The kingdom of New Atlantis slept. A cool blue cast, emitting from its dome's elaborate light-rig, bathed alike the low rows of homes, the fledgling roofs of businesses, and the towering spires of the royal palace.
Since nightfall, the well-polished tiles of the royal chamber's floor were darkened by the constant horizontal shadow of its four-post bed. Now, cutting through this black horizon was the silhouette of a raising figure, who sat up slowly, steadily, rigidly, and remained erect like one who has not known sleep.
This figure turned his face toward the approximate moonlight, to where it came streaming in through the balcony door. Gliding to it without making a sound, he let his hand fall then rest on the latch, which he pushed open warily, trying, through concentration and deliberate action, to do so silently. He was able to subdue all but the first sharp, metallic click which seemed to echo endlessly in the surrounding stillness.
King Namor stepped onto the balcony and into the full light. He leaned forward to better the view of his kingdom, his powerful hands motionless upon the railing. His eyes and brow were kept blank as he scanned all before him—attempting not to reveal the festering darkness within his mind, making its presence known in the scars and worry-lines competing for boldness on the battlefield of his face. For some moments, he was lost in his vigil.
A voice then chimed slowly, lightly, and merrily behind him. "It's full tonight," it said.
Namor twisted his neck nonchalantly toward the direction of the newcomer. He saw, standing by the open balcony door, Namorita, her hand holding the latch, her lips drawn but creased at the corners into dimples, her yellow hair, still unbound for bed, buoyantly playfully in the current.
"What is?" he said.
"The moon," she said. "It's smiling down on us."
Namor cast his eyes past the lights and the dome, into the fathoms of waves overhead. "How can you tell?"
When no answer came, he looked again behind him. There Namorita gazed into the same darkness, bemused.
He turned his attention once more to the city below, sweeping over one roof then the next, down one lane then another. Thus absorbed, he seemed to forget all about his cousin's presence.
"It's still there," she said, softly. "Still peaceful, still growing. Atlantis is safe. Why worry?"
"Some cataclysm is brewing on the surface world, something that will endanger all of this."
"How can you tell?" she said, showing her age.
The king of New Atlantis only half smiled, with his eyes moving slowly away from her. Then, having seen all he needed to see from the balcony, he turned fully toward her. "You should be in bed."
"So should you," was her reply, but the king only silently placed a hand on her shoulder, escorting her back through his room. Mid-way to the door a pillared statue of Neptune divided their path between the bed route and armoire route. Namor navigated toward the bed side, causing Namorita to give him a passionate, awkward, terrified look, which he dodged by pressing harder on her shoulder, moving swifter toward the door, and turning his back on the bed.
The sound of the door opening bled into the sound of a transport pulling up to the palace. Namor ushered Namorita into the corridor distractedly, keeping one ear and half his attention on the sound outside.
"Good night," she said, lingering a second.
"Yes. Stay in bed this time," he said, closing the door before dashing back to the balcony.
A bubble-windowed transport idled by the stairs leading up to the palace's towering front portal. Namor, with his neck craned to watch it carefully, failed to move, to even blink an eye, in the hope of solving the mystery of its disturbance.
Seconds later, Keerg, hastily tying his outer tunic together as he walked, exited the palace, making his deliberate way to the transport. His rubbery lips, sagging beneath jowls, hung open as he huffed; his heavy-lidded eyes stared forward mostly, winking intermittently in long, sleeping-wishing blinks.
Before ducking under the bubble, Kreeg gave a look back at the palace. Namor took this time to straighten, and of course was spotted by the feverish senator. Keerg flashed the king a smile, bowing at the waist.
"I assure you, Liege," Keerg said, "that I am making a personal call. I have just received news that a friend is sick. I am on my way now to attend him. You don't believe me, my liege? You think, perhaps I am on my way to some conventicle, where I will plot a conspiracy against you, is that it? Your paranoia is too much! You may if you like, come down and check my transport, or the pockets in my tunic—it is your right to do so."
"The King of Atlantis does not go swimming off of balconies! Nor does he snoop into the lives of his subjects—nor does he give a second thought to old gregarious schemers. You are no worry of mine, Keerg."
"Of course, my liege, of course. But if I may speak frankly…I cannot wait until the wedding. When my son marries Namorita, I know you will have a better regard me—for then we will be family."
Keerg bowed again to the motionless Namor, then entered the transport which whisked him away in a swirl of bubbles.
When Keerg was out of sight, Namor felt his back hunch, his knees bend, his head grow heavy. He carried himself back into the chamber, back into the bed, and there, with his arm draped over his eyes, he dozed.
He dozed, that is, until a rumbling, deep enough to be felt in his chest, woke him. Because it sounded like it was coming from within the palace he lifted his arm, he opened an eye—he found the stillness unbroken, but the rumbling growing louder. He lifted his head just as the door, the walls, the roof all came crashing in on him in a great rush, a rush followed by the destructor itself—a giant blue whale. The Leviathan shattered the bed, sending Namor diving out of danger's way. Digging his hands like daggers into the titles normally underfoot, he struggled to hold on as first the door to then the balcony itself were broken down instantly into wreckage.
The whale calmly swam on, having left the entire top floor of the palace scalped.
Namor stood. He looked out from the ruin of the chamber, watching first, the shadow of a large piece of palace, then the abstraction itself, having been tossed by the whale, plummeting toward a nondescript Atlantean home. He pushed off the lack of balcony, racing it. Arriving before the dwarfing rubble, Namor, striking a statue-like figure above the house's roof, was unable to, even with his superior strength, ward off the collision. In fact, he was buried under the mass, the two crashing into the house with a cloud of dust and debris following.
Atlanteans from nearby houses poured into the streets. They approached the disaster with trepidation. Nothing for a breathless second stirred within. Then, erupting through what had been the house's front entrance, Namor appeared, carrying, under an arm, a young crying boy. The congregated Atlantean subjects stared, gasped, and reeled for a stupefied second, before falling to their knees, some lying completely prostrate, before their king.
"Rise!" said Namor, a command shot through with frustration. A scream from the palace called his attention away. He started his return there, throwing over his shoulder: "Dig! There might be more survivors." His subjects rose, stunned and bowing as they moved forward to their task.
Namor followed his ear, ringing with the familiar voice in anguish, to Namorita's room, the door to which Namor burst through, adding splinters to the floating plaster and the overturned furniture. Zartma, turning his head toward the king's entrance, held a squirming Namorita—her eyes closed, her hand clenched, her shoulders twisting—as if trying to subdue her. Taken by surprise, Zartma went limp as Namor took him by the throat. The king thrashed him twice before throwing him against the wall. Zartma fell to the floor unconscious.
"Are you hurt?" asked Namor.
Namorita turned from him, collapsing unto the floor beside the bed, hiding her face in the bedclothes.
Namor watched her sobbing shoulders, his eyes calculating, his eyes caressing every part of her frame. "Did he—try to take advantage of you?"
"Yes!" she cried. "He said no one would notice us, and we could do whatever we wanted to because we were basically married." She raised her head, still averted from her cousin. Her eyes opened, glowing with an unnatural green cast. She smiled maliciously. "Then he had his hand all over me."
His teeth grinding, Namor picked the still form of Zartma up from where it had fallen and, despite his opponent's inability to retaliate, struck him with one blow after another.
Up the corridor and into the room came the visored royal guard. With their spears drawn, they positioned themselves—the defense holding back, obstructing the egress; the offense moving forward in a straight line into the room, then fanning out.
As if waking, Namor's paused his actions upon seeing his guard enter. His eyes cleared, and his face lost some of its tautness. He released Zartma, who floated lifeless before him.
Behind the royal guard, palace attendants now gathered. One gawking cook, behind the others—thus out of sight, where no one saw her green glowing eyes—shrieked, escaping swiftly into the street where she chanted, at the top of her voice and with her eyes emotionally closed: "Murder! Murder! There's been a murder in the palace!"
On-lookers arrived—the palace was besieged by the curious. Making their difficult way through these were two voices—loud, admonishing, imperial, calling for a path to be made, commanding the others to step aside. Krang and Noxas emerged eventually from the crowd, their tunics tied, their eyes wide, their heads held attentively high, unlike the bedraggled other, who were tousled by sleep and confused by the commotion.
"Who came screaming into the streets, shouting murder?" Krang asked, his bald head catching the diminished moonlight with every turn. "Where is she?"
"Perhaps the king can answer for her," said Noxas, his braided bear trembling as he spoke.
The crowd mocked the senators' search, worriedly looking for Namor here and there.
The king himself, at last, exited the palace by the grand front steps, evenly, stately, confidently. "The woman's cries are true," he said in his cold, hard voice.
Two guards exited the palace just then, filing past Namor, and holding, between them, the stretcher upon which were lain the remains of Zartma. Whatever groping, disheveled thoughts the crowd had, suddenly cleared, as all eyes, especially those of Krang and Noxas, followed, with morbid fascination and passionate disbelief, the unhurried procession of the body.
The first to free themselves from the hold the horror of the scene had seized the crowd with, was Krang and Noxas, each exuding a wordless blame while they collected their disbursed thoughts.
"Is this your doing, Namor?" asked Krang.
"Your king has acted as any king would—I have dealt with a traitor, a traitor who was found attacking a member of the royal family."
"This is beyond belief," said Noxas, turning is head away in disgust.
"You will be held accountable for this, Namor," said Krang. "This crime shall not—"
"Are you challenging your king, senator?" said Namor. "Do I have to remind you that any action of the king's in the defense of his kingdom cannot be considered unlawful."
The crowd parted again during Namor speech, revealing Keerg. Anxiety now held open the eyes that before wanted so dearly to close. He moved solemnly forward, the bluntness of his steps increasing as he approach his fallen scion. The guard lowered the stretcher. Keerg followed it to the ground, kneeling before its heavy cargo.
A pitying hush fell over the audience, Namor included—with all other voices muted, Keerg's sobbing was heard in greater, more grating, more sickening relief.
"And this is not a crime?" said Krang, his voice moist and quiet. He turned quickly, recklessly, to the crowd, addressing them with the same question: "I ask you, Atlanteans, is this a crime or is it not?"
"This is not a hearing!" said Namor, his wrath never more articulate. "And woe to him who tries to turn it into one!" He continued in a more intimate, a sharper, a more deadly voice, lowered and aimed at Krang alone: "How dare you even try to turn my subjects against me."
To which Krang, shamefacedly, did not reply.
"No one here sees," said Namor to his entire kingdom, "the real crime and the ever present danger…of the surface-men! What have they done up there to turn one of our own animals against us? Are you not at all eager to cease whatever vile plotting is underway there before more destruction comes? I will go, then, to the surface world to investigate and put a stop to these plans."
"You would leave now," said Krang, gesturing to the pitiable scene before him, "now, with what has just transpired?"
"I was not asking counsel of you, senator. I have no qualms disbanding the senate here and now—sending you, Krang, home as a mere peasant—if I hear anyone else giving me advice when I have asked for none!" Namor looked the meek crowd over for a chilling second. "I shall go to the surface world, leaving Namorita, who is my next in kin, upon the throne. When you see me next, my Atlanteans, you will know that your future peace has been preserved. Imperious Rex!"
Members of the crowd, through strained throats, echoed this call to arm as the Atlantean king soared into the swirling sky and away through the shattered dome.
While these few smiled nervously, turning their king's reassurance over in their minds, others, like the senators, looked sternly but silently into their neighbors eyes, while still others, weighed by the situation, bowed their heads in humble prayer to Neptune for the strength to survive these trying times.
There was nothing mixed, however, about the expression on Namorita's face, deeply hidden in the shadow of the palace's front columns. She grinned—she flashed set teeth—her eyes glowed green eerily.