“All right, keep calm,” Jim said quickly. “All these years you remained silent. Why?”
“Why should I speak?” Keller’s face was shining with sweat. “At the beginning silence was part of the price I paid for his services. It was war. One does many distasteful things to serve one’s country. Then, after it was over-to whom should I speak? Was it part of my duty to betray this man, as he had betrayed his comrade in arms? Whom could I serve by doing this?”
Jim’s voice cut through the high-pitched monologue.
“And besides, he might have a few secrets to tell about you. I’m sure you did other things, ‘in the course of your duty’ that might have embarrassed you. No”-as Keller made a wild gesture of protest-“never mind, forget it. Let the past die!”
“It won’t die,” I said, breaking the silence shock and horror had induced. “Keller said it this afternoon: the labyrinthine prison of time… Jim, why don’t you ask the important question? What are you afraid of?”
“A mutual pact of silence,” Jim said, gesturing me to be quiet. “And you came here-my God, you came here to protect his find from the man who betrayed him. Was that it?”
Keller nodded eagerly.
“That at least I could do.”
He looked hopefully at Jim, as if expecting approbation. The man was mad, all right, but only part of the time. There was a single flaw in his thinking, and even that had its own bizarre consistency.
“I understand,” Jim said. “So, this year, when it appeared that the secret was known, you tried to stop the work. The avalanche, that day you saw us on the hill, was no accident. You wanted to put Sandy out of action. She was the diver, the one who was looking for the ships. You planted the amphora, with its booby trap, hoping she would be-”
“No!” Keller’s eyes widened. “What do you take me for, that I would harm a young girl? Was I not the one who saved her? She might have died, in the water, if I had not-”
“You didn’t plan to kill her,” Jim interrupted. “Only to immobilize her. I’ll give you that much credit. The mere fact that you were there in time to bring her in is suspicious. How could you have been on the spot unless you expected an accident?”
“Stop it,” I said, as Keller began to protest. “All this is beside the point. We sit here talking, while… You don’t have to protect me, Jim. Iknow who the traitor was. It must have been Frederick.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Jim said in a strained voice.
“It was your boss or mine,” I said. “Take your pick. Who has the kind of ruthless self-interest for such a filthy action? Why did he volunteer to go out just now? It wasn’t altruism, you can be sure. He’s never done anything that didn’t serve his own interests. What’s he doing out there? Who is he after?”
“My God.” Jim got to his feet. He pointed at Keller. “You were shot at yesterday afternoon. Was that-”
“Nein, aber nein.” Keller’s eyes had a queer shine as he looked sideways at Jim. “I am not such a fool. I have taken precautions. A statement, to be opened at my death. He has the strongest reasons to keep me alive.”
“You stubborn fool, can’t you see the situation has changed?” Jim shouted. “Maybe your precious statement has protected you all these years, but it isn’t doing the job now. He’s going to kill someone-you, Kore, Sandy-I can’t tell, I don’t know all the facts!”
“Let them kill each other,” Keller said listlessly. “What does it matter?”
“You won’t get any more out of him,” I said to Jim. “Why are we standing here playing Sherlock Holmes? We’ve got to stop him.”
Before Jim could answer, a ghastly quavering shriek rang along the dark hall.
“It’s Kore,” I gasped. “Quick, Jim.”
The sound aroused Keller from his apathy. He jumped up and ran out of the room, calling Kore’s name. Jim went after him, as another, fainter cry shivered the air. Jim yelled at me, something about staying where I was; but I couldn’t remain passive while a cry like that one assaulted my ears.
The result would have been the same, whether I remained alone in the room or was alone somewhere else in the house. I made it a little easier for them, that was all. But I didn’t expect that particular kind of danger. A howling outraged mob couldn’t have broken into the house unheard.
When they surrounded me, I was taken by surprise. I got out one scream, but it was quickly stifled by calloused work-hardened hands-a web of hands and arms, wrapping around me like the tentacles of an octopus, dark bodies pinning my arms to my sides. One of the hands thrust something against my nose. The sharp fumes made me sneeze, but not for long. I pitched forward into blackness, and into the eager, waiting arms of the women of Zoa.
II
I awoke to the worst nightmare I had ever had-the worst, because it wasn’t a dream. Yet there was an air of unreality about the scene, and the fact that I was alone made me wonder whether I might not still be dreaming. For a while I wavered back and forth between the two theories.
I had a terrible headache and my stomach felt queasy. I was sitting on the ground; hard pebbles pressed into my posterior. My physical sensations suggested that I must be awake. But when I tried to move, I couldn’t, and immobility is one of the signs of nightmare. It took me a while to figure out that I was tied to a tree. My feet were tied too. The ropes were padded; when I pulled against them I felt no pain, only constriction. I tried to squint at the ropes on my ankles, but I couldn’t see clearly; my eyes took some time to focus, and the shadow of the tree enveloped me.
The immediate source of light was a fire burning in the middle of a wide-open space. The sky overhead was a ghastly unnatural crimson. Without stars I had no sense of direction, but I knew where I was. I recognized it from an earlier nightmare. Low, uneven ridges of ashy rock surrounded a flat space about an acre in area. The worn, stone-paved surface was the one on which my bare feet had bruised themselves, dancing, the night before. A rehearsal, no doubt, for this evening’s performance.
The sickness in my stomach wasn’t solely the result of the drug they had used on me. I would almost have welcomed a band of shrieking maenads; the crimson silence, broken only by the faroff rumblings of the tortured earth, was worse than any human threat. My mind was quite clear-too clear. I was remembering a lot of facts I would rather have forgotten.
Score one for Jim. He had been right, and Kore had been training me for the leading role in her lunatic drama. Even the tree-it wasn’t much of a tree, all gnarled and straggly, but trees and their man-made derivatives, pillars and columns, were sacred to the goddess in ancient Crete. The Minoans sacrificed bulls and let their blood flow onto the pillars. I looked around the little amphitheater. No bulls. No sacrificial animals visible-except one.
I made myself relax. I had been straining uselessly against the bonds, and all I was doing was tiring myself. Whoever had tied me up had been considerate of my comfort, but she had done a thorough job. My hands were free, but my elbows were pinned by the ropes that held me half erect. I couldn’t reach behind me to undo the knots there, and even if I could contort myself into a position where I could touch the ropes on my ankles, untying my feet wouldn’t do me much good.
The emptiness was getting on my nerves. Where were they? Howling along the hillside in pursuit of some other prey? The maenads had done that in ancient Greece, and in the still more ancient homelands from which that particularly gory cult had come. The chase culminated in the diasposmoi, when the young male victim who represented the god was caught. It was amazing that I remembered the word, but I knew why my mind had produced it-I didn’t want to think of the English equivalent. But I couldn’t keep it down. Dismemberment. And worse. Ritual cannibalism, to absorb the qualities of the god.