Chapter Twenty-Five

The sea changed colors in a sudden flood of light. "Water's nice and clear down here, long as there haven't been any quakes," Dan said. "We're about fifty meters from the bottom. Take a peek, Adam. You'll be able to see the city any minute now."

Methos twisted around to gaze out the porthole, a queer thrill of anticipation running through him. "How deep are we?" Forty-five hundred years ago his first look at Atlantis had been from above, looking down the mountain slope to the brilliant white metropolis. For the moment, water still hid the view, but Methos rebuilt the image in his mind.

"'bout fifteen hundred meters," Dan answered. "Crush you to a pulp if you went out there."

Methos glanced at Ghean. You'd be surprised, Dan, he thought, and shook his head. "I'll remember not to open the hatch." He glanced out the window again, waiting for the city to come into view. It won't be the same, he reminded himself. Nothing's ever the same. It's not that you can't go home again. It's that the changes that always happened are suddenly visible when you come back. Methos had long since learned to notice the changes that took place around him, a talent more difficult for mortals to develop.

He closed his eyes, rebuilding the city mentally. He was surprised there was anything left to find. In the last minutes while he and Minyah ran from the epicenter at the temple, he'd seen buildings crumble and be swallowed whole into the crust. The ancient city must have been even more well built than he'd realized, for anything at all to have survived.

"There we go," Michael breathed. "Atlantis."

Methos opened his eyes to look through light-stained water. "Jesus," he said inadvertantly, and clamped his teeth together to prevent further commentary.

Even in the light's rapidly fading radius, it was obvious far more of the city had survived than Methos had imagined. Streets were still visible, only a few feet beneath the submarine. Shattered buildings lined the streest, walls crumpled in, leaving enough foundation to made vivid separations of boulevards and buildings. Loose sediment stirred in the wake of the sub's engines, rising up and floating gently back down to settle in the streets.

Methos leaned forward, looking as far to both sides as he could. They were too far from the city's center for the temple to be visible. From the width of the street below, he guessed they were on one of the narrower cross-streets that sliced through the major roads.

His memory hadn't mislead him. As the submarine drifted forward, light played on stretches of earth left entirely smoothed by the devestating earthquake of four and a half millennia past. Buildings broke in half, the remainders eaten by jagged ocean floor.

"There isn't a lot of crusting on the buildings," he wondered aloud.

Michael, across the sub, nodded. "We're not sure why. The seabed is pretty active. We've been trying to figure out if there was some sort of protective layer over the city that's been knocked loose recently, maybe a slick residue or a heavy layer of dirt that settled after the city sank. Something that corrosion couldn't quite get a grip on."

"Favored of the gods," Methos said softly, looking back out the window. "Maybe they protected it." Until all its children had left it, he finished silently.

Michael chuckled. "Maybe. The amount of buildup is what we'd normally see on something that'd been underwater a century or so, maybe a little less. Their gods must be favoring us. More than they did the people who lived here, at any rate."

Sediment rode in the water, highlighted by the submarine's bright lamps, the water's motion enforcing the absolute stillness of the city itself. Methos closed his eyes, the static image of Atlantis at forceable odds with the city's last panicked minutes.

Memories of voices echoed in his ears, terrorized screams and calls for help. The sound was unending, rock shrieking as it tore itself apart and slammed together again without rhythm, lightning's crack and the roar of thunder filling his ears, grinding out the hopeless shouting. Water boiled, drinking the city down into the ocean, a constant shrill of noise. Methos shuddered, trying to shake the memory off.

It wouldn't let him go, his pulse rising to the frantic rate it had been those thousands of years ago. The sheer, stark stab of hope that had jolted through him in the moment of silence before the temple battle ended ripped himto him again, making his heart lurch with a sickening double-beat. Devestation replaced that hope a breath later, as it had then, and he placed a hand against the submarine's side, steadying himself against the unrelenting rush of memory. Fear and horror shot through him, the shaking of the sub from rumbling engines following muscle memory to the redoubling of the quake that sent Atlantis into the sea. He felt again the stretch as he reached for Ragar's hand, an instant too late, and memory jarred his feet with the falls from one broken piece of road to another.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Methos jerked back, eyes flinching open to see Ghean leaning towards him. "I actually think it's taking you harder than it did me," she said in quiet astonishment.

Methos pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead, wiping away beaded sweat. "I'm all right," he said roughly. I was there. You were dead.

Michael gave him a sympathetic smile, across the sub. "It's hit us all pretty hard," he said. "Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been?"

Through a dry throat, Methos answered, "I think I was." He inhaled sharply, feeling the lack of air in his lungs.

"There are ghosts here," Anne said, in all apparent seriousness. "I've driven a lot of waldos through a lot of wrecks, but I've never seen anything like Atlantis. Something happened here, something that shouldn't have."

Methos and Ghean locked eyes, neither willing to look away. "You're right," Methos agreed softly, to Anne, then shook himself, willing himself towards steadiness. "You're sure this is Atlantis?" The question was meant for Michael; Ghean knew, and Methos had never doubted her.

"The carbon dating completely fails to match any of the legends," Michael said slowly. "At least, what we've found doesn't. We've found artifacts dating back about six thousand years. From the stories out of Egypt, they should either be twice that, or only about four thousand years old."

"Thera," Methos guessed.

Michael nodded. "It blew up in 1627 BCE, thirty-six centuries ago. It drowned Crete. I have to admit that I was a believer, not that long ago -- that Crete had been Atlantis, I mean. When Mary pinpointed this as the location of the city Atlantis, I assumed anything we found here would date back to then, too; that the quakes set off by Thera's eruption had perhaps sunk another town, too." He shook his head. "The youngest material we've found is forty-six or seven centuries old. Whatever sank this place, it wasn't Thera. Not the eruption that drowned Crete."

The round doctor looked out the porthole, shaking his head again. "This is Atlantis," he said. "I can feel it in my gut." He glanced back at Methos with a self-deprecating grin. "Nicely scientific, eh?"

"Careers have been made on less," Methos said, returning his gaze to the city they drifted through.

Beneath the crust of sea grime that roughened the once clean lines of the city, the stone was still white, untarnished by its centuries beneath the ocean. Under the sub's floodlights, it glowed an unnerving pale blue, the color of moon shadows on snow. Dan changed directions, turning down a wider street; within seconds, Methos saw it as one of the main avenues. There was no way to determine if they were heading in to town or out, and he frowned out the window in frustration.

Ghean reached over the back of the ledge in front of him, tapping the terminal window at his elbow. "It's mapping," she reminded him. "Figure out where we are."

Methos blinked down at the screen, nodding. "Jerry? Can I make it tell me what's been mapped previously?"

The self-proclaimed geek nodded. "Sure. Here." He came over, tapping out a quick sequence on a small keyboard. A smaller window opened lower in the screen, covering a quarter of the original image. "Navigate with the arrow keys," Jerry instructed, returning to his seat.

"How many dives have there been?" Methos asked, studying the screen Jerry had brought up for him.

"This is the fifth," Ghean answered. "We went back to the States to try to get money to fund more."

Methos looked up momentarily, and grinned. "It worked," he said dryly. Ghean grinned back, and turned to look out the window again.

Methos studied the screen intently, trying to overlay his memories of the city onto the map. After a few minutes, he concluded memory was making it more diffcult than it would be to study it fresh. He kept expecting streets and buildings where the map showed only empty stretches of rock. Still, four of the streets they'd mapped spidered inwards, and the additions from the new mapping indicated they were travelling towards the city center. A building was mapped there. Thoughtlessly, Methos said, "You found the temple."

Ghean gave Methos a sharp look, as Michael looked away from his camera to lift an eyebrow at the Immortal man. "Temple?"

Methos winced inwardly. Clumsy, clumsy, he scolded himself, and tapped the smaller window in his screen. "Look at the layout. There's a central building, isn't there? Governments and religious institutions have a tendency to be in the middle of cities."

Michael nodded. "There's a building there, all right, but except for one place where the stone was obviously broken, there are no entrances, no decorations, nothing that might indicate it was a temple."

Methos closed his eyes, building the image of the temple in his mind. Three diases, the temple centered on the last one, the House symbols holding the temple roof above its thick walls. Carved on the outer walls were renditions of the gods coming out of the mountains to share their gifts with the citizens of the fishing villages that founded the legendary city. Opening his eyes, he studied Ghean's profile. Did the fire melt all that away? If it did, what happened to the room below, and the Book? "Is it higher than the city around it?" he asked aloud.

"Yes," Michael said, "but who would build a temple without doors?"

"Someone who didn't want his gods disturbed," Jerry offered to his computer, and looked up defensively when Michael spun around to stare at him with interest. "What? Doesn't the geek get to be esoteric and wise sometimes too?"

Anne grinned. "You seem a little too grounded in this century for that, is all, Jerry."

"Hey," the young man protested, "I've got a degree in philosophy."

Anne's eyebrows shot up. "You do? What are you doing here?"

Jerry shrugged. "Philosophy doesn't pay very well."

"You may be on to something there, though," Michael said slowly. "We call our churches the houses of God. Another civilization might have taken that idea more literally."

Methos and Ghean exchanged glances as a debate ensued, Ghean visibly biting her tongue to keep from protesting. She shook her head a little, turning to look out the window once more.

The irritating thing, she thought, is that it's not actually an unreasonable deduction.

It is more likely than the truth, the patient one agreed.

Ghosts, the frightened one whispered. Ghean leaned forward to see out the window better. They're wrong. Our gods deserted us and left Atlantis a ghost city. When will we go home? We're close to home now. When will we go home?

Soon, Ghean promised automatically. She looked over her shoulder to watch Methos, absorbed in studying the map again as it built itself. It frightens me, she admitted silently. That I can't tell what direction anything is in. That I can't remember. I think the only reason I was sure about the temple was the hole we'd chopped in it.

Patience. We've found pieces from the Houses within the city. Even though the Houses themselves are beyond the boundaries we've explored, we'll find a way to get out there. Once we can find a House we'll know what direction we're facing, where everything is.

Ghean shook her head a little. We have no reason to go beyond the city, she argued with the patient one. There's no way to suggest it. Our resources are too limited to go on wild goose chases.

We have time, the patient one reminded her. In time, we'll reach the Houses, and we'll be gain perspective, be able to place the streets and buildings into our memories. We have time.

"Care to explore, Adam?" Michael asked suddenly. Methos and Ghean both looked up, equally startled out of their respective musings.

"Explore? Perhaps I'm a little narrow-minded, Michael, but somehow the idea of popping out of the sub for a quick jaunt through the streets doesn't entirely appeal to me." Methos grinned, and Michael laughed.

"Look, practicality dictates we take this in a pretty methodical manner, mapping out the city and then focusing on what we think will be the biggest motherlode of information. If we can find a place with access to the sewer system, that'll probably be our number one stopping place. Sewers tend to have more information about a culture than anything else."

You're going to be badly disappointed by Atlantis, Methos thought, bemused. Even after all the centuries, he was still impressed by the unique sewer system Atlantis had developed.

"However," Michael went on, "we've recently recieved a generous donation by an extremely generous fellow," he grinned, flicking a salute at Methos, "and it seems like we ought to bend to his whim today. You won't get another chance, Adam, so what would you like to look for?"

"Buried treasure!" Methos said promptly. "Pirate's gold!"

Anne laughed. "All men are little boys," she said, "and little boys always want pirate treasure."

"Wouldn't you?" Methos asked reasonably. "All right, if I get to make the choice. What if we took a spin around the outer edge of the city?" He nodded at his screen. "It looks like you've found some boundaries. I wonder if there's anything beyond them."

Michael wrinkled his forehead, looking dubious, as Ghean arched an eyebrow at Methos. "I thought you'd want to look at your so-called temple," she said.

I do, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get the sub into and under the temple to excavate the Book. I think I'm going to have to go swimming. "You've already been there," he shrugged. "I was looking at the symbols on that cup you found, the one with the bull's head? There are points outside it, all in that circle. I had this idea the city might be laid out like that. The central point would be that temple, and maybe there's something in the outlying area that might be interesting." Methos widened his eyes, shrugging. "Who knows? Could we do that?"

Ghean's smile was slow and approving. "Who knows," she repeated. "Can we, Dan?"

Dan glanced at Michael, who shrugged and nodded. "Sure," the pilot said. "The seafloor maps say we're in sort of a valley here, maybe the original structure of the island. Probably is, actually. We're on kind of a high plateau on the Med floor here anyway. Anyway. I'll go up a ways, maybe halfway up the valley wall, and we'll buzz around there, see what there is to see. How's that sound?" Dan looked over his shoulder again, too briefly to obtain approval, and pulled the submarine up through the water.

Methos met Ghean's eyes again, smiling. The gods lived on the mountaintops, according to Atlantean religion. The thirteen Houses had been build halfway up, between the gods and the people they'd been raised from. "Sounds like a plan," Methos agreed. "Let's see if we can follow the path of one of these wider roads up. Maybe it'll lead to something."

"Sure thing." Dan nodded.

"Don't get your hopes up too high," Anne advised. "I'd hate to see you disappointed on your first dive."

Methos smiled at the blonde woman. "You'd hate to see me put a stop on that check," he teased.

"Too late," Michael said cheerfully. "The University called me yesterday morning to say it'd been cashed and credited to our fund."

"Ah well." Methos spread his hands. "If I'm disappointed, I'll just have to live with it, then. I've been disappointed before."

"Wise man," Jerry said, without looking up from what he was doing. "You could be a philosopher, too."

Methos grinned. "I don't know enough about computers."

Jerry raised his eyes with a laugh, touching a finger to his nose. "On the nose, buddy," he grinned. "You got it on the nose."

"Mountains coming up," Dan reported a few minutes later. "Keep your eyes peeled, folks. We'll see if Adam's feeling lucky today."

"Do ya feel lucky, punk?" Ghean grated in a singularly terrible imitation of Clint Eastwood. "Well? Do ya?" Anne shot her a grin as Methos focused out the window.

"I believe I do," he murmured several minutes later. "I believe I do. Mary." He nodded out the porthole.

"What?" Michael demanded sharply, jumping to his feet to step across the sub and look out Methos' porthole. "Did you find -- oh my God. Anne. Anne, give me the camera, Anne." He held out his hand, fingers beckoning impatiently as he leaned over Methos' shoulder. Anne handed it to him, switching sides of the submarine to look out Ghean's porthole with her.

At least one of the Houses had survived Atlatnis' fall surprisingly intact. The outer wall nearest the submarine had been partially shattered, the roof caved in at the corner, allowing the sub to cast light into a home unvisited for centuries. Unlike the guest house Methos had lived in, this was part of the permeant structure, and even the visible furniture had been designed with eternity in mind. A stone table still stood, cracks at the bases of its legs where it had once melded with the floor. Fragmented pottery lay across the floor in pieces, the sediment in the room so low that even from where the sub hovered, yards away, patterns were still visible on the pottery. Slender pieces of stone lay in lengths around the floor; chairs with broken legs and backrests suggested where they came from.

"Get Handy, get Handy, get Handy," Michael chanted, filming the ruins. "Get Handy in there, Anne. My God, Adam, you're a genius."

"Just lucky," Methos demurred, lifting his hand to block the camera's lens as Michael swung it to face him. "I'd rather not be filmed, please."

Jerry finally untangled himself from his computer so he could lean over and squint out an unoccupied porthole. "Are you nuts?" he demanded. "This is the find of a lifetime, and you don't want on-film credit for it? Damn, Adam, can I have it, then?"

Methos kept his hand up, a determined smile of apology fixed on his face. "Please, Michael." I'd hate to have to expose your film. I'm too fond of my head to see it displayed on the Discovery channel with other five thousand year old treasures.

Michael snorted in disappointment, turning the camera back to the apparent dining room setting. "Not much of a glory hound, are you, Pierson? Anne, have you got Handy ready yet?"

"Just a minute," Anne said, as Methos shook his head. "Really, Adam," she admonished, "you should take credit. Okay, I'm launching him now." Arms in the waldo, she reached up, twisting her hands. The submarine shook a little as the two- fisted robot detached itself from the bottom and dropped into the water. "Okay, Michael, here's your eyes." Anne's screen flickered, light changing as Handy's headlamps added to the wash of light. "In we go."

The little robot swam up to the break in the wall, looking absurdly slow to the watchers in the sub. A few seconds later, as the camera perched atop Handy sent back detailed images of the pottery on the floor, everyone scrambled for a good look at Anne's screen. A plate, nearly whole, was a few feet in front of the robot. Anne carefully extended a hand, clasping with the waldo. A momet later, the plate was held directly in front of the camera. "Damn," Anne said admiringly. "That's pretty."

A shallow, curved groove had been carved in the outer rim of the plate. Below it, baked into the clay, ran a pattern of dancers and bulls, each quarter of the plate a different step of the dance. In the center of the plate, only a few shades darker than the clay itself, was a representation of the bull of House Taurus.

"The must have been bull worshippers," Michael proclaimed n a hushed voice. "The pattern, the bull's head, that's the second time we've seen that. Look, it even has the thirtreen bullets around it like the cup did." He made a quick circle above the screen, pointing out the faded detail. "It's beautiful. Anne, can we bring it in?"

"Sure." Anne lowered the plate away from Handy's eyes, tucking it away out of sight under the robot.

"He's got a pouch down there," Ghean explained quietly to Methos. "Not a lot can fit in it, but it means we can bring up more than one thing at a time."

"Go on, go on," Michael said excitedly. "Let's see what else there is. Go look behind the table. Look, there's a door in the corner," he added triumphantly, as Handy's lights picked detail up at the back of the room.

"Wow," Jerry said a moment later.

A fourth chair, completely intact, lay behind the table. Handy hovered above it, focusing on the legs, and then the back of the chair. The back was squared off, but open, the symbol of Taurus carved in the stone.

"How the hell did that survive falling over?" Anne demanded. "Want me to pick it up?"

"Do you think we can bring it out?" Michael asked breathlessly. Anne bit her lower lip. Methos was almost surprised the robot didn't make a similiar motion.

"I'll try," she said. "I hope that back doesn't fall out when I pick it up."

"Wait," Methos said. "How far can Handy go looking?"

Anne looked over her shoulder at him. "About a hundred yards, why?"

Methos nodded. "There's that door," he said, half smiling. "Don't you want to know what's on the other side?"