The Fall Of Atlantis

Chapter Ten: KARMA

I

Standing on the terrace, listening for the shouts of the Temple children in the lower gardens, Deoris heard a quiet step behind her, and looked up into Reio-ta's smiling eyes.

"The Lord Rajasta is with Domaris?" he asked.

Deoris nodded; her eyes grew sad. "She has been living only for this. It will not be long now."

Reio-ta took her hand and said, "You must not grieve, Deoris. She has been—less than living—for many years."

"Not for her," Deoris whispered, "but only for myself. I am selfish—I have always been selfish—but when she is gone I shall be alone."

"No," said Reio-ta, "you will not be alone." And, without surprise, Deoris found herself in his arms, his mouth pressed to hers. "Deoris," he whispered at last, "I loved you from the first! From the moment I came up out of a—a maelstrom that had drowned me, and saw you lying on the floor of a Temple I did not recognize, at the feet of—a Grey-robe, whose name I did not even know. And the terrible burns on you! I loved you then, Deoris! Only that gave me the strength to—to defy ..."

Matter-of-factly, Deoris supplied the name that, after so many years, his tongue still stumbled on. "To defy Riveda... ."

"Can you care for me?" he asked passionately. "Or does the past hold you still too close?"

Mutely Deoris laid her hand in his, warmed by a sudden confidence and hope, and knew, without analyzing it, that it was of this that she had waited all her life. She would never feel for Reio-ta the mad adoration she had known for Riveda; she had loved—no, worshipped Riveda—as a suppliant to a God. Arvath had taken her as a woman, and there had been friendship between them and the bond of the child she had given him in her sister's place—but Arvath had never touched her emotions. Now, in full maturity, Deoris found herself able and willing to take the next step into the world of experience. Smiling, she freed herself from his arms.

He accepted it, returning her smile. "We are not young," he said. "We can wait."

"All time belongs to us," she answered gently. She took his hand again, and together they walked down into the gardens.

II

The sun was low on the horizon when Rajasta called them all together on a terrace near Deoris's apartments. "I did not speak of this to Domaris," he told them soberly, "but I wished to say to you tonight what I mean to tell the Priests of this Temple tomorrow. The Temple in our homeland—the Great Temple—is to be destroyed."

"Ah, no!" Deoris cried out.

"Aye," said Rajasta, with solemn face. "Six months ago it was discovered that the great pyramid was sinking lower and lower into the Earth; and the shoreline has been breached in many places. There have been earthquakes. The sea had begun to seep beneath the land, and some of the underground chambers are collapsing. Ere long—ere long the Great Temple will be drowned by the waves of the sea."

There was a flurry of dismayed, confused questions, which he checked with a gesture. "You know that the pyramid stands above the Crypt of the Unrevealed God?"

"Would we did not!" Reio-ta whispered, very low.

"That Crypt is the nadir of the Earth's magnetic forces—the reason the Grey-robes sought to guard it so carefully from desecration. But ten years and more ago . . ." Involuntarily Rajasta glanced at Tiriki, who sat wide-eyed and trembling. "Great sacrilege was done there, and Words of Power spoken. Reio-ta, it seems, was all too correct in his estimation, for we still had not rooted out the worms at our base!" For a moment Rajasta's eyes were stark and haunted, as if seeing again some horror the others could not even guess at. "Later, spells even more powerful than theirs were pronounced, and the worst evils contained, but—the Unrevealed God has had his death-wound. His dying agonies will submerge more than the Temple!"

Deoris covered her face with her hands.

Rajasta went on, in a low, toneless voice, "The Words of Power have vibrated rock asunder, disrupted matter to the very elements of its making; and once begun at so basic a level the vibrations cannot be stilled until they die out of their own. Daily about the Crypt, the Earth trembles—and the tremors are spreading! Within seven years, at the most, the entire Temple—perhaps the whole shoreline, the city and the lands about for many and many a mile—will sink beneath the sea—"

Deoris made a muffled, choking sound of horror.

Reio-ta bowed his head in terrible self-abasement. "Gods!" he whispered, "I—I am not guiltless in this."

"If we must speak of guilt," Rajasta said, more gently than was his habit, "I am no less guilty than any other, that my Guardianship allowed Riveda to entangle himself in black sorceries. Micon shirked the begetting of a son in his youth, and so dared not die under torture. Nor can we omit the Priest who taught him, the parents and servants who raised him, the great-great-grandsire of the ship's captain who brought Riveda's grandmother and mine from Zaiadan ... no man can justly apportion cause and effect, least of all upon a scale such as this! It is karma. Set your heart free, my son."

There was a long pause. Tiriki and Micail were wide-eyed, their hands clasped in the stillness, listening without full understanding. Reio-ta's head remained bowed upon his clasped hands, while Deoris stood as rigid as a statue, her throat clasped shut by invisible hands.

Finally, dry-eyed, pale as chalk, she ran her tongue over dry lips and croaked, "That—is not all, is it?"

Rajasta sadly nodded agreement. "It is not," he said. "Perhaps, ten years from now, the edges of the catastrophe will touch Atlantis as well. These earthquakes will expand outwards, perhaps to gird the world; this very spot where we now stand may be broken and lie beneath the waters some day—and it may be, also, there is nowhere that will be left untouched. But I cannot believe it will come to that! Men's lives are a small enough thing—those whose destiny decrees that they should live, will live, if they must grow gills like fishes and spend their days swimming unimaginable deeps, or grow wings and soar as birds till the waters recede. And those who have sown the seeds of their own death will die, be they ever so clever and determined ... but lest worse karma be engendered, the secrets of Truth within the Temple must not die."

"But—if what you say is so, how can they be preserved?" Reio-ta muttered.

Rajasta looked at him and then at Micail. "Some parts of the earth will be safe, I think," he replied at last, "and new Temples will rise there, where the knowledge may be taken and kept. The wisdom of our world may be scattered to the four winds and vanish for many an age—but it will not die forever. One such Temple, Micail, shall lie beneath your hand."

Micail started. "Mine? But I am only a boy!"

"Son of Ahtarrath," Rajasta said sternly, "usually it is forbidden that any should know his own destiny, lest he lean upon the Gods and, knowing, forbear to use all his own powers ... yet it is necessary that you know, and prepare yourself! Reio-ta will aid you in this; though he is denied high achievement in his own person, the sons of his flesh will inherit Ahtarrath's powers."

Micail looked down at his now slight, strong hands—and Deoris suddenly remembered a pair of tanned, gaunt, twisted hands lying upon a tabletop. Then Micail flung back his head and met Rajasta's eyes. "Then, my father," he said, and put out his hand to Tiriki, "we would marry as soon as might be!"

Rajasta gazed gravely at Riveda's daughter, reflecting. "So be it," he said at last. "There was a prophecy, long ago when I was still young—A child will be born, of a line first risen, then fallen; a child who will sire a new line, to break the father's evils forever. You are young ..." He glanced again into Tiriki's child-face; but what he saw there made him incline his head and add, "But the new world will be mostly young! It is well; this, too, is karma."

Shivering, Tiriki asked, "Will only the Priests be saved?"

"Of course not," Rajasta chided gently. "Not even the Priests can judge who is to die and who is to live. Those outside the Priesthood shall be warned of danger and told where to seek shelter, and assisted in every way—but we cannot lay compulsion on them as on the Priesthood. Many will disbelieve, and mock us; even those who do not may refuse to leave their homes and possessions. There will be those who will trust to caves, high mountains, or boats—and who can say, they may do well, or better than we. Those who will suffer and die are those who have sown the seeds of their own end."

"I think I understand," said Deoris quietly, "why did you not tell Domaris of this?"

"But I think she knows," Rajasta replied. "She stands very close to an open door which views beyond the framework of one life and one time." He stretched out his hands to them. "In other Times," he said, in the low voice of prophecy, "I see us scattered, but coming together again. Bonds have been forged in this life which can never separate us—any of us. Micon, Domaris—Talkannon, Riveda—even you, Tiriki, and that sister you never knew, Demira—they have only withdrawn from a single scene of an ending drama. They will change—and remain the same. But there is a web—a web of darkness bound around us all; and while time endures, it can never be loosed or freed. It is karma."

III

Since Rajasta had left her, Domaris had drifted in dreamless reverie, her vague thoughts bearing no relation to the pain and weakness of her spent body. Micon's face and voice were near, and she felt the touch of his hand upon her arm—not the frail and careful clasp of his maimed hands, but a strong and vital grip upon her wrist. Domaris did not believe that there was immediate reunion beyond death, but she knew, with serene confidence, that she and Micon had forged bonds of love which could not fail to draw them together again, a single bright strand running through the web of darkness that bound them one to another. Sundered they might be, through many lives, while other bonds were fulfilled and obligations discharged; but they would meet again. Nor could she be parted from Deoris; the strength of their oath bound them one to the other, and to the children they had dedicated from life to life forever. Her only regret was that in this life she would not see Micail grow to manhood, never know the girl he would one day take to wife, never hold his sons... .

Then, with the clarity of the dying, she knew she need not wait to see the mother of Micail's children. She had reared her in her lonely exile, sealed her unborn to the Goddess they would all serve through all of Time. Domaris smiled, her old joyous smile, and opened her eyes upon Micon's face ... Micon? No—for the dark smile was crowned with hair as flaming bright as her own had once been, and the smile that answered hers was young and unsteady as the clasp of his still-bony young hand upon hers. Beyond him, for an instant, she saw Deoris; not the staid Priestess but the child of dancing, wind-tangled ringlets, merry and sullen by turns, who had been her delight and her one sorrow in her carefree girlhood. There, too, was Rajasta, smiling, now benevolent, now stern; and the troubled, hesitant smile of Reio-ta.

All my dear ones, she thought, and almost said it aloud as she saw the pale hair of the little saji maiden, the child of the no-people, who had slipped away from Karahama's side to lead Domaris to Deoris that day in the Grey Temple—but no; time had slid over them. It was the face of Tiriki, flushed with sobbing, that swam out of the light. Domaris smiled, the old glorious smile that seemed to radiate into every heart.

Micon whispered, "Heart of Flame!" Or was it Rajasta who had spoken the old endearment in his shaking voice? Domaris did not see anything in particular now, but she sensed Deoris bending over her in the dim light. "Little sister," Domaris whispered; then, smiling, "No, you are not little any more ..."

"You look—so very happy, Domaris," said Deoris wonderingly.

"I am very happy," Domaris whispered, and her luminous eyes were wide twin stars reflecting their faces. For a moment a wave of bewilderment, half pain, blurred the shining joy; she stirred, and whispered rackingly, "Micon!"

Micail gripped her hand tight in his own. "Domaris!"

Again the joyous eyes opened. "Son of the Sun," she said, very clearly. "Now—it is beginning again." She turned her face to the pillow and slept; and in her dreams she sat once more on the grass beneath the ancient, sheltering tree in the Temple gardens of her homeland, while Micon caressed her and held her close, murmuring softly into her ear ...

IV

Domaris died, just before dawn, without waking again. As the earliest birds chirped outside her window, she stirred a little, breathed in her sleep, "How still the pool is today—" and her hands, lax-fingered, dropped over the edge of the couch.

Deoris left Micail and Tiriki sobbing helplessly in each other's arms and went out upon the balcony, where she stood for a long time motionless, looking out on greyish sky and sea. She was not consciously thinking of anything, even of loss and grief. The fact of death had been impressed on her so long ago, that this was only confirmation. Domaris dead? Never! The wasted, wan thing, so full of pain, was gone; and Domaris lived again, young and quick and beautiful ...

She did not hear Reio-ta's step until he spoke her name. Deoris turned. His eyes were a question—hers, answer. The words were superfluous.

"She is gone?" Reio-ta said.

"She is free," Deoris answered.

"The children—?"

"They are young; they must weep. Let them mourn her as they will."

For a time they were alone, in silence; then Tiriki and Micail came, Tiriki's face swollen with crying, and Micail's eyes bloodshot above smeared cheeks—but his voice was steady as he held, "Deoris?" and went to her. Tiriki put her arms around her foster-father and Reio-ta held her close, looking over her shining hair at Deoris. She in turn looked silently from the boy in her arms to the girl who clung to the Priest, and thought, It is well. These are our children. We will stay with them.

And then she remembered two men, standing face to face, opposed in everything yet bound by a single law throughout Time—as she and Domaris had been bound. Domaris was gone, Micon was gone, Riveda, Demira, Karahama—gone to their places in Time. But they would return. Death was the least final thing in the world.

Rajasta, his old face composed and serene, came out upon the balcony and began to intone the morning hymn:

"O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Lift up thy light unto day, O eastern Star, Day-star, awaken, arise! Lord and giver of Life, awake! Joy and giver of Light, arise!"

A shaft of golden light stole over the sea, lighting the Guardian's white hair, his shining eyes, and the white robes of his priesthood.

"Look!" Tiriki breathed. "The Night is over."

Deoris smiled, and the prism of her tears scattered the morning sun into a rainbow of colors. "The day is beginning," she whispered, "the new day!" And her beautiful voice took up the hymn, that rang to the edges of the world:

"O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Day-Star, awaken, arise!"

Afterword

One of the questions writers are asked ad nauseam is this:

"Where do you get your ideas?"

When answering this I tend to be rude and dismissive, because it makes it sound as if "ideas" were some sort of gross infestation, alien to the asker's kind, implying that being able to get "ideas" was unusual; whereas I cannot even imagine a life without having, every hour or so, more "ideas" than I could ever use in a lifetime.

More rationally I know that the asker is only seeking, without being sufficiently articulate to say so, some insight into a creative process unknown to him or her; and when I am asked whence arose the idea for such a book as Web of Darkness, I really can answer that I have no idea. Where do dreams come from?

One of my earliest memories, when I was the merest tot, was of building great imposing structures with the many building-blocks of wood-ends which my father, a carpenter, gave us to supplement the small and unimaginative supply of toy blocks in the playroom; when asked what I was building, I invariably replied "temples." The word was alien even to me; I suspected that they were "something like churches" (which I did know) "only much more." I remember seeing a picture of Stonehenge, and recognizing it; I did not see that actual construct till in my forties; yet when I did, the "shock of recognition" was still there. I was not taken to enough movies (and those mostly of the slapstick or cowboy variety, not very interesting to such a child as I was), and in my infancy there was no television; so where did I find the wish to recapture the imposing structures of Indian or Egyptian temples, great rows of columns occupied always in my imagination by masses of priests and priestesses clad in long sweeping cloaks, whose colors defined what they did?

The only actual physical images of my childhood (I am speaking of four years old, before I could read anything much but Alice in Wonderland) were from a book of Tanglewood Tales with the wonderful landscapes and images of an ancient world which surely never existed except perhaps in Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" (a poem which well might have been read to me before I was able to understand it—my mother was a romantic). But I knew that this world of images existed; I recognized them in the Maxfield Parrish landscapes; and when my mind (fed on Rider Haggard and Sax Rohmer), long before I discovered fantasy or science fiction via the pulps, began to teem with these characters and incidents, I can only imagine that I fitted them mentally into the temples and scenes I had constructed with my blocks, as a playwright fits his characters onto the stage of a certain toy theatre he may have owned in childhood.

Where do dreams come from anyway? From that mysterious source and that alone can I seek for the "idea" of Web of Light and Web of Darkness. And into that mysterious fountain I dipped again years later for the visions which brought me MISTS OF AVALON.

Where do dreams come from?