And in the beginning there was sea, and sky, and naught of what would one day lie between. And from the sky came Gale, Lord of Ice and Master of the Seven Winds, and from the sea came Stelos, Lord of the Depths and Courier of Riches.
-Book I of the Stelian Scriptures
Choking, I gasped for air. This had the unintended effect of allowing more freezing water into my lungs. Disoriented and drowning, I had the vague impression that this shouldn't be a problem for me. At the moment, however, oxygen was a higher priority than semantics.
I decided that one direction seemed faintly brighter than the others. Even as I saw it, my field of vision was beginning to contract, surrounded by mesmerizing darkness. I kicked upward, some tiny part of my mind still convinced that it mattered. Upward, upward I forged. My legs no longer felt like part of me; my arms seemed to be automatons, pulling me upward through the icy waves, powered by something that couldn't be me, because I damn sure didn't have any strength left. I wondered how long my body would keep swimming after I died. I never got a chance to test my hypothesis, because right then I realized I wasn't going upward any more.
Our Lord Stelos rose from the sea, fully forty times forty times the height of a man, the water of the sea raining down from the folds of his celestial robes, fish and dolphins and whales tumbling downward through the glittering cascade of seawater. And He drew in the first breath of air from the world, and He smiled.
It was only then that I started to panic - a damn fool time to do so, given that I had already assumed I was going to die - but I stopped when I realized why I'd stopped making progress. I heard the slap of my hands on water, and blinking the stinging salt water from my eyes, I saw that I had broken the surface. Sputtering water from my mouth, I sucked in a half breath of chilly air. Then I choked, and spent the next few minutes in agonizing paroxsyms wherein I tried to simultaneously expel water and draw in air. Drowning doesn't hurt too much, but almost drowning sure does.
Eventually, I managed to get some oxygen back in my bloodstream, and my head began to clear and feeling started to return to my frozen limbs. I was still coughing up water - and there was blood mixed in with it - and I realized that I was going to go into hypothermia very soon if I didn't get out of this water. I almost lapsed into hysterics at the thought that the reward for my heroic swimming would be nothing more than another ten minutes of life, twenty at most. Already aware that I was well out to sea, I began casting about for something to climb out of the water onto. There was debris everywhere; pieces of ornate wooden furniture, bits and pieces of other floating objects, and a good number of corpses. A small doll, bright smile still painted onto its wooden face, floated past me, but there didn't seem to be anything large enough for me to float upon that hadn't been smashed beyond repair.
Secrets there were beneath the waves that Stelos left behind, and they are secrets that He shall never reveal to mortal man until the Day When All Shall Be Tallied. And as He strode forth from the ocean, He allowed to fall one single tear from each eye, in remembrance of that which He left behind. And the salty tears of Stelos dropped into the sea, and spread throughout it, and the ocean - which was before as fresh as the water of the mountain springs - has been filled with salt forevermore.
Something glittered in the distance, catching my eye. Then a human body floated in front of it. I paddled sideways, around the dead man, and caught the sight of a smashed spire, glittering like a diamond in the brilliant light of sunset, sinking beneath the waves, and I suddenly knew that I was the last living being to ever set eyes on the glory of Atlantis.
My skull was suddenly pounding with images and disjointed visions of the Great City. I was walking down the Avenue of a Thousand Lights, washing down lobster thermidor with an excellent white wine at a restaurant on the docks, dancing in the grand ballroom at the Shimmering Palace. I was shouting, singing, fighting, loving. I began to weep, tears pouring down my cheeks, adding themselves to the ocean. There were a million and one beautiful people in that city of wonder, and now a million of them were dead.
Not that it mattered; soon I would be dead too. In a way, I was grateful; I had had time to mourn. Many had not. Hardly anyone had taken seriously the words of the soothsayers and prophets, that the City would soon be lost beneath the crashing waves. As I bobbed there, alone in a sea of corpses and tears, I knew that I had listened to them. But the people hadn't believed me. Not at first. Not until the end.
And the Power coursed through Stelos, as it indeed always had, and He summoned it into His hands, and His legs, and His eyes, and He saw that He was indeed mighty.
At the end…there was something important there. Part of my mind wondered what could be important, now; I had four or five minutes to live, at most, and even if I remembered, it wasn't as if there was anyone around to hear about my glorious revelation.
At the end…the city, beginning to sink, the spires of the Shimmering Palace toppling and smashing on the ground, hurling splinters of glass through chambers and windows and eyes. At the end, the screams of the dying, the cries of mother and child seeking each other, the desperate pleas for mercy from whatever forces rained this destruction down upon us. At the end, a final upswelling of belief, the belief I had always sought from the people of the City but had never had. Until now.
Belief is a powerful thing, I knew. The desperate, dying thoughts of a million people have a strength to them. A strength that they had granted, at the last, to the one who had been chosen by their High Priest. Energy that they had bestowed upon the one who had been prophecied to preserve them, to give them life beyond death. Power that they had bequeathed, in their final hour, to me.
And the Lord Stelos did make the waters of the ocean to boil, and He summoned the Seven Winds, the servants of Gale, to him, and He bid them carry Him to land, that He might bring life and joy and song and wealth and lore to all the peoples of the world. And the Seven Winds did as He bade them, for having once looked upon His wise and noble and just countenance, they could not but do otherwise.
That was why there was no need to drown, or to feel cold. I snapped my fingers - unnecessary, but snapping one's fingers is tradition when utilizing supernormal powers - and abruptly the water about me was as warm as a comfortable bath. I snapped again, and I stopped being heavier than the water; I could now float comfortably without expending any effort to swim. But now what to do? Heating water is one thing, but the only thing I cared about was raising Atlantis, and that would take a lot more power to accomplish than I had. Only a being of supreme power would be able to do that. I sighed, wondering where I could acquire such might.
Off in the distance, away from Atlantis, there was a faint sparkle; a few minutes ago, it would not have been visible, but now our fading sun had sunk below the horizon for the last time, allowing me to see the onrushing field of actuality. Of course. With Atlantis gone, the old universe was over, and there was room - in a metaphysical sense - for a new one. Or perhaps time would be a better word than room. No matter. I snapped my fingers a third time, and a brisk wind picked up, pressing me forward, rushing into the rapidly approaching universe. Within, I knew that I would find beings to test my strength, but only by mastering them and harnessing their power could I bring the Great City once more above the waves. The carnage where my city - my home - mighty Atlantis - had once been receded behind me, as the wind carried me forward. As I accelerated, rising up out of the sea in the gentle fingers of the gale, I silently swore an oath to return some day, if I could.
Even if it took all the time in the world.