by Jack Conner
Eliza frowned down at the black jade slab. A temple had once stood atop this pyramid, but the former slaves had razed it utterly, and now only the altar remained. The former slaves had destroyed all the temples in the city, seeming to take special delight in their obliteration. Hate must have guided them. The altar was heavily scored and scratched. Surely some of the scratches had come from the sacrificial knife, but others had come from the hammers and axes of the former slaves as they vented their fury on the black slab of jade. Had the Atlantans practiced human sacrifice? Eliza would not have put it past them. They had been amazing people, capable of wondrous and incredible things, but they were also repugnant and cruel, even evil if the Queen was any indication, for she killed without thought or empathy. Just what sort of awful gods had her people worshipped? There were a dozen temples scattered throughout the city, all elaborately built, all zealously destroyed.
Eliza shook it off and descended from the pyramid, pressing through the hustle and bustle of the city. It teemed with life, as if the city had been reborn. She wondered if the Queen meant to stay here or return to the City Below, or simply move on, when it was all done.
Eliza passed impressive ruins, and others that hinted at mystery. One ruin was just the tip of a larger structure jutting from the ground; the bulk of it lay below and the common thought was that it must be one of the jade factories, where the Atlantans had grown or processed their jade material. She passed broad steps that led down, down to a great black jade doorway into the earth. An impressive façade fronted it, and soldiers stood guard to either side of the opening. Eliza had never been past the entrance, but she knew that vast and strange machines lurked that way, engines that could somehow win the war for Germany once prince and queen reactivated them.
Eliza walked slowly, putting off bringing news to Iasolla for as long as possible. She stopped at a cook fire and ate some breakfast, washed it down with water.
A squad of troopers rushed by. Heads turned at the commotion. Eliza assumed they went off to repel another attack. Hopefully this time the Casveighan soldiers would win. The City Above was well and truly under siege, but Eliza figured it was only a matter of time before the besiegers won. The Society had stocked plenty of food and water, but it could not last forever. Not at the rate they eat.
Eliza found the Palace abuzz with activity, people coming and going, receiving and carrying out instructions with an almost frantic urgency, which meant the Jade Queen was home. She had taken a very active role in the excavation of the city and was often out overseeing various aspects of the digs, usually the doomsday machines. When she wasn’t out, she could often be found reading one of the many books Lord Wilhelm brought for her. She had a natural gift for languages, perhaps aided by her technology, and she devoured tome after tome, catching up on thousands of years of history, politics and literature. She was highly intelligent and intellectually voracious. She seemed especially intrigued by the rise and fall of Rome and dismayed by the spread of Christianity, which she openly mocked. “I do not want my gods to die for me!” Eliza had heard her say. “What use is a dead god? I want my gods to kill for me!” When Eliza had dared suggest that Christians did not believe God was dead, the Queen had said, “You cannot have it both ways! You must pick!” Eliza had said that Christians believed that Jesus had died in this world but been reborn in another, more ethereal one, to which the Queen had scoffed. “There are infinite worlds, yes, but they are all of flesh. Even a dead god needs flesh! However, there are dimensions . . .”
Eliza gathered her courage and entered the Palace.
Functionaries showed her to the Throne Room, whose high jade-gold walls admitted honey-colored light. The chamber stretched, vast and yawning, a ruin like the rest of the Palace, the sky visible through the opening above where the ceiling had once been, and only one wall rose to its full height. It had taken some doing to clear the floor of debris.
The Jade Queen read a book on her throne, a high, fantastic seat wrought of crimson jade that glimmered and shone, as if it emitted its own light. At the base of the throne sprawled a corpse. Attended by flies, it was that of a naked man, withered and dried out as if all the moisture had been leached from him and he had been left in a desert for a month.
Eliza hardened her heart. The Queen fed several times a day, restoring her strength after millennia of sleep. She did not drain the victims’ blood or cranial juices but their raw energy -- their “bio-electric impulses”, as Lars had described it, accurately or not.
As Eliza entered, retainers lifted the corpse onto a stretcher and carted it away to the incinerator.
Lord Wilhelm smoked a thin black cigar to the side, leaning on a jade carving of a demonic feline. He looked exhausted but confident, his shirt was rumpled and halfway undone. He’d become Iasolla’s paramour. Eliza had often heard their sounds drift down from the tower bedroom and was amazed that Lord Wilhelm could still walk. Then again, he was enhanced.
The Queen looked up at Eliza’s approach. Sudden hunger replaced the look of scholarly interest on her face.
“He has been found,” Eliza said, bowing slightly.
The change was instant. The Queen sprang to her feet, the book forgotten.
“The tomb -- is it still sealed? It has not been violated?” This was obviously a deep concern.
“No, Your Majesty. It appears to be intact.”
Queen Iasolla stepped down from the dais. “Take me to him.”
Eliza started to walk the Queen from the room, but a soldier, breathless, rushed in and knelt hastily.
“My Queen!” he said. “The enemy soldiers are launching another attack. They’ve received reinforcements and have acquired tanks. We also suspect they prepare a sneak attack from the rear while the main force assaults us from the front.”
Queen Iasolla did not look afraid, but she did look irritated at being delayed the reunion with her son. She turned to Lord Wilhelm, who nodded.
“I will see to it,” he said, “And to that other matter.”
Eliza could tell by the look of exasperation on his face that it must be a setback, or at least a wrinkle. Could it be . . . ?
Surely not, she not herself. She had seen the Palace of Casveigh burn.
Lord Wilhelm and the soldier strode from the room. Eliza knew that Wilhelm possessed numerous pieces of Atlantan technology and that he had made a great study of them over the years, but his understanding of them had increased a thousand-fold during the last few days with the Queen, and with these pieces of technology he had repelled every attack. Eliza hoped this time would be the exception. She had been waiting for her chance to kill either Wilhelm or Iasolla, hopefully both, but the opportunity had not arisen. Perhaps . . . in the chaos of an attack . . .
She and Queen Iasolla left the Palace and made their way through the city.
Eliza could not help herself from glancing up at the sky. On the first day after her arrival, bombers had tried to drive them out. Queen Iasolla had merely waved a hand and the heavy planes had been swept away, shattering and flaming as if caught by a superheated hurricane. If the Air Force tried again, Eliza resolved to distract Iasolla somehow, even if it meant her death, and prevent her from destroying them. She was prepared. Now that Lynch was dead, she had nothing to live for anyway.
Queen Iasolla had seen her glances. “You need not fear the bombers. We are unassailable.”
“Only because we have you.” Lucky us.
The Queen inclined her head. “And soon you will have my son.”
“He will complete the doomsday machine?”
“He was directing the Project when the attack came. He knows it more intimately than I. I designed it. He built it.” Suddenly she looked sidelong at Eliza. Her eyes ran her up and down.
Eliza shifted uncomfortably. She was all too aware of how she looked, disheveled and sweaty, a lock of hair falling before her eyes. She had unbuttoned the top few buttons of her blouse to cool off, and she wore the short tight hiking shorts common among the dig
gers.
“You are . . . appealing,” said the Queen.
So it’s true, Eliza thought. The Atlantans were bisexual. From a scholarly point of view, that was interesting. Otherwise . . .
“Um . . . ” she said.
“When my son awakens, he and I must have you.”
Eliza nearly stopped walking. She decided a change of subject was in order. “So, uh, if your people are so advanced, how did your former slaves rise up against you?”
Sudden hate flashed across the Queen’s features. “Those shits! I will kill them all!” She made a noise that was almost a growl. “They stole weapons from us. They defeated us by trickery and guile -- and they will rue it!” Her eyes sparked, and Eliza was tempted to take a step back. “We will rise again. Your Project Ascendance is well and truly named. Together Jeselri and I will change the shape of your world.” Jeselri was the name of her son.
“It will be a wonderful day,” Eliza said.
The Queen’s look of savagery transformed to one of serenity. “It will be tomorrow.”
Eliza blinked. “So soon?”
“No reason to delay. While you have been unearthing Jeselri, I and others have been unearthing his project. Working on it. It should be ready for him by the time he wakes. He was very near completion when he was overrun. He shall finish it, and I will initiate the final sequence.”
“Only you know it, then?”
“Yes. I sent the code to him after I was poisoned, but our enemies seem to have intercepted it. He would’ve had to completely rebuild the activating device. They did not give him time. But I know the code, and I will launch the sequence.”
Eliza would have tried to kill her then and there but she knew that the Queen would incinerate her on the instant.
She swallowed. “What then?”
“Greatness shall return to the world. It has been sorely lacking since Atlantis’s fall. Things shall be different this time. Before, we were content to dwell in our land and let the world carry on without us. That proved disastrous. It was outside thoughts and influences that corrupted the minds of our slaves. We will ensure that never happens again. All the world shall bow before the might of my people.”
“What about Hitler? The war?”
“Oh, I shall end it. You and your brethren are loyal to my vision, are you not? You have labored long to restore me. To restore Atlantis. I will remember that.”
Eliza wasn’t quite sure how to take this. The Queen didn’t offer to expound on it, and as they approached the pyramid and its entrance into the catacombs Queen Iasolla’s pace quickened and her attention shifted. Eliza did not press her.
People to either side stepped back to give the Queen a respectful distance as she passed. Some bowed or nodded. One woman wept and fell to her knees. Eliza was afraid she would reach out to try to touch the hem of the Queen’s gown, but fortunately she didn’t. The Queen would have as likely kicked the woman away as permitted her grubby fingers to touch her gown.
“Yes,” Queen Iasolla said, her eyes shining, warmed to her favorite subject. “We will restore this place, Jeselri and I. I always did prefer his city to mine, under the open sky. We had to hide back then, keep our presence secret. No longer! Our enemies have forgotten themselves, whatever stolen pieces of our technology they had surely lost or broken. We will rise again. Look around you! See these pitiful ruins. Once vines of colored glass arced over that wall, their blooms intoxicating the mind as one strolled by. See that heap of rubble? Once it was a great platform that floated off the ground and was home to the most vibrant garden in the city. Only we nobles were allowed to stroll its hills and sniff its blooms. See that pyramid? That is where I crowned Jeselri, giving him lordship of the city. He had flowers in his hair and his skin gleamed like gold! His arms were thick as trees. Oh, this was a mighty place. It shall be again, so I swear it.”
They reached the former temple and descended into the catacombs. The workers bowed at the Queen’s approach, but she ignored them and drove straight to the tomb. She scrutinized its façade intently.
A deep sigh escaped her lips and tension ebbed out of her. The tomb was intact, then, her son safe inside.
Queen Iasolla caressed the façade -- lovingly, Eliza thought at first, but then the façade parted and two doors swung open. Queen Iasolla entered. The diggers started to follow, but she snarled at them, and they recoiled.
Perhaps twenty minutes later, the Queen emerged.
By her side, propped up by her, was a man who could only be Prince Jeselri.
***
Eliza gasped. Even after thousands of years, the prince’s skin gleamed of gold. His hair, long and flowing, was even more golden, and his leonine, square-jawed face the most handsome thing she had ever seen. He was utterly naked save for a richly-embroidered cape, a diamond-encrusted circlet on his head, and crimson loincloth. A sword of green jade hung from a belt at his hip. Sandals strapped up his calves. He was largely unconscious, his eyes closed, and his legs only moved slightly as the Queen escorted him -- carrying him, really -- out of the doorway. Tendrils of mist seeped around them.
Quickly the diggers sprang into motion. They had brought along a stretcher just for this purpose and, with the Queen’s help, lowered Jeselri onto it. It took eight of them to lift Jeselri -- he was tall and massively muscled -- and more to replace them as they grew tired during the long trip back to the Palace. Queen Iasolla glowed with serenity as she walked by his side. Eliza said nothing, but she did not miss the glances Iasolla stole at her son’s body. They did not look motherly.
“This way,” Iasolla said when they reached the Palace. She showed the laborers (and they were laboring, panting and staggering) up the winding stairs of her tower, to the bedroom at its topmost intact level, where they deposited Prince Jeselri on the Queen’s bed, the only true bed in the whole encampment. Lord Wilhelm assigned half a dozen of his best troopers to man the door outside during the Prince’s recovery.
“He will need some time,” Queen Iasolla said. “I did not design his sarcophagus, and it was not as advanced as mine.”
She shooed them all out and slammed the door in their faces. Eliza shared a look with Lord Wilhelm, and together they trooped down the stairs. The laborers nearly sagged against the walls as they went, and they found seats immediately after.
“Things will be different now,” Eliza said. She meant to tactfully imply that Lord Wilhelm would no longer be the Queen’s paramour.
“Yes. Yes, they shall,” he said. “Now Project Ascendance will begin.”
Eliza wondered if Project Ascendance had the same meaning for him as it did for the Queen, but she held her own counsel.
“How did the attack go?” she asked. “Well, I suppose. You’re here.”
“We drove them back. Gave them a black eye they will not forget. I think it will be their last attack -- yes. They will not have time to launch another. By tomorrow it will be too late.”
Lars Gunnerson arrived, trailed by Fieglund. Both looked grimmer yet more eager than usual. They marched directly up to the top of the tower.
Lars and the Queen had grown close over the last few days, Eliza knew. It was he that was assisting Iasolla in preparing the doomsday device, and they had developed a tight working relationship; Lord Wilhelm seemed jealous of it. He was in charge of security, which the Queen did not regard as highly as repairing the machines. Nevertheless, Eliza expected her to send Lars back down the stairs in short order to give her more time alone with her son. Instead, after only a little while, Queen Iasolla and Lars, trailed as ever by Fieglund, descended the stairs and quit the palace, presumably to renew work on the doomsday machines. They did not pause to share their thoughts with Eliza or Lord Wilhelm.
Wilhelm smoked one of his thin black cigars and paced back and forth. He looked restless, irritated.
“That little upstart,” he muttered. “I see his game. Does she not realize he’s an ass-licker?” He blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.
Instead of
answering, Eliza said, “What will my duties be now -- now that the Prince has been found?”
Lord Wilhelm stopped. He lifted an eyebrow, and the hint of a smile twitched on his lips. “Now, my dear, the fun part begins. The world will be laid at our feet. You, like the rest of those high in the Society, will be given a section of it to rule -- under our august Fuhrer, of course.”
“We will simply carve up the world?” When he nodded, she dared ask, “How will it be done, exactly? Just what is this doomsday device? Does it release some sort of horrible plague, or does it trigger an earthquake like the one that destroyed Atlantis?”
Lord Wilhelm waved the hand holding the cigar, making trails of smoke in the air. “No, no, my dear. It is much more elegant. You have heard of an EMP?”
She frowned. “Yes, vaguely. An electro-magnetic pulse, correct? Some new phenomenon, discovered by American scientists working on the atomic bomb.”
“Yes, in concert with German scientists. It’s disgusting. They will beat us to it, I’m afraid. They have already done so. But go on.”
“The EMP . . . it stops all electronic devices in the area of the bomb, if it is exploded over land -- if I remember correctly. Does the Queen’s doomsday device do something similar -- plunge the world back into the Stone Age?”
He smiled. “Why would we want that? No, the device does not work on electronics, my dear. It works on people.”
“People?”
“It stops their brains -- shuts them down.”
“Kills them?”
“What would be the point in that? We want to conquer the world, not kill it. The device merely sends out a pulse that wipes the minds of all those it passes through, makes them blank slates, and then a second pulse writes on those blank slates, filling their minds with correct thoughts.”
“So they will all be loyal to the Third Reich?”
“Exactly!” He took a triumphant puff on his cigar.