The Royal Pursuit (8 page)

“
You did it,” Kent
whispered in her ear, his eyes twinkling. “Atlantis is your
discovery.”

“
It’s more beautiful than I
ever imagined,” she replied. “Look at the exquisite detail in their
artwork. The geometric patterns they carved into their buildings
must have taken years to perfect. Even more impressive was the fact
that the buildings seemed to change color as the lights from the
submarine hit them. At one time, a building would look blue then
turn red then turn yellow then turn some other color. It was almost
like looking at a rainbow.

Mark finally broke out of his trance.
“We need to put on our scuba gear and grab our instruments so we
can learn about this amazing place.”

His words broke her out of her
thoughts. “Yes! We have to go out there and explore. Oh, this is
the most thrilling moment of my life.” She looked at Kent and
quickly added, “Besides marrying you, of course.”

He grinned good-naturedly. “It is
exciting. I can’t wait to go out there.”

Mark led them to the scuba gear. The
task of putting it on was tedious, but Stacey knew they had to do
it. Atlantis was real, and soon…very soon, she would get to walk
around it. This was going to be the greatest adventure of her
life.

***

Grand Oak Room

Planet: Raz

Hathor rubbed his eyes. He was
starting to get a headache. The suns would be setting soon, and he
was exhausted after spending the whole day going through the
Augurs’ rule book. He sighed with irritation. He was only on page
586. He was reading through it as fast as he could, and he would
have been done already if it hadn’t been for Gaius’ insistence on
explaining most of the rules to him.

“
Between sunrise and
sunset, you may contact us at any time and expect us to respond to
you immediately,” Hathor read aloud. “Between sunset to sunrise, we
require an hour’s notice before talking with you.”

“
We must have adequate time
to wake up and dress in proper attire, for we expect to be at our
best when talking to others,” Gaius explained. “We believe in
showing our allies they are important to us.”

“
Alright,” Hathor replied.
He read the next rule. “When you visit our planet, we will give you
three meals during the course of the day. The meals will be exactly
six hours apart.”

“
Food is the energy all
beings need in order to properly function,” Gaius interrupted. “If
we fail to feed you at regular intervals, then your mind cannot
attend to the pressing issues we will have to discuss.”

Turning back to the book, Hathor read,
“We will serve you meals which are suited to your eating habits.
You will have the foods you are accustomed to so you will enjoy
your meals.” Hathor sighed. Was all of this really
necessary?

“
The hour is getting late,”
Gaius said. “We will quit for tonight and continue tomorrow
morning.”

The Augurs stood up.

“
Can’t we finish this
tonight?” Hathor asked. “I don’t mind staying up.”

“
No,” Gaius replied,
smiling kindly. “We do not negotiate past sunset unless there is an
emergency.”

“
There is an emergency. My
wife, the queen of this planet, could be in trouble right
now.”

“
She is safe for the
moment. We will adjourn to our rooms and meet with you
tomorrow.”

Hathor clenched his jaw. His grip
tightened on the book.

“
You have to trust us. We
know what we’re doing,” Gaius assured him, as if he could read his
mind.

He didn’t like the way Gaius seemed to
know everything, but he refrained from speaking. He had to fulfill
the wishes of the queen, and it was important that he attend the
meeting with the Augurs until they were done.

“
Good.” Gaius nodded,
taking Hathor’s silence as acceptance. “You won’t be
sorry.”

Hathor resigned himself to dragging
this meeting out for at least another day and showed them to their
rooms. Then he said good-night to his children and retired to his
bedroom. He sat on the bed, which seemed so empty without Ann in
it. He took off the emerald she had given him and stared at it. He
should be with her right now.

Instead, he was stuck reading through
a boring list of rules that didn’t even matter to intergalactic
relations. Who cared what time he would eat if he was ever on Aug?
At this point, he didn’t want to go to Aug or see another Augur for
as long as he lived. Sure, they were nice, but they were also
annoying with their insistent demands.

He got up, changed into his pajamas,
and slipped into bed. He could smell Ann on her pillow. He missed
her. They had only been apart from each other when she was sent
into the past back on Earth, her home planet. He didn’t like being
away from her, especially when he had no idea what was happening to
her. The Great Magician would not be notified of her danger because
Raz was already protected because of Katherine. If Ann died, then
Katherine would take over. That was encouraging, but he didn’t want
anything bad to happen to Ann. She was the most important person in
his life.

***

Atlantis

Planet: Earth

When the five people left the
submarine, they were giddy with anticipation. This was a monumental
event, and they were fortunate to be a part of it.

Kent glanced at Stacey’s eager face.
She could hardly contain her excitement. He was happy for her. She
was going to be famous after this. He secretly wondered if it would
change their relationship. She would be in the public eye now.
Would she still have time for him when the reporters wanted to
contact her and the cameras began to play a big role in her life?
He pushed aside his worries. This was her time to shine, and he
wouldn’t let his selfishness interfere with that.

Mark and Stephen controlled the
instruments they needed to collect samples and record data. Kent,
Stacey, and Captain Reed carried flashlights.

Kent set his feet on the sand, wishing
to walk up the ivory colored steps.

“
This material is unknown,”
Stephen reported as he checked the steps. “We don’t have anything
like it.”

“
I guess we’ll have to
attach a name to it,” Kent said. He moved his flashlight through
the dark water. Several fish swam past them, but for the most part,
it was deserted, which gave them plenty of opportunity to explore
without any problems. “I can’t get over it. These buildings change
color depending on how you flash light on them.”

“
We should go inside one of
the buildings,” Captain Reed suggested.

“
Which one?” Mark
asked.

“
The building is made from
a different material than the steps are,” Stephen reported as he
swam over to one.

“
That would explain why the
steps don’t change color,” Kent thoughtfully stated.

“
I want to see the arc,”
Stacey said.

“
We will do that soon
enough,” Captain Reed replied. “It is a considerable distance from
here. I recommend we search one of these buildings.” He pointed his
flashlight at the two buildings on either side of them. “What do
you think?”

She nodded. “Let’s check this one
out.” She pointed to the building on the right. “Mark, do you
recognize the language?”

Mark typed the foreign words into his
translator. He shook his head. “No. This is an unknown
language.”

“
Let’s check it out and see
what we can find,” Captain Reed said.

They agreed and entered the building
in single file. Kent was the last one inside. As he examined his
surroundings, he marveled at the type of affluent society Atlantis
must have been. A large ivory staircase wrapped its way around the
circular light blue wall.

The staircase led to a second floor,
which had various artworks on the walls and many closed doors with
markings on each one, which he guessed was their numbering system.
The artwork decorating the walls were of various people he didn’t
recognize.

Kent laughed to himself. Of course, he
wouldn’t recognize the people. They had long since died, and since
their city fell into the ocean, they had, in a sense, disappeared
from the face of the Earth.

“
This must have been a
hotel,” Stacey said.

Kent turned and noticed an ivory desk,
plush white sofas, and matching chairs that furnished the room.
None of the furniture had decayed, something that surprised him
even more than the fact that the buildings were still in good
shape. The circular ivory table in the center of the room seemed to
dominate it. At one time, this place must have been an elegant
getaway for its guests. It made perfect sense that this building
would be a good hotel since it was on the edge of the city. Its
location would have put it right on the beach.

“
It’s almost eerie to think
that people once walked through here,” Stacey softly said. “Who
knows what stories this place would tell if these walls could
talk.”

It was a sobering thought, Kent
admitted. How many lives were lost on the day Atlantis fell into
the ocean?

“
I say we check out some of
the other buildings before we go back to the submarine,” Captain
Reed said, breaking the silence.

They nodded and left the
building.

***

In the Wilderness

Planet: Lone

Ann walked with Athen and the Palers
toward the Austere Complex. Their trek through the forest was
longer than she had anticipated. The explosion of the Paler
spaceship had set them further back than they’d
expected.

Despite Ann’s apprehension, she led
them through the thick, tall trees in the forest. Since she was the
one who knew where the stone was, thanks to her magic, it was up to
her to be the leader. She carefully made her way through the
forest, dodging weeds and stepping over tree roots.

She was grateful no wild animals
attacked them. She saw several furry small animals that resembled
squirrels and birds on Earth, but she knew they were a different
species.

Jaz called out, “Wait,” in a
whisper.

Ann, Athen, and Falon obeyed her, and
Ann looked uneasily around them. Everything was quiet except for
some animal noises. What had Jaz heard? Falon and Jaz took out
their guns and scanned the area, ready to shoot at anything that
posed a threat to the group. Ann grew nervous. Why didn’t she sense
anything? Shouldn’t her magic tell her if she should be on her
guard?

Athen reached in his pocket to pull
out the Book of Spells. As soon as he gasped in alarm, Ann realized
he had lost the book. He probably dropped it when they were falling
out of the spaceship. She turned her attention to the trees around
her. She didn’t see or hear anything unusual. What was she
missing?

Jaz fired her gun.

Then everything around Ann became
chaotic. Out of nowhere, two people jumped on her. Startled, she
fell to the ground. Before she could move, one of them chained her
hands together. She briefly noted a web-like net snatching Jaz’s
and Falon’s guns out of their hands.

As they struggled against their
attackers, a man dressed in white struck Athen with his white cane
so Athen couldn’t move. The man in white swiftly turned to do the
same to Jaz and Falon.

Before Ann could throw her two
attackers off of her, one of the Nicals pressed a clear crystal to
her forehead. She struggled to get away from it, but they were too
fast for her. She felt the magic leave her body. It was at that
moment she realized how much magic Raz had granted her. She hadn’t
used it much in the past, so she’d never harnessed its full
abilities, a decision she was quickly regretting. If she had
trained more in it, then she might have reacted swiftly to protect
her and her friends from their attackers.

“
Well done,” the man in
white said, satisfied.

By the time Ann was on her feet,
Athen, Jaz, and Falon were also chained.

“
Queen Ann.” The man in
white bowed. “What a pleasure it is to meet you at last. I have
heard so much about you.”

She remained quiet, figuring there was
nothing she could say to make the situation better.

“
You are beautiful, though
disappointing. I had expected more of a fight out of you,” he
continued. He shook his head. “You can’t have it all, I
suppose.”

She thought it was odd when he ignored
her friends. For some reason, his focus was exclusively on
her.

“
Come. We need to get back
to your ruler,” he told the Nicals.

They nodded.

He started walking. As they followed
him, they led their captives by the chains. Ann couldn’t help but
notice the Nicals, though just as human as the man in white, wore
tattered brown wool clothes and looked as if they hadn’t slept in
days. She also noticed another peculiarity. Their hair seemed to
change color.

Two of her captors had yellow hair.
The only woman in the group had green hair. The two men leading her
by the chains had blue hair. What did the different colors
mean?