The Royal Pursuit

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  “We need to take a break,” he said.

  The man in front of him ignored him.

  Irritated, Athen sped up until he was in front of the man, who jerked to a stop.

  “You are a nuisance. Do you know that?” the man growled, his eyebrows furrowed in anger.

  “We need a break,” he said. “If you want to keep walking without us, fine. We don’t need you to get to the lake.”

  “I could kill you.”

  Athen decided to call his bluff. “You won’t.”

  The man blinked, obviously not expecting his response. “And what makes you so certain?”

  “You chose me so I could help you get to the queen in case you can’t find her yourself. I am too useful to you.”

  The man tightened his grip on his cane. “I would love to kill you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  The man gritted his teeth.

  Athen crossed his arms, staring back. He wasn’t going to back down from this monster.

  “Five minutes. Not a minute more,” the man barked.

  Optima and Dour quickly ran behind a few trees so they could relieve their bladders.

  “Why don’t you just run off?” the man asked. “It does you no good to be here.”

  “Someone needs to protect the Nicals.”

  The man shook his head in irritation.

  Athen remained by the man’s side. He knew his presence annoyed the man, and he was going to do whatever he could to annoy him. After the lies the man told the Nicals, he deserved it. The Nicals were defenseless. Athen couldn’t believe anyone would take advantage of such a weak group of people.

  A scream interrupted his thoughts.

  Optima! Athen raced in the direction of her screams, ignoring the man’s protests. He stopped when he saw a seven-foot snake sliding up to her. The snake’s tail began winding around her legs. He found a large stick with a sharp point, grabbed it, and ran up to the snake, which hissed at him.

  Optima screamed again as the tail continued to wind up her legs, quickly working its way up to her waist. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t manage to get away from it.

  Athen threw the stick, aiming for its throat. He yelled in frustration when he missed his mark.

  “Here. Take this gun! I don’t know how to use it,” Dour exclaimed, running to him.

  Athen gratefully took the gun and shot the snake between the eyes.

  The snake let out one more hiss before it fell to the ground, its tail finally releasing her.

  Her hair turned white with relief as she ran over to him and Dour. “Thank you!” she cried, hugging them.

  The snake wiggled in pain, so Athen shot it again, this time killing it. “There’s no reason to have it suffer.”

  “You have done so much for us. Thank you,” Dour said.

  He smiled at them. “I should give this back to you before the old grouch thinks I took over.”

  They laughed at his joke.

  He liked the way Optima looked at him. She made him feel brave and strong. He blinked, pushing aside his feelings for her. He turned around and noticed the man silently staring at them. He frowned. As he walked over to the man, he snapped, “Apparently, you felt no need to help her.”

  The man stared coldly at him. “She let the queen escape. It would serve her right to die.”

  Athen grabbed his shirt collar. “Who are you, and what do you want with these people?”

  The man shoved him away. “I’m the one who’s in charge here. Not you. And if you continue on in your insolence, I will make both of them suffer.” He motioned to his cane.

  “If you lay one hand on them, I will kill you.”

  “Threats scare me as much as they scare you.” He sighed, as if bored. “Come along,” he told Dour and Optima. “We don’t have much daylight left.”

  Athen contemplated taking the gun back from Dour and killing the man, but he knew the Nicals would not understand, and he didn’t want Optima to think less of him. He liked the fact that she saw him as her hero. He would not get the joy of being the one she loved. Sando had that honor. So he would settle for the role of her hero.

  ***

  Atlantis

  Planet: Earth

  Stacey followed Captain Reed into the arc. Kent, Stephen, and Mark were close behind. She wished she didn’t have to wear her scuba gear every time she investigated Atlantis, but she reminded herself it was better to be uncomfortable learning about the lost city instead of finding out she was wrong about its location.

  She had to swim fast to keep up with Captain Reed. He eagerly swam to the top of the arc. She and Kent thought Reed’s reaction to finding the future machine was odd. They had expected him to be excited like they were. However, he’d only nodded and ordered them to put on their scuba gear so they could check it out. Intuition told her he’d been expecting it. Again, she wondered what his ties were to the person who paid for their research.

  She forced aside her troubled thoughts and swam into a large room at the top of the arc. She gasped in shock. The probe they’d sent out to take pictures and videos of the place did little justice in capturing its elaborate beauty. The ceiling was made of a clear material. The walls and most of the floor appeared to be ivory. The floor did not reach the walls. It ended at six feet from each wall. Below the floor was a set of steel rods, which crisscrossed so the floor could receive full support. She peered over the edge of the floor and was surprised to see the rest of the arc, from top to bottom. She saw the lobby, but it was a long way down. She swam back toward the group. If they weren’t in the water, she would die if she fell.

  “How tall is this building?” she asked Stephen, who was taking the room’s measurements.

  “It’s twenty stories high,” he replied.

  She shivered, despite her hot outfit. “I’m glad all I have to do is swim to the bottom.”

  “This is exquisite work,” Captain Reed commented as he ran his hands over the controls in front of the big screen at the center of the room.

  Her attention turned to the object of his delight. She noticed that the only piece of furniture in the room was the chair in front of the large screen. The screen in front of her was made of an unknown clear material, but it was framed in gold.

  “Can you imagine how highly advanced this civilization must have been to invent such an instrument?” Reed asked. “This is amazing.” He pressed some buttons to see if he could activate it, but nothing happened. He sighed in disappointment.

  “Have you checked the rooms right below this one?” she asked Kent.

  Kent shook his head. “Captain Reed instructed us to send the probe to the top, and as soon as we told him what we found, he insisted on coming out here.”

  She nodded, figuring he would do as much. “Well, I’d love to check out more rooms. Would anyone like to go with me?”

  Kent and Mark agreed while Stephen stayed behind to complete his research.

  The room directly below them was an enormous library filled with volumes and volumes of books, which were carefully preserved behind doors covered with the clear material that was just as resistant to decay as the rest of the city. Unlike the other rooms she had seen, the shelves that the books sat on looked like wood, except they didn’t deteriorate. The shelves and books were immaculately preserved, as if they waited for their owner to return. The bookcases stood ten feet high and circled the entire room. She glanced at the ivory-colored steps that led to the second floor of the room, which was also filled with books, perfectly preserved.

  Her eyes turned back to the first floor. A white desk and white plush chairs, which were trimmed in gold, were the only furnishings in the room. She went up to the desk. Something had been written on the paper that sat on it. She shook her head in amazement. The paper wasn’t even decayed. A gold paperweight in the image of the arc kept the paper in place.

  Mark took a picture of the piece of paper. He bent down to study it.

  “Do any of the words look familiar
?” she asked.

  “I think it’s instructions for someone,” he replied.

  “Do you have any idea what the instructions say?”

  “It looks like someone was explaining how to activate the machine upstairs.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Do you think someone is coming back to resurrect this city?”

  They stood quietly, each contemplating the possibility.

  Kent swam over to them. “There’s nothing up on the second floor but books.”

  She quickly filled him in on Mark’s discovery. “Do you think we should tell Captain Reed?” She glanced at them, uncertainly.

  “I don’t think so,” Kent said. “Something about him gives me the creeps.”

  “You, too? I thought I was the only one,” Mark added, relieved.

  “Maybe if he wasn’t so secretive about who financed our mission, we’d actually like him,” Kent replied.

  “I think it has something to do with that machine up there.” She motioned to the top of the arc. “The captain works for the United States government. The government doesn’t keep secrets from the people,” she joked, her sarcasm heavy. “Can you imagine what the government would do if they unlocked the key to making that machine work?”

  “We’d probably end up at the bottom of the ocean,” Kent said. “After all, look where we’re standing and all the knowledge they had.”

  “You think the machine had something to do with the fall of this city?” she asked.

  “No. I think human nature did. I don’t think humans can be trusted with the ability to look into the future.”

  “Unless they were extremely disciplined and used that ability only when necessary.”

  “Yes, but how many people can you trust to do that? Sooner or later, someone will want to use it for their own gain, regardless of who gets hurt,” Kent said.

  “Like Captain Reed or the one who’s sponsoring this trip,” Mark filled in.

  Solemn, they left the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Atlantis

  Planet: Earth

  Ann followed Hathor through the door they found at the bottom of Lake Solitaire. Turning into a mermaid happened quickly after she’d finished eating her fish. She didn’t even have time to take off her pants, which she assumed she would have to do since her legs turned into a large fish tail.

  Instead, her clothes changed into the tail along with her legs. Her natural reaction had been to hold her breath when she swam into the water. Hathor breathed in the water as soon as he went under the water, so when she realized he was breathing without any problems, she gained the courage to take in a timid breath. To her surprise, it wasn’t any different from breathing air.

  Now as they swam through the door, her gaze fell on the submarine in the distance. Beyond that, she recognized a city. She wondered what the Augurs had brought them there for. Were the Augurs in the submarine?

  They swam over to the submarine, and she gasped in shock when she read United States of America on the side of it.

  “Are we on Earth?” Hathor asked her.

  “We must be.” She shook her head in amazement. Glancing back in the direction from which they came, she replied, “It looks like we crossed through some kind of portal that made intergalactic travel easy.”

  Curious, she inched closer to the submarine, examining it. It didn’t look as big as the naval submarines she had seen when she lived on this planet. What was it doing here?

  She looked at the city that loomed in front of them. “I think the people here are studying that city over there.”

  “Do you have people who live under the water on Earth?”

  “No. Human beings on Earth don’t live in the water. We don’t have merpeople here either.” She glanced at him. “Well, at least, not that I know of.”

  “I see someone,” he whispered. He swam closer to her in an instinctive reaction.

  She smiled at his desire to protect her. Turning her attention to the person in the scuba gear, she pondered whether or not to introduce herself. “Does that person look like an Augur?”

  He shrugged. “It’s hard to tell with that heavy outfit on him. It could be anyone.”

  “Should we talk to him? The Augurs are expecting us to meet them here.”

  “Hold on.”

  She watched as he went over to a group of rocks and picked one up that fit nicely in his hand.

  When he was next to her again, he said, “Just in case this person will try to hurt us, we can defend ourselves.” He hid the rock behind his back. “Stay close. I don’t want him near you if he’s dangerous.”

  She nodded, letting him know she wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.

  They swam up to the person who was heading for the submarine. The person looked at them and dropped his camera.

  Startled, Ann turned to Hathor. “Drop the rock. He’s not a threat.”

  Hathor obeyed her.

  They quickly swam over to him.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Hathor assured him. “Are you an Augur?”

  The person shook his head, his eyes wide as he glanced from Ann to Hathor.

  “Are you a human who lives on Earth?” Ann asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Kent, did you get a picture of-” The female voice cut off as soon as the man’s companion approached.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of us,” Ann said after a long moment.

  “Ann Kerwin, is that you?”

  Ann blinked in surprise. She swam over to the woman to get a better look at her. “Yes,” she slowly replied. Close up, she could see Stacey’s full face. “Stacey Richards?”

  “Yes, it’s me! Well, that was my name before I got married.”

  Ann hugged her, excited to see her high school best friend again.

  “What are you doing down here as a mermaid?” Stacey wondered, eyeing her fish tail.

  “It’s a long story. Can we go somewhere to sit and talk?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” She laughed. “Let’s go into the submarine. Can you breathe oxygen?”

  Ann nodded and turned to Hathor. “It’s Stacey, my friend in high school.”

  His eyes lit up with understanding, and he approached them.

  “This is Kent Russell, my husband,” Stacey introduced. “Kent, this is Ann. You remember me telling you about her. She and I were best friends in high school until she had to move to Florida.”

  “Yes, I know who you are,” Kent slowly replied.

  Ann had a difficult time pretending she didn’t know who Kent was because Stacey and Kent didn’t remember the time Omin’s clone fought to control Earth. But she managed to act casual as she introduced them to Hathor.

  “The rest of our group is checking out the arc,” Stacey said. “Let’s go into the submarine and talk there.”

  “What’s the arc?” Ann asked.

  Stacey pointed to the tall building in the middle of the city. “It’s the center of Atlantis.”

  “Atlantis?” Ann asked. The city really did exist? “How did you find it?”

  “Lots of research. But I can explain later.”

  They entered the submarine, and to Ann’s relief, she and Hathor immediately turned back into their human forms, and they were also dry in their dirty clothes.

  Stacey didn’t hide her shock as she pulled off her scuba gear. “What have you been up to since leaving Ohio?”

  Ann grinned. “A lot.”

  “Kent, would you mind giving Hathor some of your clean clothes? I’ll give Ann some of mine.”

  Kent’s shock was finally beginning to wear off. “Sure. There’s a room where you can shower and get dressed. It’s small but it works.”

  “Alright,” Hathor replied as he followed him.

  Ann could tell Hathor was excited to talk to Kent. Hathor had missed Kent’s friendship since they went back to Raz.

  “It’s so good to see you again,” Stacey said as she led Ann to the kitchen and motioned for her to
sit down.

  “Of all possible places to meet again, I can’t believe we met here,” Ann mused.

  “Are you hungry or thirsty?”

  “To be honest, both. I haven’t had a decent meal for a couple of days.”

  She hesitated to tell Stacey about being the Queen of Raz. Would Stacey even believe her? Would Hathor think it was a good idea?

  “You know, there were many times I wished we had kept in touch after you moved to Florida,” Stacey said as she set a glass of water and a ham and cheese sandwich in front of her friend. “This is about as good as our meals get.”

  “It looks like a meal fit for a queen,” she joked. She stared at Stacey, suddenly serious. “I know we said we would always keep in touch no matter how far apart we were, but we were both in high school. It was natural we’d drift apart.”

  Ann hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she drank the glass of water.

  Stacey laughed and filled her glass again. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were hungry and thirsty. Would you like another sandwich?”

  “No thanks. I’m fine. Stacey, what did you do after you graduated from high school?”

  “I was going to go to Toledo for college, but you remember how I started dating Kent shortly before you moved?”

  Ann blinked. She recalled that Hathor had set them up, but she didn’t know what had become of them. Now she knew. “Well, apparently, he talked you into staying in the Dayton area.”

  “Yes. You thought he was good for me, and you were right. Anyway, he loved Wright State University. That’s where I ended up going to college. After I graduated, we got married. We went on to get our master’s degrees. He got his in astronomy and I got mine in anthropology. My thesis was on Atlantis, which turned out to be right where I thought it was. I was approached by the head of Wright State to come here, and I got to select my team, except for the captain. Captain Reed was picked by the person who is funding this expedition. I have no idea who that person is though.”

  “You are troubled by that,” Ann said.