Atlantis: Gate (32 page)

Cyra placed her arm across the King’s shoulders. “Perhaps—just perhaps—fear is a good thing. Perhaps there are things we should fear. Things we don’t understand.”

Leonidas shook her arm off. “Can you respect the dead?”

Cyra stood. “We are doing this to respect the living.”

CHAPTER 25 THE SPACE BETWEEN

“This is ridiculous,” Stoke’s executive officer muttered.

“You have a better idea?” Stokes asked as he leaned over the edge of
Deepflght
toward Rachel. In his hand was a snapshot of the
Connecticut
. The dolphin raised herself halfway out of the water, leaning toward the image. Then she went backward, hitting the water with a splash that soaked Stokes.

“Look,” he said.

Rachel raced off about a hundred meters, then paused, looking back as if waiting.

“Let’s go,” Stokes said as he slid inside the submersible, joining the rest of the survivors of his crew.

BEYOND THE SPACE BETWEEN

The scale of the Shadow sphere was overwhelming as Dane, Earhart, and Ariana got closer. Even though it was over half buried, the curving side loomed high over their heads and to the left and right. Ariana didn’t hesitate when she reached the craft but began floating upward, along the side. Dane and Amelia Earhart followed, the black surface just a couple of inches underneath their suits.

Ariana was angling to the right and came to a halt about fifty meters short of the top. There was a thin line in the surface that extended as far as she could see. About four inches to the left of the line was a strange-looking indentation.

Ariana pointed at that spot. “Use the Naga Staff.”

Dane had almost forgotten about the pole strapped to his pack. Earhart removed it for him, and he took it from her. He realized the indentation was the opposite of the Naga heads. Making sure to keep the blade away from his suit, he slowly pressed the Naga end into the hole. A golden glow suffused the hole and staff, and Dane felt a shock pass through his body.

He let go of the staff and was buffeted back several feet as a loud noise filled the air. The crack slowly opened several inches along the top half of the sphere. A quarter of the way around to the left and right, similar cracks had opened.

“More,” Ariana said.

Reluctantly, Dane took hold of the staff and pressed. He was ready when the shock hit him, and he kept his hold. The crack widened until it was five feet wide where they were narrowing to the joint at the bottom.

“Come on,” Ariana said.

“Just leave it?” Dane indicated the staff.

“I don’t think anyone is going to come along and do anything to it,” Ariana slipped into the opening. Dane followed with Earhart right behind him. He could see that the skin of the sphere was over three feet thick. The interior was lit by a dim golden glow coming, from numerous unseen sources. The inside was as magnificent as the outside. It was completely open, with a floor that bisected the diameter in the exact middle. The floor was canted slightly. Indicating the sphere wasn’t resting with the top straight up.

“This is what my plane was drawn into,” Earhart said.

Dane had seen the video from the USS
Revelle
when it was captured by a similar-or could it be the same?—sphere. Ariana was descending, floating downward. Dane wasn’t sure how to do that, but the suit seemed to sense the direction he wanted to go, and he followed. Ariana touched down in the exact center of the floor, Dane landing a second later, followed by Earhart.

“It still has power.” Dane noted.

“Some,” Ariana acknowledged.

“Have you been in here before?” Earhart asked.

“In the vision,” Ariana said. She bent over and placed her rumored hand on the floor. She quickly stood and backed up as a hatch iris opened. It was five feet in diameter, and she didn’t hesitate as she slipped down into it. Dane followed, and they went down a long tube for almost a minute before it opened into a circle, about fifty feet in diameter. Floating in the exact center was a golden sphere that took up about a fifth of the space. The surface shimmered, and Dane was certain the exterior wasn’t solid.

Dane felt drawn to it and innately knew this was the control center for the sphere. But Ariana was moving past it. Dane now saw at least a dozen opening tubes, leading out of the place he was in. Ariana disappeared down the lowest hole. Dane checked to make sure Earhart was with him, then followed.

They descended for several minutes, then entered another large opening. Dane’s ‘best’ guess was that they were at the very bottom of the massive vehicle. This chamber was about five hundred feet across and very dimly lit so that it was hard to see. Poking up from the center was a thick rod with a globe on the top. He could make out that the walls were lined with couches. Strapped into almost half the couches were bodies. Human bodies.

“The Shadows are human?” Earhart whispered.

Dane had seen something like this before. He approached the nearest couch. There was something strange about the body. Then Dane saw it. The head was half solidified—not quite crystal, more a dullish gray mixed with crystal. Turning slowly, he could see that all the couches were oriented toward the center—toward the globe on top of the rod.

“I don’t know if the Shadows are human,” Dane said, “but their fuel for this thing was.”

“Not the fuel,” Ariana said. “The channel for the power.”

Dane remembered the Theran priestess Kaia going into the portal and disrupting the power. “So we can use the skulls to disrupt the Nazca portal if we can get to it?”

“Yes.”

CHAPTER 26 480 BC

“If the words of your Oracle were true, this is my last night.” Leonidas was lying on his back, his head resting on his rolled up cloak, his eyes staring up at the stars.

“Yes.” Cyra was seated on a small stone to his side, her own cloak wrapped tightly around her body.

“It’s strange. Before every battle I have felt fear—of being maimed; of being killed; of being defeated. But no matter how dire the fight appeared, or how terrible the odds, I always believed deep inside that none of those would happen.” He turned his head toward her. “I mean, I knew one day I would die. Either in battle or some other way, but it always seemed sometime in the future. But that future is here, now. It is very strange.”

Cyra said nothing, overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the camp. There was a low murmur in the air, many men talking in subdued voices to each other. Telling each words that only the prospect of imminent death could bring a man to say.

“When you take this map,” Leonidas’s voice was stronger, “will you stay with it or do you just deliver it somewhere?”

“I deliver it,” Cyra said.

“And then?”

“I do not know my fate.”

“If you live and are in Greece, will you do me a favor?”

“Yes, if it is within my power.”

Leonidas smiled. “I believe it is indeed within your power. Go to my home. Tell my wife how I died.”

“I can do that—“

“I’m not done yet,” Leonidas said. “I want you to teach my daughter.”

Cyra frowned. “What would you like me to teach her?”

“To be like you.”

***************

Pandora cursed as she stumbled over an unseen stone and fell to her knees, gashing one.

“Silence, whore.” The voice was harsh and low. The warrior that Xerxes had sent with her was a man who had no name in the court. He was simply known as Xerxes’ Dagger. While the master-at-arms carried out public executions for the King, Xerxes’ Dagger was known as the one who worked in the dark, executing those who the King desired dead, but could not risk publicly killing.

Pandora had memorized the track as well as she could before they left the Persian camp and so far the trail was following the thin line that had been etched on the map. It was narrow, only one person wide and went up the mountain at a steep angle. At times she had to cling with her hands to the mountainside. But the bottom line was that so far, the trail was passable.

***************

Leonidas slapped Lichas on the shoulder, startling the old man who was watching over the Middle Gate, toward the glow from the Persian camp.

“1 would ask you to fight until noon,” Leonidas said. “Then you are free from any obligation.”

“What happened to two days and reinforcements?” Lichas didn’t appear surprised by Leonidas’s words.

“Today is the last day. You just arrived, and you know it. I’ve been here three days, and I know it.”

Lichas slowly nodded. “You are at half strength. Your men, brave and stout though they be, are exhausted. I would recommend you pull back now, under the cover of darkness. Once you are engaged, you will not be able to withdraw.”

“We won’t be withdrawing,” Leonidas said. “I will send a courier in the morning and halt the six
lochoi,
sending them to defend closer to home.”

“You have done more than anyone could have dreamed. Another day won’t make much difference in the larger scheme of things. The Athenians still sit and argue. The other cities obviously don’t care much about the Persians, even though they will be destroyed once Xerxes gets through the pass.”

“That is where you are wrong,” Leonidas said. “It will make all the difference.” He smiled. “I have been told so by the Delphic Oracle.”

Lichas spat over the wall. “Oracles.”

‘There is more than that,” Leonidas said. “Wars are won by more than just force of arms. There are other factors.”

“Such as?”

“The will of the people. That is why we--the Spartans—are here. And why we will stay.”

***************

Xerxes glanced up from his breakfast to note Pandora being escorted into the Imperial tent by his executioner.

“My lord”-she began, but he waved his knife, silencing her.

“You would not be alive if the path did not exist.” He jabbed the blade at his general. “I want four divisions of Immortals to take this track. Pandora will be their guide.” He turned back to her. “How long will it take?”

“It is a narrow track. One person wide. We will be over the mountain and behind the Spartans by noon at the earliest, King.”

“Attack as if we must break through the pass, while my Immortals march,” he ordered the general. He wiped his chin with a silk cloth, then stood. “I will be on the hill, watching.”

***************

Leonidas found Cyra slowly walking in a circle in front of the Middle Gate. The sun was just above the eastern horizon, and Leonidas had all his armor on. Cyra appeared to be in a daze, her eyes half closed.

“What are you doing?” Leonidas asked.

Cyra held up a hand, hushing him as she continued to walk. She halted about twenty feet in front of the wall and opened her eyes. ‘’This is the spot.”

“For?”

“Where the map will appear.”

“And once you have it?” Leonidas asked. “Do you know yet where you take it?”

“I have seen a vision that I will need to confirm with the wall today.” A ranger came running up to him from the north trail.

“The Persians are coming;’ the scout reported. “ Assyrians are in the lead. Swordsmen.”

“Archers?” Leonidas asked.

“Just infantry.”

The king turned to Cyra. “You must wait behind the wall.”

“But”-she began, but he cut her off.

“When your map appears. I will get you to it. I will detail some men to get you down the pass.”

***************

Trumpets blared and drums throbbed, the sounds echoing off the mountain. The entire Persian army was preparing to move. Assyrians were heading up the trail into battle, while Xerxes had issued orders for all the rest of his massive force to be prepared to cross the pass. Tents were struck, pack animals loaded, and troops lined up in formation.

And high above the pass, in the folds of the mountain, Pandora led four thousand Immortals along the single track.

***************

Leonidas arrayed his diminished forces along the western cliff wall, perpendicular to the killing field. Along the Middle Gate were Lichas’s archers, stacks of Persian arrows at the ready but their bows were hidden, and they wore the armor of those Spartans who had been killed or severely wounded. When the first rank of Assyrians came up the path and into sight, they paused at this unusual arrangement, but the pressure of thousands of men moving from behind forced the officers to deploy their men as best they could. The problem was, they weren’t certain whether their front should face the wall ahead of them or the Spartans arrayed against the base of the mountain to the right. There wasn’t enough room to form two lines at a right angle.

The decision, as Leonidas had hoped, was made to face the more immediate threat: the Spartans arrayed on the killing ground. The Assyrians were well trained, wheeling into ranks facing the mountain, shields up, long swords at the ready. Leonidas was in the front center of the first rank of Spartans. He had barely 140 of his original 300 left that could stand. He estimated at least a thousand Assyrians were already in the killing ground with more pressing up the pass.

The Assyrians advanced. Leonidas raised his shield into place, the Naga Staff at three-quarters. The rest of the Spartan line snapped into place in a similar position. The Assyrians were barely ten meters away, when Leonidas dropped the Naga Staff into the horizontal position. One hundred and twenty spears did the same.

And on the Middle Gate, Lichas and his men reached down, and grabbed their bows, which had arrows already locked. In one smooth movement, they brought their weapons to bear on the left flank of the Assyrians. Every third man fired, their arrows impacting, mowing down the flank. The next third immediately fired, then the last third, by which time the first third had their second arrows ready.

The effect of the rolling barrage on the exposed flank was devastating. The right flank of the Assyrians, unaware of what was happening to their left, collided with the Spartan line in a cacophony of metal on metal. Assyrian officers who were aware of what was happening were trying to bend back the surviving left of their line. When the arrows were killing Assyrians a third of the way into their line, Leonidas snapped the Naga Staff into the upright position. Lichas saw the signal and fired a flaming arrow across the front of his archers, who immediately ceased fire.