Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

‘If the sub’s properly braced on the seabed, up to three metric tons,’ Matt told him. ‘If I’m free-floating and holding it on the thrusters, about half that.’ He activated the autopilot to hold Sharkdozer on its descent and took one of the arm controls. ‘Here, check this out.’

The submersible tipped slightly on its port side as he moved the left stick to swing the corresponding arm outwards. A turn and twist, and its claw came into view through the forward viewport, steel glinting in the spotlights. He worked a smaller videogame-like thumbstick. ‘Wave hello to Nina and Eddie!’ The claw obediently waggled up and down.

‘Cute,’ said Nina.

‘Wait till you see this.’ A flick of a switch, and he worked the smaller control again. The secondary arm unfolded and reached out to tap gently on the thick bubble with a rubber-tipped ‘finger’. A computer graphic superimposed over the LIDAR display showed exactly where both arms were positioned relative to the sub. ‘That’s some real precision engineering there. I could sign my name at a thousand feet down with that.’

‘I think it’d ruin your pen, though,’ said Eddie. The Australian grinned and returned the arms to their original places.

‘Typical guys,’ Nina scoffed. ‘We’re on our way to one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, and all you care about are your big boys’ toys.’

Matt laughed, then took back the main controls. Both submersibles continued their long fall into the cold, dark void.

After some time, an electronic chirp from the instruments told the trio that something had changed. ‘What is it?’ Nina asked. ‘Are we there?’

‘Nearly,’ said Matt. ‘Look at that.’

He pointed at the LIDAR display. Something had appeared at the bottom of the screen, a tangled, twisted mass that at first glance resembled some sort of seaweed. But it was no plant. A grid overlaid on the image showed the scale: it was hundreds of feet across, and growing larger as the sub’s descent brought more of it into LIDAR range. ‘What is it? It can’t be the wreck of the Evenor , it’s too big.’

‘No, but it is a wreck, though,’ Matt told her. ‘It’s the SBX.’

Nina felt a chill at the realisation that she was looking at a mass grave. Before Atlantis’s existence had been officially revealed to the world, the IHA had been secretly exploring the ruins under the cover of SBX-2, a giant American floating radar platform ostensibly deployed to monitor the threat of missiles being fired into Europe from North Africa. It had been sabotaged and sunk, with the loss of over seventy lives. The mangled state of the wreckage meant that some of the bodies had still not been recovered.

‘Jesus, look at that,’ Eddie said quietly as more of the sunken station was revealed. SBX-2 had capsized, landing on the sea floor with its six great pontoon supports sticking up like the legs of a dead insect. The superstructure had been crushed beneath them by their weight, girders jabbing outwards from the rusting ruins.

‘We’re about four hundred metres from the main dig site,’ Matt announced solemnly, making a course adjustment. The ghostly wreckage on the display slowly disappeared behind them. It was replaced by the contours of the seabed as Sharkdozer neared the end of its journey.

Other shapes appeared, not the smooth curves of current-swept silt but the angular outlines of human constructions, standing out where the sediment of millennia had been cleared from around them. Nina couldn’t help but draw in an astounded breath.

Atlantis.

She had discovered its location, overseen its exploration by the IHA. But this was the first time she had ever visited the ruins in person. She leaned forward again, shoulder to shoulder with Matt. ‘How long before we can see it for real?’ she asked, excited.

‘A little room, please?’ the Australian asked, nudging her with his elbow as he tweaked the controls. She reluctantly retreated — about three inches. ‘Give us thirty seconds, and the first thing we’ll see will be the Temple of the Gods.’ He pointed it out on the LIDAR screen. ‘Then after that, we’ll be at the Temple of Poseidon.’

The wait was almost intolerable. Nina moved forward again, not even another nudge from Matt sufficient to move her back. She stared intently into the darkness outside. Then…

‘There!’ she cried. ‘There it is!’

Her first true sight of the ruins of Atlantis hazed into view through the murk. It didn’t appear particularly impressive, just the collapsed remains of a building — but to her it was utterly breathtaking. A civilisation lost for eleven thousand years, discovered through the work and dedication of first her parents and then herself… and now she was finally seeing it first-hand. ‘Oh, my God. That is incredible…’ She felt as though she were about to cry.

Eddie punctured her bubble. ‘Great. We’ve come to the bottom of the Atlantic to look at a building site.’

‘Shut. Up!’

They approached what was left of the Temple of the Gods. Compared to some of the other majestic structures the expedition had unearthed it was not particularly big, an oval perhaps seventy feet across at its longest. Large sections of its walls had toppled outwards, giving the impression that it had exploded from within.

‘So that’s where they kept this sky stone?’ Eddie asked.

‘That’s right,’ said Nina. ‘It’s quite an unusual place, actually. Atlantean temples are usually devoted to a single god, but this was dedicated to… well, dozens of them, as far as we can tell. Although now that we know about the sky stone from the rest of the Kallikrates text, there might be an explanation. Nantalas said that it contained the power of the gods — plural. So the Atlanteans made sure to honour them all.’

‘If they knew there was something special about the meteor, enough for ’em to build a temple to put it in, why didn’t they use its power right away?’

Nina looked out at the broken building as they glided past. ‘There could be any number of reasons. They might have been afraid of it; the text said that some of the royal court were opposed to using its power. Or maybe they didn’t originally have all three statues — or anyone who could use them. It was obviously a big thing for Nantalas to be able to channel earth energy, so it could have been as rare an ability then as it is now, even amongst Atlanteans.’

‘Maybe you’re her great-great-great-great-et cetera grand-daughter,’ Eddie suggested.

Nina treated the jokey comment with more seriousness. ‘Maybe. I’m descended from someone from Atlantis, so who knows?’

The collapsed temple disappeared from view. Beyond it, something far larger came into sight.

The Temple of Poseidon.

Even after the destruction wrought upon it by the impact of the sunken Evenor , it was still an imposing structure. The submersible was approaching its northern end, where Eddie had first entered the temple five years earlier. An enormous wall of dark stone rose out of the sediment, stepped in tiers like a ziggurat near its base before curving smoothly inwards to form a great arched roof.

Nina noticed a sudden tension in her husband at the sight. ‘Hugo?’ she asked quietly. Eddie gave her a silent nod; one of his closest friends had died here. Matt also became uncharacteristically sombre for a moment. Eddie had not been the only one to suffer a loss at Atlantis.

The submersible drew closer. ‘That’s the tunnel,’ said Eddie, pointing at a small hole in the wall. The shaft had been constructed by the Atlanteans as a secret passage leading directly to the altar room.

‘You don’t need to crawl through a little hole to get inside now,’ said Matt as he guided the Sharkdozer towards the roof. The wreck of the Evenor came into sight, a long white axe that had sliced the four-hundred-foot-long temple in two. Something bright flickered in the gloom atop the rubble. ‘There’s the altar room.’