The streets of Poseidonis, normally bustling with crowds of shoppers and tradespeople, are almost completely deserted now. As morning---or what passes for it down in the murky darkness at the bottom of the Atlantic---begins to settle on the city-state, a disarming quiet takes over, fueled by political tension and unrest in what has become a police state. All of this is in the wake of the deposing of our king, Arthur. For a large number of our citizens, Arthur is...was...the only king they had ever known, though the eldest members of the populace like to mull over earlier times under the rule of "Good King Juvor," when they're allowed to do so.
The recent events which culminated in Arthur being dragged out of his kingdom in chains have been particularly traumatic because Arthur was far more than our monarch alone. He was our hero, the man who protected all of the continent of Atlantis against the forces which, from time to time, had threatened to invade and plunder our fair, domed homewaters. But above all else, Arthur was my best friend and partner, the first human being I'd ever laid eyes on as an abandoned eleven year old boy. I've never felt more empty or uneasy as I do this night, knowing that he's not across the courtyard in his palace, as he should be.
"Garth!" my wife Dolphin had called out indignantly to me in a shrill voice from just outside of our little "grace and favor" cottage---granted to us by Arthur as a wedding gift. We'd always thought that we'd be safe here on the grounds of the palace, but things being as they are right now, I supposed there is nowhere truly "safe." Dolphin's scream startled me so that I'd nearly missed our baby's mouth while trying to feed him his breakfast cereal. My little man, Cerdian, didn't really mind either way, to be honest; he's usually a fussy one at breakfast, often acting a bit cranky about having been awakened. I can tell now what a joy it will be getting him off to school sometime in the not-too-distant future. Oh, the joys of being a young dad.
Putting the cereal bowl and spoon down and rising with the same motion, I drifted quickly to my wife's side, taking a moment to try to calm her down as I searched through the waters to find the source of her terror. When my eyes finally focused in on what her dark eyes had seen, I nearly went into a state of shock myself. Then the anger I'd been suppressing for many days began to well up inside of me as the sight became clear: graffiti, scrawled in squid ink all over the coral walls of our home. "FREAKS." "DEVIL MAGIC." "KILL THE IDYLLIST!" "GET OUT!!!"
Anger...and hatred, just like that which greeted my eyes, began to flood over me like a waterfall, only unlike the people responsible for this outrage, I would never act on my dislike of their kind. It's true---my wife and I and, by default, our child, are "freaks" to these people. Dolphin is a human hybrid whose body was infused with the DNA of a porpoise when she was a small girl held captive by aliens after her parents' ship sank. While my people---the pacifist Idyllists---were originally members of this same society since ancient times, they splintered away from this warrior nation many centuries ago and founded their own waters far away from here. The Idyllists sent missionaries far and wide to find other pacifists, intermarrying with those of the faithful who also left their home nations to join them in the Hidden Valley, far to the East of the Empire Of Atlantis. There are those in the populace who feel that minorities such as ourselves don't belong here; thankfully, Arthur never stood for that kind of bigotry. But Arthur is not in power now, so the "different" among us are not safe.
My ancestors, the Idyllists, are magical people: sorcerers and witches who practice faith healing and various elements of magic. My father, King Thar, was one of the greatest of all sorcerers; as his heir and the prince of his kingdom, I've inherited his remarkable abilities...and his dreaded violet eyes. As an infant born of my wandering mother, Berra, here in Poseidonis a few months after my father's murder, I was seized by government officials and put out to die of exposure and malnutrition, mainly because my eyes revealed my "difference." In line with their superstitions, these people believed me to be mentally deficient and potentially dangerous. They hated me without any proof that they were correct in their judgment. Once I got to know them and learned about how they had written me and so many other babies off so early in life...I learned to hate them too. And still I lived among them and protected them from invaders from the time I was about twelve. That was Arthur's doing.
Arthur had been born a prince, just as I was, and, just as what happened to me, he was taken to the cynically named Mercy Reef and put out to die. His crime was being born with blonde hair---the sign that he had an uncommon rapport with the creatures of the seas and, supposedly, a propensity for evil inherited from the bloodline of a notorious ancestor. Those who were truly evil exercised their authority, taking an innocent baby who would be their king and leaving his fate to the elements. I can bet the leaders smiled with self-satisfaction as they delivered the sentence to protect their people, that slight glint of malice flashing in their eyes. I've seen it many times over the years---that officious glare, that "you dirty little sea scum" look in their eyes, that snarl only just visible upon their lips...when one knows what to look for, as I do. It's that visage through which the wise men are seen as carrying out their sacred duty while silently searching for ways to remain in power by any means necessary. I used to warn Arthur about them. I told him that I'd heard they were plotting against the crown, but he only wanted to believe the good in people, even his enemies. Now...now maybe he understands.
I ushered Dolphin back into our home and sat her down to rest. She'd been crying ever since seeing the graffiti and didn't seem ready to stop. Of course, she's had a great many reasons to cry as of late, what with public disfavor for Arthur spreading to us, his closest associates, and to me in particular, since I was the sorcerer duped by that sabotaged spell which sent our people back to a barbaric time in our past, 3000 years ago. I've hated myself for so long now for all the horror I made possible, unwittingly so, in the name of "protecting our people." It feels as if it's been a part of me for my whole life, though, in our time, it was only a matter of weeks instead of the 15 years of slavery our people suffered in that bygone era. But then...maybe it HAS been a lifetime, in my case, during which I've lived with this torture. The prophecies pointed to me and my hated purple eyes as being the worst nightmare of these people. How awful to know now that they were right. Since antiquity, Atlanteans were forewarned of someone like me, to beware of the birth of a baby with purple eyes, lest he bring their downfall through his use of evil magicks. Now they know they were right to leave me to die as an infant; no wonder they've never forgiven me for surviving my exile.
After checking on Cerdian, I roamed back outside to do something about the vandalism. Reaching into our kitchen garden for a sponge, I returned to the front of the house to scrub the ink from the wall as soldiers stationed near our home looked on. Several of them viewed me from under lowered helmet brims and narrowed eyelids, that familiar sneer visible on their lips. As I began to smear the ink and the hateful words blurred, I could hear them whispering and snickering behind me; the sound fanned my anger. It didn't take more than a moment's thought to conjure a spell which ripped the ink from the wall and flung it in their direction. Only battle-hardened reflexes saved them from being completely covered with the residue, though they couldn't help but ingest some of the ink as they gasped and sputtered to move away from it.
And then I saw the looks of hate and fear on their faces and those of palace personnel in the adjoining courtyard. Eyes open wide, as well as their mouths. All of them. Horror etched in their expressions from one to the next to the next. The evil sorcerer had been brazen enough to practice his craft...again. At that moment, I knew I'd brought the wrath of not only the palace but the community down on myself and my family. I did what I...DO. I didn't think about it. It's a reflex, like blinking. And, without thinking, I'd put my wife and child in even more peril.
Only our king can put this situation right, and he's been forcibly taken from the city. I didn't know it was happening at the time or I would have moved every ton of water above us to protect and rescue him. It's bizarre that I didn't feel it happening, though, since Arthur and I have long been aware of a sort of psychic bond we share. We seem to know when each other are in pain or danger, just as I can feel that he is suffering now. But then, I suspect that the new consortium of Atlantean sorcerers did something to block any signals he'd have tried to send to me. They gained far too much power over their abilities in those hateful times.
I didn't know that the authorities had pronounced sentence on Arthur until a good friend came to me to tell me what he had witnessed. Karuna had been a Senator since the reign of King Juvor, a woman who had always been revered for her wisdom and courage. Since speaking up for Arthur and being observed advising me of the proceedings, she's been held captive in the dungeons below the palace. One by one, the military has been actively rounding up anyone who speaks out as she did. Citizens loyal to Arthur remain so under the threat of being arrested, imprisoned...and possibly worse. I slugged a guardsman in the marketplace the other day for getting rough with a woman who was once a teacher of mine; she was accused of spreading leaflets for a proposed rally against government aggression. She was able to get away, but I was accosted by six heavily armed soldiers and reminded in no uncertain terms that my family and I remain free only because of the favor of she who sits on the throne...and that our favorable situation is tentative at best. I've heard of the possessions of citizens being confiscated, whole families detained and questioned hour upon hour, and guards posted in what were formerly public meeting places. Suspicion. Fear. Panic.
I'm not sure why Arthur's wife, Queen Mera, would turn against the man she's loved for so long. I can't say what's driven his trusted aide, Dr. Vulko, into collusion with his detractors. I can only guess at the hideous situation all of these people were in while living among those cruel and vicious slave masters of 3000 years ago, so I can't blame them for their anger. They never asked either Arthur or me to enact the spell to save them from disaster, only to put them in peril anyway. And I can tell that something is wrong about all of this, but I just haven't been able to grasp just what that is yet. But the one thing I do know is that I must find Arthur and bring him back to fight for justice here at home. There's no way that our city will be any kind of place to raise my little son in a climate such as this.
Last night, I fought the whole of it with my wife. We fight a lot these days, but then that started long before we married, truth to tell. Sound carries so well here as opposed to on land that we could keep our voices low enough not to wake the baby but still be audibly irritable with each other. He's got a sixth sense about us being upset, though; Cerdian woke up cranky and crying, making the tension between Dolphin and myself even worse. Things get ugly enough between us on a normal basis since she doesn't much care for my heroic activities or my friends, but this was much worse than usual. I told her I had to leave to find Arthur, that life will be horrible at home until we put things right. Dolphin, having been a hero herself, has lost the taste for it since becoming a mother; she has no care for what had once been a passion to her, and only hatred for anything which lures me off on the chase for justice. She swore she'd never forgive me for leaving her and Cerdian with council-ordered armed guards at the door, but that's where she and our son will be the safest, like it or not.
With a mixture of the deepest sorrow and the joy and pride only a loving father knows, I held my little man for a very long time during the night, dancing and twisting with him in the brackish water which sustains all life here until he felt tired enough to sleep again, nodding off while cradled in my arms. Putting him down gently, I kissed him for what could be the last time and drew the covers around him to tuck him in. He yawned in that darling way that little babies do; seeing him so comfortable made it easier for my aching heart to turn away from him. I then turned to my wife, but she'd do nothing but show me her back and refuse my touch. With nothing left to say, I pronounced a spell to lull the guards to sleep and stole off into the pre-morning darkness. Creating a diversion, I tricked the guards at the portal gate into chasing a shadow, allowing me close enough proximity to the dome to project myself through it to a spot beyond a whale in the upper waters. I wanted to be sure to project myself to a nearby place but where they wouldn't see me, teleportation being one of my least practiced abilities. And now, looking down on my sleeping homeworld from high above her, I pray to the goddess Pallais, favored among the immortals for her patronage over my own peace-loving ancestors, to show kindness and mercy to those in danger under that dome far below, and to open the eyes and clear the minds of the oppressors. For Arthur's sake and the salvation of our people, I must and will find him and return him to the throne which is his and his alone.
-----DB