“You must tell me how you know the poem and why my father taught it to you.”
“Please, sit down for it will take some time.”
Mark joined him on the bench, aware that no one, if they talked quietly, would be able to hear a word.
“I don’t know why the king chose me,” To-Bay started. “I had seen him as we all did in the city over the years, and twice I had gone to the people’s chambers for wellness. If I passed him in the street, I would nod, as is the custom, but we never spoke. It was the festival of the deep moon many years ago. The Elders were on the platform with the king. In fact, you were there too in your mother’s arms, as you had not yet gained your feet. The king had just spoken, and Man-Dan was reading from the book of ancients. I was deep in the crowd listening when more and more I felt my attention leaving the voice of Man-Den. I chided myself for my laziness and tried to concentrate on the ceremony. I looked at Man-Den and saw his lips moving, but only heard the drone of his voice. I happened to glance at the king and saw he was looking directly at me. Our eyes locked, each upon the other, and I could not pull my gaze away. The king just kept his kindly connection with me. Then the most incredible thing happened! His voice was in my mind. Not in my ears. I was not hearing him. It was in my mind! He said, ‘To-Bay, do not be startled. It is indeed I talking to you. Following this celebration, I want you to meet me at the Elder’s lodging. Tan-Ue will be in the Kiv, and all the others will be completing the ceremony in the sea. Tell no one and do not be seen.’ I remember I could only stare at him, still not believing what was happening. Then he told me to nod my head if I understood, and I did. He then smiled slightly, nodded his own head, and turned away to follow the ceremony. He never looked at me again the entire afternoon. When it was over, everyone dispersed and I wandered the city trying to construct any reason this had happened. Finally, with no answer but ready to serve the king, I went to my house to wait for evening.”
Mark sat next to To-Bay long into the night and heard the entire story. To-Bay had gone to the lodging. He quietly entered expecting to see the king waiting, but all was still. He walked around to the backs of the chairs where the Elders sat in council at the round table. In front of each place was the carved hollow that held the recoding gel. Each speaker placed the palm of their hand in the gel, and all they said was absorbed in the fluid. Anyone in the city could place their hand in a similar gel in front of the large meeting hall and read the history of what was said and seen. To-Bay waited.
“After a time, a voice said, ‘Thank you, To-Bay my friend, for coming.’ I spun around to see the king entering the room alone.
“It is not in your mind. This time I am speaking to you. Only those of my line can converse in the mind when not in the sea or at a long distance. I am sorry if it disturbed you.”
“Why did you speak to me at all?”
“I must ask you to bear a great burden. For me and for the city.” The king approached the little man, putting his hand on the thin sloping shoulder. The king then fell silent and just looked deep into the old man’s eyes.
“It was the strangest feeling, Ja-Lil.” To-Bay searched for the right words to explain. “I knew he saw all of my life at that moment. Everything. Good and bad. I, right then and there, wished I had been a better person. I just had a feeling there were parts of me that disappointed him. The things that I wasn’t proud of.
“But then he smiled at me and said, ‘I have looked inside your life, To-Bay, and could find no place that was not light. So I will now explain to you what no other living citizen but myself knows.’”
Everything To-Bay was telling Mark was true. He knew it! He could hear his father when To-Bay spoke of him, and he felt the king in every description. He sat and listened in the warm night, comforted by the regained presence of his father.
“To-Bay, I will tell you what all citizens are aware of but only as a vague legend. At the time of the first settlement, all three trilogies were together—the Air, the Land, and We of the Water. At the river mouth to the inland sea, we began our cities. There was much to do when they first were placed, and the three kings ruled as one. There was much communication between our peoples as we waited for those here to become teachable. They developed quite slowly and for that time, we traveled the seas and logged all those who walked upright. After a time, we decided to make ourselves known to the people around the inland sea in slight ways, in keeping with our training from the ancients.”
“I thought our forefathers were the ancients! The beginning started with us.” Mark could not help voicing what he and the entire city had always believed.
“I will tell you everything I was given by the king,” To-Bay continued. “I can tell you nothing else. I sat in the lodging with the king most of the night and this is what I heard: ‘we taught, protected, and nurtured until they began to use the gift of culture and society. For many years, the early people knew us mainly by our actions on their behalf and only on rare occasions by us interacting with them. They came to regard us first as spirits of the natural workings of their world. They gave us names. Some of them were gifted in many ways, and some of them we communicated with more openly. Sometimes they gave us powers and abilities that we did not possess, and they came to consider us gods. We continued to teach. When the people became many we, of the Trilogy, separated. That was when they moved the city for the first time. From the shore and into the deep water. It was there that we discovered the life form that became the Dome. Its final loyalty is to the line of kings. When the Dome eventually covered us, and we began the living city, we seldom ventured from the water. From then on, only the rare messenger would take stories from one of us to the other.
“’Those of the Air, after a time, left their visible forms and continued on only as the energy of the life-thought, although they maintain the capability of both. They have at times, and can at any time in the future, manifest. They will certainly all appear at the time of the convergence, but we have not spoken for two of my generations.
“’You are here, my friend, because of the path of Those on the Land. Because they could walk with the people and their differences were not apparent, they became the living teachers and Elders of the people. At the second generation of the king’s line, something happened that we could only surmise. By whatever cause, the royal bloodline for Those of Land was cut off. The king died before an heir was conceived. The ceremonies and rituals of the ancients and the use of the treasures that had served the people became actions and ceremony only. They no longer had the ability to be effective and their powers lay dormant. Their purpose died with their king. Generation after generation continued and Those of the Land became one with the people. The rituals became more and more distorted, and eventually the people of that world had to be abandoned.’”
To-Bay came out of the reverie of his tale and spoke directly to Mark.
“Your father told me it was most important that you know the power of the treasures is carried only by the blood. Only by the blood.”
“You are tiring, old man, we can continue at another time.” Mark could tell the strain of caring for this information and now releasing it to him was exhausting To-Bay.
“The honor you father entrusted me with is not a burden, Ja-Lil.” To-Bay went on with the tale of that night so many years ago. He told Mark as well as he could the uses of the treasures and their origination. He assured Mark, from his father, that the gift of speaking to the mind would come when he took his place in the city. In the midst of listing history, To-Bay stopped for a moment.
“The king kept on until he was confident I could repeat all he wanted to give to you, Ja-Lil, but at one point he seemed to be resisting or thinking about something else when he started to talk about the queen. It did not resemble the information he had been giving up to that time, and he never asked me to repeat it. It was almost as though he were talking to himself. I could not forget it, however, and so I repeat
it to you.”
Mark waited
“The king sat quietly for some time. I said nothing. He then started so softly I could barely hear his words.
“’I loved Myo-O from the time we were first aware of each other. I have always felt our oneness was a continuation from long before the time of the settlement. Here we are, living the love once again, but not remembering the one before. She is the strength the people cannot see. She nurtures the good in the city by drawing it out from the people. My son…our son is how she and all that is good in us can go on. Because of that, my heart is free and without cares or regret. I hope when the people see the three of us together, they can see the good in their future.’
“Then he stopped and looked at me as I listened and smiled before continuing the history of the city.” The old man looked at Mark with a small smile. “Ja-Lil, I give you that as a gift from your father.”
To-Bay then gave Mark a detailed explanation of the many processes of giving wellness and other functions the king could do by virtue of the blood. Turning to Mark, he shrugged his shoulders a little. “The map I can give you, but your father said the knowledge would come with the life-thought.” Mark followed the gestures as To-Bay showed them. What had looked so random when he had watched his father, he realized were actually precise motions that were needed to be effective. He memorized the different spots on the head and body for the drawing of various areas of darkness and pain, and then he learned how to rid himself of the debris. He was amazed at how many things he now knew his father did every day without anyone being aware. This part of the schooling took almost the rest of the night. Mark knew the Dome would soon begin to brighten when To-Bay took a deep breath and slapped his hands to his thighs.
“And then, Ja-Lil, the king was done. He told me of the two other times the city was moved and ended the evening by charging me with my duty.
“’To-Bay,’ the king said, “’if anything is ever to happen to me, I give you the life of my son and therefore the city. Watch him closely and, when you think him ready, teach him what I have told you. Each of the kings before me has had one such as you, and they have lived out their time in the city without ever being known. They never had to discharge their duty and the line has continued. If I die and he dies with me or is not complete, I charge you to use the goodness in your heart to find the most able in the city, man or woman, and teach them this. That is the best we can do.’
“After that, he repeated, ‘the heart is the city. Tell him, To-Bay, to be confident because the heart is the city.’ He then bowed to me and he left. For years after that, I was to see him in the city. Sometimes alone or at other times with your mother and you. He would acknowledge me as he would any other but nothing more. It was as if we had never had that meeting.
“One time, when you were in your thirteenth year, I was in the city center around midday when his voice once again clearly came into my head. I looked around to find where he was, but could not find him.
“’To-Bay, I am in my lodging. I am speaking to you for the last time.’”
He then taught me the three lines of the poem, saying it was the way you would trust me if I should ever contact you. He said to tell you that you would use the second three lines at a time in the future. His last words to me were, ‘I trust the city to you, my friend.’”
The old man stared at the ground and then up at the Dome high over their heads. He sighed.
“It is over. I can do no more. It was a dark day when the king died and each day since I have been deeply sad.”
“Death is natural, To-Bay. You sound more like Those on the Surface that do not understand.”
“No, no, no.” To-Bay looked at Mark. “You do not understand. Death is natural and even good, but the king died too soon.” He stood up and started to shuffle away while he continued. “You have very full days ahead. Be very careful.” By then he was at the edge of the circle and disappearing down the dark lane.
Mark went back to his home. Later in the morning, he was to meet Tei-La and spend the day in the sea.
PHOTO SECTION
On set With Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Behind the scenes when Mike Douglas did a special on Patrick Duffy and Man from Atlantis
Patrick Duffy with Man from Atlantis co-star
Belinda Montgomery
Magazine clipping from Patrick Duffy’s
personal collection
Feature in SF Heroes Magazine
NBC Promotional Postcard from September, 1977
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Dome was brightening as Mark returned and entered
his home. How natural it felt to him now to refer to this large pinkish white building as home. The entire time on the surface, he did not know it existed, but now the conch shell emblem of his line welcomed him from over the doorway as if he had never left. The one solid piece of his past had stayed with him all those years on the surface. The spiraling circle with small wave-like lines under it was on the piece of clothing he had been wearing when he was found on the beach. Though the clothing had been discarded before anyone knew where it (or he) had come from, Elizabeth remembered the design and had it put on Mark’s new swimsuit. It became a sign for him that he had a past even if it was temporarily lost to him.
Every piece of the living walls seemed to be telling him how glad they were to have him touch them, to elevate the light, or to place his hand on a seemingly solid wall only to have a seam appear and a door develop.
There were many things he could do in the time he had before Tei-La was to meet him, but he felt drawn to the king’s chamber. He knew the clothing worn by his father when he died would be laid out along with the ring and pendant. So many times his father had told him the story of the ring and piece of metal that hung by the woven gold thread from his neck.
“Since the settlement, this pendant has been worn by all my father’s fathers, Ja-Lil, and someday I will pass it on to you.” With the ring, there was a wonderful story. Sometimes he would fall asleep hearing of Poi-Den, two kings before his father, who went wearing the pendant of his station to the land along the great river. It had been decided at the Great Tallon, which was the gathering of the royal lines of the People of the Air and Water, that someone must try to connect with any remaining royal blood they could find of the Landed Ones.
Poi-Den was chosen. He swam far up the wide river and confronted the remaining People of the Trilogy. But this time the Elders were still trying to preserve the life thoughts of their people even though the royal blood of their line was gone. They performed ornate rituals of removing internal organs of the dead and preserving them. All their efforts had created was an elite class of priests who cloaked the futile rites in ceremony and mysticism.
He arrived at the city of the Stone Mountains and, once he was identified, was welcomed by the remaining Landed Ones. Many still remembered him and others of the settlements. The Elders prepared a great celebration in his honor, and for eight days they met in council and debated. They presented theories of how the royal line could be rejuvenated with the offspring of one of their daughters and Poi-Den. Though, as Mark’s father told him, there was no history confirming such a thing would activate their treasures in the future.
Each night Poi-Den would return to the river to rest before coming back to the council in the morning. On the ninth day, the Landed Ones took him captive. Desperate to regain their lost powers, they watched as he weakened but continued to send woman after woman to him in an attempt to attract him into fatherhood. Mark’s young mind would drift off, seeing the weakened Poi-Den, close to death and being rescued by Shause.
The King of Those of the Air had become not-seen and walked into the giant stone prison, picked up the king, and flew him over the walls and into the clouds. From that time on, all contact with Those on the Land was cut off. Shause delivered Poi-Den back home, and he gave him the ring to be handed
down to all future kings of the city. At the convergence, it was to be given back to the Air King to use for the return. When Shause left, Poi-Den and the Elders began the long move of the city from the circled ocean, north into the cold sea, and on to the shore of the large island. Never again was there to be any contact between the three of the settlement.
Mark approached the wall of the king’s chamber and placed his right hand on the spot that protruded from the wall. A long line appeared beside it, and the wall separated into a doorway. As he entered and touched the knob on the inside, the darkness evaporated into a beautiful gray-white light. He stood at the doorway and waited. Silently the opening became a wall again, and the seam disappeared. Here was the last minutes of his father. On the dais, in the center of the alabaster block to its right, were the ring and pendant. Various other tables and stands around the room displayed the personal things that had adorned the king’s life. Each one, even at a distance, spoke to him of emptiness. Of the king being there but not there. One a ledge to the right of the larger dais was the string of small shells his mother had made for him. She had secretly gathered them on their various trips out to sea. She had called them her trip treasures and had one for every time they had been together. The string of shells had been lying by his dinner plate one night when they all sat down to eat, and Mark heard even now the happy laughter of his father as he jumped up from the table, lifted his mother from her chair, and they danced around the room. Right then and there, before they ate, he made her tell the story of each shell and its corresponding trip. Mark had sat and watched with joy in his heart as his parents included him in their remembrances.
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