The Fall Of Atlantis

Chapter Seventeen: DESTINY AND DOOM

I

Micail was three days old when Domaris rose and dressed herself with a meticulous care unusual with her. She used the perfume Micon loved, the scent from his homeland—his first gift to her. Her face was still, but not calm, and although Domaris kept from crying as Elara made her lovely for this ordeal, the servant woman herself burst into tears as she put the wiggling, clean-scented bundle into his mother's arms.

"Don't!" Domaris begged, and the woman fled. Domaris held her son close, thinking dearly, Child, I bore you to give your father death.

Remorsefully she bent her face over the summer softness of his. Grief was a part of her love for this child, a deep bitter thing twisting into her happiness. She had waited three days, and still she was not sure that either her body or her mind would carry her through this final duty to the man she loved. Lingering, still delaying, she scanned the miniature indeterminate features of Micail, seeking some strong resemblance to his father, and a sob twisted her throat as she kissed the reddish down on his silken forehead.

At last, raising her face proudly, she moved to the door and went forth, Micail in her arms. Her step was steady; her reluctant feet did not betray her dread.

Guilt lay deep on her. Those three days were, she felt, a selfishness that had held a tortured man to life. Even now she moved only under the compulsion of sworn duty, and her thoughts were barbed whips of self-scorn. Micail whimpered protestingly and she realized that she was clutching him far too tightly to her breast.

She walked on, slowly, seeing with half her eyes the freshening riot of color in the gardens; though she pulled the swaddlings automatically closer about her child's head, Domaris saw only Micon's dark haggard face, felt only the bitterness of her own pain.

The way was not long, but to Domaris it was the length to the world's end. With every step, she left the last of her youth a little further behind. Yet after a time, an indefinite period, the confusion of thought and feeling gradually cleared and she found herself entering Micon's rooms. She swayed a little with the full realization: Now there is no return. Dimly she knew that for her there had never been.

Her eyes swept the room in unconscious appeal, and the desperation in her young face brought choking grief to Deoris's throat. Rajasta's eyes became even more compassionate, and even Riveda's stern mouth lost some of its grimness. This last Domaris saw, and it gave her a new strength born of anger.

Proudly she drew herself erect, clasping the child. Her eyes resting on Micon's wasted face; she put the others out of her mind. This was the moment of her giving; now she could give more than herself, could surrender—and by her own act—her hopes of any personal future. Silently she moved to stand beside him, and the change which but a few days had wrought in him smote her like a blow.

Until this moment, Domaris had allowed herself to cling to some faint hope that Micon might still be spared to her, if only a little longer... . Now she saw the truth.

Long she looked upon him, and every feature of Micon's darkly noble frame etched itself forever across her life with the bitter acid of agony.

Finally Micon's sightless eyes opened, and it seemed that at last he saw, with something clearer than sight, for—although Domaris had not spoken, and her coming had been greeted with silence—he spoke directly to her. "My lady of Light," he whispered, and there was that in his voice which defied naming. "Let me hold—our son!"

Domaris knelt, and Rajasta moved to unobtrusively support Micon as the Atlantean drew himself upright. Domaris laid the child in the thin outstretched arms, and murmured words in themselves unimportant, but to the dying man, of devastating significance: "Our son, beloved—our perfect little son."

Micon's attenuated fingers ran lightly, tenderly across the little face. His own face, like a delicate waxen death-mask, bent over the child; tears gathered and dropped from the blind eyes, and he sighed, with an infinite wistfulness. "If I might—only once—behold my son!"

A harsh sound like a sob broke the silence, and Domaris raised wondering eyes. Rajasta was as silent as a statue, and Deoris's throat could never have produced that sound ...

"My beloved—" Micon's voice steadied somewhat. "One task remains. Rajasta—" The Atlantean's ravaged face turned to the Priest. "It is yours to guide and guard my son." So saying, he allowed Rajasta to take the baby in his hands, and quickly Domaris cradled Micon's head against her breast. Weakly smiling, he drew away from her. "No," he said with great tenderness. "I am weary, my love. Let me end this now. Begrudge not your greatest gift."

He rose slowly to his feet, and Riveda, shadow-swift, was there to put his strong arm under Micon's. With a little knowing smile, Micon accepted the Grey-robe's support. Deoris reached to clasp her sister's icy hand in her tiny warm one, but Domaris was not even aware of the touch.

Micon leaned his face over the child, who lay docile in Rajasta's arms, and with his racked hands, lightly touched the closed eyes.

"See—what I give you to see, Son of Ahtarrath!"

The twisted fingers touched the minute, curled ears as the Initiate's trained voice rang through the room: "Hear—what I give you to hear!"

He drew his hands slightly over the downy temples. "Know the power I know and bestow upon you, child of Ahtarrath's heritage!"

He touched the rosy seeking mouth, which sucked at his finger and spat it forth again. "Speak with the powers of the storm and the winds—of sun and rain, water and air, earth and fire! Speak only with justice, and with love."

The Atlantean's hand now rested over the baby's heart. "Beat only to the call of duty, to the powers of love! Thus I, by the Power I bear—" Micon's voice thinned suddenly. "By the—the Power I bear, I seal and sign you to—to that Power ..."

Micon's face had become a drained and ghastly white. Word by word and motion by motion, he had loosed the superb forces which alone had held him from dissolution. With what seemed a tremendous effort, he traced a sign across the baby's brow; then leaned heavily on Riveda.

Domaris, with hungry tenderness, rushed to his side, but Micon, for a moment, paid her no heed as he gasped, "I knew this would—I knew—Lord Riveda, you must finish—finish the binding! I am—" Micon drew a long, labored breath. "Seek not to play me false!" And his words were punctuated by a distant clap of thunder.

Grim, unspeaking, Riveda let Domaris take Micon's weight, freeing him for the task. The Grey-robe knew well why he, and not Rajasta or some other, had been chosen to do this thing. The apparent sign of the Atlantean's trust was, in feet, the exact opposite: by binding Riveda's karma with that of the child, even in this so small way, Micon sought to ensure that Riveda, at least, would not dare attack the child, and the Power the baby represented... .

Riveda's ice-blue eyes burned beneath his brows as, with a brusque voice and manner, he took up the interrupted ritual: "To you, son of Ahtarrath, Royal Hunter, Heir-to-the-Word-of-Thunder, the Power passes. Sealed by the Light—" The Adept undid, with his strong skillful hands, the swaddlings about the child, and exposed him, with a peculiarly ceremonious gesture, to the flooding sunlight. The rays seemed to kiss the downy skin, and Micail stretched with a little cooing gurgle of content.

The solemnity of the Magician's face did not lighten, but his eyes now smiled as he returned the child to Rajasta's hands, and raised his arms as for invocation. "Father to son, from age to age," Riveda said, "the Power passes; known to the true-begotten. So it was, and so it is, and so it shall ever be. Hail Ahtarrath—and to Ahtarrath, farewell!"

Micail stared with placid, sleepy gravity at the circle of faces which ringed him in—but not for long. The ceremony ended now, Rajasta hastily placed the baby in Deoris's arms, and took Micon from Domaris's embrace, laying him gently down. Still the Atlantean's hands groped weakly for Domaris, and she came and held him close again; the naked grief in her eyes was a crucifixion.

Deoris, the baby clasped to her breast, sobbed noiselessly, her face half-buried in Rajasta's mantle; the Priest of Light stood with his arm around her, but his eyes were fixed upon Micon. Riveda, his arms crossed on his chest, stared somberly upon the scene, and his massive shadow blotted the sunlight from the room.

The Prince was still, so still that the watchers, too, held their breath... . At last he stirred, faintly. "Lady—clothed with Light," he whispered. "Forgive me." He waited, and drops of sweat glistened on his forehead. "Domaris." The word was a prayer.

It seemed that Domaris would never speak, that speech had been dammed at its fountainhead, that all the world would go silent to the end of eternity. At last her white lips parted, and her voice was clear and triumphant in the stillness. "It is well, my beloved. Go in peace."

The waxen face was immobile, but the lips stirred in the ghost of Micon's old radiant smile. "Love of mine," he whispered, and then more softly still, "Heart—of flame—" and a breath and a sigh moved in the silence and faded.

Domaris bent forward ... and her arms, with a strange, pathetic little gesture, fell to her sides, empty.

Riveda moved softly to the bedside, and looked into the serene face, closing the dead eyes. "It is over," the Adept said, almost tenderly and with regret. "What courage, what strength—and what waste!"

Domaris rose, dry-eyed, and turned toward Riveda. "That, my Lord, is a matter of opinion," she said slowly. "It is our triumph! Deoris—give me my son." She took Micail in her arms, and her face shone, unearthly, in the sublimity of her sorrow. "Behold our child—and our future. Can you show me the like, Lord Riveda?"

"Your triumph, Lady, indeed," Riveda acknowledged, and bent in deep reverence.

Deoris came and would have taken the baby once more, but Domaris clung to him, her hands trembling as she caressed her little son. Then, with a last, impassioned look at the dark still face that had been Micon's, she turned away, and the men heard her whispered, helpless prayer: "Help me—O Thou Which Art!" Deoris led her sister, resistless, away.

II

That night was cold. The full moon, rising early, flooded the sky with a brilliance that blotted out the stars. Low on the horizon, sullen flames glowed at the sea-wall, and ghost-lights, blue and dancing, flitted and streamed in the north.

Riveda, for the first and last time in his life robed in the stainless white of the Priest's Caste, paced with stately step backward and forward before Micon's apartments. He had not the faintest idea why he, rather than Rajasta or one of the other Guardians, had been chosen for this vigil—and he was no longer so certain why Micon had suffered his aid at the last! Had trust or distrust been the major factor in Micon's final acceptance of him?

It was clear that the Atlantean had, in part at least, feared him. But why? He was no Black-robe! The twists and turns of it presented a riddle far beyond his reading—and Riveda did not like the feeling of ignorance. Yet without protest or pride he had divested himself tonight of the grey robe he had worn for so many years, and clothed himself in the ritual robes of Light. He felt curiously transformed, as if with the robes he had also slipped on something of the character of these punctilious Priests.

Nonetheless he felt a deeply personal grief, and a sense of defeat. In Micon's last hours, his weakness had moved Riveda as his strength could never have done. A grudged and sullenly yielded respect had given way to deep and sincere affection.

It was seldom, indeed, that Riveda allowed events to disturb him. He did not believe in destiny—but he knew that threads ran through time and the lives of men, and that one could become entangled in them. Karma. It was, Riveda thought grimly, like the avalanches of his own Northern mountains. A single stone rattled loose by a careless step, and all the powers of the world and nature could not check an inch of its motion. Riveda shuddered. He felt a curious certainty that Micon's death had brought destiny and doom on them all. He didn't like the thought. Riveda preferred to believe that he could master destiny, pick a path through the pitfalls of karma, by his will and strength alone.

He continued his pacing, head down. The Order of Magicians, known here as Grey-robes, was ancient, and elsewhere held a more honored name. In Atlantis were many Adepts and Initiates of this Order, among whom Riveda held high place. And now Riveda knew something no one else had guessed, and felt it was legitimately his own.

Once, in mad raving, a word and a gesture had slipped unaware, from his chela, Reio-ta. Riveda had noted both, meaningless as they had seemed at the moment. Later, he had seen the same gesture pass between Rajasta and Cadamiri when they thought themselves unobserved; and Micon, in the delirium of agony which had preceded the quiet of his last hours, had muttered Atlantean phrases—one a duplicate of Reio-ta's. Riveda's brain had stored all these things for future reference. Knowledge, to him, was something to be acquired; a thing hidden was something to be sought all the more assiduously.

Tomorrow, Micon's body was to be burned, the ashes returned to his homeland. That task he, Riveda, should undertake. Who had a better right than the Priest who had consecrated Micon's son to the power of Ahtarrath?

III

At daybreak, Riveda ceremoniously drew back the curtains, letting sunlight flood in and fill the apartment where Micon lay. Dawn was a living sea of ruby and rose and livid fire; the light lay like dancing flames on the dark dead face of the Initiate, and Riveda, frowning, felt that Micon's death had ended nothing.

This began in fire, Riveda thought, it will end in fire ... but will it be only the fire of Micon's funeral? Or are there higher flames rising in the future ... ? He frowned, shaking his head. What nonsense am I dreaming? Today, fire will burn what the Black-robes left of Micon, Prince of Ahtarrath ... and yet, in his own way, he has defeated all the elements.

With the sun's rise, white-robed Priests came and took Micon up tenderly, bearing him down the winding pathway into the face of the morning. Rajasta, his face drawn with grief, walked before the bier; Riveda, with silent step and bent head, walked after. Behind them, a long procession of white-mantled Priests and Priestesses in silver fillets and blue cloaks followed in tribute to the stranger, the Initiate who had died in their midst ... and after these stole a dim grey shadow, bowed like an old man shaken with palsied sobbing, grey cloak huddled over his face, his hands hidden within a patched and threadbare robe. But no man saw how Reio-ta Lantor of Ahtarrath followed his Prince and brother to the flames.

Also unseen, high on the summit of the great pyramid, a woman stood, tall and sublime, her face crimsoned with the sunrise and the morning sky ablaze with the fire of her hair. In her arms a child lay cradled, and as the procession faded to black shadows against the radiant light in the east, Domaris held her child high against the rising sun. In a steady voice, she began to intone the morning hymn:

O beautiful upon the Horizon of the East, Lift up the light unto day, O eastern Star. Day-star, awaken, arise! Joy and giver of light, awake. Lord and giver of life, Lift up thy light, O Star of Day, Day-star, awaken, arise!

Far below, the flames danced and spiralled up from the pyre, and the world was drowned in flame and sunlight.