“Oh, Chiyoko . . .” I say, turning to her. “Come here. . . .” And we embrace gently.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles, speaking quickly. “My condolences on the loss of your Mom! And—and congratulations, yes, for making it through the Games and winning! What you did in the end, with the Grail, was so weird and impossible—”
“Should you be up, Gwen? Go back upstairs and get in bed!”
I turn around, and it’s Oalla, sounding playful and bossy at the same time—except, her beautiful kohl-rimmed eyes are wide and serious. Oalla puts her hands on both my shoulders and rubs them gently but surely. “You need rest.”
“Thanks, but first I need to see all of you.”
“No, you don’t.” Oalla bites her lip and cranes her neck sideways at me, flipping her golden hair.
“Agreed,” Erita echoes her, stepping up and tweaking my cheek with a stern look and just a tiny twitch at the corner of her generous lips. “You’re a stubborn and tough Earthie, and now all of Atlantida knows and respects it, but you proved yourself enough for today. Seriously!”
“Aww, Erita. . . .”
“Yes, you definitely shouldn’t be here, Gwen,” Keruvat says, leaning down at me from his great height and contradicting his hard tone with the warmth brimming in his very dark eyes.
“Hi, Ker. . . .” I smile back at him, and Ker immediately softens and shakes his head in amusement.
Next to him, Xelio moves forward and stares down at me with his gorgeous dark eyes and a handsome face filled with intensity. “Gwen, they’re right. All of this can wait. We’d much prefer you to be rested and sensible, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Really, nothing here to see, go back upstairs!” And then he glances at Aeson, who stands quietly, watching me and everyone, with his arms folded across his chest. “Tell her, Kass!”
But Aeson makes a sound of bitter amusement and shakes his head.
Xel shakes his own head back at him and snorts, then folds his arms also, tapping the long elegant fingers of one strong hand against his upper arm.
Finally, I am faced with Gennio and Anu, who both keep back a little, allowing the others to crowd around me, but I can tell they’re as eager to greet me as anyone.
I wave at them. “Hi, Anu, hi, Gennio. . . . So, looks like I’m alive after all. Hope you made some money betting on me.” And I wink tiredly, keeping my fixed smile in place.
“Imperial Lady Gwen,” Gennio says properly, while Anu makes a sudden barking sound and says, “Hell, yeah! I did!”
At that everyone suddenly laughs, and the remaining minor awkwardness in the room is broken.
“What?” Anu exclaims, looking around at everyone. “So what if I did?”
“Anu—not appropriate!” Gennio reproaches him with a poke of his elbow.
“Whatever, fat-brain!” Anu retorts and then grins at me.
I shake my head with weary amusement. I can’t believe, I’ve actually missed Anu. . . .
And then, there’s Manala—the person I came down to see in the first place.
The Imperial Princess stands shyly waiting, keeping back even more than the two Imperial aides. I notice she is wringing her hands with nervous movements and biting her lip, and her smile is both eager and tentative at the same time.
As soon as we make eye contact, she raises her hands to her mouth, and then rushes into my arms. “Gwen! Oh, Gwen! You are alive and well! I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t, but you are!”
“I am!” I say warmly, pressing Manala close to me, smelling the light flowery scent of her golden hair, so much like her brother’s. “See, it all worked out, and I’m okay!”
She nods at once, pulling back and looking at me closely. “No. . . . Your Mother died, Gwen, I know you are not okay. But I love you very much and beg you . . . promise me, please be strong and live as long as possible, and don’t ever, ever die!”
I open my mouth to gently say I cannot make such an impossible promise, but Manala’s great eyes are brimming-full of liquid.
And so I nod and again smile, smile, smile at her. . . .
Manala appears to take my response as agreement and exhales loudly in relief. She innocently hugs me again and says, “And now you must eat!”
I can’t argue with that, and to be honest, my atrophied sense of hunger is starting to resurface. So I sit down on the sofa while Gracie brings me a large plate piled with food, and Manala follows with a carafe of my favorite nikkari juice.
I take a few careful small bites, which initially seem to go down like rocks, but I force myself to continue, because my rational mind tells me that I need to rebuild my strength.
While I eat, I begin to pay attention to what’s playing on the smart screen before me. Meanwhile, Aeson sits down beside me quietly and puts his arm across the back of the sofa without holding me directly, only now and then running his fingers lightly through my loose hair from behind. . . . His touch sends pleasant currents racing down my spine and distracts me just a little from eating and from watching.
Nevertheless, I make myself focus and stare at the screen.
The main feed playing in the center window shows the Atlantis Grail stadium in the bright light of noon, in complete disarray, moments after I’ve sung and lifted the Atlantis Grail “monument.” Of course, it turned out to be just the tip of an iceberg. As the Grail rose at my voice command, it became obvious that the cup shape did not have an ordinary foundation—it was a continuous part of something much larger, the top of some kind of immense subterranean object—an ancient ark-ship.
Apparently, this clip is being replayed, set on a continuous loop, and an Atlantean woman commentator’s voice is providing narration. The footage shows the Grail slowly rising, cracks forming in the arena floor around it, then in the rest of the stadium structure, the ground breaking up, people screaming and starting to run. However, it cuts out just before the voice of the Imperator sounds and everything comes to a halt. So, effectively all the audience sees is the moment of broken ground and general panic.
“. . . the Vocalist tiebreaker event was interrupted by a seismic event that resulted in significant structural damage to the Stadion building downtown,” the female newscaster says off-camera. “There is much speculation as to the causes, especially since there has not been any ground-motion activity in this region, and Poseidon is located on a very geologically stable portion of our local tectonic plate. . . .”
Laronda comes up behind me, leans over the back of the sofa, and whispers loudly in my ear. “This is the kind of vague crap they’ve been spinning all day,” she says with an angry sigh.
I turn around to glance at her and frown thoughtfully.
“That’s the Hel-Ra Network,” Oalla says, sitting down next to me on the other side, so that now I’m pressed comfortably between her and Aeson. “They have to be politically correct and Imperially conscious in how they relay the news. Let’s flip to a different feed.”
Oalla calls the smart screen TV closer, then touches one of the six smaller windows, which now becomes the main display. We see similar footage, except the feed loop shows a much longer section before and after, including me singing, the Grail rising, and the Imperator’s compelling voice interrupting everything. Then the camera pans to a studio, where a panel of eight news commentators sits around a table, with an anchor in the middle, arguing. The network logo shows a wave symbol with the label Free Poseidon News.
“It’s obvious this was not a natural phenomenon, but the direct result of the Vocalist’s performance!” a man says. “The Imperial Bride Gwen Lark had demonstrated a remarkable Voice ability earlier—we already knew from the Second Stage of the Games she was a power Vocalist, if you recall the Plural Voice Chorus—”
The panel members respond with enthusiasm and agitation.
“Yes, yes, that was an unforgettable moment! I felt chills of awe when she overrode the Plural Voice and took command of the field,” another man says. “But what does it imply? That our Earth Bride had a natural
power voice worthy of the Kassiopei?”
Nervous laughter sounds. “You don’t mean a Logos Voice?” a woman says with incredulity, and more laughter follows.
“No, of course not,” the anchor in the middle seat says. “But something very powerful, if we consider the mass and weight of the Atlantis Grail monument—”
“Indeed, now we begin to see why the Imperial Crown Prince Aeson chose her, in addition to any—how shall I put it—sentimental reasons!” another male commentator says.
“Now, now,” the anchor interrupts. “Let’s not be cynical. There is definitely a romantic bond between the young couple.”
“Oh, yes,” an older woman panelist says in a shaking voice. “True affection! I have no doubt of it now—”
“Hah! I do!” a much younger woman interrupts in turn. “The Gebi female is playing a very clever game! Oh, but she’s sharp and ruthless and so very powerful! Look how well she did in the Games. Nobody ever expected her to survive, much less win—but it’s obvious now, this whole thing was premeditated on her part. Gwen Lark insinuated herself in the Prince’s good graces, and now she is a Champion, and she commands so much potential political power through her union that the Imperator himself needs to be careful of her possible future influence—”
“What nonsense!” a male panelist says. “You are attributing so much negative ambition and intent to this admirable young woman. Look how well she brought together and led the members of Team Lark during each of the four Stages! She showed personal grace and leadership. When the time comes, she will be a wonderful Imperatris!”
“Getting back to the incident,” the anchor guides the conversation, “how do we explain what happened? Official channels insist it was a quake, but to anyone watching, the answer is much less clear. . . .”
“Timing is critical,” a man says. “If we can measure causality, the exact moments when the voice command sounded and the monument began to rise, and the destruction that followed. Yes, it is possible these events were perfectly timed to happen together only by pure coincidence.”
“Or maybe one thing led to the other!” another panelist says. “What if the monument’s dislodging sped up and initiated the imminent quake?”
“Enough! Let’s address the most important detail here,” the older woman interrupts. “The fact that the Earth Bride controlled the giant monument with only the strength and focus of her voice! It’s unprecedented! What does it matter if the quake came naturally or the monument caused it? I want to know how she managed the feat! What if her voice is indeed—”
“What bothers me, suddenly,” the anchor says, “is what the monument’s immense foundation started to reveal. What was it? Remember, we never saw the lower end of it as the foundation continued to rise out of the ground before the Imperial Sovereign put an end to it! Any ideas? Was there some kind of underground structure underneath the Grail? I’m sure our viewers in the audience would like to know!”
The panelists erupt in noisy argument.
Keruvat sits down next to Oalla and points at another feed happening in a smaller window, “Let’s switch there for a while—if that’s all right with you, Gwen?”
“Sure,” I say, still frowning with concentration.
But as soon as the new feed window is maximized, I regret it.
It shows real-time footage of the multi-stadium complex downtown, flooded with artificial night illumination. Whatever it is, it’s happening live, right now. . . . Crowds of people are filling all the open areas surrounding the various buildings—the Stadion itself, the clearings between it and the Imperial Kemet Forum known as the Kemetareon, the Nebetareon where I participated in that fateful interview on Tiago’s show, and other lesser Forums. People everywhere are shouting incomprehensible things, waving signs and fists, and holding up small, artificially lit hand-torches resembling vigil candles used on Earth, while guards and Corrector officers attempt to control them, keeping them away from the various building entrances.
The camera pans around, and a tense-looking reporter on the scene talks hurriedly in a close-up shot. “We have a very unusual situation developing,” he says breathlessly, starting to walk quickly in an aisle between blocked-off rows of the gathered public and city guards. “These people are here to express their extreme unhappiness with the unresolved end of today’s final portion of the Games—”
“Unhappiness? You can kill yourself, you stupid chazuf! I’ve lost a year’s savings—”
He is interrupted and shouted down by nearby protesters.
“Oh, crap,” Oalla says.
“This is not good,” Ker adds. “Change the feed again?”
“No, wait,” I say. I freeze suddenly, because I see several people in the crowd holding up signs depicting images of me. The pictures are not that awful school photo that I hate, but are complimentary graphic renderings of me in an idealized pose, holding up a winning grail—the way I did when I won the Triathlon Race and the Yellow Grail in Stage Four. The only reason I recognize myself in those pictures is because they are labeled, “Gwen Lark.”
Underneath my name, however, is another label. . . . The three lines, read together, evoke in me a sudden rush of chilling ice-cold.
Gwen Lark.
Our Imperatris.
Our True Goddess.
Stunned, I put my hands over my mouth.
But in that moment, Aeson’s wrist comm device starts to buzz softly. I glance at Aeson as he checks it, then looks up at me with a suddenly grave expression, saying, “It’s my Father, I need to take this call.”
I nod, while Aeson gets up and moves back from our grouping on the sofa. I stop watching the screen, even as the rest of my friends crowd in to stare at it, because I am suddenly much more concerned with what’s happening with Aeson.
I watch nervously as he stands near the wall, with his back turned, speaking so quietly I cannot hear.
Meanwhile Xelio starts to walk toward him, but Aeson shakes his head negatively and puts his hand up, halting Xelio from approaching.
Dawn, Hasmik, and Manala stand nearby also staring nervously, glancing from Aeson to the TV screen and back at me. Manala is back to wringing her hands nervously and clutching the edges of her shirt—a nervous habit of hers.
“Wait, what’s that?” Anu says, moving in right behind me and entirely too far into my personal space, nearly breathing down my neck. “Huh? Look!” And he points at another small window with a different feed. “Bring that one up!”
Oalla furrows her brow at him, but quickly calls up the window, so that for a moment the disturbing footage of the crowds downtown is replaced with a strange scene showing a grand intricate building that I’ve never seen before. I assume it’s an earlier recording because it’s showing a daytime scene. A male commentator is speaking, but for some reason I don’t recognize the words at all.
“Hey! That’s the Pharikon Palace in New Deshret!” Anu exclaims.
“What?” I say. “Where is that?”
“Not in Imperial Atlantida,” Oalla responds, biting her lip. “New Deshret is another country, on the other side of the planet.”
“What are they saying?” Anu grimaces.
It occurs to me, the feed audio is not in Atlanteo but some other unfamiliar language.
Great. . . . I think. Something else I don’t know that has some possible bearing on me.
Anu taps Oalla’s shoulder. “Hey! You speak Deshi, right? What are they saying?”
Oalla rolls her eyes at Anu, then returns her attention to the feed.
“Something about the Ra Disk,” she replies, but looks at me.
“The what?” Laronda says, squeezing in to stand behind the sofa, between me and Anu, elbowing him slightly in the process.
Anu snorts and turns to her with another, more pronounced grimace. “The Ra Disk, stupid Earth girl. It’s New Deshret’s equivalent of our Atlantis Grail.”
Laronda turns to face Anu, so that they are inches away, and glares at him like a boiling furna
ce. “Whatever that mouth-flapping thing you just did was, it made no sense. What the hell is the Ra Disk? Explain in English. We are aliens, remember?”
“It’s a big-ass monument in their capital city,” Anu whines, leaning even closer in her face.
But Oalla calmly elaborates, directing her answer to Laronda and me. “You two and the rest of you Earthies—” she nods at Hasmik, Dawn, and the others—“I don’t believe you’ve been instructed about the Ra Disk of Atlantis.”
“No,” I say tiredly. “We have not. . . .”
Oalla nods thoughtfully. “It’s in their capital city, a huge golden disk carved from a hillside and plated in gold. As big as our Atlantis Grail. It’s the ancient symbol of New Deshret.”
“Okay, weird and interesting,” Laronda says. “Or at least it really should be for you—right, Gwen? You’re the smarty-pants who likes all that ancient historical stuff.”
“Definitely,” I say, nodding. But my mind wanders back to the previous feed with the scene of the crowds and the signs with the pictures of me. . . . Our True Goddess.
In that moment Aeson finishes his call and returns.
“Gwen,” he says. “Tomorrow . . . my Father wants to see both of us.”
I look up at my beloved, and my forehead and brows move with emotion.
“Well, I don’t want to see him,” I say suddenly in a hard voice.
There’s a pause.
Everyone looks at us.
Aeson takes a deep breath and releases it, looking at me with intensity. “I know,” he says. “I don’t want to see him either.”
My lips part.
“But we have to,” Aeson adds firmly. “Not because of him. But because of this.” And he points at the smart screen where the footage of the strange foreign palace is replaced by a fascinating sight. A golden circular object of pure gold, set in deep hemispheric relief against a ruddy-orange stone hillside, is shown, flaming with the blinding light of Hel. It’s several stories tall in diameter, an immense sculptural achievement, rivaling indeed the grandeur of the Grail, and in some strange way seeming to complement it. . . .
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