Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis (14 page)

“
You did not open the door
to the wolf, Alexis. The wolf had already found you, had already
targeted you. You think it was a crime of opportunity, one you
presented him with when, in fact, he had already learned everything
there was to know about your father’s business interests, and you,
long before that first ‘chance’ meeting. It is near impossible to
protect yourself, and your loved ones, from the plotting of a
stranger. You cannot blame yourself.”

“
How could you know this?”
Alexis asked, stunned.

Aurora smiled wryly. “I have my
ways.”

Alexis stared at her, understanding
dawned, and as it did so an excitement seized her. “You time
walked!”

“
Something like
that.”

Alexis leapt up, falling to her knees
in front of the old woman. “You could undo it! You could change it,
so that my father doesn’t die. Please! Please help me.”

Aurora looked at her sadly. “The past
cannot be changed. Only the future.”

“
But … but you could! All
you would have to do is warn him.”

Aurora touched her
shoulder.

Alexis’ head swam. Images flashed
through her mind. She saw her father, standing in his kitchen. He
was cooking. Behind him, at the kitchen table, sat Eric. They were
talking, laughing. As her father turned back to check his cooking
on the stove, Eric stood. Pulling a knife from his jacket, he
stepped up behind her father and, grasping her father’s head, slit
his throat. Blood spurted in every direction. Her father grasped
his throat, turning wild, questioning eyes on the man he had not
thought was a threat. He went to his knees, fell forward, went
still.

A stranger appeared in the doorway of
the back hall, a woman Alexis didn’t recognize. She helped Eric to
drag her father into the garage. Together they placed him in the
chest freezer, covering his body with the food the woman had
undoubtedly taken from the freezer in preparation for the murder.
Returning to the kitchen, they carefully cleaned away all evidence
of their presence and their crime.

In a moment, the scene changed. A
woman, Aurora, spoke to her father as he slept, warning him. Again
the horrible scene in the kitchen played itself out, varying little
from the first scene. The exception being that her father,
undoubtedly unnerved by the ‘dream’ he’d had, whirled when he heard
Eric behind him. This time Eric stabbed her father in the
heart.

Again, the scene changed and Alexis
saw Aurora knocking at her father’s door. They argued heatedly over
something and her father showed Aurora out. He looked at Eric
suspiciously when he opened his door to him later, turned him away.
Later, as her father lay sleeping, Eric crept into the room,
stabbing him repeatedly as he slept.

Alexis collapsed when Aurora released
her, sobbing into her hands. Aurora patted her shoulder, rubbing
her back in a soothing motion. Finally, Alexis regained control,
lifted her tear stained face. “I don’t understand. Is this … what
you showed me. It happened?”

Aurora studied her a moment. “I am
sorry that I hurt you by showing you this, but you must understand.
The past can rarely be changed to reflect what we want. I might
have tried many more times, many more ways, but the results would
have been the same. Your father would have died.”

“
So you’re saying there’s no
point in even trying to change the future? It is what it’s meant to
be? That fate decides and we have no control over our
destiny?”

Aurora shook her head sadly. “I
honestly do not know. I do not think it is human nature merely to
accept. I do not think we could live without hope, and hope is the
belief that we can change things. All that I do know is that we
learned long ago that it was useless to tamper with what has been,
what has already happened. We could not change it. It always seemed
to be one thing, one action, that became the catalyst for all that
came afterwards, but we found that there were many threads that led
up to the inevitable. Changing one made little difference and
finding all the events that led up to it was
impossible.”

Alexis was silent for several moments.
“But you tried anyway?”

Aurora nodded. “One can always hope
that this time it will be different, but it did no good to warn
him. It did no good to lure him to another place. It did no good to
delay Eric. I could not change it.”

Alexis stared at her a long moment,
thinking. “Maybe you just didn’t try hard enough. Maybe what you
needed to change was my meeting with Eric. Maybe then it would’ve
turned out differently.”

“
It did not.”

“
How can you know!” Alexis
exclaimed angrily.

“
Because you are
here.”

Wearily, Alexis dropped her head into
her hands. She felt Aurora’s gnarled hand settle on the back of her
head. Peace filled her.

Alexis looked up at Aurora in
confusion, trying to remember what had happened, how she’d come to
be sitting at Aurora’s feet, but she sensed it was something better
forgotten.

“
Come,” Aurora said briskly.
“I must introduce you to our physicians and you will see you have
nothing to be afraid of.”

* * * *

“
I recovered this,” Eros
said. “It was not easy to obtain. The one who wore it fought hard
to destroy it.”

Thor picked it up, turning it over. It
didn’t look like the ones commonly used, but neither did it look
much different, at least, not in the artificial light that only
dimly lit the chamber beneath the citadel where they met. Thor
stood, holding it closer to the light for a better view, but still
saw nothing of any significance. “A band?”

Eros nodded. “More powerful that the
ones we developed. Even with the magnifiers we use, we cannot pick
up their telepathic communications. Perhaps, since you have no need
for a magnifier, these are no impediment to you, but we have heard
nothing known to be rebel communication in weeks. I had wondered
why they had become so strangely quiet.”

“
I have detected nothing
either. I had thought they might have moved their meeting place
beyond Atlantis, or found a chamber such as this that we knew
nothing of—or perhaps even modified a secret chamber somewhere that
would prevent telepathic waves from penetrating, as do these
walls.

In truth, the quiet has disturbed me,
for it was not likely that they had ceased their
machinations.

This explains why we have not managed
to discover anything about the rebels. And why they have grown so
bold.”

Eros’ brows lifted
questioningly.

“
Last eve a rebel seized an
outworlder under my protection.”

“
To what purpose, think
you?”

Thor studied Eros a moment. Eros was
his most trusted lieutenant, but more than that, a friend. If he
could not trust Eros…. “There are several possibilities. I have
claimed first right to her as my woman, should she decide to stay.
It is no secret. The attack could have been directed at
me.”

Eros looked stunned for a moment, then
grinned, clapping Thor on the shoulder. “You jest! I had thought
you hopeless! Congratulations!”

Thor flushed. “Premature. She has not
said she will stay. She has not said she will accept me. My claim
would be enough, however, to make them believe they could use her
against me.”

Eros looked intrigued. Before he could
voice any of the questions Thor knew he wanted to ask, however,
Thor directed him back to their immediate problem--discovering the
objective of the rebels. “That is one possibility. There are
others.”

“
To seize her, successfully,
right under your nose would convince any who were wavering that
they had the strength to win. In truth, though we have intercepted
nothing, my instincts tell me they grow in numbers daily and many
more would join them if they felt their chances of success more
certain.”

Thor nodded. “Or it is possible that
she was the target.”

Eros looked take aback. “Why? She is
an outworlder. Of what use would she be to them?”

“
She is gifted, beyond any
outworlder that I have ever seen, beyond even many
Atlanteans.”

Eros looked skeptical but grinned
after a moment. “I shall have to see this paragon.”

Thor’s eyes narrowed. “I value your
friendship, Eros. But make no mistake, the woman is
mine.”

Surprised, Eros studied him a moment,
certain he must be jesting, but then threw up his hands in a
gesture of surrender. “I meant no harm. In any case, I know you
well. You will have staked your claim very thoroughly by now and
none other would have a chance at the lady’s heart.”

Thor frowned, but he had no intention
of voicing his doubts, prior claim or not. Alexis was a law unto
herself and Eros far too tempting to women to allow him to think he
had a chance with her. He ignored the remark and returned his
attention to the band. “We must have this analyzed, so that we know
what we are up against, but if they have the capability of
producing these the rebel movement is undoubtedly far larger than
we had suspected. Did you question the man?”

Eros grimaced. “When a man is
determined to fight to the death it is nigh impossible to capture
him alive. What did you discover of the man who seized your
woman?”

“
Nothing. I killed
him.”

“
But.… You could not use the
hold?”

“
He … endangered Alexis. I
did not try.”

* * * *

Alexis found that Aurora had not lied
to her. The tests were strange, very tiring but with the exception
of an ordinary blood test, there was no pain involved, no strange
rituals or inventive tortures.

She was tested over a period of three
days. On the fourth day, weary beyond belief, she was told to rest.
She did so gladly, unable to recall a time when she had been so
exhausted.

On the fifth day, she was called
before the council. To her surprise, Helen informed her that the
meeting was to be held in the Council chambers, not before the Body
as her first hearing had been. When Alexis had looked at her
blankly, Helen had grudgingly explained that meetings in the
coliseum with the Body were only for the purpose of voting upon
crimes involving the first five laws. Minor infractions were
decided by the Council alone and, since Alexis’ case was not
actually a crime, it too fell under their jurisdiction. Since it
would be the council alone who decided upon Alexis’ fate, the
meeting would be held in the private Council Chambers.

When Helen opened the door and ushered
Alexis inside, she saw that Thor was in consultation with the High
Council. Her heart leapt at the sight of him. A riot of thoughts
rushed through her mind before she could prevent it, but no one
looked her way so she felt some hope that her lapse hadn’t been
noticed. At any rate, the thoughts had been so random, so chaotic,
that she’d scarcely grasped them herself. Surely no one else could
have interpreted them.

She focused her gaze, and thoughts,
upon the assembly after that, knowing that was her only hope of
keeping her innermost secrets to herself.

Noticing her arrival, Aurora gestured
for her to come forward. When Helen would have withdrawn, Aurora
stopped her, commanding her to come forward, as well.

Helen looked surprised, and uneasy,
but she approached the council as she’d been told.

Alexis, naturally, had no idea of what
business Thor had had with the council, but from his expression,
and theirs, it had not been a pleasant meeting.

She discovered that it was to get
worse.

Aurora studied Alexis and Helen in
turn. She spoke to Helen.

“
We have reviewed your claim
and your petition regarding your choice of Thor as husband. It is
well known that you had a standing agreement with Thor at one time,
however, prior claim cannot be considered when the original
petition was rejected. You may review the circumstances of the
original rejection if you are so inclined, but the decision was
solid and irrefutable. You have added nothing to the new petition
that might be considered in extenuation, or that would reverse the
original decision. We must deny your prior claim and dismiss your
petition.”

Dismissing Helen, whom she had
evidently reduced to speechlessness, Aurora fixed Alexis with a
stern eye. “We call you here today, Alexis Stanhope, to rule upon
your situation with us, and to thank you for your willing
participation in the tests we found necessary to make our
determination.

Alexis’ brows lifted. She hadn’t been
aware that she’d had a choice.

Aurora frowned at her.

Alexis focused on her toes.

“
Child.”

Alexis looked up at her.

“
We would like to welcome
you to live among us. We find that you are genetically superior,
that you are free of defective genes of any kind. We also find that
you are, genetically similar to Atlanteans in that you possess
certain abilities not generally found among
outworlders.”

Alexis looked at her in surprise.
“Abilities?”