Atlantis in Peril (13 page)

Nature's Bounty

A
big, broad-shouldered man opened the door for Shangri. Wearing a brown tunic with sea blue arm bands and Greek symbols on the shoulders, he looked like a soldier in uniform—but not a uniform she'd seen before. He nodded, then turned to a heavyset, gray-haired man who was seated in the middle of several machines that filled the wide room.

In a voice loud enough to be heard above the clatter and squeal of the machines, he announced, “Master, the girl with the pie is here.”

Right away, the heavyset man looked up from a table covered with machine parts where he was working. Putting aside a large gear and some sort of tool he was holding, he stood up and wiped his grimy hands on his apron—a rather wide one, given the size of his waist. Shangri noticed that it resembled the aprons worn by her father and other bakers. Yet this one had lots more pockets and smudges from grease instead of fruit preserves and flour.

The man approached Shangri, walking with a pronounced limp that made him wobble like a misshapen gear. He smiled in greeting. “Welcome, my dear. I am Reocoles. And you are?”

“Shangri, daughter o'—”

“The most famous baker in the City,” finished Reocoles. “A pleasure to welcome you, Shangri! As well as the pie I ordered.”

With a glance at the uniformed man, he said, “Take this delicious-looking pie from the young lady and set it over there.”

Nodding obediently, the man carried the rhubarb and cherry pie over to a table nearby. That table, unlike the other ones in the room, didn't hold any machine parts or other gadgets. Instead, the only thing on it was a large map. It looked to Shangri like a map of a forest, maybe the Great Forest outside the City. Yet . . . unlike the Great Forest, this one was crisscrossed by dozens of roads and bridges.

“I am delighted you came,” continued Reocoles. “Having heard a great deal about your father's fruit pies, I decided to have one delivered. But I never expected it to be brought by such a lovely young woman.”

Shangri blushed, her cheeks only slightly less red than her hair.

“Come,” said Reocoles, extending his arm to her. “Let me give you a tour of my humble workshop.”

Guiding her away from the table with the map, he brought her to a large brown lever that protruded from the wall. He grabbed the lever with both hands and pulled it down. Immediately, all the whirring and clattering ceased as the machines stopped.

“There,” he said with a sigh, “it's quiet enough to talk.” Without much feeling, like a bard saying a line that's been rehearsed too many times, he added, “I do so enjoy the quiet.”

He pointed to a huge bellows beside the largest furnace Shangri had ever seen. “One of my earliest inventions, that bellows. It keeps my fires hotter for longer periods, which helps me mix the metals I need.”

Sweeping his arm around that part of the room, he said, “See those shelves up to the ceiling? Various ores I use for different purposes. And there, next to the bellows, my area devoted to making stronger, lighter tools and weapons.”

Creasing her brow, Shangri wondered, “Weapons? Fer what?”

“Oh,” he replied, guiding her over to another part of the room. “You never know. Just in theory. What I meant to say was those are all experimental devices.”

He stopped by a table arrayed with pieces of glass, as well as quartz crystals, plus half a dozen tools for cutting and polishing. Picking up a concave crystal, he handed it to her. “Can you guess, my dear, what that is for?”

Shangri felt the crystal's smooth edges and flat surface. “Not sure.” Then, on a whim, she held it up to her eye. She caught her breath. “Bigger. Everythin's bigger!”

“Good for you, bright one. It's called a lens, capable of magnifying whatever you want to see.”

“Amazin'!” Shangri looked around the room, seeing how the lens made all the machinery seem closer. Then, as her gaze fell on the table with the map, she froze. For she could plainly see, written on the map's bottom edge, the words
Great Forest Plan
.

Then she saw something even more strange. Under those words, in smaller lettering, was the phrase
Resources for the Empire
.

What resources?
she wondered.
And what empire?

“Right you are,” said the master machinist. “Modern science is truly amazing.”

Deftly, he snatched away the lens and put it back on the table. “This particular lens is going to be for a device called a telescope—something I can use to gaze up at the stars.”

But how,
wondered Shangri,
will ye be able to see them through all the smoke?

“Now look over there.” Reocoles pointed to a long table where two more men were working with slabs of metal and glass. “They are working on a different set of projects.”

Shangri noticed that both men wore the same sort of uniform as the man who had let her in. That man, she also saw, had returned to his position by the door, standing as straight as one of the axle rods piled beside him. Why, she wondered, were uniforms needed at all?

“They are making,” continued Reocoles, “the prototypes for more, shall we say,
futuristic
devices.”

“Like what?”

“Like a new kind of torch lamp that won't need to be soaked in oil every day to burn through the night.” Seeing Shangri's surprise, Reocoles explained proudly, “It will burn instead from a kind of gas I've been developing in my laboratory across the street. Gas that will someday be piped to every lamp on every street corner. And perhaps, into people's homes.”

The inventor paused to chuckle. “Of course, such an amazing service would be expensive . . . as well as profitable.”

“What's that?” asked Shangri, pointing at a complex mass of gears strapped together with wires and rods.

“That,” he answered proudly, “is my astrolocator—a device to predict the motions of stars. It still needs a lot of work, but one day I will be able to tell you exactly when there will be a lunar or solar eclipse.”

Gesturing at the workmen, he went on, “And I'm also developing an entirely new kind of game! Yes—a game that can be played by just one person.”

Shangri cocked her head in puzzlement. “But games are meant fer
sharin'.
People come together jest to play them.”

“Sure,” said Reocoles with a gleam in his eye. “Yet this new game would allow you to play all by yourself if you ever chose! Why, you wouldn't need to speak to another person, or even see him, if you didn't want to. Isn't that wonderful?”

She scrunched her nose, not sure that was the word she would have used.

“Come see another marvel.” Reocoles led her over to a table next to the far wall. As before, he limped badly. Shangri glanced down and saw that he wore an elaborate metal brace around his left leg, complete with a set of gears at the knee.

“You will be impressed by this,” the inventor boasted. Waving at the table, he added, “My most ambitious project.”

To Shangri's surprise, the table displayed at least twenty squares of grassy turf. On some of them, the grass looked green and vital; on others, yellow and withered—or completely dead. More perplexing still, one side of the table held a row of glass jars that looked a lot like her father's jars of baking spices, flour, and sugar. These ones, though, held very different items. They were crammed full of insects, ranging from tiny aphids to enormous grasshoppers.

“What,” she asked, “is this?”

He beamed. “I'm developing something called pesticides and herbicides. So that farms and vineyards won't be invaded by unwanted insects and weeds. That way farmers can produce more.
If
they are lucky enough to have my products, that is.”

“Wait,” protested Shangri. “If those poisons kill the insects who eat the plants, don't ye s'pose they could also hurt the people who eat them?”

“Nonsense. These methods are perfectly safe.”

“But how can ye know that?” Shangri shook her head. “Seems to me, people should leave nature alone, at least till they're sure that messin' with nature won't do somethin' bad.”

Reocoles frowned. “Here, my dear. Let me show you something.”

He led her over to a most unusual object—a large wooden wheel studded with knobs. Mounted on a pedestal by the building's largest window, the wheel glistened with flecks of white sea salt.

“The wheel from yer ship,” said Shangri, amazed.

“That's right.” Reocoles placed his hand on the wheel, gently touching its knobs like the face of an old friend. “My captain's wheel.”

He pointed to a chipped brass plate affixed to the pedestal. Though the letters inscribed on the plate were Greek, Shangri looked at them with fascination:

τον έλεγχο
της φύσης

“The name of my ship,” Reocoles explained. “It means ‘
the Control of Nature
.' For that is the highest and best use of the gifts we humans got long ago from Zeus, the king of our gods, as well as Hephaestus.”

Confused, Shangri asked, “As well as who?”

“Hephaestus, the most clever god of them all—the god of making crafts, machines, and inventions.”

She nodded. “Ye admire him 'specially, I see.”

“True, my dear.” He patted his leg brace. “Like me, Hephaestus was lame, though in my case it happened at birth and in his, when he fell off Mount Olympus.”

He straightened his back. “Both of us overcame our difficulties through ingenuity and hard work. And both of us learned how to use nature for the benefit of others.”

Leaning toward Shangri, he said, “That is why our ship's motto was the same as my own: ‘to find nature's bounty and make use of it all.'”

Though she'd heard that phrase before, it had never given her the same pause as it did this time. But she said nothing.

“Poseidon, our god of the sea, saved my life and the lives of my shipmates for a reason,” he declared.

Poseidon didn't save you,
thought Shangri.
Promi did.

“And that reason,” he continued, “should be obvious to you now. So I could bring benefits untold and a richer life to you and all the people of Atlantis!”

“Ye sound like yer the king o' this island.”

“No,” he replied with a smirk, “though I could be if I chose. I am content to be just a humble craftsman. But mark my words: I can do anything I want on this island. And one day, perhaps, beyond.”

A chuckle bubbled from his throat. “As long as the Divine Monk gets enough hot water for his baths, that is.”

Her heart pounding, Shangri objected, “Yer motto sounds like everythin' about nature is here jest fer us humans—that the land an' trees an' all the other creatures are jest here to serve us.”

“Well, they are.”

“No! Every creature deserves our respect. They've jest as much right to live an' breathe an' survive as we do.”

Reocoles clucked his tongue. “So naïve, my dear. Humans know what is best! And everything in nature matters only in relation to how it helps us or hurts us.”

Shangri's face reddened, though this time it wasn't from blushing. But before she could reply, the master machinist spoke again.

“Here I am, babbling like an old fool! Please forgive me. Why, I haven't even shown you what I most wanted you to see.”

Despite his ungainly limp, he set off briskly toward the other end of the room. With a last glance at the ship's wheel, Shangri followed. The master machinist led her over to a large iron contraption that she recognized right away—although it was far bigger than any other she'd seen.

“An oven,” she said, wide-eyed. “An' a thumpin' big one.”

“That's right, my dear. Did you know this stove can bake up to six times as many pies or cakes or loaves of bread as the old one your father uses now?”

“No.”

“And that the first baker I convinced to buy one tripled his business overnight?”

“No.”

“And yet,” said Reocoles, scratching his head in puzzlement, “your father has refused to buy one from me.”

“Well, he jest
likes
his old oven. They've worked together fer a long time, like a couple o' friends.”

“How sweet,” said Reocoles. “But wholly impractical. If anyone deserves to have one of my new ovens, it's your father, the most admired baker in the whole City of Great Powers. Why, if he got one, he'd be eternally grateful.”

Shangri's eyes narrowed. “What ye really mean to say is, if he got one . . . ye'd sell a lot more to other bakers.”

Reocoles gave her a wink. “You are just as smart as you are pretty.” He stepped closer and put his hand on her shoulder. “Now, won't you help me convince him to change his mind?”

“But I told ye, he jest doesn't want one.”

“I've solved that smoke problem,” said Reocoles, speaking fast. “Now I provide a pipe that takes it all outside.”

She backed away. “He
doesn't
want one, do ye hear?”

“What if I gave him one for a whole year free of charge? Just as a gesture of friendship.”

Shangri clenched her jaw, then said, “Yer not actin' out o' friendship. Yer actin' out o'
greed
.”

Reocoles made a sound like a rumbling furnace. “Show her out,” he commanded the man by the door. “Never let her in here again. And spread the word to watch for her in case she tries to cause any trouble.”

To Be a Bard

I
n his room above the bakery, Lekko—his chosen name these days—wrote on a scrap of yellow-tinted paper. Though his job at the paper merchant down the street gave him a goodly supply of scraps (in exchange for half his pay), he still went through great quantities. And his room showed it: paper, crumpled or piled high, covered with writing or torn to pieces, lay everywhere.

Lekko sat in his chair by the window, scribbling with a charcoal pencil. The paper, sitting on an old book about the Divine Monk's temple on Lekko's lap, had lots more crossed-out words than legible ones. He'd been working on this page since before dawn, but several hours later he had very little to show for it.

Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his scraggly blond hair.
Getting up early to write is the easy part,
he told himself.
Especially when you live right above a bakery that starts making such fabulous smells before dawn.

He chewed the end of the pencil.
The hard part is actually writing something decent.

Right now the bakery smelled of fresh ginger cookies. He took a big sniff, enjoying the quiet thrill he always got from ginger in any form. And that was also true, these days, about a certain young woman with ginger-red hair.

Shangri would be back soon from her morning deliveries, he knew. In fact, she should have returned by now. Something must have delayed her.

Probably just her love of talking with people,
he thought with a grin. He'd seen enough to know that many people ordered their pastries delivered not because they didn't like to come by Morey's shop—but because they liked chatting with Shangri even more. As Morey put it, “Who needs the sunshine when ye have the likes o' Shangri?”

Lekko put down the page and pencil. He stood up, paced across the little room, and grabbed his water jug and glass from a low table beside his sleeping pallet. Pouring himself a glass, he took it over to the window.

From this spot overlooking the street, he could watch the parade of people on the cobblestones below. Shepherds leading their flocks to the marketplace, craftsmen carrying leather goods or jewelry or woven shawls, monks beating their prayer drums while chanting in worshipful monotones, and many other slices of life passed by every day. Plenty of inspiration for writing—except he wasn't wanting to write about that.

Lifting his gaze, he looked over the rooftops to the smoky haze that always darkened a certain part of the City. The Machines District. The area where his fellow survivors from the shipwreck had settled five years ago. All except for him.

He could see, waving atop the roof of Reocoles's headquarters, the flag of the blue dolphin. Though it was often hard to see through the haze, he sometimes glimpsed one or two of his former shipmates up on that roof working on one of the master machinist's contraptions—either because that invention needed some wind to work or because there just wasn't enough room inside the building.

Lekko gazed intently at the neighborhood populated by his fellow Greeks. While he missed a few of them, the people on the ship he'd been closest to had died in the whirlpool. And he certainly didn't miss Reocoles, whose genius as an inventor was so often driven by his tyrannical urge to control everyone and everything around him.

That lame leg of his,
guessed Lekko,
didn't just pitch him into plenty of ravines as a child. It pitched him into a life of craving power.

Lekko took another swallow of water. The trouble was . . . Reocoles's unrelenting drive was destroying aspects of the City, as well as other people's lives. While his inventions were often beneficial as well, that destruction continued to spread like a subtle, creeping disease.

Though Lekko was only twelve years old when the ocean had miraculously spared him, he could clearly remember what the City had been like then. And see how different it was now. Torch lamps on every corner was a good improvement. So was better plumbing.

But what about the increasingly foul air that made people cough and gag? The wasted machine parts or packaging that now littered too many streets? The diminished connections between people who used to pause to greet one another but now hurried on by?

Reocoles would say this was all nonsense,
Lekko felt certain.
Actually, he'd probably say it was heresy.

The young man pursed his lips, thinking.
Which is why I want to write about those things. To be a bard who explores how societies can grow and change . . . yet still protect what deserves to endure.

Wistfully, he scanned the rooftops. “Maybe,” he said aloud, “that will be my one great story. The one I've been searching for all this time.”

Even as he said the words, he knew that there was only one way to find out. To write! But that, he also knew well, was hard work.

Almost as hard,
he thought with an ironic grin,
as choosing my permanent pen name.
Lekko, he felt, was close—but like so many other attempts, it wasn't quite right.

Maybe I'll just end up going back to Lorno,
he wondered.
It's special, since that was the name I had when I first landed on Atlantis. And also on Morey's head!

His grin widened, since that was the name Shangri still called him. She'd given up trying to keep track of whatever name he was using currently. So even if he didn't feel satisfied with that, she'd be pleased.

And that,
he told himself,
counts for a lot.

Footsteps! He heard someone climbing the narrow stairs up to his room. Stepping over to the door, he opened it, knowing he'd be seeing Shangri's joyful face.

It was Shangri, all right. But she certainly wasn't joyful. Her typically bright eyes were clouded; her hands that usually brought him a treat from the bakery were wringing anxiously.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, Lorno . . .” She fell into his arms and they embraced for a long moment. Then she pulled away and shook her head, swaying her long hair across her shoulders.

“What's wrong?” he repeated.

“Everythin'! I jest came back from Reocoles's place. And what I saw makes me sick with worry fer our homes, our fellow creatures—our whole island.” She drew a deep breath. “He has plans fer all o' us . . . and fer his own empire.”

The young man scowled. “By the blood and bones of Zeus, it's as if our ship brought an invasion to Atlantis! We should never have been allowed to land.”

She took his hand. “Don't say that. At least one person on yer ship was certainly supposed to land.”

Meeting his gaze, Shangri added, “I am sure o' that. Totally sure.”