Description: PROLOGUE: THE FALL OF OLYMPUS 13,000 BCE The council elder sat alone in the darkened chamber. His mind focused on the empire's dire situation and the harsh judgment that history would render upon his great civilization. The cruelty they had shown against the lesser peoples of the world was now coming back a thousandfold to haunt the ringed continent. This judgment, this disaster, had begun three years earlier, with the rebellion of the barbarian nations in the outer empire, north and south. When the elder closed his eyes, he thought he could actually hear the far-off cries of citizens and soldiers alike as they prepared for the final defense of what the barbarians thought of as Olympus and the very gods they once worshiped. While he sat secure inside the Empirium Dome, safe behind the eight-foot-thick triangles of crystal that made up the geodesic bubble, the rest of his world stood unprotected against the onslaught of the allied barbarian nations assaulting the empire. He opened his aged, half-blind eyes and looked at the order that the Empirium Council had written out only an hour before condemning not only the barbarians but themselves as well. Thinking this, his attention turned to one of the duplicate Keys for the weapon. Androlicus reached out and with a shaking and age-spotted hand removed the silk wrap that covered the huge diamond before him. He stared deep into the immense blue gemstone for a moment and then allowed his fingers to touch the deep and swirling tone grooves etched into its surface by their finest scientists. There were two more Keys such as the one before him-precious stones that had taken fifty lifetimes to find and half as much to engineer, and were the secret at the heart of the Great Sound Wave. One Key was being prepared even now, far below the earth. The second was hidden in the land of the hostile Nubians, many hundreds of kilometers to the south in the farthest reaches of the empire. The third sat before him, identical in shape and design and meant to control the uncontrollable. The great doors of the Empirium Chamber swung open, bathing the room in bright sunlight, dispelling the long shadows that had so long held the elder prisoner. The old man closed his eyes against the brilliance of the day as he heard the general march quickly into the chamber and directly to the council table. "By your leave, Great Androlicus." The old man finally opened his eyes to give the general a sad, knowing look before throwing the silk over the three-foot-diameter blue diamond on the chamber table. "General Talos, I have called you away from the empire's defenses for this." The old man tapped the document with his aged hand. "It is here with my mark upon it as the Empirium Council has demanded, thus completing my culpability in the extinction of our empire." Talos's eyes darted to the marble tabletop. He slowly reached for the handwritten document, but Androlicus gently laid the full weight of his hand and arm down upon the scroll. He pulled it back as if to withhold it, stopping the general short. "Our time is at its zenith, My Lord," Talos said. "Our forces on the western and northern peninsulas are close to being overwhelmed, our defenses breached by the combined might of the Macedonians, Athenians, and Spartans. We must act soon or all will be lost. Even now, the Thracians and Athenians are loading the allied states' full invasion force on the Greek mainland. They have drained citizens from as far away as Mesopotamia." "With my sign upon this order our demise has already come to pass even as we stand here," Androlicus replied. His eyes went from the general to the silk-covered diamond. "My Lord?" asked Talos, confused. Androlicus smiled sadly and nodded his head, his long white hair and thinning beard shimmering as the sunlight played on his face. "We are set upon a course that is far more deadly than those hordes of barbarians we fear so." "The Science Elders and Earth Council have assured-" "Yes, yes, yes," the old man said, cutting short the general's response. "We have all been assured the technology is foolproof." He pulled the document back to him and looked at it. " Foolproof . This word seems to have more meaning these days." "My Lord, to delay-" Androlicus suddenly stood, the action so fast that it belied his 107 years. "To delay is to continue thinking! To delay is to devise another way of ending this! To delay is to stop fools who think more violence delivered from untested theory is the answer to our woes!" General Talos straightened, standing at attention and staring straight ahead as if suddenly transported to the parade ground. His bronze helmet was crooked under his left arm and his right hand stayed at his ivory-handled sword. "You have my apologies, old friend." The elder knew that with his words he had wounded the general, the very last of the great Titans. The general blinked and then looked at Androlicus. He slowly placed his helmet with its long plume of blue feathers and trailing horsehair on the long, curved marble table before him, then allowed his bearded face to soften. "You are tired. How long has it been since you slept?" The old man turned and looked at the large tapestry on the council-chamber wall. The weaving of threads showed the great plain and deserts surrounding their tiny inland sea. Their small continent was at its exact center situated between the four great landmasses to the north, south, west, and east. It also depicted the almost endless western sea beyond the Pillars of Heracles, named after the barbarian Greek hero to the north who was even now leading his monkey-people to the very gates of Androlicus's home city. "My lack of sleep is but the least of what ails me. Besides, I foresee my long-needed rest is very close at hand." "Don't say this thing. We will prevail. We must!" Androlicus uncovered the third Key. "This will fail. The tone grooves mean nothing. The pitch is all wrong and the weapon will be uncontrollable. The Key and its tones will only enhance the Wave to a level that is far beyond the science to keep it caged." He saw the look of confusion upon the face of this simple but brave Titan. "The illusion has been perpetrated by testing on plates that are weak and old. Ah, but the crust beneath our own feet?" He wagged his finger at Talos. "Well, they are new, deep, and strong. It will surely end our world. This diamond has the ability to store and increase power; and coupled with that fact, the plate diagram is wrong and will assuredly destroy everything and everyone." "You are a great scholar, but the sciences, they-" " They are wrong. I have studied the Tone Key and the plate diagram and have discovered it will only work on the smallest of scales. Once the realignment of active plates begins, nothing in our science can control the result. If I am right and the diagram lies-if the fault lines and plates are all interconnected-this Key and her sisters will not control the earth's rage, but put a sword point to an already wounded beast. There is a reason why the gods have made the blue diamond so hard to find-it may generate more power to the Wave from the stored energy of light, heat, and the very electricity generated by our very own bodies. As I said, it's uncontrollable." "Then why do you sign the order for the weapons use, My Lord?" The look on the old man's face told the general everything. He knew then that the fate of their civilization was sealed. This great man was going to allow the world to have its way. The barbarians' freedom from their grip was at hand and Androlicus was going to allow it to happen because it was their time. From many nights of talk by warm fires, he knew Androlicus to be an advocate of the barbarians. He philosophized that they just needed a start to become as themselves, an advanced, thinking people. Talos saw the old man relax. "Tell me, what of your defense, or should I say preemptive strike to the south?" Androlicus asked while turning once again to look at the tapestry map of the north of Africanus. "The Gypos prepare their voyage across the inland sea, possibly on the morrow," he said and then lowered his head. The old man caught his friend's awkward silence after the brief report and turned to look at him. "Your armies were defeated in the Egyptian Delta?" "They were slaughtered to a man. We were no match for the combined force sent against us. There were not only barbarians from the west; our former allies, the Nubians Africanus, allied with the Gypos." "How many are dead?" Androlicus asked, closing his eyes before he heard the answer. "Six thousand citizens we sent into Egypt will not be joining us for the final defense of the inner circle. That, coupled with the defeat of General Archimedes by the barbarian Heracles on the northern outer ring and that damnable Jason upon the sea...five thousand more of our men will not be defending the second ring. The Gypos have also poisoned the Nile, so I have ordered the destruction of the great aqueduct; it has already fallen into the sea. There will be no more fresh water to our shores." "We have lost eleven thousand soldiers in this one day alone?" The elder turned, as if by looking the general in his eyes the statement would not- just could not-be true. "It seems our ancient enemies have learned the ways of war well from us." Talos's face betrayed his sadness as he told the rest of the story. "Arrayed against us are Heracles, who is barely above the mentality of a cave dweller, and also Jason of Thessaly, who is but a thief of the ship and oar designs of our science. The allied armies still bear mostly stone axes, wooden swords, and sharpened sticks, but they have defeated the greatest nation the world has ever known." "I would say the gods have turned on us, wouldn't you, my great Titan?" m

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