Atlantis Fallen (The Heartstrike Chronicles Book 1)

by C. E. Murphy

  "You'd have to, or the hours you spent sleeping would be hours you aged. Your life would only have been two or three times the normal span."

  "So long, and yet so little time." Minyah nodded down the beach at the children. "When they are older, unless they are as you are, I will give them the artifacts, or have them sip from the cup if I have discovered how it works."

  Lorhen's eyebrows went up again. "You don't know how it works?"

  "No," Minyah said in a voice full of chagrin. "Neither water nor wine drunk from it brings eternal life." She laughed suddenly. "And for two thousand years, there has been no coffee to try it with. I miss coffee."

  Lorhen grinned, thinking back to the bitter drink. "So do I, now that you've brought it to mind. Have you tried blood?"

  "Blood tastes nothing like coffee," Minyah said primly.

  Lorhen laughed. "In the chalice, Minyah, in the chalice. Have you tried sipping blood from it?" Curiously, he added, "How did you determine water and wine didn't work?"

  "Mice," Minyah answered, "pet mice. They died in the usual time." She looked thoughtful. "I have not tried blood. Perhaps I should."

  "Will the cup work on mice?"

  Minyah looked up Lorhen solemnly. "It has not, so far."

  Lorhen grinned. "Well, where is it? We'll try it, with blood."

  "Egypt," Minyah replied. "Somewhere safe," she added evasively, and Lorhen laughed.

  "What is it about old age that inspires such a lack of trust?" he teased. "Eventually you'll have to go get it, and we'll see if blood works."

  "What made you think of it?"

  A skull, silver hammered into the inner curve and glinting over the eyes, flashed through Lorhen's mind. Yama, toasting his brothers. Thick, cooling blood dribbling crimson over the whitened bone as the skull was passed from one Unending to another, each draining some of the blood away. Lorhen could no longer recall who the enemy whom they'd 'honored' so had been. "You don't want to know."

  Minyah's eyes narrowed. "Do not credit me with over-delicate sensibilities, Lorhen," she warned, before allowing, "You are most probably correct. It is likely I do not want to know."

  Lorhen stayed nearby, watching Phrixus and Helle grow, mildly horrified at the rate they aged. "Is it this way for mortals?" he asked Minyah one morning, watching the twins tear out of their father's Palace for a day of riding.

  "Ghean grew fast," Minyah said, "though not this fast. The days and years shorter, now. They do not need our supervision today, Lorhen. Come back in and I will make you breakfast."

  "You made breakfast yesterday," Lorhen said idly, returning. "I'll do it today. Then we can sit around in the sunshine and tell each other how much better the old days were."

  Minyah laughed. "As you wish." She glanced toward the clear skies. "Truly, rain would be better. The drought has gone on a long time. The queen sent to the Oracle at Delphi for advice on how to end it."

  "It'll eventually rain no matter what her majesty does. I don't suppose I could go tell her that?"

  Minyah chuckled. "No, Lorhen. She is the Queen. Friends of the nanny, no matter how close a friend he is, do not tell the Queen that the weather is beyond her control."

  "Friends of the nanny," Lorhen replied, "have a bad feeling about this, Minyah. Take your twins away from here and out of Ino's grasp before the messenger returns from Delphi."

  "Their father would never allow it," Minyah said, "and Ino would not dare."

  "You underestimate the hatred in the human heart, Minyah."

  Four days later the messenger from Delphi arrived, bearing the news that to end the drought, young Phrixus and his twin sister Helle must be sacrificed. Minyah went into a silent rage, certain either Oracle or messenger had been bribed to bring the requirements back by a queen determined to rid her life of the reminders of her husband's first wife.

  Phrixus accepted the news readily enough, willing to sacrifice himself for his people. Helle, always the quieter of the twins, agreed without argument when Phrixus did.

  Noon, three days hence, would see the sacrifice. The hour was not traditional for sacrifices, but the queen argued that the sun would be best able to see the able-bodied youths at that time, and the drought would therefore end that much more quickly. The gods would be pleased, and rain would come again.

  Lorhen wasn’t surprised, but neither was he happy, when at dawn on the day of sacrifice, Minyah rose and began to gird herself for a battle that was none of her business. She looked at him, not asking, but he answered anyway, his voice flat. “No. No, Minyah. They're mortal. They'd die anyway. I won't risk my head for them. The reward for disrupting a sacrifice is to become one yourself, and I don't want to find out of I can survive having my heart cut out. Walk away from it, Minyah. They're not worth your life."

  She regarded him coolly. "Perhaps they are not worth yours, Lorhen. My life is my own to dictate, and I choose this risk."

  "Minyah, they'll take the cloak from you, and the ring. You'll have no protection. Underneath this," and he fingered the edge of the cloak, "you're human. You won't stand up again from a mortal blow."

  "If that happens," Minyah said evenly, "you will take the artifacts if they can be found, and hide them somewhere safe." She hesitated, her hand over her breast, and then she lifted her Hunter’s necklace off for the first time since Lorhen had known her. "Take this," she said quietly. "You know where my papers are, the Keeper records. There is a box among them, one of the stone boxes the artists used to make, in Atlantis. There are letters there, for Ghean." She lifted a hand to ward off his protests. "I know she is dead. They were written by a fanciful mother, when I was very young, long before I knew I would survive down through the centuries. Put this with them, and seal the box again, and leave it in the archives, somewhere hidden, if I do not come back."

  Lorhen slowly folded his hand over the necklace. "I don't want to lose you, too," he said distantly, and Minyah smiled.

  "We all die, Lorhen. If it goes badly, perhaps I will see you again in the mountaintops of Atlantis."

  “I hope there are gods, and that they are so kind,” Lorhen said softly, and at noon, watched from a cliff above the waters as the scene far below unfolded in silence.

  The children walked forward, unafraid, to the altar by the sea. Helle glanced skyward, to the sun almost at its zenith, and smiled at her brother. Phrixus took her hand, returning the smile, and both faced the sacrificial priest.

  Down the beach, sand flew under hoof. A chariot, well-crafted and sure, was driven by the dark-haired mortal woman, her golden cloak snapping out behind her in the wind. Another curve, and she would be there.

  Helle stepped forward. Lorhen's muscles tensed, judging the distance that Minyah had left. She would be too late by mere seconds. The knife glittered down, and blood flowed from the suddenly limp child, while behind her body chaos broke loose.

  Minyah's sword cut down two guards in an instant, the momentum of the chariot bringing strength to her blows. Lorhen had not known her to ever carry a weapon, much less that she knew how to use one, and for a moment he regretted his decision to not join her on the rescue. Only for a moment: he had left regret behind with Atlantis, and it could barely touch him now. Still, his fingers closed tightly around Minyah’s necklace, the silver imprinting a mark on his palm, and he prayed to gods he knew had never existed.

  Phrixus was in the chariot now, bodily hauled there by the small Keeper. Settled crookedly over his shoulders was the Hunter’s cloak, and a blade shattered against it as someone scrambled into the chariot. An arrow, fired from only a few feet away, split its tip and fell backwards from Minyah's upper arm. Even from the distance, Lorhen could see the horror washing over the priest's face and the panicked gestures that determined Minyah as the enemy. The chariot wheeled, and sped away through the surf.

  Ten hours later, Phrixus returned to the palace rooms Lorhen shared with Minyah. Silent, the boy held out his hand, curled around something. Lorhen extended his own hand, and the golden Lion’s ring
fell into his palm.

  "She asked me to give this to you," Phrixus said, and then, in the face of Lorhen’s silence, blurted, “She died to end the drought. A sacrifice was needed. She offered herself, and I did as the priests wished."

  Lorhen looked behind himself, out the windows. A fine rain drizzled down, discoloring the beach sands. "She raised you," he said. "Helle was already dead. They both had to die?"

  "The priests would never have allowed Minyah to live."

  Lorhen looked back at the boy. "You know so little," he said, tired rage filling his voice. "Go away, Phrixus. Live your little life, and remember that you chose death for the two women who were your family." He brushed past the boy, then stopped. "Where is the cloak?"

  "Gone away on a ship to be hidden beyond the edge of the world. It has a dark god's magic in it."

  "You know so little," Lorhen whispered again, and walked away from the palace by the sea.

  "It was almost a century before I heard the myth of the Golden Fleece. I hardly recognized it. She chose her death, Ghean. I'll never understand why." For the first time since he'd begun the story of Minyah's fate, Lorhen opened his eyes, looking over templed fingers at the tiny Atlantean woman.

  Ghean returned his regard, expression steady. "You hid the box in the archives in the Paris offices. For her. For me."

  Lorhen shrugged a shoulder. "‘The things we do for old lovers’. I didn't for a moment imagine you had survived, Ghean, but leaving the letters, the box…call it a way of remembering, at least."

  "Not atoning?"

  "I've never been much of one for guilt or absolution. I left them because your mother asked me to. They were in Atlantean. I never thought anyone would translate them. I certainly never dreamed you'd be alive to find them."

  "I'm full of surprises," Ghean murmured, and then stood. "Gentlemen, Emma, much as I have enjoyed your company, it is a quarter to four in the morning, and I'm to catch a plane in seven hours. Perhaps our paths will cross again someday."

  "Oh, I imagine so," Lorhen answered, standing. "Ghean, it has been positively fascinating to see you again." He bent to brush a kiss against the diminutive woman's cheek. "We'll have to do it again."

  "Perhaps a little sooner than four and a half thousand years," Ghean suggested, and smiled as she accepted handshakes from Emma and Cathal. "Good night, my friends." She escorted them to the door, leaning in the frame as they went down the steps into the rain. "Good night, Lorhen."

  24

  Lorhen jogged down the steps, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the rain. "Anybody fancy a trip to Greece?"

  Cathal turned the collar of his coat up and belted the waist as he went down the steps in front of Emma. "Greece?"

  "It's the most convenient hopping-off place on the way to Atlantis."

  Emma followed the men down the steps, casting a tired glance at heavy clouds lit orange by streetlights, and the steady rain. “Weren't you the one telling us Atlantis was better left drowned?"

  "That was before Ghean turned up alive, Em. It was better left drowned, but it’s not going to stay that way and I don’t want to be caught out when she starts revealing whatever it is she’s got up her sleeve.”

  "You may be the most contrary man I’ve ever known, Lorhen, and I’m from a notoriously contrary people. At least you’re not boring.”

  Lorhen snorted. "I was boring for centuries before I met you, Devane. Boring is good. Boring doesn't draw attention. You're a bad influence."

  "You two can stand out here in the rain arguing about this all night," Emma muttered. "Some of us come down with colds if we do that. I'm hailing a cab and going back to the hotel."

  Lorhen frowned up at Ghean's apartment, where the lights were already off. "Thoughtful of her to call one for us, yes. All right, Emma. Your wisdom prevails." He hurried down the street toward the main thoroughfare, the other two in his wake. His literal wake, he thought with a glance at his feet and the troughs of water spilling around his shoes.

  By the time he and Emma caught up with Lorhen, Cathal had shed his long coat and wrapped it around Emma, whose own jacket was inadequate against the rain. She looked ridiculous, overwhelmed by its size, but amused gratitude danced across her face, too. "Always the gentleman, Cathal."

  "I won't catch cold," Cathal said with a smile, and Lorhen, rolling his eyes so hard it was nearly painful, said, "And never mind that you're now standing around in the rain with silk and denim plastered attractively to your body like some kind of expensive ad campaign. Who do you is going to admire you?"

  "I will," Emma offered. "Only out of politeness, of course."

  "Of course."

  Cathal grinned at Emma. "We won't mention to him that he noticed, too."

  "Of course I noticed, Devane. I'm old, not dead. Is that a taxi? No. It might be faster to walk."

  "It's certainly warmer to walk while we're looking for one." Emma folded Cathal's coat up so it didn't drag in the puddles and struck out at a brisk walk that had the men scurrying to catch up with her. Under the sounds of their splashing feet, Cathal asked, "What difference does it make if Ghean's alive or not? I'd think you'd be glad to see her."

  Lorhen clicked his tongue. "There you go again, Devane. Thinking. Atlantean was an obscure tongue, Cathal." He rubbed water off his nose and scowled as it began to drip again.

  "I'm sure you have a point," Emma said.

  "Patience, Emma. Don't I always get to the point?"

  Emma and Cathal exchanged glances, chorused, "No," and Cathal nodded as Emma said, "Actually, you seem to take great pleasure in being cryptic and avoiding the point altogether."

  "It's part of my mystery. The point is, until Ghean turned up alive, I was the only one who could translate any Atlantean texts, and I wasn't about to do that. I wanted to leave the whole place alone under the sea." He kicked rain, scattering the ballerina-skirts of raindrops into larger ripples as headlights flashed in the distance. "Is that a cab? I think it's a cab. The real point, Emma, is that Atlantis—it is a cab." He stepped down off the curb to hail the oncoming vehicle.

  "Lousy night for it," the cabbie said as they climbed in. "What're you doing out in the rain?"

  "Getting wet," Lorhen muttered, and remained stubbornly silent for the remainder of the trip to the hotel. Once there, Cathal paid, as Lorhen protested, wide-eyed, "What? You think I have money?"

  "I can't afford to keep you, Lorhen," Cathal said as they entered the hotel. "You're going to have to go mooch off someone else soon."

  "At least I mooched the plane tickets off the Keepers’ expense account.” Lorhen shook rain out of his hair and crossed the lobby with long strides, shoes squeaking on the tile. A tired bellboy stood to attention and Lorhen dug a ten dollar bill out of his pocket to hand the kid, then waved him back to sitting as he pressed the elevator button and said, “If they hadn’t agreed I would have had to ask you to buy them,” to Cathal, who waited until they were safely in the elevator to ask, “Have you been freeloading for six thousand years, old man?”

  “As much as possible, yes. Don’t worry. I’ll get out of your hair for a while after I get myself killed.”

  Emma groaned. “I’ll shoot you myself, and I won’t doctor the records, if you don’t get back to the point about Atlantis soon.”

  Lorhen turned an alarmed look on her. "You wouldn't."

  "Try me." The elevator doors opened on a heavily silent hall, thick carpet muffling the lift’s bell, and Lorhen held up his hands in mock defeat. “Fine. The point is…why is Cathal the only one with a key?”

  “Because Cathal is the one paying for a penthouse suite,” Cathal said dryly as he opened the door.

  Emma laughed as they came in. “You don’t go to half measures, do you, Cathal?”

  He smiled at her. “I try not to.”

  Lorhen gave them both a look that suggested they were lacking in taste and stopped a few steps inside the door to survey the space with an air of disdain. Armchairs and a deep couch surro
unded a coffee table near a well-stocked bar on one side of the room, windows with privacy curtains drawn let city lights glitter through, and a bed broader than Lorhen was tall dominated the room’s other half. “Who gets the big bed?"

  "Emma," Cathal said, helping her untangle from his coat. "That way she can double up the duvet if she gets cold, which she probably will after being out in the rain."

  Lorhen muttered, "I shouldn't have asked," and passed the king-sized bed to drip his way into the second room, which was nearly as large as the first and had two double-sized beds in it. "You'd better not snore, Devane."

  "You should know by now if I do." Cathal followed him to hang up both his own coat and Emma's in the closet, then opened his hand to take Lorhen's as well. Lorhen shrugged out of it and went to turn the heat up as Cathal concluded, "Even if I did, try to remember we’re a couple of nice young men having a night out with Mammy. She deserves to not have to sleep with squirming youngsters."

  "Never call me that again. Besides, most people wouldn’t believe I’m your mother anyway. You’re both too pasty." Emma waggled dark brown fingers at them from the bedroom's doorway. She'd already gotten a towel, though instead of applying it to her hair she wrapped it around her shoulders like a cape. "I’ll be telling my friends I spent a weekend in Chicago with my two much younger lovers. I probably won't mention the second bedroom, just the king-sized bed.” She affected a shiver and put on an alarmingly convincing damsel-in-distress expression. "After all, I'm chilled to the bone. Surely you two big strong handsome boys wouldn't let a lady huddle in bed alone and half frozen, would you?"

  "Oh my God," Lorhen said, and went into the bathroom to get his own towel as Cathal laughed and promised something in a rumble that Lorhen was just as glad he didn't overhear. "You two should have gotten a room of your own."

  "Lorhen!" Emma sounded almost genuinely shocked. "Do you really think I'd sleep with my assignment?"

  Lorhen came out of the bathroom to throw a towel at Cathal and eye Emma before deciding it was better to pretend he hadn't heard that, either. Cathal laughed again and toweled his hair, dark curls sticking up every which way, as Lorhen blotted his own face dry. "Does anybody have anything to eat?"