So as the sun began to rise in the east, Vampyr slipped away from the column and disappeared into the forest along the side of the road.
It was the easiest journey Nosferatu had made so far even though it took the better part of six months. The Phoenician’s ship had a lower deck, where Nosferatu could sleep in darkness. The large sails and the skill with which the crew maneuvered the ship moved them up the coast at a faster pace than anything Nosferatu had experienced before. They even sailed at night, stopping only about every eight days at another outpost like the one at which Nosferatu had met them. They would refill their water casks, load fresh food, and spend a day resting. Then set out again.
Nosferatu realized the outposts were spaced that way for a reason, indicating a sophisticated trading system. He would feed just prior to departure, taking someone from the outpost and hiding the body so that it couldn’t be found. Usually they left before the loss was even discovered, although twice a search was instigated before they set sail. The second time, Nosferatu knew the Phoenician captain was suspicious, but a few more pieces of gold ensured his continued presence on the ship.
Still Nosferatu slept lightly during the days, anxious that the crew might turn on him at any time. He found he could maintain a half-sleeping, half-waking posture during the day, so that the approach of anyone would bring him to full awareness. They passed from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean after a month’s journey and he could sense the relief of the crew to be in more familiar waters. He also began to understand some of what they said and learned they were a people who sailed not only south along Africa, but north along Atlantic coast of Europe. Their ships had been crisscrossing the Mediterranean pursuing trade for hundreds of years and they had colonized both the northern shores of Africa and eastern Spain from their homeland in Palestine.
The most interesting news was that Egypt was now ruled by the Persians, the last Pharaoh having been defeated in battle just a few years earlier. Nosferatu had never heard of the Persians, but he had the ship’s captain point out the Persian Empire on the map and show him where its capital was.
If foreigners ruled in Egypt, was it safe for him to venture there? Would he be able to get to the Grail and take it to Nekhbet? Where were the four remaining Airlia?
The Phoenicians had Gods they worshipped, with names Nosferatu did not recognize; but they were not the same as the Gods he had known in Egypt. Every morning the crew knelt in front of several small idols placed in the bow of the ship. They prayed for fair weather and a wind at their backs and for safety from the wiles of the sea. Nosferatu didn’t understand praying to an object. What power could a piece of stone hold? At least the Gods who had ruled Egypt had been real.
After several days of sailing with no shore in sight — another advancement over Nosferatu’s last voyage — they made landfall at a port city called Selinus on an island the locals called Sicily. Things had changed, he realized as he roamed the city at night, looking for a victim to sate his hunger, yet in many ways, they had remained the same. There were new empires and gods, but people and technology seemed to be basically unaltered. In fact, other than their having the sailing ships, Nosferatu judged the Phoenicians to be inferior to the Egyptian culture he had known. And they knew nothing of history. Their societal memory only went back a few generations. He had heard no mention of Atlantis or the Great Civil War among the Gods.
Nosferatu spent the week the ship stayed in Selinus feeding and listening. He heard nothing of the Airlia, the Ones Who Wait, the Guides, or anything else to do with the Gods from the stars and their minions. Perhaps the world was free of them? Nosferatu could wonder and hope.
They sailed from Selinus, around the foot of Italy, to the ship’s final destination, Athens, one of the main city-states of the most powerful empire in the Mediterranean, according to what Nosferatu had picked up from the conversations he listened in on. From what he had learned he knew he could find another ship to take him from Athens to Egypt. He stayed belowdecks after they docked in Piraeus, the port city of Athens, waiting for nightfall. By the time he departed the ship, the cargo had been unloaded and the crew was gone, off to the local taverns to celebrate the successful completion of their long journey and the surprising and pleasant addition of Nosferatu’s gold.
Athens was very different from Selinus. Nosferatu wandered the streets of the city, impressed with the architecture, but even more so with the discourse in the various public meeting places sprinkled throughout the city. He spent several weeks simply soaking in the conversation, learning the language. There was a difference to the people here, something Nosferatu sensed even before he understood the words.
It took him a few evenings before it suddenly came to him what was different about these people from what he had known in Egypt. Here they had a sense of the future.
In Egypt, life had been cyclical. There was little sense of time because all things repeated themselves and there was no progress. Here life was linear. Ideas were discussed and argued about. People were asking why, something that had been frowned upon in Nosferatu’s Egypt. He wondered if it were the absence of the Gods and the high priests that allowed this freedom of thought. The Greeks had Gods, many of them, but they appeared to be more a theory than a reality. Something people even argued about along with everything else. In Egypt the price for doubting the Airlia Gods or the high priests had been death.
Nosferatu fed well, taking those who also walked the night, usually thieves and prostitutes who worked near the docks of Piraeus, and who would not be missed. He was feeling stronger and more confident that he could return to Egypt and rescue Nekhbet when he heard a word as he was passing a group of men gathered on stone steps in front of a temple that froze him in his tracks.
Atlantis.
The sun had set only an hour previously, but Nosferatu had already fed, taking a young man who had tried to rob him as he walked a back alley after rising from his hiding place underneath a wharf. Nosferatu edged closer to the group. The man at the center had white hair and a long beard. He had a scroll in his hand. “You speak of the Flood of Deukalion and Pyrrha, Solon,” the old man read, “but I tell you they pale in comparison to that which destroyed Atlantis. There have been and will be many destroyers of mankind, the greatest two of which are fire and water.”
The old man looked past the group at Nosferatu, who was now along the outer circle of men listening. Nosferatu was startled by the sharpness of the glance and almost stepped back, but held his ground, interested to hear what the old man had to read. This was also something that was new, the only other written language Nosferatu had seen before being the High Runes of the Airlia.
“Many are the truths and great are the achievement of the Greeks,” the old man continued. “However, there is one accomplishment that is rarely spoken of, and that many think is a myth. A long time ago, before the time when the Dorians came to this land, our ancestors fought a great battle against a host that came from beyond the sea, from beyond the Pillars of Heracles, and were led by Gods themselves.
“Beyond the Pillars there was an island larger than Libya and Asia put together. On this island was a confederation of powerful kings who ruled not only that island but many other lands. The empire of Atlantis stretched through the Pillars of Heracles to Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, but in a noble battle we stopped them from extending their rule here to Greece.