Temple of the Gods

22 The Gulf of Cadiz

The North Atlantic in November is an inhospitable place. Even though the weather on this day was not particularly bad, there was still enough of a swell to cause the research vessel Gant to pitch unsettlingly beneath the wet-slate sky. The helicopter’s landing on the pad at the ship’s stern was bumpy, to say the least.

‘Welcome aboard!’ called Matt Trulli, waving as Nina and Eddie hurried through the drizzle to meet him. ‘Great to see you both. Been up to anything exciting?’

‘You could say that,’ Nina replied with a pained smile. ‘You know, the usual.’

‘Ah, right,’ Matt said knowingly. ‘So what got destroyed this time?’

Eddie started to count items on his fingers. ‘A skyscraper, a helicopter, a secret US base…’

‘Jesus, mate, I was kidding!’ He shook Eddie’s hand firmly. ‘Seriously, though, I’m glad to see you again. I knew you were innocent.’

‘Thanks,’ said Eddie, smiling. ‘Would be nice if that were the end of it, but nope, we’ve still got problems.’

‘Which is why we’re here,’ said Nina. ‘Can we go inside?’

‘Sure.’ Matt brought them through a hatch into the ship’s interior, then headed down a passage. ‘Should warn you, Hayter’s about as happy as you’d expect that you were coming.’

‘How’s progress been on the excavations?’

‘Pretty good, I’d say. He can give you the details, but the biggest problem’s been that there’s a fairly huge piece of wreckage from the Evenor right on top of where you want to look. Too big to lift, even for Sharkdozer; we’ve had to cut it up. Most of it’s been moved now, though.’

‘Good. I saw when we came in to land that the subs are on the ship — why aren’t they working?’

The Australian grinned. ‘’Cause I knew you were coming! Figured you’d want to work the arses off them, so I brought them back up top to recharge.’

‘You know me so well,’ Nina replied with a grin of her own.

They went into a large compartment overlooking the foredeck, where the archaeological expedition’s two submersibles were suspended from their cranes. Waiting for them was Lewis Hayter. As Matt had implied, his thin face was not exactly brimming with joy at his boss’s arrival. ‘Oh, Nina,’ he said sullenly. ‘You’re here.’

She decided to try to make the best of the situation. ‘Hello, Lewis. I caught up with the daily reports on the flight over — it looks like you’ve made excellent progress. Thank you.’

He nodded, a little wrong-footed by the praise. ‘We’re doing the best we can. It’s cutting things fine, though — even if the weather holds, the Gant will still have to return to port in five days at the most. I don’t think we’ll be able to do any further work until the spring.’

‘Think of it as a positive,’ she said. ‘It means you definitely will be back in the spring! The entire excavation can be extended, and you’ll still be in charge. If that’s what you want, of course…’

It was a transparent attempt at manipulation, and they both knew it, but Hayter had little choice except to go along with it. ‘I think that would tie in with my plans,’ he said eventually.

‘Great. So, what’s the situation with the Temple of Poseidon?’

Hayter, with occasional interjections from Matt, gave a report on the state of the dig that Nina had ordered. With both submersibles, the heavy-duty underwater excavation machine Sharkdozer II and the more exploratory-purposed but still capable Gypsy, working to clear the rubble from the altar room, progress had been relatively swift — by archaeological standards. ‘If you just wanted the stones moved, we could have done it in half the time, but you lot get so shirty about breaking the stuff underneath them,’ said Matt jokingly, making Eddie laugh and temporarily uniting both archaeologists in humourless disapproval.

‘What about any finds?’ Nina asked Hayter.

‘We uncovered more of the texts on the walls,’ he told her, bringing up a collection of images on a laptop. ‘Still nothing from the very end of the chronology, but we must be close now. The new translation software has given us a fairly good idea of what it all says; the team back at the IHA are working out the subtleties.’

‘Nothing new about the statues?’

‘Not so far. Nantalas was mentioned once, but only in reference to what we’d already found — her so-called visions. She was trying to persuade the king to let her use the sky stone’s powers for war again.’

‘She’s a nice lass, this Nantalas,’ said Eddie.

‘How close are we to the last section of text?’ Nina asked. ‘Eddie, you saw it in person when we first discovered the place; can you remember exactly where it was?’

‘Show me that computer graphic thing,’ he told Hayter, who brought up a program on the laptop. The numerous photographs taken in the ruins had been mapped on to the walls of a 3D model of the altar room, producing a patchwork wallpaper effect that could be viewed from any angle. ‘That’s the shaft that we first came though?’ He indicated a particular feature, and Hayter nodded. ‘Okay, I remember that there was a pillar about there,’ he pointed at another part of the virtual chamber, ‘so the writing ended… somewhere round here.’

The closest photograph was just a few feet from the spot. Matt compared the graphic to a wider shot taken inside the actual room. ‘We’re pretty near. Once we shift that last piece of wreckage, we should be able to clear these stones in… I dunno, not long. A few hours.’

‘And how long to move the wreckage?’ Nina asked.

‘It’ll be a bit of a long stint, but I reckon we could do it all in a single dive.’

‘How quickly can you have the sub ready?’

‘It’s already prepped — we still have to go through the safety checks and lower it into the water, but about an hour.’

‘Great! Let’s get going, then.’

‘Might have known you’d be in a rush! No worries — we’ll have pictures for you before the day’s out.’

‘I don’t just want pictures,’ she replied. ‘I want to see it for myself. I’m going with you.’

Hayter looked startled at the suggestion, Matt less so. ‘You want to come along?’ the archaeologist asked. ‘In the subs?’

‘No, I thought I’d put on goggles and flippers and use a very long snorkel. Yes, in the subs.’

‘Sarcasm isn’t really necessary,’ he said sourly. ‘It’s just that Gypsy only has room for two people in addition to the pilot. As expedition leader I’ll be one of them, and I’ll need Lydia in support, as she knows the site first-hand.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Nina. ‘Eddie and I can go in Matt’s sub.’

‘We can, can we?’ Eddie grumbled.

‘Oh, you knew it was going to happen. You got to go down to the Temple of Poseidon last time — there’s no way I’m going to miss the chance now. Anyway, Sharkdozer has room for three people, doesn’t it, Matt?’

‘Four if you don’t mind being up in each other’s armpits,’ the Australian told her jovially.

‘We’ll keep it to three, then. The only person who should put up with Eddie’s armpits is his wife. And even then…’

‘Oi!’ protested her husband.

Hayter was still displeased with the prospect. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Nina?’

‘This won’t be my first time underwater, Lewis. And if you’re worried about having your boss looking over your shoulder, don’t be. Until we uncover the last of the Atlantean text I’ll only be there as an observer, and even then it’s still your dig.’

That mollified him, however slightly. ‘Well, I suppose that if Matt’s happy to have you as passengers…’

Matt shrugged. ‘No problem for me.’

‘Excellent,’ said Nina. She got to her feet. ‘In that case, let’s go and find out the fate of Atlantis.’

It took more than the predicted hour, the safety procedures being slowed by the Gant’s wallowing, but eventually both submersibles were descending towards the ruins of Atlantis.

Even though she knew there would be nothing to see until they reached the ocean floor eight hundred feet below, Nina nevertheless leaned round Matt in the central pilot’s position to watch their descent through the large acrylic bubble window. The light from the surface faded surprisingly quickly, the cold blue of the ocean outside becoming darker and more ominous before ultimately turning to darkness.

Matt switched on the sub’s spotlights. Nina experienced an oddly vertiginous feeling; the intense beams picked out particles in the water as the submersible dropped past them, the effect making it seem as though they were plunging like a falling elevator.

But she knew they were perfectly safe. Nothing might be visible through the viewport, but Matt’s sub was equipped with a LIDAR laser scanning system that swept the ocean around them far beyond the range of the human eye. The engineer had used similar systems in his previous craft, but this went a step further by covering a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Sharkdozer II was an odd-looking vessel: its main hull was a fairly standard cigar shape, but protruding from each side like the steroidal limbs of a bodybuilder were huge mechanical arms, almost comically out of proportion to the rest of the sub. Making them even stranger were the tool-equipped secondary arms sprouting from behind their wrists, designed for more delicate work than the brute-force claws of their parents. The whole submersible was mounted upon four helicopter-like skids, each of which could be independently adjusted hydraulically to give it as much lifting leverage as possible against the ocean floor. The LIDAR scanner, allied with the cameras on each of the four ‘hands’, meant the arms could be operated even if they were out of direct sight of a viewport.

The only thing currently on the LIDAR display was the expedition’s other sub. Gypsy was some thirty metres to their right, the spears of its own spotlights visible through a small secondary porthole. It was a much more conventional vessel, equipped with a single, far smaller manipulator arm and numerous camera mounts and sample racks. Hayter’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘Passing three hundred feet, confirm.’

‘Confirm,’ Matt replied. Radio communications were possible underwater, but only at very limited ranges, and the message was already distorted.

Eddie examined the controls for the arms. Rather than being simple joysticks, they were also able to bend and twist. ‘How much can these things lift?’

‘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.’

He brought the sub into a hover near the object, a marker pole covered in reflective material that caught the spotlights. Not far from it was a twisted mass of metal — part of the Evenor’s superstructure. The excavated sections of the altar room were visible before it, orichalcum sheets glinting on the walls.

Gypsy moved ahead of them and came to a stop above the dig site. ‘Sharkdozer in position, confirm,’ said Matt over the radio.

‘Read you, Sharkdozer,’ Hayter’s crackly voice replied. ‘Gypsy also in position.’

‘Roger that.’ Matt turned to Nina and Eddie. ‘This is the boring part, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Nina. ‘I want to watch the whole thing. You never know what might turn up.’

‘I’ll give it a miss,’ Eddie said. He took a creased paperback thriller from inside his leather jacket and thumbed it open. ‘Been meaning to finish this for ages. I got interrupted by the whole wanted-for-murder business. I’ll just read it while you’re telling Matt how to dig.’

‘I’m not going to do that,’ she assured Matt.

‘Too bloody right you’re not!’ the Australian replied with mock offence as he took the manipulator controls. ‘Okay, Gypsy, I’m ready to start.’

The other submersible moved closer, spotlights and cameras panning for a clearer view as Matt began the long and involved task of removing the debris covering the altar room. The first priority was the wreckage from the Evenor; even though most of it had already been cut away, it was still a hefty chunk of steel heavier than the Sharkdozer could lift using its thrusters alone. It wasn’t until the sub touched down on top of the temple and used its skids to brace itself that the arms could apply enough leverage to start raising the broken section of superstructure.

It took the better part of an hour to get it safely clear. Once it had been dumped in the silt away from the building, work began in earnest. None of the fallen slabs were as heavy as the ship debris, but they were still fairly massive in their own right.

Time passed. Matt took a break to recharge with an energy drink and a sandwich, while Nina forced herself not to tap her fingers impatiently. Eddie smirked at her over the top of his novel, knowing how she was feeling. Then the work continued, the obstructing blocks gradually becoming fewer in number. Until—

‘There!’ said Nina, as Matt hauled one of the remaining slabs out of the way. ‘There it is!’

A golden light reflected back at them from the sheet of precious metal covering the newly revealed wall. It had been damaged in several places, a great jagged rip through one entire section obliterating the text… but the crucial part was still more or less intact.

The last inscription. The final written words of the great empire of Atlantis.

‘There, there there there!’ Nina jabbed a finger excitedly. ‘Get the camera on it, quick!’

Eddie snapped his book shut. ‘Calm down, love! It’s not going anywhere.’

‘I know, I know. But, well… I want to see it!’

‘She was like this the first night I was back home,’ he told Matt. ‘Couldn’t keep her hands off my pants.’

‘Eddie!’

‘What you do in private isn’t my business,’ Matt said, amused. ‘But give me a sec here, Nina — I still need to put this stone somewhere.’ He worked the controls, Nina fidgeting beside him. Finally, the block was released. ‘All right, let’s have a dekko. Gypsy, you got your cameras switched on?’

‘We never turned them off,’ said Hayter over the radio, sounding almost as enthusiastic as Nina. ‘Nina, we’ve got our translator hooked up to our high-definition camera. It’s got better resolution than the ones on your sub, so we should get our pictures first—’

‘Sorry, Lewis,’ Nina cut in as she opened the laptop containing her own copy of the translation software, ‘but I’m going to be selfish on this one. My primary interest here is the very last piece of text, so I want to work on that straight away. Once we’ve got the pictures, you can record the rest of the inscriptions. Okay?’

‘If you insist,’ came the sour reply.

Matt delicately brought the hulking submersible closer to the wall with careful blips of its thrusters. He stopped when the viewing bubble was about six feet away, the magnifying effect of the thick hemisphere almost making the text readable with the naked eye. But instead, he extended one of the secondary arms until its camera was less than a foot from the metal sheet. ‘You ready, Nina?’

‘Recording,’ she answered. ‘Go ahead.’

Matt slowly panned the arm back and forth over the final section of text. A window on the laptop’s screen displayed the live feed; another, larger window showed the whole inscription building up section by section as the computer automatically matched them together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It wasn’t long before the image was complete, at which point another program began the more complex task of translating the ancient language into English.

‘Okay, Lewis,’ Nina said into a headset, ‘I’ve got what I need. You can move in now.’

The snideness behind Hayter’s simple ‘Thank you’ was clear even through the distortion. Matt backed the Sharkdozer away, and Gypsy took its place, cameras peering intently at the rest of the ancient record.

‘So, what does it say?’ Eddie asked, leaning across the confined cabin to examine the screen.

‘Give it a chance,’ said Nina. ‘It’s a lot faster than translating by hand, but it’s not Star Trek.’ Words were already starting to appear, though: the image-recognition software was picking out familiar patterns. ‘Nantalas gets mentioned several times… and so does the sky stone.’

More minutes passed, the gaps in the translation gradually filling in. Some parts remained blank; either the condition of the orichalcum sheet was too poor for the computer to pick out the letters, or the words were simply unknown, having never been found in any previously translated Atlantean texts. But even with gaps, Nina saw a clear narrative taking form.

‘It’s what I thought,’ she said softly. ‘This really is an account of the last days of Atlantis — the last hours, even. Someone was still keeping records right up until it fell into the ocean.’

‘What caused it?’ asked Eddie.

‘From the look of this… Nantalas herself. And the sky stone. Listen.’ She began to read the translation, attempting to smooth out the computer’s awkward and over-literal phrasing. ‘“The king and the royal court came to the Temple of the Gods to witness Nantalas bring together all three keys of power and touch them to the sky stone. There was much…” This is a bit jumbled — ah, something like “awe and terror as the great stone rose from the ground, shining with a holy light”.’

‘So it’s definitely earth energy, then,’ Eddie mused. ‘I don’t get it. It would have been like having nuclear power back in the Stone Age. How could it be forgotten about for eleven thousand years, apart from when Merlin and King Arthur fluked into using it with Excalibur?’

Nina was reading ahead. ‘I think I know. “Nantalas commanded the stone to rise and fall, using no words but those in her thoughts. She then told the court that she would…” I guess in context it would have to be “demonstrate”, “she would demonstrate the power that would crush the enemies of Atlantis. But…”’

‘But?’ said Matt after a moment. ‘Come on, Nina, don’t leave us hanging!’

‘It didn’t exactly go as planned,’ she told the two men. ‘The computer couldn’t translate some of the words, but there’s enough to get the gist. Basically, the demonstration blew up in her face.’

‘Literally?’ said Eddie.

‘Pretty much. It says there was lightning, “a storm unmatched in history as Zeus unleashed his fury upon those who had dared to claim the power of the gods as their own”. Huge earthquakes, buildings collapsing — and great waves. Where we are now, the Temple of Poseidon, was right at the heart of the Atlantean capital — and it was directly connected to the Atlantic by canals, so it was essentially at sea level. The text describes huge waves sweeping inshore.’

‘Atlantis sinks beneath the waves,’ said Matt ruefully. ‘Just like the legends always said.’

‘There’s something else, though.’ Nina read on. ‘“The sky stone itself was snatched into the heavens on a thunderbolt, flying to the southeast faster than an arrow.” The southeast…’ She tailed off.

‘What are you thinking?’ Eddie asked.

‘When I was in Tokyo, the feeling that I somehow knew the direction something was in… it was off to the west. Two hundred and sixty degrees, Takashi said. I wonder…’ She opened another application, bringing up a map of the world. ‘Here’s Atlantis,’ she said, pointing at a spot between the coasts of Portugal and Morocco. ‘And here —’ her finger moved across to Japan — ‘is Tokyo. Two hundred and sixty degrees west from there would intersect a line going southeast from Atlantis somewhere around… here.’

‘Eastern Africa,’ said Matt, looking at the map.

‘That doesn’t narrow things down much,’ Eddie commented. ‘You think the stone ended up there? How?’

‘Some sort of earth energy reaction, perhaps. We already know it could levitate against the planet’s own magnetic fields, so maybe whatever Nantalas did overcharged it, actually repelled it and sent it flying off across half a continent.’ She scrolled down through the translation. ‘Nantalas tried to find it.’

‘How?’

‘She still had the three statues. They gave her a… I don’t really want to call it a vision, because of the supernatural overtones, but since I had one myself I don’t really know how else to describe it. She told the king it had ended up in…’ She read the translated words several times before coming up with a way to express them properly. ‘I think it’s “the Forge of Hephaestus”. Hephaestus was the god of blacksmiths and craftsmen,’ she continued, anticipating the question, ‘and also fire and volcanoes.’

‘So you think the stone ended up in a volcano?’

‘Considering what else happened in Atlantis, I’d say it was a possibility. Listen to this: “The mountains north of the city are spewing fire and ash. The island shakes as the gods of the land and the sky and the sea all turn their anger upon Atlantis.” Interesting — the text’s now in the present tense. It’s not a record for posterity any more, more like a last journal entry… “The witch Nantalas has begged the king for her life. She says she can find the sky stone. The king asks her why, when it has brought only destruction and the wrath of the gods upon the empire. She says a new Temple of the Gods must be built and the sky stone sealed in it for eternity, so that nobody may ever again repeat her blasphemy.” She managed to convince him to let her lead the search.’

‘Crikey, she must have been one hell of a good talker,’ said Matt. ‘I’m amazed he didn’t give her the chop on the spot.’

‘I think she knew that even if she found it, she would still be killed for what she’d done. But I guess the king thought it was worth trying — if they could pacify the gods, maybe they could save Atlantis.’

Eddie shook his head. ‘Well, we know how that turned out. But did she find it?’

‘I don’t even know if she managed to escape Atlantis before it sank. We’re almost at the end of the text.’ Nina became more solemn as she read the last few lines. ‘“The people are fleeing, but there are not enough ships. One of the mountains has collapsed into the earth, leaving only a pillar of fire. Even the great temples are falling. Only the Temple of Poseidon is strong enough to hold, and I do not know for how long.” And then…’ She brought the composite image back up on the laptop’s screen, pointing out the final words. ‘The inscriptions are much cruder now — they were written in a hurry. “The king and queen have fled. The dead lie in the streets. The ground does not stop shaking. The gods have cursed us. The sea…”’

‘What?’

She gave Eddie a grim look. ‘It says, “The sea is rising. Atlantis falls.” And that’s where it ends.’

‘Christ. That’s pretty bloody biblical.’

‘The end of an entire civilisation,’ she said, almost sadly. ‘We know there was a disapora that survived for a few centuries, but eventually the last Atlanteans were conquered, died, or absorbed by other cultures. But it all ended right here — when Nantalas thought she could control earth energy.’

‘But she blew it. Literally.’

‘Right. It seems that she channelled so much energy through the meteorite that it caused an earthquake, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis…’ She gestured at the main viewport, outside which the second submersible was still photographing the rest of the inscriptions. ‘She sank the entire island. I remember when we first found Atlantis, someone had the theory that the collapse of a subterranean volcanic caldera could account for how it ended up eight hundred feet below the surface. If that’s right, then it was an uncontrolled release of earth energy that actually caused it.’

‘One person could do all that?’ Matt asked in disbelief.

‘One person can kill a million — if they happen to have their finger on the trigger of an atomic bomb. That’s essentially what happened. They didn’t know what they were dealing with… and their arrogance, their hubris, destroyed them. It’s like you said, Eddie — it’s as if they had nuclear power eleven thousand years ago. Only they didn’t have the knowledge or the wisdom to use it properly.’

‘Do we now?’ he replied, not entirely rhetorically.

The silence that followed was unexpectedly broken by a chirp from the LIDAR system. ‘What was that?’ Nina asked.

‘I dunno,’ said Matt, turning back to the instruments. ‘That’s the rangefinder — it means something new’s just come into scanning distance. But there shouldn’t—’

The sharp boom of an explosion shook the submersible — followed by an even louder crump of crushed metal as Gypsy imploded in front of them.