by James Axler
This accursed lock is too simple. She watches over my shoulder now, and yet she has not, yet, divined the cipher for herself. She is not fool enough to be unable to work it out—if she did, that would force my hand. But because she trusts me, she does not think twice.
‘DOC, WHY ARE YOU looking at me like that?’ Krysty asked, bewildered. ‘Just keep working on the lock.’
The old man shook his head and returned to his task. For a moment, he had been unaware that his meandering mind had caused him to leave the lock and stare at her. As he returned to finding the right combination of red, black and white squares to trigger the lock, his mind raced once more. They had taken more than a quarter of an hour to get past three doors, and at this rate they could be anything up to an hour getting out of the inner temple. By rights, his rate of progress should have increased, as he should have learned more about these locks from each one he cracked. Even playing for time as much as he had, there was no way he could keep it up without her becoming suspicious.
If nothing else, as his mind wandered, his fingers slipped into automatic and the lock was soon released.
‘By the Three Kennedys!’ he exclaimed, as surprised as Krysty that the door was yielding, ‘I may be getting the hang of this, after all.’
If there was a hint of regret in his tone, it escaped her as she clapped him on the back.
‘Carry on like this, and we’ll be out of here in no time,’ she said as they hurried through the open door and along a corridor lit by flickering torches before coming to a split.
‘Which way?’ Doc asked.
Krysty frowned. ‘Left has a slight incline. I’m guessing we weren’t at ground level when we started, so we need to go down.’
‘Whatever makes you say that?’ Doc asked, puzzled and for a moment forgetting his dilemma.
Krysty frowned, shook her head. ‘I don’t know for sure. It’s just that I think it’s that there were no vibrations beneath us. Stone floors would carry them up from the ground. If we were at the center of a ville, and we were on a stone floor like that, when we were left in silence we’d pick up something of what was going on outside. We do all the time, I guess it’s just that we don’t notice it. But whatever there may have been was killed off, and the only way that could happen—’
‘Was if we were, perhaps, raised in some way. A good point, my dear girl, but what if there was nothing because there were cellars beneath us—what if that is where we are heading?’
‘Then we head up again. If we keep going up from this point, then we’re stuck on the roof of this damn place,’ she added with a humorless laugh.
‘Very well, down it is,’ Doc proclaimed, leading the way.
The corridor ahead was clear, and shortly they came to another locked door.
‘Think you can crack this one quicker?’ she asked.
Doc gave her a grin. ‘My dear girl, the secret is all in the cipher, and I do believe I have defined the code on which it is based. Only a theory, but time to test it.’
He stood in front of the jumble of red, black and white stones that made up the grid, and theatrically cracked his knuckles. There had always been a little of the ham actor in Theophilus Tanner, and even now it was a hard habit to break.
Slowly, he maneuvered the grid, explaining his theory of binary and tertiary codes as he moved each line. Within a matter of seconds, the lock mechanism had smoothly slid back.
‘Gaia, it was really that easy?’ Krysty breathed.
Doc laughed, shook his head. ‘Things are always “that easy” when you finally work them out,’ he murmured, opening the door.
Odyssey stood on the other side. He looked as though he had been expecting them and failed to hide his amusement at the expressions on their faces.
‘Oh, do not be too surprised,’ he said mockingly. ‘I have had to withdraw my guards to divert the manpower to the labyrinth. We are, as you know, under attack. The size of the force is unknown, but I have my men waiting. Anyone who can make it through the labyrinth will walk—stumble, perhaps—into the waiting arms of my Nightcrawlers.
‘Of course, this means that the inner temple has been left unguarded. I suspected that Dr. Tanner would be able to solve the puzzle of the locks eventually, but I did not reckon on his speed. I was returning to attend to you when I heard the movement behind this door. They are thick stones, but not so thick as to preclude all sounds, particularly when the rest of temple is deserted. I thought it would be interesting to wait, to see how long it took for you to work the individual combination for this door. Not very long at all. I am impressed.’
He clapped mockingly.
‘So glad that we’ve entertained you,’ Krysty said, acid dripping in her tones ‘but we really can’t stand around here all day listening to you tell us how clever we are—or how you are, come to that. We’ve got things to do.’
‘You have, you have,’ Odyssey agreed, nodding vigorously. ‘It’s just that they may not be the things that you were expecting.’
‘And you mean what by that, exactly?’ she asked.
‘You’ll come with me now,’ Odyssey answered, ignoring her question. He turned his back on them and began to walk away.
Krysty sighed. ‘I didn’t have you down as a triple stupe. You don’t have your sec to back you up now. You’re a stocky guy, but I don’t figure you do much fighting. You don’t look like you’ve got a blaster on you. Okay, so we haven’t, but there are two of us. And even if you could match Doc, there was no way you could match me.’
Odyssey turned to face them, a slow smile spreading across his features. ‘I really didn’t have you down as either that bombastic or that stupid yourself,’ he said gently. ‘Do you really think that I need physical prowess to make you do as I wish? If that were the case, I could have had you put in chains from the moment that you arrived, so that there was no chance of your effecting any effort at escape.
‘I’m also disappointed that you think so little of me as to assume that I would fall for such a ridiculous and obvious loophole in my plans. Perhaps you are not the people I took you for. But no matter, it is too late for that now.’
Krysty snorted and shook her head. ‘Words. I’ve had enough of them from you. We’ve got people who need us.’
The woman began to move toward Odyssey, slowly but with a body language that spoke of an intent to harm. Doc followed her, but something made him hold back. Why would Odyssey be so sure? They could easily best him, unless…
‘Krysty, don’t look at him,’ Doc yelled.
But it was too late. Her eyes were fixed on the figure ahead, sizing up his own stance and posture, so that she could take him out. She was only a few hundred feet away when she began, and the distance was covered in a matter of seconds.
Yet it seemed to grow greater as her limbs became leaden and her head fogged. Sizing him up, she had caught his eyeline, and now found that she couldn’t tear her vision away from him. However hard she tried, her eyes were locked on to his, and they became like burning coals that burned into her brain, cauterizing the cortex and rendering her unable to act.
She realized too late why Doc had suddenly implored her to look away. If only she had caught on a few seconds earlier herself, then this wouldn’t have happened. She cursed herself as a veil of blackness started to descend.
As Krysty collapsed, Doc stood paralyzed. Perhaps if he tried to rush Odyssey, then the Atlantean leader would divert his attention and the woman would be able to recover. But then he would fall prey to the man’s powers. And if both he and Krysty were rendered inactive…
‘You cannot make up your mind what to do?’ Odyssey asked him, without taking his eyes from Krysty. ‘That wouldn’t be the first time, would it? You think I don’t know, from the questions you ask, that you want to know more? You think that I don’t know, from my intelligence sources, that you have other priorities to those of your traveling companions? You think that I don’t know you have been faking the amount of time it has taken you to unlock these
doors? By the souls of the travelers, man, it is a simple code for one such as yourself, that you knew as soon as you were through the first door. Indeed, I believe you knew it the first time that I saw you. You think that I wasn’t aware on letting myself into my own chamber that the lock had been tampered with and left just one color out of place?
‘You want to join with me. You want to know more.’
Doc felt his anger rise, sweeping over the impotence that had stayed him.
‘No,’ he yelled, ‘I am not alone. And I do not act alone.’
He made to run at Odyssey, but had left it too late. Krysty had slumped unconscious to the floor, and as Doc put his first foot forward, he found his eyes drawn inexorably to those of the Atlantean leader.
‘THIS IS THE PLACE I wanted you to see earlier. It is quite splendid, is it not? I always thought that this would be where I would really know for sure if I was the chosen one, or just another in the long line of those who have to wait for the time when we will be returned to our rightful home.’
Odyssey’s honeyed tones lulled Doc from the deep black of his sleep. It was uncommonly rare for the old man not be troubled in his rest, and as his head started to clear and the voice filled his ears, the mellifluous tones beginning to make sense, he realized that it was highly unlikely that he had been doing anything as simple as taking a nap.
Of course, Doc reasoned, it was beginning to become clear now. If the way in which he and Krysty had been abducted without the other companions buying the farm in the event was to make any kind of sense, the idea of hypnosis had to be involved. That much had already been obvious. However, it did beg the question of how the Nightcrawlers learned the art. If they possessed it, then it put them in a position of great power, particularly if they were able to practice it with such ease. The position of each generation’s Odyssey would have been, to say the least, precarious…unless, of course, they had been taught it by a master, and that master happened to be the leader of the ville himself.
Doc knew a little of the art of hypnotism. Mesmerism, it had been back in the days when he had first heard of it, long before these series of nightmares had begun. But no, he couldn’t let his mind stray in any way; he had to keep focused. So: hypnotism. The ability to cloud minds and bend them to one’s will. It wasn’t a simple skill to develop to a degree where you had anything that could be called mastery; and there were schools of thought that stated it was impossible to make a person do something that—deep within—was against his or her will.
Perhaps that would be true if the hypnotist was a normal man or woman. But what if there was some kind of mutie strain that ran through the ville of Atlantis, making it possible for them to practice these arts to a hitherto unseen degree? Certainly, it would explain the power with which Odyssey had been able to subdue both himself and Krysty.
Furthermore, such a mutie strain, and the power it bestowed, would certainly account for the man’s bombastic pomposity and his ridiculous sense of grandeur.
Well, who would have thought. all it took to knock some sense into Doc was to brainwash him with a quick fix of hypnotism. He couldn’t believe it. Whatever problems may now beset him, the voices in his head, the conflicts, had now all vanished.
Doc flexed his limbs experimentally. He couldn’t feel them. They weren’t just numbed, or bound, it was as though they no longer existed. He tried to twist his head, but it wouldn’t respond. He knew that he was breathing, but when he took deeply from the air, he could feel it in his sinuses, but nothing from the neck down.
This was truly alarming. He had either been drugged, or a powerful posthypnotic suggestion had been implanted that wouldn’t allow him to move in any way. He opened his mouth to speak, but although he was aware of his jaw moving, there was no sound issuing forth. His vocal cords, like everything else, were paralyzed.
‘Come now, my dear Doctor—you didn’t think that I would allow you the luxury of speech to rant at me and shout over what I have to tell you, did you?’ Odyssey purred, with an infuriating self-satisfaction. He had to be watching Doc and to have seen his jaw move uselessly. The Atlantean continued. ‘Please, I know you are now awake, and as aware as you will ever be. Do not delay the inevitable or attempt to play games with me. Open your eyes, for sight is all you have now.’
Although he wanted to know what was going on, it galled Doc to open his eyes then, as it would be taken by Odyssey as a sign of obedience. Nonetheless, he felt compelled to see what trouble they had got themselves into.
Doc opened his eyes, blinking at the light. He was able to move his eyes, if not his skull, and so could take in much of the chamber in which he and Krysty now found themselves. It was a stone room much like the others, except that it was decorated in colors other than the red, white and black he had come to expect. On the walls were hangings in crimson, purple and a rich, deep blue. They were embroidered with scenes of Tantric sex magic and human sacrifice. Other hangings in greens and yellows depicted the cycle of nature and showed old Pagan gods.
Something for everyone, and an indication of the haphazard way in which the founders of this ville had cobbled together their philosophies.
More importantly, Odyssey was in Doc’s eyeline, standing in front of a stone slab. There was someone laying on it, and from the flash of Titian hair at one end, he could tell that it was Krysty. She was as immobile as himself, and he guessed that whatever had been done to him had also been inflicted on her. She was covered with a long white tunic similar to the ones worn by the women of Memphis, and she wasn’t bound in any manner.
Odyssey watched as Doc’s eyes flickered around the chamber, taking in the hangings, the slab and its occupant. A smile played around his mouth.
‘This is what I wanted you to see,’ he said simply. ‘It reveals the inner truth of our society, and I felt that you would be possibly the only man I have ever—or would ever—meet who would be able to understand the import of what this means.
‘You have already seen the temple to the elders that houses so much of the material from which our history is made. That is the history that everyone in Atlantis is taught from their birth until their death. But it isn’t all.
‘Every society is built upon those things that are seen and known, and those that are hidden. The real secrets of power. I promised you that I would make you privy to these, and so I shall. For here is where the real truths lay. The lost continent of Atlantis endured—not just in those who were taken into the skies, and not just in those who stayed beneath the earth. Neither in their descendants who founded this ville. No, the lost continent endured in its ideas and thoughts, which informed the occult lore and philosophies of all humankind. Our home, and our people who shall be saved when those who have traveled arrive to take us onward with them, we are the end result of those ideas, and we encompass them all. We are the final result of humankind, the ones for whom everything that has come before has been nothing more than a rehearsal. Even this physical shell we inhabit is nothing more than a shabby anteroom to a glorious palace. That which is the place to which we shall go.
‘None but my predecessors—and now you—have known that the ideas that our people are taught to reject are, in fact, a part of ourselves. They are simple, and wouldn’t comprehend the totality of such things.’
Doc winced. It wasn’t the first time that the notion of a people misunderstanding a totality had been put to him; and, like then, this was about keeping people in the dark to give the few power over them. Odyssey’s braying lecture was beginning to irritate him, but as he was paralyzed, he had no choice but to keep listening.
‘All things are as one. All knowledge and occult power is gathered within this place. The time of alignment is near, and to be sent one with the knowledge, and one with the power, is a sign that I am to be the Odyssey who will lead my people to the promised lands beyond the stars. The new vessel is almost complete, and the people will gather to be taken by the travelers, in their vessel of light. In order to boost our power, our signal to
them that we are ready, I will send them a sign.’
If Doc had been able to speak, it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have been rendered speechless by the realization of what was going on. The secrets that he had hoped—had put faith in and betrayed his companions for—were nothing more than a bunch of old occult superstitions and spurious gods, realized only on some tatty pieces of predark cloth and the ludicrous ideas that had been fed to this megalomaniac from birth. And if he wasn’t wrong, then the madman proposed to sacrifice Krysty in some sort of absurd magic ceremony to hasten the mass slaughter of the people of Atlantis.
For this was the only thing Doc could make of his rambling speech. The population would assemble in a newly built temple and await annihilation from a energy beam that would vaporize them, and so take their souls rather than their corporeal form to another place. It was nothing less than another manifestation of the kind of absurd UFO cults that had claimed so many suicides in the years before skydark, but one that had lived on and festered rather than prospered in the ensuing decades.
It was for this that Doc had given away that which was most precious to him. For no man was an island, and in his madness he had tried to act like one: to be the sole savior of a people and of his own soul. Wandering through his mind not being able to pick out what was real and what was illusion because he was looking in all the time, rather than outward to those who were around him. His identity and meaning lay in their reaction to him as much as in himself.
And he had placed Krysty in this position through his own selfishness. If he could do anything to atone, he would. If he could move, he would have ripped Odyssey limb from limb, regardless of whatever wounds the Atlantean may inflict upon him. He would have done anything to save Krysty from what was about to happen to her, even at the expense of his own life. It was the least he could do. But the most he could in his current situation was nothing.
He listened helplessly while Odyssey continued.