“What is…?” He looked up, at and then past the Forsaken standing in front of him and at what appeared to be a white fog on the horizon.
It was not fog, however, and it was not on the horizon. It was far, far closer indeed.
“Nine Hells…” the lord general whispered in shock before turning and pushing violently through the demons behind him. “Get out of my way! Move! Move!”
Kaern didn’t budge. He just smiled and watched the futile attempt at retreat until he was struck from behind by a force unlike anything he’d ever experienced in the many eons he had lived and everything went black.
*****
“Get in! Get in! Get in!” Simone screamed over the roar that was now deafening.
People were screaming and running past her as she screamed, along with Caleb and the guardsmen who had managed to remain calm enough to help. As they did, Simone looked over the rushing crowd to where Elan was staring out and to the south. Simone knew that Kaern was back there, but there was nothing more that could be done.
She was grateful he’d slowed them that last few minutes or the demons would be here fighting to get in with everyone else.
The ground rumbled and the roar suddenly quieted for a brief instant.
Then there was a bang so loud it shook the air, and Simone looked back to see water explode around and over the rocks they were sheltered behind. The spray crashed down over Elan as she watched, soaking her hair to her head and back, but the girl didn’t move.
“Elan!” Simone screamed. “Get in here!”
The water rushed around and circled back, rapidly swirling around them as Simone retreated into the temple with the last of the people. She yelled again for Elan but didn’t even hear herself over the roar that had surrounded them. Elan was lost in the spray and Simone felt her heart sink. That girl was the only one who could close the damn temple doors.
Breath and life came back a moment later when a black figure walked out of the spray, knee deep in swirling water, and strode up to, and past, her. Simone retreated deeper inside as Elan pressed a spot on the wall and the big doors slowly groaned shut as water rushed in through the ever-shrinking crack.
In the darkness, after the door had shut, Simone heard Elan move, and bright lights suddenly lit up all around them.
“He’s gone,” the girl said numbly. “The wave took him.”
Simone nodded somberly, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I know. I know.”
She could see the child was trying not to cry, as though that would somehow be wrong. Simone reached out and pulled her close.
“I know,” she said again, “but he saved us, just as you did.”
Elan stiffened, but didn’t fight her off. She did not cry either or, if she did, the tears were well hidden in the salt spray she had walked through.
“Come on,” Elan said. “We can’t stay here.”
Simone winced. “Where can we go? We must be underwater again…”
“We can go to a new home,” Elan said. “A new home.”
The words felt…odd to her, like they didn’t belong in her mouth, but everything felt odd just then. Elan tried to shake off the feeling of numbness, tried to feel more, but it just wouldn’t go. She gave up, shaking her head and pointing into the darkness.
“Come,” she told Simone and the others who were in earshot. “This way. I’ll show you.”
Simone looked at her wearily, only now starting to slow down and realize just how much things had changed. The girl she’d taken in looked different to her, and not just from the unearthly black garb she wore. She looked…older, maybe. Tired, certainly, but there was something in her eyes that Simone didn’t recognize.
She followed as Elan led her, and the others, deeper into the dark at first. Then, in the distance ahead of them as they walked down, a light lit up at the end of a very dark tunnel.
“That way,” Elan said softly as she nodded toward the light. “Home is that way.”
*****
The island was warm. Sunlight poured down on them as the refugees warily exited the open doors of a different temple than the one they had entered.
Simone, Elan, and Caleb walked in the sunlight that filtered through a large, leafy canopy overhead, a breeze just keeping the warmth from reaching uncomfortable levels. Simone had travelled across vast expanses of the world, particularly in her younger days, fighting and bleeding in most of them…but she had never seen a place like this.
It made her wonder just how much larger the world was than she had realized, and as she looked around, she found many new things every passing moment to catch her attention. There was water aplenty, streams just flowing down to the sea filled with crystal clear liquid. It would have to be tested, she knew, but it looked far better than the murky supplies they’d struggled to purify in the city.
The area was also green, green in a way that even the plants and trees around the river had not come close to matching. Lush, vibrant green, punctuated by reds and yellows and blues in the trees and bushes. There was a spring emptying into a small stream nearby, and beyond it they could see the stream run down to a sparkling blue ocean.
“Where is this place?” Simone asked in awe.
Elan shrugged and just numbly repeated what Merlin had told her. “A long way from where we were…but not far enough to be free of the demons. It’s a place no one bothered to name, so we should be hidden from them for a while…just for a while.”
“No name?” Simone smiled sadly. “That’s not right. Something this beautiful should have a name.”
Elan considered that for a moment. “The sea here was known as Atlantikos once… How about…Atlantis?”
Simone considered that as calls of joy erupted behind her. She turned to see children running out of the temple, children she didn’t think had been with their group. Then she remembered the dozens who’d vanished with Elan and Caleb, glanced toward the girl, and nodded slowly.
“I think Atlantis sounds…perfect.”
*****
Halfway around the world, off the coast of a land that would one day come to be called Africa, a body floated in the rough seas as it was being pulled farther and farther away from land by the rip current and out to sea.
Lightning crackled occasionally, though the body did not move, warning off any predators or scavengers that were feeding wildly on the many others around it.
END
Dedication :
Over the years I’ve been writing, I’ve made a lot of friends through my work. Some of the earliest ones were also incredibly influential in this novel, and all my work as it progressed. A fair few of them are no longer with us today, and the world is poorer for their passing.
Tim Knight was one of my first readers, and an avid writer himself, who provided me with feedback when it was needed and just praise and criticism in general. Steve Pantovic was an inspiration for my earlier work, his ideas fueled my own and without his work it’s possible mine would not exist today… certainly it would not exist in its current form. You can find both their works at the wandererverse if you’re interested, I recently reread some of my old favorites myself and was constantly surprised both by how far our community has come over the years… but also by how much I enjoy the stories we’ve come from.
More recently, my small section of the fanfic community lost another of our own in Asbjorn Grandt, who has helped me format my novels, archive my fanfiction, and generally was just ready to help whenever and wherever and however he could.
I hope you enjoyed The Knighthood and, if you did, say a quick word of silent thanks to the people, without whom, it would not… no, it could not, have existed.