As he sailed through the dark waters towards that crimson night, Seiya noticed that the stars in the sky faded as if blown by the night wind. The clatter of woodwork he was so used to fell silent in the darkness and he could now only see the outline of his hands, as well as a few others ahead.
"What is happening?" he asked, his voice echoing as if he were inside a marble chamber.
"It feels like we're being swallowed." June commented.
"We're not at the Galleon anymore." said Geist.
"What?" Seiya tried to look around, but it was too dark to see where he was.
But there was a curious sensation in his body that was as if he continued to respond to the waves of a sea, without being sailing. On dry land, it was as if his body was still waiting for the ocean's sway and tricking his labyrinth.
"I can't listen to anyone." said Seiya. "Lunara? Lunara!?"
Nobody answered.
"Where is everyone?"
"We are alone." said Geist at last.
"Is it an illusion?"
"No." replied Geist immediately. "We are not in an illusion. We are not at the Galleon, but we are still there. We are in both places at the same time."
Everything seemed impossible and there was an ethereal feeling to that night.
"And where is the rest of the crew?" June asked herself worriedly.
"They're still on the ship." said Geist.
"But if we're still on the ship..." Seiya commented, very confused.
"It's the Cosmo." guessed Geist. "There's something at work in our Cosmos."
Their voices echoed in that chamber, when they heard the sound of birds singing merrily; Seiya looked up into the air, where he would have expected birds to fly as they sang, and saw that on the horizon a dark cloud seemed to move across the sky to take the form of a torso supporting a head lit by purple and amber hues, in a kind of volatile energy that moved throughout that colossal figure in the sky.
A deep snore might have shaken the ground they were standing on, but it was barely heard.
"Who dares to bother me?" the voice was as if heaven were speaking to them. "You again, Yemeth?"
Seiya, June and Geist shrank and took a few steps back, joining in the center, as each believed have heard that deep voice from a different point in the sky than the other. That colossal shape in the sky seemed to react to them simply by the way the lights that illuminated its silhouette grew softer.
"Oh, children." he seemed to guess, with satisfaction, the deep voice in the darkness. "You are most welcome, my children. Your place awaits you."
Seiya, June and Geist were still tense and confused. For it was left to their Captain to finally dialogue with that strange and calm man.
"I am Argo Geist, Captain of the Athena's Galleon. Who or what are you?"
The purple lights that illuminated that silhouette grew slower, as if very suspicious.
"Together we will remember." replied the voice on the horizon. "We will drink together and there will be the sound of the fifes. Your long wait will come to an end."
But Geist was not satisfied.
"Yemeth you said. We are not Yemeth." she said bravely.
"You are not." agreed the voice.
"We haven't traveled this far. There must be a mistake. We want to return to our ship, this is not our destination."
"This is exactly your destiny." the voice returned quickly and, next to Seiya, a single point of distant light slowly appeared, like the glow of day at the end of a huge tunnel. "You will find Paradise if you walk into the light."
Geist could see that light as well, but she spoke quite gravely.
"We have to get back to our mission! We will leave this place or fight our way out of this prison."
The light wavered for a moment, as did the purple illumination of the silhouette in the sky.
"Five thousand years." the voice enumerated at length. "Haven't you learned patience after all this time? You are not trapped, nor can you do anything."
Seiya then was not afraid of that threat from the heavens and lit that darkness they were in with his beautiful and warm Pegasus Cosmo, covering his body with the bluish aura that always protected him and worked miracles in his battles.
"The same fire. Just like your parents." the voice spoke, and Geist noticed how the purple-lit silhouette now seemed to go up in flames. "Agamemnon, Odysseus, Hector..."
"Seiya..." Geist asked him to calm down, because the colossus on the horizon didn't look happy.
"We can't waste time here, Captain." Seiya argued.
And he didn't speak anymore, because he couldn't move anymore, and Geist knew that that voice had paralyzed Seiya and that the Pegasus Saint could never do anything. And what was bad then got worse, because Seiya began to feel as if his neck was slowly being tightened, making him lose his breath, as if a force was choking him in an invisible way.
"Stop! We understand." June shouted to the sky.
And then Seiya fell to the ground, as if released by force, breathing hard and pulling as hard as he could.
"That was your first lesson. Remember it." spoke the depth voice. "You will walk in the light and then you will adore me as your parents adored me."
"Who are you anyway?" asked Geist, while June tended to Seiya.
The deep snore echoed off the horizon before answering.
"Search for your distant memories. Those from millennia past. And I will be there."
A chill rose through them all.
"Your parents knew me. And your parents' parents."
The shape on the horizon of the sky slowly faded away, as if the clouds were falling apart, although his voice echoed one last time.
"Come. This is a time of joy, not of sadness. You're coming home. May your hearts be prepared to sing."
And disappeared, never to be heard from again. The path to Heaven was still lit, and the light guided them through the darkness, though none of them here had any interest in following that predestined path.
"Looks like we're trapped here." Seiya said to them.
"You said we were still at the the Galleon, Geist." June remembered.
"Yes. I don't feel that I live a reality, but it doesn't seem like an illusion either. It's something completely different from what I've ever experienced."
"Saga said he would show us what awaited us." Seiya recalled.
"The reason we shouldn't have killed him." June completed.
They looked at each other, looking for some way to find the way out, if only through the eyes of their sailing friends. For in that darkness only the lack of hope and light spread; only one path seemed to lead anywhere. And it was the one lit by the colossus of the horizon.
"Where do you think you're going, Seiya?" asked Geist when she saw that the boy took a few steps towards the light.
"Maybe we can get back to the Galleon if we go there."
"Don't take another step." the Captain ordered. "We will get out of here."
She then took off the pendant she had tied to her neck and her silver Cosmo lit up that darkness bringing a glow to her young face, but very dirty from the trip, making her very dark hair fly. She threw the pendant into the air, causing it to spin on its own axis, when it finally expanded, taken over by Geist's Cosmo, and returned to its Urn form. She placed her hand on the chain and pulled it open the Silver Urn to reveal the wonderful totem in the shape of a beautiful craft that exploded into the air, coating Captain Geist's body in the Silver Cloth of Argo.
"What are you going to do, Captain?" Seiya was very curious.
"Find our way home." she said, eyes closed. "The ancient ship of Argo was broken in old times, giving birth to three different constellations: Carina, Popa and Vela." as she spoke, she demonstrated with her right arm the parts that now made up her Silver Cloth. "But Athena kept in the Cloth the glow of its ancient Constellation and, more importantly, the manifestation of her origin. Argo Navis."
Geist's cosmos increased and, as she expanded, it gained golden details and her hair became even more disheveled. Seiya recognized that cosmic expansion, as Geist was trying to touch the Essence of his Cosmos, the Seventh Sense.
"You have to feel part of everything, Captain." he said, remembering his own miracles.
And with her eyes closed, Geist was part of it all. She was the Captain of Athena's Galleon, which sailed beneath her feet, though her Cosmo was light years away from where the waves crashed on the hull of her old ship. She opened her eyes and they were white and made of light, just like the silver diadem that adorned her hair.
"Shine, Canopus!" she cried. "Take us back to the Argo!"
Her silver cosmos slowly expanded and Seiya saw how before her a mythological and wonderful image appeared: that of mythological Athena in her Armor. Slowly, the ground on which June and Seiya were standing began to shake, and when Athena in front of them opened her eyes, everything lit up, and when they saw again, they were back in Athena's Galleon. Shining Geist with her Silver Cloth in the middle of the deck, Lunara and the crew fighting a storm. And with the return of Geist and Athena's scowl at the bow, everything miraculously calmed down.
And Geist collapsed on the deck in a faint.
Standing in the forecastle, Seiya and Lunara admired the scowl of Athena that had appeared on the ship's timbers; where before a simple but beautiful prow pointed towards the sky, now the wood seemed to have twisted to form the mythological figure of Athena with her arms behind her, as if flying across the ocean. Athena's Galleon had returned to its true form, as it had definitively resonated with its Captain's Seventh Sense, Argo Geist. This was the same famous ship of old and now it would take them safely wherever they needed.
Behind Seiya and Lunara finally appeared June and Captain Geist, still wearing her Silver Cloth under the Captain's overcoat.
"Are you better, Captain?" asked the little one.
She just nodded and joined them looking at the ocean that was speeding ahead and on its way to Asgard.
"Seiya told me that you were transported to another place." observed the little one.
Geist looked at the girl and then at June.
"Saga wanted to show us the threats that await us in the future." said Seiya.
"What was that voice?" June asked.
"A God." replied Geist, attracting their attention. "No, much worse than that. A forgotten God.
"Forgotten?" Seiya asked, a little confused.
"Yea. The Gods are immortal." Geist began to speak seriously. "But the Earth has changed. The children, as he said, have changed."
Argo Geist then took a deep breath, letting the breeze hit her face.
"He wanted to be adored." Seiya remembered those deep words.
"A forgotten God is just a memory. And a God cannot survive as a memory. The Gods of yore needed love, admiration, adoration. Of sacrifices and rituals. Just like we need to eat every day."
"And if we refuse..." — June mused.
"Then perhaps the worst could happen." — considered Geist.
Seiya looked at the infinity of the sea remembering Saga's madness, because then his fear might not havebeen unjustifiable, if it was in their future to fight against the fury of Gods like that. But then wasn't that mission they were in to seal Poseidon, perhaps one of the great Gods of old? And have they not fight alongside Athena as they prepared for a Holy War against the God of the Underworld, Hades?
Gods and children, he remembered the day Saori had revealed herself to them.
"Saga is perhaps right that we are not prepared to face a God like that."
"We are Saints of Athena." June remembered. "We'll have to fight even if it's against a God like that."
And silently they looked at the Ocean that, little by little, chilled their bones when the wind was more polar than usual. The Galleon was heading to its final destination, while Seiya pondered what really awaited them in that distant future. For now, he couldn't let the fear of a forgotten God make him forget what he needed to do in a few days.
On Star Hill, Nicol paced with a terrible dread planted in his mind; his mouth was babbling inaudible things. He left two books on a table in that main chamber of the Temple and bent over the Silver basin formed by his Crater Cloth. He sought to see in its crystalline water the answer to his desires.
"Tell me! Tell me the secrets I need to know. Help me, Silver Cloth!"
But the crystal clear water always seemed to give him the same answer. A hill. Many stars.
"I'm already here!" he barked, setting the basin aside and emerging out of the Temple talking to himself. "The answer is here on Star Hill, and this is where I am."
He knelt on the Temple stone and asked Heaven for an answer.
"The stars..." he guessed at last.
That was the Temple where the Pontiffs read the conjuncture of life and the universe according to the movement of the stars; the precise astromancy of the ancient Popes of the Sanctuary were its main characteristics, while the Crater Saints were always entrusted with the task of verifying and revising the readings of their Pontiff. No one has ever heard of a Crater Saint who could also read the movement of the stars, but that wouldn't be far-fetched.
That Crater Saint rose to his feet again, his eyes fixed on the stars that nowhere else shone brighter. Among them all, Nicol was sure there was one that shone the brightest, standing out.
"The North Star." he guessed, being shivered.
His worst fears were slowly coming to fruition, but there was something that terrified him even more. Just what made his heart froze when he came across such a curious notebook from the collection of the ancient Pope Zion.
"Who is the Gemini Saint? Who is Saga?" he asked himself. "Tell me, Stars of Heaven, who is Gemini? That's the answer I need!"
But the stars didn't answer him, even though the Crater Cloth insisted on always giving him the same answer to that question: Hill of Stars. But the stars on that hill would tell him nothing.
"Answer me!" he shouted into the air, finally dropping to his knees at the edge of the precipice of that hill.
Panting, he placed his hands in the sand that gathered in the stones of that Temple and then looked out into the darkness of the precipice, as dark as the night carpet on which the stars shone like jewels. And for an instant that precipice was as deep as the immensity of the universe above his head; he looked up again and felt tiny. He looked again into the depths of the abyss below him and likewise felt only as if he was a grain of sand.
For that abyss was as deep as the distance to the stars.
"The answer..."
He then finally understood.
"The voices of the mountain..."
And he got up, refreshed.
"Voices of the Mountain, I summon you. Talk to me!" he roared, echoing throughout the region. "Who is the Gemini Saint?"
And if the Stars from the Hill did not responded to him with their fleeting glow, the Mountain rumbled and a cacophonous voice finally rose from the abyss.
"Gemini."
Nicol's heart raced in his chest as he realized someone was listening.
"Yes, the Gemini Saint. Who is he? Who is Saga?"
And the deep, hoarse voice again answered him slowly, as if dragging the rocks of the mountain to speak.
"Gemini."
"Damn it, I know. That's what I'm asking about. Tell me about Gemini. Who is he!?"
But the voice seemed to have a single answer.
"Gemini."
Nicol's anxiety made him conclude that the Mountain Voices would just endlessly repeat his own question against him, without helping him at all, leaving him lost in his daydreams and doubts. But then, as he turned to head back to the Temple, that profound answer finally seemed to find meaning in his heart. A heart petrified with fear.
"Gemini."
He ran into the Temple.
"Gemini. Twins." he repeated to himself.
He opened the pages of the Atlantean Tome and compared Saga's red handwriting with his signatures and notes in the simple notebook of the Pontiff Zion. It wasn't the same. And it had eaten Nicol's chest with anxiety as soon as he suspected it, for if not him, who else could it be? Well, now he was absolutely sure. He knew now who the Gemini Saint was. A twin.
"By Athena..." — his voice trembled in the darkness as he read, perhaps for the first time really, that red entry in the Atlantean Tome. "Asgard. I sent them into a terrible trap."
And he hurried to return as soon as possible and alert Mayura and the entire Sanctuary, but as he took the outside towards the Owl Portal, Nicol saw out of the corner of his eye that he was not alone. And in a split second, he was no longer alive, pierced by a sharpened blade by an attacker in the dark.
"Twins..." he mumbled his last word before disappearing from there into another dimension.
Among the glaciers of the north, the Galleon of Athena slowly navigated avoiding the ice floes that were breaking away from the ancient continent. Lunara wore the fur coat that Seiya had received as a gift from Hyoga to ward off the cold that was already devastating that part of the world. Hyoga, a friend that Seiya so eagerly hoped to meet again in that port, which would be the last one before they returned to the Sanctuary.
Little more than a month since their departure, that crew faced their fears, their difficulties and found themselves a good sailor next to them. Geist was confident and no longer doubting her choices as Captain; June had a brief smile on her face, proud that they'd all made it this far; Seiya felt part of an important story of Athena, while Lunara knew she had found her family.
The only absence that was still silent in their hearts was Captain Kaire's heartfelt departure for eternity. Well, here they were to finally finish the mission that had started with that huge man.
"Captain's log, final entry: we've arrived in Asgard."
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Final Chapter of the Arc of the Seven Seas; we've been to so many cool places and now we're finally going to Asgard. The idea of the crew being sent to the future to see what awaits them came from one of the best episodes of Star Trek. And it blended in perfectly to show a Forgotten God, which could be one of the big threats that drove Saga to do what he did. Since he would probably know about it. Who is this Forgotten God? We will know in the future, perhaps. But I wanted to play with the idea of the Abel movie, where Abel was exiled from everyone's memory. About Geist de Argo: The idea for the boat to be the original Argo boat came from my Portuguese-language reviewer, and it fit perfectly into Geist's concept. Since she originally casts illusions, I created this power for her to also always be able to come out of illusions, as the Argo would always lead her to the right destination. The fate of Nicol came to an end, who was a very cool character to write, the guiding thread of this plot of the Tome of Atlantis and everything else. And let's go to Asgard.
NEXT CHAPTER: ASGARD, THE NORTHERN KINGDOM
Far away in Northern Europe is a forgotten place, enduring the harshest winter in recent times. A mythological place full of stories, but which men and women suffer terribly.