by Gene Stiles
The hooded man only nodded at the retreating back. His quick, cunning, intelligent mind already devising a scheme, he picked up his gold and slipped out of the building, vanishing into the warm, nighttime air.
The Sea Lion’s sharply pointed bow sliced easily through the calm ocean waters along the east coast of Prubrazia about six hundred miles north of the curved southern tail of the huge continent. Unlike the western coastline where the Spine of The World rose high enough to touch the heavens, this side was blessed with endless, white-sand beaches. The violent storms that battered the other side of Prubrazia were stopped cold by the monstrous, four-thousand-mile long mountain range, leaving the aquamarine waters here lazy and sedate.
The intricately carved, teak lion on the masthead stared out over the white froth of the azure sea. His feline jaws roaring, his front legs were extended with claws out as if tearing across the oceans as he did the vast grassland veldts. Were his polished wood eyes able to see, his vision would behold a beautiful land of gently rising hills covered with vibrant, multicolored flowers and brilliant green grasses. Incredible verdant forests, thick and dark, spread across the horizon beyond open meadows rich with herds of white-tailed deer.
“Stunning, is it not?” Captain Zerimia said to Bella as she joined the young woman at the port side bulwarks. The captain was one of the few females to command her own vessel and her pride was evident in her straight-backed posture and long-legged stride. Her platinum-blond hair was tightly braided against the winds of the sea, falling down midway to her somewhat slender waist. Her eight-foot tall body was flat-shouldered and nicely curvaceous, but all corded muscle from many years of hard labor aboard ship.
“As often as I pass this way,” Zerimia said, resting her elbows on the polished oak railing, “I never tire of the view.”
“It is truly beautiful,” Bella agreed, glancing down as a pod of dolphins broke the surface alongside the ship. They leaped from the water, laughing as they raced the vessel, crisscrossing in front of the bow as if mocking its speed.
“Thank you for bringing us here,” Bella said as she turned to her friend. Her sky-blue eyes were happy but touched with a note of sadness. She brushed away a few errant strands of golden-blond hair from her high cheeks, dampened by the salty spray. “I fear this will be the last of us to escape Atlantis for a very long time. I only wish I could have done more.”
“You have accomplished much,” Zerimia said kindly, putting a hand on Bella’s shoulder. A soft smile played across her thin, pink lips as she looked at the smaller woman. “Hundreds owe their freedom and safety to you. As for the last, the network you and Metis built is still in place. Others will take up your mantle. Metis’ brother, Imbrasos, commands the Blue Nymph and helps bring people and supplies here often. What you started will not be lost.”
“Thank you for that,” Bella replied, watching the coastline pass by. “As difficult as things have become in Atlantis,” she said with a sigh, “I shall miss the city. It is all I have ever known.”
“There are other cities,” the Captain told her. “Many as beautiful as Atlantis, if not more so. You have never seen the pyramids of Nil nor the shores of Olympia. I would be happy to take you anywhere you would like to go if you do not wish to stay here.”
“You have been to Olympia?”
“Once or twice,” Zerimia smiled, an enigmatical twinkle in her pale blue eyes. “You would love it there. The city is filled with every race of man working together in peace and harmony. Everyone plays their part and shares in the wealth of the community. There are no poor or downtrodden. No matter what your job might be, it is equal to all others for it benefits everyone. The laws are simple. Punishments fit the crimes, sometimes harsh, but always just.”
“And what about Zeus?” Bella asked, a sense of awe in her voice. “Is he as warm, kind and handsome as the stories say?”
Zerimia laughed out loud, her reaction bringing a bright red blush to Bella’s cheeks. Hugging her young friend, she said, “I think you might have a bit of a crush going there.” Grinning as Bella stammered, she added, “Yes. Yes, he is.”
“Captain,” her First Mate called out as he strode toward them. “We are nearing the bay. We should be there within the hour.”
“Thank you, Harrison,” Zerimia said, nodding to Bella before turning to cross the main deck. “I will take the helm from here.”
“As you command,” the First Mate responded, following his captain, staying one step behind.
“Captain!” the lookout high in the crow’s nest shouted pointing toward the far end of the bay.
Captain Zerimia had already noticed and her heart felt heavy and terrified. She knew something was wrong the moment she took the helm to enter the wide inlet that led miles inland to the Nephilim settlement of Clearwater. Gray, wispy remnants of smoke spread across the horizon, blowing across the hillocks with the gentle sea breeze. Her hands clamped down hard on the spokes of the wheel, her jaw clenching so tightly she could hear her teeth grind.
Choking out the words, Zerimia ordered the engines shut down and the anchor dropped. The Sea Lion slowed to a stop, the monster on the masthead nearly screaming out in rage at the carnage before his eyes.
Blackened beams, cracked and broken, pointed accusing fingers toward the uncaring sky. Heaps of shattered rocks marked what was left of walls and buildings. Here and there, blocks of soot-covered stone were all that remained of family homes, their smoking chimneys rising above roofs collapsed and smoldering. The skeletons of boats littered the shore and small fishing vessels lay half-sunken near the remains of wooden docks. Behind the small village, fields of what had once been corn, wheat and vegetables were now nothing more than charred ground still hot and steaming.
The crew of the Sea Lion was quiet and grim as they stared across the clear, turquoise water. Their hands were fisted at their sides or wrapped hard enough around the ship’s rails to leave imprints in the varnished wood. Low, soft weeping could be heard among the toughened men and women. Murmurs of anger began to spread over the decks as more sailors came up from below and saw what had silenced their mates.
“Lower the boats,” Captain Zerimia ordered as she left the helm. Her eyes were stern and half-hooded, but there was no hiding the reflection of dampness within them. Her lips cut a terse line across her face as she moved to starboard, determined to be the first ashore even though her stomach felt like a boulder inside of her.
“You will need these,” Harrison said as he handed her a short sword and sidearm. The wide-bodied man already had a CL pistol holstered on one hip and his long knife strapped to his other thigh. His dark brown eyes were somber, his thick lips sullen beneath his short-trimmed, black beard. “We do not know what we may find.”
“What we may find it what scares me,” Zerimia said, buckling the scabbard and holster around her waist.
“I am going with you,” Bella said sternly, coming up behind them. She was dressed in brown buckskin breeches and vest and a black, billowy-sleeved blouse. A dangerous looking blade was tucked in a small sheath on her knee-high, black boots and around her waist was a wood-hilted long knife.
“You should stay aboard until we make sure it is safe,” Harrison said, the sunlight glistening off his ebony skin. “We do not know the cause of this or if those responsible are still in the area.”
“I do not care,” Bella replied, her tone brooking no argument. Her blue eyes were as cold as a frozen mountain lake as she stood with fists upon her hips. “I can handle myself. These are my people. I sent them here. I am going.”
“Let her,” the Captain said bluntly as she started down the ladder to the boats. “There will be no stopping her anyway.”
The First Mate nodded and stepped aside, allowing Bella to board the landing craft first. He joined her and the other dozen crewmen in the boat and pushed it away from the ship. They waited, bobbing in the water until four more boats were loaded and ready before heading toward shore, ominous dread twisting the guts of every
man and woman aboard.
Without needing to be ordered to do so, the first men to touch the white sand beach fanned out in a loose semi-circle, dropped to one knee and drew their weapons. Many brought pulse rifles, the deadly muzzles scanning the area in slow, steady sweeps as the landing boats emptied quickly. Squads of five formed up with practiced ease, a team of nine staying with the Captain. Zerimia ordered Bella to stay with her and the First Mate as they moved cautiously into the smoldering ruins.
The scene awaiting them was ghastly beyond belief. Blackened corpses lay among the burnt-out buildings of the village, steam still rising from the boiled body fluids. The stench of fried flesh and human fat assailed the nostrils, churning the stomachs of the crew. Many tore pieces of material from their clothing to tie around their mouths and noses. Slashed and torn giant bodies littered the streets, hordes of flies buzzing around their carcasses, pools of brown, dried blood staining the packed-earth roads.
A large concentration of the dead encircled the remnants of a huge building in the center of town. The Nephilim scattered in the dirt still held swords and knives in their hands, their skin singed, sliced and full of cauterized holes. From their condition and numbers, it was plain that the final vicious and violent battle had been fought on this spot.
“Pulse rifles and CL pistols,” Harrison said, kneeling next to a blond-haired giant and examining the wounds. He pointed at the granite blocks of the building where splotches of gray and black-marred the stone. “Note the heat marks and spray patterns.”
“Captain! Over here!” a crewman shouted out, drawing her to the front of the structure. The trembling of his voice sent a shiver up the woman’s spine.
Captain Zerimia rounded the corner to find men bent over vomiting their breakfast onto the ground. Many howled in torment and cried out uncontrollably. Even her hardened crew could not contain the revulsion racking their souls at the sight of such brutal barbarity.
Zerimia felt her face go ashen when she looked inside, sickened to the very core of her being. Huddled together beneath the collapsed and burned out roof lay over a hundred women and children, their charred skeletons twisted into tortured parodies of humanity. Jaws were agape in horror and fear, screams of agony left carved into their faces for all eternity.
“Oh, Creator,” she gasped, hot rivers of tears streaming down her face. “Oh, Creator! Who would do such a thing?”
“Cronus,” Harrison said grimly, holding a piece of black leather in his bunched fist. “Our men found the bodies of a few Black Guard strewn among the dead.” His eyes blazed with pure, unadulterated hatred as he stared into the building. “I would assume they took most of their dead back with them to hide their involvement, but in this chaos, they missed some.”
“The questions are why and what will we do about it?” Harrison said once they were back aboard the Sea Lion.
After washing the stench off their bodies and clothing, the crew returned to the ship, none wishing to stay in demonic destruction any longer than necessary. Wailing wraiths seemed to fill the streets as the evening mists took hold in the village. No food was set out that night for none could yet quell the churning of their stomachs. Ale did flow in copious quantities not only to ease the acidic bile constricting their throats but to dull the nightmares that would haunt their nights for the rest of their lives.
Captain Zerimia sagged in her chair at the head of the long teak table in the conference chamber. Her officers gathered around her, their faces masks of repugnance and rage at the abhorrent abominations they had seen. Tall steins of strong, dark ale sat half-empty before them. The Captain did not allow drinking aboard ship normally, but tonight all of them needed the alcohol to dampen their senses.
“Cronus is the one who created the Nephilim,” Lieutenant Hermanus muttered, his words slightly slurred. His blue eyes were filmy as he looked around the room. “What reason would he have to sanction such an attack?”
The Lieutenant was the one who first found the grisly funeral pyre so Zerimia forgave his condition tonight. “So when has the Lord Father always acted with reason?” she asked. “He is a madman. One moment he is kind and considerate, the next monstrous and vicious. Who can tell why he did this? Maybe he decided his experiment was a failure or that it was the will of the People that he get rid of the Nephilim.”
“It could also be a way of quelling the uprisings that have grown since Pettit was first learned of,” Harrison said, choosing to drink tea to keep his mind clear. “No matter what the reason, such atrociousness cannot be allowed to go unpunished. We must take this to the Twelve.”
“And just how do you propose we prove it?” Darimathus asked, his black eyes glittering in the subdued room lights. He gripped his tankard with both hands as if fearing it might escape his grasp. “This is – or was - a hidden settlement far from any Atlantean city. Few know of its existence and fewer still ever come here. No one will believe this ever happened.”
“They will if we show them,” Harrison replied firmly. His long, strongly planed, ebon face was ferocious to look upon at this moment, his normal good humor seared away by the ruthlessness and savagery visited upon these peaceful people. “We have crystal recorders onboard. I will lead a team of volunteers back in tomorrow and we will document all that has occurred in this accursed place. The People must know.”
“And then what?” Hermanus said, his rounded head staring at his shaking hands. “Where will we go from here? Directly back to Atlantis?”
“No,” Captain Zerimia said harshly, standing before her chair. “I will not chance our evidence being buried by the Twelve. First, we shall leave copies in two places where it will not be lost.” She walked to the wide windows in the stern and looked out at the calm, dark waters of the bay, staring out at the sparkling starlight. “We go first to Nil and then to Olympia. Zeus will want to know of this.”
Bella did not leave her chambers during the three days the Sea Lion spent in Nil. She refused to even step upon the upper decks, though she received an express invitation from Ra, himself. She missed the grandeur of the three magnificent pyramids that rose from the center of the glistening city. She missed the clean streets, the lush, green parks and the vibrancy of the citizens filling the bustling sidewalks. Bella would have loved seeing the incredible mix of the People, Cro-mags, Izon, Nephilim and Nillians all working together in peace and harmony. It would have done her aching heart good.
Captain Zerimia wanted to make her friend join her as she gained an audience with Ra and the rest of the Trinity, but force was not her way. Within Nil resided many of the Nephilim families that Bella aided in escaping Atlantis and her work was well-known here. When Zerimia told him Bella was onboard the Sea Lion, her gracious host sent Isis to welcome her, but no matter how much the beautiful, kind woman pleaded, Bella would not leave her room. The Captain worried for her sanity.
“This is the most despicable, barbaric act I have seen in many decades,” Ra said, his stunningly blue eyes glinting like hard, chipped flint. He sat informally behind his large, oak desk, the crystal-reader projecting the ruins of Clearwater upon a wide screen mounted on the cool, granite wall. “Are you sure Cronus had a hand in this depravity?”
“We cannot be one hundred percent sure,” Zerimia said, shaking her head slightly as she sat at the long table filling the center of Ra’s spacious, well-appointed office. Her gaze shifted over the others gathered around the conference table then back at the Lord of Nil. “All I can truthfully say is that we found several dead Atlanteans among the wreckage of the village. Not just ordinary warriors, but Black Guard, the personal soldiers of Cronus.”
“They could have been rogues, acting on their own volition,” Isis said, her jade eyes scanning the reports playing across her monitor. Her sparkling auburn hair flowed over her white linen dress, held away from her sensuous features by a wide, cherry-red headband.
“It does appear strange,” Astraeus, third of the Trinity, said, his deep, bass voice rumbling around the room, “t
hat Cronus, creator and champion of the Nephilim, would order such a slaughter. I see no purpose behind it.”
He looked up, staring directly into Zerimia’s blue eyes. The Captain wanted to squirm under the ebony-skinned man’s steely gaze even though she was only stating what she knew to be true. His full, thick lips were pursed beneath his curly, black beard as if he sought hidden meaning behind her assertions. Unconsciously, Astraeus flexed his massive forearm as he clenched his fist.
Captain Zerimia felt as if she must defend herself, as if his obsidian eyes were accusing her of something. “I do not understand it either,” she said, keeping her eyes locked with his. “That is why we shall take this directly to the Twelve and demand answers.”
“What is it you want of us?” Ra asked, the long, yellow-blond, wavy hair surrounded his handsome, sculpted face even more brilliant against his slightly reddish skin. “As horrendous as these acts are, we leave the policies and politics of Atlantis to its own citizens.”
“We do not ask for any interference,” Zerimia assured him. “All we ask is that you keep these records safe.” The Captain looked around the table at the Lord’s advisors, finally coming to rest on Ra. “It will be dangerous for anyone to return to Atlantis. Should whoever we send be killed or captured and this information be destroyed, we ask that you broadcast it so the true Atlantean People can see what is really happening in their empire. That is all.”
“And that,” the Lord of Nil promised, “we can do.”
After Captain Zerimia and her party left for the Sea Lion, Astraeus looked over at Ra. The set of his face upon his boulder-like head was grim, touched with a burning anger, yet his words were cool and well thought out. “There is a war coming. Are you sure we can remain neutral and uninvolved?”