Milseon's ambition to create his own empire at the other side of the world threatens the integrity of the millenary and powerful Ahâ-Men-Ptah. However, Firdonio, suspecting his real intentions, is alert trying to avoid it while he finds the necessary proof to unmask Milseon before the emperor that is still trusting in his loyalty and in the loyalty of some kings which don't seem to care about the future of the empire or of their gods.
When Milseon realises the only obstacle to achieve his longed-for independence is Firdonio's tenacity, he won't hesitate to do everything he can to kill him, accuse one of his sons of trying to kill the emperor or instigating riots in the colonies the Islands have all around the world and to blame him before the emperor and the other kings.
Finally he succeeds in convincing the other kings that Firdonio is guilty of all the misfortunes of the empire and that they have to declare war on him. So, Firdonio and his family will be embroiled in all kind of difficult situations while they try to find the evidence to prove their innocence before the armies of Ahâ-Men-Ptah march against them.
Although accurately based on Plato's descriptions about the Atlantis, I have tried to reflect in this novel some of the mysteries of the Antiquity that the most orthodox historians don't want to accept: aircraft that work with gas cylinders, use of electricity, powerful mentals, rejuvenation ceremonies beside the pyramids, use of powder, incredible technologies, air battles… All those things some impossible discoveries and myths make us dream about, have been recreated in this historical fiction by someone that sincerely believes in the truths that had been distorted as time goes by until they have become imaginative fables… By someone that would like this world to have existed.
POSEIDONIA
It didn’t matter how many times Kanviar saw the capital of Slebedor from the air. Every time he still thought it was something special, and in spite of its austere and ancient aspect, the old Felnit, as his father affectionately called it, was still a magnificent city. The double black-stone wall that completely surrounded it still impressed him, and the circular towers that every eighty meters covered it in all its length pointed its reddish spires to the sky like sharp stings fighting to go in the centre itself. The palace that dominated it would have seemed too austere and colourless to any inhabitant from other kingdoms. Its severe shapes were only broken occasionally by the gaps announcing narrow windows or very small balconies hanging in the void. And only the gallery that covered its south wing looking for the sun’s heat was decorated with simple edgings and spires that gave some life to the simple circular cube.
The six-meter brown pyramid that emerged in the garden attached to the great principal tower would not have been enough at all even for the most modest habitant of other Islands, although no one would imagine that under the hedges that surrounded it, there were hidden twenty five meters of stones so well fixed that it only could have been erected thousands of years before by the Old ones, as it indeed had been. It was his family sanctuary, where the sarcophagus with the remains of his ancestors were kept, and the place where they went to meditate when something afflicted them or someone of them was seriously ill. The power of this building, able to alter the physical state of whatever was put inside, had saved the life of many characters of the house of Slebedor during countless generations. Only the priestly caste knew the reason of this illogical phenomenon, and among them only the oldest and wisest were depositories of the many of the secrets transmitted during millennia within it. Kanviar only knew the palaces of two other kingdoms, but he knew that in all of them this building occupied a preferential place in its inhabitants’ lives. It was the most dignified area in the palace, always surrounded by pompous temples, gardens covered by all kind of plants, fountains full of figures which spat out perfumed water from mouth, ears and hands, exotic animals that lived in complete freedom, and whatever came to the mind of their Lords to give themselves more airs before the other kings and their subjects. However, Kanviar liked the palace that his family had honoured during generations, cozy and austere, hidden without showing all the power it kept inside... Such as the motley city behind the walls. Strong three-floor houses with slate roofs made up narrow streets that covered it from the different fortified entrances on the way to a palace only defended by a crenellated light wall without any interruption except for some squares and fountains where the people interrupted their tasks to greet each other and learn the latest news. Never enough, because the great white mass of perpetual ice was just at a thousand kilometres and the frozen wind that usually hounded the island didn’t invite to long talks far from the always lighted chimneys. That proximity to the cold north had given Slebedor inhabitants their typical character cold and austere, of few words but of a gentility known and respected in every kingdom.
Even the main temple of the city that was at hardly 200 metres from the palace and the series of rooms where the priests and dozens of novices that aspirated to know the secrets of speaking with the mind lived and studied, were so extravagant and colourful as the ones he had seen in other kingdoms. Quiet rooms with some holes in their walls seemed more than enough to those strange and cold men that were in charge of transmitting just with the power of their minds the orders of his superiors hundreds of kilometres away, influencing on their enemies for them to do what they desired, when a battle was taking place, or protecting their lords from the attacks of enemy priests. Only the most powerful were called to the sacred Bherot to learn from the Triad itself the necessary secrets to become the king’s Shadow, and the shrewd Gernabos had been carrying out this task for more than forty years, since Firdonio acceded to the throne after his father’s death.
Kanviar looked through the large window to the bay that opened as a long shell before disappearing in a strangely calmed sea. At his back there was the mountain range, just as a series of eroded hills that tried to protect the city without much success from the gelid wind of the North. The Great Royal Ship twenty metres long held by a rigid balloon that was double its length began to turn round until its prow was perfectly lined up to the South, towards the island of Poseidonia and the legendary palace they sailed to, leaving on their right the series of ninety kilometres of valleys and gorges that constituted most of the island.
He smiled when he turned to the inside of the cabin and he found queen Buliana trying on a high hat topped by a solitary green ostrich feather. The symbol of Slebedor waved slightly while his mother bowed trying out what she would do when she were before the emperor. She was satisfied with the image in the mirror which one of the maidservants held, and carefully she took it off and put it into a felt box. Their eyes crossed and he bowed towards her with exaggerated gestures making her laugh. He adored her candour and her rectitude even in the moments when she turned out damaged... and he was sure that this was a feeling shared by everyone of her subjects. He was glad that his father hadn’t taken a younger concubine when she lost her youthful and legendary beauty. And despite the fact that his father was never loving with her, not even before his family, he saw several times some loving gesture between his parents that was a proof of the love they still professed each other.
He passed next to his father and his brother Woltarin, seven years older and that as inheritor knew all the matters that affected the kingdom. They were seated with Gernabos around a small table, talking so low that he didn’t manage to find out the subject of their passionate conversation. The Shadow looked at him an instant with his deep almost transparent blue eyes, he started smiling but he didn’t finish and went back to the whispers. He didn’t give it any importance and went ahead until everything around him narrowed becoming a corridor ending in a point where the queen waited very solemnly.
“You should not laugh at your mother.”
“I wasn’t, madam, I only admired your elegance when you bowed.”
The eldest maidservant couldn’t help it and began to laugh. “The prince is very insolent, your majesty, and if you gave me your permission, I would give him a spanking for each nappy that I changed for him during four years.”
“Four? Repeating it so many times, the children of Slebedor believe it is true! If you keep on saying it I will have no other option but to leave you on some small island on the way to Poseidonia. I can’t allow a wet nurse to tell lies against the prince of the house of Slebedor!”
“If I tell everything I know, my lord would not find a woman that accepted him as her husband even though he sacrificed for her a hundred bulls in the sanctuary of Vurnnis.” She hung the box from her arm and walked to the other extreme of the ship. “And now apologise, scoundrel,” she added speeding up before Kanviar pulled her thick white pony tail. He had done this since he was a child but this time he just pretended he was going to do it to make her run a few metres. Buliana smiled enjoying a fight she had seen a thousand times.
“Don’t worry, mother, I bet that bowing or not you will be the most elegant of the reception.”
“You are very kind Kanviar, but I’m sure that for the rest I will be just an old-fashioned woman ancho
Born in 1964 and Bachelor in History, he works for the Spanish Government. His main literary hobby is science-fiction (his previous novels are of that genre). Fascinated since childhood with the legends about the antiquity and specially with the mythical Atlantis, he devoted several years to try to weaving a plot which could manifest all the strange events History couldn't or didn't want to explain. Ahâ-Men-Ptah is the result of those efforts.