Chapter XXX
The Eight of Wands
The element remembers the flaming powers of its self.
Swiftness
Kill Bill
The year is 1628 BC and Mt Thera creates a cataclysmic eruption.
"You would have sacrificed me to satisfy your lust for power. You would sacrifice your own high priestess. Why that is downright abominable."
"What do you mean? You tricked me? You aren't going to fulfill your promise."
"Yes, I shall fulfill my promise. You will see me no more, my people will be saved, and your empire shall be destroyed this very night to put an end to you unquenchable greed. And you wish me to set you up as a god. Hah, that will be the day. You are starting to believe the delusions you've been forcing upon the local population. Oh yes, I forgot. The mountain shall destroy our city this very night."
"Why Ayesha, you would turn against your king?"
"You didn't hear me very well. I said after tonight, you shall be a king no longer. Qblh protect me."
"Idiot stop them." A voice rang out from the dark.
At the same time, Dagon ordered Ayesha to be seized for insolence. "Why I'll sacrifice you myself, you insolent witch."
Ayesha was quick. Dagon would never live to see Qblh. Instead, he lived to see only his own heart in Ayesha's clutches as she bit into it.
"Witch am I? Well you're dead."
After seeing the enraged Amazon, none of Dagon's followers dared challenge Ayesha. Instead they all fled, as the mountain started to rumble, the chamber leaving Ayesha alone with Qblh.
"I really hated that scum bag. You would not have any idea of how many lives he has ruined."
Idiot had prepared a chamber for them both to enter as they prepared to leave for Artemis.
"Here, there, or en route?" he asked her.
"En route, my Qblh, my love. Here's my peg. Yoni me."
Once inside the Box, Idiot activated the field generators as they were isolated from Earth's gravitational space. Ayesha noticed no motion, but was immediately enchanted by the roominess of the interior.
"Where are we now?"
"Elsewhere and nowhere of meaning to you. Tell me, how did you get to Earth?"
"I told you, Isis dropped me off. When did you leave Artemis?"
"While you were in the Pleasure Dome, and now you're returning me. Isis shall be there awaiting us. She doesn't want you to use Genie in the Pleasure Dome."
"And she wasn't supposed to time travel."
"Well, what are you going to do? Beat her? We have been doing no harm. Just observing and helping, now and then."
"And feeding them false religious beliefs."
"They make up their own idols as a means of self- aggrandizement. Did you see Dagon’s stupidity and arrogance just before he died with my bite?. He wanted them to consider him a god. There’s a lot of those misconceptions as they lust for the power we have over them. They want male equality with us, or even domination."
"And how many more of you are there in time?"
"You'll have to ask Isis that. Why don't we just act as if none of this ever happened and I'll give you my golden peg as we leave my bed from the Pleasure Dome. Can your Genie place us there?"
"I most assuredly can," said the genie. "Landing is within our parameters. It will but a simple matter for you to leave Gemini and join Ayesha as if nothing happened. No one will ever question the fact that no one ever saw Ayesha enter the dome.
"Paradox avoidance Genie. When did Ayesha leave? Isn't that relevant?"
"Not as long as the two Ayesha's do not see each other."
"I can deal with Venetian electronic records upon our return. It does not seem to be too long after our departure that Isis left with the Pegasus. Apparently her launch may have been triggered by the fact that you had summoned me. Gemini will advise or would have undoubtedly advised Isis."
"We will then have to permit her launch and displacement through our transited wormhole."
"Do you want me to track it?"
"Good idea."
"Now what do we do with you, Ayesha?"
"Qblh, you know I do not even try to begin to understand your secrets. I do not doubt your power, nor shall I question your commands. I shall do thy bidding. All I ask is that you love me and not betray me to Isis for having failed her."
"How have you failed her?"
"I return to Artemis your captive and my empire in ruins."
"Yes, but you have your life and my love."
"We were the last of the Amazons."
"There are more back then."
"Yes, but in other lands and other times, but I am forbidden by the queen under oath to tell you details, my Qblh."
Jim usually respected the pleas of his prisoners. He was not a harsh jailer at all. He was not going to punish Ayesha. Ayesha would punish herself by considering herself as a failure. She would gain Qblh's child in the process. Some would say that Ayesha lost nothing and indeed gained all her dreams that very night that Atlantis perished.
The explosions from the volcano persisted for several days bringing a great darkness over all the Eastern Mediterranean region. Many feared the end of the world was indeed on its way. People from Egypt to Greece were trembling in awe of the great mountain as it went through its death throes.
Some of the eruptions were so great that fire and brimstone would fall many miles from the island itself. Noxious vapors were emitted.
