The Emperor Awakes

by Alexis Konnaris

  ‘Even at that distance, I could see that the three of you were mesmerised, hypnotised and ruptured, with eyes for nothing and no-one else on stage or inside that theatre, but for my dear self. I want you all to come with me to my apartment for a drink.’

  Vasilis, Giorgos and John could not resist. They were a little bit curious too. They had just met her, but they could not shake the feeling that the chance meeting was orchestrated and that she had a message for them. They accepted her generous invite with alacrity.

  ‘We would be delighted.’ Vasilis, the unofficial but by silent consent appointed ambassador, spoke for them all.

  Inside her apartment in one of the city’s most exclusive blocks, at one of the city’s most exclusive addresses, they sat on her chintz sofa while she excused herself for a moment.

  Vasilis, Giorgos and John heard the rustle of silk and turned. Even when walking, she barely touched the ground, her movements sensuous and reminiscent of a cat. A cat about to pounce, perhaps? She came into the room looking every bit the gracious hostess in a temptingly wrapped package, the perfect image of loveliness. She handed Vasilis a small package.

  ‘This is for you. A small token of appreciation for your admiration. Good manners and Santa Claus will chastise me for not wrapping it, but there was no time.’

  Vasilis hesitated, as if afraid of being burned, whether because of the package or touching her he could not be sure. She laughed loudly at his reluctance and misplaced caution.

  ‘Take it. It won’t bite.’

  She said this in a singing a-cappella voice from an invisible sheet to an invisible melody in her head rather than in a flat boring narrative to the non-existent music in their heads which they tried to follow, but could not dare participate in.

  Vasilis started to play with the package, flicking it and bouncing it from hand to hand, unsure what to do with it. A crazy idea kept shouting at him inside his brain. This trick was part of her foreplay. He smiled. She smiled too, but from amusement at the confusion of such a usually confident and courageous man.

  ‘Vasilis, it’s not a bomb. If it were, it would have exploded by now with all that bouncing about. Please open it.’

  Vasilis opened the package and came face to face with a severed embalmed hand.

  ‘That’s the Emperor’s left hand. Your next destination is Wallaman Falls near Ingam in Queensland, Australia. Your pilot awaits you.’

  Vasilis was perplexed, as were the others, but they all gave in to her charm wrapped in iron will. They were entranced and enthralled by her and her body’s and her eyes’ promise of the dream of faraway lands of magic and blissful oblivion. They felt they could not resist, but they knew they should, and they did desist.

  She was without doubt a redoubtable force and a, hopelessly, shameless temptress. Giorgos was a hapless romantic at heart, but deep down he felt a strange attraction to her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen her before, perhaps in a dream and he couldn’t believe his dream was standing before him in the flesh.

  She noticed Giorgos’ reaction to her. She took his hand and gently blew on it, barely tracing it with her lips. Her breath was wonderfully spiced and scented and visible, the colours of the rainbow.

  He wanted to bring his hand to his nose but refrained from doing so as to avoid showing his subjugation to her. As if it wasn’t obvious enough. Who was she? What was she?

  ‘Now, go.’ She urged, only a slight hint of panic in her voice, which they detected, but chose not to pry.

  They wanted to spend more time with her. Why was she sending them away so soon? Did she sense something would happen?

  As far as they were concerned they hadn’t done anything to offend her. Or had they? They knew they would not get an answer to a perilous question that might itself offend. They kept their own counsel and stayed silent.

  ‘Goodbye.’ She sang for one last time.

  ‘Thank you.’ The three men said almost in unison.

  And they were off. The door closed softly behind them.

  Moments after they exited the apartment block, a dark figure, steeped and veiled in anonymity, entered and climbed the stairs to her floor. She opened the door resigned to her fate.

  CHAPTER 58

  Present day

  Vasilis, Giorgos and John arrived at Ingam in Queensland, Australia at dusk. After a sumptuous, but simple and delicious meal at the local inn, an inn steeped in history and legend, and a restful sleep, the following morning, after an early breakfast, they set off for the Wallaman Falls, a trip involving a short drive from Ingam and then a short trek.

  An Aborigine was waiting for them at the foot of the falling water that splashed next to them and sprayed them with a refreshing foam that tickled their senses.

  ‘You have travelled far. Now your reward awaits you. Just walk through the water, with me.’

  There was nobody around, so nobody saw them disappearing, swallowed by the mountain, and entering a tunnel that led to an arch that appeared manmade. Beyond it there was darkness to choke one’s pupils to submission and despair.

  Their guide uttered something incomprehensible that sounded like an instruction. Giorgos, Vasilis and John assumed that the instruction was addressed to a person. But however hard they searched they could see no-one.

  They remained silent and waited. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then the arch suddenly became the door to an unbelievable sight that had them rubbing their eyes to bleeding point in disbelief.

  Vasilis, Giorgos and John were standing on the edge of a steep cliff. Below them the ground fell to a sheer drop to the bottom of the ravine, a bottom they could not see. They saw no way to go forward, only back. But spreading in front of them only a short distance away, was a gleaming city of towers and palaces and magnificent buildings, a magical place. In the centre stood a temple, an ancient Greek look-alike. Now, there was a conundrum, if ever there was one.

  A walkway appeared out of nowhere. They followed their guide into the city where they enjoyed a constant bombardment of surprises and marvellous spectacles. The residents appeared to be Aborigines and Greeks speaking both Greek and the Aborigine language and living in perfect harmony.

  Giorgos was the first to voice what they were all thinking. ‘This is just bizarre. The cans of worms filled instead with questions never cease. This mixed community is one-of-a-kind. How on earth has it come to be, I wonder?’

  John’s eyes were drawn as if by a leash and they fixed on some point in the distance. ‘Giorgos, look. Over there. At the central structure.’

  Vasilis and Giorgos tried to focus, fighting the glare from the blinding sun.

  Giorgos was first to put their surprise into words. ‘The statue. Oh, my God, but how …?’

  Giorgos quickly recovered from his pleasant shock. ‘Exactly … the Minoan bull, the frescoes on the structure, the columns … It’s like a copycat of the palace in Knossos.’

  Inside the structure, they were led to the inner sanctum and stopped at the altar where they were asked to take the glass and wooden box set atop it. Inside were two feet decked in sandals bearing the Imperial crest next to two kidneys and a liver.

  Vasilis could not resist a joke. ‘I feel like a macabre trader in transplant organs.’

  They looked at each other. They knew their next destination.

  Suddenly the opening regurgitated them back into the tunnel in Limassol. They found the Knossos door, which was the next opening on the right and entered.

  * * *

  Giorgos, Vasilis and John arrived in Knossos in Crete in pitch darkness. The site was closed to tourists and all visitors. The place was a heaven of all sorts of shadows and ghosts from the past. You could sense the odd disruptions in the air or were they imagining it? Where to now? Then they saw it, the glowing trail leading away from them, and they followed.

  They waded through the ancient ruins heading for their destination and, hopefully, their next prize. They reached the remnants of the surviving central stairca
se and descended deeper and deeper into the innards of the palace’s storehouses.

  They stopped at the bottomless main well that served the palace. The trail went straight down the well. Somehow they knew what they had to do. There was no other way. They had no equipment, but they knew that they had to jump. They put their faith in whatever god or gods were out there and took the plunge, literally.

  The landing was surprisingly smooth and they found themselves lying on the most comfortable bed they had ever had the pleasure to lie on. Without being given the luxury of time to recover there was a soft, barely audible, knock on the door.

  An old man with the gentlest face entered the room carrying a huge tray laden with food and fruit and drink. They were handed a set of warm dry clothes to change into. They obeyed, relieved and grateful for their heaven-sent visitor.

  They impatiently got up and almost broke into a run to the other side of the room to their saviour with one aim in mind, to assault his gifts and devour their prey. They suddenly realised they had not eaten anything for some time and were famished.

  While they were eating they felt a presence and turned. An ethereal being in female form stood there like an apparition. The apparition had a voice. It was a language they felt they should not understand, but somehow they did and they surprised themselves when they replied in kind.

  ‘Welcome, friends. We have been expecting you.’ A soft crystal voice reached their ears. They knew it had to have come out of the apparition, but it felt as if it had come from the space and the walls surrounding them. The voice kept echoing for a short time after the apparition spoke.

  Giorgos spoke for them all. ‘Thank you. With respect, who are you?’

  ‘My name is Ordania. I will be your host for today. There is someone who can’t wait to meet you. I’m here to take you to him.’

  Vasilis, Giorgos and John followed. Their guide walked as if she was on the run for a crime she had committed, as if she was being chased by the Furies to torment her for that crime.

  They were brought to a chamber that seemed as if lashed by hurricane-strength winds that stopped at its edges, their power dissipated, then withdrew and attacked over and over again. A man standing in the middle of the chamber turned and came to Vasilis’ side and gently took his right hand.

  ‘I knew your mother.’

  Vasilis’ thoughts briefly turned to his mother. You found people who knew her in the most unlikely of places. Feed him the stories they could tell and he would never go hungry again. But this was not the time to ask how this man knew his mother.

  Only four words, but so heavy and full of meaning; it was impossible to miss the unspoken part. This man like many others admired and adored his mother. Vasilis looked into the man’s eyes that held the world in their grasp.

  ‘Tell me, apart from you, the woman Ordania and the other older man I met earlier, is there anyone else living here? I have not seen anyone wandering around and it made me wonder.’

  ‘No, it is just us three.’

  ‘But how did you choose to be here and why? And how long have you been here?’

  ‘Long enough. We cannot die, never had and never can have children, and cannot live a normal life as you know it. We are the guardians of this sacred place. I can see you are wondering what this place is.’ Vasilis was surprised that this man could read his thoughts and cautioned himself to control them. ‘Maybe you will find out the next time you visit us. I cannot tell you when that will be. It is for fate to decide when you need us again in the future. A call for help will not go unanswered. Now is not the time for this place to divulge its secrets and its purpose.’

  He turned to a small tray next to him that Ordania had placed there earlier. He lifted the cover and offered the tray to Vasilis. On the tray was the Emperor’s heart.

  ‘I cannot let you leave without a gift. Our guests, however short their stay with us, never forget our renowned hospitality nor do they leave without a small memento depending on the task they have embarked on when they visit us.’ As the man said that he was gone, and so was everything else around them.

  Giorgos and John found themselves in the tunnel and the chest they first saw in Persepolis was sitting open next to them, having disgorged its contents; the Emperor’s private parts lay at their feet.

  Giorgos and John expected Vasilis to be with them. They wondered whether he had arrived before them and wandered off. They immediately dismissed the thought as highly unlikely. But Vasilis was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  Back at the Megaron Mousikis in Athens, Elli was, with Katerina’s help, in a desperate search of her own for Vasilis, Giorgos and John. She found Aristo.

  He could tell from her manner and the lines that appeared on her face that she was very worried. Something serious had happened. Only someone who knew her as well as he did would have even noticed her concern.

  ‘Aristo, have you seen Vasilis and the others? I think there has been trouble.’

  ‘Do we know where they were seen last?’

  ‘I’ve been told they were on their way backstage. I’ll go and see if I can find anything.’

  Without another word, Aristo turned and, at a brisk pace, headed backstage. He found the room that paid host to the three missing men a few minutes earlier, and like them before him, stood there at a loss.

  He was about to accept that they had been given a wrong tip on the whereabouts of the three missing men when, unbeknownst to him, the same man that welcomed Vasilis, Giorgos and John was now standing before him, smiling and bowing respectfully.

  The man kept his eyes firmly on Aristo’s and was urgently indicating the floor. Aristo assumed that the man expected him to see or open something there. But, however hard he looked, from where he stood he could see nothing of interest nor could he detect an opening there.

  He was mystified. The strangeness of the situation gave him the suspicion that he was on the right track in establishing the fate of the three missing men. He could not shake a feeling of uneasiness.

  Something happened here, Aristo thought. His certainty that the man before him was connected, was indeed the key, to what befell the three missing men was growing.

  Whatever reservations he might have had, he suspected that this man was his only chance of finding the three missing men and decided to go closer. But, as he did so, the man disappeared through the floor. Aristo followed him.

  Reaching the temple, he saw the three men being surrounded by a suffocating mist. His eyes fell on the chest at the same time as the three men and the chest vanished into the ether.

  The mist dispelled, but he could no longer see them or the man that had brought him there. Before he could decide what to do, Aristo felt a punch in his stomach rendering him unable to make any attempt to retaliate or react in any way.

  He felt himself falling into a dark abyss. Within seconds he had blacked out.

  * * *

  When Vasilis came round, he was lying on the Olympian beach, somewhere between the Limassol Zoo and the Anamerila Hotel near the old part of Limassol, his head hurting as if fresh from a hangover.

  His body was, though, unharmed, but slightly prickly from too much sun exposure. His skin felt scorched and his palms were red and burning like hell. He tried to get up, but failed at the first hurdle.

  But that hazy feeling quickly passed, and he got up with ease, and with a, strangely, complete lack of the pain that bedevilled him only a moment earlier. Relief washed over him. He did not miss that pain. It was as if suddenly he had at once become cured and immune to pain and the elements. He could not explain it.

  Then he saw people walking by, looking at him and smiling, some clearly mocking him, others turning red-faced and increasing their pace, some even winking lustily, conspiratorially. He looked down. He was naked and defenceless. He tried to hide his modesty, but then changed his mind.

  He reasserted himself and walked defiant with nothing to hide. To hell with it. He quickened his pace, as much as the sand all
owed. He had to find out whether he was actually in Limassol of the present day.

  He saw a small shop selling beachwear and went in. He decided to buy himself a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and went to pay with the euros he did not have, hoping to prey on the shopkeeper’s generosity and hoping he could accept his promise to come back the next day to settle his bill.

  The shopkeeper just smiled, did not ask for payment and waived him away, but not before Vasilis had checked the newspaper stand and was relieved to see that it was indeed the present day. How could that be, he wondered. What on earth was going on with those openings in the tunnels?

  On his way out of the shop the security guy at the entrance was about to waive him through without a word, but decided to have some fun. He pretended to ask Vasilis to submit to a body search, but then he seemed to have changed his mind when he saw the look on Vasilis’ face whose eyes were spitting daggers from embarrassment at his situation.

  Thankfully, the security guy decided not to challenge and antagonise Vasilis and cause a disturbance on such a lazy day. And there was the small matter of not risking his job over something as trivial as this without any valid suspicion.

  He had been watching all the time after all and it was a small shop with nowhere to hide, no blind spots to give the opportunity for theft. He could tell this gentleman was, no doubt, not the thieving kind. He just smiled and winked at Vasilis.

  Just before he left the shop, Vasilis passed a fulllength mirror and practically jumped at the person looking back at him. He blinked twice at the frightful sight. He looked ridiculous. He winked at himself. He was relieved to see that he had not lost his sense of humour.

  A voice inside his head was mocking him too: “You stick out like a sore thumb. You will definitely have no trouble blending in”. He was ready to smash the mirror in annoyance. But then he controlled himself. He had little choice until something better came along.

  It would have to do for now. What was he doing here anyway?