15. ZAEMON'S SUMMONS
Since the days when man was first created upon the earth by Gods wholooked down and did their work from another place, there have alwaysbeen areas of the land ill-adapted for his maintenance, but none more sothan that part of Atlantis which lies over against the savage continentsof Europe and Africa. The common people avoid it, because of asuperstition which says that the spirits of the evil dead stalk aboutthere in broad daylight, and slay all those that the more open dangersof the place might otherwise spare. And so it has happened often thatthe criminals who might have fled there from justice, have returnedof their own free will, and voluntarily given themselves up to thetormentors, rather than face its fabulous terrors.
To the educated, many of these legends are known to be mythical; butwithal there are enough disquietudes remaining to make life very arduousand stocked with peril. Everywhere the mountains keep their contentson the boil; earth tremors are every day's experience; gushes of unseenevil vapours steal upon one with such cunningness and speed, that it isoften hard to flee in time before one is choked and killed; poisons wellup into the rivers, yet leave their colour unchanged; great cracks splitacross the ground reaching down to the fires beneath, and the watersgush into these, and are shot forth again with devastating explosion;and always may be expected great outpourings of boiling mud or moltenrock.
Yet with all this, there are great sombre forests in these lands, withtrees whose age is unimaginable, and fires amongst the herbage are rare.All beneath the trees is water, and the air is full of warm steam andwetness. For a man to live in that constant hot damp is very mortifyingto the strength. But strength is wanted, and cunning also beyond theordinary, for these dangerous lands are the abode of the lizards, whichof all beasts grow to the most enormous size and are the most fearsometo deal with.
There are countless families and species of these lizards, and with someof them a man can contend with prospect of success. But there are otherswhose hugeness no human force can battle against. One I saw, as it cameup out of a lake after gaining its day's food, that made the wet landshake and pulse as it trod. It could have taken Phorenice's mammoth intoits belly,* and even a mammoth in full charge could not have harmed it.Great horny plates covered its head and body, and on the ridge of itsback and tail and limbs were spines that tore great slivers from theblack trees as it passed amongst them.
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Professor Reeder of the Wyoming State Universityhas recently unearthed the skeleton of a Brontosaurus, 130 ft. inlength, which would have weighed 50 tons when alive. It was 35 ft. inheight at the hips, and 25 ft. at the shoulder, and 40 people could beseated with comfort within its ribs. Its thigh bone was 8 ft. long. Thefossils of a whole series of these colossal lizards have been found.
Now and again these monsters would get caught in some vast fissuringof the ground, but not often. Their speed of foot was great, and theirsagacity keen. They seemed to know when the worst boilings of themountains might be expected, and then they found safety in the deeperlakes, or buried themselves in wallows of the mud. Moreover, they weremore kindly constituted than man to withstand one great danger of theseregions, in that the heat of the water did them no harm. Indeed, theywill lie peacefully in pools where sudden steam-bursts are making thewater leap into boiling fountains, and I have seen one run quicklyacross a flow of molten rock which threatened to cut it off, and not beso much as singed in the transit.
In the midst of such neighbours, then, was my new life thrown, andexistence became perilous and hard to me from the outset. I came near toknowing what Fear was, and indeed only a fervent trust in the most HighGods, and a firm belief that my life was always under Their fosteringcare, prevented me from gaining that horrid knowledge. For long enough,till I learned somewhat of the ways of this steaming, sweltering land,I was in as miserable a case as even Phorenice could have wished to seeme. My clothes rotted from my back with the constant wetness, till Iwent as naked as a savage from Europe; my limbs were racked with agues,and I could find no herbs to make drugs for their relief; for daystogether I could find no better food than tree-grubs and leaves; andoften when I did kill beasts, knowing little of their qualities, I atethose that gave me pain and sickness.
But as man is born to make himself adaptable to his surroundings, soas the months dragged on did I learn the limitation of this new life ofmine, and gather some knowledge of its resources. As example: I founda great black tree, with a hollow core, and a hole into its middle nearthe roots. Here I harboured, till one night some monstrous lizard, whosesheer weight made the tree rock like a sapling, endeavoured to suck meforth as a bird picks a worm from a hollow log. I escaped by the willof the Gods--I could as much have done harm to a mountain as injure thathorny tongue with my weapons--but I gave myself warning that this chancemust not happen again.
So I cut myself a ladder of footholes on the inside of the trunk till Ihad reached a point ten man-heights from the ground, and there cut othernotches, and with tree branches made a floor on which I might rest.Later, for luxury, I carved me arrow-slit windows in the walls of mychamber, and even carried up sand for a hearth, so that I might cook myvictual up there instead of lighting a fire in all the dangers of theopen below.
By degrees, too, I began to find how the large-scaled fish of the riversand the lesser turtles might be more readily captured, and so my ribsthreatened less to start through their proper covering of skin as thedays went on. But the lack of salads and gruels I could never overcome.All the green meat was tainted so powerfully with the taste of tars thatnever could I force my palate to accept it. And of course, too, thereremained the peril of the greater lizards and the other dangers nativeto the place.
But as the months began to mount into years, and the brute part of mynature became more satisfied, there came other longings which it wasless easy to provide for. From the ivory of a river horse's tooth I hadendeavoured to carve me a representative of Nais as last I had seen her.But, though my fingers might be loving, and my will good, my art wasof the dullest, and the result--though I tried time and time again--wasalways clumsy and pitiful. Still, in my eyes it carried some suggestionof the original--a curve here, an outline there, and it made my old loveglow anew within me as I sat and ate it with my eyes. Yet it did littleto satisfy my longings for the woman I had lost; rather it whetted mycravings to be with her again, or at least to have some knowledge of herfate.
Other men of the Priests' Clan have come out and made an abode in theseDangerous Lands, and by mortifying the flesh, have gained an intimacywith the Higher Mysteries which has carried them far past what merehuman learning and repetition could teach. Indeed, here and there one,who from some cause and another has returned to the abodes of men, hascarried with him a knowledge that has brought him the reputation amongstthe vulgar for the workings of magic and miracles, which--since all artsmust be allowed which aid so holy a cause--have added very materially tothe ardour with which these common people pursue the cult of the Gods.But for myself I could not free my mind to the necessary clearness forfollowing these abstruse studies. During that voyage home from Yucatan Ihad communed with them with growing insight; but now my mind was not myown. Nais had a lien upon it, and refused to be ousted; and, in truth,her sweet trespass was my chief solace.
But at last my longing could no further be denied. Through one ofthe arrow-slit windows of my tree-house I could see far away a greatmountain top whitened with perpetual snow, which our Lord the Sun dyedwith blood every night of His setting. Night after night I used to watchthat ruddy light with wide straining eyes. Night after night I used toremember that in days agone when I was entering upon the priesthood, ithad been my duty to adore our great Lord as He rose for His day behindthe snows of that very mountain. And always the thought followed onthese musings, that from that distant crest I could see across thecontinent to the Sacred Mount, which had the city below it where I hadburied my love alive.
So at last I gave way and set out, and a perilous journey I made of it.In the heavy mists, which hu
ng always on the lower ground, my way layblind before me, and I was constantly losing it. Indeed, to say thatI traversed three times the direct distance is setting a low estimate.Throughout all those swamps the great lizards hunted, and as the countrywas new to me I did not know places of harbour, and a hundred times waswithin an ace of being spied and devoured at a mouthful. But the HighGods still desired me for Their own purposes, and blinded the greatbeasts' eyes when I slunk to cover as they passed. Twice rivers ofscalding water roared boiling across my path, and I had to delay till Icould collect enough black timber from the forests to build rafts thatwould give me dry ferriage.
It will be seen then that my journey was in a way infinitely tedious,but to me, after all those years of waiting, the time passed on wingedfeet. I had been separated from my love till I could bear the strainno longer; let me but see from a distance the place where she lay, andfeast my eyes upon it for a while, and then I could go back to my abodein the tree and there remain patiently awaiting the will of the Gods.
The air grew more chilly as I began to come out above the region oftrees, on to that higher ground which glares down on the rest of theworld, and I made buskins and a coat of woven grasses to protect my bodyfrom the cold, which began to blow upon me keenly. And later on, wherethe snow lay eternally, and was blown into gullies, and frozen intosolid banks and bergs of ice, I had hard work to make any progressamongst its perilous mazes, and was moreover so numbed by the chill,that my natural strength was vastly weakened. Overhead, too, followingme up with forbidding swoops, and occasionally coming so close that Ihad to threaten it with my weapons, was one of those huge man-eatingbirds which live by pulling down and carrying off any creature thattheir instincts tell them is weakly, and likely soon to die.
But the lure ahead of me was strong enough to make these difficultiesseem small, and though the air of the mountain agreed with me ill,causing sickness and panting, I pressed on with what speed I couldmuster towards the elusive summit. Time after time I thought the nextspurt would surely bring me out to the view for which my soul yearned,but always there seemed another bank of snow and ice yet to be climbed.But at last I reached the crest, and gave thanks to the most High Godsfor Their protection and favour.
Far, far away I could see the Sacred Mountain with its ring of firesburning pale under the day, and although the splendid city which nestledat its foot could not be seen from where I stood, I knew its positionand I knew its plan, and my soul went out to that throne of granite inthe square before the royal pyramid, where once, years before, I hadburied my love. Had Phorenice left the tomb unviolated?
I stood there leaning on my spear, filling my eye with the prospect,warming even to the smoke of mountains that I recognised as oldacquaintances. Gods! how my love burned within me for this woman. Mywhole being seemed gone out to meet her, and to leave room for nothingbeside. For long enough a voice seemed dimly to be calling me, butI gave it no regard. I had come out to that hoary mountain top forcommunion with Nais alone, and I wanted none others to interrupt.
But at length the voice calling my name grew too loud to be neglected,and I pulled myself out of my sweet musing with a start to think thathere, for the first time since parting with Tob and his company, Ishould see another human fellow-being. I gripped my weapon and asked whocalled. The reply came clearly from up the slopes of mountain, and I sawa man coming towards me over the snows. He was old and feeble. His bodywas bent, and his hair and beard were white as the ground on which hetrod, and presently I recognised him as Zaemon. He was coming towardsme with incredible speed for a man of his years and feebleness, but hecarried in his hand the glowing Symbol of our Lord the Sun, and holystrength from this would add largely to his powers.
He came close to me and made the sign of the Seven, which I returnedto him, with its completion, with due form and ceremony. And then hesaluted me in the manner prescribed as messenger appointed by the HighCouncil of the Priests seated before the Ark of the Mysteries, and Imade humble obeisance before him.
"In all things I will obey the orders that you put before me," I said.
"Such is your duty, my brother. The command is, that you returnimmediately to the Sacred Mountain, so that if human means may stillprevail, you, as the most skilful general Atlantis owns within herborders, may still save the country from final wreck and punishment. Thewoman Phorenice persists in her infamies. The poor land groans underher heel. And now she has laid siege to our Sacred Mountain itself, andswears that not one soul shall be left alive in all Atlantis who doesnot bend humbly to her will."
"It is a command and I obey it. But let me ask of another matter that isintimate to both of us. What of Nais?"
"Nais rests where you left her, untouched. Phorenice knows by herarts--she has stolen nearly all the ancient knowledge now--that stillyou live, and she keeps Nais unharmed beneath the granite throne in thehopes that some time she may use her as a weapon against you. Little sheknows the sternness of our Priests' creed, my brother. Why, even I, thatam the girl's father, would sacrifice her blithely, if her death or ruinmight do a tittle of good to Atlantis."
"You go beyond me with your devotion."
The old man leaned forward at me, with glowering brow. "What!"
"Or my old blind adherence to the ancient dogma has been sapped andweakened by events. You must buy my full obedience, Zaemon, if you wantit. Promise me Nais--and your arts I know can snatch her--and I will betrue servant to the High Council of the Priest, and will die in thelast ditch if need be for the carrying out of order. But let me see Naisgiven over to the fury of that wanton woman, and I shall have no inwardsleft, except to take my vengeance, and to see Atlantis piled up in ruinsas her funeral-stone."
Zaemon looked at me bitterly. "And you are the man the High Councilthought to trust as they would trust one of themselves? Truly we are inan age of weak men and faithless now. But, my lord--nay, I must call youbrother still: we cannot be too nice in our choosing to-day--you are thebest there is, and we must have you. We little thought you would ask aprice for your generalship, having once taken oath on the walls of theArk of the Mysteries itself that always, come what might, you would be aservant of the High Council of the Clan without fee and without hope ofadvancement. But this is the age of broken vows, and you are going nomore than trim with the fashion. Indeed, brother, perhaps I should thankyou for being no more greedy in your demands."
"You may spare me your taunts. You, by self-denial and profound searchinto the highest of the higher Mysteries, have made yourself somethingwiser than human; I have preserved my humanity, and with it its powersand frailties; and it seems that each of us has his proper uses, oryou would not be come now here to me. Rather you would have done thegeneralling yourself."
"You make a warm defence, my brother. But I have no leisure now to standbefore you with argument. Come to the Sacred Mountain, fight me thiswanton, upstart Empress, and by my beard you shall have your Nais as youleft her as a reward."
"It is a command of the High Council which shall be obeyed. I will comewith my brother now, as soon as he is rested."
"Nay," said the old man, "I have no tiredness, and as for coming withme, there you will not be able. But follow at what pace you may."
He turned and set off down the snowy slopes of the mountain and Ifollowed; but gradually he distanced me; and so he kept on, with speedalways increasing, till presently he passed out of my sight round thespur of an ice-cliff, and I found myself alone on the mountain side.Yes, truly alone. For his footmarks in the snow from being deep, grewshallower, and less noticeable, so that I had to stoop to see them. Andpresently they vanished entirely, and the great mountain's flank laybefore me trackless, and untrodden by the foot of man since time began.
I was not shaken by any great amazement. Though it was beyond my poorart to compass this thing myself, having occupied my mind in exile morewith memories of Nais than in study of those uppermost recesses of theHigher Mysteries in which Zaemon was so prodigiously wise, still I hadsome inkling of his powers. r />
Zaemon I knew would be back again in his dwelling on the SacredMountain, shaken and breathless, even before I had found an end to histracks in the snow, and it behoved me to join him there in the quickestpossible time. I had his promise now for my reward, and I knew that hewould carry it into effect. Beforetime I had made an error. I had valuedAtlantis most, and Nais, my private love, as only second. But now it wasin my mind to be honest with others even as with myself. Though allthe world were hanging on my choice, I could but love my Nais most, andserve her first and foremost of all.