by J. M. Rojas
CHAPTER 20: THE CHANGE
“I-I-I was going to speak with Will and Erin about the journey tomorrow,” Jack stuttered, his body covered in goosebumps and his heart pounding like a war drum. “Curious about time travel is all.”
He turned around and found Rykar glaring down at him. “I heard you, Son of Thomas,” he said in a harshly whispered and agitated voice. “I heard you rummaging around in the kitchen like the mice in this god-forsaken dungeon, eating the scraps with the dogs. The actions of a peasant from my world. Yours too, perhaps.”
“I didn't mean to—its just... Taran the cook said I could eat the leftovers in return for kitchen hand duties. I didn't get as much as a bite to eat during the feast. Your father had so many fascinating stories to tell—”
“My father has a lot of stories to say. However, none of them has helped our situation thus far, have they?”
Jack didn't know how to answer. The larger man was a seasoned warrior—and so was he, if you counted his dad's combat memories that now inhabited his brain and reflexes—who didn't appear to be easily swayed with excuses or pleasantries. He could tell Rykar did not like him. Despised him, even.
Rykar's strong hands suddenly grabbed Jack's shirt below his chin and knotted it into two fists. The big man then pushed him against the door and pinned him with his weight. The Atlantean's hard-angled face loomed down at Jack, and his words felt like they were being spat in his face. “I did not like your father. He was too pious. More than Mathias or my father combined.
The teenager squirmed and tried unsuccessfully to move his face away from Rykar's uncaring gaze; whatever strength he had left was comparable to that of a kitten caught in its mother's jaws.
“You are truly pathetic.” Rykar's words were fire in his ears and on his skin. “Did you think I would believe that you are a willing to make a sacrifice for our cause? Your father refused to travel back to our time and destroy the Crown. Outright refused! He claimed that it would lead to greater woes for this world. What a deluded fool! I know why he said these things. It was not fear. It was his love for the natives. If our world was saved, they would cease to exist. Your mother would cease to exist. You would cease to exist.”
Jack knew what Rykar was insinuating. If they went back in time and destroyed the Crown, the events that lead to the destruction of the Three Empires would not have happened, their advanced civilisation would not have become extinct. This would mean Jack's and everybody else's ancestors would most likely not have lived, and he would... cease to exist, as Rykar had put it.
He could not entertain those thoughts. Jack had been warned by Mathias not to engage in any conversations about their quest to anyone. Mathias' warning was shrouded in mystery, he hadn't explained how they were going to destroy the Crown and save his world at the same time. To be honest, Jack felt deep inside that Mathias didn't know himself. But he had told him that the answers were in his head, so that was all he could trust. His head. His unlocked memories. His father's plan for him and their people. There was a way for salvation for both their worlds. He just didn't know it yet.
Calming his thoughts, Jack remained quiet, not wanting to provoke Rykar's mood any further.
“I begged him,” the warrior continued, not seeing Jack's hidden thoughts, “we all did, to return in the Rising Hope and use his knowledge of the Crown to destroy it. Only Toram knew the secrets of its undoing. The Aer'Ashan favoured him above all the Gaianar, and so imparted their lore and wisdom on to him. Now that wisdom is inside your head.”
“I don't know how to retrieve it,” Jack said in barely a whisper; his eyes locking with Rykar. “If I could, I would. I would tell you everything—”
“Lies!” Rykar hissed. “I find it hard to believe that you would sacrifice your own world for mine! If your father would not, you most certainly won't. There is something going on that Mathias hasn't told us, which I am going to get to the bottom of. Mark my words. My eyes are on you, and your secrets will not stay hidden for long.”
“Rykar,” Will's voice suddenly came from the dark of the hall behind them. “Can we help you?”
The Atlantean warrior released Jack's shirt and stepped away, blinking into the direction of the speaker. “I was simply asking the boy questions about his motives.”
“His motives are the same as ours,” the Hy-Bresailian said, stepping into the light of the gloam orbs.
“Will!” Jack cried in relief.
“Mathias will not appreciate your interrogation of Toram's son,” Cloak added, stepping up beside William. “It is a foolish move, Rykar.”
“There are questions that need answers,” Rykar said darkly, “answers that Mathias has not yet shared with us. How can we trust this boy, when his very world will cease to exist after our quest is complete?”
Jack was about to say something, but was silenced by Cloak's cold, sharp eyes.
“Have you not considered,” Will said, and he stepped in front of Rykar with his arms folded, “that Jack and his family will be taken with our people back to our time once the mission is complete. Mathias, and your father, has already decided to honour Toram's memory this way.”
Rykar, who was an inch shorter than Will, screwed his face up in anger, but did not dare to say any more. He seemed to be mulling over the reason the younger Atlantean had given him. Then, giving Jack one last glance, he walked around the Hy-Bresailian and stormed off into the long hallway, the sound of his boots clacking on the marble floor echoing after him. When his silhouette passed into shadows, Jack sighed.
“He is one to be careful of, Jack,” Will said with soft eyes, his stern face falling away. “Rykar has always been an opponent of your father and Mathias' plans.”
“Why are you standing in front of our door?” Cloak asked in his wispy voice, his charcoal eyes boring into Jack.
“I wanted to know about the journey tomorrow,” the teenager lied, trying to collect his thoughts. Then he deflected any further questions with his own. “Where have you both been? And where is Layla, Ramose and Mathias?”
“We will ask the questions—” Cloak said, but was silenced by Will's finger to his lips.
“We must leave quickly,” his companion said, his golden hair sparkling under the gloam light of a nearby orb like yellow straw. “Rykar may not be the only ears here.”
“You're coming with us,” the Nysaean said, grabbing Jack by the forearm and pulling him down the hall from whence they came. “Mathias will tell you everything.”
“Everything?” Jack said with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”
However the answers to his questions were not forthcoming, and Will and Cloak escorted Jack down the hall, through a door, and down a flight of stairs to the lower levels of the Chamber of Lore.
“Where are they?” Layla asked Mathias. She paced impatiently back and forth in front of the door of the small chamber, fidgeting with her hair. The tall, stern general stood in the far corner, his glowing eyes piercing out. He did not answer. “Jack better not be lost. It would be typical of him, though. Can't stay put when we tell him to.”
They were in a small janitor's room, full of brooms, mops and old rags hanging from wooden hooks on four grimy walls. A bucket of soap-oily water sat by the door, its suds all gone. A strange place for a meeting, Layla had thought.
The High Librarian sat on a small chair at an empty table, with his forehead resting on the knuckles of his steepled hands, and his eyes downcast on the grain of the table-top. Heavy thoughts weighed down on him like the shadows in the room, which were broken by one solitary gloam-orb protruding from a wall bracket. “He was in the kitchen last I heard,” Oreus finally said, lifting his gaze over his fingers to look at the girl. “Feeding my dogs.”
“They are here,” Mathias answered suddenly, throwing his stare to the door. Layla opened it quickly, and poked her head into the hallway beyond. She then stepped back and ushered three figures into the room before closing the door. When Will, Cloak and Jack were huddled together, the general waved them ove
r to him.
“Jack,” Layla said softly, walking up beside the teenager and nudging him with her elbow. “Tucking into Taranʼs leftovers, hey? Thought you'd be resting up for tomorrow, not stuffing your face. Boys.”
“Hey, I was still hungry.” He didn't sound convincing.
“Something you're not telling me,” Layla said, raising a brow suspiciously.
“Um... I... will tell you later.” He ended their whispered talk when he saw Mathias standing resolutely before them. His glowing eyes flitting between the youths.
Layla caught her question before she asked it, and turned abruptly from Jack to the general.
“Come forward, Jack,” Mathias said, reaching out a hand to the teenager. “I will lead you into the Chamber of Sleep. A room that was rescued from the sunken ruins of our great city, Atlantis. There we will unravel your head and see those memories that Thomas has hid for us. Finally, you will reveal to us all the answers we need for this quest.”
“It won't hurt will it?” Jack asked, drawing a snicker from Cloak and an elbow from Layla.
“No,” the giant general said sternly, “there will be no pain.”
Wincing from the elbow, Jack stepped up beside Mathias, who turned and touched the stone wall with both his open palms. His glowing white eyes shone on the stone wall as he murmured an Atlantean word.
“A'thaimnen'lel.”
“Words of Command,” William said over Jack's shoulder. “He said 'mountain rain'. The Chamber of Sleep is sealed by spoken words that are different for each day. There are forty eight phrases, and Mathias knows them all. Get the word for that day wrong and the Chamber will be sealed for an entire year. Also, the doorway moves to different walls in the Library, never resting in the same place for too long.
Jack looked astounded.
“It was built for the Emperor of Lemuria to house his most prized secrets. It is immune to thought projection. You cannot see inside it.”
“Does anyone else know about—” Jack started to ask Will.
“No,” Oreus said, walking up behind him and resting a hand on his shoulder. “Only us, Jack.”
A rolling groan, a cloud of dust, and the stone wall rolled back two feet from the other wall that formed the corner of the room, revealing a long, dark passage.
“Follow me,” Mathias said, and he turned and stepped into the rectangle of blackness. His shadow on the floor disappearing with him.
Jack stepped quickly after Mathias, and heard the footsteps of the others following. At the end of the passageway he saw a bright light from the Chamber of Sleep beyond. Sound was muted around him, except for the pounding of his own heart in his chest and the faint tapping of boots on stone. Jack could also feel the ground moving beneath him as if the passage was rotating on an axis in the chamber—looking back, he saw the entrance from the shabby room they had all been standing in moments before quickly closing. The last sliver of weak gloam-light disappeared in a wink as the entrance was gone by the shifting walls. Jack looked forward again to find a thin veil of blue light, like a curtain, hanging before the doorway into the large round room. Mathias' back had just disappeared through it, unscathed. Jack hesitated for a couple of seconds in front of the shimmering, transparent wall, before reaching out a trembling hand. Touching it with his index finger, Jack felt a strange tingling sensation travel up his spine. When no pain followed, he rushed forward, aided by an impatient shove from hands he suspected were Layla's and stumbled after Mathias' heels.
The Chamber of Sleep was a circular, domed room with several doorways leading into it. Each entrance, except for the one they all entered from, were sealed by tall metal doors that were engraved in the languages of the Three Empires. The walls were blue coloured metal that seemed to glow, and emanate a high pitched melody that was almost inaudible above the sound of the cogs beneath the ground, which turned the room like a carousel ever so slowly. The strange music was metallic sounding, like chimes; a ringing vibration, which the companions could feel as well as hear.
Jack looked back at the way they had come. The wall of blue light still wavered like a mirage over the entrance to the chamber, but it had moved further away as the room turned.
“The Chamber's Veil,” Oreus said, answering Jackʼs unsaid question. “It only allows those whose names are on the mind of the Speaker to enter. If Mathias did not think of you whilst stepping through the gate, you would be dead from touching it. Burned into nothing.”
Jack felt goosebumps tickle all over his skin at the thought of burning into nothing. “Glad he was thinking of us, then,” he said, laughing nervously.
In the centre of the chamber, they saw a statue of a bald headed man sitting on a thrown, all made from the same blue metal as the walls. The statue stood on a circular dais, like a giant coin, ringed with blue glowing stones embedded into square panels along its edge. There was three empty panels that did not have any stones in them, but slots where they could be fitted.
When Jack looked upon the statue's face, he realised it looked male and female at the same time, and its eyes were closed. Fine cracks along the eye lids suggested that they could move and reveal something behind... but what?
The teenager took a step towards it, but Layla grabbed his sleeve, yanking him to a halt. “Don't,” she whispered harshly. “Wait a second.”
“Here,” Mathias said, his back to the group, “Amnaeus, the Last Emperor of Lemuria, hid the Crown of Dreams upon the Statue of Abadendros' brow. Forever locked behind the moving doors. Behind the Chamber's Veil. Until...” his words went low and he turned to face them finally, “Ka'ash II, Emperor of Rama, brought his war to Atlantis. Then our fair lord took the Crown and used it, against my warning. Used it to wrought ruin upon his enemies, our enemies. And... the demise of our world.”
That last memory seemed to linger in Mathias's eyes behind a sheath of unshed tears. A hard swallow, and the general turned back to the statue. “Abadendros was one of the inventors of the Chamber of Sleep. A fellow Gaianar and friend of mine. He created the memory stones, which can store thought. Each one of those glowing stones carries a secret only the Emperor knew. Important secrets locked away for dire needs, such as this. Jack, I will need you to stand here.”
Layla's fingers released his arm, and Jack stumbled up beside Mathias and the statue.
The general then reached into one of the inner pockets of his jacket and retrieve a clear stone, which he showed him in cupped hands. Inside it crackled small lightening arcs, bouncing against the surface and webbing into more arcs. “This stone will draw from you the sealed thoughts you have been carrying. Your father told me during his last days that I would have to take you to the Chamber of Sleep to unlock the location of the Crown and how we are to destroy it.”
“Why didn't he simply leave it as a self-releasing memory like all the other ones?” Jack asked the stony-faced general. “Like the combat memories?”
“Because he feared that Kaelan and his rebels would find you and pry those thoughts from you. I believe that he put up a lot of barriers inside your mind to safe guard its release. Safe guards that could seriously hurt any invasive thoughts from others. Only with this device can we hope to retrieve them. Now touch the stone.
Jack nodded and complied without hesitation. For some reason instinct told him it was right. His hands reached out and touched the cold oblong stone. Mathias wrapped his fingers over Jack's and held them firmly, then let go.
“You must place the stone into the dais of the statue. It will activate the projector and we will see what we must do.”
Hands gripping tight, Jack knelt down before the statue of Abadendros and placed the stone in one of the empty sockets of the dais. The instant the stone fitted into place there was a surge of energy that raced down each of Jack's arms and into the stone, lighting it up in the same blue light that pulsed from the other Memory Stones. A flood of memories suddenly flashed through Jack's mind like the flicking pages of a photo album, giving him brief glimpses of faces a
nd places he didn't have a chance to catch or recognise due to the speed of their passing. Then, before he gasped for air, they were gone.
“The statue's eyes!” Layla cried, breaking through Jack's concentration.
Looking up, he saw the statue's metal eye lids slowly receding up into its head, revealing two bright beams of white light that flooded into the chamber. Jack scrambled to his feet and took several steps backwards towards the others.
“The memories are ready to be projected,” Mathias said, anticipation subtle in his voice. “The mechanisms set in Jack's mind to snare intruders has been lifted.”
A shimmering orb began to form from the two beams of lights shooting out from the statue's eyes. Gradually the beams themselves lessened until they were merely hair thin. The orb expanded and then exploded outwards, consuming the chamber and its occupants...
Jack felt like he was falling. He couldn't see his own body when he frantically reached with invisible hands to pat himself all over. His mind was echoing, throbbing with a chiming sound that was very similar to music coming from the Chamber of Sleep's walls.
Then all his thoughts were quiet, and all sound was gone.
Darkness surrounded him like a cloak wrapped tight around his body, restricting him. Gradually, however, it began to fade away, slackening the anxious fist around his heart, and his body felt light.
A deserted coastline appeared before him. Rocks buttressed a turbulent sea like jagged teeth, and stars studded a night sky, reaching far across a silhouetted landscape of distant mountains. Small clusters of trees appeared like solemn sentinels across a grassy field, tall and still, and a large moon looked down upon a little pond, reflecting its face on the water's surface. The grass became patchy around the lake, before ending at a long descending slope of sand, which trailed into the foam of the crashing waves.
A silhouette of a man stood amongst the trees by the pond. He seemed to be saying something to the dark; voice low and inaudible against the wind and the backdrop of the roaring ocean.
It isn't deserted after all. Jack thought. But... I can't hear what he's saying—
In the blink of an eye, Jack was suddenly right next to the figure, who was no longer a silhouette. His appearance was visible under the glare of the moon.
Father! He cried, recognising Thomas' face. Before he could say anymore, a tremor shook the ground, and a ripple dispersed from the centred of the pond, breaking Jack's attention.
A towering man—if man it was—suddenly loomed up out of the pond in a spray of water, and waded towards the edge, towards his father. Gradually the being was revealed as it made its way out of a seemingly deep body of water, stepping up onto the bank. Its head was bowed to its chest under the low hanging branches of a nearby tree, and under the light of the moon, Jack noticed its body was as black as midnight. It took the teenager a moment to realise that the blackness of its form was in fact armour; a hard surface of obsidian, which shimmered with the running rivulets of pond water.
“I have come upon your invitation, Toram, Gaianar of Atlantis, Servant of the Sorrarani,” the strange giant said in a deep, hollow voice from behind its black visored helmet. “Come to the one who harbours the Crown of Dreams. The Destroyer of the World.”
Jack's eyes grew wide. “Dad has the Crown?” he could barely speak; his voice sounded dull and far away. “But how? Father!”
When his father did not respond to his cry, Jack caught himself, remembering that Thomas, the stranger and the beach were all a projected memory from the Statue of Abadendros. Released from the Memory Stone he had channeled it into.
He was lucid in his father's memory.
I'm still in the Chamber of Sleep, he thought. But it all seems so real...
For a moment Jack had fooled himself into thinking he could feel the ocean breeze tickling his skin and filling his nostrils with the scent of salt. Could feel the soft, sandy grass between his toes. In truth, he felt disconnected, as if his thoughts were his only presence in the memory.
“And it is an honour to meet you, Armak Tor'Kai,” Thomas said, bowing low to the visitor. “Great Messenger of the Mir. Teacher of Men.”
The giant spread his arms out wide, and arched his head back, standing as tall as he could. To Jack's surprise, the armoured plates suddenly split down the centre of the chest plate, releasing a cracking sound like a crab being pried open by a knife and fork. The obsidian plates then began moving and shifting around the sides of the creature, overlapping each other as they merged at a central point at the back, revealing the creature within.
A human-shaped creature, who was translucent like a luminous jellyfish, peeled itself out of the armour and stepped forward onto the grass. The black armour remained standing perfectly still. Motes of light glowed beneath the creature's flesh, and its skeletal structure was also partly visible as dark shapes. The face of the Mir had a small slit for a mouth, no nose, and two hollows that dipped to pearl-coloured orbs for eyes. Three gills on either side of its neck moved rhythmically with each breath it took, and tiny tuffs of glowing tentacles waved in patches across its muscular body. Around his neck hung a silver chain, baring a circular medallion. A symbol that was etched on that medallion was alien to Jack, and did not look like the writings of the Three Empires he had seen.
It is a symbol of his house. Mathias' voice came out of the wind, causing him to jump. A faint outline of the general suddenly began to take shape next to Jack, made of thin laces of silver light. When his body was fully visible, he reached out and touched Jack's shoulder and the teenager became visible as well. Armak Tor'Kai is a messenger. His people, the Mir, were our teachers. Our ancient Gods during the time of creation. Though, they say they did not make us.
Armak Tor'Kai stepped up to Thomas, crouched down and briefly touched the Atlantean's forehead with his right index finger. “U'ark ol'lesha tha'mos thee'shan,” the Mir said in its deep voice. “The waves part for you, Thomas, to bare you the knowledge you seek. And a warning.”
“The Crown is safe,” Thomas replied, touching the Mir's forehead in its customary greeting.
“For now,” Armak Tor'Kai said, standing. “The waves are restless, and your people are at war. The rebels have also attempted to contact us. But they have not found the Sea of Light, nor the ways to our kingdoms. Few do. But we have found their messages. Such messages will go unheeded by my people, of course, for we are governed by The Change, and it has warned us against such alliances with Kaelan.”
Looking disturbed by this news, Thomas swung away from the Mir, casting a pensive gaze out across the pond. “What is this warning you must give me?” he asked, pacing along the edge of the glittering water.
Armak Tor'Kai followed him with his pearl-like eyes, his expression unreadable. “We know that you do not wish to go back to the past, Toram. We know your heart is here, in this time. You have told me of your family and I could see the love in your eyes when you spoke of them. You do not want to destroy the Crown before the Fall. You want to destroy it now... and destroy the Rising Hope, to prevent a way back.”
“This is something my people do not understand,” Thomas replied, bitterly. “They want to return to the time of the Three Empires. And I can't blame them.” He then turned to face the Mir and his visage was determined. “But my heart is here, now. We are all here, now. Changing the past will only meddle with the Aether. I am a Gaianar and I have sworn to protect the Flow of the Aether. By right, we should have died during the Fall! What is this warning you have for me?”
“We are of the same mind then, Toram,” the Mir said, surprising Thomas with its answer. The eldritch giant extended out two empty hands compassionately. “We agree that the Crown of Dreams must be destroyed in this time.
Jack felt Mathias' hand grip his shoulder firmly.
“In the High Temple of our city,” Armak Tor'Kai continued, “in the Mirror of Worlds, the Change showed us the Flow of the Aether. Showed us what the future would hold for all our peoples if the Crown was destroyed
in the past, just as your people would want it. Sparing your civilisations from destruction. It is a dark future, Toram. Full of despair. Not only for Man and Mir alike, but for Gaia itself. The planet will suffer.”
Thomas was taken aback. “Go on,” he said, his eyes glowing in intense white fire.
“Emperor Ka'ash II will finally defeat Atlantis, and the Three Empires will unite as one under his crimson banner. Then the lands will begin their transformation. The destruction of all forests and jungles, and the construction of the great cities of Rama. Cities far larger and grander than the ones you see now. With their black towers, like fingers pointing accusation at the heavens.
“During this age, technology will finally be able to unlock the mystery of immortality, giving the Ramaean Lords unending lives. They will become the new gods of a subjugated people. Your people, Thomas, and even mine. A soulless empire built on the backs of slaves. All the royal lines will be abolished, and your friends and loved ones will be enslaved for their allegiance to the old kings. The Sorrarani will be executed, by order of the Ever-living Emperor, Ka'ash II. He who will live to see thousands of years untainted by the age of time.”
Falling to his knees, Thomas dropped his gaze into the sandy grass in despair. “No, this cannot be. I cannot let this happen.”
“Neither can I,” Jack whispered by Mathias' side. His eyes were locked on his father with determination, and he did not notice Oreus, Will, Cloak and Layla materialising beside him.
“No, and neither can we,” Armak Tor'Kai said. “Your civilisation was prophesied to fall, and fall it must. You must go back to the past and retrieve the Maker's Hand. A hammer created by the Azlazarani who made the Crown of Dreams. Only it can destroy that accursed thing. For the Crown is connected to the Aether by an ethereal knot, an invisible bind that cannot be undone by simply destroying its physical form.”
“I have heard of the Maker's Hand,” Thomas said, standing. “The Aer'Ashan told me of it. However, it disappeared when the Azlazarani entered the Aether. It was never found—”
“It was,” the Mir cut in, stepping closer to him. “It was found by several Sorrarani priests and was sent by sea ship to Atlantis before her siege. Its last known whereabouts to my people—for we directed that ship in good faith—was the port city of Imnalain along the Silver Song River. What happened afterwards, we do not know. Our guides did not return. And even now, the currents of the deepest oceans do not reveal the whereabouts of the hammer.
“So, you must return with the Rising Hope, Toram, and seek the city of Imnalain. Retrieve the Maker's Hand and come back here, to this time, to destroy the Crown of Dreams. Let this new generation of Man live and find their destiny with the Flow of the Aether. Your people's time is over.
“Now, I must tell you where your people can find your lost city of Atlantis.”
