Temple of the Gods

More minutes passed, the gaps in the translation gradually filling in. Some parts remained blank; either the condition of the orichalcum sheet was too poor for the computer to pick out the letters, or the words were simply unknown, having never been found in any previously translated Atlantean texts. But even with gaps, Nina saw a clear narrative taking form.

‘It’s what I thought,’ she said softly. ‘This really is an account of the last days of Atlantis — the last hours, even. Someone was still keeping records right up until it fell into the ocean.’

‘What caused it?’ asked Eddie.

‘From the look of this… Nantalas herself. And the sky stone. Listen.’ She began to read the translation, attempting to smooth out the computer’s awkward and over-literal phrasing. ‘“The king and the royal court came to the Temple of the Gods to witness Nantalas bring together all three keys of power and touch them to the sky stone. There was much…” This is a bit jumbled — ah, something like “awe and terror as the great stone rose from the ground, shining with a holy light”.’

‘So it’s definitely earth energy, then,’ Eddie mused. ‘I don’t get it. It would have been like having nuclear power back in the Stone Age. How could it be forgotten about for eleven thousand years, apart from when Merlin and King Arthur fluked into using it with Excalibur?’

Nina was reading ahead. ‘I think I know. “Nantalas commanded the stone to rise and fall, using no words but those in her thoughts. She then told the court that she would…” I guess in context it would have to be “demonstrate”, “she would demonstrate the power that would crush the enemies of Atlantis. But…”’

‘But?’ said Matt after a moment. ‘Come on, Nina, don’t leave us hanging!’

‘It didn’t exactly go as planned,’ she told the two men. ‘The computer couldn’t translate some of the words, but there’s enough to get the gist. Basically, the demonstration blew up in her face.’

‘Literally?’ said Eddie.

‘Pretty much. It says there was lightning, “a storm unmatched in history as Zeus unleashed his fury upon those who had dared to claim the power of the gods as their own”. Huge earthquakes, buildings collapsing — and great waves. Where we are now, the Temple of Poseidon, was right at the heart of the Atlantean capital — and it was directly connected to the Atlantic by canals, so it was essentially at sea level. The text describes huge waves sweeping inshore.’

‘Atlantis sinks beneath the waves,’ said Matt ruefully. ‘Just like the legends always said.’

‘There’s something else, though.’ Nina read on. ‘“The sky stone itself was snatched into the heavens on a thunderbolt, flying to the southeast faster than an arrow.” The southeast…’ She tailed off.

‘What are you thinking?’ Eddie asked.

‘When I was in Tokyo, the feeling that I somehow knew the direction something was in… it was off to the west. Two hundred and sixty degrees, Takashi said. I wonder…’ She opened another application, bringing up a map of the world. ‘Here’s Atlantis,’ she said, pointing at a spot between the coasts of Portugal and Morocco. ‘And here —’ her finger moved across to Japan — ‘is Tokyo. Two hundred and sixty degrees west from there would intersect a line going southeast from Atlantis somewhere around… here.’

‘Eastern Africa,’ said Matt, looking at the map.

‘That doesn’t narrow things down much,’ Eddie commented. ‘You think the stone ended up there? How?’

‘Some sort of earth energy reaction, perhaps. We already know it could levitate against the planet’s own magnetic fields, so maybe whatever Nantalas did overcharged it, actually repelled it and sent it flying off across half a continent.’ She scrolled down through the translation. ‘Nantalas tried to find it.’

‘How?’

‘She still had the three statues. They gave her a… I don’t really want to call it a vision, because of the supernatural overtones, but since I had one myself I don’t really know how else to describe it. She told the king it had ended up in…’ She read the translated words several times before coming up with a way to express them properly. ‘I think it’s “the Forge of Hephaestus”. Hephaestus was the god of blacksmiths and craftsmen,’ she continued, anticipating the question, ‘and also fire and volcanoes.’

‘So you think the stone ended up in a volcano?’

‘Considering what else happened in Atlantis, I’d say it was a possibility. Listen to this: “The mountains north of the city are spewing fire and ash. The island shakes as the gods of the land and the sky and the sea all turn their anger upon Atlantis.” Interesting — the text’s now in the present tense. It’s not a record for posterity any more, more like a last journal entry… “The witch Nantalas has begged the king for her life. She says she can find the sky stone. The king asks her why, when it has brought only destruction and the wrath of the gods upon the empire. She says a new Temple of the Gods must be built and the sky stone sealed in it for eternity, so that nobody may ever again repeat her blasphemy.” She managed to convince him to let her lead the search.’

‘Crikey, she must have been one hell of a good talker,’ said Matt. ‘I’m amazed he didn’t give her the chop on the spot.’

‘I think she knew that even if she found it, she would still be killed for what she’d done. But I guess the king thought it was worth trying — if they could pacify the gods, maybe they could save Atlantis.’

Eddie shook his head. ‘Well, we know how that turned out. But did she find it?’

‘I don’t even know if she managed to escape Atlantis before it sank. We’re almost at the end of the text.’ Nina became more solemn as she read the last few lines. ‘“The people are fleeing, but there are not enough ships. One of the mountains has collapsed into the earth, leaving only a pillar of fire. Even the great temples are falling. Only the Temple of Poseidon is strong enough to hold, and I do not know for how long.” And then…’ She brought the composite image back up on the laptop’s screen, pointing out the final words. ‘The inscriptions are much cruder now — they were written in a hurry. “The king and queen have fled. The dead lie in the streets. The ground does not stop shaking. The gods have cursed us. The sea…”’

‘What?’

She gave Eddie a grim look. ‘It says, “The sea is rising. Atlantis falls.” And that’s where it ends.’

‘Christ. That’s pretty bloody biblical.’

‘The end of an entire civilisation,’ she said, almost sadly. ‘We know there was a disapora that survived for a few centuries, but eventually the last Atlanteans were conquered, died, or absorbed by other cultures. But it all ended right here — when Nantalas thought she could control earth energy.’

‘But she blew it. Literally.’

‘Right. It seems that she channelled so much energy through the meteorite that it caused an earthquake, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis…’ She gestured at the main viewport, outside which the second submersible was still photographing the rest of the inscriptions. ‘She sank the entire island. I remember when we first found Atlantis, someone had the theory that the collapse of a subterranean volcanic caldera could account for how it ended up eight hundred feet below the surface. If that’s right, then it was an uncontrolled release of earth energy that actually caused it.’

‘One person could do all that?’ Matt asked in disbelief.

‘One person can kill a million — if they happen to have their finger on the trigger of an atomic bomb. That’s essentially what happened. They didn’t know what they were dealing with… and their arrogance, their hubris, destroyed them. It’s like you said, Eddie — it’s as if they had nuclear power eleven thousand years ago. Only they didn’t have the knowledge or the wisdom to use it properly.’

‘Do we now?’ he replied, not entirely rhetorically.

The silence that followed was unexpectedly broken by a chirp from the LIDAR system. ‘What was that?’ Nina asked.

‘I dunno,’ said Matt, turning back to the instruments. ‘That’s the rangefinder — it means something new’s just come into scanning distance. But there shouldn’t—’

The sharp boom of an explosion shook the submersible — followed by an even louder crump of crushed metal as Gypsy imploded in front of them.

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