David Golemon: Ancients

General Talos glared at the old and slight man before him. The elder, Lord Pythos, had once been an Empirium Council member but had resigned over thirty years before to conclude his work on the science of the Wave. A maniacal passion had consumed the ancient earth scientist for the latter part of his eighty-five years of life.

"The admiral knows his duty and need not be reminded. His destruction is assured, so you may receive your signal, Pythos."

"Excellent," he said as he looked knowingly at the general. "Think not that I am fooled by your being here at this time. I am fully aware that the traitor Androlicus has sent you to dispatch me if the plan fails. I am only surprised he has not chosen to do this foul deed himself."

"To that great man you are not that important; the lesser the task, the lesser the messenger. Your station is far too low for him to be here. And if you once more refer to him as a traitor, that will be the last word you ever utter from your foul mouth."

Unfazed, the old man continued. "Shame; he would have seen the miracle our people so crave. One that will destroy our enemies and shake their homelands with their mud-and-stick huts to dust."

Talos scowled at the crazy old man and then angrily raised his sword for the chain of flags to be readied for the signal. Five hundred of his more severely wounded soldiers had been pulled from the defense of the second circle of Atlantis against the probing invaders. Their duty here would be to relay the signal to the last two warships of the Grand Fleet.

Pythos walked over to a large bronze-and-iron box. He ruthlessly shoved a Nubian slave out of his way and gestured for two guards to lift it. Then Pythos became agitated as the men did his bidding, almost crying out when one of the soldiers let his end slip his grasp. Once steadied, Pythos approached and lifted the wooden lid. His gaze locked on the object inside. He reverently reached in and brought out the Tone Key. He swallowed as he did so. He held the large, perfectly round diamond up to a flaming torch and laughed as he felt its heat rise as it absorbed the flames' light.

Talos could see deep etchings upon its surface. Strange lines like impressions or gouges that were not natural flaws spiraled around the entire round diamond. The general did not understand how the diamond produced the unheard sounds that activated the great bells on the seafloor, as its science was far beyond the mind of a soldier.

Pythos turned and walked over to a large cylinder. He ordered one of the guards to lift a large lid on what looked like a bronze barrel lying on its side. Once opened, Pythos laid the blue-tinted diamond inside with the care of a mother bedding a newborn child. Then he reached up and brought down a large spike tipped with a much smaller blue diamond, only ten centimeters in diameter. This strange spike had a thick copper wire running from its top. The other end disappeared into the large barrellike device. He placed the spike into one of the diamond's deep grooves specially chosen for the targeted stratum of seabed, then he gently closed the lid.

Talos allowed his eyes to follow the copper line to a large wheel. The teeth on that wheel disappeared into the teeth of a larger one and that into an even larger cog. There looked to be thirty such wheels aligned side by side, reduction gearing for a device the general would never be able to fathom.

"Start the paddlewheel!" the old man shouted.

Sixteen hundred naked barbarian slaves, captured Greek, Egyptian, and Nubians, began pulling the thick ropes. As they strained as one mass of humanity, the giant floor gate began to slide back on its iron tracks. Steam and heat shot out like a caged animal and assaulted those in the great cavern. The slaves closest to the gate immediately burst into flame. Their very flesh caught fire as they screamed and ran, and archers who lined the upper tiers of the cavern quickly and mercifully brought them down.

As the gate slowly continued to slide open, whips cracked and men screamed. Muscles bunched and feet dug harshly into the grooved stone floor. More flame sprang from the lava well as the flowing river of magma passed by the opening at over sixty kilometers per hour. Still the gate to the volcanic vent needed to be wider and the taskmasters' whips sang their agonizing song.

"Yes, yes!" the old man moaned under his breath. "That is wide enough!"

The slaves, many burned through to the bone, fell to the floor as women ran to them with water and cooling salve.

Pythos watched and grinned as his plan of action began to take shape. He signaled for the next phase. Five thousand slaves, these bigger and far stronger than the gate slaves, stood as one. Women threw water on their scarred backs in preparation for the great heat that would slam them like the very Wave they would soon produce. Far above them, the great paddle-wheel hung motionless in its cradle. The words and hieroglyphs extolling the assistance of the gods etched deeply into the engineered metal made up of the new, hardened steel. The one million copper spikes placed in bundles of a thousand prickled around the great machine. Above the wheel was a three-meter-thick copper plate, held in place by a spun steel cable that bore its massive weight.

"Lower the lightning wheel to the midpoint marker."

The slaves moved in unison not by ordered word but by the crack and scream of the whip. They started pulling the six-hundred-foot-long ropes connected to the wheel. With feet slipping and trying to find purchase on the stone floor, the wheel at first refused to move. Old women threw sand beneath the feet of the slaves to soak up the water from the steam and pouring sweat of the thousands. Now finding purchase with the help of the grooved stone beneath their feet as they strained against the ropes, the cavern echoed with the rumble and creak of the giant wheel as it started to move. With a loud roar, it became free of its iron cradle far above the straining mass of men.

A signal command echoed and the five thousand slaves dropped the ropes and ran to the far side of the open lava gate. Some overflow of the four-thousand-degree magma caught several hundred of the sweating and burned slaves as they ran by. It rendered their flesh and bone to ash so quickly that not one of their screams escaped their lips.

Taskmasters' whips cracked, and once again sand was thrown by the slave women for purchase as the slaves gained the opposite side of the running river of flame and melted stone. They picked up the identical ropes in a desperate hurry as far above their heads the great wheel had started to roll down its elongated track toward the open gate.

"Arrest the wheel before its momentum carries it too far. Hurry or all will be lost!" the old man screamed as he pulled a whip from one of the guards and pushed him aside. His eyes were aflame as he whipped the nearest slaves mercilessly.

The five thousand slaves worked as one as they pulled against the gathering momentum of the sliding wheel as gravity fought to push it down its track. The front ranks, seventy-five slaves in all, were pulled into the open magma gate by the momentum of the wheel. The giant paddlewheel finally started to slow as it reached the halfway point. It hit a twenty-foot-wide downward-angled notch and came to a grinding, ear-splitting halt as it finally arrested. The slaves fell to the floor as one just as a loud cheer went up from the armor-sheathed guards lining the walls.

Talos observed that the slaves still alive and nearest the old man were bloodied and burned. Many more were lying dead at the feet of Pythos. The old scientist slowly turned and looked at the general.

"Now, we wait for the signal from the sea."

Two massive warships waited at anchor four kilometers from the northern shores of Atlantis. Admiral Plius, cousin and trusted naval adviser to Talos, held hand to brow, shielding the blazing sun from his eyes as he scanned the green sea before him. He was beginning to think that the people of his nation had received a reprieve from the barbarians and the expected invasion and the bulk of the Greek alliance would not come. That brief thought and hope died in his mind as the first flash of metal against the rays of the sun twinkled in the distance, just above the horizon of the sea. The admiral removed his helmet, the long blue plume of dyed horsehair gathering at his feet as he stepped down from the prow of the ship.