The Prophesy: Book 2 - The Right Hand of Destiny

 

The boys slept like logs and, the next morning, as best they could ascertain time, they got ready for their next day. After a huge breakfeast composed of omelettes, chives, mushrooms, sausage, chicken breasts, cereals, and milk, the boys took a well-deserved bath in a pool materialized by the care of Enron.

"We will have to wash our clothes too. Five days with the same set of clothes and they can stand up on their own!" exclaimed Sitar.

Most boys proceeded to clean up the silk and cotton underclothes, while Sitar checked on weapons, and Thorsten checked on the armour. Finding that all was in order, they ate a substantial lunch and readied to exit the room.

Sitar opened the exit and the boys found themselves in another room. Below them were seven chairs matching those they had left as they began the expedition through the Pink Pyramid.

"Damn it! We are back at the start!" exclaimed Typhoon.

"No, this is a different room. I do not remember seeing that set of huge footprints, and we have left enough carnage behind us it would have disturbed the thick layer of dust. This seems to date from quite a while."

"Sitar's right. But what bird could leave these footprints?"

"I don't think it's a bird. Look at the tail marks. It's bipedal, but it definitely is not a bird."

Just as the boys were ready to step down the stairs leading to the floor, a terrible roar shattered the silence. A group of animals came rushing from the side of the room and crossed in front of the boys, totally ignoring them. A few seconds later came a huge predator, measuring sixty feet in height, and it crossed the room in hot pursuit of the herd. The boys were frozen in shock by the spectacle. As the hunter disappeared out of view, Ian asked the question everyone was thinking about.

"What did we just see?"

"A hunt, but I would be hard put to name the animals involved," Enron answered.

"There is something that doesn't add up."

"What, Thorsten?"

"We should be coughing from the dust, but look! It's not even disturbed by the onslaught."

The boys could only admit Thorsten's observation was right. The room was undisturbed. No additional footprints were visible Nothing had changed.

"This is strange. It seems that everything was an illusion!" exclaimed Harp.

"True, but I have a bad feeling about this. I suspect this is temporary! How far is the set of chairs? I think we need to make a run for it!" Sitar suggested.

"OK. Is everyone ready? Ian, on Enron's back, Typhoon, on Sitar's! You boys would be too short-legged to keep up! I'll lead, Sitar to my left, Enron to my right! The others, behind and be ready to help the carriers!" decided Harp.

The moment the boys stepped on the first tile of the room's floor, a gong was heard. The boys ignored it and began a mad dash across the room. Every minute the gong resonated, as if it was calling a predator to its meal! The room, which had seemed to be small from their original vintage point, turned out to be a lot wider than what they had expected. After fifteen minutes of non-stop run, the boys were becoming breathless, and the damn chairs still seemed to be as far as ever.

"I'm tired of this! Port!" decided Harp, in a furious tone. The boys immediately did as Harp ordered, making a substantial jump forward, but still missing the chairs by a considerable distance.

"Shit, this thing is much wider than we thought! Let's repeat the port before this crap adjusts!" ordered Harp.

The boys ported again and finally could see the chairs were less than two hundred feet from them. They resumed their run as the gong began ringing a saraband⁴⁵⁴⁵ ("A saraband is a quick three-step erotic dance of the sixteenth century.") that would have deafened the most entrenched heavy metal fanatic. Just as the boys reached the outer ring of the chairs, the same hunter that had crossed the room previously appeared and charged for their position.

"Look! It's real! The dust is disturbed by its displacement!" exclaimed Ian.

"I have had it!" said Sitar, furious. "It wants to defy the God of War, well so be it!"

Before anyone could say anything, Sitar assailed the giant beast; Excalibur sang under the power Sitar was expanding to deal with the giant bird. The blade dug deep and cut wide. Sitar used his small size and extreme speed to attack from everywhere, even going so far as to climb on the back of the ferocious animal and sliding the blade between the shoulders, depriving it of its forward limbs. The animal swiped left and right, in an effort to hit Sitar with its tail; it tried to bite and kept missing him by mere inches.

"Take this, you oversized chicken!" the others heard Sitar yell as they saw him hit the animal on the skull, only to see Excalibur rebound on he thick bones. Furious at his failure, Sitar decided to change tactic and inserted Excalibur between the cranium and the first vertebrae, and began a slicing motion, intent on cutting the neural influx to the rest of the body. As Sitar progressed in his endeavour, the animal got ever more furious and tried to roll on its back in an effort to crush the tiny bug that was causing it so much pain.

Sitar noticed the change of tactics and jumped off the animal's back just in time. Thorsten was not to be left out of that battle, and as Sitar disengaged the battlefield, his axe travelled to his the animal just below the jawbone. The axe dug deep, cutting the sinews. As soon as it rematerialized in his hand, the axe left in a trajectory to cut the windpipe open, but the animal moved its head to look at Thorsten and the weapon cut through the giant set of teeth instead.

Sitar had taken the respite offered by Thorsten's intervention to climb back on the animal and resume his sawing motion. At first, no changes seemed to result from this, but as the blade began cutting the motor neurons, the left side of the animal grew ever more paralyzed, except for its tail, which continued to swipe left and right furiously. As it collapsed on its paralyzed side, Sitar moved back, away from the spastic body.

"Finish it off, Thorsten!" ordered Sitar as he walked around to be in front of the animal, well out of reach of the thumping tail.

Thorsten obliged and let go of his axe one more time, finally cutting the air supply to the enormous animal.

"Let's get on these chairs! I have a few words to say to the bugger that handles this Pyramid!" said Sitar, in a tone that did not bode well for the bugger in question.

***

Meanwhile, outside, the dragons had been patrolling the kingdom's borders, and, as a group of five came back from a patrol up north, they flew over what used to be Nineveh. In the distance, the dragons and their riders could see a huge tongue of ice descending the valley, pushing in front of it a wall of mud and rocks. What intrigued the legionnaire Decurion in charge of the dragon flight was the gigantic rock that seemed to have surfaced in the middle of the lake. After flying around the huge extrusion five or six times, unable to make sense out of it, he decided to report to Eloise and his commanding officer. As they flew over the lake's southern edge, one legionnaire signalled something was up.

Descending closer to the lake's surface, the flight began examining the dam. Below, the orc camp had been abandoned. Only rare ruins showed something had occupied the base of the dam. The dam itself showed marks of excessive stress, and clearly, the top had been over-washed repeatedly, the latest rather recently, as attested the lack of any plant growth and the face of the dam seemed to show fresh traces of mud flows. Cracks were visible everywhere.

Descending below, near the base of the dam, the legionnaires saw that a huge amount of debris had been carried over the top and rolled down, blocking the river flow and creating another, much smaller lake. Fractures as wide as an arm were visible, adding to the impression that the dam was holding together more by miracle than anything else.

The Decurion signalled the others to head south, and the flight quickly left the area to make their report. There were no orcs or crocodiles visible, but the dam worried the Decurion.

***

Deep within the Pink Pyramid, the boys found themselves enclosed in a translucent dome.

«So, there are those who beat my test. I was expecting some losses! I must have grown soft with time!»

«We passed your stupid test! Stop playing with us!» replied Sitar.

«What have you learned?» asked the cold voice.

«That life is a war. But we already knew that!»

«What else?»

«That unity is essential to win. But again, we already knew that!»

«Is that all?»

«That a war is never won until the last battle is fought!» added Thorsten.

«So be it. You are worthy to learn the secret of life and death. Sleep. Tomorrow you will know all there is to know!»

Before the boys could do anything, a deep pink vapour descended on them, putting them to sleep instantly. As they slept, they learned of the origins of life, the laws of evolution, of natural and artificial selection. They also learned of another part of the history of Earth, and how its life forms were seeded and what had been the impact of the War of Angels and the arrival of the Atlanteans. It appeared clearly that the impact of extra-terrestrial life had been both constructive and destructive. In many instances, the invasion of a life form from outside the planet resulted in massive extinctions, but the planet had fought back, killing the invaders by means of the microorganisms to which they were exposed.

Even as the Atlanteans immersed themselves in the human society and the Elohim created the religions to feed on their raw emotions, other invaders had come by, to be hit in the same way. The latest had been during the beginning of the Great Cataclysm, and were a species of carnivorous grey animals, which the Ancients had labelled, in true military no-imagination lingua, the Greys. Their intrusion in the biosphere had little impact, as their ship crashed, killing the crew, and incinerating anything they might have carried, including pathogens. Only one body had been recovered, ejected on impact and in pieces.

***

The next morning, the boys emerged from their induced sleep, to be immediately assailed by the usual cold voice.

«What have you learned?»

«Not again! That the more advanced a civilization, the more advanced the technique of war!» replied Sitar.

«That space-faring civilizations are also the most dangerous!» added Harp.

«Believing technology will win all wars is short-sighted.» intervened Ian.

«It is what you do not see that can do you in!» Paschal stated.

«To live in peace, prepare for war.» Thorsten said.

«To never believe tomorrow will be like yesterday.» Typhoon suggested, unsure of the value of his intervention.

«There is an uncanny parallel between life and civilisation: Both are born, both die, both evolve from previous instances, and benefit from the vacuum created by the disappearance of their predecessors.» Enron completed the answer.

«I figure I can give you passing grades. Ready yourself for the next ordeal!»

«Hold it!» exclaimed Ian. «We are not done with you!»

«What? Who are you to talk to me on that tone?»

«Listen and listen carefully! I am Sitar of Atlantis, Montue, God of War and the son of Pharaoh Horus! We to do our bidding built you! The time has come for you to acknowledge who we are! As I listened to your lessons in history of war, I remembered one thing: no victory is without cost!»

As Sitar stated the keywords, the room began to ring with a carillon. Deep within the Pink Pyramid, a trigger was released and the obnoxious personality that had ruled unfettered for thousands of years over the destiny of life within the Pink Pyramid was destroyed and replaced by an alternate one, which spoke aloud for the first time since its inception seventeen thousand years before.

"What is your command, God of war?"

"Dispose of the corpse in this room! Destroy the spiders! Maintain the ecosystem in the main room for now!"

"This shall be done!"

"Ian, should we displace this Pyramid?"

"It is not I that must take this decision, but the Architect," replied Ian, looking at Paschal.

"Yes, we must. It is part of Thebes."

The boys again focussed and using magic, set the Pyramid in motion. The Pink pyramid left its emplacement, slowly moving south toward Thebes and its new location. The lake level dropped suddenly, reducing the pressure on the dam and giving it a respite before it collapsed. In front of them, the dragon flight, unaware of the events, continued its trip to Eloise, while the Pyramid passed on its right to reach Thebes. The boys carefully aligned the Pyramid's magic field with the one found in Thebes and matched the pentagonal parvis that ran around the Pyramid. As soon as the Pyramid was in place, the surface cleansed itself from any residue, again revealing another giant fresco. Immediately after setting the Pink Pyramid in place the boys felt themselves being ported to another set of seats.

***

Deep north, another Pyramid began emerging from a lake. This time, a group of dragon riders were witness to its majestic emergence and saw the huge wave wash right over the dam, destroying anything in its path before descending southward in the Jordan Valley. Huge blocks of ice, rocks the size of cathedrals flew in every direction as the construction rose from below the waves. The Decurion had the good sense to climb high up, to escape the bombardment the emerging building provoked as it displaced glaciers, mud, rocks and water in a total indifference to the consequences for the immediate area.

As soon as the situation seemed stabilised, the dragon wing dropped and began studying the result. Unable to figure it out, the Decurion decided this was above his understanding and decided to head for Eloise to file his report to his Centurion.

***

The interior of the pyramid was a dazzling white. The boys couldn't help but whistle in admiration at the magnificence of the room they found themselves in. The pillars had been finely sculpted, and light seemed to shine right out of the walls. Beautiful statues of nude males and females were found, as well as a remarkable inventory of animals of all ages and times. There stood a rook, right beside the stairs, whose feathers seemed to be ruffled by the wind; on the other side, a sabre-tooth tiger seemed to be looking questioningly at a female of its kind nursing four kittens. Across the room, near the far end, stood a pack of giant wolves, three times the size of Sire Greywolf, apparently on a hunting expedition as they were following each other. The floor was itself made of white and black hexagonal stones of impressive size.

"Well, white quartz tiles with black obsidian ones," commented Thorsten, pointing to the floor. He completed his inventory and, as he looked around, he pointed some features. "The walls and pillars are all white quartz, and there is not even an indication this was assembled. I see not even a hairline marking the separation of blocks."

"I just hope it's not another hunting expedition!"

"I don't know, Sitar. Let's be weary of this room. Beauty may hide more danger than hideousness."

"Harp is right. This room looks too nice to be trusted. I have another bad feeling!"

Thorsten's intuition was quickly becoming legendary amongst the boys and they immediately took note of his concerns.

«Right, this is truly remarkable. Usually people are so overwhelmed by the beauty of this place they begin to wander around without thinking!»

«So, I guess you have had many visitors?» asked a sceptical Typhoon.

«Actually no, it is not the case. You are the first. That is another point for you. Two out of seven, maybe I should raise the pass mark, you haven't even stepped down from the tribune.»

«Do not cheat! Or you might find it costly!» thundered Sitar. «Your predecessor tried and lost!»

«What about my predecessor? Oh, that old grumpy that plays God by manipulating life to his own end? Are you talking about little pinkie?»

«Yes, he went too far and triggered the fail-safe.»

«And I thought he had gone soft in his old age. Well, then, if you survived that old grump's best efforts, I believe you are truly ready for this ordeal. It is the ordeal of magic. The moment you step down from that oversized soapbox, the ordeal will begin. You must choose carefully when to use magic, when to use other means, and what type of magic to use. It is both a test of magic and morals. You may need to kill, you may need to heal, but in all circumstances you are to do the right choice.»

«I guess the goal is to survive to that exit door we see ahead of us, while minimizing damage?» asked Harp.

«Well, yes, that is the case.»

«What a lack of imagination!» Paschal commented. «Three tests, all identical!»

«Paschal, may I remind you who designed these pyramids? If lack of imagination exists, it rests solely on your shoulders, Imhophet, Great Architect of Atlantis,» commented, ironic, Enron.

"I'll take the lead, this time," decided Harp. "Magic is mine to handle."

The boys began descending from the stage, and, as soon as they stepped down on the floor, the roc tried to take a snipe at the boys. Immediately, Harp emitted a shrill whistle call, modulated on five frequencies, first rising to a high pitch to finally drop in stages to a low growl.

The rook looked at him, stunned, and answered in kind, on a tone that spelled defiance. There followed a series of exchanges between Harp and the imposing bird, which finally backed off.

«This is another point for the visitors. Magic is not always the solution!» the boys heard in their head.

"Let's see, as Thorsten remarked, the floor is tiled black and white, and notice that the statues are all on white tiles. The entire area around the dais is composed of white tiles except the area separating the area of the Roc and the sabre-tooth tiger. Maybe we can choose our tests. Let's stay on the black tiles while we explore the room."

Harp took the lead and the boys began circulating around the room, carefully making sure never to touch a single white tile. The Rook kept watching them from its own restricted region. Yet they knew they had to decide when to enter a white area if only to get another few points and succeed the test.

As they made their way in the room, some scenes were shocking. Finally, one touched Ian too much and he couldn't hold it anymore. In tears, he pointed to a young pup trying to outrun a huge predator.

"Should we save that pup?"

"No Ian; the story of predator and prey is part of life; if you save the prey, you kill the predator. On the other hand that man over there about to kill a child is another story. It is not a question of prey versus predator, but of abuse. There we can intervene. In fact, I'll let you do it!"

Ian did not need to be told twice. He immediately jumped on the white tile, and the statues found on the white tiles came to life. The man resumed his move to kill the child with his knife. Just as he was about to succeed in his endeavour, the child kicked in the man's groin and used the man's own movement to throw him over and stab him in the heart, killing him instantly.

"I will eat your soul!" Ian and the others heard.

Ian immediately changed his viewpoint! The child was a soul-eater, one of the monstrosities his people had been hunting for all eternity. Using his magic, Ian enclosed the child in a casing.

"You will do no such thing!" Ian realized that the child, however beautiful on the outside, was only an empty shell hiding the true nature of its occupant. He immediately dispersed the body into its basic components with a flick of the wrist, and contained the soul-eater's essence in a field he had learned from Harp's previous experiences with them.

"Be banned! Unfortunately, I cannot destroy you, because, according to the laws of Magic, destroying you would destroy me as well, but I can starve you by depriving you of food, that is souls to feed on."

The soul container rose and reached the ceiling to slowly disappear through it, as the soul-eater's fury resonated in the room to diminish as he was literally passed through the rock of the pyramid.

"Should I bring the man back to life?"

"No. His fate played out, Ian," decided Harp.

«Another point for you. Choosing your battles wisely is part of proper magic. Not only that, but you showed restraint, and have demonstrated a good understanding of the laws of magic. Maybe I should give you another point for that; I'll have to think about this.»

"We are at four points. Let's see other traps are waiting for us," Harp stated as the boys moved along black tiles around the room.

"Look at that!" exclaimed Paschal as he pointed toward a huge gold dragon. It is one of yours, Typhoon!"

"Maybe, prince Paschal, but I do not trust him. Let's pass without waking him up. Many princes have murderers, crocks, and ruffians in their ancestry, and I am no exception."

"Ok. I would be hard put to judge character from multi-facetted eyes anyway. You must know your kind better than we."

The boys saw other life forms, and suddenly, a strangely dressed man, tall and regal attracted their attention. The boys spread around and looked at him from all angles.

"This is strange. He stands alone on that tile, as if he was defying time itself," Sitar said. "He is unarmed, but I feel almost compelled to be weary. It is as if he was there, nagging us to dare wake him."

"I know who that one is!" exclaimed Harp, fascinated.

"Care to explain, brother?"

"He looks so much like the Grand Master of Magic under which I trained as Merlin, it is uncanny. I have problems remembering his name, but I remember he was a ferocious duellist. I remember something he said that had been haunting me all those years, just before he vanished. One day, Merlin, you will have to defeat me to survive. Choose your moment carefully, for there can only be one! I will not share power with anyone, prince of Atlantis, and your mere existence casts a shadow on my glory! "

"That sounds ominous, Harp. Are you ready for it now? We can wait, if you wish. There are more options open to us," offered Ian.

"He seems to have an ego fit for a psychiatric ward!" commented Thorsten.

"How do you defeat that guy?" wondered Paschal.

"To be honest, it sickens me to explain it to you guys. This guy was so sure of himself he told me how, and in my many duels, I never dared do what was necessary. To defeat him I must absorb his magic, and add it to mine. We have been doing this with orcs and crocodile priests, but this is a totally different ball game. Even the entire orc armies were puny dry wells compared to that guy. I am afraid of doing it, as I was before."

"Why are you afraid?" asked Typhoon. "Fear never solves a problem; do what must."

"It is not a fear of him Typhoon, it is a fear of myself. Adding his magical core to mine would make me almost god-like, and absolute power corrupts absolutely! I feel I am not worthy of this."

"Harp, first, you are more powerful than all of us combined; you have shown restraint, compassion, love; it is true that absolutes corrupt, but only if there is no counterweight. Knowing you, brother, you will share that power with those you love rather than keep it to yourself!"

"That may be true, Enron, but to be able to share I must take all first, and that is what worries me. That stage will be the most terrible temptation in my life. And there is another thing you must know."

"What is it?"

"Enron, I must behead him to gain his powers. It is only that way he will die. Otherwise he regenerates almost instantly. I know because he once lost a hand to a lucky sword strike from my part and I saw it reform in the blink of an eye."

"One question before you decide what to do: when did he disappear exactly?"

"I believe right before the fall of the Baby Moon. We were too busy moving things to safeguard them to search for him. Paschal, you had left for Kantar already when it happened. I suspect you were busy building the pyramids and the Atlantean refuges, and working to safeguard the treasures of Atlantis."

"The Pyramids were already built and hidden when I built Kantar, Harp. That is why we have all that information about them in the Cave below the imperial city. I think this individual knew exactly what he was doing. He chose this specific pyramid for a reason: to survive through time, hoping to emerge later, after the cataclysm, intact and without you in his way. That guy fears you more than you fear him, Harp."

"Paschal is right, my love. He did this in order to escape a confrontation he knew he would lose in time. Now is your destiny, Harp. You have trained for seventeen thousand years! You are reborn and more powerful than ever! And you have a weapon he does not even suspect! You have our love and our magic. Today, now, by my love, by my blood, by my magic I bond to you for the better or the worst, in this moment and for eternity!"

"We bind to thee, in love, in blood and in magic, we bound to you for the better or the worst, in this moment and for eternity!" repeated the others in unison. The pyramid resonated with a powerful gong as the magical core that occupied its centre registered the vow.

"Shall we proceed and enter the white hexagon?"

"Yes, Harp, we will enter from all sides, and Ian will be coach of the battle!" Sitar declared.

As soon as the six princes stepped on the white tile, the mage that occupied its centre came to life and launched an attack. The boys replied in kind. The princes combined forces and fired from all sides, only to see their best effort rebound on what seemed to be an impenetrable wall of magic. Deadly spells flew within the hexagon's area, vanishing as they tried to exit the battlefield and cross over the black tiles.

As Ian studied the exchanges, he came to a conclusion. The battle would last days if nothing was done to shorten it. Then something dawned on him. That mage had been a soul eater all those years back, but more importantly, he had changed his regimen and ate magic as food. The more the boys fired at him the more powerful he became!

«Shields up, and resort to brute force! He is eating at your core, gaining force!» thundered Ian.

The princes immediately understood the trap they had fallen to and followed Ian's instructions. Shields ablaze as they repealed the assault, the six princes converged toward the magician. The first to reach him was Sitar, whose shield blazed white-hot from its contact with the magician's own shield. Next, Harp came from behind, and again, the shields blazed violently.

"Inverse your field polarity, Harp!"

Not really understanding where Ian was going with this, Harp nonetheless did as asked and instantly, there was a terrible explosion, as Sitar's field overloaded the magician's in an effort to merge with Harp's, while the old mage's field suddenly collapsed, drained into Harp's own field, that flared up with incommensurable power.

The mage ported out from his uncomfortable position, only to fall between Paschal and Typhoon, which immediately repeated the very successful manoeuvre. Shocked to his core the mage tried repeatedly to escape the sandwiches, changing his own field polarity at an ever-faster pace, but the six boys who were waiting for the shield to collapse to take more drastic measures matched every change. Finally, after more than thirty changes of polarity, the mage had to admit this was not working. Furious he dropped the shield and decided to conserve energy.

Barely had the shield dropped that Sitar hit the man with a kick in the kidneys, sending him flying across the arena toward Paschal who, using the man's momentum, sent him in the same direction to the edge of the battlefield. As the mage hit the magic wall encircling the arena, he let out a terrible yell, and his right arm, which had been thrown outside of the field, vanished into smoke. The mage immediately reformed his arm, but it was apparent this event had shocked him more than he cared to admit.

Rendered furious by the pain, the man charged Harp, only to find himself propelled high in the air by a powerful roll and leg kick. He had not even touched the ground when Typhoon smashed his two feet in the man's face, breaking the man's entire denture and smashing his nose into a bloody pulp. The backlash of the kick broke the second vertebrae, and for a second, the mage lay on the ground, paralyzed, before his immense healing power kicked in and repaired the damage.

Enron and Thorsten then combined their effort and as the man stood on shaky legs, Paschal dove in front of him while Thorsten kicked him in the butt, sending him forward. As the man fell forward over him, Paschal suddenly rose, and using the power of his entire body and the man's momentum, threw the mage toward the border of the tile. Panicked at the impending collision, the mage ported across the battlefield, only to be met by another pair of furious princes. Sitar and Harp converged on him and used powerful kicks to break the kneecaps, sending the man on his back.

«It is time to put an end to this. Thorsten? Use your axe, but no magic on the next pass.»

Thorsten understood Ian's goal. He disengaged from immediate battle, and took his axe out of its scabbard, waiting for the proper moment to intervene. The princes too understood what Ian was expecting and tried to push the mage within range of Thorsten. He, on the other hand, did its utmost to escape his fate. But, however hard he tried to escape falling within the reach of the princes, however numerous the ports, even the invisibility spells, nothing he tried seemed to surprise the boys. It looked like a macabre dance, or like a game of chess, where the king was trying to escape checkmate.

Ever more desperate, the mage again tried to resort to magic and send a curse toward Thorsten. As if in slow motion the curse hit Thorsten's axe and rebounded toward the sender, catching the mage by surprise. Unprepared, he let out a howl of pain as a fist-sized hole bored through his thorax. Instantly the body repaired, but just as the magician was getting ready to do another jump, Harp kicked him between the legs, squarely in the balls, sending him to the waiting Thorsten. The combined motion of the axe and the forward momentum of the mage made for a clean cut and the head flew high above the princes, rolled on the white tile, to explode as it reached the limits of the arena.

The magic contained within the falling body, the result of countless feedings, exploded to reach the seven princes and boost their magical core by a thousand-fold.

«Two points for the victors. One point is for the victory against that dark lord, and one for the vow of bonding. I also reconsidered the point I had left in doubt. You deserved it. Seven points out of seven, in less than seven tests. You deserve the knowledge I am about to reveal to you. Move to the exit, rest, refresh yourselves, and proceed to the Hall of Learning.»

***

Outside, the dragon patrols had reported to the Centurion, which deemed the information important enough to warrant a visit to King Harold. Unfortunately for the poor Centurion, the royals were absent, and, after consulting with others, he discovered they were in Thebes. It took him a day, and the return of a legionnaire from the care of Francesca to remember she knew how to contact the king!

After running like mad to the hospital, short of breath to the point he could barely talk, the Centurion managed to tell Francesca he needed to forward a message to the King and that it was urgent. Gracious, Francesca obliged, and Harold popped into the Royal Healer's office after a brief exchange with her.

"So, Centurion, what is so urgent?"

"Legate, two patrols came back from the far northern borders and signalled strange activity."

"Orcs or crocodiles?"

"Neither, Legate! Two huge mountains seemed to have sprouted in the northern lakes overnight! Had I heard from only one wing, I would have considered the Decurion was drunk, but two Decurions reported the same phenomenon! One even saw it happen and he was so shaken I put him on leave as well as his unit!"

"I'll fly there right away. Since it concerns water, I'll have Samson accompany me. Have two flights of dragons ready in ten minutes! I'll be riding my dragonling, he wants some exercise, and so does Samson's."

Ten minutes on the dot, the twelve dragons left Eloise for the northern border. An hour later, the flight came into view of Nineveh's old emplacement. The mountain had mysteriously disappeared! But the lake itself did show what the Decurion had described to his centurion, only, it was worse, far worse than the report had described.

"What do you make of this, Samson? Where is the mountain? What does this scene tell you?"

"From the dam and shores, I say there was a huge wave, at least three hundred feet high. Look at how far up the mountainside the trees have been uprooted. Something big, no, huge, occurred here, and from the number of high water marks on that cliff face across the lake, not once, but twice at least. And look at the dam! It's like some giant ram pushed it forward a few feet!"

"I have to agree with you. The entire dam seems to have been kicked. And look below! These huge boulders seem to have been thrown over the dam by a wave!"

"It's not only there, Harold. Look at that mountainside! If I read this right, the block of granite over near the bay moved uphill!"

As they flew along the lake northward, the kings couldn't help but be awed by the violence that was visible everywhere. Not only had the glacier's frontal moraine been gouged, but also huge blocks of rocks seemed to have been thrown at the glacier, fracturing its face, and spreading havoc on the glacier's top for miles.

"Let's go see the other lake."

Samson followed Harold further east. And shortly, they found themselves at the head of the lake that used to be shared by Ur and Edom. The scene before them was apocalyptic. The dam had its head shaved, and huge blocks of concrete littered the riverbed below. Where once stood an open lake was a four thousand foot mountain whose regularity bothered the royals even more than its sudden appearance.

"That's a pyramid!" exclaimed Harold. "I can feel my boys in it! This mountain is artificial!"

"And I can feel Enron! Am I glad they are safe!"

Just as they were looking at the pyramid wondering what was happening, a black globe emerged from the pyramid's apex, and left for space.

"Well, we know they have been fighting evil once more. I would recognize that style of prison anywhere! However it is Ian's signature I felt, not Harp's. I hope the little bugger is ok. I may get mad at his tricks and pranks, but I love him nonetheless."

"Do not worry, Samson, I feel his presence below, and it's so strong I can almost taste it!"

"I didn't know magic had a taste, Harold!"

"I want to know what happened to the other mountain, but I think I have it figured out!"

"What's your idea? I too have a hunch."

"We already saw one pyramid leave lake Solon; then a second one appeared yesterday in Thebes. However fantastic the idea, I suspect the boys moved a whole pyramid from the other lake to its final emplacement in Thebes."

"As if we needed more proof, Harold. I saw a mountain fly from Solon to Thebes. Why not two, three, or four? I have to agree, this fits what we know. But how do you plan to prove it?"

"It's time you used that Trident for something, Samson. Separate the water of the lake so we can have a look at the bottom."

Samson pointed his trident at the lake and two huge waves travelled its length, creating a dry lakebed crossing its entire width and measuring about two hundred feet wide. The lakebed showed a clean cut change in nature from a thick muddy bottom clearly resulting from a long history of deposits to a thin, fresh deposit of the same nature covering a flat bed of lava rocks.

"Well, that settles it. What we see here, on your left is old lake bottom; just there, what you see is what used to be dry lava. There even are plants found in the crevices that are typical of Lava Flows."

"Ok, what next, Harold?"

"We camp near that other pyramid and wait! I want to see with my own eyes the mountain move!"

"Aren't you the sceptic, Harold? You saw the Blue Pyramid fly! Anyway, that may be days away!"

"Somehow I doubt that. Do not ask me how I know, but I think things will come to pass before the week's over! The time between the first and second pyramid was short, and I think it will be as short if not shorter this time."

"OK, Harold. Let's go back to that flying mountain of yours, and wait. I've learned one thing with you guys."

"What's that?"

"The word impossible is no longer valid."

***

Inside the White Pyramid, as Harp had so aptly named the building, the boys rested for a night, before progressing to the Hall of Learning. It was an identical copy to those they had already visited, and the boys sat in their respective chairs. Soon they fell asleep and began a journey through time.

This journey took them way further in time than they had expected. In it they saw the origins of Atlanteans, well before they migrated to Earth; the secrets of their migration and its origins were shown to them. Apparently, Atlantis, the planet, had developed a very advanced civilization, one that had explored the stars, and made numerous scientific discoveries. But, however advanced their technology, the day came that they realized their numbers were diminishing, and their civilization was doomed. In order to maintain what they had gained with such work, they sent out scout ships across the galaxy to find a planet suitable for settlement. Millions of planets sustained life, but few sustained the core of Atlanteans: magic. Only seven were found one of which was Earth.

After careful study of the candidates, Earth was selected as the primary migratory target, as the others would need terraforming to sustain life, a process which would far exceed the time the Atlanteans had available to them. The scientists built giant ships, readying them for a trip that would take thousands of years to complete. Yet, even as the Atlanteans were busy working on their ships and assembling them in orbit, time ticked by, and the apprehended catastrophe hit them too early: their sun exploded in size, going from a standard yellow sun to a red giant in a matter of months. Atlantis had lived.

It was fortunate that, as the sun blew up, one of the giant ships was complete and being tested in the outer planets with its crew complement, because Atlanteans would have been history otherwise. As the ship emerged from behind a gas giant located in the outskirt of the Atlantean solar system, the extent of the catastrophe was revealed to the crew. Their planet, and its twenty five billion souls, had been absorbed by the star's surface. The crew moved their spaceship behind the gas giant to escape the incoming shock wave of matter expelled by the giant star. Once this catastrophic phase passed, the Atlanteans explored their system in search for survivors, essentially finding some in asteroid mining sites. So few survived the Atlanteans had a huge spaceship designed to hold a billion souls and were less than ten million, when all those that could be rescued were.

The Atlanteans decided that nothing could be done and left their planetary system for Earth. Ten thousand years later, they moved into orbit above the Earth and began looking at how to settle onto the planet. The Atlanteans had grown in number during that trip, from ten million to a hundred million, still well below the complement that could have occupied the ship. Exploratory teams descended to the surface, to be met sometimes with awe, most of the time with hostility. The Atlanteans settled in a defendable position, on an island that was sprayed continuously by the vapours of a giant fall feeding a dry ocean bed. New Atlantis or Atlantis II, as it was originally named, began to shine.

Not all was rosy: a lot of time had passed between the scouts' visit and the arrival of the Atlanteans. When the colonists arrived, they were confronted with the soul eaters, an archenemy they had fought in their stellar exploration repeatedly, with varying degree of success. The battle of the stars was carried down to Earth, and rekindled to a ferocity multiplied by the desperate situation of both parties and the small terrain afforded by the planet. The soul eaters couldn't escape to the stars due to the trap; the Atlanteans had nowhere to go.

The falling of the Baby Moon produced by the capture of Venusia by the Sun spelled the downfall of New Atlantis; but it also gave them the occasion to mingle with the human population, which, by a stroke of luck, was able to interbreed with the Atlanteans, something that had completely escaped all parties until then. No one could figure out why humans and Atlanteans were genetically compatible.

There stopped the White Pyramid's lessons, as previous teachers had covered the rest. The boys woke up briefly after their lesson in history, to feed and refresh, before again falling asleep and consolidate their newfound knowledge through dreams and restful sleep.

***

The boys woke up feeling much better and discussed their newfound knowledge while eating breakfeast.

"There is one thing we need to figure out that bugs me in that story."

"What is it, Thorsten?"

"There were two scout ships that came to Earth; the first one returned, but the second one vanished without trace. I find it an easy way out to claim they got destroyed during their space travel. Yes it is possible, but shouldn't they have found traces of it?"

"Space is vast, and the Atlanteans did not have time to worry about a scientific ship gone missing. They had enough on their plate already," replied Sitar.

"The thing is, I feel there is a relationship between that disappearance and the genetic compatibility of the humans to interbreeding with Atlanteans. Could it be that this ship had to land to hide from the invading soul eaters?"

"That's an interesting proposition you have, Thorsten. If I continue your reasoning, it may be that the repeated failures of the soul-eaters in making humans convenient chattel was due to the repeated and discreet intervention of these Atlantean scientists, putting the proverbial bucket of sand in the wheels of their research. If this is the case, these long-lost Atlanteans are unsung heroes of history. They held the fort, so to speak, against an enemy that would have done them in easily had they been discovered. They waited and waited for the arrival of the colony ships until they finally died out. I wish I could find out for sure!" Ian said, with tears in his eyes.

"There is more, Ian. By inserting Atlantean genes, not only did they make the result of the Elohim research fail, but also they gradually moulded the humans to make them compatible with Atlantean genetics. This must have taken a lot of knowledge, far outstripping the knowledge soul-eaters had at their disposal."

"All this discussion is interesting Paschal, but we have other ordeals to undertake to unravel the mystery of the Right Hand of Destiny. I am sure this Pyramid will not tell us anything of the upcoming tests?"

«No, I cannot. I wish I could, but simply, I do not know what the future holds for you.»

«We hold no ill feelings to you. It is time you join the others in Thebes.» stated Ian.

The boys joined their newfound power and lifted out of the lake the mass of the Pyramid, moving it slowly toward Thebes.

***

Outside, a rumble woke the royal escort and immediately the dragons took to the air, bringing their cargo of legionnaires and royals high above the earth, in the safety of the higher atmosphere.

As everyone observed in awe, the mountain gently lifted out of the lake, with the sound of suction as the lake bottom tried to retain the mass prisoner. The parvis of the Pyramid, covered in mud and lake plants, emerged out of the lake water, followed by an equal mass of rock, the pyramid's root. As the pyramid moved south, its destination clear, Harold let it go on its own.

"Why don't we follow it?" asked Samson.

"I want to see the next pyramid emerge. We know where that one goes."

"You expect more?"

"Yes, three more. And I have an idea where the next one will show up. Follow me."

The escort followed Harold south until they were over the old emplacement of Sodom. On the eastern horizon, extended the lake that once bathed the city. It was still quiet, but the advancing ice tongue had made substantial progress, now located less than two miles from the old city's outskirts.

"Should we land?"

"No. I suspect that by sext, we will see the emergence of the next pyramid. We might as well do some patrols to see if there are any orc or crocodile activity."

The two wings of dragons quickly spread around. Some orc activity was seen, but it seemed to date of a few years. Nothing fresh was seen. As for hunters, no trace whatsoever could be found.

Just as the sun marked sext, a terrible noise was heard coming from the middle of the lake. The glacier, which had partially covered the area that was to be occupied by the newly emerging pyramid, shattered into blocks of ice while the lake bottom rose to be washed off by cascading water. Rocks, ice and water flew everywhere.

"We have our answer. Let's fly home. I want to sleep in my bed tonight."

"You are growing soft, Harold!"

"Isn't that the role of a king?"