Minos of Sardanes

by Charles B. Stilson

Aside from the battle in the crater, when Polaris Janess hewed his way out of the kingdom, and an occasional bickering among the quarrelsome fellows, Sardanes had never known war. Then whence this warlike gear?

Little there was in the valley that the king had not interested himself to learn, with the one exception of the religion preached by the priestly crew, at which he scoffed. One of his favorite crafts was that of the smiths who wrought in the iridescent ilium smelted from the mountainsides. It had been his fancy to fashion this suit of mail, beating it from the finest metal and modeling it after the armor sculptured in the groups of statuary at the Judgment House, representing the founders of the race, the Greeks from the blue Aegean Sea. Each piece had Minos copied, only making them of a larger mold, to fit a figure taller and broader than that of any Greek who ever had trodden the valley.

There were no arms like these in Sardanes. Those which the Greeks had brought there had rusted into red dust centuries before.

Minos packed the bright trappings in a sack and carried them with him back to the palace. He had a feeling that the time was near when he should wear them. Then he, too, sought his couch, for he was sorely wearied.

Ill tidings were early on the morrow. Another messenger rode down the valley to tell that one more of the volcanic hills had yielded up its spirit, and that a rim of white snow was creeping over the mountainsides.

One by one came the nobles of the valley to the house of Minos. Each man represented an ancient house, each house one hill of the valley's ring. All were gloomy, some of them beset by fears but little removed from those of the terror-stricken people. The king found less of comfort and support among them than in the company of his hunters, who, at the least and last, would die for him to a man.

Two there were, the oldest and the youngest, who upstood firmly for him.

"That which the king shall decide will Garlanes abide by," said his old-time friend and counselor, still hale and strong despite his grizzled crown. "I am old, and it mattereth little. If it come to an issue, the wrath of Hephaistos shall not divide my friend and me."

Almost insolent in his carelessness was the boy-lord Patrymion. "If this be the end of the world, and thou promisest me a fight before the end, then am I with thee, also, Minos the king," he laughed, "and will kill me a fat priest or two right willingly, if so be that they will fight. Methinks it is they and not thou who do weary their master."

So doubtful was the mien of the remainder of the nobles that the king did not prolong the conference, but soon dismissed them. It was agreed that no decision as to what course to take could be made until Analos had made known the word from the Gateway.