by Gene Stiles
“Then, by all means, join us, Tomilic. And you, Mikala?” Mikala thanked him, but said he must get back to his work. Morpheus saw him out then waved Tomilic toward the dining table. “Ida, would you please bring another chair and place setting for our guest? Thank you.”
Restraining themselves from asking the purpose of his visit, the girls bombarded Tomilic with questions about Atlantis as he ate. Having never been there, they wanted to know all they could about the city of gold. What was it like there? Was it true the streets were paved in gold? How big was the Great Pyramid? Did people really fly across the city? How did people dress?
“Girls! Girls! Slow down!” Haleah laughed at the excitement of her children, her sea-blue eyes sparkling at their animated excitation. “Let our guest enjoy his meal. There will be plenty of time for questions later. Use your manners.”
“Yes, momma,” was the chorused reply. They bit their lips, but traded sideways glances between themselves and their company. The little ones, especially, had a difficult time holding their tongues and Haleah was very proud of them for their efforts.
While the girls cleared the table and began washing the dishes, Morpheus invited Tomilic to join him before the warmth of the fire. A long, C-shaped, thickly-stuffed, dark brown leather couch filled most of the expansive living room along with a scattering of well-padded, red brocade chairs and footstools. A small Izon man could stand inside the stone fireplace that easily heated the entire lower area of the roomy house. The walls of squared cedar logs were coated with a clear glaze that kept the beauty of the red and crimson grain patterns of the wood. Paintings of wildlife and waterfalls hung in black frames filling the room with a pleasant, cordial atmosphere. Morpheus motioned for Tomilic to be seated on the L-shaped end of the couch nearest the fire and seated himself facing his guest. Haleah joined them, sitting at the side of her beloved. Patiently, they waited for their guest to state his purpose.
Well sated by the hardy meal, Tomilic took a moment to sip on the hot, sweetened green tea he was offered. Pleased as he was by his kindhearted treatment, he could not still the urgency of his mission churning in his soul. The square jawline of his handsomely sculpted features tightened to the point that a twitch developed in the corners. His thin lips stretched gravely beneath his hooded, golden eyes as he caught his breath to speak.
“The Lady Rhea sends you greetings,” he began. “She sent me to find you and I must admit, it was not an easy task,” he said with wry grin.
“I would imagine not,” Morpheus replied with a smile. “I was not aware that our location was known to anyone in Atlantis. How did you find us?”
“I pieced together whispered stories and rumors,” Tomilic said. “I heard you sent spies to hide among the People and sought the truth of it. I even followed a man out of Atlantis who headed in this direction. I am an excellent tracker,” he added. “Still, I lost the man within the span of a day. You hid your city well.”
“The People speak of us?” Haleah looked questionably at their guest. “Why would they do that?”
“Do not fear, Lady Haleah,” said with a wan, crooked smile. “They only speak in whispers behind closed doors and their comments are always complimentary. Your nameless city is held in high regard as are you and your citizens. Your community represents the kind of unity and peace that many in Atlantis envy.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” Haleah nodded. “I am humbled by your words.”
“You are most welcome, but now for the reason for my visit.” Tomilic’s face darkened with fury at the circumstances that brought him here and the plight now facing the Lady Rhea. He told them of the disappearance of Rhea’s children at the hand of Cronus and their inability to find them over these last years, spitting the words out as if they fouled his mouth to speak them. The looks on the faces of his hosts told him they felt much the same. But now he must tell them the meat of the matter.
“The Lady Rhea is with child once again,” he said gravely. His golden eyes peered pleadingly at the couple sitting across from him. “She is about to give birth and fears for the safety of her newborn. She begs that you consider fostering her babe and keep him safe from the clutches of Cronus. That is why I sought you out. She only pleads she be able to visit upon occasion. Please. I also beg of you to save her child. I do not think she could bear it if she lost another to his cruelty.”
“But of course,” Haleah near shouted. “There is always room in our home. How could Cronus do such a thing! It is monstrous!”
“I agree completely,” Morpheus replied sternly, his countenance tight, his ebony eyes burning. “How he could do this is unconscionable! We will always be here for Rhea. I, myself, will return to Atlantis and steal the child away.”
“That would not be a good idea, Morpheus.” Tomilic appreciated the gesture, but the Aam commander was too well known among the People. “You are a legend within the city. They would spot you in a heartbeat and arrest you for treason. I will bring the child to you.” He sighed with relief for a brief moment then, once again, his visage clouded over like a storm brewing on the horizon. “I only hope I make it back in time.”
Sadly, he was too late.
Rhea clenched her teeth as another vicious contraction ripped into her lower back. Unimaginable pain like hot flowing lava coursed down from the bunched muscles of her shoulders to her lower abdomen. Her raised knees and spread legs cramped up and locked in place, throbbing from the burning flames flashing along her screaming, seared nerve endings. She wailed helplessly as another wave of pure, seething agony tore through her sweat-covered body, her back arching high off the sheet-covered table. The spasm eased, releasing her tormented muscles for a few blessed minutes. Rhea collapsed onto the table with her momentary reprieve, shivering beneath the saturated sheet laying over her swollen stomach.
The misery of this childbirth eclipsed all of her previous labors combined, even with the helping flow of Healings from her mid-wives. For the last twenty-four hours, she writhed upon the heavily padded table, twisting in horrific anguish. It was as if this child fought to come into this world, fearful of what might await it at its birth. Her long, honey-blond hair swirled around her head in matted disarray, sticking to her feverish forehead and red, flushed cheeks. Rivers of tears poured from her shimmering blue eyes as her suffering grew with each torturous hour. Her excruciating struggle began as a summer storm, building in intensity until it became a violent, monstrous hurricane. At times, she thought she might well die, surrounded only by her cooing mid-wives wiping the hot moisture from her furrowed brow and sending their golden strength into her. What kept her alive in her misery she did not know.
A soul-wrenching howl tore through her dry, blistered lips. She felt the flesh around her most feminine parts rip and tear as the child’s head crowned between her quivering legs. The soft, soothing voices of her attendants seemed like murmured echoes, muted by the darkness that threatened to welcome her into the silence of its embrace. One more scream, one more push with the last vestiges of her waning strength and it was blessedly over.
Rhea slumped against the raised back of the table, drenched in wetness and limp with utter exhaustion. She closed her eyes tightly, breathing so hard she thought her lungs might burst. Somewhere in the thick fog rolling through her worn, weakened body, Rhea heard happy twittering and a soft voice whispering, “It is a beautiful baby boy, Lady Rhea. What shall you name him?”
“Poseidon,” she whimpered, feeling the weight of a small, warm bundle upon her chest. “His name shall be Poseidon.”
The darkness took her then. Blissful slumber cocooned her in the gentle arms of the Creator’s warmth, wrapping her in the golden glow of His Healing power. Her ordeal was over at last.
Little did she know in those serene, peaceful moments her nightmare had only just begun.
Rhea awoke nearly a day later refreshed and Healed, the pain and agony of the past hours already fading into the mists of memory. She stretched languidly on a large feather bed, her head r
esting on puffy pillows, her body tucked beneath fresh sheets and a thick, warm, flower-patterned comforter. She stirred slowly, snuggling into the coziness of luxurious contentment, a slight smile playing across her full, pink lips.
A sense of dread seeped into her pleasant repose, touching the edges of her sweet dreams and darkening them like coming of a thunderstorm. It gnawed at her peaceful mind, encroaching on her happiness. It whispered into her ear, telling her she was forgetting something, something urgent and demanding. Terror swelled within in soul, exploding upward, blowing the fog of dreams from her mind as a gale force wind would tear the clouds from the sky.
Rhea’s eyes snapped open with the suddenness of the crack of a whip. Panicked, her gazed swept around her bedchambers, searching desperately for a sight of the white, woven bassinet made especially for her newborn son. The room was empty save for the scatterings of her few pieces of wooden furniture. She screamed in sickened trepidation, calling out fearfully for her attendants. What she received in reply horrified her beyond comprehension.
Cronus stepped buoyantly into the room, a sanguine smile written upon his tan lips. His ruggedly handsome face beamed with happiness and peace. A robe of dark blue velvet, laced with thin strands of silver, graced his broad, flat shoulders, high-collared and open to reveal the black leather vest, pants and boots that stretched tightly over his solidly muscled body. His mane of fiery curls fanned loosely around his square-jawed face, his emerald eyes shining like midnight stars. He flashed a wide smile at Rhea as he strode in her direction.
“I am glad you are well, my love,” he said nearing her bed.
“Where is our son?” Rhea demanded, her eyes steaming with accusation.
“Fear not. I have swallowed him up,” Cronus grinned boyishly, his face glowing with pride. “We are safe. The prophesy will never come to pass.”
Rhea erupted from the bed, screaming like a banshee, slamming into the startled Cronus with such animalistic fury that he was thrown from his feet. He hit the hard granite floor with force enough to knock the breath from his lungs. Rhea straddled him as he fell, hammering his face and chest with a flurry of blows fueled by raging fury. Stunned, he barely kept her frenzied, hysterical fists from battering him into unconsciousness. Throwing himself upward and twisting, he managed to toss the maddened beast to one side. He managed to regain his feet just in time as she hurled herself into him again.
Rhea howled savagely as she attacked him with the ferocity and fierceness of a rabid Dire Wolf, clawing at his face, kicking viciously at his legs, uselessly pounding his rock-hard body until she was spent and panting.
“What have you done with Poseidon? What have you done with our son?” Rhea sat on the edge of the bed, her hands upon her quivering knees, trying desperately to catch her breath. She stared venomously at Cronus, searing him with the flames burning in her tear-filled, flashing eyes.
“I told you,” Cronus replied, his head cocked to one side, his face surprised and questioning as if he did not comprehend her anger, “I swallowed him up. We are safe.”
“Get out!” Rhea dropped her head, debilitated and weary, trying to find patterns in the cold granite floor. “Get out and never come back!”
Cronus looked at her with no cognizant conception of what he had done wrong. Blood trickled from the long, ragged scratched marring his features. He wiped red liquid from his jade eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. Without a word, he turned on his heel and slipped silently from the room.
Rhea pulled herself upon the bed and slipped the covers over her head. She curled into a ball, her knees tight to her heaving chest. Her piteous sobs continued late into the night, finally abating only after exhaustion once again drew her into troubled and nightmarish slumber.
She awoke as thunderheads curled over the snowcapped mountains outside her bedroom windows. Naked hatred burned within her soul as explosive as the jagged bolts of blue-white lightning that scorched the landscape wherever it touched. Within her withered, blackening heart, the searing pain and howling rage entwined to create an all-consuming, malevolent new purpose. She would destroy Cronus and all he had built; taking from him everything his demonic heart cared about. She would turn his brothers and sisters against him and drive him from his city into the wilderness to live as the vile beast he was. Then and only then, would she kill him. Not quickly, but slowly and tortuously as he so richly deserved. It would take time and cunning, but, in the end, she would have her revenge. She would have her revenge.
Loki stood sweating profusely in a small clearing near the edge of a gently flowing creek that fed into the river half a mile down the well-worn trail. He took control of his ragged breathing, inhaling the warm, balmy air through his wide nostrils, deep into his lungs, expanding his little, but broad, heavily muscled chest. Holding it within for long moments, he exhaled through his wide, thick, tan lips, repeating the process until his rapid heartbeat slowed to a steady rhythmic pulsing. He kept his dark eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the forest, the murmuring of the flowing water over rocks and pebbles, the melodic sounds of birdsongs in the treetops, the skittering of small creatures in the undergrown and the chirping of crickets in the tall grasses.
He eased himself down on the flattened green grass, crossing his bulging legs beneath him. Loki rested his thick wrists on his kneecaps, sending his senses out into the world around him. He felt the shining summer sun upon his bronzed skin, golden and hot, warming his body and soul. He tasted the steamy, humid air upon his lips, slipping out his tongue to lick the sweet, tangy moisture. He heard the cry of a hunting hawk circling high in the clear, blue, cloudless sky, felt it pull in its wings, diving upon a bloody morning meal. In his mind’s eye, he saw the white caps of foam curling on the peaks of the raging river so far away. He saw the water crash against boulder and flotsam, roaring out its rage at the interruption in its journey. He witnessed the giant fishes leap into the air, fighting against the flow of the waters on their quest to reach their spawning grounds in the slowly moving shallows upriver.
With great regret, Loki drew mind back into himself. His workout time was over. The small saplings on the outskirts of the clearing were bent and broken, victim of his strong, flashing hands and feet as he wove through them as if they were enemies on a battlefield. His gliding feet left no footprints upon the ground, no broken twig or bent blade of grass to mark his passing. He was learning his lessons well. It would not be much longer.
The woman was waiting for him on the porch when he returned carrying the four rabbits he snared in his traps, a thin willow switch in her gnarled hands. He heard she was beautiful once, the envy of many of her peers. Now her long, ebony hair lay in unbrushed tangles over her slumped shoulders. Her dark eyes blazed with cruelty, pain and malice. Her once smiling, full, pink lips now sneered with only malevolence and hatred. She dressed in loose, tattered, dirty shifts as if she sought to hide the last remnants of her curvaceous body from prying, lust-filled eyes.
“What took you so long? You were gone for hours,” she demanded, growling the words in a low, menacing tone. The willow switch lightly cracked across her knee as she spoke, promising to leave stinging welts upon his skin.
“I am sorry, Lady,” Loki lied meekly. “Many of the traps were empty, torn open by predators.”
“Then you will have to learn to hide them better, will you not?” She rose from her chair, sneering in evil contempt. “Toss your pathetic kill on the ground,” she commanded, advancing wickedly upon him. After she savagely switched him until the strength left her arms, she snapped breathlessly, “Now clean them and prepare them for tonight’s dinner.”
Amelia stomped back into the cabin leaving him standing, straight-backed on bloody, quivering legs. Loki let the burning pain seep into the simmering pit of his soul, fueling the flames of blazing hatred inside him. Behind the closed door of the house, she could not see the deadly desires flashing in his dark brown eyes. ‘There will come a day,’ he promised himself. ‘And is shall be soon. Ver
y soon.’
In the dark, dusty pit of the Sirenum copper mine in the vast southeastern desert of the Atlantean continent, a dirty little boy huddled against a relatively cool spot along a hot rock wall, chewing on a tough, dried piece of venison. A chunk of hard-crusted, plain brown bread sat on an old dented plate next to him alongside a tall, battered tin cup of poorly fermented grape wine. Ripped and tattered britches, two sizes too small and so caked with filth the color could not be determined, barely covered his scrawny legs down to his boney kneecaps. The rag of a shirt that fell over his flat-shouldered, over-wide chest was tied around his thin waist by a frayed piece of twine he found lying on the ground near the freight lift at the bottom of the mine. He kept his dull and lusterless, scraggly black hair chopped off near the middle of his back and tied at the nape of his neck to keep it out of his pupiless, ebony eyes.
What little light there was that brightened this steamy, broiling hellhole came from half-functioning crystal strips encircling the mile-wide shaft at twenty-foot intervals down from the nearly invisible opening at the top of the three-mile deep pit. The hundred-twenty degree average daily temperatures and seventy-five to ninety-five percent humidity at the bottom of the mine destroyed the crystals on a regular basis. They were rarely replaced.
Cliff dwellings, carved into played-out horizontal shafts, spiraled upward from the current floor of the mine, accessed by a rusty iron staircase reinforced with mahogany beams and rails polished smooth by countless hands holding on for enumerable years and by the four freight lifts spaced evenly around the hole. A hierarchy of sorts developed among the miners with its own set of laws and punishments that determined how near the sky a person lived. First among the rules was wealth - and there was many ways to amass it here. The more copper and gold you produced for the company, the higher you moved. The more you stole from others, the more you earned. Second was strength and brutality, forcing others to do your bidding and to split their meager earnings with you or die. There was black market trading in goods needed by the miners, selling food and necessities at outrageous rates. The company did not care what happened in the mine as long as their pockets were well lined. In this savage world, the little boy grew and learned.
