Atlantis Rising (4 page)

Coughing wildly, the Divine Monk staggered into the table, tripped on himself, and fell face-first into the ceremonial feast. Cherry sauce, smashed grapes, and flasks of wine flew everywhere. The table buckled under his great weight, tossing more food to the floor. Candles broke, falling onto the tablecloth, which erupted in flames.

In all the commotion, nobody noticed that when the platter for the precious pie hit the floor, the pie itself did not. Promi had caught it. Firmly clutching his prize, he darted back to the balcony.

As the dust and smoke began to clear, Araggna glared at the dagger that still pinned her to the wall. “Help me, you fools!” she shouted. “Curse this day with everlasting plagues!”

“No,” commanded the Divine Monk, “help me first!” He had landed belly up on the floor and lay there, squirming like a huge turtle on its back. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t roll over, let alone stand. A huge glob of cherry sauce covered his turban’s ruby.

Grukarr, for his part, remained silent and still. His gaze was fixed on the red curtain by the balcony, where he’d just watched a young man escape. A young man he clearly recognized.

Grukarr clenched his fists tightly. “You will pay for your crimes,” he growled under his breath. “Whoever you are, you will pay.”

Punishment

The only thing worse than a bitter pastry is a bitter pastry chef.

—From Promi’s journal

Y
ou
what
?” rasped Araggna, pacing angrily across her dimly lit chamber. Her dark eyes smoldered with fury. “You actually saw the attacker—and even recognized him—but did nothing at all to stop him?”

Grukarr growled, baring his teeth. “I did not see him, as I told you, until
after
he attacked us.”

“That makes no difference!” she shrieked, shoving him backward into her marble washbasin. “You are an incompetent fool! I should have your eyes put out and your mouth sewed shut for all your stupidity!”

The boa constrictor on her arm coiled itself tighter. Then, its orange eyes on Grukarr, it hissed loudly.

Seething with rage, Grukarr barely restrained himself from striking the priestess. But he couldn’t ignore the barbed spear points of the four temple guards who were standing at the doorway, watching him suspiciously.

He drew himself up to his full, commanding height, made even greater by his white turban. Menacingly, he looked down at her—this wrathful old priestess who had the nerve to berate him. “I will find him,” he vowed, “and kill him.”

“Not too quickly,” she countered, raking her fingernails against Grukarr’s chest. “I want him to
suffer.
”

“Don’t worry. I know exactly what to do with him.”

“You had better succeed,” snarled the High Priestess, her white hair still flecked with incense powder and duckling sauce from the attack. “For if you don’t . . . it will be you who will suffer.”

For an instant, Grukarr almost lost control again. But he held back his rage, clenching his jaw.
There will be another time,
he promised himself.

Then he spied, under the collar of her robe, a mysterious glow. It came from something she was wearing around her neck.
Yes,
he added vengefully,
and when that time comes . . . you will have no more need for that little treasure.

He turned to leave.

“Wait,” she rasped. As soon as he turned back, she peered straight at him and taunted, “Prove to me, for once, that you are not a complete imbecile.”

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“By the way,” she added, “I heard about that episode this morning in the market square. Through your carelessness and poor commands, you allowed some street beggar to escape—and, in the process, you turned six of our highly trained temple guards into laughingstocks! They should be respected, like all of us who wield authority.” Araggna paused to pull a gooey mass of duckling sauce out of her hair. “Your sheer incompetence shames us all. It makes even the Divine Monk seem foolish.”

“He needs no help from us to do that,” grumbled Grukarr.

Instead of rising to her superior’s defense, Araggna merely smirked. “You are right about that. He is unalterably a fool. But as long as I am here to, er . . .
guide
him, as well as keep the buffoonery of this country in line, we shall continue to thrive.” She glared at her deputy. “Just to make certain you do no more damage to the reputation of the temple guards, I hereby strip you of your right to have them as your security detail.”

Grukarr caught his breath. “No temple guards? What if I am—”

“Attacked? Spat upon? Jeered?” She savored the thought. “Well then, I suppose you will just have to deal with it yourself. You and that filthy bird who sometimes rides on your shoulder.”

“Huntwing? He is a loyal, intelligent, well-trained servant.”

“Better than you, then.” She practically spat the words. “From now on, if you are to have any guards, you must find them yourself. I am retaining the entire corps of temple guards for my own protection.” In an unmistakably threatening tone, she added, “We all need protection, you know.”

Furious, Grukarr clenched his jaw. He glanced at the guards standing by the doorway.
Right you are,
he thought viciously.
We all need protection.

He spun around and stormed out of her chamber.

“Don’t forget,” she called after him, “you have some punishments to carry out this afternoon before you leave the temple.”

He halted, but didn’t turn to face her. “I thought the top priority was to find the attacker.”

“You
thought
?” she ridiculed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Grukarr. Just follow my orders, that is all! I want at least something in this temple to happen as planned today. So go now to the prisoners and deliver all the punishments I promised.”

“As you command.” In a darker tone, he added, “All those who deserve it shall be punished.”

A Fine Day’s Work

Thought you were so clever, didn’t you? Typical! Just the way you were before . . . well, before that cursed prophecy changed everything.

—From her journal, beneath a sketch of something that looks surprisingly like the mark on Promi’s chest

P
urple juice dribbled down Promi’s chin, seeping under the collar of his tunic. He wiped his neck with a tattered sleeve, folded his legs tighter beneath him, and retrieved a flake of crust that had fallen onto his boot—all while taking more bites of the sweetest pie he’d ever tasted. His own personal holiday feast.

“Not bad,” he said with satisfaction, pausing to lick each of his purple-tinted fingers and finishing with a loud
smack.
“Now I know how these berries got their name.”

Seated on a grassy knoll just outside the City’s outer wall, under the shade of an old cedar, Promi sighed gratefully. Here he was with his hard-earned prize, savoring its sweetness . . . and also, for a change, relaxing on the warm grass with nobody chasing him, cursing him, or trying to kill him. It wouldn’t last long, he knew—these moments never did—but that made it all the more precious.

He lay back on his elbows, keeping the still-warm pie on his lap. Sure, he’d lost another good throwing knife in grabbing it. But it was a most worthy cause! So he’d just have to find himself another knife, as he’d done many times before. This very afternoon, in fact, he could easily fetch one from an unsuspecting peddler in the market square.

Of course, he’d need to be extra cautious after his busy day. After all, he had not only stolen Grukarr’s belt buckle and humiliated the priest in public, he had also left a trail of extremely angry temple guards around the City. And that was just the beginning!

Now he’d also stolen the Divine Monk’s precious pie. In doing so, he’d violated at least a dozen laws, defiled the sacred temple, committed sacrilege on a high holiday, and—oh yes—totally destroyed the Divine Monk’s dining room. Not to mention outraged the two most vengeful and dangerous people in the country, Grukarr and High Priestess Araggna.

He grinned.
A fine day’s work.

Gazing at the City wall, he felt satisfied that he was, indeed, all alone. From this spot, he could see from one end of the settlement to the other—though not as far beyond its borders as he’d seen from atop the bell tower. Still, if any guards tried to pursue him, he’d notice them in plenty of time to escape.

For centuries, this community at the edge of the Deg Boesi River had been the country’s capital. In fact, it had long been called Ellegandia City. Then the current Divine Monk, in his typically humble way, had renamed it the City of Great Powers. (Whether he’d done that to honor the powerful spirits of the immortal realm, or to honor himself and his entourage, who were such great powers among mortals, nobody was certain.)

Yet despite its grandiose name, this place still felt a lot like a village. Sure, it was by far the largest settlement in the country, the site of the Divine Monk’s temple, and the seat of government. But its life and people and rhythms were still much like those of any other village in Ellegandia.

Of course, Promi reminded himself as he chewed on a buttery edge of crust, that wasn’t to say that Ellegandia was like anywhere else in the world. All the stories about Ellegandia celebrated the country’s uniqueness. Its very name originally meant “a land alone” or “a place apart.” Of course, nobody could be sure those stories were true, since no one from Ellegandia had ever traveled to other lands and returned to describe them. But Promi felt a strong instinct that his country was, in fact, very special. Maybe even, as the legends said, unique among all the other places on Earth.

Now, some of that specialness stemmed from simple geography—from being so utterly remote. Shielded on three sides by stormy seas and sheer cliffs, and on the fourth side by an impassable mountain range that separated Ellegandia from the rest of the continent—the land mass some people called Africa—it was a lonely, forgotten place. A kind of island, though one that was still attached to land.

On top of that, Divine Monks had decreed since the beginning of history that nobody could ever leave the country, on pain of eternal torment by the Great Powers. The reason? So that no one outside this realm would ever hear about Ellegandia’s riches . . . and be tempted to try to steal them. For the most ancient prophets had warned the Divine Monks that Ellegandia held treasures found nowhere else on Earth.

Those treasures were, indeed, vast. Yet they didn’t come just in the form of shiny jewels, colorful cloths, and precious metals. Such things existed here, but they were the very least of the country’s riches. What really made Ellegandia special, what really made it so blessed by the Great Powers, was the abundance of something else.

Magic.

So much natural magic that it was said to flow in the very streams of the Great Forest, producing luminous flowers, talking trees, and sentient stones. And that wasn’t all. In addition to magical creatures of every description, Ellegandia’s forest was said to be the only place in existence that held creatures from everywhere else on Earth. So the Great Forest was not only a home for magical beings, but also an oasis for mortals of all kinds—a spectacular array of animals and trees, insects and birds.

That was, at least, the forest’s reputation. Having never set foot there, Promi couldn’t be sure how much of that was true. But those woods had certainly inspired plenty of stories from travelers and food gatherers. Growing up on the streets of the City, he’d heard plenty of those tales, some more believable than others.

What nobody could doubt, though, were the amazing fruits, nuts, herbs, spices, and seeds that people had brought out of the forest for centuries. As well as the silver leaves of the sacred muliahma tree, leaves the monks covered with intricate prayers. Plus all the bizarre and wondrous creatures brought to market from the forest, like those color-shifting pigeons he’d seen today—and thrown in the face of the guard.

Savoring the sweet taste in his mouth, Promi thought of one more example. The smackberries he was now enjoying, which had been grown in the Divine Monk’s garden, originally came from the Great Forest. As he took another bite of pie, he thought,
I could almost believe these berries have been touched by a breeze from the spirit world.

All this was why every old myth about this land sprang from the same two ideas. First, Ellegandia’s magic was profoundly valuable, an eternal gift to every person, every creature, and every tree in the realm. No wonder the people’s favorite blessing, saved for the most special occasions, was
I bless your eternal qualities.

The second idea was a kind of responsibility. The Great Powers asked only one thing in return for all this magic—that Ellegandia’s people do everything possible to protect its riches from the greed of others, whether humans or immortals. Promi didn’t see how immortals could ever be a problem, since the mortal world and the spirit world were completely separate. And that separation was inviolable. But in any case, the myths always reminded people to safeguard their homeland’s natural magic.

He shrugged his shoulders. That bit about immortals didn’t really make sense. Maybe that was why he didn’t like listening to the old legends. Or, for that matter, to any of the far-fetched tales about immortals—whether they lived up in the clouds of the spirit realm or in Ellegandia’s forest groves.
If you believe in such things,
he told himself,
you’ve got to carry them around with you everywhere, like a satchel filled with rocks. And I like to carry as little as possible.

He took another bite, savoring every ingredient from the sweet syrup to the sugary crust. All at once, he realized that he had company—not people, but several creatures who’d been drawn to the pie’s alluring aroma.

Seated around him on the grassy slope were a mountain squirrel who waved his tail like a flag, a pure white kitten whose whiskers were as long as her legs, and a long-nosed anteater with a baby clinging to her back. A broad-winged butterfly with pink-and-black-striped wings floated over and landed on a mustard flower. Then up in the branches of the old cedar, he caught a flash of something deep blue. Feathers?

He peered into the branches, furrowing his brow. Could it be one of those rare hi-marnia birds? They were so elusive that almost nobody ever saw them. But he’d heard that their nests were sometimes found in the boughs of blue cedars in the Great Forest.

The kitten mewed plaintively. Promi shook his head and said sternly, “No way, you beggar. I earned this pie, every bite.”

But the kitten merely stared at him. She opened her eyes to their widest, never blinking.

Promi sighed. “Oh, all right. Just this once.”

Pinching a small piece of crust that oozed with smackberry syrup, he tossed it to the kitten. She pounced on it eagerly. Then, seeing the looks of great longing on the faces of the anteater and the squirrel, he threw each of them a scrap.

The butterfly landed on his wrist, wings trembling with anticipation. Promi shook his head, knowing he was beaten. Gently, he smeared a bit of sweet juice on a mustard flower. Instantly the butterfly glided over and began to dine.

Just about to get back to his own eating, he thought of something else. For the sake of fairness, he broke off one more chunk of pie crust and tossed it straight up into the cedar’s branches. Though he heard a scurrying sound, he didn’t see any more flashes of blue up there. But the crust didn’t fall back to the ground.

Taking another bite for himself, he glanced again at the City’s outer wall. As he chewed, he heard the distant chiming of a bell—not the big one in the bell tower that he himself had rung that morning, but one somewhere else in the temple complex. He also heard some muffled shouting from the market square, the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, and the gentle bleating of goats. The only other sounds he could hear came from his new neighbors, who were loudly chomping and licking their paws, as well as some more scurrying in the branches above his head.

“Welcome to my dining room,” he announced. “The finest eating place in all of Ellegandia.” With a chuckle, he added, “And it’s certainly a lot nicer than the Divine Monk’s dining room right now.”

He waved his arms, gesturing to the assembled creatures, but they ignored him. They were too engrossed in devouring their treats. Only the butterfly gave any indication of having heard him, pausing briefly to flutter its wings before continuing to eat.

Promi thought back to his successful theft of the pie and chuckled again, spurting some purple syrup onto his leggings. The hardest part of the whole operation had turned out to be something he hadn’t expected—trying not to fall over laughing when the incense shaker exploded, the Divine Monk crashed into the table, and the whole place erupted in chaos.

Best of all,
he thought with satisfaction,
was that look of utter shock on Grukarr’s face. A look I’m starting to enjoy.

He licked his purple-stained fingers.
And Araggna’s face was a good match. Why, she looked even angrier than usual, which is hard to imagine.

Hearing something stir in the branches overhead, he glanced up. But he saw nothing through the mesh of blue needles . . . except a hint of rust color. Part of the hi-marnia bird? But no, they were supposedly all blue. So another kind of bird, then?

Only one piece of pie remained. Turning his attention to that, he lifted it and took a huge bite. The animals around him whimpered with disappointment, while the butterfly’s antennae drooped.

“Oh, well,” he said with a shrug. Then he broke off a lump of crust and divided it among them. Immediately they went back to the happy task of eating.

As he watched them, Promi couldn’t help but think about the diversity of this land’s creatures. He’d seen only a small sampling of them, of course—the ones people had captured and brought to market, or the rare ones brave enough to approach him as these had done. But that small sampling had been amazingly varied . . . and sometimes quite beautiful.

There really could be some truth to the old stories about this land’s wondrously varied creatures. And that wasn’t even counting the immortal beings who, it was said, had actually chosen to live in Ellegandia’s deep woods rather than in the spirit realm on high.

That can’t be true,
thought Promi skeptically.
Why would any immortals choose to live on Earth rather than up in the sky with the rest of their kind? Ellegandia may be special . . . but let’s not get carried away.

His thoughts turned to another question. Where had Ellegandia’s people come from originally? With all those barriers of ocean cliffs and impassable mountains, it couldn’t have been easy. Some believed those first people had sailed here from a faraway land called Greece, and that a terrible storm at sea had hurled their boats over the tops of the cliffs. Others claimed that Ellegandians came from people called Berbers from the continent of Africa—and that those people had discovered some way to cross the high peaks.

Still others believed the first people of this land had been chosen by the immortals to live here. This theory held that men, women, and children from places all around the world had been plucked away from their old homes and magically brought to Ellegandia. Outlandish as this theory was, it did at least explain the great diversity of Ellegandia’s people, whose skin color ranged from deepest black to palest white and all shades in between.

Promi chuckled.
I like that theory . . . for originality, at least.

He sank his teeth into the last bite of pie. Frankly, he didn’t care what the old legends said. Like the other stories spread around by monks and priestesses, they didn’t concern him at all. No, the only things that mattered—the only things he could count on—were solid reality.

Such as,
he concluded,
a tasty piece of pie.