Aquaman #2

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An Earth-A Book!
Issue #2: "The Quest for Atlantis Begins!"
Written by David Charlton
Art by Joey Jarin
Edited by David Charlton[/center]


Two figures cut through the deep waters of the Mid-Atlantic, far from land, but closer to home. At least one of them hoped so. The media had long ago dubbed him Aquaman, given him the nickname King of the Seven Seas--- but in his wildest dreams, Arthur Curry had never thought the title would turn out to be true!

Not long ago, he had been the orphaned son of a lighthouse keeper and a mysterious woman who came out of the sea. That woman, he now knew, thanks to the young man swimming at his side, had been Atlanna, exiled queen of Atlantis. And that made Aquaman the lost heir to the throne of a fabled undersea realm.

*How much further?* he sent telepathically to Garth, the young Atlantean sent to find him and bring him home.

Garth stared into the distance, where ahead of them jutted colossal outcroppings of rock, an imposingly high range of mountains that seemed to make him uneasy.

*I’m not really sure…* Garth stopped swimming and treaded water. It was obvious he did not want to get any closer to those massifs. *It’s all so hazy,* he put a hand to his dark, curly hair. *But I really don’t like this place.*

Pulling up short, Aquaman glanced back at his new comrade. He had so many questions for the young man, but had been forced to bite his tongue. Before Aquaman had found Garth at the Curry’s lighthouse, drawn there by the presence of the Trident of Neptune in Arthur’s hands, he had experienced an event so traumatic it had left the young man with severe amnesia. Garth could not remember what had happened to him, or much of his life before their meeting at all.

*What is it, Garth?* Aquaman pressed gently, looking from the purple-eyed youngster to the mountains. That was one mystery solved: apparently, telepathy was a trait all Atlanteans had evolved to communicate underwater with one another. *It’s just the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It’s where two tectonic plates come together, and grind the surface of the ocean floor upward. We’ll have to cross them if we want to go on, they extend thousands of miles north and south…*

*This is where it happened,* Garth just stared at the towering, basalt wall, shaking his head. *This is where Tula and I…* he trailed off, blinking in sudden recognition. *Tula!*

Aquaman was taken aback by the look of horror on his companion’s face. *Garth, who’s Tula?*

*She’s my… She came with me on my mission! She’s my friend. How did I not remember her? I… I think they hurt her, King Arthur,*

*I told you, just Arthur. Or Aquaman, on the surface world. King Arthur is… somebody else. Now, who hurt her, Garth? Tell me what happened so I can help.*

Garth gave Aquaman a hopeless look. *All I can remember is being attacked in there,* he pointed back to the mountains. *By horrible creatures… We were terrified. Tula screamed… I think they hurt her real bad, Arthur. I don’t know how I survived.*

Aquaman drifted closer to Garth, resting a comforting hand on the youth’s shoulder. *Do you think you can find the exact spot they attacked you?*

*I don’t know,* Garth frowned, looking up at Aquaman. *But I’ll try. Do you think there’s a chance Tula’s still alive...?*

*I don’t know, lad, but we owe it to your friend to look.* Aquaman kicked off in the direction of the mountains. *And it she isn’t, then we owe it to her to bring her murderers to justice.*



Not far away, nestled in the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge’s ancient peaks, was a castle of volcanic rock and sharpest obsidian. It was a twisting, tortured thing, pulled from the hot magma that bubbled up between the tectonic plates, cooled and shaped by tide and sorcery. It was guarded by a colony of feral, mutated hydromedusae, their enormous jellied bodies free-floating in an expanding perimeter outward from the black spires, their electrified tentacles writhing beneath their transparent bell-shaped bodies.

Within the castle, Cykroth the Unholy watched Aquaman and Garth on a mirror of smooth volcanic glass as they swam closer to his lair.

He was a denizen of Old Atlantis, from before the Sinking. Called by dark magicks from his own nightmare dimension, he had made the mortals his slaves and playthings. Over nine feet tall, he was a mass of muscle and malevolence, with twin horns twisting from the sides of his head, framing his single, never-blinking eye. He had been driven out by a long-dead Atlantean hero-mage, and had made his home in the dark places of the earth, biding his time and marshalling his powers. He was close now. Soon he would rise up in might, and claim the undersea kingdoms for his own.

*Who are they?* he mused, sprawled in his basalt throne, idly tugging the chains of the green-skinned Mermazon slavegirls at his feet. They whimpered and pawed at him, but he ignored them. *Why does their coming fill me with apprehension?*

*Dread One?*

Tenebros was a blue-skinned Lemurian warlord, and commander of Cykroth’s horde. The exiled Lemurian bristled with arms and armor, clad in a helmet topped with seagrass dyed red, and twin swords sheathed at his back. He was a deadly fighter, and it was said waters turned to ice when he passed through them. He stood at his master’s right-hand, as he had for millennia, kept alive by his master’s dark sorceries.

*The boy is nothing,* Cykroth’s massive hand moved in a dismissive gesture. *But the man with the trident… He bears the Mark of Kordax.”

Tenebros glanced at the obsidian mirror. *The boy is the one from Poseidonis who escaped us a few tides past. He and his companion, the girl, had stumbled upon the Vale of Xaos and looked into the well at what dwelt there.* He snorted. *I’m surprised the boy is not mad. The man I know not. Shall I bring you his head, Dread One, that he may trouble you no more?*

*Yes, my servant. Yesss…*




Deep within the rift valley now, Aquaman and Garth were forced to slow their pace, swimming between the jagged spikes of stone and abyssal gulfs below them. Something did not feel right to Arthur. He stretched out with his telepathic senses, but was unable to get a response from any sea life.

*There’s something very wrong about this place,* he sent to Garth. *I can’t even get a guppy to talk to me.*

*I think we’re close now,* Garth told him, bravely, angling his body down and through a gap in the rocks. *This way!*

Aquaman followed closely. The gap opened into a wide, bowl-shaped canyon, the mountains rising on all sides. In the center of the canyon was a crack in the sea-floor, like a well, and out of it seeped black, viscous plasma, drifting away on the tide like a chimney-stack polluting the air.

*That smell…!* Arthur’s face twisted in disgust. *Whatever’s bubbling up from that hole is foul. Some kind of sulfurous gas from the core…?*

But Garth was paying him no attention. The young man stared at the crack in the earth with revulsion, and his whole body began to shake.

*Garth, what is it? Do you recognize this place?* Arthur floated up to his companion.

Garth’s eyes were wide. *Don’t look in the well,* he sent frantically to Arthur. *Oh, Gods help me… Tula! Tula!*

The boy was having some kind of fit. Arthur grabbed him and shook him, but Garth ignored him and kept calling out to his friend, squeezing his eyes against the horror he remembered in this deep vale.

Then Aquaman saw them. They emerged from the gaps and crevices all around them, green-skinned and scaled, humanoid but with the bulbous eyes and lipless mouths of fish. Needle-like teeth glittered in those unnaturally wide maws, and in their hands they carried spears of sharpened coral and swords of hardened obsidian, with edges of molecular sharpness.

*She’s dead, boy,* Tenebros floated down to join his Icthyian warriors. *She died in this place, screaming in terror. Just like the two of you will.*

Though they were surrounded, Aquaman pulled the unresponsive Garth behind him and reversed the Trident of Neptune, pointing it at Tenebros. *Like hell we will.*

The Icthyians surged forward. Aquaman slashed down with the Trident, shattering a line of swords and spears as if they were icicles. He rotated himself, pushing Garth out of the way, and kicked two-footed at the creatures sneaking up on them, sending both hurtling end over end backward with broken bones.

*Kill them both, but bring me the head of yellowhair, and his trident.* Tenebros threw the rest of his warriors into the fight.

Scissoring his legs, Aquaman propelled himself at lightning speed through the water, towards Tenebros. The Lemurian warlord was taken aback by the sudden attack, but the Icthyians closed in, barring the way. The Sea King cut through them, knocking them aside with fist, foot and Trident. He did not know how to fight with the weapon, but he was learning fast. He swung wide with it, forcing the fishmen to retreat, then jabbed when one got too close. If he could only get to their blue-skinned leader…!

*Garth, snap out of it!* Arthur sent out desperately. The boy just twitched in the throes of his trauma, adrift. Arthur fought like a whirling dervish, because he knew the moment one of the hideous Icthyians disengaged, the boy was dead.

One of the fishmen got in close, slashing Aquaman across the chest before he could bring the butt of the Trident down hard on the scaled head. Blood rose in a delicate, smoky pattern in the water, and Arthur felt his temper rise with the pain.

You may have two arms and two legs, but you sure look like fish to me. The Sea King concentrated all his senses on his telepathic powers and exerted his consciousness as forcefully as he had ever done. Concentric waves of compulsion radiated from his brow--- Fall, fall, fall!--- and all around him, Icthyians dropped their weapons to clasped their heads. They bent double in the water, and for some it was too much, and they fled, despite Tenebros’ stunned orders to regroup.

Aquaman could not maintain the mental assault for long. He disengaged from them, almost as worse for wear as they were.

Tenebros shoved his way through nearly comatose Icthyians, heedless of their wellbeing. He gave Aquaman an appraising look, even as he drew his wickedly curved swords.

*Who are you, yellowhair?*

Aquaman grasped his Trident before him in both hands, facing off against the Lemurian warlord. *Didn’t you hear? I’m the Lost King of Atlantis. But you can call me Aquaman.*

One of Tenebros’ eyebrows arched, but he wasted no more time. He moved in, blades flashing through the water, churning bubbles like a cloud around them. Aquaman was just as fast, raising his Trident and catching the blades, twisting and shoving them back. The tines of the Trident slashed across Tenebros’ body, scoring his obsidian armor, forcing him to twist and purchase altitude. His double-handed hacking blow was blocked again, and this time, Aquaman released the Trident with one hand and drove his fist at his opponent’s body, hitting with enough power to crack the breastplate and send Tenebros flailing backward.

Having gained a little time while Tenebros righted himself, Aquaman glanced back at Garth. The boy had drifted close to the steaming hole in the ocean floor, as if summoned by it. The ichor rising from in seemed to increase.

*Damn it, Garth! Snap out of it!*

Then Tenebros was on him again, blades a blur. Aquaman was in the fight of his life





Stuffed down deep in his consciousness, Garth was aware of what was going on. They were being attacked by Icthyian hordelings. The infamous Tenebros was there, a name that resounded in Garth’s subconscious as one to fear. The king--- the Aquaman, Arthur, his new friend, was outnumbered and fighting for both their lives. And Garth was being drawn inexorably towards the well.

That awful crack in the earth, that wound in the body of the world, oozing foulness and emanating dread. It called to him, beckoned him. He had seen it once before, he knew, though the memory was mercifully vague and filled with images of panic and horror: a swirling, endless darkness, deeper than reality, Tula wailing, calling his name, and the voice in his head, that hungry, alien voice, beckoning him, insinuating itself into his will…

*Damn it, Garth! Snap out of it!*

I want to, Arthur! A sobbed welled up from within the young man, even as he floated right up to the edge of the well now. I don’t want to look again…!

Garth alit on the ocean floor and knelt at the edge of the hole. The whispering was in his head again, the wordless gibbering of a ravening, insane thing. Garth looked into the well.

Through the globules of plasma and ichor, something stirred.

The ocean floor began to shake. The rocks of the rift valley shifted and crumbled in places, rolling down into the canyon. From where they grappled, Tenebros and Aquaman both paused, turning to Garth.

*The boy has doomed us all.* Tenebros kicked off from Aquaman. *He’s wakened Xaos…*

In horror, Aquaman called out to his young companion just as the ocean floor heaved and undulated. Then something burst from the hole in the world and the screaming began…