The Atlantis Papyrus

by Jay Penner

  “Good.”

  “What a pleasure, such a pleasure bringing this to you, sir.” His head bobbed, and Nekh-Aser wanted to punch him. Thefeni's assistant fidgeted on the corner of his seat. Nekh-Aser flicked his palms to tell Thefeni to hurry up. He had no patience for the typical Egyptian barter.

  “First there is the delicate matter. Very delicate. Of compensation," Thefeni said, "you benefit, and we benefit.” He pointed to his assistant who shrunk under the Egyptian’s gaze.

  Nekh-Aser’s muscles tensed, and the man seated next to him placed his arm on the Egyptian’s shoulder. “Captain, how about I conduct this on your behalf?” he said.

  Nekh-Aser looked at him, and back at Thefeni. He let out a breath.

  The man began, “I am Polymedes, a very recent addition to the Captain’s team. We are grateful to your help.”

  Thefeni beamed. To hear a military-man speak with such politeness was a change. Polymedes had the hallmarks of a well-read, well-traveled man—he looked impeccable in his uniform. Coiffured hair and gold rings on manicured hands exuded sophistication. Thefeni felt great relief for dealing with this Greek than the Egyptian brute.

  “Very honored to meet you, Lieutenant, you have the most regal bearing, very regal indeed.”

  Nekh-Aser crunched his face. Polymedes bowed and smiled. “Now let us discuss compensation.”

  “Of course. Of course. The reward was ten gold coins, most generous indeed. But times have changed—"

  Nekh-Aser rose. “Pig, let me give a reward!” He growled and his words slurred. He reached for his club, and Thefeni jerked in horror.

  Polymedes gripped Nekh-Aser’s arm and said firmly, “Captain, let me handle this. His excellency Ptolemy demands we deal with this sensitive matter.”

  Nekh-Aser quietened again.

  “Continue, Thefeni,” said Polymedes.

  “The value has increased,” he whispered. Then he furtively glanced at Nekh-Aser who now looked on with disgust.

  “Increased by how much?”

  “Not too much, not too much at all. Twenty gold coins is a very fair number.”

  “That is not very fair, sir. You are taking advantage of us,” said Polymedes. He stood and crossed his arms.

  “Not at all, not at all! Why would I be here if I did not want to help you wonderful gentlemen? Thefeni gets nothing,” he said and bobbed his head in unison with his assistant as if they were pained at Polymedes’ insinuation.

  “You seek much reward, sir. Not nothing.”

  Thefeni spread his palms and smiled. “A small reward to take care of us, very small,” he said, pointing to his assistant again, who seemed ready to run.

  “Fifteen. Not a coin more.” Polymedes said firmly.

  Thefeni looked offended. “Twenty is the value, twenty, Lieutenant. Fair offer for a reasonable officer.”

  Polymedes eyes turned cold, and his demeanor changed. He stepped forward, and Thefeni shrank on the cushion. Polymedes dropped his voice. “Would your nobility like to negotiate this further in our dungeon?”

  Thefeni’s face lost its color, and it seemed like his assistant was about to faint. “No need for more negotiation, none!” he declared. “Fifteen it is, indeed, for you most gracious officers of this great Kingdom.” He bowed and clapped.

  Nekh-Aser pretended to spit on the ground close to Thefeni’s legs. The fat man retreated to his cushion. His assistant’s eyes transfixed on the iron cage that held Nekh-Aser’s jaws.

  Polymedes intervened. “Tell us what you know. I hope it is worthy of the reward.”

  Thefeni nodded. He tugged on his meaty ear and the rings jingled. “We know where Deon and his companion went.”

  Polymedes nodded as Nekh-Aser looked on. “Go on.”

  “They boarded captain Meurius’ ship the next day—that is, four days ago.”

  Nekh-Aser threw up his hands in surprise. “Joking!”

  “Not at all, sir. Not at all. Those conniving bastards returned to board the same ship. They knew you would not check there again. That rat Meurius must have received a big payment. Very big.”

  “We will deal with the captain later, but how do you know this to be true?” asked Polymedes.

  “Of course, of course, one of the Captain's men saw them come on-board and converse with the captain. He also found out more by talking to the captain’s hand.”

  “What else did he find?”

  “That their destination is not Athens. Not at all! They are disembarking somewhere on the way. They want to go to Phrygia.”

  “Phrygia?”

  “That is what he heard. Phrygia, indeed.”

  Nekh-Aser and Polymedes looked at each other. This was getting intriguing—what were those two up to? Where did they plan to disembark?

  “If we find that you are lying, then I will have you in chains and deliver you to the Captain. And he is not gentle with liars,” said Polymedes, as Nekh-Aser nodded and caressed his club.

  “May the gods burn my house if I lied, may they burn my hands! I did not lie the first time, and not this time,” protested Thefeni. He bounced on the cushion and the assistant nodded furiously.

  “We will find that out,” said Polymedes.

  “And now, kind sir…” Thefeni patted his considerable stomach.

  “Of course,” Polymedes whispered to an adjutant who returned with a small bag and handed it to him. Thefeni stood up after much effort and ambled up to Polymedes who gave him the bag. Thefeni counted the coins. He huffed, and his lungs labored as he picked each one and examined them.

  “But this is only ten coins, only ten!” Thefeni protested.

  “Your information does not tell us where exactly they will disembark. We have the whole sea to consider.”

  “That was not—"

  Nekh-Aser walked behind Thefeni and struck him with a short whip. The fat man yelped. He then dropped the coins in a little bag that hung to a belt on his waist and walked out muttering. His assistant followed in relief.

  Nekh-Aser turned to Polymedes. “What up to?”

  “I have no idea. But there are few islands between here and Athens on trade routes.”

  “Crete?”

  “That is the best guess. But there are some other islands further ahead, like Thera, which has some people.”

  Nekh-Aser strained to control the ever-present pain in his jaws. “Reach commander of Ptolemaic fleet.”

  “I will take care of that, sir,” said Polymedes as he adjusted his chlamys and smoothened his hair.

  “Leave in Bireme. Take soldiers, investigate Crete.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bring them unharmed.”

  Nekh-Aser imagined Deon and Eurydice led out of a boat and seeing him. Polymedes was about to leave but stopped at the tent entrance.

  “Sir?” He addressed Nekh-Aser.

  “Yes?”

  “We should check Thera too just in case.”

  Nekh-Aser grunted in agreement. Polymedes could check anywhere he wanted as long as he brought those two back.

  AEGEAN SEA

  ❖

  We woke up to rains. Eurydice and I finally had time to converse in private. We found a rocky area with little natural caves and sheltered in one of them.

  The rain created a sheer curtain that reduced visibility. Streams gushed from higher ground towards the cliffs. The smell of earth as water mixed with the mud was pleasing. But they brought unpleasant memories of the Indian monsoon.

  It was time to plan our next steps.

  “The stories tie up to the papyri,” I said. Eurydice sat opposite me. She had tied her hair to a bun, and droplets clung to her cheeks.

  Gorgeous.

  “Theocydes’ legend appears to have originated from similar sources," she said. She fiddled with her toe ring and continued, "The reference to the eye in the papyri and then in his story. The distinct features of this island. All these make me think we are on the right track.”

  "I agree, but not only that. The colors of
the rock on this island match Plato's description of Atlantis. They all link!"

  “Yes!” She said, her enthusiasm returning.

  “We must figure out the direction that the priest refers to, for that is the next destination.”

  “Yes, can you recite those words?”

  With glorious seas all around, and the great eye beneath his feet, the Lord he towered over the adoring masses, and as the rays of the rising sun shone upon his regal visage

  She narrowed her eyes and concentrated. We began to debate the meaning of the words.

  “The glorious seas all around and the great eye beneath matches well with where we are. Who is the Lord?” she asked.

  “The King? Or a high priest.”

  “Did he float above the people? Did the poem not say towered over the adoring masses?”

  “Well, they could fly if they had magical powers,” I said, but in my heart, I had little confidence in that theory. I had traveled many lands and had heard a great many magical stories—but not once had they been real. I remembered from my reading that Herodotus, our famed historian, had said there were ants the size of dogs in the deserts of India, and others had talked of fantastical monkeys. And yet while the foliage of India was different to other places, her people were no more beasts and the ants no larger than anywhere else.

  “What it means is he was at a greater height—a platform or podium constructed for prayers," she said. That was smart thinking and made sense to me.

  “So somewhere on this island, they made a platform. And on that, the Lord stood and pointed towards a destination.”

  The rain had stopped. I stood up and looked around, hoping for a sign. “The question is where. But it seems clear to me that this Lord did the ritual at dawn, and he was facing the Sun—so he was facing east.”

  “Maybe where he stood was destroyed?”

  We did not know if the arc was a leftover from a larger island whose center god destroyed and sunk into the sea. If that were the case, then the high priest’s platform no longer existed. I felt I was missing something but was not sure.

  Then we debated the next few lines.

  …and as the rays of the rising sun shone upon his regal visage, he lay his feet on the spine of fist that fought the disquiet water below, pointed upon the endless sea, towards the far desert

  “Well, it says ‘spine of the fist’ which means there must be something that feels like a spine and goes down.”

  “Or does he mean a person’s spine? Human sacrifice beneath his feet—” I stopped. It added no clarity to the discussion. We listened to the slowing rain and watched the sun’s rays peek through the clouds and form a golden path on the waters below us.

  “Without a place to start, we are stuck. If we cannot find the general direction, then the entire world is open to us! We will never find the true destination,” I lamented.

  She grabbed my hand and pinched the forearm.

  “You are a very bright man, and you have so many ideas, you cannot give up. We found this island, did we not? That is the starting point. We should walk along the island, and something will give us clues to the next.”

  "Yes, goddess of Memphis," I said, and she pinched my shoulder. “You are right. Sitting here will do us no good. Let us walk along the edge of the path we came from, tomorrow, and go around the island.”

  “Why not go to the east as they said?”

  “Because I want to cover everything. We do not know if we missed anything on the way. Besides, I want to be sure we don’t meet hostility too early.”

  We bid good-bye to our hosts, resupplied, and began our long walk. We paid close attention to the features around us. Small hills with the strange white rocks with holes in them. Red cliffs with a thick gray coating on top. Anything to make any connection to the verses. But there was nothing.

  After an entire day’s walk, exhausted, we halted near the southern edge of the island. The beauty had worn off, and wariness and doubts set in. So far all we had was that this was the island.

  The next morning, we decided to walk across and reach the south-eastern edge, and then walk back North. The cliffs here were not as deep as on the western end, and the earth sloped down to the sea. As we trudged along this jagged path, seas to our right, we marveled at the desolation of the island.

  Was this once the heart of a formidable empire?

  We broke for lunch, ate our meager rations, and affirmed our plans that we would continue this way. There was some old pottery that I wondered could be from a town that existed long ago before the fiery extinction. We stood atop this higher ground and looked to the south and east.

  The island curved eastward. Like the brow of an eye.

  Many little hills to our left. Larger hills far to our North-East. The same that we saw when I climbed up the cliff from the ship. As we progressed on uneven ground, Eurydice, who was silent so far to conserve energy, spoke up. “Could the Lord be on top of a mountain?”

  I paused. “Go on.”

  “Imagine that he got up a mountain, and then looked eastward.”

  Why did this not occur to me before?

  "Then the congregation could be below him..." It added up.

  She caught up to me. “And if that mountain exists, then we can confirm this,” she said, standing still, and looking around.

  “If it still exists…” I said, sounding doubtful. But again, there was that nagging feeling at the back of my head that I was missing something. I hoped that the revelation would come to me at some point.

  “Those mountains?” she pointed to the large formations ahead.

  “We won’t know until we get near and on top.”

  “Let us go near them then!” She sounded excited, and it rubbed on me.

  We rested for a while. We got up and made our way to the southern edge of the hills as the sun crossed the zenith. We finally arrived at the foot of the mountains at sunset. There were two connected mountains, and the base extended to the sea. We then walked along the edge of the mountain near us until it reached the sea.

  When we got near the water, I noticed something interesting. The mountain jutted further out to the sea than the rest of the island.

  We then walked back south, away from the hills, until the entire formation was visible. I then asked Eurydice to stay on the land, while I waded into the water. I took careful steps until the water was chest high and looked at the formation.

  The mountain pushed further into the sea like an extension dipped into the water.

  That tingling sensation in my head intensified.

  What is it?

  As I stood contemplating, it finally flashed to me.

  The thrill that I felt when I read the papyri.

  The same thrill when I saw the cliffs of this island.

  Now it all made sense.

  I ran back to the shore and grasped Eurydice by her shoulders and shouted.

  “We have to find the path to the top of the mountains.”

  She searched my face.

  “Tell me!”

  “Not yet, Eurydice, not now. Not until we are on top of the mountain.”

  “What did you realize?”

  “I do not want to test my fortunes with the gods, please follow me, and I will explain.”

  She sulked but did not press the matter. I had invoked gods and wanted to ward bad luck. I let the breeze dry me though it was cold. I was now confident that the papyri were true.

  “And that means we should climb and get to the town,” Eurydice said, bringing me back to reality.

  Were they friendly there? What would we face?

  It had been more than ten days since our departure from Alexandria.

  That night I dreamed that I was floating high on the azure seas. Beneath me, a raging conflagration engulfed the entire island.

  Thousands screamed as they burned to death.

  We resumed our journey in the morning.

  There was already a well-worn path to the top since a town flourished ther
e, but it was an arduous climb. We met a few people on the way who gave us curious glances, but none were hostile, and there was no armed presence.

  We reached a point on the climb that was an intersection of two mountains--one to our right, and an even taller one to our left, which did not end at the Sea. So, we continued right. The sun went past the zenith when I noticed the first structures. The ground leveled and began to dip. It was a most spectacular sight! The town, also called Thera, perched on the descending slopes of the mountain with the vast blue seas on either side.

  It was a modest town with a central cobblestone path made of whitish stone. On either side were basic, rectangular houses, built of stone blocks. Men wore simple white robes around the waist, and the women wore tunics that left their upper body bare.

  There were a few shops further down the slope along with temple dedicated to Apollo cut into the rock. Worshippers congregated in the courtyard.

  We went in.

  “You appear to be new here,” the priest said, and we both nodded. And then he engaged us in small talk.

  We made up a story of nomadic travel, and I made vague references to a past military career. The priest agreed to board us for the night for a modest payment. The priest was chatty, and while he knew little about the town or the islands past, he told us to explore the central path until it ended. The next morning, we woke early and readied ourselves for the sunrise.

  We walked down the slope along the central path which ended after a short distance. The unpaved road descended, and the ridge became narrower on either side. The view ahead was breathtaking.

  My heart thumped as I descended. I stopped when it became too dangerous, and the mountain ended in a cliff that protruded into the sea below — the same protrusion I had seen the earlier day from the water.

  When I turned, there was the unmistakable spine of the mountain. A King could be on higher ground, people lower on the slope, and he could point down the spine to open seas. The extension was like an inverted fist that dipped into the waters.

  The gentle light of dawn finally led to the Sun peeking in distant horizon and rising over the water. The skies were magnificent.