageous behavior of the sea or earth or sky.
He also regaled us with many a wild tale of the adventures he had experienced in getting ashore despite the Bronze Man, and in traveling overland during the following days to reach the point of rendezvous. Talus, we gathered, had pursued him a good part of the way. Nor had anything discouraged the Bronze Man in his pursuit until Heracles from the top of the cliff had pried loose one boulder after another and thus launched a landslide onto him. Whether the metal man had actually been destroyed or not Heracles could not say. But at least his arrival in the vicinity of the palace had been considerably delayed.
Several times, also, while trying to reach the point of rendezvous, Heracles had grown angry at somewhat less threatening delays, and had lashed out at those Cretans he considered responsible. Each of these episodes had been followed by a period of remorse, in which he had tried, not always successfully, to make amends for some damage that he had caused. If he had been days overdue in reaching the point of rendezvous, he was sorry, but really there had been no help for it.
Theseus assured his best fighter that he was forgiven, and asked him questions. What else had Heracles observed on his trip overland? Were the people really rising everywhere against the queen and Bull?
Yes, just about everywhere, Heracles responded confidently. Once he had realized that a civil war was breaking out, he had quickly become convinced of the justice of the rebels' cause, and had openly taken part in some of the fighting, even before he had reached us.
"Good!" And Theseus clapped him heartily on the shoulder. I noticed that the impact even had a different sound than it would have done on ordinary flesh.
The cause of the rebellion in the vicinity of the palace was now immeasurably strengthened.
With Heracles now recovered from his injury and fighting at full strength beside us, the two heroes provided a nucleus of strength around which the local resistance was able to gather with increasing confidence.