TW07 The Argonaut Affair NEW (10 page)

"No, I-" Theseus paused as Hercules frowned down at him. "Uh, yes, then I killed it," he said quickly and Hercules released him.

"After that, it was a simple matter of following the thread back to the entrance of the labyrinth and finding a warm welcome in the arms of Ariadne. We boarded the ship which had brought us all to Crete and set sail for home, full of festive spirit. Unfortunately, our spirits were so high that I forgot what I had told my father and I neglected to put up the white sail. Aegeus saw our black sail on the horizon and, thinking I had perished, became so grief-stricken that he threw himself into the sea. Thus, I vanquished the Minotaur and became a king."

"Handy little lapse of memory he had there," Delaney said to Andre.

Idmon shook his head. "Do us all a service, Castor, and do not ask Theseus to tell any more stories of his exploits. We are all guests here and his tales are hard upon the housekeeping."

The Argonauts all laughed and Theseus scowled at first, then joined in the laughter.

"I, too, have a tale to tell," said Chiron and they all fell silent as their old teacher spoke. "I dreamt that I was taken by the gods and transported to Olympus, where the Immortals all surrounded me. I stood within a chamber full of light while they asked me many questions and the magical creations of Hephaestus, creatures of living metal, gamboled at my feet. They wished to know of the affairs of mortals. They asked me about you, Jason, and you, Theseus, and you, Hercules. They asked if mortals still believed in gods and I was saddened that they feared our loss of faith. They spoke about a quest of which I knew nothing and they spoke about a crew of heroes who called themselves the Argonauts. Then they returned me to my home here on Mount Pelion without any word of explanation and it was here that I awoke, thinking it was all a dream of portent."

The massive centaur looked down at them from where he stood at the head of the long table, while his youngest pupil, a child named Achilles, ran a comb through the hairs of his long tail.

"There is truth in what Idmon has told us," the centaur said. "The gods pose challenges to us in dreams.

Who is to say that this is not a dream in which the gods are speaking to us, moving us about like game pieces on a board for their own purposes? What mortal can discern the thoughts of an Immortal? You are the Argonauts and you are upon a quest, just as the gods spoke of in my dream.

"When your father brought you to me, Jason, he asked me to prepare you for the day when you would meet your destiny. And now all of you, many of you my old pupils, have united in this quest to bring back the golden fleece to Iolchos. It shall complete a tale that began with a mad king who believed that murdering his children would appease the anger of the gods. You sail upon the sea where Helle drowned and you journey to the land where Phrixus died. Your fates are intertwined with theirs.

"Your tale, Jason, is their tale also. It is a tale of children driven from their homes and denied their birthright. It is a tale of mortals invoking the desires of gods to justify their own and of gods who walk with mortals to redress those wrongs. How it all will end, no mere mortal can say, but in every dream, there is a lesson to be learned. Question all dreams to discern their lessons and question all mortals to discern their purposes, for the gods will question you in turn. It is as Idmon said, the wiser man is not he who believes he knows the answers, but he who knows to ask the questions.

"And now, it grows late and you must leave upon the morning tide. The time has come to sleep and dream and see what lessons we may learn."

The Argonauts slept deeply, all save "Fabius," who merely feigned sleep while he took his turn on watch.

Andre had taken the first shift, pretending also to be asleep while she remained on watch. Her shift passed uneventfully and she then woke Steiger, who took his turn for several hours. Delaney had the last shift and Steiger woke him quietly to report that all was well. Steiger then stretched out and was asleep almost immediately while Delaney remained awake, thinking. Chiron's tale had sounded uncomfortably familiar.

Delaney had the feeling they were caught in a time when myth and reality were indistinguishable. These people were primitives, yet they were sophisticated in the way they created their own myths, then lived them. Idmon had said it best. The oftener a tale is told, the truer it becomes. He wondered what they'd find when they arrived at Colchis. Would there be some enchanted golden fleece hanging on a tree branch in the Sacred Grove of Ares or would it turn out to be a rotting sheepskin painted gold, a moth-eaten symbol of an old tale upon which a kingdom had been built?

Would this be just a long, dull sea voyage which, on their return, would become the subject of embellished tales such as the fable Orpheus had told? A part of him hoped that would be the case, for the alternative, the one suggested by the existence of a creature such as Chiron and the strange phenomenon at Delphi, was a frightening one, one which threatened to shake the foundations of all that he believed and disbelieved. Yet, at the same time, a small part of him hoped it would be true. It was the part of him that remembered all the stories of his childhood and experienced crushing disappointment upon becoming an adult.

It was almost dawn when he heard the soft footfalls of hooves and looked up to see Chiron quietly moving toward the entrance to the cavern. Moving silently, Delaney followed him. Chiron went outside and in the soft gray light, Delaney could see the centaur heading down a path that led into the woods.

Keeping his distance, Delaney pursued him, curious to see where the centaur was going at such an unlikely hour. After a short while, Chiron came to a small clearing in the forest in the center of which a small stone altar had been built. He entered the clearing and stopped before the altar with his head bowed.

For a while, the centaur simply stood there, saying and doing nothing, as if praying, but then Delaney heard a deep, masculine voice say, "I am here."

Standing behind the altar, in the early morning shadows, was a figure that had not been there a moment earlier. He was wearing a hooded cloak which hid his features.

"They have come, just as you said they would," the centaur said. "They will be sailing on the morning tide.

What would you have me do?"

"Nothing more," the hooded figure said, "only tell me, among the Argonauts, who are the ones you do not know, the ones who were not among your pupils?"

"There are several," said Chiron. "Argus the shipwright is one, as well as Idmon the soothsayer, and Mopsus the astrologer. There are Menoetius and Pirithous, and Hylas, the boy who serves Hercules..."

Delaney heard Chiron mention several other names, among them their own aliases, Fabius, Creon and Atalanta. The hooded figure questioned Chiron about each of them.

"Good," the strangely familiar voice said, finally. "You have done well. Go now. It is almost dawn. Tell no one about our meeting."

"I would ask only one question," Chiron said. "Many of these youths are near and dear to me. The quest they have embarked upon will hold great dangers for them. Tell me, will they succeed?"

"No man should know his fate," the hooded figure said, "nor that of another. Some will die and some will live. What becomes of them is the province of the gods. Go now. Wish them well upon their journey."

Chiron bowed from the waist, then turned and came back in Delaney's direction. Delaney ducked behind some bushes to avoid being seen and waited until the centaur had passed. When he looked up again, the hooded figure was no longer in the clearing. He ran to the stone altar and looked around in all directions, but there was no sign of a trail or even of anyone having been there in the first place. The ground around the altar and the stone platform it stood upon was damp with early morning drizzle, but the only tracks visible in the gray dawn were Chiron's hoof prints.

"The Isle of Lemnos," Tiphys said, steering toward the green island lying ahead of them. "We had best anchor tonight in the protection of its bay, Jason. The sun is getting low and unfamiliar waters can be treacherous at night. Besides, we shall need to go ashore in search of fresh water to replenish our supply."

"And m-m-meat," said Hercules, whacking himself on the belly with a sound like wood splitting.

"Very well," said Jason. "We anchor for the night at Lemnos. Argus, Mopsus, Idmon, Telamon and Oileus, you shall remain with the ship while the rest of us go ashore in search of water and provisions."

"Lemnos," Steiger said, "according to the myth, an island of beautiful Amazon women." He glanced at Delaney and grinned. "Think that's what we'll find?"

"I'm more worried about having a ringer on this voyage," said Delaney.

Steiger nodded, suddenly serious. "If he's among the Argonauts, it would explain the hooded cloak. He wouldn't want to be recognized. But if the centaur's in on some sort of plot with him, why would he want to disguise himself for a private meeting?"

"Maybe the centaur never knew what he really looked like and he wanted to keep it that way. And that raises more questions."

"You said you thought you recognized the voice. None of the Argonauts' voices ring any bells with you?"

Delaney shook his head. "Several of them have deep voices. And whoever it was could have been altering his normal voice."

"Too bad you didn't notice if anyone was missing when you trailed Chiron."

"If anyone had left during the night, one of us should have spotted him," Delaney said. "And if someone left after I did, he should have spotted me."

"If one of these characters was equipped with a warp disc," Steiger said, "he could have clocked out of the cave and to that clearing without anyone noticing."

Delaney glanced at him sharply. "I think we'd better talk about this. Let's see if we can split away from the main group once we're ashore."

They spoke in low voices, but the
Argo
was not the best place to hold a surreptitious conversation. No space had been wasted in the construction of the galley and they were all in fairly close contact all the time. All three temporal agents had been on ocean voyages before, but no matter what the time period or what type of vessel, one thing about life on the sea remained constant. Time passed very slowly.

The
Argo
was an uncomplicated vessel. There was no need to climb the rigging to take in or let out sails, because there was only the one simple, triangular lateen sail which could be hoisted or taken down easily and quickly. There was no need to perform maintenance on armaments, because there were none. There was no need to maintain engines or generators, pumps or electrical equipment or any of the other items found on more modern ships. The
Argo
was as primitive as a ship could be short of the reed vessels of the Polynesians. Shipboard duties were simple. There was not much else to do save row or watch for leaks and bail if the need arose. When they were close to shore, one of the men would go into the bow and let down a weighted rope so that soundings could be taken. Theirs was not an ambitious ocean-crossing voyage so much as an extended offshore cruise. On their course in the Aegean Sea, they were never very far from land and much of their voyage would be spent following the coastline, sailing between the islands and the mainland. With the proper crew and under the right conditions, the
Argo
might have been capable of crossing an ocean, but even expert sailors would have found it quite a hardship.

The Vikings, sailing roughly similar vessels in the North Sea, braved far more of the dangers of the deep than did the Argonauts, and most of the Argonauts were not experienced sailors. The majority of them were landlubbers to whom the voyage took on epic proportions. When the sea was calm, they rowed, which was backbreaking work. When the winds were fair, they made slow headway under sail with the oars shipped. At such times, there was not a great deal to do on board.

The sun had burned every one of them. They had rigged an awning to provide some very much needed shade, but skin was nevertheless tender and muscles were still sore. Hylas was kept busy applying olive oil to sunburned skin and some of the crew felt seasick, even in the relatively calm seas they had experienced. Delaney, who had once endured a squall in the crow's nest of a British man o'war, wondered uneasily how this crew would fare in the event of a storm.

While they were under sail, a listless lethargy was the prevalent atmosphere on board and even Orpheus, a seemingly inexhaustible source of songs and tales, fell to sitting idly on deck and staring out to sea, lost in his own thoughts. After a day's sail, the Argonauts looked forward to spending time ashore.

They anchored in the small protected bay and waded in, pleased at the prospect of getting in some hunting. They split up into small groups and went off in different directions to explore the island. It gave the temporal agents a chance to go off by themselves.

"You're going to call me a paranoid again," said Steiger, "but hear me out first. I've been thinking about this ever since we left Mount Pelion. Something's wrong here. Someone else is conducting some sort of covert operation on this voyage. Our friend with the hooded cloak really seems to get around. He could be someone in the pay of King Pelias, someone who's infiltrated the Argonauts as we have, but there's another possibility that worries me even more. Our hooded friend might not be working for Pelias at all."

"I'm not calling you a paranoid yet," said Finn, "but I'm reserving judgment.''

"All right. Consider this. The centaur shows up in our time-line, coming through conveniently at a point where we just happen to have Observers stationed. The fact of the centaur's existence predisposes us to consider the possibility that physical laws might be significantly different in this universe. The debriefing of the centaur seems to corroborate the events described in one of our most ancient myths, in which supernatural forces figure prominently. We witness at least one event so far, at Delphi, which appears to be supernatural. We've got some mysterious hooded figure cropping up both at Iolchos and at Pelion.