CHAPTER 5: THE PAST UNVEILED
“Where will this trip be taking us?” Jack asked Mathias, “My father told me in my dream that I have to find Atlantis—”
“Pfft” Cloak scoffed in his raspy voice. “You don't need to do anything. Just share us your memories of the location of the Crown, and then we'll be on our way.”
“We can't do that, old friend,” Mathias said to the Nysaean lurking over his shoulder. “His genetic-memories from his father are so deeply embedded, and he has never used his powers to retrieve them before—he will need our help.”
“Old friend?” Jack looked from Mathias and Cloak. “Erin looks no older than twenty-one.”
“Nysaeans look younger than they actually are,” Layla offered with an amused smile. “You have a lot to learn.”
“How old is he, then?” Jack whispered behind his hand to the girl.
“Forty one.”
“No way!” Jack gasped. He then quickly raised a brow at Layla and opened his mouth to speak.
“I'm twenty three,” she laughed at his worried face. “That is considered young by our standards—you're still a child until you reach thirty. Only then you are called a young adult. We live longer than your people, Jack. Sometimes as long as two hundred years.”
Jack's eyes grew wide. “Two hundred years!”
Mathias turned his attention back to the teenager. “To answer your question, Jack: yes there is a journey you are expected to take with us to the city of Atlantis. We need a memory of yours to find the Crown of Dreams. Your father left what we call a genetic-memory in your mind, of where he last saw the crown. That memory will be our psychic map, if you will.”
“But how? Even if what you saying is true, I don't know how to conjure up such memories.”
“You will learn in time,” the war-veteran said in a patient tone. “There is much to show you. How to summon your power in ways you did not even consider.”
“Tell me about my father and the crown,” Jack asked, jumping on what little information of his father's deeds were mentioned. “Did he try and destroy it?”
Mathias nodded. “Yes, a long time ago he attempted to destroy the Crown to prevent a tyrant from using it against Atlantis... and the world. Emperor Kha'ash II of Rama had lay sieged on our city and had killed many of our people, including Emperor, Amnaeus. Your father tried to rescue the Crown from Amnaeus dead body, but Kha'ash II beat him to it. The Ramaean's power was immense, but his sanity broke under the Crown's great weight, causing him to destroy the world. He pulled a falling star out of the sky and brought it down upon us. The Crown was never recovered. Luckily, myself and a few others saved your father. We managed to use the Rising Hope to leave our time before the waves covered the world in a terrible flood. We escaped the Fall.”
Jack listened in awe, and when the bald man finished, his eyes moved from Mathias to the others, noticing their faces were all solemn and all lost in far away memories of their own individual experiences.
“You haven't told me everything yet,” Jack finally said, and felt all their eyes instantly on him. “Who is chasing me? And who else wants the Crown of Dreams?”
“Kaelan,” Layla spat the name as if it were salt in her mouth. She then leaned into Will, who held her close. Jack felt a lead weight in his stomach.
“He was once a friend of mine... and your father's,” Mathias added. “He fought along side us during the war against the Rama Empire. Bled with us. Then, when we made it to this future, he wanted Thomas to find the Crown. He knew it was buried somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, somewhere in the deepest, darkest parts, wiped from the ancestral memories of mankind. Kaelan knew that anyone with a powerful artefact like the crown could rule the world. But Thomas didn't want that. He wanted the weapon to lay where it lay. Hoping the weight of the world and its shifting plates would have crushed it to pieces long ago. But he knew, deep in his heart it was still there.
“At first Kaelan attempted to persuade him with images of glory. Explaining how ruling a world that had not traveled down the path of psychic technology would be easily conquered with the Crown of Dreams. It was a device that could harvest the very psychic fields generated in each individual, and concentrate them into a single force. The single purpose of its wielder. When Thomas refused, Kaelan used physical threats. Although Thomas was our leader, Kaelan's crazed dreams of world domination had almost half of the surviving Atlanteans on his side. They wanted to reclaim their lost power. They wanted back a world they saw as rightfully theirs. Kaelan looked down on modern man and woman. Saw how they lived, and how they were consumed with material objects. They had grown weak in mind and body, and now worshiped wealth. They had forgotten the Old Gods who had made them, who had crafted them in their own likeness. I suppose my fellow Lemurians wanted to bring back what they felt was righteous and true. The old days. A glorious Renaissance of the mind. Nice dreams with honourable ambitions; but all doomed to follow the same path.
“Anyway, there was a brief war between the factions and Thomas' side won. I was his general in that war. I was forced to slaughter my own people in a fight that should never have been. When it was over, Kaelan and his rebels disappeared into the world. They melted into the population and vanished. However, they weren't completely destroyed; we knew they were only licking their wounds and regrouping for another war. A war we might not win the second time around. One day they would come for us again, and we had to be ready.
“So it was that we began to build ourselves our own little society. We left our first home, the Fallen City of Avalon in Europe, which was half destroyed by the war, and traveled east. There we resurrected from the ashes of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt a new bastion of knowledge. We kept its ancient name, and began filling its archives with uncovered artefacts from our bygone era. Technologies that this world had not yet seen. With knowledge of their components we could restore them, and re-use them again. Strange, unidentifiable trinkets to the archeological community were in fact the cogs and wheels of our great machines. Everything was built underground, and the library was merely the portal to our underground city.
“After a time, the Library of Alexandria was simply known as “The Library”, which was our public name—so as not to draw suspicion—and our home for the next several decades.
“It was after The Library was fully completed that Thomas handed the leadership of the Lore Keepers—as we call ourselves—to the only Atlantean politician to survive the catastrophe: Oreus Isaleph. The learned man, who adopted the modern name Oswald, had a compassionate heart and strived for justice. Under his rulership, The Library began to prosper and expand its influences out of Egypt into Europe and the rest of the world. The Lemurians were allowed to mingle and befriend the modern people, but were restrained from revealing their true identity. It was hard at times, seeing as most of our people are quite tall, and our psychic abilities are not practiced in any of your societies. But we gradually familiarised ourselves with the world's languages, nations, and cultural colloquialisms that we seemed to blend in seamlessly.
“We even began to take modern people as our partners, and started families with them. Those we trusted, those we knew would not betray our greatest secrets. And if we were mistaken, and if they did break our sacred trust, their memories were swiftly erased, or false ones were implanted to cause confusion and hide our trail. The ones we let into our world we called Lore-kin, 'the kin of the Lore Keepers'.”
“Why wasn't my mother let into this secret world?” Jack demanded, his frustration for his family's borderline poverty surfacing. “Why wasn't she a lore-kin?”
“Thomas left before all of this began to happen,” Mathias replied, his storm-grey eyes holding the teenager's gaze steadily. “One night when I came to visit your father's chambers, he was gone. He left me a note saying that he had left for a country he had read about that lay beyond the ocean. He wanted to get away from his past. He didn't want his very presence jeopardising The Library and the remnants of his people. Thomas told
me that I was his last friend, and that we would one day speak again.”
Jack hung on every word Mathias said, as if every scrap of information about his father and his past held its own weight in gold.
“It was eighteen years ago,” Mathias continued. “Thomas came to me first in a dream. He told me where to go and how to find him. And when we met it was like old times. He had grown so much from the brash soldier I once knew. He looked happier, healthier... freer. There was a new light in his eyes. I didn't understand it until he took me to his home and introduced me to a young Eleanor and a baby boy in her arms. You Jack. The baby boy was you.”
Jack's eyes began to well with tears; but he held them at bay and kept his resolve.
“They had met by chance it seemed. He had taken up the inconspicuous job of a gardener—Thomas always enjoyed tending to plants back in Atlantis, always had a 'green thumb' as your people call it—and was hired by your mother's parents to maintain their large gardens. It was a Sunday afternoon, he told me, when he met Eleanor at a lunch on their front lawn. He told me that the first day he saw her, he knew that he could never go back.”
Layla was watching Jack, and he could sense it. Feel her taking in all his reactions to Mathias' tale. Wanting to know him more; the depth of his character. His feelings towards his father, perhaps. Evidently she had known Thomas.
Will seemed lost in his own thoughts. His left hand idling twisting the strange bracelet around his wrist, and occasionally sparing a glance at Mathias.
Cloak was an unreadable shadow who appeared to blend into the darkness of the trees around them. A silent watcher who did not seem to relate to the emotions Jack was feeling. Distant.
“I left then, and did not attempt to contact him. It was only two years ago that I received a letter from Thomas—a very mysterious letter that hinted at something he had discovered. Something buried in a forest not far from where he lived. So I came to visit him. In the time I had been away he had fathered two more children: James and Alora. Both of whom I never met.
“The ancient Ramaean artefact Thomas had discovered was akin to a thing that your historical records call the Antikythera Mechanism; a device that was first discovered in the early nineteen hundreds off the Greek island of Antikythera. Archeologists claim it was the first analog computer, however its original purpose was far from that. Before the Last War during the Fall, the Rama Empire developed a technology called the Akashic Eye. Its purpose was to communicate over great distances, and to read the minds and memories of people. It could unravel the memories of a relative generations back, and project it into physical space; almost like a primitive hologram. The Antikythera Mechanism was merely one part of this machine, and the pieces that Thomas found in the woods was the rest of it.
“Through means unknown to myself, Thomas somehow got his hands on the Antikythera Mechanism from its museum and rebuilt the Akashic Eye, making it fully operational. When he knew it worked, realisation dawned on him, and he was afraid of Kaelan getting his hands on it. If the rebel managed to obtain it, it would mean that Thomas' memory of the location of the Crown of Dreams, which his children genetically shared as well, would be accessible to him. He didn't want that to happen; but at the same time he didn't know if he could destroy the ocular-device. He wanted me to take it to the Library in Egypt. To keep it there. Safe. Hidden.
“Under strict orders by Oreus to keep its existence a secret, I took the Akashic Eye from Thomas and attempted to return it to the Library without incident. Unfortunately I had been followed. Somehow, someone knew where I was going; who I was visiting; and why I was there. To cut a long story short, Thomas and I were attacked on our way out of the town of Haleton—we were visiting a friend of his, a fellow lore-kin—to his secret house in the Southlake woods. His own private dwelling place away from his normal life, where he stored his own relics from a past he could not fully escape.”
Jack gasped at the mention of a secret house his father had hidden from his family. Thomas had told him on many occasions he was going on a business trip out of town, and Jack now wondered if this secret house was where he had now gone.
“We were ambushed by the rebel Atlanteans called the Dark Tide, and Kaelan was leading them. He did this—” Mathias pointed at the vicious scar that marred his left cheek, “—and almost killed your father. During the fight, Kaelan managed to get the Akashic Eye off of me. Something I still feel a great responsibility for even now.”
“It wasn't your fault,” Will ventured to say, “you did the best you could—” But the rest of his protest died against Mathias' upheld hand for silence.
“I could have done better,” the war-veteran rebuked bitterly. “It was something I should have prevented.”
No one spoke.
“In the struggle,” Mathias continued, “Thomas and I activated a Gate—a powerful portal, which Thomas had salvaged from a sunken ruin years earlier. He had linked it to your home in Willow, Jack, hiding it inside the old shed in the backyard. His plan was for us to escape there and to destroy the Gate behind us.
“It was while we were rigging the Gate that Kaelan and some of his men attacked at full strength, trying to fight their way through. Kaelan knew that he would find you and your family on the other side. He had seen the family photos on the walls; he knew the significance of the house in the woods and the secrets it was suppose to hide. He had been Thomas' friend for many years, so he had a deeper understanding of how the man thought. Kaelan only needed one of Thomas' children to use the Akashic Eye on and then he would know the whereabouts of the Crown.
“We could not let that happen. Thomas fended off the attackers and I armed the bomb. Timing was crucial, for we had to escape through the Gate and close it behind us just before the bomb exploded. That way there would be no way of Kaelan tracking us back to your house. To the shed that hid the second Gate—”
“The fire in the shed!” Jack said loudly, remembering the fire that almost burned down his home.
Mathias nodded. “Your father was knocked unconscious and I had to drag him to the Gate. This caused a delay in the plan, which subsequently led to the bomb going off just as we passed through. The explosion travelled through the Gate as well. Once in your backyard, among the smouldering remains of the shed, I sealed it with this—“ Mathias indicated to a silver band on his right, index finger, “—the Gate's key. Thomas and I both had one each. Without them, nobody can activate the Gate.”
Layla secretly touched Thomas' ring on her own finger, recalling her memories of her flight from the' house in the woods only the night before.
“We escaped through a neighbours yard, using cloaking devices. Thinking it wasn't safe to return him to your family, I kept Thomas hidden until he was fully healed. All the while watching over your family.
“When Thomas recovered, we had a big argument over me wanting him and his family to return to The Library. Thomas wanted to stay in Willow. He wanted his revenge on Kaelan for threatening his family. Against my own better judgement, I left Thomas to hunt Kaelan and the rebels; another regret that still haunts me.
“It was a day later that Thomas and Eleanor had that fatal car accident. I believe he was going to finally tell her everything and take you all away from Willow before it was too late...”
Mathias let his last words trail into the ambiguity of the night. The suffocating silence of the park returned. The slight breeze was gone; strangled out by the closeness of the trees and the heavy emotions in the air.
Jack thought on that fateful event that changed his life forever. Why had his father survived so many heroic battles, only to be taken away from his family in a car accident? No, there was something more sinister responsible for his death.
Kaelan. He accusingly thought.
A mixture of anger, frustration, fear and sadness consumed him, and the only way he could diffuse it was to speak. “I will go with you,” he finally said to Mathias, surprising himself. Jack suspected that his father's death was no accident, and h
e wanted to find out the truth. He also wanted to protect his family from those who hunted him and his siblings. Those who wanted a memory of an ancient artefact that was not his. That he had never seen in his life. “But first I want to make sure that mum and the kids are going to be okay without me for awhile.”
“They will be just fine, Jack,” Mathias said, gripping the teenager's shoulders in reassurance. “There is someone who I have personally appointed to watch over them while you are gone. Someone you can trust. And your time away will only be a fleeting moment in this world. Where we are going, a year there will only be a week here.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked, not grasping what the giant warrior was saying. “I thought it would take us ages to find the Crown; we need a boat, I need diving lessons, we need to figure out where in the Atlantic ocean the ruins are—”
“No my naive friend,” Cloak interrupted. “We will be traveling back to The Library in Egypt. There we will be using the Rising Hope once again. But instead of the future, we will be travelling to the past. The distant past, which your history books do not mention.”
“We are going back to the Age of Awakening,” Will said with a broad grin. “Back to the countries I miss so dearly. I am from the land of Hy-Bresail, Jack, where the vast open plains, deep forests, and towering mountains make any scenery here look dwarfed in comparison. It will be a great adventure!”
“And a dangerous one,” Layla added, her green eyes fierce. “We will be heading back to a time just before the War of the Three Empires. A time of political and military tension. But, who said I was one to shy away from a challenge.”
Jack's gaze bounced off of everyone as they spoke, adding their pieces to the puzzle. His excitement and fear blended so well his emotions could not strengthen one over the other.
“Layla is right,” Mathias said, joining the fray, “And therefore we must be prepared. We will train and arm you at The Library, Jack. Once I feel you are ready, that you are able to know and push the limits of your power, and to hold your own in combat, we will go.”
“When do we leave for The Library?” Jack asked.
“Tomorrow night,” Mathias answered, “After you have made your goodbyes.”