In the east, the horizon displayed its contours vigorously under the ardent pallor of dawn. For a moment, in the blue-tinted night, the breeze freshened; errant mauve and purple clouds dissipated in the sky, at the edge of which the scarlet sun of a new morning sprang forth. The rapidity of the dawn abridged, over Atlantis, the struggle between the shadows and the daylight.
The snows of Bol-Gho, the colossus with the ashen shoulders, sparkled in the sun’s rays, while at its feet, blurred by floating mists, the awakening of the birds made a continuous rumor, vibrating confusedly like innumerable harp-strings.
As the fiery disk rose into the sky with the majesty of a hymn or the flight of a prayer toward the divinities of the azure, the woods and the shore, disengaged from the vapors crawling along the ground, surged from the penumbra; the corollas of the flowers expanded in the sunlight, and the scattered stones of the strand shone with all the colors that the magic of the dew made resplendent as gems.
The Temple of Light rose up on the edge of the sea on a narrow plateau, between the amphitheater of the city, the port and the sheer slopes of Bol-Gho. The first fires of the sun gilded it from base to summit, projecting into the depths of the ship the svelte shadows of the eight columns of the peristyle. It was a mediocre edifice, a whiteness of pink-veined marble almost buried beneath the giant leafy crowns, animated by a population of birds, but the hill that supported it, hollowed out by sanctuaries, sculpted with bas-reliefs, with its staged terraces, its balconies overhanging the foamy strand and the woods with the flowery crowns, was itself nothing but a semi-subterranean temple, in which the cool vaults, the shade of the arches and the curtains of lianas gracefully enveloped the mystery of crypts and millenary foundations.
Outside the peristyle, a parvis extended, alternating its enormous flagstones of granite and jasper. To the left, on the preliminary altar, a thin plume of smoke rose from a bronze bowl in front of a polychromatic relief representing a virgin and a warrior. The latter, one knee on the ground and one hand on his lips in a gesture of adoration, was receiving from the former a broad blade that she was holding out to him, seizing it in a virile grip. She, smiling and leaning forward, but scarcely touching the ground with her bare foot, was visibly lingering over final words, supreme recommendations; all her being, as if immaterial, was on the point of detachment, of taking flight.
It was, in a dream in stone, the history and the legend of primitive Atlantis: the hero armed by the goddess in order to tame the tumult of forces and extract the world from chaos. The generations transmitted it, in the course of the centuries, with hymns of gratitude and consoling oracles, for the blessed couple was to return sooner or later, after centuries of ordeals. Atlantis would see itself once again triumphant, immortal, sovereign of a renewed earth, from which evil would be vanished forever. When? No one could say. Perhaps tomorrow! Surely, there had been suffering enough...
The hymn had sprung forth with the first ray of sunlight under the tall colonnade, vibrant and pure but rather frail, for there was scarcely anyone around the altar but virgins and children. The Gods of Light, alas, the splendid messengers of the Being, the favorable, clement gods, were no longer the uncontested sovereigns of Atlantis. Other sanctuaries had emerged, and even in their ancient temples, on their own altars, dispossessed, they saw the bloody idols of Gold and Iron enthroned.
That is why the adoration of their last worshipers became more tender and more ardent, and their supplications addressed to the glimpsed Being, the primal source, the creator, the father, the beginning and end of all things, ineffably good, became increasingly bewildered.
The temple had its particular cult, its familiar divinity, powerful in spite of everything, and so gentle: the same one that, in distant ages, had tamed the scourges, subjugated the forces, and brought Atlantis out of chaos. And still, nowadays, in spite of the wickedness of men, she presided over the regular course of the seasons, maintained the favorable breezes, the fertilizing rains, the eternal fecundity of the plains. The flowers were embalmed by her breath; the cloudless sky reflected her eyes; the folds of her virginal veil draped the summit of Bol-Gho with snow. She only accepted as offerings the pure water of springs, stainless fruits, choice perfumes; and although she had once personally forged, and tempered with her own hands, the formidable Sword, bloodshed horrified her.
A young woman detached herself from her companions and came to stoke up the sacred fire beneath the odorous ashes. Dry branches crackled, the flame bust forth, sudden and vivid, a fortunate omen. The child stimulated it with her breath.
She might have been sixteen. A long piece of white cloth, in accordance with the custom of Atlantean virgins, was wound twice around her slender body, from the hip to the shoulder and from the waist to the feet, which were shod in narrow sandals. The bare arms, of a puerile grace, the pure oval of the face, and the delicate hands, seemed those of a pale amber statue, a sure indication of princely or sacerdotal family. She was believed to be the granddaughter of the priest Ruslem, the last servant of the gods, almost exiled, of whom his ancestors, in the distant days of their triumph, had reflected the splendor.
She stood up, took a step backward, her wrists crossed over her breast. All her gestures, smoothed by the habit of the ritual movements, developed in a grave rhythm in the symbolic harmony of attitudes.
Her knee touched the flagstones, her arms rounded, the hands stretched, extended toward the flames. Her gaze sought the marble visage of the goddess, and her quivering lips invoked her by her innumerable names:
“Soroé, Queen with the calm eyes, Queen whose return is prophesied, Splendor of the sunsets, Softness of the evening, Pearl of the depths, Murmur of the pacified waves, Freshness of the springs...”
She invoked her for her father Ruslem, for her companions, for herself, who bore her name, consecrated to her worship in childhood, for Atlantis, prey to scourges, for the earth avid for dew, for all beings...
“Soroé, Frisson of the palms, Radiance of the morning, Lily of whiteness, Hope of crops, Most chaste, Most pure...”
The young women, in chorus, raised their voices, and mingled their appeal:
“Our divine Sister!”
Harps played a prelude; alternating choruses proclaimed the glory of the goddess, her pity for sad mortals, the choice of the predestined hero, Argall, first king of Atlantis, the marvelous sword, forged and tempered by the divine hands, the struggle against the scourges, the victory...
Spoken words resonated under the portico. The priest Ruslem emerged from the temple, the interior rites accomplished. His right hand traced the liturgical sign of benediction in the air while the consecrated syllables fell from his lips.
He was a tall old man with silvery hair but sharp eyes, whose paternal smile revealed the teeth of a young man. A simple gold clasp retained the long folds of his white mantle at his shoulder. He fell silent; the bowed heads straightened.
It was the end of the morning service. The faithful dispersed. Some came to salute the old man before leaving. The virgin Soroé approached, bent her knee and tried to kiss his hand, but he lifted her up gently.
“No, no, my daughter. Only the gods should receive such a homage from you.”
She looked at him, slightly surprised. She rendered him that entirely filial homage every day. Was he not the priest and the ancestor, her unique protector down here? All her companions honored him in the same way, glad to approach him thus. If anything distinguished her from them, it was the blood she obtained from him, the pure blood that beat in her breast—but now, in his tone, that of the ancestor and the priest, she had sensed, mingled with a profound tenderness, a kind of respect.
A question rose to her lips, but the echo in her thought seemed so strange that she kept silent, confused, her cheeks on fire.
The priest leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Go, my daughter. Soon, perhaps, I shall have to tell you…but it is not yet time.”
He was visibly hesitant; but footsteps sounded on the flagstones. A man approached at a rapid and decisive pace. He was a warrior in the prime of life, dressed like Atlanteans of high caste, in a tunic of fine wool and a broad silken sash sustaining a bronze-hilted sword. His thick block hair was covered by a head-dress of woven plumes. The artisans of Atlantis excelled at extracting impermeable tissues of an incredible lightness from the skins of birds. His hand was resting on a javelin whose point was shining like his eyes, shaded by coarse eyebrows. His coppery complexion slightly belied the richness of his garments, denouncing some admixture of inferior blood. His confident gaze and all his attitudes, however, revealed an almost regal pride and the habit of command.
Ruslem had scarcely perceived him than he walked swiftly to meet him. The warrior, halting at a respectable distance, sketched a slight flexion of the knee. The priest did not give him time to complete it, raising him up with a gesture and bowing. It was like a brief assault of courtesy between two worthy adversaries, equalized by a reciprocal esteem.
“Greetings, noble Illaz,” said the priest. “The signs were favorable this morning; this is the arrival they announced.”
The young man had let him speak first, with an air of deference, but he hastened to respond.
“Greetings venerable Ruslem. Your signs have, indeed, shone upon me if you deign to welcome me with benevolence.”
They had moved through the temple and descended a few steps. A vault was offered to them, wide open to the sea breezes, furnished with a table and a marble bench covered with mats. Already, at a sign from Ruslem, Soroé had gone away and come back with a salver carrying a basket of fruits, bread, a few sculpted silver flasks and fresh water in an earthenware jar. She laid a fine, dazzlingly white cloth of silky appearance over the marble personally, disposed the food and flowers, and dismissed the slave with a gesture.
A shadow of discontentment passed over the old man’s face, but any reflection translated into words would have been inappropriate in the presence of a guest. In any case, the young woman had done nothing that he had not taught her himself; the duties of hospitality were imposed even on royal hands, for a stranger is the envoy of the gods.
The two men tasted the bread and moistened their lips. The traveler thanked the young woman courteously. She bowed, blushing slightly, and made sure with a glance that nothing was lacking.
“Go,” said Ruslem. “I’ll call Tang-Kor, if necessary.”
She left; the traveler follower her with his gaze.
“The gods have blessed you in your daughter, venerable Ruslem! No nobler virgin has ever flowered a paternal dwelling with her presence. Thrice fortunate the spouse that your prudence will be able to choose for her…have perhaps chosen already?”
The last words were uttered lightly, a discreet interrogation that accepted in advance that it would remain without response, but a crease in the forehead and a quiver of the nostrils betrayed the interest that the Atlantean was trying to hide. The priest thanked him, simply, his thought impenetrable.
“The gods can only desire good; evil comes from men alone. Let us submit to the celestial Will.”
“Always and in everything?”
A brief flame gleamed beneath the old man’s eyelids.
The other went on: “You don’t want, you dare not, reply to me! These vaults are discreet, however, and the worst enemies of Illaz would not suspect him of betraying, after having solicited them, the confidences of his host.”
The priest dismissed the outrageous suggestion with a gesture. The Atlantean, half risen to his feet, said down again, rearranged his muscular limbs, and breathed out slowly, seeking calm with an effort.
“Excise my vivacity, noble Ruslem. I want to contain myself, but my mother’s blood boils within me at times, and I retain the heart of a slave in feeling the insults of my brothers, the oppressed.”
All Atlantis knew the birth of Illaz. His father, the most illustrious chief of the warrior caste, had married a freedwoman. The heritage of an almost sovereign rank, immense estates and accumulated treasures had not effaced the original defect. Far from hiding it, however, he affected to draw glory from it, either because his pride took pleasure in braving the envious disdain of his peers, or because he wanted to conserve a popularity in the lower classes for reasons of ambition.
There was a silence.
“What can be done?” murmured the priest, finally, as if reluctantly. “The ordeal is long. It will come to an end, however.”
“You believe so?”
“The promise of the oracles is formal.”
“How many of the faithful still share your hopes? How many temples remain open to your cult?”
The old man sighed. The temples of the ancient faith were falling into ruin throughout Atlantis. It was not that it was forbidden to assemble there, to render homage to the Gods of Light and celebrate their mysteries of gratitude and love. The memory of Argall and Soroé remained dear to the hearts of the Atlanteans. The hope of their return was not entirely extinct, but it was becoming more distant and more illusory every day.
Meanwhile, the cruel gods imposed themselves, manifesting their formidable power. The slightest forgetfulness, the most involuntary omission, unleashed scourges: plagues, hurricanes and convulsions of the earth, which decimated villages, ruined and starved entire provinces. The richest offerings did not succeed in appeasing them.
“For centuries,” Illaz said, “the sword of Argall has been lost and his family extinct. A woman reigns over the Atlanteans. Gold and Iron are the true gods, the only ones whose protection seems efficacious, when they deign to grant it—you know at what price!”
An exclamation of horror was the priest’s response.
The warrior continued, with somber bitterness: “Gold and Iron always flow. They are necessary for swords and plowshares, for palaces and temples. Our mines have never been more productive, our fields more fecund, Atlantis richer. The Queen received me yesterday in her new residence, in the midst of her priests and her warriors, her jesters and her eunuchs. The silken wall-hangings were streaming with precious stones. The least soldier would think himself dishonored by exchanging his weapons for mine.”
A scornful smile uncovered the whiteness of his teeth. His voice, embittered, grated in his throat.
“I came to ask for mercy for the miners of the north, once my father’s serfs, whom I freed, and whose tribute has recently been doubled, although the impoverished seams are running out, dissolving in the flow of springs. The Treasury is selling their fields, which they do not have time to cultivate, and the cabins they can no longer repair. Then, at the first delay, the chain and the whip! Every evening, a few of them remain in the galleries, too exhausted to return to the daylight. It means less work for the gravediggers!”
“Poor folk! And what did the Queen reply?”
“She sent me to the Chief of Subterranean Works, who assured me of all his solicitude. That means, I think, that the dead will be replaced. Are gold and iron not necessary?”
“Laborers at least live and die under the sky.”
“Unless they’re needed in the quarries; but the masters prefer to take their sons, when they’re well-built and robust. As for their daughters, the prettiest are attached to the service of the temples, where they’re taught, whether they like it or not, to become the ornaments of the ceremonies and the delights of young warriors. Those shameful things will end one day—I want to believe that; but are we not going to make any attempt to hasten the deliverance?”
“If it were only a matter of giving my life! What can one old man do? I’ve spoken to the Queen. She listened to me with deference...”
“And you obtained nothing?”
“She has advisors: the priests of Gold and Iron.”
“Iron is a powerful god; my father taught me to serve it…elsewhere than in the temples.”
“A revolt?”
“Our miners are only asking for a leader. They’re men, when they’re fed; and our woodcutters can employ their axes in other ways than cutting wood for forges.”
“Victory would nevertheless by uncertain…and with what bloodshed would it be necessary to buy it?”
“Blood is flowing on the altars every day throughout Atlantis. What does one sacrifice more matter? That one, at least, would be the last. Have you not announced favorable presages to me?”
“A savior is promised to us: a hero devoid of fear or blame. The sword of Argall will shine in his hand. The scourges, tamed, will retreat. He will come!”
“How do you know that he has not come already? If you wanted…perhaps the sword of Argall is not so completely lost that you could not rediscover it...”
This time, the old man shivered. A brief redness, and a movement immediately repressed, betrayed a profound emotion in such a self-controlled ancient. The Atlantean chief hastened to interpret it in accordance with his desires.
“I’m not asking for your secrets. Undoubtedly, when you know where to obtain the divine weapon, you’ll judge me unworthy to draw it from its sheath. I’m only a man...”
The priest had already collected himself. His response tried to spare the pride of the conspirator without satisfying his curiosity.
“The blood of a hero runs in your veins, noble Illaz. If it pleased the gods that that it were in my power to give you the marvelous Sword, Atlantis, I’m sure, would see the days of Argall again.”
“What prevents us from rediscovering it? One word from you would assure me of the collaboration of the devotees of the old religion. There are thousands still; at the first victorious battle, the entire people would follow them. What could the servants of Gold and Iron do against us then?”
“More than one audacious individual has already risen against the infamous power that is crushing us; victory has even appeared to crown generous efforts. Alas, they were triumphs without tomorrows!”
“Because those tomorrows had not been prepared; the victors of a day had only thought about themselves, and the people, forgotten by them, abandoned them in the time of true difficulties. It’s not enough, I know, to expel a Queen from her palace, even if, like our Yerra, she is the most redoubtable of sorceresses, and to throw the bloody idols and their hideous priests out of the temples.”
“What do you want to do, then?”
“Return to everyone his legitimate share: to the liberated people, the soil that they fecundate; to the clement gods, their purified altars; to sages like you, the government of public affairs—and to ensure the edifice, for want of a new Argall, I would put on the throne another Soroé, as young and beautiful as her divine sister: your daughter, in a word, whose hand would then be my recompense. Forgive my boldness, venerable Ruslem! My ambition is great, undoubtedly; but you need to know my entire thought, and perhaps the memory of my father will prevent you from finding the expression of my dearest wish offensive.”
The Atlantean chief had pronounced the final words standing tall, his head thrown back. Among the several sentiments by which his eloquence was nourished—pride, ambition, wounded vanity, the thirst for domination and revenge—a sincere ardor stood out, the aspiration of a strong soul, in which the glimpsed beauty of the young woman had just awakened, like a thunderbolt, the imperious flame of desire.
The penetrating mind of the priest could not be deceived; perilous as the proposed adventure was, the perspectives opened to his own ambition, to his religious and patriotic zeal, responded in a way to his own dearest hopes; Illaz’ request coincided so strangely with certain facts known to him alone, which were not far from implying, in his eyes, a divine intervention; and finally, the person of the young Atlantean was presented at that moment in such a favorable aspect, that he almost hesitated over declining to seize the opportunity. The irrevocable consent trembled momentarily upon his lips—but that moment sufficed for reflection.
He resolved to keep the future in reserve.
“Your proposal will be the pride of my old age, generous son of the most illustrious of our warriors. I admire the grandeur of your plans. Give me time to accustom myself to their boldness. Soroé is scarcely sixteen years old. She does not even know how to blush under the gaze of young men. Her entire life has been devoted to the cult of the celestial Protectress whose name she bears, and who, I firmly believe, will preside over the choice of her spouse. Permit me to seek at the foot of the altar, to await in solitude and prayer, for the inspiration that she will deign to send me.”
A deep pleat of discontent brought the eyebrows of the Atlantean chief together. “Be careful,” he said, in a mocking voice in which a muted threat trembled, “that the inspiration does not descend too late. Our miners do not have your wisdom, venerable Ruslem! Their patience might finally run out. If the Gods of Light delay too long in helping them, they’re capable of helping themselves, and then...”
“Then?”
“They might well reject everything pell-mell, and return the old religion to oblivion along with the new, the bloody idols and the gods of love alike. The legend of Argall and Soroé has cradled their misery for centuries. The idea might finally occur to them that it’s only a legend.”
“Don’t blaspheme!”
“Heaven preserve me from it! But I’m not the master of their thoughts, and I fear that I won’t be master of their actions for long.”
Supporting those words with a significant gaze, the Atlantean stood up, and adjusted with a shrug of the shoulder the silken sash tightened over his hip by the weight of the sword. His entire being radiated strength and audacity.
The priest shivered, thinking about possible upheavals.
“Deign to remember my proposals, venerable Ruslem. In a few days, with your permission, I shall seek your presence again, and perhaps you’ll have found another response.”
“Your coming will be the joy of my abode. My response depends on the gods. Believe me when I say that my dearest desire is that they will be favorable to you.”
Illaz’ forehead cleared. The old man seemed sincere; his prudence and his dignity prevented him from giving an immediate welcome to such a grave proposition, with incalculable consequences. In a few days, reflection, or some new insolence of the party of Gold and Iron, would assure the ardent young man of a precious alliance and the joys of satisfied amour.
Ruslem escorted him as far as the exterior parvis, and went back to his simple dwelling, buried in the sacred shade, pensively.
Only a few minutes had gone by when a discreet knock was heard at the door and the slave Tang-Kor appeared, one hand on his forehead and the other extended in a sign of respect. His master interrogated him with a gesture.
“Ortiz, the Queen’s equerry, is asking to speak to you on her behalf.”
“Ortiz? Very well…I’ll come.”
A path opened between the immense trees, taller than the most majestic edifices. In their shadow, slender tree-ferns deployed the frail fans of their green foliage, seeming to the eye as light as the plumes of giant swans. An almost imperceptible breeze made them sway very slightly with a slow, seemingly drowsy palpitation. Creepers ran from branch to branch, florid with strange corollas, in the fantastic forms of insects and fish, of all the colors of the rainbow and perfumes of penetrating sweetness. Enormous butterflies and minuscule birds besieged their blossoms with an avid hum, and a sparkle of living gems.
The Queen’s equerry was waiting, standing, his shoulder nonchalantly leaning against the scaly bole of a tree-fern. His slim and supple figure, his scarcely-bronzed complexion, the slenderness of his ankles and his ring-laden fingers revealed at the first glance a warrior of the pure race, of irreproachable origin. His garments were reminiscent of those worn by Illaz, but a light steel helmet on his head, a narrow buckler falling over his hip and a coat of mail scarcely thicker than an ordinary fabric indicated an officer on a mission, ready to have the orders of the sovereign whose messenger he was carried out, by force if necessary. The helmet, buckler, silken tunic and baldric were glittering with precious embroidery and gems with dazzling fires. The golden hilt of his sword was sculpted like an item of female jewelry. The sharkskin scabbard, encrusted with rare metals was attached to the sash radiant with the royal colors by a ruby clasp.
His attitude, as Ruslem approached, offered an admirable mixture of military stiffness and insolence. A cold politeness, more impenetrable than his armor, was the sole homage that he deigned to render to his interlocutor’s age and blood. He gave the appearance of addressing himself to a mortal fortunate enough to have attracted, under whatever pretext, the momentary attention of the sovereign and thus merited the honor of his visit.
Half a century of priesthood and thirty generations of illustrious ancestors, however, made the old man an adversary inaccessible to intimidation. Without appearing to notice the brief and detached salute of the royal envoy, he stopped the announcement of his message on his lips by means of a gesture of benediction simultaneously so paternal and so majestic that the young man felt his knees flex and his head incline involuntarily.
He wondered whether the old gods, in the vicinity of their most ancient sanctuary, might not conserve a residue of power, still dangerous to confront. A few ritual syllables, vestiges of the sacred idiom of the ancestors, only understood today by initiates, seemed to him to be a magical invocation, capable of attracting to him all the redoubtable scourges of Atlantis. Rapid alternations of fugitive redness and sudden pallor betrayed the intimate frisson of his being.
The priest, whom not one of those symptoms had escaped, but who was too wise to abuse his advantage, raised his visitor from his semi-kneeling posture and interrogated him in a tone of familiar simplicity, lending to the dignity of his initial attitude the appearance of an inestimable favor.
“What does the Queen desire?”
“Your presence at the palace, and that of your daughter, the virgin Soroé.”
“Soroé?”
Had he been less emotional, the equerry would have divined the old man’s anxiety. Before the explicit order of the sovereign, however, all resistance was impossible; the slightest hesitation would have increased the peril, if any existed for the young priestess. A painted and gilded chariot and an escort of select warriors were already waiting at the temple gate.
Stifling a sigh, Ruslem called Tang-Kor and gave him the necessary orders. A few minutes later, the Queen’s coursers were carrying him, with Soroé, toward the new palace on the other side of the city, along a semicircular road bordered by magnificent habitations with walls of porphyry and marble, surrounded by garden and embalmed flower-beds. That avenue, paved with large granite flagstones, went around the city and the port, through a shallow valley hollowed out between the hill of the temple and the first slopes of Bol-Gho.
At every step, between the houses and the trees, the gaze plunged over the populous city, with the roseate whiteness of its terraced roofs, the metallic gleam of its cupolas, the airy grace of its colonnades, its perforated galleries and its sculpted frontons, laid out in the form of an amphitheater.
Half way along the route, on an isolated hill crowned with ancient walls, stood the former palace of the kings, severe in its splendor, abandoned now for more cheerful dwellings, and the colossal Temple of Gold and Iron.
Seven steps of marble, onyx and porphyry, in the seven hues of the rainbow, rose from the ground to the peristyle, formed by a triple row of enormous columns, higher than the tallest palm trees, not one of which had a duplicate. All the rocks of Atlantis, from the depths of the mines to the moraines of glaciers, all the metals, all the alloys, and even blocks of coral wrenched from marine depths, had found a place in the superposition of their gigantic foundations. Each one represented one of the great trees of the land, with its bearing, its bark, its foliage, its flowers and its fruits, its parasitic creepers, the animals that were habitual guests of its branches and roots, the humans whose lives were spent in its shade, and the heroes and gods with whom some legend mingled the existence with its own. From the base to the summit, bas-reliefs wound in spirals, turning around the capitals, incrusted in the moldings, hanging on to the projections, fixing in eternal images scenes of everyday life, processions, hunts, combats, tortures, apotheoses, and royal or divine amours.
Generations of workers and artists had been used us in that formidable labor. Some had given the effort of their arms, others the skill of their hands, the accuracy of their judgment and the spark of their genius. None had signed or engraved his name on the stone or in human memory. An unknown architect and anonymous draughtsmen had drawn up the plans, communicating the orders from the depths of an impenetrable retreat reserved for priests of superior rank, enclosed on the other side of a ravine, under which, it was said, mysterious galleries extended from one edifice to the other. The kings had succeeded one another on the throne, emptying their treasuries, driving under the whip, at the foot of the colonnade, incessantly-renewed herds of captives. And the work was not complete. The forest of capitals only supported an immense terrace projecting above the first step the rigid alignment of its prodigious slabs, the aerial parvis of the future temple, if it had ever been raised in that vertiginous region between heaven and earth, to the glory of Gold and Iron.
In the meantime, all the exoteric ceremonies, the only ones to which the people were admitted, were held outside, on the vast square of which the temple formed one side. There stood, between two metal colossi, the supreme altar of the victorious cult, the sacrificial stone, an obsidian slab seven cubits long and two wide, placed horizontally, slightly inclined, on four basalt prisms. The upper surface, slightly concave, was polished like a mirror. The water of the heavens scarcely moistened it, immediately streaming over the compact surface, incapable of absorbing a drop. A narrow groove poured it into a crystal vase, where the priests devoted to the observation of the stars measured it every day, calculating the magnitude of the rainfall and the irrigations necessary to the crops. At the time of sacrifices, however, which had only ever taken place in serene weather, an enormous silver basin replaced the transparent ewer, and the pitiless gods delighted in the odor of blood.
With a frisson of horror and disgust, Soroé clung more closely to Ruslem. The old man, externally impassive, remembered Illaz’ recent words.
For the moment, the immense square was deserted. Vague human forms were slipping between the columns of the temple; a sad and soft chant floated and faded away. Already, the chariot, launched down a steep slope, was plunging into the ravine, leaving to the left the palace of the priests, as vast as a city, invisible behind a double curtain of walls and foliage. An entire township of accessory edifices surrounded it: the dwellings of servants and acolytes, colleges for young noblemen, and gynaecea as impenetrable as fortresses, where selected virgins were instructed in the service of the gods.
Further on, the road cut across the principal avenue of Atlantis, the triumphal road descending through the prosperous districts and the central quarters, increasingly populous, all the way to the harbor cluttered with ships. There, for the first time, in spite of the equerry’s disdain for the vulgar crowd, the chariot was obliged to slow down. Serried files of pedestrians, riders, heavy teams dragging all kinds of vehicles, and light chariots with frisky coursers, in two inverse currents, troubled by eddies, occupied with their multitudinous tread the entire breadth of the causeway. Squadrons of soldiers and funeral corteges had great difficulty fraying a passage.
For a moment, his brow furrowed and his hand lightly placed on the pommel of his sword, the impatient officer seemed to be ready to launch his warriors, with drawn swords, against the unconscious and unarmed mass. A gesture of fright and a supplicant gaze on the part of Soroé stopped him. Then, saluting her with a smile, he maneuvered his horse with so much skill, and so aptly, that a furrow opened up, of which the driver of the chariot took advantage, closely followed by the rest of the escort.
Once the highway was crossed, the route became free again and the wind of their progress, striking the young woman in the face, inflated her lungs to the point of oppression.
Now the road straightened out, climbing slightly, through marvelously cultivated fields, opulent meadows, and clumps of trees of various species. All that land was the private property of the Queen. Gradually, the country took on the aspect of a magnificent park, traversed by regular driveways, shady paths, and murmurous streams whose union formed a fairly broad rivulet with a sinuous course, almost curving back on itself, as if to delay the moment when its waters would mingle with the ocean waves.
A bridge was crossed; massive gates rotated on their bronze hinges; brief commands were uttered; weapons clinked; the blue flash of swords drawn from their scabbards saluted the royal quadriga as it passed by, rumbling like thunder in a whirlwind of blond dust. The racket of steel-encircled wheels suddenly died down, becoming no more than a dull rattle over the fine sand, with reflections of gold and coral. Masses of verdure seemed to move aside, obedient to some magical formula, before the expected guests. The façade of the new palace loomed up, cutting the horizon with the sudden deployment of its fine lines, vaporous and almost unreal in their grace and splendor.
Between two bends in the river, whose rapid flow bathed its two flanks, there was a long terrace charged with a triple row of open galleries and superposed verandas, with slender colonnettes of hard stone and bulbous balustrades of precious woods incrusted with nacre and silver. There was no apparent regularity, but a secret harmony of innumerable details, the sharpened slenderness of the cupolas, and the vertiginous sweep of the arches, gave the impression of a dwelling less terrestrial than aerial, the caprice of a queen or goddess, realized in an hour by some magic power and destined to vanish like a dream at the first breath of a new caprice.
On reflection, nevertheless, a profound thought was revealed in the choice of location, in the unshakable foundations of the substructure, barring with its mass the narrow isthmus of a circular peninsula, designed by the miniature river that surrounded it with an insurmountable moat. The opposite face, at the top of a sheer cliff, overlooked the sea, with no other access than a zigzag path overhanging a beach beaten by the waves, where a well-sheltered little harbor had nevertheless been hollowed out. That smiling palace, that abode of delights, offered all the security of a citadel. A handful of resolute defenders could hold off an army there,
The chariot stopped in front of a lateral entrance, at the foot of a perron of white marble with pale blue veins, covered by a silken awning with nacreous reflections, heightened by silver torsades. The high door with sandalwood battens opened wide on to a vestibule paved with mosaics, lined with enamels with a varying gleam of pale opal and aquamarine, where a few guards, as richly dressed as Ortiz himself, were standing in a meditative fashion or chatting in contained voices, like devotees as the entrance to a sanctuary.
In spite of that homage rendered to royal majesty, a few more expressive gestures and stifled laugher indicated among the handsome cavaliers thoughts very different from those inspired in virtuous souls by the contemplation of divine mysteries. The presence of Ortiz, after the brief salutes due to his rank, and much less that of Ruslem, would probably not have been enough to modify their attitude, but at the appearance of Soroé, silence succeeded the murmur of conversations so abruptly, and the sudden convergence of gazes was so expressive, that the young woman received a kind of shock therefrom, and stopped momentarily, her cheeks on fire and her bosom palpitating, in a delightful pose of naïve modesty and virginal confusion.
An imperceptible signal from her grandfather, and the proud instinct of her race, caused her to stiffen herself against a sentiment of shame that she could not even explain. Then, hastening her step slightly, she passed by, her gaze lowered but her head high and her eyes motionless, as impassive in appearance as a young goddess traversing the vain agitation of mortals untouched.
An interior door opened and closed behind her. Questions, answers and exclamations of praise immediately overlapped,
“Heavenly powers, what a pretty girl!”
“Who is she?”
“Where does she come from?”
“A little thin as yet, but elegant.”
“I’ll take her as she is, if anyone offers her to me.”
“You wouldn’t have any cause for complaint. That beautiful child is the richest heiress in Atlantis.”
“Get away!”
“Didn’t you recognize the old man accompanying her? Ruslem, the priest of the old gods.”
“So what?”
“His ancestors served the first descendants of Argall, and married, it’s said, some of their daughters. And since then, no misalliance! You only have to look at the color of her skin. It’s a certificate of origin.”
“On parchment!”
“Who’ll mention you to the old man?”
“Then I’ll ask to examine her closely.”
“Pooh! A noble family but a decadent one. Where are their lands?”
“Ask to visit the subterrains of the old temple. There’s more gold there than the scribes of the treasury could weight in a year. Ruslem himself can’t count it.”
“Another verification for which I’ll take responsibility.”
“Marry the daughter and succeed the old man. We’ll come to see you pontificate.”
“As a priest?”
“And a son-in-law.”
The conversation, engaged in that tone, continued in increasingly licentious terms, the echoes of which, fortunately, stopped at the threshold of the interior apartments. There, a profound silence reigned, scarcely interrupted by the occasional opening of a door, a distant murmur of harmonious voices, brushed harp-strings, and jets of water spilling their crystalline pearls into the sonority of basins. Large fans, moistened with perfumes, palpitated slowly on the ceilings of the rooms, activated by invisible hands. Sometimes, a deformed eunuch, covered in silk and precious stones, and girls scarcely clad in transparent sashes, crossed the path of the visitors, or, hastening at their approach, lifted up door-curtains emblazoned with the royal colors, aurora and pale blue, the gray-blue reflected by steel: the livery of Gold and Iron.
Finally, at the end of an open gallery overlooking the sea and the divined frisson of flowing waters, two armed slaves stood up straight, crossing their pikes in front of a closed door. Their loins were circled by narrow strips of cloth. Their legs and bare torsos were outlined with the color and solidity of bronze. A short dagger, a crescent-shaped ax and a square buckler hung from their belts. Their curly hair, flattened out over the cranium by thin metal chains, was equivalent to a sword-proof helmet. A guttural grunt emerged from their fleshy mouths, broadly rounded and hideously empty between their white carnivorous fangs.
Ortiz approached and pronounced a few words in a low voice. The mutes stood aside, straightening their pikes. The maple and rosewood battens opened as if by themselves.
Ruslem and Soroé, following their guide, penetrated into a room of mediocre extent, where five or six young women, coquettishly draped in light fabrics, their hair loose and their arms bare, sitting or nonchalantly extended on mats, stood up with a rustle of silks and a rattle of jewelry, like a flock of frightened birds. Two harps with sixteen strings stretched on a cedar-wood frame, an ivory flute and a viol with a long ebony neck mounted on the shell of a turtle, indicated the part played by four of them in the concert that had just finished or had been interrupted. The fifth, her head thrown backwards and gripping her pure throat with both hands, was breathing slowly, with an attitude of contented lassitude, her lips still quivering with the absent song.
All of them were beautiful, and their scarcely gilded complexion, the slimness of their wrists and ankles, the slender elegance of their figures, affirmed that they were children of noble families, separated permanently from the herd of vulgar musiciennes, consecrated in their adolescent grace, while awaiting some illustrious alliance, to the service of the Queen and the gods.
The songstress and her accompanists, after a profound bow to the visitors and a few smiling glances to the particular address of the handsome equerry, gathered on a kind of bed with cushions of byssus cloth, whose frame and embossed silver back curved inwards like an unfurling wave, with a foamy crest.
Not a word had been spoken. All the movements seemed regulated in advance, as in sacred ceremonies. Ruslem, doubtless acquainted with that species of ritual, had stopped after a few paces, in a pose of tranquil expectation. Soroé, still quivering with contained emotion, pressed herself to his side and, her lips slightly parted, strove to slow down the precipitate beating of her heart, without appearing to pay any attention to it.
Ortiz, as if gripped by a scruple, drew nearer to her and whispered, at such close range that she could feel his breath on her ear: “Do you know how you ought to salute the queen?”
The young woman turned, surprised; she was about to interrogate him but his gesture stopped her, as if on the edge of a precipice, and in an even lower voice, he pointed at the musiciennes.
“Silence! Do as they do—exactly.”
She stood there, trembling beneath the imperious gaze of the equerry. He, however, had stepped back with a rapid, oblique, almost fearful movement, and now, motionless, with his left hand on the pommel of his sword and his right raised as if saluting the gods, seemed changed into a statue of obedience. Soroé, following the direction of his gaze, immutably fixed on the back of the room, perceived a crimson curtain whose folds were slowly drawn aside.
An inexpressible anguish gripped her. Evidently, someone was there, doubtless the Queen herself, lifting up the heavy fabric,
Although the divined gesture was not at all menacing, or even unexpected, the young woman had the impression of a hostile and formidable presence. She felt like a captive, defenseless, in the depths of the mute palace, at the mercy of a limitless power, like a sparrow in a bird-catcher’s net.
A slight sound made hr shiver; it was the musiciennes kneeling down, one hand on the ground and the other extended before the forehead.
Prostrated, they no longer moved. The undulation of the drapery had ceased. The opening, not so much visible as divined, did not let any light pass, or allow any form to be glimpsed.
Silence reigned again.
Abruptly, the young woman felt herself seized by the arm; a crushing weight came down on her shoulder; harsh syllables rang in her ear, simultaneously vibrant and contained, quivering with anger and muted by terror.
“Wretch! Do you want to die! The Queen! Kneel! Kneel, then!”
Scarlet with shame, chilled by fear, she resisted instinctively, shaking herself free of the grip that was bruising her flesh and causing her pride to revolt. But she was out of strength. It seemed to her that there was a lack of air around her, that a furious torrent was bearing her away, stifling with the growl of its waters the cry ready to spring from her lips.
Breathless and bewildered, half-fainting, she turned round and fell, like a wounded bird, upon Ruslem’s breast. The old man’s arms, still strong, enveloped her with an almost maternal caress, while his indignant gaze nailed the aggressor to the spot.