Orionae pulled the old man up off the ground. “I know. All the more reason why you should get on that boat and go to the land across the ocean and tell people what you have just told me. Tell the people the meaning of happiness and a rich life. Tell the world of the bitter defeat we of Atlantis have tasted. You must do so—or this kind of tragedy could very well occur again.”
The old man shook in Orionae’s arms.
“Now go!” the legate said.
“No! I’m going to the palace!” the son shouted, turning to dash across the courtyard.
“Wait, no!” The old man jumped as though he’d been electrocuted.
“I will find your son,” Orionae said, giving the man a push in the direction of the quays. “You must go ahead to the harbor. Quickly!”
There was no one to be seen on the stair in front of the palace; the great edifice itself sat like an abandoned ruin, distinct in its darkness from the brilliance of the fires below. From halfway up the stair, one could look down on the raging sea of flame and the starry sky where the other half of the city had been.
The layer of smoke that rose from the fires stopped where the starry sky began, as though blocked by some invisible wall. Any flames that reached that dark divide were cut off there, their flickering tongues bending down and spiraling upward, searching for some egress.
What could have happened to an entire half of the city? Orionae wondered as he had many times already. Still no answer presented itself.
The great ringed metropolis, populated by four hundred thousand souls, and forty kilometers across until today, had been reduced to rubble. What had been home to so many was no longer a fit place for human survival.
I must meet with Poseidonis the Fifth. The need for answers threatened to burst Orionae’s heart. From whence did the House of Atlas come—and who were these people?
Bizarrely, this was the first time he had ever thought to ask this question. The story of the founding of the Kingdom of Atlantis, told in tales by his forebears and recorded in the ancient texts, was already legend. It seemed that the people of the kingdom didn’t actually wonder, even out of plain curiosity, where the House of Atlas had actually come from.
One day, they came down from the sky.
That was all they had—the beginning of everything—and that was enough.
One day, they came down from the sky.
As long as everything was going well, who needed more? But when the time of peace had passed and the people began to feel uneasy about their welfare—when tragedy struck, and they looked for the causes and origins of their unhappiness—every doubt led back to this one question: from whence did the House of Atlas come? A question for which it was no longer possible to claim an answer.
The corridors of the palace shone brightly with cold light. These giant passageways, built to accommodate the massive frames of Poseidonis the Fifth and Atlas the Seventh, rose almost twenty meters from floor to ceiling. But the only living being moving through all that space now was Orionae.
The legate hurried along the angled slidewalk that led up to the second floor, a vast conveyor that crept along like a giant annelid. Enormous doors stood in pairs on either side of the passageway. The doors were equipped with sensors and would slide open to admit any who stood before them. Some of the rooms were familiar to Orionae—the council chamber, the offices of the Privy Council. He passed them all by, running from the second floor on up to the third.
The third level also appeared deserted. The palace was said to have sixteen or seventeen floors in all, though even the legate Orionae had never been higher than the sixth. He had only a vague conception of the work that went on within the palace and had never really thought to find out more. He knew that Chief Secretary Iras and his dozens of aides took care of most of it, though Iras himself was rarely seen in public.
“Your Majesty!” Orionae shouted down a vacant corridor. “It is I, the legate Orionae! Where are you?”
His voice drifted down the passage, fading into the distance. After an instant’s hesitation Orionae continued on, his pace wavering slightly, following the receding echoes of his own voice. He hadn’t the slightest idea whether he was headed deeper into the palace, or making his way toward an exit.
“Your Majesty! Orionae has come! Your Majesty, where are you?” he shouted in both directions.
“I’m here.”
A tremendous fear struck Orionae, and he braced himself so he would not collapse on the spot.
“What do you want, legate?”
He looked around but saw no sign of Poseidonis the Fifth—only his own shadow wavering in the bright, cold light that fell upon the metal of the corridor floor. And yet with his entire body Orionae could sense the presence of Poseidonis the Fifth looming powerfully above him.
“Your Majesty! You must tell me what this means. Why do you strike down your own people?”
“Legate. I will soon report on my failure to the Planetary Development Committee. Yet understand that this failure is only one of my results. Legate, you saw the fire? It was that fire that foiled my plans, the greatest barrier to the designs of the committee, and our final answer.”
“Your Majesty!”
“It is likely that we shall never again appear before you or the people of this city.”
“Your Majesty—wait! Where did the other half of the city go? How did it disappear? Will it come back? Please tell me, Your Majesty! What is the starry sky I see outside that has appeared in place of the lost city?”
There was no answer. Orionae felt the towering presence of Poseidonis the Fifth grow gradually weaker, fading into the distance.
He could smell smoke in the corridor now. The fires must have reached the palace walls. It was all over.
Everything was over, headed for an ending beyond the reach of his hands to save.
What would come next? A primitive society, such as the one the old man by the fountain had described? Would darkness visit the hearts of men?
Or would everything be consumed by that dark sky and those mounting flames?
Everything—