by YatesNZ, Jen
The Goddess hadn't finished with them yet. A portentous energy filled the sanctum and Ianthe found her scepter arm swinging back to catch the last of that ray of sun's light before it rose beyond the tiny aperture of the day-port.
In the flare of rainbow radiance that again blazed from the crystal, two figures formed, and though at first they were light forms, as had been the Goddess, they quickly solidified until in the center of the circle beside the crystal sphere, stood Gynevra with Dogon at her back.
The silence, the stillness of the sanctum in that moment was as real and solid as the stone walls. Not a muscle moved, not an eyelash twitched. Breath was suspended. As the only male present, the balance of energy lay with Dogon. The initiative was his. He placed his hands on Gynevra's shoulders and spoke in a soft, yet sonorous voice.
‘On the energy of the Goddess, I have returned the Archinus Elect to your midst. It is her first long apport. She will need your care.’
Then as quickly as they'd appeared, he left through the light, leaving Gynevra alone within the circle.
She was home. Sacred Ist, she was home in Qrazil.
Scarcely had the knowledge fixed in her mind than the light that filled and surrounded her abruptly faded and she fell unconscious to the floor.
‘You realize this is a very serious accusation you make, Princess?’ King Ahron rapped out, his countenance darkening alarmingly. ‘I find it totally preposterous to imagine Prince Gotham would try to overthrow me.’
Gynevra faced her pavuon across the inordinate expanse of his rolled gold desk. The seven years she’d been in Fyr Trephyr had taken its toll on the Paramount King. His heavy body was clad in gold silk and liberally adorned with precious gems, a hideous overstatement. His reception of her was far from paternal and she could find in her own heart no joy at claiming this man as her sire. His pompous disclaimer set her teeth on edge. But she must guard her thoughts for she would not fare well should he guess her true feelings towards him.
‘I've no proof, Sire. That's for you to obtain. I only know he's made no secret of the fact he's deeply involved in the Star Quest and it's the true nature of that Star Quest I am suggesting you investigate.’
‘How do you know this?’ Ahron demanded, sitting forward and fixing Gynevra with a furious glare. ‘The Star Quest and all matters pertaining to it are highly confidential.’
Forcing herself to relax back in her chair, Gynevra clasped her hands to keep them still. As soon as she'd felt recovered from her apport to Qrazil she'd requested a private audience with the King. She knew she had to shed the burden of awful knowledge as soon as she could, put the responsibility of it where it belonged but she was still a little shaky and it was disconcerting to find her emotional state somewhat unstable. Her light-sire had a way of making one feel less than secure, or as if, simply by owning to the knowledge, she also was guilty of the crime.
‘In the caverns below Meranil are twelve incendiary crystals, each over twelve gladvenon tall,’ she began a little breathlessly.
Ahron's jaw hardened but he said nothing, merely waited.
‘Somewhere in the mountains north of Fyr Trephyr a crystal is being manufactured that will exceed anything anyone has ever dared create before. It's to be one hundred gladvenon tall and twenty gladvenon wide and its purpose is to take an exploratory party back to the Star of Origin. I have been led to believe the twelve beneath Meranil are power boosters for this—monster. But that is not what they're being programmed for.’
For the first time Gynevra saw the King disconcerted. Face drained of all color, his eyes became black lasers that seemed to bore right through her. Calling on all her training, she closed her mind to his power and cloaked herself in an armor of protective energy.
‘How do you know of this?’ he demanded.
Flinching at the cold threat in his voice, Gynevra reminded herself she carried no guilt. In a quiet, unhurried manner she told him of Kah and the crystal programming.
‘It's my belief,’ she concluded, ‘the purpose of the program is to create a powerhouse with the capability of annihilating specific targets at a great distance—namely Fyr Poseidyr.’
Staring at her, though Gynevra knew he wasn't actually seeing her at all, his long plump fingers drummed restlessly on the gilded arm of his chair. Anger burned disturbingly bright in the depths of his eyes.
‘Presumably the Prince knew of your involvement with the programming?’
‘I don't think so. We were scarcely communicating by that time unless it was to—discuss—my barren-ness or his infertility. I preferred not to tempt his uncertain temper by raising the issue.’
‘T’is irrelevant now,’ the King declared. ‘Is the programming complete?’
‘I was employed to hold the energy while Lord Kah did the programming. In the beginning he'd impressed on me the secrecy of the matter and I preferred to know as little as possible. Up until about two tonni ago I was blocking most of the program's content. But I was becoming more and more suspicious so over the last few days I worked with Lord Kah I deliberately opened to the formula. It was then I discovered the extent of the program.’
A muscle jerked in the fleshy jaw, and rising heavily to his feet, the King pronounced in a deadly monotone, ‘All finwodi shall die.’
On a morning three days later Gynevra lay on her bed staring up at the ornate orichalc ceiling of the rooms assigned her in Qrazil and considered how much she and her circumstances had changed since going to Trephysia. She was housed as befitted one now known as ‘Princess’ and who would one day be Archinus of All Atlantis. The initiates made the Star sign of respect when they addressed her. Even Ianthe's attitude had thawed to the point where they could communicate as priestesses who respected each other’s level of evolvement.
But by far the biggest difference was within herself.
In suffering loss, thwarted hopes and dreams turned nightmare, in enduring the wonders and horrors of sacred partnership, the joy and agony of childbirth, and the heartache of giving up her son, she'd left her own childhood far behind her. In understanding that, she understood also how naive and child-like she'd been in that other lifetime when Qrazil had been her world. She'd believed in ‘happy-ever-after-land’. With just such naive innocence would Solon grow at the Fyr Trephyr House of Children. The City of Glass would be his world. Her arms felt so empty and she hugged herself tightly in an effort to ease the pain. With each passing day her feeling of loss intensified instead of diminishing.
This morning the weight in her heart felt almost too heavy to carry. Neither looking forward to her involvement once again in the busy life of Qrazil nor wondering how Difleer was enjoying her voyage as the only woman aboard a coastal trader, could lift the darkness usurping her mind.
A darkness filled with a deep foreboding.
Needing the panacea of action, Gynevra threw back the covers, leapt from the bed and dragged on a bathing robe. Snatching up a drying linen she hurried onto the balcony and down the seven flights of external stairs. She'd intended going to one of the communal bathing pools but as her feet sped down the stone stairways she knew she'd seek the possible privacy of the tiny grotto under the causeway where she and Taur had first joined. He was in the city at present, so rumor had it, but this was as close as she dared be to him now. To see him, perhaps to touch him, would be to want that which now she could never have. Besides, even his presence couldn't ease this dark knowing in her heart.
Maybe in the steamy, stillness of Ist's pool she'd understand, and know what to do, be able to fathom this terrible, terrifying knowledge of pending doom that threatened her son.
Grateful to find the grotto deserted, she pressed her forehead to the cool feet of the pale blue chalcedony statue of the Goddess and traced a finger over the inlaid golden star on her breast. Then dropping her robe and drying linen on a rocky ledge she stepped down into the gently steaming water. Sinking onto a submerged rock, she lent her head against the rim, closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Sacred Ist, hel
p me. Tell me what is wrong, what I must do.’
As the heat and magical energy of the pool seeped through her body, a plan formed in her mind. If she could apportate from Fyr Trephyr to Qrazil she could apportate back again. Dogon had said once you'd done it you could always do it.
Had she been a fool to trust Solon's safety to the Fyr Trephyr House of Children? Was his sacred father planning some awful act against the child who would certainly supplant him as King? Who knew what terrible scheme the Prince's crazed mind would conjure up? She moved restlessly in the water as the cruel thoughts ripped through her heart.
If she could devise a way of safely removing Solon to Qrazil she'd be able to place him under the protection of an invisibility screen so the Trephysians wouldn't find him till he was grown. Just so had the small Prince Duthac of Gadeirus been concealed in Nyalda when the Arab pirates over-ran his province. If Ianthe wouldn't help her she'd telondem Dogon.
The thought was but a germ in her mind, a tiny bud of excitement about to mature and bloom on the instant, when the rock on which she sat, the grotto in which she hid, gave a massive jolt and the water swept out of the pool in a tidal wave, lifting her body like a floating leaf and slamming her against the base of the statue of the Goddess.
‘Nyd?—Nyd?’
How did she come to be lying naked against Nyd's coarse shirt, which smelled of damp and earth? Why was he crying? Cronos, her head hurt! Had Gotham beaten her again? As soon as this last question formed in her mind she knew it couldn't be. She'd left Fyr Trephyr three days since. At least her mind still functioned.
‘Nyd, what's happened?’
She couldn't move. Apart from a terrible pain in her head, feeling sore all over and terribly stiff, she was clamped against the Temple eunuch’s massive chest as if he were trying to will life into her. His tears were running down her arm and he didn't seem to be hearing her. If this was a nightmare she wanted to wake up now.
‘Nyd, you're hurting me,’ she said, trying to force more volume into her voice so as to be heard above the wailing and crying which she realized was coming from all around them.
Where were they? Why was everyone crying? Why was Nyd crying?
‘Nyd!’ she shouted in desperation and struggled feebly against his strength.
There was a convulsive upward movement of the shaggy bowed head and Nyd stared down at her from red swollen eyes widening in wonder.
‘Lady?’ he whispered gruffly. ‘Lady, you're alive? Sweet Goddess, the Princess is alive!’ he shouted suddenly and surged clumsily to his feet. Clutching her more tightly to his chest than ever, he began stumbling about the great Healing Temple which was crowded with people moaning and crying in pain or grief or both, and several who lay very still as if dead.
Moving among them, tending to wounds and offering words of comfort were not only priestesses but townsfolk, Qeggi, Paggi and Moera, many themselves wearing bandages and dressings. When she saw the elegant and haughty Paggi, Lady Alonda, clad only in a bedraggled fine linen night dress and gently tending to a Qeggi baby clutched in the arms of its sobbing mother, Gynevra knew whatever had befallen was calamitous. A high Paggi lady was never seen in public in anything but the most elegant of gowns and she would never stoop to ministering to a Qeggi, however serious their need. Clearly, the world had turned on its axis as was claimed to have happened long ago in myths of ancient times.
The pain in her head was exactly as she remembered after Gotham threw her against the gerlain in Ceabryn. Her face felt strange, as if caked with dried mud or blood, she couldn't see from her right eye and darkness kept threatening the sight in the other. Of a certainty she'd been injured but so had many others. Sacred Mother Goddess, what had happened?
A priestess approached Nyd and offered to help with the Princess but he brushed her aside, muttering incessant invocations to the Gods and the Archinus as if they were one and the same. Then he spied Ianthe and rushed to her, babbling and crying all at once.
‘Lady, Lady, she lives. Princess Gynevra lives. Fix her. Fix her. Please fix her.’
Ianthe stared from the filthy ravaged face of the giant servitor to the equally filthy and bloodied woman he held in his arms, and for the first time in her life Gynevra saw her Lady Movuon allow herself the luxury of a tear.
‘We thought you dead,’ she said hoarsely.
‘What happened?’ Gynevra asked.
‘An earthquake worse than any ever felt here in Fyr Poseidyr. Qrazil has fared better than most other places because of its solid construction. Hundreds are dead, many more wounded. Holy Ist, I thought you were taken from us.’
Crossing her hands at her breast she closed her eyes and bowed her head.
‘Sacred Ist, Great Mother of All, I thank you for the life of my daughter. I thank you for the future—for all our lives.’
Gynevra closed her eyes and let the blessed darkness reclaim her before the old pain could tear at her heart. She knew it wasn't for her daughter the Archinus had feared but for the sense of duty that would force her to try to bear another if Gynevra died.
When next she regained consciousness she reeled up from the depths of a nightmare in which she'd returned to Fyr Trephyr to find Solon.
‘Mud, mud, it's all mud!’ she moaned, sitting bolt upright on her pallet among the wounded and flinging her arms wildly in the air.
A priestess hurried to her side to gentle her. Gynevra flung her aside.
‘It's all mud! Where is Solon?’ she screamed.
Another priestess brought a draught of soothing poppy elixir and together they wrestled her into acquiescence until she took it down. But each time the drug wore off, she'd erupt out of the same nightmare, body sweating and heart hammering in panic as if it would break through the wall of her chest. She had to find Solon.
‘It's mud, all mud! Where is my Solon? I've got to find him!’
In a brief moment of awareness Dogon appeared at her side. Silvery hair hanging in lank ropes about his shoulders and eyes ringed with dark shadows, he looked as if he’d not slept for days. Beyond his shoulder Ianthe hovered, her disheveled appearance every bit as incongruous as Dogon’s. Gynevra knew such a radical deviation from the normal behavior of these two people had to portend tragedy on a scale unimaginable but she couldn’t begin to focus her mind on that or any other problem. The whereabouts of Solon was all she could think of. She didn’t know why, except it had something to do with a sea of mud—and darkness.
Dogon. Dogon would know, would tell her. She lifted an unsteady hand to touch the stubble on his sunken cheeks.
‘Can you see me, Gynevra?’ he asked, a slight hitch in his voice.
‘Of course I can see you,’ she snapped. Did he, like her mother and the priestesses, think she’d lost her mind? No, that would be her sight, wouldn’t it? Then maybe—the mud—
‘How can there be so much mud? It's everywhere. Right up to the grotto. Dogon, you’ve got to help me find Solon.’
Dogon lowered himself to the edge of Gynevra's bed, his calm, silvery gaze fixed on hers. Instantly she felt calmed. Focused. Strengthened. Dogon had always had this effect on her. If he was here they’d find Solon.
Dogon placed one hand over hers. His other, she suddenly realized, was heavily bandaged and secured against his chest.
‘You’re hurt!’ she cried, feeling panic creeping back around the edges of her mind. ‘How—?’
‘Hush,’ Dogon murmured. ‘Hush. I am hurt, as are many others. We are the lucky ones. Thousands are dead and darkness covers the land. Atlantis is a stricken nation.’
Gynevra felt the terror then, building again exactly as it did when she saw all the mud.
‘Why? What do you mean?’ she whispered.
‘There’s great destruction of the land west of the Dorian Mountains. The Glass City is no more. There's mud—as far as the eye can see—and no sign of life.’ He saw no need to tell her of the awful and ugly signs of death he'd seen or the real extent of the devastation to Atlantis. What he would s
ay was cruel enough. ‘There could be no survivors for the mud seems to have spewed out from the side of the mountains and flowed like a huge engulfing river to the sea. My guess is the city is buried at least a quarter stade deep in mud.—I'm sorry, Princess.’
His voice wobbled ominously on the last few words and he gathered Gynevra into his one good arm and held her close. Her body was very still, very relaxed, or so it seemed. He leant back to look down in her face and gulped.
Hauling her close again, he said over her shoulder to Ianthe, ‘I shouldn't have told her.’
‘She already knew,’ Ianthe said firmly, but Dogon could tell by the twitch of her jaw, the iron-willed Archinus was struggling with emotion. He'd have been no less surprised to see a hardened warrior cry.
A high-pitched keening sound filled the room, and together they once more wrestled a dose of sedative into the Princess.
‘She'll need to be watched day and night for initially she may try to kill herself,’ Dogon told Ianthe.
Eyes suddenly black and fathomless, the Archinus said, ‘Will you please attend me in the Sanctum?’
Stopping only to give orders that the Princess not be left unattended, she swept through the public rooms and held open the door to her private quarters.
‘Now tell me,’ she commanded before they were even seated, ‘why my daughter might wish to take her life. Grief is not reason enough for one who has the mind power of an octad.’
Dogon dropped onto a Boiche-carved bench and dragged his good hand wearily over his face. There was no point in keeping the truth from the Archinus for sooner or later she'd discern it for herself but his mind was still filled with the horror of what he'd seen during his apport to Trephysia. He couldn't begin to think how to answer Ianthe's blunt question. He'd stall it by telling her of the extent of the disaster.
‘Lady, Trephysia, what's left of it, is now an island, albeit an island of mud. The Dorian Mountains—’ He stopped as a shudder wracked his slight frame, then began again. ‘The Dorian Mountains are no more. The sea pours through from way north of where the old city of Fyr Doryr used to be, right down to the southern coast. Fyr Trephyr would no longer need its glass pyramids—if it still existed.’ He stopped again to draw in a deep, agitated breath. ‘The whole of the eastern coast of the new sea is mud, for about two hundred and fifty stades inland—and the rivers have stopped flowing.’