The Gods of Doomed Atlantis

He was Wen-eil, the priest Wen-eil, one of the thirty-one noble high priests that ruled the seven nations of Atlantis and its two million inhabitants. Oh yes, she knew the names of all the Others, as everyone did. Wen-eil and Onracey, another priest of the Others, could often be seen in the marketplace of the seventh city on the island and among the fisherman arranging provisions for the island’s main hospice.

"I’ll take the boy," he said gently but in a commanding voice, then reached for the child at her side. She surrendered the raven-headed boy to him, instinctively trusting the ageless priest to save her son; ageless he was, as she knew he had been even in the time of her great great-grandfather.

On Atlantis the Others had lived for more than five hundred years. The Others never grew sick, never tired, and they never died. They were beloved of the gods, certainly, but strangely, they would not claim divine right or authority.

Nevertheless, Aya felt that Wen-eil’s appearance was nothing short of a miracle.

They turned back suddenly, instinctively, as another volcano blasted its top far away among the mountains. Aya screamed fearfully as ash, rock, and molten lava filled the superheated sky, then began to rain down on the orange-gold land. She cringed, lowering herself to the ground, certain they would be buried by the deluge and held her breath, waiting for the end, for the end of all mysteries.

After a moment, she looked up. She was still alive!

And then she looked back to the crest of the ridge just above her. There Wen-eil stood, his steady arms outstretched, poised on the air like a bird’s tireless wings. There was a pale blue light around him, licking and curling around him in the darkening night like unnatural fire; his shoulder-length hair fluttered like writhing snakes. In a wide arc around him, the ashes and fire hung suspended in mid-air. Her son clung to Wen-eil’s back, the boy’s eyes shining in the unnatural blue light surrounding the priest; Wen-eil became a beacon in the descending darkness.

Suddenly Wen-eil turned toward her and hurried down the rough slope; the ash slowly began to drift down.

"I can’t stop it long. Run!" He cried, catching up to her and seizing her arm; the light around him was fading, but now fires were breaking out near them among the brush, and there was light enough to see by. They plunged down the hillside toward the cool arch of sand before the harbor, where the last boat of the fleet on this side of the island was filling up with survivors panicking and screeching like jackals.

The people turned in surprise and stared at the man Wen-eil as he approached; but at once their eyes took on a sudden light of hope, and they happily surrendered control of the boat to him in submissive gestures, before a word could be uttered. Wen-eil seemed hesitant to take control, but he surrendered himself to the responsibility and directed Aya and her son into the boat. Then he left for just a moment to search the dark shore for two more survivors that could be heard blindly heading toward the boat. A few minutes later, Wen-eil brought back two terror-eyed children, one tucked under each arm; once Wen-eil and the children were settled into the ship, the priest cast the boat away from the shore with an unnaturally strong hand, and the laden ship drifted away toward the setting sun.

Twenty-one days they rowed away from the island of Atlantis, through bright, arid cloudless mornings and rough midnight seas, through the long monotony of ocean dead even to the horizon. The ship had departed with little food and one small barrel of water; the distraught survivors thought themselves doomed to perish aboard the small wooden vessel, but when the water ran out, Wen-eil, priest of the Others, filled the age-darkened barrel with seawater and stood above it, his hands hovering over it in mid-air.