Area 51: Nosferatu-8 (17 page)

He also began to understand some of what they said and learned they were a people who sailed not only south along Africa, but north along Atlantic coast of Europe. Their ships had been crisscrossing the Mediterranean pursuing trade for hundreds of years and they had colonized both the northern shores of Africa and eastern Spain from their homeland in Palestine.

The most interesting news was that Egypt was now ruled by the Persians, the last Pharaoh having been defeated in battle just a few years earlier. Nosferatu had never heard of the Persians, but he had the ship's captain point out the Persian Empire on the map and show him where its capital was.

If foreigners ruled in Egypt, was it safe for him to venture there? Would he be able to get to the Grail and take it to Nekhbet? Where were the four remaining Airlia?

The Phoenicians had Gods they worshipped, with names Nosferatu did not recognize; but they were not the

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same as the Gods he had known in Egypt. Every morning the crew knelt in front of several small idols placed in the bow of the ship. They prayed for fair weather and a wind at their backs and for safety from the wiles of the sea. Nosferatu didn't understand praying to an object. What power could a piece of stone hold?

At least the Gods who had ruled Egypt had been real.

After several days of sailing with no shore in sight—another advancement over Nosferatu's last voyage—they made landfall at a port city called Selinus on an island the locals called Sicily. Things had changed, he realized as he roamed the city at night, looking for a victim to sate his hunger, yet in many ways, they had remained the same. There were new empires and gods, but people and technology seemed to be basically unaltered. In fact, other than their having the sailing ships, Nosferatu judged the Phoenicians to be inferior to the Egyptian culture he had known. And they knew nothing of history. Their societal memory only went back a few generations. He had heard no mention of Atlantis or the Great Civil War among the Gods.

Nosferatu spent the week the ship stayed in Selinus feeding and listening. He heard nothing of the Airlia, the Ones Who Wait, the Guides, or anything else to do with the Gods from the stars and their minions. Perhaps the world was free of them? Nosferatu could wonder and hope.

They sailed from Selinus, around the foot of Italy, to the ship's final destination, Athens, one of the main city-states of the most powerful empire in the Mediterranean, according to what Nosferatu had picked up from the conversations he listened in on. From what he had learned he knew he could find another ship to take him from Athens to Egypt. He stayed belowdecks after they docked in

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Piraeus, the port city of Athens, waiting for nightfall. By the time he departed the ship, the cargo had been unloaded and the crew was gone, off to the local taverns to celebrate the successful completion of their long journey and the surprising and pleasant addition of Nosferatu's gold.

Athens was very different from Selinus. Nosferatu wandered the streets of the city, impressed with the architecture, but even more so with the discourse in the various public meeting places sprinkled throughout the city. He spent several weeks simply soaking in the conversation, learning the language. There was a difference to the people here, something Nosferatu sensed even before he understood the words.

It took him a few evenings before it suddenly came to him what was different about these people from what he had known in Egypt. Here they had a sense of the future.

In Egypt, life had been cyclical. There was little sense of time because all things repeated themselves and there was no progress. Here life was linear.

Ideas were discussed and argued about. People were asking why, something that had been frowned upon in Nosferatu's Egypt. He wondered if it were the absence of the Gods and the high priests that allowed this freedom of thought. The Greeks had Gods, many of them, but they appeared to be more a theory than a reality. Something people even argued about along with everything else. In Egypt the price for doubting the Airlia Gods or the high priests had been death.

Nosferatu fed well, taking those who also walked the night, usually thieves and prostitutes who worked near the docks of Piraeus, and who would not be missed. He was feeling stronger and more confident that he could re-

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turn to Egypt and rescue Nekhbet when he heard a word as he was passing a group of men gathered on stone steps in front of a temple that froze him in his tracks.

Atlantis.

The sun had set only an hour previously, but Nosferatu had already fed, taking a young man who had tried to rob him as he walked a back alley after rising from his hiding place underneath a wharf. Nosferatu edged closer to the group. The man at the center had white hair and a long beard. He had a scroll in his hand.

"You speak of the Flood of Deukalion and Pyrrha, Solon," the old man read,

"but I tell you they pale in comparison to that which destroyed Atlantis. There have been and will be many destroyers of mankind, the greatest two of which are fire and water."

The old man looked past the group at Nosferatu, who was now along the outer circle of men listening. Nosferatu was startled by the sharpness of the glance and almost stepped back, but held his ground, interested to hear what the old man had to read. This was also something that was new, the only other written language Nosferatu had seen before being the High Runes of the Airlia.

"Many are the truths and great are the achievement of the Greeks," the old man continued. "However, there is one accomplishment that is rarely spoken of, and that many think is a myth. A long time ago, before the time when the Dorians came to this land, our ancestors fought a great battle against a host that came from beyond the sea, from beyond the Pillars of Heracles, and were led by Gods themselves.

"Beyond the Pillars there was an island larger than Libya and Asia put together. On this island was a confederation of powerful kings who ruled not only that island but many other lands. The empire of Atlantis stretched 144

through the Pillars of Heracles to Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, but in a noble battle we stopped them from extending their rule here to Greece.

"Not long after, there was a great earthquake which caused the sea to swallow the island of Atlantis up in its entirety so that it disappeared from the face of the Earth."

The last part agreed with what Nosferatu had learned as a child, but the bit about the Greeks defeating the Airlia and their Atlantean human forces, he thought, wasn't very likely. He checked that thought. If the battle had taken place during the Airlia civil war, then it was possible that the Greeks had had the assistance of Artad and his forces. Even the priests had known few details of the Great Civil War.

"You, stranger." The old man startled Nosferatu by pointing directly at him.

"What do you know of these things?"

"Why do ask me?" Nosferatu replied.

"I have seen your kind before."

Nosferatu felt a chill pass through his body. "What do you mean my kind?"

"Tall. White skin like the finest marble. And most important your eyes, my friend, they speak of having seen much, as did he to whom I talked."

"Did this man, who you think is my kin, have a name?"

"He called himself a Shadow of Aspasia, whatever that might mean."

Nosferatu remembered Kajilil speaking of the creature, a creation of Aspasia, the Airlia commander. "When did you speak with him?"

"So you know him?" the old man asked in reply.

"I have heard of him, but I do not know him."

"He was here two days ago. I have met him several times. We have had the most interesting conversations."

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Nosferatu felt the hope of the past few weeks collapse.

"So what do you know of Atlantis, my friend?" the old man pressed.

"Nothing," Nosferatu muttered as he turned and slipped away into the darkness.

He wandered the streets of Athens, wondering what he should do next. If Aspasia's Shadow is here in Athens, who is in Egypt, in the Roads of Rostau?

Where are the Gods?

He sensed more than saw the blade coming at him. Reacting, Nosferatu jumped to the side, the knife slicing the air where a split second ago his throat had been. The attacker followed through on the strike, wheeling, bringing the blade to bear once more. Nosferatu retreated, but his back hit the wall of a building and his attacker maneuvered to trap him.

"Who are you?" Nosferatu demanded, holding his hands up in front of himself in a defensive posture. He felt as if he were looking into a mirror—a tall man wrapped in a dark cloak with pale skin and red hair. The eyes, though, caught his attention. Red and elongated like a cat's. "Aspasia's Shadow?"

In reply the man thrust with the dagger. At the same moment there was a flash of metal coming down from the right, smoothly slicing through the man's arm, severing it at the elbow. The hand holding the dagger fell to the stone street.

Nosferatu watched with wide eyes as the sword cut back, piercing his attacker's chest. The man collapsed to the ground as Nosferatu turned to face the wielder of the sword.

"I am Aspasia's Shadow," the man said. He wiped the blood off the sword, using the dead man's cloak. "This is a One Who Waits." Aspasia's Shadow reached inside the dead man's tunic and removed a small object from a chain around his neck. Nosferatu had seen such a shape

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before—the ka, two hands without a torso raised as in prayer. Aspasia's Shadow put it inside a pocket and in turn pulled out a small glass vial filled with what appeared to be black sand. He unscrewed the lid, then shook the black powder over the body. Immediately the flesh began to disappear as if the sand were eating it. Within ten seconds there was only the empty clothing lying in the street.

Aspasia's Shadow stood. "You are Nosferatu."

It was not a question, so Nosferatu remained silent as Aspasia's Shadow sheathed his sword.

"Come." Aspasia's Shadow did not bother to look over his shoulder as he headed down the alley. Nosferatu paused to retrieve the assassin's dagger, then followed.

After a little way around the base of the Acropolis, Aspasia's Shadow passed between two statues, literally into the base of the hill on which the Parthenon stood. Nosferatu followed him down worn stone steps. They paused at the bottom, where a wooden door made of scarred beams barred the way. Aspasia's Shadow did something that Nosferatu couldn't quite see and the door smoothly swung open.

The two entered and the door swung shut behind them. Nosferatu could see quite well in the dark, but he winced when Aspasia's Shadow lit a lantern. Shading his eyes, he followed the other along a tunnel cut through the stone of the Acropolis.

"This tunnel was made by some of the first people who lived here," Aspasia's Shadow said, his first words in a while. "They must have put a fort on the top of this hill, then cut this tunnel as an escape route, or perhaps a way to get water. Who knows? It must have taken them many years. I imagine it took generations of these people chipping away at the stone with their simple tools.

Humans

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are a most strange species. Most of the time their attention span is that of any animal, short. But then they do something like this. Most strange."

They turned a corner and entered a chamber containing a table, some chairs, and a bed. Aspasia's Shadow put the lantern on the table. He glanced at Nosferatu. "Does this hurt your eyes?"

"Yes."

Aspasia's Shadow made no effort to turn the lamp down. He sat in a chair and leaned back, putting his boots up on the table. Nosferatu took the seat across from him, one hand on the dagger hidden under his cloak, the other shading his eyes.

"I should kill you for slaying Isis and Osiris," Aspasia's Shadow said. "If I were true to the persona that was implanted in me so many years ago when I was made by Aspasia. It was Aspasia who left Isis and Osiris, his lieutenants, in charge in Egypt." Aspasia's Shadow sighed. "But much has happened in the years since then. I have walked this planet longer than you. And I assume you have slept some of those years in the tube—something I have done also on occasion. I have been reborn many, many times. My memory and my experience grow even as I switch from one body to the next."

Nosferatu remained silent, his hand still on the dagger.

"I met Osiris and Isis and the other four several times. They always treated me with contempt because I was a Shadow, and human in form. When I heard Isis and Osiris had been killed I did not shed any tears."

"Where did they go?" Nosferatu asked. "The four who lived?"

"Why do you want to know?" Aspasia's Shadow did not wait for an answer. "Where is your love? Nekhbet, the one you stole from the Roads?"

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Nosferatu remained silent. Aspasia's Shadow laced his fingers together on his lap and regarded Nosferatu for several moments, as if pondering a problem. "She sleeps, doesn't she? Or else you would be with her. And you seek something.

Blood. Airlia blood. The human blood keeps you alive, allows you to maintain, but you need Airlia blood for her, don't you?"

Nosferatu realized he was dealing with the only other being on the planet, besides the Gods, who had lived longer than he and had more experience. Plus, Aspasia's Shadow had inherited Aspasia's knowledge along with his own experience.

"Or more likely, you desire the Grail," Aspasia's Shadow said. "Wouldn't we all?" He sighed. "But the key to the Hall of Records, where it is kept, had been hidden well by the Watchers. Even I don't know where it is now. Plus, I have had to put aside that temptation because activating the Grail would bring both Artad and Aspasia after me. It is the one thing that is forbidden even to me."

Still Nosferatu remained silent. It occurred to him that Aspasia's Shadow was bored. More than bored, Nosferatu realized. Aspasia's Shadow was lonely, a feeling that Nosferatu could certainly understand.

"I've met Vampyr, your brother in blood," Aspasia's Shadow continued. He seemed disappointed that Nosferatu still made no reply. "He, at least, makes the world an interesting place. He had a kingdom. On an island south of here. He was getting quite powerful and earning quite a fearsome reputation. I feared I might have to take action, but the planet itself brought his plans, quite literally, to ruin."