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