Vampire in Atlantis

into the cramping ache. Unfortunately, the crystal case had been designed for sleeping maidens, not those having contortions, so she smacked her head into the gently curved cover and cried out again.
    Pain. Sensation. Feelings she’d lacked for so long she couldn’t remember them. The shock of tactile sensation strangled the words she’d been about to speak, and before she could even remember what they’d been—What does one say after eleven thousand years of silence? Shouldn’t it be weighty and profound?—the first crack appeared in the surface of her crystal cage.
    As she watched, her eyes still open—maybe it was a dream, yet another dream where she believed she’d woken up; no it couldn’t be a dream, she’d never felt pain in one of those dreams — the small crack widened and lengthened into a rapidly growing spiderweb.
    Her confusion turned to terror and her mind started screaming at her, a mindless howl of fear that turned to rage.
    LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!
    Almost before she had time to realize she might be in danger, a wave of power built up in the crystal case until the cover shattered, exploding outward as if she’d shoved it with a giant smithy’s hammer. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t process the shocking truth.
    She was free.
    Free .
    And her magic had grown exponentially since she’d last attempted to use it, thanks to the influence of the Emperor’s power.
    Ignoring everything outside her immediate actions, she took a deep breath and then the next step—the first step. Carefully, oh so carefully, she lifted one leg, bare under the long tunic she wore, and stepped out onto the marble floor, easily avoiding the glass shards that had blown several paces away from her small pod. She stood, gazing around herself in wild-eyed wonder, for nearly the space of a single thought, and then her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed onto the cool, hard surface.
    Magic and stasis had kept her body in perfect working order, but neither could overcome the dueling emotions warring inside her. Ecstasy fought terror and her mind was the battleground—the shock of finally, finally attaining the freedom she’d dreamed of for so very long threatened to shake her rational mind free of its foundation. She huddled on the floor for a moment, then lifted her head and forced her voice to work. “I’m free. Oh, thank Poseidon, I am free.”
    Perhaps not words profound to anyone else but her, but that was enough. She scanned the room, still lying on the marble floor she’d last touched when Atlantis rode the surface of the waves, finally thinking to wonder why the attendants hadn’t come to her aid. The answer was instantly apparent. The burst of power that had shattered her crystal cage must have smashed the three of them against the walls of the chamber, and they lay unconscious on the floor.
    She hoped they were only unconscious. She summoned long-unused senses, tentatively reaching out to them. Yes, unconscious. Relief poured through her. Three hearts beating strongly. She hadn’t woken into the new millennium as a murderer, even an accidental one. She pulled herself up to stand, moving cautiously, not trusting that the magic had really kept her limbs in working order. But both legs worked and her muscles felt as firm and flexible as if she’d walked across the palace courtyard just hours before, instead of countless years ago.
    A high priest’s magic, fueled by a god’s power, had held her safe and whole for so long. But what, then, was happening now? Still moving slowly, she made her way to the other glass cases, one by one, around the room, to all five that still held occupants. Five more women, all so young when they’d been encased in crystal. The youngest, Delia, had been only twenty-five years old, the same age as Serai, when they’d trapped her. Just barely old enough to wed, by Atlantean standards—ten or more years past that by the conventions of the rest of the world at that time. But Atlanteans lived a very long life span, and a quarter century was barely old enough to risk the soul-meld—hundreds of years bound to the same person.
    She shook her head, impatient with her wandering thoughts. Perhaps the stasis that hadn’t weakened her body had weakened her mind. Shouts in the distance alerted her to the very real possibility that the priests of Poseidon’s temple had sensed the disturbance here.
    “If they catch me, they’ll try to trap