The Prophesy: Book 3 - The Hammer of Atlantis

 

The royals were taking an early breakfast, watching the sun reflect in a glory of pinks and ruby on the high glaciers of the Western Range. Habits die hard, and the royals had never really lost the discipline of the military campaign.

"Where are your brothers and sisters, Harp?" wondered Harold.

"They left for the First pyramid to undergo their Passage."

"Who went with them?"

"Let's see, seven dragonlings, their bonded; seven Canines, seven Equines, a Troll, and a dragon rider, Centurion Alaric. It's a grand total of twenty-eight passing the Test."

"That is a lot more then us?"

"Dad, given the explosion in demand, I increased the number of transfer points to seventy-two. It will be a while before I need to increase that again. They should be out within a week," replied Paschal. "I have considered how things are going, and as the number of dragon-bonded is increasing due to the ever-exploding population of dragons, we were running on a tight schedule. Before updating the porting capacities of the Pyramids, we were having packets of seven travelling the Path every eight hours. The probability of collision was increasing."

"How many dragons have bonded?" asked Annabelle.

"Six thousand seven hundred and thirty-five; there are now thirty-six gold dragon females brooding a total of seven hundred and ninety-nine eggs," replied Enron. "We have one thousand and twenty-five dragonlings in pre-flight status; and eight hundred and twenty learning to hunt and fly. The rest are adults."

Just then Paschal came to the breakfeast, running, and beaming with glee.

"Eureka!"

"What's the discovery for you to resuscitate a dead language?" asked Sitar.

"It's not dead, and you know it! We all speak every damn language ever spoken on the planet since the Canines joined mankind, and Atlantean to boot. But yes, I have good news!"

"What is it?" asked Harold, "I hate suspense!"

"I found some information on the region where we have lost the two Spiders. Apparently, we weren't the first to suffer from that effect. The Ancients too lost ships, and even aircrafts in the area. They even gave it a name: the Bermuda Triangle."

"That's interesting, but how does it relate to the Spiders?"

"Well, the Ancients never did resolve the problem, but apparently, ships vanished without a trace, even a whole wing of airplanes. They searched in depth for any trace, but never found any."

"I don't see how this could help us recover the two missing Spiders."

"I'm getting there, Sitar. I found a series of articles that tried to explain the Triangle. I admit most reported accidents were due to human stupidity and storms, but a number still do not fit. I've compared the Spider reports and the accident reports. Most missing ships have been located and explained now. However twenty-nine still are unexplained."

"Get to the point, Paschal! Your habit of stretching the sauce is getting on my nerves!"

"Grouchy this morning, dad?"

"GRR!"

"Ok, ok, I get it! Well, I did a mapping of he last known reported locations of the twenty-nine incidents, and if you put them on a map they draw a rather nice little circle around the last position of our two missing Spiders, namely 30N 70W."

"How come the Spiders did not find these twenty-nine wrecks?"

"Maybe they are were our two Spiders are. After all we cannot find them! But there is more. I did a time frequency analysis of these incidents. Sit down! They are linked to an astronomical phenomenon, a total planetary alignment that occurs every two hundred years. I paid a visit to the Sixth Pyramid, and asked it to determine the last such occurrence, and it just passed. Now, the issue is what happens? Well, according to the simulations, the gravitational alignment creates an abnormal vortex. According to the simulations, the vortex creates a powerful spinning of the sea's water that probably sucks in just about anything. I extended the simulation to include the atmosphere, and the phenomenon also creates a whitewash that would effectively be a localized force five static hurricane. Anything flying in there would have its wings ripped."

"How long before we can go in there and see what lies underwater?" Samson asked.

"The alignment should end shortly. The phenomenon is probably weakening already. Now I need to ask Harp a question. Could an unregulated Crystal cause this? I could not modelize the Crystal's behaviour since we do not know how it evolved since it left Atlantis II."

Harp took a pensive look and his eyes lost focus. After fifteen minutes of silence he came back to reality.

"The original Crystal would not have been able to do this. However, if it kept growing by crystallizing more and more orichalque taken from the sea bottom or the seawater, it could have reached the proper requisite mass."

"What do you expect to find, when we reach the Crystal, then?"

"Diamondcutter, the Crystal must be huge, even by Atlantean standards. Initially, the Crystal was the same size as the others, and it certainly had enough mass already to be problematic if it stayed unregulated for long. However, if it added mass as I suspect it did, the situation could be difficult to handle. When will the alignment be over, Paschal?"

"The last part will be Neptune and Uranus, and their alignment with Earth should be over within a month."

"What defines an alignment?" wondered Enron.

"Well, when three or more planets can be joined by a straight line; now, 'straight' is rather arbitrary, so I had to define it for the Artificial Intelligence as an open angle of one hundred and eighty degrees plus or minus one degree. I admit that this definition is itself very arbitrary, but I could not find a formal definition in the astronomy books we have in store or in the Conscience."

"And why three planets?"

"Because two point define a straight line anyway, therefore are always aligned."

"Oh, my bad, I had forgotten Euclidian geometry basics."

"It's all right, Sitar. I think you are more into curved space then flat space," said Thorsten, as he mooned the prince.

"Boys!" exclaimed Amethyst. "Keep the fun out of the discussion time."

"Anyway, do you think it is safe to overfly the area?" asked Timor.

"I think so. The atmospheric effects must be the first to have dispersed, given the fluidity of the atmosphere. We could go have a look. I wouldn't be surprised if the sea was still spinning. That would be one heck of a spectacle too."

"Let's get ready for that expedition then. I want us to have a look at it tomorrow at prime. Who stays behind to handle the Kingdom while we are gone?"

"I plan to keep an eye on Alexander. I hear he is getting rather cranky lately and needs some exercise. Would you like to stay with me, Amethyst?"

"Certainly, I see no reason to go look at a hole in the sea, Isabelle. How long will you be gone?"

"About a week, I think. I will proclaim the adoption of Harp and Sitar's sisters on my return. They should be out of the Pyramids by then."

***

The flight, composed of the royals in their dragon form, and a centurie of dragon riders, the 101st Airborne, and headed for Bermuda, a straight path of nine hundred and twenty miles. As they flew on a southeast path, the countryside unfolded under them, revealing the extent of the volcanic activity. The volcanoes still were throwing huge plumes of ash, boulders the size of houses rained down everywhere, and the lava, thick as syrup, kept progressing toward the coast, roasting everything in its path. By sext, after flying around the most active volcanoes, they reached the sea and saw it boiling as a tongue of deep ruby rock progressed in the sea. Vapour exploded as each wave battled the lava's progress over a width of fifty miles.

«That's impressive. Have you seen the number of belly-up fish?»

«They get boiled alive. What you see is the tip of the iceberg, most probably sink to the bottom.»

«You have a choice of words that will always leave me speechless, Enron!» replied Harold.

The flight continued at a leisurely pace, and they reached Bermuda at nones. The island had taken some expansion as the sea level had dropped by a hundred feet since the onset of the ice age, and showed strange formations.

"Well, I hope that this volcano will sit still while we use it as a base of operations!" said Sitar as they walked around the thickly covered land. "It seems to be inactive, but given our luck with that kind of geological formation, I wouldn't bet my shirt on it!"

"You're bare-assed, Sitar, you have no shirt to bet anyway!" replied Harp.

"Let's set camp," ordered Harold. "Ian, handle the fortifications; Paschal, give him a hand. Harp, Sitar, Enron, explore the island. See if there are any animals and port them to the Ark; Samson, Diamondcutter, inventory the plants and mark those ecosystems that might need to be saved, including underwater."

The rest of the day was spent doing a thorough search of the island. As the evening came, a quick meeting was held.

"As soon as dinner is done, we do a first fly-by over the coordinates where the Spiders vanished. The wind has vanished totally, and by then, I expect the last waves to be gone. We may be lucky and get a flat sea, which will let us detect any anomaly," decided Harold.

"All right dad. Who stays back?"

"Diamondcutter and Samson with half of the escort. Be ready to take off on short notice. What did the exploration reveal?"

"A series of dwarfed mammals, huge turtles along the beach, an extensive variety of birds," replied Enron.

"A collection of rare plants, some of which are unique to this island, according to the information I received from Yamato."

"I handled the underwater part," added Samson. "I found a series of unique corals. The Spiders had done a thorough job of recovering everything. I added a few rare fish, corals, and crustaceans."

"Defences?"

"We put in a wood palisade, with a single, dummy entrance. We do not need it since we all fly. It's a lure, in case Enron's team missed something."

"It would only lure something that knows what a door is, Ian."

"I know. But it is also the only thing we would not port to the Ark. We did not find Orc or Human activity, but we can never be sure."

***

The full moon slowly gained altitude over a slick, windless sea, which mirrored its light like a bath of silver. The royals and their escort took off on a south and west trajectory to reach the coordinates Paschal had noted earlier. The atmosphere was so calm the stars did not even twinkle.

«If this is a calm before a storm, we will get a big one later,» commented Sitar.

«Pessimist!» replied Harp.

It took the dragon flight slightly over an hour to cover the three hundred and forty-seven miles separating their camp from their objective. As they neared their target, the royals instinctively gained altitude to get a greater overview of the area. Suddenly, twenty-five miles off, they began to see a change in the pattern of the sea. The Sargasso, which had been floating leisurely on the surface, seemed to become animated with a common movement heading toward their goal. As they progressed closer, the movement became circular and ever more speedy, until the sea itself seemed to emit a hiss.

Figure 13: The Bermuda Vortex

Five miles off, the reason became very apparent: a giant vortex descended into the sea. The water was spinning so fast it made an angry noise, but yet seemed ironed out by a powerful force that prevented it from losing its laminated appearance. The Royals stayed a safe distance from the strange phenomenon, and gained altitude, reaching thirty thousand feet.

«What the hell is that?» wondered Harold as they circled the funnel, estimating its size at five miles in radius.

«I think we are seeing a graviton well, dad. The uncontrolled Crystal must be right in the centre of that eye, and it must have doubled in size to do this!» exclaimed Harp, awed, like everyone else, by the phenomenon under his gaze.

«What do we do?»

«Stay away for now, Ian! That's the best we can do. The graviton well must be linked to the alignments because otherwise, the effect would not be synchronised to its presence.»

«Will we be able to recover the Crystal?»

«That remains to be seen, Paschal. All depends on how the growth progressed, how it is bond to the substrate, and so many more factors. My biggest fear is how the growth was done. Remember we did the initial Crystal under controlled conditions. The ulterior growth was totally uncontrolled. We will have to wait for the situation to stabilize to study the issue, in about a month, since the alignment should be finished by then. I'll pop right back to Thebes and use the Sixth Pyramid to modelize the situation.»

«How do you plan to modelize if you have no idea of its current shape?»

«I have the original shape in store; now I also have the result given the current conditions in the gravitational well of the Earth; it should be possible to get an approximation of the current shape of the Crystal, knowing how orichalque binds.»

«I timed a megalodon caught in the flow. This thing is spinning at four hundred and fifty miles per hour! Given the viscosity of the water with the Sargasso, I estimate the depth of the well at ten thousand feet,» Enron commented.

«It's still seven thousand feet above sea bottom. Do you think it reached the bottom at some point?»

«Probably Sitar, and that may even explain its existence. The gouging of the seabed by the spinning water probably kept the Crystal clear of sediments over the millennia.»

«Since we can't do anything until the sea calms down, let's go back to Bermuda. Harp, Paschal, head to Thebes and try to figure out as much as you can from the data we have. Before we leave, I'd like you boys to try and contact the two Spiders. Maybe their data recorders are still functional, and that might add additional information to be used in your modelling efforts.»

«Give us ten minutes dad. This is an all or nothing effort.»

After ten minutes, the boys gave up.

«The Spiders are probably upside down, and unable to get back on their feet, and their transmitters are buried in sediments. We'll see in a month.»

«Ok, Harp; get to Thebes and start working on that simulation. We're going back to Bermuda.»

«Why?»

« Harp, Bermuda Island is thirty million years old. It was there during Atlantis II, and I'm totally surprised it did not have any apparent Atlantean structure. Paschal, when you get to Thebes, send me a Spider with a command post inside, and full sensors. There should be a port or something under these waters... or something else.»

***

The next few days were spent searching on foot for anything Atlantean, as they waited for a Spider to walk to the island from the mainland. No megalithic construction was visible, not that the thick vegetation helped in any way the exploration process. By the time the Spider showed up to the island, everyone had enough of the insects. Paschal had sent five Spiders in all, so the royals divided the work into five segments.

At first, the exploration of the island with the Spiders did not give any result. Finally, as the sea bottom seemed to give no result, the Spiders were pulled out to explore the dry land. There, things began to tick. First, a rather narrow passage left the northern caldera and then winded itself to the summit of the highest point of the island, some 350 feet above the current sea level. It was made of cut lava slabs joined so tightly that roots had not managed to get through the cracks. This kind of construction was typical of Atlantean workmanship, even if lava was not the preferred material for road surfacing. What was impressive is that it was practically intact under a layer of several feet of volcanic ash and vegetation. Even the Ancients had totally missed its presence, and had built their buildings, whose foundations were visible in the upper layer, without discovering it.

At the peak of the mount, since it is abusive to label this hiccup in the flatness of the island as a mountain, there appeared to have been a circular construction that ran deep in the bedrock. The construction was also made of huge megaliths of lava so finely chiselled in place nothing seemed to have grown between the fifty to one hundred and fifty ton blocks of lava. Lying under the thick cover of pumice and ash were blocks of the same material, and at the end, a cupola that created a secondary bump to the summit.

"No wonder we can't see anything! It's covered by fifteen feet of ash and pumice from the aftermath of the Moon's fall. What made you think of this, dad?" asked Sitar.

"You boys aren't the only library rats! I have been spending the evenings reading on satellites, and one thing kept bugging me. The Ancients needed relays to monitor their satellites because the Earth is spherical. If they needed it, so did we. I began to wonder also what kind of satellites we would have used. The Ancients had used geostationary satellites for telecommunications, and I figured we would have done the same, except when the end was near. Then there were the Eyes of Horus, spy satellites. These used circumpolar orbits, and needed to be monitored and able to relay their information to one another and to ground stations. Islands, such as this one, seemed logical places to put unmanned relay stations. Furthermore, that island would have been a good place to put a radio-guidance system and a lighthouse. What we see here is what is left of all three elements: the satellite relay station, contained in the dome; the lighthouse, and the radio beacon."

"How many of these do you think we could find?"

"Not many, unfortunately. It's not that there is anything recoverable but it just proves my idea. The severe earthquakes the baby moon's fall caused destroyed every one of them. We were too busy surviving to worry about these outposts. Then the island's megalithic shore is at least a good five hundred feet below the current sea level, and from what I've seen, is now covered by a thick layer of coral rock. This outpost was probably automated, and therefore had no Atlantean staff."

"What now?"

"We go home for three weeks, then we come back. Hopefully, by then, the vortex will have disappeared."

"It's not going to be easy to get the Crystal from a depth of over seventeen thousand feet."

"I know, Enron. And that is assuming we can get close to it by then."

"Let's leave a couple of Spiders. I have a bad feeling about this supposedly dead volcano."

"Alright, Sitar. You program them for seismic surveillance, and then we get moving. Enron, trigger the transports of the greenery for the Eden project as soon as we lift off."

***

"Back early, husband?" asked Annabelle, as Harold walked in the Royal Suite.

"We can't do anything until things improve. Harp ordered us to stay back from that water hole and I'm not going to neglect his recommendations when I have no idea what I'm dealing with. He and Paschal should be back already."

"I've not seen them. Let's go to Paschal's workshop. They probably are in there."

"He's in Pyramid Six running a simulation. We need to go there, not his laboratory."

"Fine, but how do we get in there without passing through the whole trial?"

"We port. You seem to forget who we are, Annabelle."

"Let's get going, then."

"First port: right at the base of the Pyramid. Sitar, monitor the seismic activity; Enron, check with the gardeners if the port of the vegetation was successful."

It took less then five minutes to reach the simulation control room in the Pyramid; Paschal and Harp were looking at a projection of the siphon, and discussing the result of their last calculations when the royals appeared in the middle of the room.

"So, sons, what do you get?"

"Hi, dad. Well, we just managed to get a good model of the vortex. There are few options available to create a seventeen thousand feet long water vortex measuring a minimum of five miles in radius. In fact, at seventeen thousand feet, the radius was more six miles then five. We calculated the cone of water being displaced measured a volume of 1.8e13 cubic feet. That is 1.13e15 pounds or somewhere around 4.982e15 Newtons. Anyway, I won't bother you with more numbers dad. Suffice it to say they are astronomical in proportion?"

"I believe you son, I believe you!" replied Harold as he bleached at the scale involved.

"Anyway, as Paschal was trying to show off, we also found that the Crystal must be anchored in the bedrock and be able to resist the pull of the corresponding force. The only model that allows this is a Crystal that has grown downward to double its volume. Had it stayed simply laying on the sea bottom, it would have been ejected from the planet's gravitational well a long time ago. But there is more."

"I sense more bad news?" Annabelle replied.

"Well, yes and no. The bad news is that carrying the Crystal will be a nightmare. The good news is that it has grown in perfect symmetry, according to the simulation we just did, or else the vortex would have presented irregularities, and there were none. It is also fully loaded. It was not at full capacity when it left Atlantis II."

"What impact will that have on the emplacement reserved for the original Crystal? Surely, an oversized Crystal will not fit?"

"We are in luck, for once with this problem. Remember, when a Crystal is positioned, it gets lowered into a support socket to anchor it to Thebes. I will only need leave it extended and install support beams to fix it in place. We have those beams already, presently resting on the moon's surface. We had planned to install them whenever we might have to do maintenance on one Crystal. In this case, the Crystal will stay in maintenance mode. I will duplicate the beams as we use them, because we might still need them for maintenance purposes later on."

"That's good, Paschal."

"There is another issue."

"What is it, Harp?"

"According to this simulation, each time this phenomenon occurred, it opened a space-time rift. It is no wonder we never received the signals from the Spiders: they are no longer in this current time frame."

"Are you telling me that all the ships that disappeared without a trace are now back in the past?"

"The past, the future, a parallel universe, who knows? The problem is that these ships probably all ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic. The real issue is the Spiders. They, and only they, could have survived that trip."

"What does this mean?"

"It means that there is a pair of Spiders free-roaming, out of control, somewhere, some when, mom. And that is a disaster in and of itself."

"Holy shit!"

"Nothing holy about it. Call this a bad draw, but not holy. We are currently trying to figure out how to travel the vortex safely."

"Are you nuts, Harp?"

"Maybe dad, but we cannot in all conscience, leave these two Spiders where they are."

"Right now, the only encouraging thing I can find is that there is no trace of their activity in the past seventeen thousand years since the Pyramids began recording. That means they either emerged in our future, or way before the time frame covered by the Pyramids. But I am inclined to believe it is the future, because of the causality effect. Had they emerged in the past, there would be a trace. I'm not totally sure of this hypothesis. Maybe they did emerge in the past and their impact was minimal or their impact is so pervasive we have taken for granted that the consequences are part of normal events."

"How can we test these hypothesis?"

"We cannot. The only way to know what happened to them is to find them. The time paradox is not testable in any way. Assume they changed the future by killing a subspecies of tarsier which would have survived otherwise and dominated the emerging tarsier species that led to the humans, there is no way for us to know that. We may be the result of their intervention, and not even know it. They may have killed off the last dinosaurs as far as I know, immediately after the meteor collided with the Earth. Maybe if they had not done so, the dinosaurs would have survived and mammals would still be diminutive rodents. Who knows?"

"Even worse dad, is that there is no guarantee that the Spiders may not find a way to reproduce! The ones that vanished could not, but since they are, for all intents and purposes, indestructible and eternal, they have eternity to solve that problem, and they have problem-solving capacities!"

"Paschal, you are painting a bleak picture there."

"You do not know how much! We must find them."

"And how do you plan to follow them? If I get things right, the space-time rift is closing as we speak, and there is no guarantee that the next rift will open in the same space-time continuum the Spiders are located in presently?"

"That is true dad. We are building a model of a Spider that will allow us to maintain communications through time; space is not a problem since magic resonated across space much like a graviton wave does. Time is more complex."

"When will that model be completed?"

"In a few days. Then we build it right here, and port it directly over the location of the Crystal. We will not have time to test it in depth. It will have a self-destruct mechanism if it loses contact with us, and it will transmit the self-destruct code to the two wayward Spiders if its own is activated. Otherwise, we will use the three Spiders to explore the time fold and see what we can gain from that. It might be interesting."

"Do you plan to lose contact when the rift closes for good?"

"Yes, that is why there is the self-destruct mechanism. It is a molecular auto-destruct phenomenon. By and large, the result of the destruction process is a big glob of orichalque. For the two lost Spiders, the mechanism is somewhat different: they receive guidance instruction forcing them to dig into the core of the planet, to the nucleus, and then to close down all circuits. In time the orichalque will migrate to the surface, leaving behind anything else in liquid form."

"I see."

"Paschal's idea is good; however, I have been looking at the mathematics of the rift, and if I am right, we may gain a lot from this misadventure."

"What do you mean?" asked Annabelle.

"If I understand the principles right, we may be able to duplicate objects directly from energy. It fits the conservation of mass and energy, since they are equal. If I'm right, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and we may finally find a use for tessaract number thirty-two, the biggest of all. It would be mechanical magic."

"Ok. Well, in due course, boys. Get to the design of the special Spider; time is running short. We'll wait on your return to discuss further developments," Harold declared. "Annabelle, let's go back home. I do not want to be in their way."

The two royals popped right back in their living room and sipped a hot cider, as they discussed what they had learned.

***

Three days later, Harp and Paschal walked into the Royals' suites and plopped down on a settee, propping their legs on a footrest. Annabelle watched them, appalled by their looks: eyes red, blackened at the edges, and face sagging.

"What the hell happened to you? It's as if you had spent the last three days running!"

"We would be less tired, mom. We haven't slept since you left. Solving the equation set for the time warp proved considerably more difficult then what we anticipated. It is only late this afternoon that the time-dimension hyper sphere gave up its last nagging secret and that we were able to find a converging solution to the matrix," replied Harp.

"We use a fixed pattern transmitted by a Spider three days ago and tried to detect it well after it had left our immediate vicinity, in effect back-tracking the signal in time. The results were decidedly unsteady and unpredictable, but we solved it. We then completed the construction of the Spider a few minutes ago and dropped it into the vortex. It is now transmitting. We are recording the data transferred, and we will analyze the data tomorrow morning. We're too tired to even count to ten. The time vector is a neutrino- antineutrino pair, a massless particle pair that travels on a folding of the seventh dimension. We discovered that as time goes forward, a neutrino shower unfolds the seventh dimension, and that showers of antineutrino folds back the dimension, thus creating the present between the two opposing shower and driving the expansion of time. That is why we cannot travel back in time. We'll keep that to this simple explanation, because the mathematics underpinning the principle is something related to an interaction between string theory, quantum physics, and field theory: in short, a headache. We managed to not only listen to the neutrino-antineutrino annihilation process, but to transmit data forward in time and backward in time. Changing the Spider's transmission pattern back in time and forward in time and waiting for the future to come to pass tested that. It was not easy, especially since signals travelling back in time compress and those travelling forward expand!"

"Do you know where your Spider went?" asked Harold.

"Not yet, but we will shortly. Leave us to rest. The rift will not close before another two weeks."

"Alright, boys. To bed you go. Shower up, you stink!"

The boys drenched themselves and everyone else with icy water extracted from a liquid mass imprisoned under the one-mile thick ice cover of Lake Ontario.

"Satisfied?" asked Harp, laughing at the blue face of his dad.

"One thing we noticed, dad, before we forget. Time is speeding up," added Paschal, as he laughed at the face of the others. "It is intimately linked with space and contributes to smoothing out space granularity. That means space is expanding at an ever-faster rate as well, an exponential rate in fact. We have to think out the theoretical consequences for our current space-time bubble. It may burst, according to Master Trickster Harp!"

"Ok, We'll do the brainstorming on the topic tomorrow. Rest for now. I'll get my revenge when you least expect it, Harp!"

"Promises, promises!"

***

It was late afternoon the next day when Harp let out a loud and indignant yell. He had been snoring loudly in the nest when the aforementioned contraption disappeared and he found himself in a tub with two feet of icy water!

"I told you revenge was better eaten cold!" replied Harold as he opened the door to the room usually reserved by the boys for nesting. "Now clean up the mess!"

"Where is Paschal?" said a furious Harp.

"In the latrines. He ran out of here, his spear pointing the way, trying to reach the porcelain before he left a trail."

"The traitor! I asked him to wake me up when he left the nest!"

"He had other issues on his mind, or more precisely in hand, should I say! Discomfort was very apparent on his face as he raced past us, nude as a jay bird, and pinching his tool hard to prevent an accident!"

Just then, Harp realized he was having the same issue Paschal had faced, and raced out of the room at full throttle for the bathroom, probably breaking the Olympic one hundred yard dash record in the process!

«I'll never understand why my lords do not use a pee tree! It's a lot more useful! I tried one of these white pee holes once, and my legs and belly became wet from the rebound!»

The image got everyone laughing except the wolf.

«Greywolf, we have no tree in the Castle!» replied Ian, as he watched the retreating bums of his older brother.

«Plant one! What's the use of magic if you can't create comfort with it?»

Just as the discussion on the respective advantages of different waste disposal methods came to an end, Harp and Paschal walked back to the nest. Wet hair and dripping body told the story: they had taken a welcomed shower to wake up.

"Let's meet in an hour in my laboratory, dad. We are hungry. Greywolf, how about a rabbit hunt to stretch our legs?"

«Cool! May I ask why humans say 'cool' when they feel hot?»

«I wish we knew! It comes from the Ancients, but they never wrote down anywhere the reason for the use of these words,» replied Paschal.

"OK, boys. Have fun hunting. Where do you plan to go?"

"Oh, we will fly off to someplace along the Yucatan peninsula. I normally would hunt off the tundra along the plains facing the advancing glaciers, but I'm not into eating ash-seasoned rabbits."

"All right. Dragon escort is mandatory, boys and Greywolf. We have yet to ensure the total security of the area. But why not hunt as dragons?"

"There is a serious lack of sizeable herbivores. The felines are so rare we will not hunt them but port them to the Ark if we meet any."

"Good hunting, then."

***

The boys shifted to wolf shape and followed Greywolf to the outer courtyard, to be joined by their bonded dragons. Converting from wolf to dragon form fluidly, the three wolves took off to join their bonded, already in the air. After gaining altitude and speed, the six dragons ported over the southern edges of Yucatan and began their hunt. Spotting an open space encircled by a lush forest, the dragons dropped and landed running in wolf form. The hunt was on.

«We have thirty minutes. Let's find six juicy rabbits!» said Harp, as he took off, nose to the ground. Things went well until Greywolf managed to disturb a fer-de-lance snake, a member of the viper family. The snake was well hidden and hard to see in the shade afforded by the forest encircling the open area. The viper took a bite and caught the wolf by surprise, striking it directly on the nose. The yelp was loud and brought the other two to the rescue.

«I got bitten!» whimpered Greywolf.

«Lie down, stay still. Let me examine this!» said Harp as Paschal looked around for the offender.

Harp converted to his human shape and began examining the wolf's now very sensitive nose. He immediately noticed the holes left by the two venomous hooks. He licked the bitten area and immediately began analyzing the venom, to be able to distinguish it from Greywolf's biophysical structure.

«It's a slow-acting neurotoxin, Greywolf. I'm tracing it in your blood stream. Ready to port! Have you found the culprit, Paschal?»

«Not yet!»

«Be careful. It's venomous. Porting by three feet on countdown. Three... two... one... porting!»

The venom that had not yet metabolized found itself suspended in midair for an instant before falling on the ground.

«Convert to dragon form, Greywolf. The venom is probably unable to act on your body when you are in this shape, and your body mass is considerably more important.»

The conversion was arduous, especially in the face, where the venom had begun its work of destruction. Harp helped poor Greywolf achieve full conversion, using the traces left by the partial process to regenerate the nerves that would then allow full reconstruction to dragon form. The venom has spread rather rapidly along the blood stream, and it took the prince a couple of hours to reconstruct the now extremely exhausted duke.

Once the process seemed complete and stable, Harp came back to the issue of identifying the snake that had caused so much pain and trouble. Leaving Greywolf to recover in his dragon form, the two royals shifted shape to become dragons as well, for their own security. Tracking the snake was not easy, as it left no thermal signature, its body being at average surface temperature.

«Damn it! Where is that snake?» thundered Paschal, as he slowly tried to find anything even remotely linked to the viper.

«Can we go home, my lords? I do not feel too well, and...»

«Fuck! He fainted!» exclaimed Harp as he saw the dragon form shift back to wolf on its own. «Let's go Paschal! Forget the snake! We'll put him in a stasis chamber on arrival.»

Paschal popped directly to the hospital and prepped a chamber to receive the wolf, now in critical condition. Harp ported the wolf on the stretcher, and slowed down the metabolism artificially while he waited for the chamber to be to be activated.

"It's ready!"

Harp placed the wolf in the tube, and Paschal slowed the metabolism even more until only the biosensors indicated Greywolf was alive.

"Poor Greywolf! First it was these orcs that cut his rear leg off, now it's a snakebite that damages his nervous system. What is your therapeutic plan?"

"I've conserved his biomatrix from his last visit. We'll duplicate his entire body in that other chamber, and then copy his neural brain pattern, thus giving him a new body from scratch. Everything he learned, everything his genome learned, including shifting, will be transcribed. It will take a year to do, but he'll survive. His body is currently in total suspended animation, and could stay like that for years."

"Let's begin then! I miss my chief canine guard already!"

Once the process was done, the two princes moved to the royal suite.

"What kept you?" asked Annabelle.

"You don't listen in, once in a while?" asked Harp.

"Hey, I have some education, contrary to certain princes!"

"You should. Greywolf got bit by a snake, and is now in suspended animation, while Paschal has started a full-body regeneration in a contiguous stasis chamber."

"What gives?"

"The current body's neurons were degenerating so fast he was losing control. Paschal decided to recreate a new body from the biomatrix conserved in the data banks of the hospital from his previous visit. The current body is in suspended animation, while the new body is being built."

"How long?"

"A year to get the body, and then the neural imagery gets duplicated and transferred into the new body, another month. Then we activate the new body, dispose of the old, and Greywolf is good as new," replied Paschal.

"Dad, reactivate Blackie's commission as commander in chief of Canines until Greywolf is back amongst us."

"That goes without saying, Harp."

"The only issue is that the mental map Greywolf will get will lag by a year and a month. I am looking at the possibility of modifying the pattern before insertion to reflect the biggest events in the upcoming year."

"I agree with the idea, Paschal. What are you going to tell his mate and their pups?"

"The truth. In fact, I'm going there right now. Who is coming?"

"I am, that's for sure," said Ian.

"So am I!" replied Harp.

"And as king, I must. Let's hope a delegation of a king and three princes will not overwhelm the pups," said Harold.

"Do not forget me," added Ness, "after all I'm his bonded dragon!"

"Let's get going. They must be wondering where he is, since you boys were expected back an hour ago!" replied Harold, as he walked out of the suite, heading to Greywolf's den.

***

The arrival of the king, three boys, all mammals and pack leaders, accompanied by that tough-to-bite friend of their dad peeked the curiosity of the pups. Felicia, Greywolf's bitch, was more to the facts of status in the pack and she recognized the Prime Alpha, and the three Beta Alpha for whom they were. She had accepted the last one as a very close friend and alpha of the pack even if she knew he did not actually belong to the same pack, something she had problems getting her mind around.

One of the pups took exception to Harp and tried to bite, to find out that the mammal alpha's skin was harder then rock.

«Stop this right now pup! You are offending an Alpha!» thundered Felicia, as she snapped at the turbulent pup.

«He will learn hierarchy in time, Mother of the Den. He is still piercing teeth and needs to bite. He just learned that you do not bite a shape-shifter.»

«Alpha, thank you for your forgiveness; my mate would have shaken the hair off his skin. May I introduce my five pups?"

"Certainly."

That gave time for the royals to ready themselves for the hard task ahead. As each was presented, the pups each took the time to howl a greeting, until the runt of the litter came forward. He literally tumbled, no, flew into Ian's paws, much to his surprise.

«Little one, you lack focus to do levitation! You could get hurt.»

«What's levity?»

«The word is levitation, le-vi-ta-tion, and it means the capacity to fly or to make objects fly.»

«Like these things we see when we go watch birds?»

«Yes and no; levitation uses a different principle. Mother of the Den, this little one has a knack for magic; I want him at the Alpha Den as soon as he is weaned. We will take his magical education in paw.»

«I will need guidance. I have never before gone there.»

«We know. It is to talk about your husband that we are here, Mother of the Den; your mate, known to us as Greywolf, had a hunting accident an hour ago.»

«Did he survive? Your presence tells me things are not good. Usually, when three of the Super-Wolves walk into a den, it is to inform the family that they lost a loved one.»

«This is usually the case, Mother of the Den, but not this time. A Crawler bit Greywolf on the nose. He is under treatment at the place that healed him, which you visited once. Do you want to pay him a visit?»

«Yes, I would like that. Who will stay with my pups?»

«They will come with us. I have some things to explain to all of you. Pups! In line! We are going out!» said Harp.

«Out? Out! Out! We are going out!» replied the now very excited pups, as they tumbled on each other and all over the princes and king.

The king, the dragon, and the princes shifted to wolf shape. This would help in maintaining order in the turbulent brood. Harold took the lead, followed by Felicia, the pups and Ness. The two princes walled up the pups, which tried repeatedly to outrun them and head to interesting object that piqued their insatiable curiosity, only to find out they had been outrunned by their escort. The poor pups couldn't figure out how they suddenly found themselves running back to the adults when they were trying to reach another place.

«Magic has its use, Felicia. They aren't going to run away any time soon, however hard they try,» said Harp.

«Is that why they suddenly find they are heading toward us rather then away?»

«Yes. Now, once they burn off some of the excitement, we will start talking about what we have to discuss.»

It took twenty minutes for the pups to start complaining it was a long walk!

«Naturally it was a long walk for you!» said Harold. «For each mile we did, you ran ten!»

«Pups, if you would please stay in line the distance will be a lot shorter for you. We are nearing our destination. And I would like your attention while we cover the rest of the way. It is important.»

«Is it food?» asked the biggest of the pup.

«If you eat anymore, young one, you will bust!» replied Paschal.

«But I'm hungry! And you're not my dad!»

«You are not hungry little pup; you are nervous because you are afraid and you do not know the way back home. And I'm not your dad; I'm your Alpha. Now, keep quiet!»

«As I was trying to tell all of you before being rudely interrupted,» said Harold as he looked at the faulty pup, «your dad was bitten earlier today by a deadly crawler and is now in our care. He is currently in a very special sleep while we work on creating a new body for him. The need for a new body is because of where he was bitten. It attacked his central nervous system immediately, before anything could be done. That will take a lot of time, and will be difficult. He will look dead to you when you see him. This is because we brought his temperature very low to stop the poison from continuing its work of destruction. Consider this like a long trip your dad has to do. It will be a complete year before he can come back to you as good as new. Ness, here, is his bonded and will take over the role your dad would have held in your family. Respect him as you would your own progenitor. Ness will see to feeding, teaching you how to hunt, and eventually, how to shift shape, like your dad had planned. Mother of the Den, as soon as you are done breast-feeding the pups, you will find a dragon bonded so you can learn to shift shape, and undergo the Trial. It is a necessity to effectively raise a brood of magic wolves. Ness will be keeping the den while you are gone to learn the bond and undergo the Trial. Normally, it would have been Greywolf. He already had asked Ian for a leave of absence to take your place. He had planned to do this with Ness. This cannot be delayed.»

«Was the crawler killed?» asked the runt of the nest.

«No, we have not been able to locate it; and it became more critical to bring your dad back before he died rather then find the guilty party. Revenge, which is on your mind, is not worth the risk. In due course it will pay, even if we do not know how.»

«What is a bonded?» asked, nervously, Felicia.

«I will let my son, Harp, prince of Magic, explain it. He has a better understanding of it than I do.»

«You do have a way of dumping hot rocks in my paws dad! Let's see. A bond is emotional magic, and is very powerful. It allows those involved to know each other's mind at all times, to know where they are, what they feel, what they do, and to profit of each other's magic. This is why your mate can change shape. Shape shifting is the most important aspect of the emotional magic. Ness is Greywolf's bonded, mind and body; and Greywolf is Ness' bonded, mind and body. Currently, Ness is storing the events for your mate so everything will be available when his new body is constructed; his entire memory, and whatever happens in the next year; he will see these events as if he lived them, as if he was there. I understand your fears. Yes it means they are closer then you and Greywolf were, but it does not in any way diminish your value to Greywolf's eyes. There is more. Bonding does not stop to a pair; we are all bonded, closer together then the claws on a paw. This is what true bonding gives. When you have bonded to your dragon, Mother of the Den, you will become part of that select set. Later, when your pups bond to their own dragon, they too will gain full access; they will have been part of the group by virtue of the bond created by Ness, but they will have the full benefit only after they have found a dragon to bond to. We will continue the explanation later. We are now reaching the Den of Healing, better known to the Alpha as a hospital.»

The wolves followed Paschal along the unending hallways, turning left, climbing stairs, passing doors that opened by magic, and finally reaching the cryogenic chambers. Paschal shifted to his human shape and activated the extraction process that would bring the cryogenic chamber containing Greywolf to ground level.

«As you see, Greywolf seems dead. His breathing is halted, as is his heart. We injected a special gas in replacement of the normal one we breathe to stop all chemical reactions, in effect stopping the poison from continuing the destruction. The body could stay in that form forever, without change. Now, look at this other container.»

Paschal brought down another chamber, which contained a rather yellow-reddish fluid.

«This is a special regeneration fluid. It appears empty, but in fact it contains a blastula, that will be an exact replica of your dad's body once it finishes growing. It will carry all of his wolf genes, but also all those gene mappers that let him change shape. We even expect him to change shape repeatedly as he grows, as each map gets tested for integrity. This is why the chamber is so big. He will shift shape to an adult dragon at some time, and it would not do for him to be in a too-small container. Usually a pup is born after three months of gestation, but in this case it is an adult wolf we target, and then a special adult wolf, one that is a shape shifter. In a year, all will have been rebuilt, the brain pathways that constitute your dad's memories will get extracted from the other body, compared and corrected by the memory map Ness carries, and then inscribed in the new body's brain, in effect giving your dad a new body to continue living in. There will be some good out of this: bye-bye scars, arthritis, and other marks of old age and war.»

"You are invited to visit your dad frequently. He will know if you do. After all Ness will be updating his memory matrix before he wakes up,» added Harp.

«I will come often, pups, very often. I expect you and your mother to come with me. The bond is strong, even as he lies there. It is this bond that tells me he still lives. Magic transcends technology.»

After everyone had taken some time to look at Greywolf, the family left to return to the den. The pups had considerably calmed down, and Ian took the time to tickle them while explaining some basics about the Wolf Throne and what their dad was doing for it, and who he was. It became clear to the royals that Greywolf was not one to care much about rank or title. Neither his mate nor his pups knew about his role in the Kingdom. All the pups saw was that no Canine ever tried to openly face their dad; they had put it on power and fear, not on competence or special capacities. As for Felicia, she knew he was away for long periods, but since food seemed to be available on demand, she did not investigate more. It came as a surprise to her that the Royals produced the food for everyone, not only for her.

«Do not believe you are better then other pups, young ones. Being good is measured in actions, not in parental deeds. You will have to earn your place in this world, as any of us. As soon as you stop feeding off your mother, you learn to hunt, and you begin your training in the Canine army. Do not expect any special treatment. Everyone is treated the same: with consideration and utmost care, as long as you do your best for us. When will you wean your pups, Mother of the Den?» asked Ian.

«It should begin in seven days, and be completed within that same period.»

«That is, two times seven days from now, I expect you pups at the academy. Hunting lessons will be held as you learn to fight. War and hunting are very similar, you will learn. Ness, delegate the basic training to another of the pack. Normally, you would have done it, but with Greywolf out of commission, it is impossible. Also, as an additional task, see to it the small one is fully ready for his part. Harp, when Ness comes with them, you take the magic training of the pup.»

As they were getting ready to leave the wolves, Ness asked, «Why is that so, my lord?»

Harold turned to Ness and replied, «I expect you in the castle to take command of the Wolf Guards detail. Blackie Dog has taken Greywolf's duties as Commander of Canines, but he already has his own unit to order around. Take your time to familiarise yourself with your duty as surrogate dad for today.»

«As you ask, my lord.»

«It is still early, let's go to the laboratory to get the data analysed,» Harp suggested.

Paschal and Harp popped out of sight, stunning the pups and their mother.

«Is this common?» asked the weary bitch.

«Yes, we who are fully trained in magic do it frequently. Your mate did it too. You will learn how as soon as we have finished getting these turbulent balls of fur ready for the outside world. By the time my bonded is back, you and your pups will be ready to partake in all his activity. I sense fear in you. You need not worry; everything is done gradually, step by step. Your pups will be ready for full magical power and bonding when their dad emerges; they may even be bonded by then, depending on when the next clutch of dragon eggs hatches.»

«Will my mate be ok?»

«The lord promises, the lord delivers.»

«What about my weakling?»

«He is only weak because he has to compete for milk with the others. From now on, he will not need to. The lords want his survival and he will survive, come sunshine or high water. You will not even need to feed him; it is now my task.»

«How? You are not of our kind?»

«This is quite true, Felicia. But watch!»

Ness not only changed to a wolf form, but also took the body of a lactating female bitch.

«Does this answer your question?»

«Yes. Are you an alpha lord too?»

«In a sense, yes, but so is my bonded. There are many layers of Alphas, from the Alpha of Alphas you just met to very low alphas that command small packs. And so will your pups be, if they meet the expectations of the Alpha Wolf, Ian. The little one already caught his attention, albeit not in the way Ian had expected.»

«He is the Alpha? I thought he smelled like a pup!»

«He is Alpha and pup. He is Alpha of Canines, of which the Wolves are but a part; my own are Dragons and their Alpha is also a pup by the measuring stick of the Super Alpha, Harold, the one that even you sensed as dominant. He is the Alpha of all Alphas. His pup, Ian, will inherit the status when he dies or decides to retire. I sense your confusion. Do not worry; you are not the only one! Let us have lunch. I suspect all this exercise has opened some voracious appetites.»

For the first time since he was born, the runt of the litter drank his fill; Ness added some special growth hormones to the milk, growth hormones that usually belonged to the Dragons. The runt wouldn't stay that way for long, if he had his way. The lords had ordered he be ready soon, and he would be!