by Kate Gallwey
I repeated the spell on every ship that I could find about twenty ships in all. I took great delight on making sure that Lucian was on board as I did it. He got very wet quite a few times.
The evacuation of Atlantis started that day.
Ordering men and women into battle when you know that they will die was a hard thing for me to do but my old friend Drew, who’s legacy still lived on in the defence of Atlantis, said it had to be. Atlantis had to be seen to die. So fifty thousand men and women stayed behind to repel the invaders and to give their lives so that others may live. This is one of the main reasons I do not make a good commander. I do not like the idea of suicide troops so an escape root was planned to an underground cave south of the city and I arranged to meet and evacuate any that reached there in time, none did.
The volcano would be released once the invaders set foot on the island, then we had twelve hours before the island sank beneath the waves forever.
I opened a dimensional rift from Atlantis to Shambala and sent the population through. I had got much better at rifts and had managed to put a temporary one between the cities, the problem was that if the one that cast the spell went through the rift or left the immediate area it closed behind them, so I had to stay in Atlantis during the Demon Fleet approach.
Our fleet, staying well back and were smaller and much more manoeuvrable, ignited traps and laid storms for the Demon Fleet. Great Illusions of monsters and mazes had been spun for centuries waiting for this moment and finally released on Lucian and his fleet. Rifts in time and space cut through his fleet and night terrors visited the demons in their sleep. Their supply ships were targeted and lost; spells to taint their drinking water were cast. They would have been ships full of tired, hungry and thirsty demons.
Out of the five thousand ships that left the Straits, two out of five were lost leaving three hundred thousand demon warriors coming to destroy Atlantis. It was still too many. It took the remaining ships ten days to find us, and by then the city was empty of all but the fifty thousand volunteer human army.
And me.
I had cleared out all my possessions from the White Tower and sent them to Shambala, but I loved my home and was reluctant to destroy it. My Tower was designed to be the place of the last stand and the final battle would happen here. It had no door or gate of any kind and it would ‘port any humans that made it to the tower and touched it, up inside. The tower was spelled and coated in almost indestructible materials; at least we hoped it was. This was the end game before Atlantis sank forever beneath the waves.
When the first ship was sunk by the harbour laser towers of Atlantis I took that as a sign that Lucian was committed to this attack. I took the first batch of five hundred baskets each full of fifty poisonous snakes to Babylon, targeting the civilian population around the lake. We had been debating the morality of the plan for centuries, no one liked it but those that objected the strongest were asked to come up with an alternative, they hadn’t yet. I left the baskets open to spill their deadly contents on the demons that lived there.
I had found the entrance to the cellars underneath Babylon a few years early. There I found the huge blocks of stone holding the Citadel and the Great Hall up. I touched them with the spell ‘To Dust’ and they started to crumble.
I went down to the edge of the city Babylon where the wall rested on more great slabs of stone, and again ‘to dusted’ them and the wall began to sag in as many places as I could get to. I went out via the Great Gate and stopped briefly to touch the stone under them holding them up and went back for more baskets.
I wiped out six hundred thousand female demons and their children. I am not proud of that but did what needed to be done. The Hellions were hit very hard and lost all but three hundred and seventy two females and only two hundred and twelve children, I know this figure because later on it was my task to help bring balance and rebuild their society.
Many species were wiped out completely.
The battle of Atlantis was in full flow when I returned and there were double rows of human archers on the harbour walls and arrow heads were dipped in oil and set on fire before being fired at the unwelcome ships, huge pipes opened up in the harbour and oil slicked out across the water. Fire spread from ship to ship and many demons jumped into the burning sea to get away from the burning ships. The laser towers got every fourth ship. That was at least one thousand two hundred and fifty ships sank by the lasers towers, but still they came.
They fired back with a torrent of flaming material and targeted the towers and within four hours of the first ship being torched the laser towers were on fire and lost to the enemy. Over five hundred ships were still sinking in the narrow path of the harbour. But the tide of demons was unrelenting and they chopped their way through the dead and dying ships until the path was clear and the harbour was full of demon warships. There were goblin like demons that could leap high into the air and cross the length of the harbour in two bounds, and they had many winged demons that just flew across the carnage to bring the battle to the gates of Atlantis itself. The warships came and unloaded their cargo of irritated, hungry and sleep deprived demon warriors looking for a fight. They stormed the harbour wall and breach them with chains of demons standing on each others backs and pulling each other up after the first reached the top, the teamwork and organisation was amazing. They had beaten the gates open with full strength of numbers and then the battle for the streets began.
Archers fell back to the roof tops of the city and tried to slow the invaders down but demons move a lot faster than humans and many were cut off and slaughtered before they could reach the relative safety of the White Tower. They fought bravely against overwhelming odds and a vastly superior fighting force, only to die for their homes and families.
Once I returned from Babylon I had another task to carry out that was equally unappealing as the first. I had to set off the volcano and destroy my home. I ‘ported into an underground cave at the beating heart of Atlantis and removed the safe guards keeping the volcano dormant.
Then I sat down and cried for a bit, but tears never work well for me and I just get mad at my self-pity and then I just get mad.
And there were Demons and their Demon Lord to kill.
CHA
PTER SIXTEEN
a Master strOke
I appeared on the final roof top in the city before the Tower thinking I would see the battle before me but it had moved to the tower faster than I, or Drew, had anticipated.
Never engage Lucian in a war you can’t afford to lose. Atlantis was built for this sort of battle but still we had underestimated him and the unity and teamwork of his warriors was awesome.
I was caught up in the thick of things and was fighting huge giants and numerous goblin-like creatures that had breached the roof tops in a single leap and were waving small deadly daggers around very fast; they had long teeth and tried to bite me while I fought them and the giants at the same time. The humans that had not made it to the tower were now food for these creatures. I used magic and slew them all with a blast of Power.
I teleported up into the White Tower and, with the surviving men and women we fired arrows, lasers, spears and spells at the invaders. Lucian was suddenly there at the base of the Tower with his Hellions and I had a spear in my hand. I threw it hard; I wanted him very dead now and my aim was true.
The Hellion with silver eyes was beside him and pushed him aside taking the spear through his shoulder. I was annoyed and I made a mental note to have a very short pointed conversation with that young Demon at a later date. Lucian ‘ported him away from the battle.
The Tower held for six hours with the weight of ten thousand demons, give or take a few, pressing to get in. The walls were a shining white and had a magic field around it that when activated killed all that touched it, and it was working on overload, I could see over a thousand dead from where I stood above. Some Demons tried climbing up the wall of bodies and they nearly made it. They had spell weavers and ma
gicians and were working to find a way in when the first earthquake hit. Then the second, and when the third started it didn’t stop.
Cracks appeared everywhere and the Tower started to sway, it had served its purpose with honour and had held the enemy occupied while the volcano was getting ready to explode. We could now leave and I opened a portal for the women and men still left in the tower and when they were gone. I ‘ported to a waiting ship to watch the explosion from the deck with tears in my eyes.
I flinched as the immense shockwave hit. Lava flowed down the cliff face and I watched the White Tower fall into the flow. Lucian’s warships flared up like candles as fire from the explosion fell like rain, then the black dust hit and there was nothing left to see.
There was a crystal motor drive on my ship this made us the fastest thing on the sea, and we watched six battered warships escape from the Battle of Atlantis. Six out of five thousand. I was so tired from my efforts and could hardly see straight but I summoned storm magic and with all the will I had left threw at the escaping ships.
Lucian had taught me a valuable lesson – no mercy. I then fell into a troubled sleep.
I woke up and felt like I hadn’t slept, I went to Shambala and told the tale of the Fall of Atlantis to the crowds, sparing nothing of my dark deeds. Most wept and gathered their children close. I felt empty as if it had all happened to someone else.
I watched Lucian return to the ruins of Babylon and saw his pain and anger at the devastation and death I had brought about and I felt nothing, no satisfaction, no shame or grief. I just felt hollow inside, I had won yet it felt like I lost everything.
The numbers of demons had been drastically reduced and those that were left moved to a stretch of land close to what is now Gibraltar. Lucian built a castle there that was grim and desolate looking like something out of a gothic horror movie, it probably reflected his mood. He and his demons crawled into their castle and stayed there for about ten thousand years to lick their wounds.
I started to wander, the wise Australian Aboriginals call it ‘walkabout’ and say that when you are lost if you keep walking you will eventually you meet yourself. I just walked for an undetermined amount of time.
I found myself on the Greek island of Rhodes and pretending to be human went to a party on the beach. There were drums and pipes and we danced round a huge bonfire until the sun came up. I was offered an alcoholic drink called ‘Mother’s Milk’ and I got drunk for the first time and I liked it.
So I danced and became a silly human girl for a while, lots of giggling and laughter at things that really weren’t that funny. I could sober up with a thought which was very annoying but I could for a while pretend I was a human. I kissed an equally drunk young man and we made love, badly, under a half-full moon. In the morning we woke to the bright sunlight and I wanted more of that drink.
I went to parties that turned into drunken orgies, night after night and I give my body for more ‘Milk’ and behaved like the worst sort of party girl, looking for trouble. I was very fortunate or maybe someone else was, for I didn’t find it. I just made sure that there was lots of ‘Milk’ for me when I woke up and found the next party and danced the nights away under beautiful Mediterranean skies.
I was a bad girl and if my daughter should read any of this “Do as I say, not as I did.”
I was grieving for Atlantis, well; it’s as good an excuse as any. I was also grieving for Babylon and all that I had murdered. I have always followed my heart and now it was crying out for help. I didn’t like what I had become and was paying the price of two thousand years of seeking cold vengeance.
I see this behaviour often in humans and know that if you can reach the other side of it all there is a salvation of sorts, but many do not get to the other side.
I woke up under some rubbish in the harbour at Lindos. Not quite the gutter but close enough, it was a wake up call.
Seven human years had passed by, and that was quite a drinking binge for any being. I went down into the water and I swam some distance out to sea and got clean inside and out, shedding the foreign poisons from my body through the pores of my skin as I swam. As the body got clean, the mind began to sharpen up and I started to feel the pain of what I had done again.
What next? I had no goals or destinations, it felt very disconcerting.
CHA
PTER SEVENTEEN
COnsequenCes
I went back to Shambala and found Lisele also in pain. She had regained her sanity and remembered everything but was confined to the lower levels of the city because she was a blood vampyre now. She also carried the guilt of betraying Atlantis along with her unsatisfied hunger for blood.
She was fed only animal blood and kept in an area away from other humans. Her physical appearance hadn’t changed but she was stronger and faster than before and she couldn’t abide sunlight, it burned her skin but she can hear and see many times better than before, her sense of smell was on the level of a canine. Lisele also would not die of old age.
I shared with her my origins as a Life Essence Vampyre and held her while she told me what had happened in Babylon. Her hunger and memories were driving her over the edge into madness again so I let her feed from me.
She sank her unnaturally long eye teeth into my neck and drank, I had no fear, and I was stronger and faster than her, in spite of her physical changes.
My blood is red but the similarities end there. It totally quenched the hunger for blood forever for her. She was snapped into a mental clarity that none of her kind possess, everything about her was stronger and more in focus.
She is probably saner than I am.
Her intelligence was always keen but now she could remember all she read, learnt or seen. There was no more hunger in her and she makes a fine leader of Shambala and represents the demons there. She learnt magic and is a Sorceress Adept of the highest order, she can also teleport to anywhere in the world, which is a really useful skill.
We had a few requests for sanctuary from various demons around the world, first from the tiny flying Fae of Ireland and Scotland and they now live around the main entrance of Shambala, they make excellent guards and gate keepers for they have great ‘hide’ magic and hide our front door as they hide themselves.
The Fae can also be vicious as an angry swarm of bees so they defend us as well but mostly they just guide any humans that come into the area gently away and can cloud their minds if any see anything they shouldn’t. They are useful allies.
The other demon species that requested safety with us were a semi-sentient race that ate garbage and excrement, called the Sligs. They are a bit repulsive to humans in the fact that the young are hatched from eggs and then the adults eat their young which are re born again through their digestive system but they do came in very useful.
Their Queen requested that they live far away from the sunlight in the lower levels of the cave system of Shambala, and this was agreed. We keep them well fed and the Sligs are very content.
Shambala still runs very smoothly to this day. They don’t need me at all though they are too polite to tell me that. I have a permanent position on the ruling Council but have no duties or responsibilities, I like it like that.
Generations can go by without me visiting and I end up calling someone by their great great great grandparent’s name, and I was left with the grief of loss all over again.
I have four large rooms on the upper rim of the biggest cave that has a beautiful ornately carved lighted crystals shining down on over ten thousand apartment homes and businesses.
My rooms have been my sanctuary, hospital, hiding place, study, and home for a long time.
At that time Shambala was still adjusting to the tripling of the population and there were too many familiar faces grieving for lost ones, I felt guilty when they looked at me and reminded me of those I had left to die of Atlantis.
I too, grieved for the loss of Atlantis and missed my Tower. I tried to settle down and make a home in Shambala but it j
ust wasn’t the same and I got irritated at myself just moping around.
So I placed my things in my rooms and told Lisele and the Council to ‘call’ my name if they needed me and went walkabout again.
I walked across the mountains to the ocean on the other side of the Continent, it took me a few months to find a pass through the mountains but there was beautiful scenery and I needed beauty in my life right then.
When I got there I built myself a small sail boat and set sail. I had seen the sailors at Rhodes sail and it looked easy enough, until the first stiff winds blew up and I capsized and ended up back on the beach as the waves grew bigger. I don’t need to breathe much and could have walked under the water to escape the storm but I had no where to go and wanted to learn to sail. So a few more weeks went by as I learnt the art of sailing a small boat.
I named her the Sky Seeker for she was looking for another sky that was free of memories of death and darkness.
For many months I sailed west from South America, deep into the Pacific Ocean. I learnt about tides and currents and was nearly swamped several times.
Then on a whim I turned north and found myself among many tropical islands and just apart from the rest was a larger island with high cliffs all around and only a narrow pathway to the sea that was only open at high tide. The tide was high when I was washed straight into a beautiful circular lagoon with a curved white sandy beach and a fresh water waterfall. I landed Sky Seeker and put my feet into that hot silky white sand and wiggled my toes. I had found Paradise again.
The island had a forest path leading up to an old volcano and not far along the path I found a wonderful treasure. Hot mineral water springs bubbling up through the rocks forming many pools of various sizes and water temperature, a permanent hot bath, I was in heaven.
I soaked for weeks, years, I don’t really know how long but it was wonderful.
I forget sometimes to warm myself and often feel the cold, unnecessarily as I can get warm with a thought, I felt like I had been cold for centuries and was thawing out. It felt wonderful.
