The first tremors struck Poseidonis just before dawn. Alara had awakened in the dead of night, feeling the steamy air thicken almost to the point of suffocation. When she could no longer breathe she climbed out of bed to stand on her balcony overlooking the slumbering city below. Beyond the city the ocean rolled restlessly and the waves crashed against the shore. Alara sighed, she knew that the end had come.
But then she had known for some time and had learned to accept this fact. Her mother, the goddess Aphrodite had come to her with a warning of the catastrophe to come. Immediately she had gone to her father Ambrose, the High King of Atlantis, but he refused to listen calling Aphrodite's warnings nonsense. But Alara knew the truth; she knew that her mother would not have come to her if the warnings were untrue.
The wind blew, rustling her golden hair, yet it offered no relief from the sweltering night air. In the distance Alara heard the deep rumbling of thunder. ~So it begins~ she thought. She turned away as the rumbling became a slight vibration. Dogs in the city began to howl and whine. They knew. Soon everyone would know.
She went back inside and dressed herself in the clothes she had chosen specifically for this day- a simple linen dress which hung to mid thigh and her sandals. Then quickly she walked from her room and hurried to her father's chambers knocking on every door she passed.
She pushed open her father's door without knocking and went inside. Ambrose was seated on the bed and he was already dressed. "Father," she said,"It has begun." Ambrose looked at his daughter. "Yes, I know," he said,"Alara, I'm sorry I doubted you." Alara smiled at him. "Thank you, father," she said,"but now we must hurry. There is a ship waiting for us at the harbor." Ambrose did not argue but instead followed her out into the hallway.
By that time the vibration had stopped, but the air still hung heavy and was now tinged with a sharp metallic smell. The wailing of the dogs echoed through the palace like a haunting melody. In the main corridor they met up with Alara's older half-brother Damon. He yawned sleepily. "What's going on?" he asked. "Damon," said Ambrose,"We must leave quickly. There's no time to explain."
Alara had made all the preparations for evacuation in the last few weeks. She had gathered together a small mountain of supplies with the help of unwilling royal functionaries. She had outfitted a fleet of fishing boats to carry people and cargo to deeper waters and she had supervised the loading of wagon after wagon with the materials needed for survival. Now that the final moment had come she could be calm.
And when the first tremors shook the palace hours later, sending a shower of roof tiles clattering into the courtyard below, the wagons were already awaiting passengers. Alara watched as Damon and Ambrose climbed into thier carriage then she signaled the driver to leave. As soon as the king's carriage cleared the gate the second tremor struck.
The ground trembled beneath Alara's feet nearly knocking her over. The other wagons rolled ahead as the ground trembled uneasily beneath the wheels. Alara waited until the last wagon had cleared the gate then mounted her horse, pausing in the darkness to look one last time at her ancestral home before leaving it forever.
The wagons reached Poseidonis quickly but found the streets choked with people who had fled their homes and now rushed around in panic as one tremor after another shook the ground. The tormented cries of the people was deafening. Alara rode forth, pushing her way through the confusion, forcing a way through for the wagons to follow. She led them to the harbor where they awaited the ships all desparately hoped would come.
"Alara," Ambrose called,"Where are the ships you promised?" Alara turned to face her father. "Don't worry," she said,"They'll be here." ~They should be here by now~ Alara thought to herself. They waited and the sky began to lighten to a ghastly, sulfurus dawn. A pall of dust hung over the city like a fog, motionless in the dead air. Damon got out of his wagon and came to stand beside Alara who had dismounted from her horse.
"The tremors are losing strength and frequency," he said,"Perhaps Aphrodite's warnings were wrong." Alara faced him, at 6'2" he was nearly a full foot taller than her. He looked down at her with his dark eyes that were so much like their father's. "No," Alara said,"My mother would not have come to me otherwise." "Maybe," he said,"Maybe not."
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With the sunrise the tremors stopped and the frightened populace quickly forgot their fears and began going about their daily business. Those waiting on the dock- nearly a thousand in all, the entire population of the palace: all of whom Alara promised places in the fishing boats- grew restless as they looked around at a world that now appeared as solid and permanent as ever.
Alara remained calm, and as the early hours of the day passed she kept everyone busy moving cargo from the wagons to the fishing boats. The sun rose into a stark sky where it lingered endlessly, pouring its white heat over the ground below, and as the burning sphere began its descent toward the sea, the last of the cargo was secured and still there was no sign of the rescue ships.
The city-dwellers scoffed at the crowd on the dock, taunting, laughing outright, enjoying the spectacle. In the harbor, meanwhile, boats came and went as usual and Poseidonis behaved as though what had happened only hours before were nothing unusual. And when the shadows stretched long on the dock Damon came to Alara and said, "The people are tired, Alara. Perhaps we should go back."
"No," Alara told him. "I am tired too, but we cannot go back." "We could leave the boats and if-" Alara turned on him. "Go back to the palace, Damon, and you go to your tomb! There is nothing there but death. Look,I know that what my mother told me is true. Go back if you want but I'm staying here." Damon looked at his sister for a moment. He knew there was no point in arguing with her once her mind was made up. She was much like their father in that respect.
And so without further argument Damon retreated to keep uneasy vigil with the others, and the long afternoon passed without event. They ate a simple meal and listened to the restless wash of the sea back and forth among the footings of the pier as the stifling dusk gathered over the harbor, deepening rapidly to night.
And there on the dock, the air thick, oppresive, clinging, they were waiting when they saw the sky suddenly torn with streaking fire as burning stars tumbled earthward, piercing the unnatural stillness with the terrible shriek of their passing, striking the restless ocean.
The blazing starfall continued, throwing writhing pillars of steam high into the sky. People from the city crowded onto the dock to stare at the sight. No one laughed now.
From out of the mountains far away came the sound of a mighty and ominous rumble, and the crowd turned to stare in horror at hot burning stars streaking through the haze, smashing to earth in a dazzling deadly rain. Curtained by the falling fire, the people of Poseidonis fled to the sea, swarming the dock in chaos, fighting each other for places in the small fishing boats that now filled the harbor, bobbing in the swell and streaming blindly out into the night-dark sea.
"The boats are not coming," cried someone from one of the wagons. "We have to get away." "Silence!" Alara snapped, "We wait." "We're all going to die!" someone else whined. "Then we die like human beings, not fear-crazed animals!" Alara yelled back.
They waited. Dark, steamy vapors wafted in off the sea, which heaved with an oily swell. Poseidonis shuddered with the horrid rumbling, shaking the buildings on their foundations, toppling columns from their bases. Many, fearing the docks would collapse, ran screaming back into the city, trampling those who got in their way.
By sheer force of her will, Alara kept order among her people. Ambrose found her pacing the dock, shouting down the fear mounting around her. "If the ships do not come soon..." He paused. "Yes, father?" "We may have to go out to meet them." "No," said Alara firmly,"We will wait for them here." Ambrose fell into step beside his daughter. "We have time yet, Alara. The boats are ready." "They will come," she said stubbornly. "I do not doubt it. But they may not be able to reach us." He lifted a hand to the dead air. "There is no wind for the sails. The ships are floundering tonight."
Alara turned and peered into the darkness of the harbor and the jostling boats gathered there. "Perhaps you are right, father," she said at last, "We have come this far; we can go farther if need be."
She turned and began shouting orders. The boats, one hundred fifty in all, had been lashed together in threes- two bearing cargo on either side of a pasenger vessel. Under the direction of Alara's overseers the people dispersed among them. And one by one, as each passenger boat was loaded, they struggled into the harbor.
From out in the bay, the people looked back. They saw the sickly sky suddenly begin to brighten in the east with a great light that flashed first yellow then red.
Silence descended over the land. The sea calmed. Those in the boats held their breath, gripping the gunwales with bloodless hands. The sound was felt first and heard afterward: the tremendous, shattering, shocking growl from the churning deep. The eastern sky flashed its strange lightening again as the hills began to buckle and quake. Poseidonis swayed precariously. Alara looked to the palace hill and saw flames flickering among the toppling walls. And over all was the dreadful, hateful sound.
In unthinking desperation, people threw themselves into the harbor to flounder and drown in their panic. Mothers waded into the sea holding their babies aloft. terrified horses, loosed from their harnesses, ran along the shuddering beach.
The ground lost all solidity. Hills slid down into their valleys. Trees rippled and spun, their roots groaning and popping as the soil beneath them flowed away like water. Houses swayed and crashed into fluid streets, scattering flames and dust. The cries of those trapped on the shifting land assaulted the dusty air like the screams of frightened birds. The sea bubbled and churned as her bed rocked beneath her.
The sky convulsed and spewed fire upon the city. Brimstone, sizzling and stinking, streaked through the tortured air in flaming chunks, plowing furrows in the hills, pelting down into the heaving wreckage, destroying the palace in plumes of smoke and white fire. Stone burned, once-bright copper rooftops melted and ran.
The whole countryside was soon engulfed in flames. Fire raked the hillside; smoke billowed up to flatten and spread like an enormous hand on the upper wind, blotting out the newly-risen moon.
The boats bucked in the troubled water, as the stone quay collapsed and slid into the sea, dragging screaming thousands with it. Alara watched it all in silence. Farewell Atlantis, she thought, the day of your death is upon you.
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The destruction continued through the night as the boats bobbed and drifted in the harbor. The ghostly moon shone dimly over the bay, and vainly the survivors scanned the horizon for any signs of the rescue ships. Alara watched the faces of those around her and saw grim hope dissolving slowly into despair as time dragged on. "They will come," she whispered to herself, knowing that as the boats drifted further and further from land, their chances of survival decreased. "They will find us."
Near midnight Alara forced herself to swallow a mouthful of food and a little water. She slept and awakened at dawn to see the doomed land thrashing in its death throes...and still the ships did not appear.
Atlantis writhed and heaved; the mountains sighed and shook themselves out like folds in clothing; the water crashed on the trembling shore; Poseidonis burned, and south, along the coast, the smoke from other cities could be seen, darkening the morning sky to an unnatural twilight. All the while the stars struck down through the gloom, bursting on the ruined land and plunging into the water.
Slowly, terribly, on and on it went. Near midnight, though the sky was dark as deepest night, the coal-dark clouds over the land flashed orange and red. The air shivered and a searing wind flattened the waves as the sound reached them a moment later: an explosion so enormous that the sea stood up in sharp knifeblade waves and the concussion reached them first as a keening howl- which was the pressure wave ripping rocks and trees from the ground- and then as a deafening sense-numbing roar.
Titanis itself had exploded in a volcanic seizure which split the mountain from its snow-capped crown to its deep roots, hurling the pulverized mass into the tortured air. But before the debris could begin its freefall descent another eruption gouged the middle from the mountain, gutting it in a firey violent flash, spewing cinder, smoke, fire, and molten stone high into the atmosphere. In the blink of an eye Titanis became a turbulent column of fire streaked gas and smoke.
Battered and deafened by the horrendous blast, the people in the boats clung helplessly to one another- some moaning incoherently, others mute, all stunned and bewildered as whole mountain ranges crumbled and sank before thier eyes.
The sea, choppy and confused, now boiled as the flaming rock and mud struck its littered surface. One boat near Alara was hit by a smoldering chunk of magma and sank instantly, dragging the other two boats with it. Water cascaded over the other boats in a steaming spray.
Alara caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head toward land just in time to see the tidal wave cast up by the explosion, rushing at them with incredible speed. The people sat paralyzed as the water rushed nearer; there was no time to scream or look away. Alara felt the boat tilt up beneath her and clawed at one of the thick cargo ropes as the wave slammed into the boat, lifting it high and rolling it over in one one single sweeping motion.
Sky and sea changed places. All was wet, choking darkness. Alara's hands were ripped from the rope and she was slammed against the gunwale. She would have been thrown from the boat but for the water cascading over her, pressing her down with crushing force.
It happened in an instant. The boats rolled, righted, and the tidal wave rushed on, leaving the survivors half-drowned and gasping for breath. Alara dragged herself upright coughing and sputtering; she shook the stinging salt water from her eyes. The other boats spun in the swell, some of them listing heavily, full of water, and Alara saw that there were fewer now than there had been moments before.
The sky was a gruesome gray-green soup of cloud and smoke, tinged with angry red streaks above the earth where the disembowled remains of Atlantis trembled and quaked. The people looked dumbly, mouths slack, eyes wide with shock.
The boats drifted. Time hung suspended between night and day in a hideous twilight, volcanic steam and smoke steadily clotting the sky, and the horrible sounds of fatal convulsions still rumbling across the water. The ocean grew gradually more calm until the only sound heard was the gentle slap of water and the occasional chunk of debris nudging the sides of the boats.
Alara, raising her head now and then, continued to scan the far horizon. But as the numbing hours passed, even her steadfast spirit began to flag and she made her reconnaisance less ferquently. The day passed to be followed by a long, wearying, fitful night in which sleep came as blessed refuge, too brief by far. The survivors- less than three hundred remaining- huddled in the drifting boats and gazed at their tortured land, trembling beneath its torment. *******************************************************
Dawn arrived with no sunrise, just a tiny lightening of the slate-dark sky, and another endless day began. The boats still drifted; the remnant waited. Alara wondered whether it would not have been better simply to stay in the palace and let the walls fall in upon her, upon them all.
It was Damon who saw the sail first. He was in the boat with Alara and their father, he leaned close to his sister. "Alara," he said softly. She raised her head from its rest on her folded arms. "Alara, look to the north and tell me what you see," he said. She looked long and then stood. The boat rocked slightly beneath her. "Is it a sail? A ship? Damon, is it?" she asked.
They watched, squinting hard at the tiny square on the horizon, dark-hued in the gloom, the ship carrying it still too far to be recognized. The sail drew closer. Soon others saw it too, raising a clamour in the surrounding boats, some waving articles of clothing to draw the ship to them.
"There is only one," Alara said to Damon when the ship could at last be seen. "I see only one! Where are the others? There must be more." "Look, Alara!" Damon shouted as he pointed toward the ship. "There!" he said,"There are the others!" "We're saved!" Alara shouted,"Damon, father, we're saved!" No one heard her.
They too had seen the three ships approaching, and overcome with relief, were shouting themselves hoarse. Alara gazed around her. Of the one hundred fifty boats that had left Poseidonis Harbor, she estimated that fewer than fifty remained: some had drifted in the night, others had been struck by flaming debris or scuttled by the tidal wave.
The ships struck their sails as they came glidding nearer. The oarsmen in the fishing boats plied their oars, bringing the rescue craft close and the first of the passengers clambered up the hulls of the larger ships on nets flung over the rails. Alara saw to it that all the passengers were rescued and the cargo had been taken aboard before she allowed herself to be pulled up onto the deck.
The three ships were nearly full with rescued survivors. Alara made certain that Ambrose and Damon were safely aboard and that the cargo she had worked so hard to preserve was secured before collapsing into a corner. The ships were under the care of Lucius, Alara's uncle, who now shouted orders to his captain which were relayed to the other ships. The sails rustled up the masts once more, flapped, and puffed full in the breeze, and the ships strained forward, moving out to sea.
They had not sailed far, however, when they heard a howl, distant and menacing, carrying over the water. Those at the rails lifted their heads and saw thick clouds lowering over Atlantis. Spider-threads of crimson lava flowed over the unsteady landmass, gushing up and out of numerous gaping rents in the earth.
Smoke snaked over the water in wispy tendrils so that Atlantis appeared to float on night-dark storm clouds. The hot air smelled of sulfur and burning stone. Sooty ash drifted down in a filthy snow, blackening everything it touched.
Although it was midday, an inky twilight prevailed. The survivors huddled together on the decks in the darkness, their drawn faces illuminated by lurid flares and lightning.
The howl became a vast, soaring hiss that spread out from the broken shell of the island to fill the world. Alara closed her eyes and heard in the ugly sound the rush of departed spirits hastening on their deathless flight. Someone shook her shoulder and she looked up. Damon stood over her, his eyes red in the fireglow. "Come and see," he told her.
She rose and followed him to the stern where they pushed their way to places at the rail. Atlantis had shrunk entirely, its once vast terrain now merely a cluster of broken mountains in the flame-shot darkness.
The sibilant hiss intensified, overlaid by another sound, like that of an enormous cloth being ripped from end to end, a great tearing- the fabric of the world torn in two from one end to the other. The sound grew and filled the world, overwhelming the ships and their frightened passengers.
Then, while they all watched, the dark shape of Mount Titanis sank inward upon itself, heaved and burst in a final shattering cataclysm of firey destruction. The awful force vomited up gas and dust, and debris rose in a magnificent churning pillar whose top was lost in the streaming clouds above. A moment later they saw the shock wave racing at them over the water, flattening the wave crests.
It hit like an invisible hand, knocking the observers off their feet, rattling the ships to their planking. The shock wave was accompanied by a screaming wild wind that caught the flagging sails so sharply that the masts bent and cracked. The triremes were driven helplessly over the water, their decks slanting almost vertical. Alara, gripping the rough decking with her fingers, lay flat and held on, her eyes squeezed shut to keep out the stinging salt water.
The wind flew past them across the sea. Smoldering chunks of rock whistled from the swollen sky, hot and trailing white smoke, sizzling as they struck the sea and sank in a welter of steam. Glowing missiles struck the ships, sputtering and fizzling as they skittered crazily, burning into the planking, setting the decks on fire. Down rained the hail. Alara pulled a piece of sailcloth over her hoping to weather the firestorm.
The mountainous wave that followed the last explosion lifted the ships precariously high before sending them plunging down into the deep-riven trough. The wave passed over them, hurtling its way across the ocean, building power and speed as it went. The thought of what that wave would do to the first landmass it encountered made Alara shudder.
As the wave washed over her Alara thought for sure that this was the end. The ship was tossed about like the debris around it. The firestorm continued as flaming rock fell from the sky. A large chunk struck Alara's ship crashing through the hull.
The ship began to sink into the murky depths of the sea. All around her Alara heard the cries of the other passengers as they struggled to keep from drowning. Alara grabbed onto a piece of floating debris and managed to climb on top of it. She called out for her father and brother but there was no answer.
Finally the firestorm passed and Alara looked out across the water into an imense impenatrable curtain of smoke and dust all around, so thick she could no longer see the struggling survivors around her.
For three days she drifted idly in the still water. On the fourth day the sun rose as a pale, gray disk, burning through the brownish sky. By midday a fitful breeze out of the south scattered the last remnants of smoke, and Alara looked out across the sea. Where Atlantis had been there was nothing but a dull expanse of filthy water. Not a rock, not a grain of sand was left. Atlantis was gone and only the faintest wisp of steam rising from a vast seam of bubbles marked the place where it lay. Atlantis was no more.
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More to come....
