See the first chapter for disclaimers and major canon divergences.

And here we have the next chapter! I hope you enjoy this one as well. Thanks again to everyone who left kudos and comments.

Also, a heads-up: I am slowly running out of the chapters I had pre-written prior to and during the posting of the previous chapters. I had planned on writing one chapter every week in order to keep up, but university, personal life, and medical issues are getting a bit in the way, so don't be surprised if at a certain point I will have to post every two weeks instead of every single week.

Chapter 4

Even by ship it took a couple of hours before Arthur and Orm reached the coast of Africa. Most of the ride had been spent in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Arthur had tried to break the silence by asking where they were headed, but his brother had only replied briefly that they were headed towards the Deserter Kingdom in the Sahara Desert. He didn't add anything else to the conversation, so Arthur had let it be.

As they emerged from the water near a small town, Arthur noticed they were being stared at. A lot. He supposed they could have left the water a bit more discreetly. Orm was also receiving a lot of looks because the scaly deep blue Atlantean suit he wore. Yeah, we're going to need to get him some clothes, Arthur thought as looked around the town, noting a store and a cargo plane. "How much further?" he asked. Depending on the distance they still had to go, they might have to use the plane. Orm pulled out the device he'd brought with them which tracked their route to the Deserter Kingdom. He glanced down at it. "The tracker shows it is still some distance further into the desert." Arthur nodded. The plane it was.

He pulled Orm into the store and picked out some clothes that looked around Orm's size. His brother refused to wear the 'human garbs' at first, stating that his suit was perfectly capable of covering him and keeping him warm. He'd finally relented when Arthur insisted they needed to blend in. They paid the suspicious shopkeeper with some golden Atlantean coins Orm had brought with them and which Arthur tried to explain away as pirate treasure. They used the same tactic to pay the airplane's pirate to fly them across the Sahara Desert. Within the hour they were up in the sky.

Arthur glanced over at Orm, who was sitting on a crate opposite him. His brother seemed uncomfortable as he looked out of the window. Every once in a while he grimaced and moved his hand to his stomach. "Are you alright, little brother?" Orm gave him an annoyed look. "Do not call me brother." After a while he added: "I'm well enough. I've just never been so high before." Arthur hummed thoughtfully as his brother's face twisted once more. "I used to have air sickness as a kid too, but the more you fly the lesser it gets. Here." He handed Orm a bottle of water standing close by. "Staying hydrated and taking deep calm breaths will help to stop the nausea. Oh, and try swallowing every once in a while too. It'll relieve the pressure in your ears from the changing altitudes." "I can't understand why you humans would even use this type of unpleasant transportation," Orm grumbled, but Arthur was satisfied to note his brother was sipping from the water and seemed to be taking more calm and measured breaths. "Unpleasant or not, it is the fastest way of travel up here," he explained. Orm still looked slightly vexed, but did not argue. Instead he pulled out the tracking device again.

About an hour later the device started beeping and Orm got up. "We're here," he exclaimed. Arthur, who had been dozing off, stood up and walked up to the open door of the cockpit. "Hey, is there landing strip nearby?" The pilot shook his head. "Nothing but desert for miles, I'm afraid." Arthur spun around as he heard the sounds of creaking metal. Orm was ripping the door open. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Arthur ran to try to stop him, but it was too late. Orm had already flung himself outside. "Did he just jump out of the airplane?!" the pilot asked. "He has no parachute!" Arthur laughed apologetically. "Crazy blondes, am I right?" he joked, before following Orm's suit and jumping out of the airplane.

Orm was coughing up sand and wiping it off of his clothes as Arthur landed beside him. He stood up and started brushing down his pants. The fall hadn't been pleasant, but at least they were close to their destination. Somewhere next to him Arthur was laughing. "You're crazier than I thought." Orm ignored him and grabbed the tracker out of the bag. "This way," he said as he started walking up a dune.

About 20 minutes later, the tracker started beeping slightly faster. Orm stopped and looked at the device in his hand. "We're getting close now." Arthur let out a frustrated cry. "Close to what? Dying of thirst? Look around you, we are lost. This place is a wasteland." "Well you're the one who calls this wasteland a home," Orm shot back before continuing to walk again. "This isn't my home," Arthur called as he tried to catch up. "It's not like the entire surface looks like this."

Orm snorted. "Oh, of course not. You also have disgusting cities whose sewers empty out into our oceans and whole mountains of trash. And oh, let's not forget your factories that do nothing but belch out filth and melt icecaps. And-" "Okay, okay, point taken," Arthur interrupted as he finally caught up to him. "Yeah we do have some idiots that run the show up here, but we have many good things too. We've got great green forests and big mountains and beautiful lakes. You'd love them, they're like little baby oceans."

Orm stared incredulously at his half-brother. Baby oceans? "Are trying to provoke me?" he asked as he tried to keep his temper in check. Arthur held up his hands in a defensive manner. "I'm just saying you shouldn't judge a place before you've even seen it." Orm snorted again. "You have judged Atlantis on far less." They walked on in silence.

Fifteen minutes at most had passed before Arthur stopped and started grumbling again. "This is hopeless. We are stranded and we don't have any water or food because your Atlantean GPS told you to randomly jump out of an airplane." Orm glanced down at the device which had been beeping increasingly faster for the past couple of minutes. Strange, we should be there by now. Arthur threw his hands in the air. "There's nothing here! Just sand, sand, sa- Aaargh."

Orm looked down at the hole in the sand where his brother had been rambling mere seconds ago and sighed. "If you're the next True King, we're doomed." He shook his head and jumped into the hole which closed back up above him. He slid down along various rocks and skeletons of enormous sea creatures as sand seemed to be trickling down from the ceiling. Suddenly, the rocky surface beneath him disappeared and was replaced by a deep ravine, the bottom of which was lost to the darkness. As gravity began to take hold and drag him down, Orm panicked for a brief second. He didn't know what was down there. What if he didn't survive?

Fortunately, his arm was grabbed by a hand, and instead of falling into the darkness his body slammed into the side of the ravine "Got you." Orm looked up at hearing Arthur's voice. The dark-haired man was holding unto a ledge with one hand whilst holding Orm with the other. With a grunt he raised Orm up over the ledge before climbing unto it himself as well.

Both men laid on their back, trying to regain their breath. Arthur started to laugh. "Well, that was awesome." Orm looked at him incredulously. "How can you make jokes in a situation like this?" Arthur snorted as he got up. "Well, excuse me, your Highness, if I use comedy to mask my feelings and deal with stress instead of being a very uptight butthole." Orm just shook his head. Humans. "If you are finding this so stressful, perhaps you should leave and drop your claim to the throne," he retorted as he got up as well. Arthur sighed as he started to walk along the ledge. "I don't want to be king. I never have. All I want is to prevent you and Atlantis from destroying the surface world. If you lot weren't being such an asshole, we wouldn't be here."

Orm frowned in confusion. Did his brother truly have no desire for the throne? Had his father been wrong all this time? "Wait," he called as he caught up with Arthur and halted him with a hand on his chest. "You came to Atlantis to challenge me for the throne and you don't even want it? You truly have no ambition for it?" "Absolutely not." Arthur's eyes were honest and clear. "I mean, look at me. I'd hate being stuck in meetings and councils and whatnot. I've never learned to be a ruler, so I'd probably be terribly at it anyways." They started walking again. Orm was stunned. "From the day my father found out you existed he prepared me for the moment you would come and challenge me for the throne." Arthur snorted. "Well, he was wrong."

The two brothers found a way to get off of the ledge and walked along the many halls and corridors of the Deserter Kingdom. Any other day Orm might have gazed with awe at the architecture of this long-lost civilization, but now he was simply staring out in front of him without really seeing anything. His mind was still reeling with what had just been said. He believed his half-brother when he said he didn't want to be king. Why did father insist then that Arthur wanted the throne? Had he truly believed so, or was he simply jealous that Atlanna had had a child with someone else? Did mother die due to his father's jealousness instead of some betrayal against the people of Atlantis?

Suddenly, his ears picked up the sounds of shifting sand and little rocks were falling into a crevice. He spun around and scanned the exits and dark corners of the room they were in, but could not see anything. "What is it?" Arthur asked. "Probably nothing," Orm replied, still suspicious as he slowly turned back. "Just thought I heard something."

Arthur's stomach growled. He realized that the last time he'd had a proper meal was more than a day ago. His Atlantean heritage meant he could go quite a bit longer without food, but he preferred to have at least one nice meal a day. He glanced over at Orm, who had had a troubled pensive look on his face ever since their conversation on the ledge. "You know what would be nice right now?" Arthur started, trying to distract his younger brother. "A great big greasy cheeseburger with fries and a beer. You have to admit that the food on the surface is great." Orm huffed. "I find that hard to believe."

Now it was Arthur's turn to halt his brother and look surprised. "Hold up. You're telling me you never went topside to have a cheeseburger? Or pepperoni pizza? Or even a milkshake?!" Orm pulled a face. "Even the words surface-dwellers give their food sound disgusting." Arthur let out a sigh. "You really have let your prejudices stop you from enjoying half the world, haven't you? Ever think about that?" Arthur turned left and went inside of a hallway they hadn't visited before. "It's your lose, dude." He missed the frown which formed on Orm's face.

At the end of the hallway was a passage which partly blocked off. Arthur kicked the rubble away with his foot and entered. "Wow. Check this place out." He was now in an enormous hall filled with a dozen sandstone pillars. A large hearth was located at the left side wall whilst anvils, stone tables, and metal tools filled most of the rest of the room. A round altar was located at the far end of the hall. "This is the Deserter's Hall of Armory, where the legends say Atlan's Trident was forged," Orm commented as he entered as well. Arthur noticed a broken stone mold of a trident lying close by on the floor. "I don't think they're just legends anymore." Orm knelt next to the mold, his face filled with awe. "You were right. It is real."

They searched through the room before finally arriving at the altar. Arthur noticed a round set of holes on it that seemed to have the same diameter as Vulko's cylinder. He turned to ask Orm to grab the cylinder, but saw his brother was already digging through their bag and pulled it out triumphantly. One side of it had ridges that perfectly matched up with the holes on the altar. Orm placed the cylinder on the altar and slid it into place.

Nothing happened. Arthur's shoulders slumped whilst his brother frowned. "Nothing." Arthur threw his arms in the air. "Of course it is not working. The technology has been sitting here collecting dust since before the Sahara was a desert." He tried to keep his disappointment in check. What would happen if this didn't work? Would Atlantis still wage war on the surface? Would Orm and he have to fight in the Combat of the Kings after all? Arthur really did not want to fight his younger brother. He had never hated Orm, and though he was a bit of an uptight butthole, he was growing on Arthur.

His brother started to speak slowly. "Since before the Sahara was a desert… Of course! It's completely dried out." Orm dug inside the bag again and fished out the bottle of water Arthur had given him on the plane. He removed the cap and carefully placed a few drops on top of the cylinder. A few seconds later blue glowing lines appeared and spread across both the cylinder and the altar. A hologram flickered into being above the platform. It showed an old man holding a trident and wearing golden armor as well as crown. Arthur heard his brother gasp beside him and whisper "King Atlan."

The hologram of the king held out its weapon. "In this trident resides the power of Atlantis. In the wrong hands it would bring destruction but in the hands of the True Heir, it would unite all our kingdoms above and below. If you seek my power, you must prove your worth. Journey beyond the edge of the world to the Hidden Sea. Look inside the bottle for the charted path. Only in the hands of the True King, can he truly see."

The hologram stopped, the blue lights disappeared, and the cylinder popped out of the platform. It fell on the floor and broke into multiple pieces before Arthur could catch it. He sighed. "Man, we should've written it down." His brother shrugged. "I memorized it. Didn't you?" "Uh… Yeah, totally." Orm crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "What did he just say?" "Something, something, trident." Of course Arthur knew the broad outlines, but he did not remember the exact wording. His brother let out an exasperated sigh.

Suddenly an invisible hatch slid open in the floor. Arthur quickly pulled his brother towards him in order to prevent him from falling in it, causing them to bump into each other. Orm glanced up at him with a strange look on his face which he couldn't decipher. It seemed like a combination of surprise and something else. After a second, they broke apart.

Arthur squatted down and pulled out the object that was hidden beneath a layer of sand in the small compartment that had appeared. It was a glass bottle with a piece of parchment inside. He removed the cork and started to unroll the vellum. Orm looked along over his shoulder. It showed a map of Sicily with a red dot on a spot along the coast.

"Well, we have our next stop."

And there you have the next chapter! Next chapter will be posted next Sunday (17-3-2024).