The last time Nu had been in possession of Sipstrassi it had been a fragment, a sliver no bigger than a torn fingernail. Its power had been used up in a day — fuelling his strength; forcing back the awesome power of time, turning his greying hair black and filling his muscles with the strength of youth. But what he held now was twenty times larger, the gold veins thick and pulsing with power.
Nu had escaped the Daggers, but he had not journeyed to Balacris. He had come to some foreign land far across the sea, where men wore strange raiment. Use. your mind, you fool! he told himself. How can you return home unless you first know from where you are starting? According to legend, the Elder Priests had used Sipstrassi to free their spirits to fly the universe. If they could do it, so could Nu-Khasisatra. He moved to his knees and prayed to the Great One, using ten of the thousand names known to Man, then he gripped the stone tightly and pictured himself rising through the gathering clouds above. His mind swam and he felt suddenly free, like a ship whose anchor falls away. Opening his eyes, he found himself staring down at a white wilderness of mountains and valleys with not a trace of life. Above him the sky was blue and clear, but the landscape below was ghostly and silent. Fear swept through him. Where had he flown? He dropped towards the snow-covered world… and passed into the clouds.
For a time he was blind, then he broke through the grey-white mist and saw the land far below, green and lush, sectioned by snow-topped mountains and ribbon rivers, great valleys and dales, forests and plains. He scanned the horizon for signs of life, for cities or towns, but there was nothing save the vastness of nature. Nu's spirit swooped closer to the plain. Now he could see his own tiny figure in the gully below and, some miles to the west, a camp of wagons with white canvas covers and oxen feeding on the hillside.
He ventured further, over the mountains, and saw an ugly township with squat wooden buildings and a large gathering of people in a meadow. Passing over them, he continued south. A great wall, similar in structure to the sea wall at Ad, met his eyes and he dropped towards it. The stones were hewn in the same way, but they were far older than Pendarric's Wall. He moved on, wondering how a nation which could erect such a wall could have regressed to creating such hideous buildings as he had seen in the small town. Then he saw the city — and his heart sank.
There was the domed palace, the marble terraces, the long statue-lined Road of Kings — and to the south the curving line of the dock. But beyond it there was no glittering ocean, only fields and meadows. Nu hovered, scanning the people strolling the streets. Everything was as he remembered, yet nothing was the same. He sped to the temple and halted by the statue of Derarch the Prophet.
The prophet's face was worn away, the holy scrolls in his hands reduced to no more than white sticks.
Shaken beyond endurance, Nu fled back to the sky.
What he had seen was like a vision from the Fires of Belial.
And he knew the truth. This was not some strange, distant land; this was home, this was the City of Ad. He recalled his vision of the sea roaring up, and the three suns in the sky. This was the world of the future.
He returned to his body and wept for all that had been lost: for Pashad and his sons, for Bali and his friends, and for all the people of a world soon to die… of a world that had already died.
Nu-Khasisatra wept for Atlantis.
At last his tears dried and he lay back against a rock, his body aching, his heart heavy. What point was there in his warnings to the people? Why had the Lord Chronos used him, if there was no hope?
No hope? You of all men should know the folly of that thought.
His first ship had been caught in a terrible storm. All his money had been tied into the venture, and more. He had borrowed heavily, pushing himself and his family into awesome debt. As the voyage was nearing completion with the cargo secure in the hold and his fortune assured, the winds had turned foul, the sea had roared; great waves pummelled the vessel, hurling it towards the black cliffs poised like a hammer above them.
Most of his crew had panicked, flinging themselves over the side and risking almost certain death in the raging sea. Not so Nu-Khasisatra. Holding to the tiller, straining with all the power in his formidable frame, he locked his gaze to the black monstrosity looming over him. At first there had been no response, but then the sleek craft began to turn. Nu's muscles had been stretched to tearing point, but his ship missed the cliff and raced on towards the peril of a hidden reef.
Only three out of thirty crew members remained with him, and these clung to the timbers, unable to aid their master for fear of being washed overboard.
'The anchor!' yelled Nu into the teeth of the storm. Salt spray lashed his face, hurling the words back at him. Lifting one arm from the tiller, he pointed at the rope brake by the iron anchor and one of his crewmen began to haul himself back to the stern. A huge wave hit him and he lost hold; his body slid down the deck. Nu released the tiller and dived for the man, catching his tunic just as he was about to topple over the side. Clamping his right hand to a stay, Nu hauled the seaman to safety. The ship sped towards the reefs, hidden like the fangs of a monster below the foaming waves. Nu staggered upright and forced a path to the tiller. The seaman struggled with the anchor brake… suddenly it gave and the iron weight hissed over the side.
The ship shuddered and Nu let out a cry of despair, for he believed they had struck the reef. But it was only the anchor biting hard into the coral below them. The ship bobbed and the cliff which had been such a threat now became a shelter from the ferocity of the storm.
The wind died down in the bay. 'We're still shipping water,' shouted the crewman Nu had rescued.
'Start the pump, and see where the problem lies,' Nu ordered, and the man raced below. The two other crewmen followed him and Nu sank to the wet deck. The moon broke clear of the storm clouds as he glanced to port. Rows of jagged rocks, black and gleaming, could be seen above the swell. Had the ship struck any of them, it would have been ripped open from prow to stern. Nu hauled himself upright and moved to the starboard side. Here too the reef could be seen.
Somehow — by some miracle — he had steered the vessel through a narrow channel between the reefs.
The crewman returned. 'The level is dropping. The ship is sound, master.'
'You have earned a good bonus, Acrylla. I'll see you get it.'
The man grinned, showing broken front teeth. 'I thought we were finished. It looked so hopeless.'
Nu-Khasisatra's fortune had been built on that first adventure, and his reply to Acrylla was now carved on the tiller of each of his ships:
'Nothing is ever hopeless — as long as courage endures.y
The memory of that night came flooding back to him and he pushed himself to his feet. Despair, he realised, was as great an enemy as Sharazad or the King's Daggers. His world was doomed, but that did not mean Pashad must die. He had a Sipstrassi Stone and he was alive.
'I will come for you, my love,' he said. 'Through the vaults of time or the Valleys of the Damned.'
He glanced up at the sky. 'Thank you for reminding me, Lord.'
Beth sat on the hillside under a spreading pine and watched the children playing on the makeshift swing-boards and see-saw planks down by the stream. The high meadow was seething with townspeople, farmers and miners, enjoying the bright sunshine and the food at the stalls.