Man from Atlantis

by Patrick Duffy

  Now his eyes focused, and he darted out from under the ledge into the open where he knew he had a better chance to maneuver and survive. This time he saw him. The same man again! At that moment of recognition, he was also aware of the scent. It had been there a moment before the attack, and he was upset with himself for not reacting more quickly. Still not completely recovered from the first two blows, Mark braced his feet on the sand to receive the next attack. The man had a large rock in his hands and was racing downward from the overhang directly toward him, using the gravity of the stone and the thrust of his swimming stroke to create power and speed. Mark concentrated hard on the approaching figure. He still hadn’t regained the sureness of his body and wanted to avoid this assault to give him another minute to gather his strength. Mark stayed his ground until the man was no more than ten to fifteen feet away. Then he saw him pull the stone toward his chest to give a bit more velocity. Instead of trying to deflect another blow, Mark feinted slightly to the left then pushed off with all his strength to the right. The man couldn’t react fast enough to redirect the force of the rock and, though he tried, the blow missed the target, which was Mark’s head, and instead hit him squarely on the left shoulder.

  The pain shot along his arm and all the way down to the base of his spine. Even as he felt it, he knew neither the arm nor the shoulder was broken. He turned several somersaults in the water as he tumbled away, stopping further solid hits, and came to a halt twenty feet from the man. The electric surge from the impacted nerves in his left side exploded all through him. Color deepened and he could feel the blood racing to his stricken shoulder. His attacker was not launching himself again but stood in the water watching Mark as he regained his balance.

  “Who are you?” Mark could only feel a tingling now over his entire left arm, which hung limply at his side. “Why are you doing this?”

  The man said nothing. Reaching to his belt, he pulled out a glove and slipped his right hand into it. He then opened his tunic and there, for the third time in his life, Mark saw it! His attacker drew out the sacred king’s knife and inserted his gloved hand into the opening. The shining cover withdrew to expose the deadly-sharp blade.

  “How did you get that? Only the king can open the treasure chamber!”

  The man answered by slowly swimming forward. Mark had no choice but to retreat. He knew the man’s strength was close to his own, and with his left arm useless, his only option was escape. With the shock of seeing the weapon out here in the open sea, and then to watch it obey one who was not of the blood, Mark had not paid attention to where he was. Before he could correct his direction, he realized he had backed up against the solid rock face of the overhang. The stone wall made a definite V and he was squarely in the deepest recess of it. He was trapped! The only way out was to go through or around the man and the knife. There was little chance of success, but Mark felt if he were cut, perhaps even badly, there was a possibility he could make it to the city and the healing bracelets before he lost too much blood. Thinking that it might make a difference, he planned to rush by the man exposing only his left side. It would leave his good right arm protected and the blade might be deflected from entering deep into his body by striking the arm bone or a rib. It was a small consolation, but it seemed his only chance of surviving at all.

  His attacker filled the exit lane of the little cul-de-sac and continued to move toward him, and Mark saw a smile on his face. He knew he had him trapped and was confident of making his kill.

  Now. It has to be now, or there will be no room to get by him. This thought came to Mark as he felt the vertical face of the rock against his back. With a strange vision of Tei-La’s face briefly before him, he knew not seeing her again would be his main regret if he failed to make it back to the city. Mark crouched a little, braced his right foot against a boulder, and was about to launch himself. Before he could move, the man was hit from behind at full speed by Roi-Den. The man obviously had not seen him and neither had Mark. The weapon flew from his hand as he was driven forward into the sand.

  “Ja-Lil, are you all right?” By this time, Roi-Den was on the man once again, lifting him to his feet and pushing him up against the rock wall. Before Mark could respond, the man grabbed Roi-Den by the back of his neck and spun him around and into the rock. When they were face to face, the larger man hesitated for a moment and seemed unsure if he was going to continue the fight. The halt was only for a fraction of a second then he tore off a piece of rock from the wall and drew back his arm. Before the man could land the blow that was aimed at his jaw, Roi-Den had dropped down and launched his shoulder into his stomach. Both men pushed through the water, and the force of Roi-Den’s charge drove the larger man down into the sand.

  “Do not let him reach the knife!” Mark was now holding his useless left arm in his right hand.

  “Go back to the safety of the city, Ja-Lil. This one may not be alone.” This was no longer Mark’s youthful friend, but a man who knew his duty to protect the king and was confident in his ability and his decision.

  Mark swam around the two fighting men as their swirling bodies stirred up the sandy bottom and obscured the violence of their battle.

  “Beware of the knife, Roi-Den.”

  Locked as they were in their fight, he was sure neither of them could find the blade, which sheathed itself as it left the man’s hand and fell to the sand. It was now lost in the whirling storm of sand. Mark left the two, worked his way out of the little valley, and made for the city.

  The elevator door opened directly into the dark foyer, stabbing the blackness with a shaft of yellow light. The two bodies were outlined in the doorway as if it were one person with two heads. The kiss was brief but welcomed by both.

  “Would you like me to come in for awhile?” He spoke quietly and kindly.

  “Not tonight, Gasten.” Elizabeth put both hands to his lapels and gently smoothed them. “I had a wonderful time. I know I have been a bit down lately. I don’t know why,” she lied, “but thank you for being so patient.”

  She stepped into the room and the point of yellow light bounced off the silver heels of her black-velvet pumps. Turning to look at her from inside the elevator car, Gasten smiled and made a little wave. “I’ll give you a call on Monday. We’ll talk about the trip,” he said.

  The doors came together and sealed the room in total darkness. She could hear the elevator descend into quiet, and she stood for a long time enjoying the cool comfort of solitude. With a little sigh, she walked the familiar four paces in the dark, thinking like so often, I’d really do all right if I were blind. At the juncture of nothing and the faint gray of the living room, she reached out and her finger landed directly on the switch. With the several lamps connected to the switch and the deep-dish hanging Tiffany in the center of the room, she made the mental king’s-X as the radiance of the colored glass made her glad she had sight.

  She stepped out of the shoes and walked over the hardwood floors to the welcome comfort of the carpet by the bar. Slipping the gold chain from her shoulder, she set the small black bag on the marble counter and poured a small glass of port for herself. She turned and leaned against the curved smooth edge of stone and stared out the glass wall to the single boat’s light that was on the water. It had been months now since Mark had gone away. And there was still no sign of Dr. Thomas Raggit, though she’d searched for him. She and Gasten had been seeing a lot more of each other outside work. The longer Mark had been away, the more (once the shock of his leaving wore off) she looked for comfort in her other relationships. Gasten was always there but never imposed himself on her. He was kind and gentle, and she found herself having fewer and fewer reasons to keep him at a distance.

  A few lunches then dinners followed by nights at the opera or the theater and soon she was looking forward to his calls and invitations. But there was always Mark. Or at least the possibility of Mark. Still standing there, she started to smile. “How long
will you wait tonight, Lizzy?” She had been talking out loud to herself more lately, and she felt it was almost like having a third person there to add a little objectivity to her internal debates. She knew the answer to that question tonight, however.

  She would change into her nightgown and robe, which she did. Then she would wash her face clean until the skin glowed and tingled, which she did. Then she would take her drink and her laptop out into the warm night breeze on her balcony, which was where she was now, sitting on the overstuffed cushion of the wicker loveseat, just so the infrared signal of the computer would reach her desktop outside. She chased the jammy aftertaste of the Boplaas around her teeth with her tongue while she opened her laptop and accessed Jessie at the lab. With fingers sure of their path from repeated nights of this very same thing, she quickly was connected to Mark’s poetry files in his office.

  “Therapy time.” Her voice was soft and carried lightly into the dark night. She wondered though, was it therapy or a mild form of torture? She felt close to him when she would sit here alone and read the words of his poems and paragraphs. But the closeness also made her aware of how far away he was. It was a comfort like reading history. It happened long ago, in the past, and here she was in the present so it must prove that life really did go on. But it was going on without him, and deep in her life she wasn’t sure she wanted it to.

  “The bottom line is,” she hated it when she used phrases like that, “this is all I have.” She clicked on Tides.

  The water grows

  And pushes back the sand, the birds

  And time.

  Waves grow down

  Leaving the fragile white lace of memory

  Weaving on the shore

  Standing with my feet

  Pressing in the cool of your last visit

  I welcome you.

  You have

  You are

  You give me life.

  And then you go.

  And somewhere else receives

  Somewhere I am not

  Sometime, I don’t know when

  Somehow, I will never know

  And I welcome that

  Somehow.

  She steadied the laptop while she curled her feet under herself, and the coolness of her toes felt good on the backs of her thighs. Settling down, she stared at the typed message from him staring back. Taking the last sip of ruby liquid, she let it rest on the back of her tongue a moment before allowing it to drift down her throat and warm her. “I will talk to Gasten on Monday,” she thought. “Tuscany in the spring really shouldn’t be missed.” She smiled a sad smile and made a little finger wave at the words on the screen. “I will welcome that, Mark. Somehow.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mark could raise his arm a little and feeling was coming back to

  his fingers as he extended his hands and passed into the city. Grabbing a robe as he strode through the ready room, he was still putting it on when he stepped out into the street. So many things had been racing through his mind on the way from the fight to the Dome, but it boiled down to two big questions. Why and how? Why didn’t Man-Den take the life-thought of his father? Why would he keep all that a secret from his mother and him? Why did this man, who Mark could never remember having met before, want to kill him and try on two different occasions? Also a question almost as big, was how? How could the knife, one of the royal treasures, be taken from the chamber? Only the king or one of the royal lines could be admitted to the room by the Dome. When he was gone from the city for so long before, that person could only have been his father the king. Now, since the king’s death, only he was granted entrance. But yet the knife was out and, not only that, the killer had activated the sheath and exposed the blade. That too should only be possible by one of the royal line.

  Soon he was well into the city. People were acknowledging him as he walked, but he didn’t respond. He was aware only that, as he passed, many of them stopped and stared at him, their voices fading into the background. He knew, somehow, the key to all the mysteries would lie with Man-Den. His house was Mark’s destination and he crossed the bridge over the shallow channel and turned onto the small avenue. He saw Len-Wei as she was coming out the door.

  “Ja-Lil, I am so happy my sister is…”

  “Where is Man-Den?” By the time he spoke, Mark had already passed his aunt and entered the house.

  Almost running to catch up, she informed him that her husband was in his study chamber.

  “But he has closed the wall. That is why I was going out because when he does that he cannot be disturbed for a long time.”

  Mark could hear the concern in her voice and knew it was his strange behavior that caused it. He had no time to offer an explanation.

  “The wall will open for me.” He ran up the few stairs that led to the alcove and onto the chamber of the minister. He could flex his left hand now and, as he rolled his shoulder a little, he could tell, though it was sore, it was not badly damaged. He stopped before the wall and put his right hand on the green nodule. There was a brief moment when nothing happened. There had never been a time before when the Dome had not responded immediately to his family’s commands. Barely had the thought come into his mind when he saw the seam appear and the wall begin to open.

  When the opening was complete, he stepped into the room. In the center, Man-Den turned to greet him.

  “Well, well. The boy king in the body of a man. Do not stand on ceremony. Please, come in.”

  Mark could hear the footsteps of Len-Wei as she came to a stop just outside the door.

  “Husband, I…” Her voice drifted into silence. The room was still. Mark could not speak either. In front of him, Man-Den stood behind a long table, which held the entire contents of the royal chamber. The bracelets, the gold box, the book of the ancients. It was all there. All but the knife. The holder lay empty directly in front of the minister.

  “Do not worry, Ja-Lil, it will be returned soon. Although I must say I am a little surprised to see you here.”

  Mark’s eyes rose from the empty case to Man-Den. The minister’s face in no way resembled the person he had known for all those years. He was smiling, and he held his arms over the table. But his eyes weren’t smiling. In them, Mark saw only the pure glare of hate.

  “You are resilient, boy, or is it just luck?”

  Whatever the answers were to what he saw before him, Mark only needed one thing now.

  “Why did you not take the life-thought of my father?” His own voice sounded strange in his ears.

  “Oh, but you are wrong. I did take it.” The minister walked along the table, his hand trailing lightly over the articles on it. He laughed, nothing more than a small giggle. “In fact, you are doubly wrong!” The laugh again.

  “Then why did you not deliver him to the Nari-Tanta?” Something inside of Mark started to sound a warning, and he turned slightly to face Man-Den squarely. “Where is he?”

  “He is here, my royal liege.” Man-Den touched his head and chest. “Very safe and right here.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “That’s right, you do not understand. And you certainly are the son of your father because he did not understand either.” His voice gained strength and all humor left it. “Nothing stays the same, Ja-Lil. It is not supposed to. We, our people, this city. None of it is meant to stay the same. We cannot live forever ruled by this old book of recipes.” He reached the end of the table and slammed his fist down on the book of ancients.

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “I do not intend anything. I have done it. I am leading. Only the king can control the Dome and activate these treasures.”

  A look of disgust came over Man-Den as Mark spoke.

  “Is that so? Then how do you explain them being here? How did the royal chamber open?”

  The sound of hate gre
w each time Man-Den spoke. “Anyone can control this city who has the talent. Why do you assume that the coincidence of birth gives someone the right to rule? My father had more talent than anyone in your great royal line.” He almost spat out the last three words before continuing. “And it disgusted me to see him bow and scrape to your grandfather. I would sit with him night after night while he droned on about our family’s privilege of serving the king. As a child, I would play with your father. We took our first tour together. There was no difference between us. Do you understand that?” The minister was yelling now and pacing the room. “There was not one thing that made him different than me, except his blood!”

  Mark knew he had to reason with Man-Den and pull him back from whatever ledge he was approaching.

  “You are the Minister of the Right and Left. It has been the honor of your line since the beginning.”

  “Right and Left mean nothing!” The explosion of his voice told Mark there would be no controlling this mad man. “There is only a Minister of the Right and Left because it says there must be in this.” Once again his fist pounded the ancient book.

  Both Mark and Len-Wei were silent. Neither of them moved. Mark, because each instant he was preparing what he might do next. His aunt, because she was stunned to immobility. Man-Den seemed to be responding to questions and statements that neither of them had asked.

  “Everything could just as well have come to me rather than your father. That is why, after you left on your final tour and failed to return, I knew fate had given me the opportunity to take the action I did.”

  Mark could feel the blood hitting the side of his head with every beat of his heart. He didn’t want to hear any of what was being said, while at the same time he felt like breaking open Man-Den’s body and exposing everything he knew.