Princess Hedera listened, but heard no further sound. Perhaps there had been no sound at all. She tore her gaze from the mountain. A glance at her handmaidens brought then to her at once. She arose and they clad her in robe and sandals. She hastened into the palace.
She hurried into her chambers and called for her astrologer. "Khamen, lay out the signs of the heavens under Inana, and plot the moon phase in ascension to see if it is favorable for me.
Later that night, the Princess sought her bed and fell into a troubled sleep. Soon the dream was upon her. She stood at the base of the holy mountain and watched the earth open up. The fires of the Nether Regions burst forth and devoured all the islands. Ashes shot up into the heavens and blackened the sun so that all vegetation and all life died out.
Those who did not die from the flames and heat and smoke, died from the ocean sea, the wine colored sea that belched destructive mountains of water over the land.
Princess Hedera woke from her dream, sat up in her bed and clasped her hands to her thudding heart. Fear settled in her throat making it difficult for her to swallow.
She hurried to her father and told him her dream. He took her to the Minos who called together his diviners and magicians and astrologers and ordered them to tell him the meaning of the dream.
The interpretation was that the princess must leave the Minoan kingdom and sail across the sea to another kingdom that she would one day rule. Once her influence was removed, the Minoan realm would not be destroyed.
Hedera did not believe the High Priest's sorcerers. The Mother Goddess had warned her through the dream Thera would be destroyed, thus explaining her attacks of apprehension at the hum and rumble of the earth far below the island that no one but she seemed to hear. Should she flee before it was too late?
Several day later, she woke in the early morning twilight and again sensed all wh not right. She sent for her handmaidens who came to her with frightened eyes. "What is it?" she asked.
"I do not know, Mistress," whispered Certane, the only one of her servants allowed to speak in her presence. "Your father sent us for you. We must go to him.
They went out onto the open walkway leading to her father's chambers, and all was quiet about the grounds. The servants had fled to the temples. The royal family made preparations to do the same. Neither beast nor fowl could be seen or heard.
An eerie stillness prevailed, yet there was sound, and Princess Hedera heard it clearly, an insidious murmuring of which the handmaidens were obviously unaware. An awesome sound that Hedera felt as well as heard, a strange rumbling, becoming more intense by the moment.
Hedera and her handmaidens were not taken to the temple as they expected. They were led to the circular canals where three large ships lay at anchor. The Minos orde5red the three ships which had already been outfitted to make ready to depart.
Hedera's father took her hand. "Daughter, you will go aboard the Royal Atli and taken to the land of Ur. You will be given to the Crown Prince to be his wife. The High Priestess of Inana is your kinswoman and will see to your well being."
"Father, I cannot leave Thera until my stargazer tells me my signs are in agreement with such a journey."
"Khamen gave your scroll to me." He unrolled the scroll. "You see? The time is now, before the sun sleeps and th4 moon rises again. Your possessions have been taken aboard and your court is already settled in. You must go at once." He embraced his daughter, turned and went hurriedly toward the temple.
Princess Hedera boarded the Atli. All three ships departed to the sound of the rising wind an the monstrous incessant hum that brought her hands to her ears in a frantic attempt to shut out its keening.
The Mother Goddess had shown her cataclysmic forces amassing in the center of the earth, and within the lunar cycle, they would be released upon that doomed land.
