by C. E. Murphy
"Do you have the robe this man is to wear?" the priest boomed, and Lorhen fought the urge to look back over his shoulder. Aside from the wedding party, only a dozen or so guests actually attended the ceremony; the mass of people remained outside to greet the couple as they exited, a welcoming from all Atlantis to their new lives together. The priest was evidently an expert at making certain the crowd outside got to hear what was going on.
Ragar began to unfold the robe as he and Minyah came forward. "We do," he replied, not quite as loudly, but equally formally.
For a moment, Lorhen thought the sharp crack was the sound of the robe being shaken out. The violent shake that followed nearly before he could register the sound corrected the belief. As the walls groaned and shuddered, he jumped to his feet, pulling Ghean against his chest protectively.
"Earthquake," Minyah explained, voice astonishingly calm next to the alarm Lorhen felt. "It will pass in a moment."
For long seconds the rumbles continued, settling into an almost rhythmic pattern before they began to fade away. Lorhen let out a slow breath, and Ragar grinned at him.
"I told you you'd feel one sooner or later. They're not so bad—" The round scholar broke off as a second jolt shook the temple, far harder than the first. Unable to keep his balance at the unexpected second shock, Ragar dropped to his knees, surprise clear on his face.
At the same time Minyah gave a sharp cry, and Lorhen whirled, reaching a hand out to catch her an instant too late. She fell backwards, reaching back to catch herself. Lorhen winced at the motion, able to see before she hit that the angle would shatter her wrist.
As the floor danced beneath their feet, Minyah bounced off the stone slabs, unharmed. Struggling to sit up, she lifted her arm, staring at it in astonishment before tentatively prodding at it with her other hand. Her eyes widened, and she looked up at Lorhen, touching the uninjured hand to the shoulder of the golden cloak she wore.
Karem's shout of outraged realization overpowered the dull, insistent rattle of the earthquake. "You bitch! You're wearing one of the artifacts!" He surged forward, lifting his blade to strike at the woman on the floor. "You lying bitch!"
"No!" Ghean's scream cut thorough Karem's voice as she flung herself forward, blocking the man's path to her mother. Karem's expression dropped into feral delight.
"You first, then," he snarled. "I always wanted to taste the power of an unAwakened." The sword swung down to the sound of Ghean's screaming. The tiny woman threw her arms up, twisting away from the falling sword, her cries silenced abruptly as the blow cut her nearly in half. She fell, silent with shock, and the blood that flowed from her was indistinguishable, at first, from the crimson gown she wore. Karem kicked her silent, still form out of the way, raising his sword a second time to strike at Minyah.
"Ghean!" Aroz crossed the intervening space impossibly fast, knocking Karem's blade aside and pressing an attack. Sweat beaded on his face instantly, skin turning ashy with effort, and even Lorhen felt the gut-twisting sickness that wracked the other Timeless.
"Holy ground!" Lorhen's scream was all but lost in the cacophony of battle. "You can't do this! We're on holy ground!" The earth lurched again, sending him sprawling on the floor next to Minyah. Above him, Karem's sword clashed against Aroz's in an angry ring of metal. "You can't do this!" Lorhen screamed again. “Can’t you feel it?”
As he shouted, the sun went out. Lorhen shot a frantic look through the pillars that supported the dome to see black clouds boiling in the sky, clouds that had appeared out of nowhere. Blindly, he reached for Minyah's wrist, clamping his fingers around it. "Run!" he yelled above a suddenly shrieking wind, pushing Minyah to her feet as he struggled to stand himself. "Run!" he bellowed again, and shoved her toward the door. Ragar, only a step or two away, remained on his hands and knees, unable to regain his feet. Lorhen grabbed his collar, hauling him upward, and nearly threw the other man at the door, then followed, herding the two mortals along in front of him.
Ragar bolted toward the square, but Minyah stopped just outside the door, whipping to face Lorhen, curls lashing her face in the black wind. "Ghean!"
Lorhen grabbed the front of Minyah's cloak, pulling her centimeters from his face. "Ghean is dead!" he shouted. "Keep that cloak on, Minyah, and run!" For a heartbeat he looked over his shoulder at the battle being fought in the temple walls. Aroz had the advantage for the moment, but Lorhen could see grief blinding him, and knew it would be mere minutes, at best, before the fight was ended.
"What's happening?" Minyah lunged toward the temple.
Lorhen snatched her wrist again, hauling her the other way. "The penalty for fighting on holy ground." He turned from the temple and ran, dragging Minyah behind him. The earth buckled and bent beneath their feet, sending the Timeless leaping from point to point, pulling Minyah with him.
At once, as if orchestrated, the pillars shattered, sending the temple's dome crashing down against its thick walls. Aroz flinched at the implosion of sound, staggering to keep his feet as the ground twisted violently again. Lightning smashed outside the temple, blackening the ground and sending acrid smoke into the flower-scented room. He met another blow from Karem, silently cursing the inferior bronze blade he carried. Had he still the steel sword Lorhen had taken from him, the battle would already be over.
Karem leaped onto the altar, beckoning with one hand as he tracked Aroz's movements with his sword. "First you," Karem growled, "and then your precious Ghean and all her sweet untapped Awakening. And then that bastard Lorhen, and then that lying bitch Minyah. And then the cloak is mine, and the world with it." He grinned, vaulting off the altar again, and moved to the attack.
Aroz backed up, fury blinding his defense. "Over my dead body," he grated, and Karem laughed.
"Exactly.”
Across the room, Ghean inhaled sharply, the sound entirely lost in the crash of swords and shaking earth. Disbelieving, her fingers crept down to feel her ribs, where the sword had struck. There was blood, blending with the crimson gown, and a wound, but far smaller than it seemed it should have been. As she pulled the dress away from the gash, the bloody injury inexplicably knitted itself before her eyes. She pushed to her feet in confusion, reaching up to touch her head. The golden crown was crooked, nearly falling off her head. With a rough movement, she pulled it off, throwing it on the floor to roll toward the door. Just beyond the opening, it curved to roll in a circle, clinking against the outer wall of the temple. As if the tiny sound were a catalyst in the raging storm, the doors were moved by winds, slamming shut with a boom only slightly less loud than the falling ceiling had been minutes before.
"Aroz?" Ghean whispered as the opponents in the battle before her became clear. Although he couldn't have heard her, Aroz suddenly looked her way, breaking off the fight to run toward her.
"Ghean! Stay out of the way—it will be all right—"
Karem's laughter followed him, harsh over the sounds of the storm, as he crossed the temple behind Aroz. "Enjoy this, Ghean," he advised. "Aroz's death is going to be the last thing you ever see. Except, of course, your own. How does it feel, knowing your pathetic beloved preferred keeping his own neck whole to saving yours? Betrayal is a bitter dish, mmm?" Karem's expression became perfectly even, his voice flat. "Now, Aroz."
Aroz wheeled, sword at the ready. "Now," he agreed. Ghean slid to her knees, tears draining down her cheeks as she watched in silent, miserable confusion. The wind outside suddenly stopped, as though a wailing woman had lost all the air in her lungs to sob with. The earth's rumblings shuddered and came to a stop, leaving the collapsing temple unbearably quiet.
Half a dozen blows were exchanged, rapid and loud in the eerie silence. Karem threw a series of strikes at Aroz's head, each parried with unbelievable speed. The fourth time, Karem jerked his sword around halfway through the blow, an awkward, ugly motion that Aroz didn't expect. Before he could rework his defense, Karem slammed his blade into Aroz's side, the same motion that had felled Ghean only minutes before. H
is knife finally came free from its belt, a flash of motion with his quick hands as he flipped it forward, burying it in Aroz's heart.
Aroz slid to his knees, defeat etched in his face, more colored with regret than despair. Very calmly, he turned his head to smile gently at Ghean. "I loved you," he said clearly. The words were left hanging in the air as Karem's sword swept down to behead him.
Ghean screamed.
Outside, the wind began its howling again. The temple stone roared out as the earth convulsed again, and lightning bombarded into Karem through the temple roof and windows.
The Timeless flung his head back in a shout of triumph, feeling the first wash of the Blending dance through him. Something's not right. The thought had barely formed when the Blending exploded into agony, a thousand times worse than any Karem had ever felt. Pain fogged his mind, scoring his throat raw with screams. Dimly, the warning Lorhen had shouted out came back to him: holy ground.
He’d felt it, the roiling churn in his gut, the shakiness of his hands, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. All battles carried a certain fear of that nature in them, and if it had felt worse than usual, then he had thought it was only his rage at having been within grasping distance of one of the immortality artifacts, and having lost it. But Lorhen had cried out about it, had asked if they couldn’t feel it, and now he understood what the ancient Timeless had meant. It had been the power of the Blending inside him, warning that they stood on holy ground. Warning of the price to be paid for fighting on holy ground, when everything in Timeless nature told them not to. He hadn’t—couldn’t have—imagined that the price was cataclysm, or annihilation. They should be warned about that, he thought with child-like offense, and then thought no more.
The blade fell from Karem's hand, only inches from where Aroz's lay. Lightning turned to pure fire, hammering into the blades, leaping from bronze to stone to flesh. It burned hotter than open fire could, melting the temple's stone floor into smoothness, and Aroz's body into a grease patch on the floor, charcoaled bones shattering into dust. Karem disintegrated more slowly before Ghean's horrified eyes, collapsing in pieces to the floor, his screams echoing above the fire's roar.
The stone boiled. Frantic, Ghean ran to the altar, perching on it as she sobbed a supplication to the gods. "Please, please, please. Save me, please. Please." The litany gave her no release as the fire swept up the walls, melting away the fractures in the stone, rendering imperfections invisible. The door faded into obscurity, the windows reduced to smooth curves in the walls.
The air was too hot to breathe. Under her, the altar slipped, stone beginning to reform into the liquid that the rest of the floor already seemed to be. Ghean closed her eyes and screamed until her lungs could take in no more oxygen from the broiling temple air. She was unconscious before the flames reached her.
22
In the moment that the winds stopped and the earth ceased its shaking, Lorhen skidded to a halt, jerking around to stare back through the fractured city toward the temple.
"What?" Minyah gasped. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Lorhen answered. "Maybe they've stopped."
"Stopped?" Minyah demanded breathlessly. "Then Ghean…?"
"Maybe," Lorhen said again. Stop, he prayed. Don't let them do this. Stop while we're all still alive.
The wind screamed anew. Lorhen swore, yanking Minyah back around. "Dead," he grated, and began to run again. The earth's shaking redoubled, stone crashing in pieces down into fractures as they split open around the runners.
"Lorhen!" Ragar's bellow came from above as he waved wildly. "This way!" He turned and continued up the hill. Lorhen glanced around in search of a better path before shrugging and giving chase, still hauling Minyah behind him. It was the road leading out of the city, down to the harbor, and it seemed as good a choice as any.
Ragar, panting, stopped to wait for the duo following him. "There are boats," he puffed, "if we can get to them we should be safer—" Beneath his feet, the earth split open. Ragar fell, silent with surprise, flinging a hand up in a cry for help at the last moment. Lorhen sprang forward, reaching, only narrowly snatching his hand back in time as the earth slammed shut again centimeters from his fingers.
"Damn!" For a few futile seconds, the Timeless beat his hand against the stone. "Damn!" This time, it was Minyah who grabbed Lorhen by the arm, pulling him to his feet.
"Run," she whispered in near exhaustion. "We have to run." Lorhen nodded silently. They darted forward again. Screams punctuated the sounds of grinding rock as others tried to survive the maze of randomly opening stone. The road to the harbor was frighteningly empty, given the numbers of people in Atlantis. Lorhen cast one more rapid look over his shoulder at the black sky swallowing the city whole, wondering how many had already died there.
He tripped, crashing onto his face as he looked back toward the road, pulling Minyah down on top of him. A boulder broke off from the cliff wall above them, falling too rapidly to roll out of the way. Its silent fall ended with a soft bump as it virtually bounced off Minyah's cloak, rolling a few yards away harmlessly. Lorhen lay on his belly, breathless for several seconds, watching the boulder settle, before blurting, "Thanks for thinking to wear that today."
Minyah's laugh was tinged with hysteria. She clambered to her feet without answering, once more tugging Lorhen up as well. They ran, intent on avoiding the opening fissures, jumping madly over those that appeared.
The ground fell away as they leapt. Minyah screamed, watching the black stone of the mountain road drop fifteen feet as she plummeted toward it. She expelled a hard gasp of shock as she landed, unharmed, and began running again, pulling Lorhen behind her.
Again and again the land fell away, until an abrupt drop plunged them into the salt water of the bay instead of onto stone. "Keep the cloak!" Lorhen yelled frantically. Minyah clutched one hand to the throat of it, the other still clinging tightly to Lorhen's. "Boat boat boat boat boat," Lorhen raved, kicking madly to keep his head above the water. "Look for a boat!"
"Forget the boat!" Minyah screamed. "Swim!" She released his hand and struck out through the grey waves, intent on putting as much distance between herself and Atlantis as possible. Lorhen stared after her for a split second, then set out after her, less agile but equally enthusiastic.
The scream of stone minutes later made them both turn, almost against their will, to look at the drowning island. Stone continued to shatter as Atlantis dropped in surges, yards at a time, visible to their panicked eyes. "Swim!" Lorhen shouted again. "The undertow!"
Minyah blanched, setting off again with a stronger, more steady stroke. The waters around them roiled, each new breaking wave bringing with it the bodies of drowned Atlanteans. Unexpectedly, Minyah came up short, cutting off a choked scream. A boy's body floated in front of her, expression peculiarly content in the chaos. Lorhen stopped beside her to glance at the body, and closed his eyes. The child was Ertros, who'd had a crush on Ghean and whose stories had lead Lorhen to the Book of Atlantis. "Come," Lorhen said softly, unhappily, to Minyah. "We can't help him." It hurt to speak, his throat rough from screaming. He began swimming again, putting the image of the dead boy out of his mind.
"Lorhen." The weak cry came several minutes later. Lorhen turned in the water just in time to see Minyah disappear under a wave. Cursing, he dove, searching the murky waters for her, fighting against the pull of the waters back toward the sinking island. An impossible amount of time seemed to pass, as he snatched at bodies, drawing them close to study their faces in the greyness. A strong current pulled him back the way he'd come, and he swore again, kicking to the surface. He cast about in a frenzy, shouting Minyah's name as the water drew him back toward Atlantis.
"Damn," he whispered once more, and put his energy into escaping the determined pull of the drowning civilization.
Hours later, as the skies began to clear, Lorhen righted himself to search the slowly calming water for the remains of Atlantis. As far as he could see, the water was unbrok
en by any land mass. On the wind, he could smell the faint scent of blood as sharks found the meal left for them by the drownings. He drifted a while, weary, then began to swim again.
Methuselah’s grandson had been right, he thought an indeterminable time later. The world had ended. He wondered if the grandson’s boat had made it away safely.
He wondered, very distantly, why Minyah had decided to wear the Hunter’s cloak that day, and hated, with brief intensity, that it had not been enough to save her.
Ghean, he could not even let his thoughts touch on. Not then. Perhaps not ever.
Lorhen wasn't sure if it was two or three days later that the sea washed him ashore. He lay in the sand, trembling with exhaustion and staring at a flawless sky, until even his Timeless body objected to the sea water he’d ingested and he had to roll, suddenly, to vomit on the wet sand. The motion knocked his hair over his shoulder, and the tie Minyah had given him slipped free, falling to the ground. He folded it into his palm, shaking with the effort, and felt its symbol with astonished fingers: he’d known, vaguely, that his hair hadn’t gotten in his face as he swam, but he hadn’t thought clearly enough to realize it meant the tie hadn’t been lost.
Neither had Aroz’s sword, still belted at his hip. There’d been no point in getting rid of that: it didn’t impede his swimming enough to bother, and even if it had, the idea of coming ashore without a weapon was worse than being slowed down by keeping it. He curled onto his side, the hair tie in one hand and his other hand on the blade’s hilt, hanging on to them like they were precious legacies of Atlantis as he waited for his body to regain some strength.
Long before that strength returned, the painful throb of another Timeless approaching slammed through him. His fingers clenched around the Hunter’s symbol until it cut into his palm. It would be a stupid way to die, lying helpless on a beach somewhere. Using the pain in his hand to goad himself, he got to his feet, barely able to keep his balance, and waited to see if he would have to fight.
