Lifelight: Calypso Returns

28.

"I think we should wait a little longer." Lam said.

"No, she is driving me crazy. I need to be at that altar right now." Hera said.

They had been waiting for two hours and there was no apparent change in the guard. The storm had intensified so much there were no breaks between thunder claps. Hera strapped Diira's blade to her thigh, left her pack in the cave and started climbing down the cliff. Calypso's anticipation could hardly be contained in her body and Hera felt elation and exhaustion in tandem.

He approaches.

A dry corridor split a path for her to the sea. She took off running hoping that the half-breeds would not see her until it was too late. Calypso's trickery must have created a mirage because she did not hear the wail of a wounded demon until her feet hit the water and she was wading in. She forced away worry for Zaad and Liam, they were some of the king's best, and she was swimming to a fight with a god.

The water was a welcome relief even as it churned and frothed around her. The disturbance in the planes was wrecking havoc in the ocean. In the pitch black depths she homed in on Azmythica like a needle to a magnet. Hera did not surface to take a breath, her movement was fluid and undisturbed. She made her way in an almost trance-like state.

The peaceful swim lasted most of the way as she ate up the miles to the island. She was moving faster that any human should and with strength that no mortal had. It was as she started to make out the submerged island home of the goddess that things changed. Her skin prickled as she drew closer and she turned her eyes away from her destination and looked below. She still could not see but knew where everything was.

The past and the present entwined in her mind and she saw the last dark day as she made out the borders of Azmythica. Apparitions of the water nymphs that had sunk with the island appeared out of the water glowing gold. They stood sentinel at the borders still doing their duty six centuries later. It was with their permission that she crossed their barriers, that had been the prickling in her skin.

Sleep now my children.

One after the other, the apparitions dissipated and Hera felt the veil of their magic lift. The waters around her frothed with more force and anger. She rose to the temple where the elixir ritual had been performed passing ruins that had once been Azmythica preserved in their watery tomb. Her strokes felt heavier as a terrible but farmiliar feeling started to descend on her.

"Not now Calypso, no more." She thought.

My recollection was complete at the feast of Memorial. You have waited too long, Renaia cannot help but remember her home.

The entrance to the temple was a cavernous hole at the top of the hill. She swam in and felt the stairs up to the altar. Struggling to keep the tide of memory back and stay on mission, it took Hera a while to realize that the temple was moving. The sea had calmed and the disturbance was from another source. Azmythica was rising out of the water.

The plane is breached.

The water drained out of the temple and Hera held on to a thin pillar which must have held a torch in the past. Light streamed in and hurt her eyes with its intensity. The sky was clear with no trace of the violent storm.

The temple was revealed to her. Thick marble pillars stood more or less intact supporting the high roof of the temple. Intricate painting had graced the ceiling and walls. The hall was huge enough for the most lavish of parties and past it, where she lay, stairs rose to the altar.

Hera's admiration of the cave was interrupted by a warning from Calypso that she could  feel Anhur's drawing presence. She faced the altar then, blackened by millennia of fire but still majestic. The wood was supported by a bronze cauldron at least five meters across. There was no magic there but Hera felt sick as she looked at the site of the sacrifice.