Part 5 (2/2)
Daedalus had expected that when they reached the Bull's private quarters Stomargos would be sent out.
But the Bull, waiting for them on its tall chair, made no sign of dismissal, and the young man, with the smug look on his face, remained standing at Daedalus' side.
Today for once the Bull did not saylearn from me. ”We have dis-cov-ered the Prin-ce's cheat-ing, Dae-dal-us.”
”Cheating? What do you mean?” He had never been any good with lies.
”The thread tied on his right hand. The ti-ny met-al b.a.l.l.s to bounce and roll and sleek al-ways the down-ward slope of floor, how-ev-er gen-tie. How did you make a met-al ball so smooth and He had dropped them molten from a tall tower, in-to water. He wondered if the Bull would be impress-ed to hear his method. ”I see,” he said aloud, trying to be non-committal, admitting nothing. ”What to you mean to do?”
”Leave us, Sto-mar-gos,” the White Bull said at last. And when they were alone, it said: ”Now learn from me, Dae-dal-us. As you have sought to learn.”
...and he reeled and almost fell into the moat before he could sit down, as the pictures came into his mind, this time with painful power. There were the wings, not much different in their gross structure from those he had in his workshop, but these were pierced through at many points with tiny, peculiarly curved channels. Soft, sculptured cavities that widened just slightly and quickly closed again as in his vision the wings beat and the air flowed through and around them. With each beat, the air below the wings, encountering the channels, changed pressure wildly, a thin layer of it turning momentarily almost as hard as wood. Somehow in the vision he could feel as well as see the fluid alterations...and justso the pinions'
width and length must be, in relation to the flyer's length and weight, and so the variation in the channels that went through the different regions of the wing...
It all burned into the brain. There would be no forgetting this, even if forgetfulness were one day willed.
But the iippruiting vision was soon ended, and he climbed shakily up to a standing pose.
”Bull...why did you never before give me such teaching?”
”It will not make of you an ed-u-cat-ed man Dae-dal-us.”
”I thank you for it...but why, then, do you give it now?”
The Bull's voice was almost soft, and it did not seem to be looking directly at him. ”I think this teach-ing will re-move you from my pres-ence. One way or a-no-ther stop your dis-rup-tion of my school.”
”I see.” In his mind the plan for the new wings burned, urgent as a fire in the workshop. ”You will not tell Minos, then, that you accuse me of helping Theseus to cheat?”
”Your val-ue to the King is great, Dae-dal-us. If he is forced to choose be-tween us I may pos-sib-ly be sac-rif-iced. Or my school closed. There-fore I take this step to re-move you as my ri-val. I see now you are not wor-thy of fine ed-u-ca-tion.”
The wings still burning before his eyes, he had let himself be led off through the Labyrinth for a hundred paces or so (Stomargos, triumph fading into puzzlement, his escort once again) before it came to him.
”And Theseus? What of him?”
”I am a witness to the Prince's attempt at cheating,” said Stomargos, firmly and primly. ”And the Bull has decided that he now must be expelled.”
”That cannot be!” Daedalus was so aghast that the other was shaken for a moment.
But for a moment only. ”Oh, the Bull and I are quite agreed on that. The Prince is probably receiving his formal notification at this moment.”
And Daedalus spun around and ran, back toward the inner Labyrinth.
”Stay! Stay!” Stomargos shouted, trotting in pursuit. ”You are to leave the precincts of the school at once...” But just then the roaring and the struggling sounded from within.
Theseus and the Bull were grappling on the central dias, arms locked on each other's necks, Daedalus saw as he burst on the scene. The tall chair was overturned, fruit scattered underfoot. In Theseus' broad back the great bronze cables stood like structural arches glowing from the forge.
The end came even as Daedalus' feet splashed in the moat. He heard the sickening bony crack and the Bull's hoa.r.s.e warbling cry at the same instant. The Prince staggered back to stand there staring down at what his hands had done. The gray-white mound of fur, suddenly no more man-like than a dying bear, dropped at his feet.
Stomargos came in, and splashed over quickly to join the others on the dais. He pointed, goggled, opened his mouth and began an almost wordless call for help. He turned and ran, and it was Daedalus who had to stop him with a desperate watery tackle in the moat.
”Theseus! Help me! Keep this one quiet.” And in a moment the Prince of Athens had taken charge.
Stomargos' head was clamped down under water, and soon the bubbles ceased to rise and make their way to the splash gutter at his side.
The two men still alive climbed out onto the dais. Theseus, still panting with his exertions against the Bull, seemed with every working of his lungs to grow a little taller and straighter, like some young tree just freed of a deforming burden, resuming its natural form. ”Does he still breathe, Daedalus?” A nod toward the fallen Bull.
Daedalus was crouching down, prodding into gray fur, trying to find out. ”I am not sure.”
”Well, let him, if he can. It matters to me no longer. My s.h.i.+p and men can be got ready in an hour or two and I am going home. Or somewhere else, if my father will not have me in Athens now. But better a pirate's life, even, than...” His eyes flashed once at the convoluted walls surrounding.
Daedalus started to ask why he thought he would be allowed to leave, but then understanding came.
”And myself:” he asked.
”Ariadne will come with me, I expect.”
”G.o.ds of sea and sky!”
”And her sister Phaedra. And you are welcome, friend, though I can promise you no safe workshop, nor slaves, nor high place at a court.”
”I want no place as high as a sun-dried pirate's, which I fear Minos might make for me here, when he comes home. Now we had better move swiftly, before this violence is discovered.”
”Dae-dal-us.” The unexpected voice was a mere thread of sound, stretched and about to break.
He bent down closer beside its head. ”White Bull, how is it with you?”
”As with a man whose neck is broken, Dae-dal-us. Af-ter to-day I teach no more.”
”Would I had learned from you before today, White Bull. And would you had learned from me.”
They walked out together, looking a little shaken no doubt, as was only natural for two students who had probably just been expelled. Theseus muttered to pa.s.sing teachers that the Bull and Stomargos were talking together and did not wish to be disturbed. They walked without hurrying to Ariadne, and then one trusted servant was sent to gather Theseus' crew. And another to help Daedalus look for his son, when he discovered that Icarus was truant yet again today, not to be found in school.
The wild lands where boys looked for birds and dreams swept up mile after mile behind and above the House of the Double Axe.
”We can wait no longer for him, Daedalus. My men's lives are all in danger, and the Princesses' too. As soon as the bodies are found, some military man or sea captain will take it upon himself to stop my sailing, or try to do so.”
And Ariadne: ”Theseus must get away. My father will not deal too grievously with you, Daedalus; he depends on you too much.”
Phaedra was silent, biting her full lips. Her fingers as if moving on their own caressed Theseus' arm, but Ariadne did not see.
Daedalus saw in his mind's eye the sun-dried pirates on the dock; and his workshop with the hidden, unfinished wings, and he saw how the small trusting shadow would cross the threshold when Icarus came running home...
Long, helmed shadows came first, the black triangles of shadow-spearheads thrust ahead of them. This time they held their weapons ready as they marched him deeper into the House, and Icarus, returning wearily from some adventure, was only just in time to see his father arrested, and he swept up like a dropped crumb by tidy soldiery.
A month must pa.s.s before Minos came home again, and the de facto military government, taking over after the Princesses' desertion, did not want to a.s.sume responsibility for judging Daedalus. He and his son were confined under strict house arrest in his workshop and quarters, and allotted also a small areaof Labyrinth that lay between.
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