Sherrilyn Kenyon: The Dream-Hunter

Like her grandfather, she intended to leave this country and never step foot on it again.

Cosmo handed her the plain white box, then left her alone to open it.

Megeara stared at it for several minutes, afraid of what she might find. Would it be some personal memento that would reduce her back to tears? She honestly didn't want to cry anymore for a man who'd broken her heart so many times that she couldn't even begin to count them all.

But in the end, her curiosity got the better of her and she opened the box. At first, there appeared to be nothing but crinkled acid-free tissue paper. She had to dig to the bottom of it all to find what it contained.

And what she found there floored her. She stared at her palm in the bright sunlight, unable to even fathom it.

There were two items. One appeared to be a komboloi —a string of worry beads similar in style to a small rosary that some Greeks used when stressed, only she'd never seen anything like this before. The age and design of it appeared to predate any form of komboloi she'd ever heard of. It had fifteen iridescent green beads made of some unknown stone that had been carved with tiny intricate family scenes of people wearing clothes unlike any she'd seen before in her research. The carvings were interspersed with five gold beads that were engraved with three lightning bolts piercing a sun. Where a komboloi might hold a small Greek piece such as a dime-sized medal, this one held a circle with writing that was similar to ancient Greek and yet very different. So much so that not even she who had been bred on ancient Greek could decipher it.

Like most artifacts fresh from a dig, the komboloi had a small white tag attached to it by a red thread where her father had written finding notes:

9/1/87

sixty inches down from datum (see pg. 42)

absolute dating: 9529 B.C.

green stone unknown/unverified

writing unknown/unverified

The anthropologist in her leapt to the forefront of what this could mean historically. If this date was truly absolute…

It showed a sophistication and metallurgy previously unknown. At that time, the Greeks shouldn't have had this level of skill. In fact, the precision of the carvings and engraving looked as if they were done by machine and not by hand. Eleven thousand years ago, mankind simply did not possess the tools it would take to create something this intricate.

How could this be?

Intrigued, she turned her attention to the small leather pouch that lay in the bottom of the box. It, too, was tagged.

7/10/85

absolute dating: 9581 B.C.

metal unknown/unverified

Frowning, she opened the pouch to find five coins of varying sizes. They were old… very old and heavily coated with patina. Again, there weren't coins this old. They just hadn't existed at that period in time and especially not in Greece. Like the komboloi , the coins held that same peculiar writing, but beneath said writing was something she could understand. It was the ancient Greek words for "Atlantean Province of Kirebar."

Dear God!

Again, the coins didn't appear to be handmade, nor was their metal composite typical of anything she'd ever seen before. They were an orangish color, not silver, not gold, not bronze, copper, or iron—maybe a weird combination of those metals and yet that didn't seem right, either.

What the hell was it?

Even with the patina coating them, the images and writing were as crisp, clear, and precise as those on a modern coin.

Her heart pounding, she turned the largest coin over to look at the back. There was the same foreign symbol that marked the komboloi , A sun pierced by three lightning bolts. And with it were the unknown words on top of the Greek: " May Apollymi protect us ."

Megeara stared at it in disbelief. Apollymi? Who was that?

She'd never heard that name before.

"It's a forgery." It had to be, and yet as she looked at it, she knew the truth. These weren't forged. Her father must have excavated them from one of his many digs in the Aegean.

This was what had kept her father going even while the rest of the world had laughed at him. He had known a truth she'd denied.

Atlantis was real.

And if it was, then her father had been doubted by everyone… even her. Grief and pain tore through her as she recalled all the arguments they'd had over the years. She'd been no better than any of the others.

God, the fights the two of them had had over this. Why had he never told her? Why would he keep a discovery of this magnitude from her?

Unfortunately, she knew the answer. Because I wouldn't have believed it. Even if he'd shown it to me right in the ground where he'd found it. I would have laughed at him, too, then thrown it in his face .

No doubt he'd wanted to save himself the pain of facing her ridicule.

Closing the box, Megeara held it next to her heart as she regretted every nasty word and criticism she'd ever even thought about him. How much had those words hurt? She who should have had faith in him had been as cruel as everyone else.

Now it was too late to make amends.

"I'm so sorry, Daddy," she breathed through her fresh tears. Like everyone else, she'd assumed he was crazy. Misguided. Stupid.

But somehow he'd found these artifacts. Somehow they were real.

Atlantis is real . The words chased themselves through her mind. Staring out across the blue sea, she tightened her grip on the box as she remembered her final words to him. " Yeah, yeah, I promise. I'll look for Atlantis, too. Don't worry about it, Dad. It's in good hands ." Those words had been rushed and passionless, and still they'd comforted him.

" It's there, Geary. I know you'll find it and you'll see. You. Will. See. You will know me for what I am, not for what you thought me to be ." Then he'd slept for a time and he'd died only a few hours later while she'd held his hand.

In that moment of his quiet passing, she hadn't been a grown woman, she'd been a little girl all over again. One who only wanted her daddy back. One who craved someone to comfort her and tell her everything would be all right.

But there was no one in her life who could do that. And now that ludicrous, hasty promise meant something to her after all.

"I hear you, Daddy," she whispered to the olive-oil-laden breeze that she hoped would carry her voice to wherever he'd gone, "and I won't let you die in vain. I'm going to prove Atlantis exists. For you. For Mom and for Uncle Theron and Aunt Athena… for Jason. If it takes me the rest of my life, I'm going to fulfill my word to you. We will find Atlantis. I swear it."

But even as she spoke those words that were filled with her conviction, she couldn't help wondering if she'd be able to withstand the ridicule her father had borne all of his professional life. Just six weeks ago she'd been granted her doctorate from Yale and she was supposed to begin teaching in New York this fall. She was young to have attained so much, and great things were expected of her… by her and by the institutions and professors who'd bestowed that doctorate on her.

To walk this course would be nine kinds of stupid. She would lose everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. It was a massive step she was about to take. One from which she'd never recover.

My father believed it.

And her uncle and mother.

They had given their lives for this even while the entire world had laughed at them. Now a second generation of fools was about to follow the first down the road to ruin.

Megeara only hoped that in the end she would meet a better fate than that which had greeted the first.