TEARS FOR ATLANTIS
A “BRIGHTEYES CHRONICLES” PREQUEL
By Juan Rojas
Copyright 2013
“Hark! Hark O sons and daughters of Atlantis! The king has fallen! Weep for him and for his family. Weep, for the sea of darkness has gathered, and a great light has gone out!”
—Unnamed seer, heralding the death of King Amnaeus Athesphar of Atlantis on the streets of Teer-Avaros.
“Tears for the fallen, tears for Atlantis.”
—Old Atlantean war saying
* * * * *
I have not lived in this world long enough to know its deep intricacies. I have, thankfully, lived it long enough to know love.
* * * * *
It was a cool autumn day. The pastel, orange sun was low in the sky, behind a smear of muted clouds, and a light shower of dead leaves descended upon the country road. A swift breeze rushed down from the mountain, like a host of playful sprites, and stirred the tall grass fields into a swaying, rhythmic dance.
Thomas was driving his young wife, Eleanor, home in his old valiant. They had been away visiting her cousin in the town of Fairwater for two days, and were now returning on the eve of their son Jack’s birthday: the eighth of October. Thomas had chosen a back road—Old Mill Way—that cut through several small, pastoral farms nestled close to the base of a mountain; which was a shortcut home, an alternative to the busy highway that travelled along the coastline to the east. Their town of Willow Wand was located at the top of Mount Spire, accessible by the highway some hour and half drive away. Thomas had no reason to be in a hurry, for they would be home well before five o’clock; however, in his heart there was an urgency he could not explain. Something was nagging at him to drive faster, to get back to Willow Wand as soon as possible. Before it was too late.
“I feel uneasy, for some reason,” Thomas said, his eyes on the road ahead, though occasionally flitting from side to side to scan the passing fence posts and trees. “I shouldn’t speed, but—”
“Yes,” Eleanor cut in with her sweet but firm voice, “you shouldn’t speed, at all.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just sense something. Call it sixth sense, or a premonition, but I feel that something is about to happen. Something bad. There is tension in the air, and I can’t shake it.”
“Hey!” the beautiful, young woman said, demanding his attention from his reverie of doom. Her soft hand touched and traced Thomas’ freshly shaven jawline. “Don’t stress, okay? It must have been that horrible service station food we had an hour ago that’s upsetting your stomach.”
Thomas grimaced at the memory, but didn’t say a word.
“We just had a lovely relaxing weekend at Robert and Samantha’s. Now we’re about to come home—”
“—to a bunch of screaming kids.” Thomas interjected.
She laughed and kissed her man’s cheek. “A bunch of screaming kids who love us, and miss us.”
“I know,” he agreed, a smile slowly creeping on his face once he looked back at Eleanor—or Elly as he called her. “You’re probably right. My mind is just a little scattered at the moment.”
Her silence begged the question why.
“I started sensing something while we were at your cousin’s house. A change in the air.”
“Autumn is that change, my love.”
“No, it was something else. Something... sinister.”
“You’re starting to freak me out now.” Elly sounded troubled by his dark, cryptic words.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment of quiet contemplation. “Work has been stressful.”
Should I tell her. He thought to himself. Should I tell her what I know, before it is too late? I owe it to her. Thomas stared at his young wife again with a deep love, and choked back the words that wanted to burst forth. No... I can’t. If I tell her my past, my powers, then all will be jeopardised. I am in a place I want to be. Safe... away from the pains of a world I once knew. I was, am still a son of Atlantis; yet unseen and untroubled by others. And that is how it shall remain.
“You were about to say something?” His wife asked, her eyes reading his stern silence. She knew him well enough to know there was something going on in that head of his.
“Nothing,” he said, bluntly ending the conversation.
The sound of the car’s soft, murmuring engine filled the silence between them.
* * * * *
The old valiant passed under a canopy of yellow-leaved trees, and the terrain began to become a little rough. Potholes dotted the dirt road sporadically, making the car bounce a little as it went.
“There’s a man standing in the middle of the road,” Thomas said in a troubled voice, his eyes ahead like a hawk.
“Where?” Elly asked, squinting through the windscreen and instantly spying a shadowy figure some several hundred meters away. He was dressed in a billowy black, hooded cloak, and stood perfectly still in the middle of the road. The setting sun behind the mysterious figure outlined it in an aura of soft golden light, and swallowed up any details. “Oh. Slow down.”
Thomas hesitated.
Do as the girl says, old friend. The voice that spoke in Thomas’ mind seemed to be projected from the cloaked person ahead. It was a man’s voice, and it sounded calm, yet commanding. It does not have to end like this. There is still time to change your mind, and to join us.
“Thomas, slow down,” Elly said, shaking her husband’s arm, “we’re getting close. You don’t want to run them down.”
He didn’t answer. His eyes were wide, and there was a strange look on his face. It looked to her as if Thomas knew this person. Or was afraid. She couldn’t tell.
Your road ends here, Thomas. Please don’t force my hand...
Then the look of fear was gone, and was replaced by a scowl. His brows furrowed, and his foot pushed heavy upon the accelerator of the car. You will not stop me. You will not hurt my wife!
Elly gasped in shock at the sudden turn of events, and she grabbed Thomas’ shoulder and shook him. “Thomas!” She shouted in panic. “You’re not seriously going to run this person down? It must be a prank or something—”
Her words were lost from the sudden jolt of the car as it roared down the road, towards the cloaked figure.
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” Thomas said to her, trying to calm her down. His words however did not seem comforting, but apologetic.
“Thomas!” Elly pleaded, “you don’t have to do this. Whoever that is, whatever they have done, you killing them will only make things worse. We have children for God sake!”
“That is why I am doing this,” he finally responded, giving her something. “That thing, that man... will destroy us all!”
Before his wife could find the words to protest, the car was almost upon the cloaked man. She screamed instead.
Twenty feet from collision, a hand shot out from under the cloaked figure’s right sleeve, revealing a hand pointing at the car. A flick of the owner’s wrist, and the valiant spun sharply to the left, crossed a ditch and ploughed into row of fence posts.
The crash echoed loudly in the cold evening air, shattering the peaceful quiet of Old Mill Way, and causing a flock of carrion perched upon the fence line to take wing.
Thomas rolled over on his side, and opened his eyes to find the fragile face of Eleanor. Her eyes were closed, and a trail of blood ran from her nose down her chin. She was unconscious.
Frantically, he attempted to wake her by shaking her shoulders. His eyes quickly scanned her body, searching for injuries. They stopped upon her legs, which were crushed underneath a caved in passenger door. The golden, autumn sun, shimmered amongst the shattered glass of the window that littered her body and hair. Luckily, none of broken glass had harmed her.
/> “No,” he whispered through bloodied lips. The crash had caused him to smack his face into the steering wheel’s air bag with such force he had bit into his lip.
Oh, Thomas. Spoke a sad voice in the wreckage of his mind. I did not want to do this. You should have stopped the car. You should have come to me, willingly. Given me that thought I need. That thought we need.
You are lucky she is still alive. Thomas’ thoughts bit back savagely. You will pay for this.
“You know, I don’t take kindly to threats,” that hated voice spoke near his right side. Thomas unfastened his seatbelt and rolled over to meet the sharp angled face in the window. “Old friend.”
“Kaelan,” Thomas growled, “If you lay a finger on her, I swear—”
“I am not here for her,” the man said, peeling back his hood until it hung like a loose sack under his long, black hair. Blue eyes sparkled like precious stones at him. He was handsome, but looked lifeless. Soulless. “I am here for you.”
Then Thomas saw the others. Three more silhouettes broke away from the tree line on the opposite side of the road, and began to approach the car. He identified them instantly.
Gareth, Kaelan’s right hand man, Elias and Darroch. All three men were leaders of rebel Atlantean factions: the Dark Tide, the Shadow Dragons and the Night Whisperers. All with the same desire.
Him.
“Drag him out,” Kaelan said, the melancholy in his voice dissipating.
Gareth, the strongest of the three, grinned darkly, and began to wrench the door of the old valiant off its hinges as if it were cardboard. The man’s pale, muscular arms reached into the cavity of the car and wrenched Thomas out like a pearl from a clam. Gareth’s strength was great; but it was stolen from the lives of uncounted men and women. He was an undead Revenant—unlike the others—and lived by leeching the life-force from living things. His shape-shifting body could also absorb the quality and texture of whatever he touched.
“Unhand me, traitor!” Thomas demanded.
“Hush, friend,” Elias said, aiding the malicious Gareth in holding him down. “Struggling will only make the process of extraction more painful.”
“How could you, Elias? After all I have done for you and your family. Scorning our friendship, scorning the memory of Lemuria and her great legacy! All we fought for!”
“Lemuria is gone, Thomas,” Elias replied, not making eye contact with him. “It was washed away before the second rise of Man. We are refugees now, with nowhere to go. What do you expect? We need this, Thomas.”
“Darroch,” Kaelan ordered. “The Akashic Eye.”
The bald man, with a tattoo of ancient text and symbols scrawled up his entire right arm, was the leader of the Night Whisperers. His left eye was white with blindness; divided by a small scar, running vertically down from his eyebrow and ending at the tip of his cheekbone. He did not smile, and moved solemnly towards Thomas. Reaching into a bag he carried on his left hip, he removed a small antique looking device housing a large diamond. A magnifying glass protruded from the top of the ocular mechanism, pointing to the sky.
“I have still kept your little toy,” Kaelan said to Thomas. “It is marvellous, really. The Akashic Eye can see into the very soul of the person it is aimed at. It can see all your secret thoughts and past lives. Nothing can deflect its gaze. Nothing.”
“Soon the location to the Crown of Dreams will be ours,” Gareth gloated, the heavy, suffocating weight of his body pinning Thomas down like a felled tree. “Too bad your pretty lady did not live long enough to see who you really are. Lived long enough to see Death’s hand smite you!”
The baiting words from the Revenant did not come unanswered. Thomas, closing his eyes tightly, let the strangled cry of his rage rise up from inside his stomach and burst out of his mouth like a fire storm. His scream was full of anger, despair... and power. When his eyes opened, they were glowing orbs of white-fire. Brighter than the sun.
A surge of psychic energy flooded his limbs, and exploded in his hands; giving him the incredible strength to throw both Gareth and Elias off of him, and far across the road into the trees from whence they came. The sound of breaking branches heralded their fall.
Darroch tossed the Akashic Eye to Kaelan and rushed Thomas with his fists ready. However, it was a fool’s move on his part, since he had not readied his own psychic defences in time. Darroch’s eyes were flashing white just as Thomas grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and threw him at a fence post next to the valiant. There followed a sickening crunch, as the wooden post tore through his back and protruded out of his stomach, impaling him. His jaw slackened, and lifeless eyes stared into the infinity of the sky.
Kaelan was on him before he could blink. The traitorous Atlantean punched Thomas hard in the jaw, sending him reeling back against the car. Not hesitating, he rushed forward and followed with another punch; but this blow was knocked away, and Thomas pushed off the car, throwing a head butt into the bridge of Kaelan’s nose, breaking it and forcing him back.
Just then, Thomas heard a roar of rage coming from the eastern tree line across the road where he had thrown Gareth and Elias. He then saw the Revenant run out of the shadows of the trees and towards the car. A black stone stuck out from his forehead, the skin cracked and scabbed around its unveiled surface. His body had grown slightly in size, and his skin was no longer human. Tree bark covered Gareth’s entire body, and his hair was a tangle of vines and leaves. He had absorbed the aspect of a tree.
Kaelan then threw off his cloak and rolled up left sleeve of the shirt he was wearing, revealing a silver coil wrapped around his forearm.
“Hold your ground!” He shouted at the lumbering giant who was almost upon them. “This is now my fight!”
The Revenant halted his charge, reluctantly. Thomas looked to the tree line and saw Elias cowering there, nursing his wounds.
“Pride has always been your downfall,” Thomas said, his voice a hoarse whisper of exertion. “Take your rabble and leave.”
The dark haired man laughed, his own eyes erupting into spheres of white-fire as he reached for the coil around his right forearm. He grabbed the end closer to his hand and pulled. To no astonishment from Thomas, the silver coil unravelled, and flung out, transforming like liquid into the curved shape of a sword’s blade, before solidifying. “I will not be leaving without the location of the Crown of Dreams,” Kaelan replied, brandishing the glaive—an ancient Atlantean weapon, which could take the shape of its wielder’s thoughts. “If you must be tortured for its location, then so be it.”
Thomas, weakened from using a large amount of psychic energy to throw his attackers, stumbled along the edge of the car towards the boot. His eyes shifting through the window to the slumped figure of Elly in the passenger seat. His hands fumbled open the boot, and under a hidden panel he retrieved a long, silver rod. Mind-melding with it, Thomas held out his own newly-formed glaive. The blade, glistened under the fast fading light of the setting sun. “I will not stop until you are all dead, you hear me!”
Elias appeared behind Kaelan, his head downcast, and one injured arm cradled by the other. “Do not be foolish, Thomas,” he said, and it appeared as if he was trying to mediate. Trying diplomacy before the fight. “None of us wanted this. We need to restore order in this new world... and the only way is through the Crown of Dreams. I don’t want to see you or your lore-kin wife be killed over foolish ideals—”
“She doesn’t know what I am!” Thomas cried out. He was in pain, his ribs burned. Blood trickled from his mouth onto his chest. Yet his anger would give no quarter. “She is not lore-kin! I wanted a life away from all of this. From all of this madness. I tried to warn you, Elias. Warn you, Kaelan. I tried to show you both reason. But still you will have no bar of it!”
“Your warnings and reasons are vapid, empty and self-righteous,” Kaelan shot back. “I will have the crown, and I will restore the order of old. We will rule this world once again. Like we did before the Fall.”
Elias remained still, but Thomas could see Gareth circling around, positioning himself in front of the car.
“Gareth,” Kaelan hissed, “stay your ground. This is my fight. Thomas has no friends here to save him now. Mathias and Oswald will not interfere.”
The tree-skinned Revenant frowned at the command, but obeyed.
Then Kaelan charged. His silver blade swinging high for Thomas’s neck and face. The wounded man flung his own weapon up and blocked the blows with efficient skill, then delivered his own offensive in a series of fast stabs. The air hummed around Kaelan, but he managed to deflect every blow. Both swordsmen were equals; unfortunately, Thomas was slightly disorientated from his exertion of power, and Kaelan attempted to exploit this.
Back-and-forth they went. The ringing of their glaives against each other, echoing under the canopy of trees. After a while, tiring of straight forward combat, they began to utilise the shape-shifting qualities of their weapons. The glaives took on abstract shapes, projected from the thoughts of their wielders. A battle of wits as well as strength.
Kaelan’s sword elongated into the shape of a jagged, lightning bolt, which zigzagged over Thomas’ upwards sweeping block, and attempted to fly through his throat. Luckily, Thomas spun away from the attack, only receiving a minor slash to his right shoulder. Without slowing, he retaliated by stabbing at Kaelan’s chest; his glaive lengthening into the conical shape of a lance. Kaelan used his free hand to levitate the driver’s door of the valiant, which Gareth had discarded in the ditch, to intercept the expanding lance, knocking it and Thomas back.
“You are running out of time, Thomas,” the dark haired man taunted. “Whilst we fight, your beloved lays dying. I can feel her life-force ebbing away.”
Thomas hurled himself at Kaelan in barrage of vicious attacks, startling his opponent. Most of them were repelled, however relentlessness won him a successful blow to Kaelan’s thigh.
The rebel issued a deafening scream. Stumbling backwards, and bleeding profusely from the deep cut, Kaelan teetered then fell. Before he could hit the ground, Elias rushed forward and caught him. “Death is now your fate!” Kaelan howled at Thomas, his face twisted in a black visage. Blood pumped between his fingers as he clutched at the gaping wound. Cursing, a surge of psychic energy poured out of his fingers, finally searing his flesh shut. Pulling away from the supporting hands of Elias, he limped back into the fight.