On the evening of the seventh day after the arrival of the northern barbarians, Elim presented himself before Ruslem.
“I have seen the sun set six times from your threshold. The master is waiting. The night will be clear in an hour.”
The old man would have liked to retain the messenger. He had had no news from the palace; the Queen seemed to have forgotten him. That calm surely preceded a storm. His irresolution remained the same, however. Dhu Hern! Illaz! The two names in his thoughts were still colliding, without any spark springing from the impact. The peril, moreover, did not appear imminent. Had it not been greater when the young warrior had stopped the monster’s claw?
Those arguments could not be given to Elim, and the courier would not have wanted to listen to any of them. The master had said six days. The delay had expired; he would leave. What would Illaz think? What would he do? What response could he send him, which would spare his pride and counsel him to be patient?
“I’ll confide your message to you at the last moment.”
“In an hour, at moonrise.”
“In an hour, so be it.”
The courier withdrew. The door, at a discreet knock, swung open, revealing the slender silhouette of Tang-Kor. A second letter had arrived from the palace, brought by the same slave, without livery, secretly faithful to the old gods.
Immediately introduced, he threw himself down at Ruslem’s feet.
“What’s the matter?” asked the priest.
While the man, getting his breath back, searched for words, he had broken the seal and scanned the lines. Yerra, in the current language, inquired graciously about him and Soroé, announced her visit for the following day, the last day of her expiatory retreat. She would arrive without a retune, at the same hour, wanted to be received without any ceremony, like an ordinary penitent. Doubtless, between now and then, Ruslem would have deciphered the inscription he had mentioned entirely, which she was curious to see...
“I expected this,” the old man thought, aloud. “But you,” he said, returning his eyes to the servant, “why are you so upset?”
“Lord, before sending me to you, the Queen gave an audience to Nohor. Hazard permitted me to overhear part of their conversation. We’re condemned, our cult definitively proscribed. Nohor demanded the sacrifice of the strangers. Yerra refused. The priest persisted. The cruel gods want blood.”
“Always.”
“Yes. And Yerra promised them blood. A great sacrifice will take place. The victims will be chosen from among our faith. Nohor will designate them himself.”
“You’re sure?”
“My ears heard it. Beware—he hates you. The Son of the North has killed the Guardian of the Threshold; the entire party of Gold and Iron is crying sacrilege. No Atlantean, in his place, would avoid the sacrificer’s blade, but the Queen wants to save him at any price. Nohor, sensing his advantage, will be able to ransom him at our expense. Beware!”
“This interest the Queen has in the stranger—you don’t suspect the cause?”
“The barbarian is young, handsome and valiant. The monster’s claw was on the breast of your daughter, but Yerra was not far away, and the Guardian of the Threshold never abandons a prey. The immortal has seen death at close range! Then again, this Dhu Hern disdains the other women.”
“What?”
The slave recounted the adventure of the young dancer, according to the honest Padoum’s report. No one at the castle doubted that only his mad passion for the sovereign had rendered the Son of the North insensible to Nizia’s seductions.
That must be the case, thought Soroé’s grandfather. Who else could have resisted? Have I not been subject to her charm myself? What will it be when he learns that she has saved him in her turn?
So, the hoped-for protector was about to become one adversary more—for he would not be half-blinded. And if his royal lover divined in Soroé a possible rival? That thought chilled the old man’s heart and put an end to his indecision.
Rapidly, he threw a few respectful phrases on to a papyrus.
“Take my response to the Queen, and may the Gods of Light reward your devotion. If you have new information to communicate to me, don’t be afraid to come at any hour. My sleep is light and Tang-Kor will never make you wait.”
The slave prostrated himself beneath the priest’s benediction, pulled down the hem of his robe, stuck the letter in his belt, and crossed the path of Elim, who was in traveling clothes, with his javelin in his hand, on the threshold. The first rays of the moon, still invisible, were reflected in a vague whiteness on the jagged crests of Bol-Gho. The runner pointed behind him with his reversed thumb at the paler patch in the profound azure of the sky.
“It’s all right,” said Ruslem. “You can go.”
“What shall I say to the master?”
“One word: Come.”
The messenger inclined his head, extended his arm in a sign of obedience, and disappeared into the darkness.
The next day went by without incident.
The day after was the last of the nine days of mourning. The Temple of Gold and Iron, and the innumerable chapels consecrated to their cult, kept their doors closed. No echo filtered outside of the ceremonies destined to deflect the wrath of the gods. The people only spoke in hushed voices about the formidable mysteries, of which no profane individual would have confronted the terror without succumbing instantly. Other causes of anxiety were weighing upon them. During the night, the summit of Bol-Gho had lit up once again with a red glow. The troubled springs were emitting a sulfurous odor. The contagion was enlarging its circle, multiplying its afflictions. The Triumphal Way was encumbered from the port to the countryside with funeral corteges.
The indented disk of the moon was shining high in the sky, silvering the calm waves in the distance, when a simple litter, swaying on the shoulders of four mutes, stopped in front of the ancient temple. Ortiz, having attached his horse to the last tree on the path, came running, offering his extended wrist in vain. The Queen was already standing, enveloped in a somber cloak whose hood, when drawn up, could prevent any indiscretion. In any case, it was not rare for visitors of high caste to arrive in that fashion, even in the nocturnal hours, to request the counsel of Ruslem’s wisdom, the solution to a case of conscience or the consolation of a chagrin. The equerry, dismissed by a sign, nevertheless ventured a remonstration.
“Let me follow you within voice range. The priest won’t even perceive my presence. Perhaps it would be better if he knew you were accompanied.”
With an impatient gesture, the young woman showed him a gold whistle suspended around her neck by a silken cord.
“Go place yourself where I told you, with the mutes, and only come if I summon you.”
“How long is it necessary to stay?”
“All night, if necessary—and more.”
“Remember what happened nine days ago! If you hadn’t sent me away...”
“The Guardian of the Threshold would only have made a single mouthful of you, my poor Ortiz…and I’d be regretting a good servant.”
The equerry bowed; nothing remained but to obey.
At the slight sound of his footsteps on the sand, a human form detached itself from the frame of the doorway.
“Who’s there?” she demanded, raising her hand to her whistle.
Before Tang-Kor had time to reply, the door opened and Ruslem appeared, dismissing the slave with a sign.
“Be welcome beneath my roof,” he said, escorting her across the vestibule, feebly illuminated by light transmitted from a neighboring room.
There, under a bronze lamp, manuscripts covered an ebony table. To one side, on another table, there was a frugal meal: a few fruits only, but exquisite, picked by Soroé in the temple orchards, cakes of pure wheat-flour, two or three bottles whose antique form allowed the venerable contents to be deduced. A crystal goblet on a gold tray resembled a large transparent flower, a vestige, perhaps unique, of a forgotten art. One might have thought it a substance sister to light, so amorously did the slightest ray that penetrated it play within it.
“Excuse the poverty of this welcome. I didn’t even want to allow my old servant to divine who it is that I’m receiving.”
“You’ve followed my orders, and I thank you for it. But you know why I’ve come. You’ve doubtless completed your discovery?”
“My sight is growing feeble; my mind no longer has the activity of old. I’ll show you the inscription, O Queen. Perhaps your science will rally my credulity. But won’t you do your host the honor of accepting a fruit from his garden?”
“All right! A cake, a slice of watermelon and a finger of wine—the most ancient witness, I imagine, of the revolutions of Atlantis…apart from me,” she added, holding out the cup, into which Ruslem hastened to pour a few drops of the precious liquid. “But you must join me, my Master, or I’ll think that you want to poison me.”
The old man went pale. She burst out laughing.
“Can’t you see that I’m joking. And in order that you don’t doubt my confidence, look!”
She raised the goblet to her lips and replaced it on the table, empty. Coldly, Ruslem filled it again, and drank from it in his turn.
“Forgive me for using the same cup, O Queen! The poison might have been placed there in advance.”
“If the proverb is true, you know what I’m thinking now—which is to say, how much I esteem and love you! Well, are you ready? I warn you, even if you fall asleep before the end of our research, I won’t return to the palace without the Sword.”
“May you be speaking the truth!”
“How long do you think we’ll need?”
“The inscription is scarcely distinct. I’ve been trying to decipher it for more than a month in broad daylight.”
“We’ll bring torches. Let’s go!”
“Shall I bring my servant?”
“No need; I have mine; we’ll summon them if necessary. Only light!”
“We’ll find wax torches in the temple.
“That’s true, and fire on the altar. Buy wouldn’t that be a profanation?”
“Whoever has honest intentions can revive the holy flame without fear. It will light him, not burn him.”
“So you recognize the legitimacy of my desire?”
“What harm is there in wanting to decipher an inscription? The lines are traced there in order to be read.”
They had reached the peristyle of the temple, and the shadow projected by its mass rendered the obscurity almost complete. Momentarily, his hands groping, he searched for the entrance of a kind of niche in which various accessories of the cult were deposited. He took out a few partly-consumed candles; they had already served in the quotidian ceremonies. Returning then to the preliminary altar, drew the dying embers of the sacred fire toward him with the tip of a bronze road and revived them with his breath.
“The inscription is on the right, and the back of the first nave,” he said, when the flame had sprung up. “The stone is crumbling, unfortunately, and several characters are illegible.”
That first nave, broad and profound, received air and daylight from a double row of arches open near the vaults, invisible from outside. Bas-reliefs covered the walls, inspired by the story of Argall and his divine Protectress. Inscriptions were mingled with them, engraved in the marble or traced with a brush, but the latter were almost effaced. All that harmonious décor attested to the incomparable style, sincerity and mastery of a generation of artists long since forgotten.
The images of Ruslem’s ancestors and predecessors, standing or lying on their tombs, formed two lateral rows. The most ancient recalled the marvelous work of sculpted legends, their neighbors. The most recent, often still beautiful, signed by presently celebrated names, nevertheless betrayed an inferior execution, the weakening of inspiration.
“Look at the ninth tomb on the right,” said the old man, raising his torch toward a tall alabaster figure standing on a granite pedestal. “His hand is pointing to the sky—which is to say, that point of the arch where two elliptical ribs intersect, like two branches growing from the same trunk. The space where they intersect at first glance, only seems to bear a sprinkling of flowers and decorative foliage, but if you follow the essential lines of each ornament, you’ll see the forms of ancient characters emerge.”
“I see,” said the Queen. “Light another candle; and if your dignity won’t suffer too much therefrom, serve as my equerry. Good! Thank you!”
In two supple bounds, scarcely brushing with the tip of her sandal the knee and then the shoulder of her companion, she found herself perched on the funerary stone, four cubits from the ground, and thus closer to the vault, which her torch illuminated better.
When the pontiff saw her muscular feet treading on the stone of the ancestral sepulcher, he felt less anger in his heart for her audacity than admiration for the aerial grace of her pose and the undulating contour of her body. Once more he thought about the terrible power of the enchantress; and as she was silent, entirely devoted to the mysterious inscription, he wanted to break that silence, which was turning to fascination for him, at any price.
“What would Nohor not give to be in my place, and what would I not have given just now to be only Nohor’s age!”
“Don’t remind me of the existence of that pedant; I detest him! I’ll tell you some day in what manner he would like to betray you and yours! But how will I be able to disobey him if you don’t help me to recover the irresistible weapon? Come on, let’s not waste our time. It seems to me that I can read this writing well enough. It seems to me to be less ancient than you believe. The characters are of the most ancient form, but the cut of the chisel isn’t that of the primitives; certain details betray a different action, another way of driving the implement. Furthermore, here’s one symbol, repeated twice, that was introduced by the scribes five or six hundred years ago at the most. You never find it in anterior works. The imitation leaps to the eyes.”
Ruslem stood there open-mouthed. All those remarks, perfectly accurate, had escaped him, after weeks of study!
“In my opinion,” the strange initiate went on, “this inscription doesn’t date back more than two hundred years. It must have been traced on the orders of your ancestor, or his successor, when his tomb was built, which explains the direction of his gesture. The science of its author is indubitable; he wrote the old language correctly, but, like you, he scarcely practiced it. I find an expression here that a contemporary of my youth could have employed faultlessly, except that the idea would never have occurred to him. And I’m talking about a thousand years ago, no more!”
“I can only admire it more: your beauty marks twenty springs; your wisdom is as old as the world.”
“And flattery is of all times. Let’s make sure however, that we’re in agreement regarding the meaning. Give me your version so I can compare it with mine.”
Ruslem had hoped to drag things out for longer, perhaps to discourage the sovereign. That illusion having vanished, nothing remained but to comply with a good grace.
“This is what I believe I have read, O Queen. You’ll correct the errors and fill in the lacunae:
“To whichever of my successors will see the dawn of the deliverance, salutations in the Endless Light. The Liberator having come, take him into the narrow path, between the water and the fire, to the right and the left, twice to the right, once to the left. Seven steps up, three steps down... The bronze door... The fifth granite block...”
“You’ve skipped two passages.”
“Illegible!”
“No! The characters are partly effaced, but it’s possible to reestablish them.”
“I’ve tried in vain to do it.”
“You haven’t looked closely enough. This is what I read:
“Having following the rising gallery, the silver key will open the bronze door. Let your lamp illuminate, at the back, the upper ridge of the fifth granite block from the base.”
She dropped her torch. Mechanically, Ruslem lent her his shoulder and his knee again. The young woman’s embalmed breath caressed his cheek in passing.
“Thank you. Ortiz never set me down so lightly. I have no need to ask you what you think of my interpretation. You wouldn’t have that expression of consternation if you’d found the slightest fault with it. Oh, that scholarly self-esteem! Console yourself; I’m only here as your pupil, and I intend to leave you all the honor of your discovery.”
“It’s of no great value; in sum, it’s only a matter of a pastiche.”
“The author wouldn’t have taken so much trouble merely to mystify future epigraphists. Your ancestor, for some reason, didn’t transmit the secret of the Sword’s hiding-place directly to his successor. He confided it to the very stones of the temple, and doubtless took other precautions, undone by subsequent events. So it’s a matter of following the indicated route.”
“The indication isn’t very clear.”
“You’re joking! You don’t know the bronze door?”
“I know a dozen of them…and I’m ready to open them for you.”
“You’re trying to gain time. You don’t know what tomorrow has in store for you.”
“The future belongs to the gods.”
“That’s what Nohor says—and his gods have decided that the ancient cult must disappear.”
“He’s been aiming at that objective for a long time.”
“But a few hours will suffice for him to attain it: the time to take possession of the temple and sacrifice the first victim there, whom he’ll take charge of designating.”
“Tomorrow?”
“At midday. The orders have been given.”
“That’s to confess yourself his slave…to put yourself at his discretion.”
“That’s what I am! Only the possession of the Sword can liberate me. If you refuse it to me…the consequences will be on your head.”
The old man hid his face in his hands. He already knew what Nohor’s demands were, and his imminent triumph, thanks to the Queen’s envoy, but he had thought that he had a few days before him: time to communicate with Illaz. That last hope vanished.
The designated victim, undoubtedly, would be himself. So be it. But afterwards? Would Nohor be content with so little? What would become of Soroé? Death under the sacrificial knife? The shameful slavery of the maidservants of Gold and Iron? In any case, the fate of Atlantis would be no less fixed, forever. And if, by some miracle, the Sword escaped Yerra’s research, no one would be there to place it one day in the pure hands of a new Argall.
No—it was better to yield. No profanation could make the divine weapon lose its mysterious virtue. The indignity of its temporary possessors would never fall on anyone but them, and would lead them infallibly to their doom. Consent to the inevitable would not compromise the future.
“Swear to me that if I help you to discover the Sword, you’ll spare us—me and my people,” said the old man, with abrupt decision.
“You’ll remain the venerated chief of a free religion. I’ll give your daughter the spouse of her choice among the noblest warriors in Atlantis. Only the blood of criminals will any longer be offered to the pitiless gods.”
“You’ll do that?”
“And more! Do you think me as base and stupidly cruel as a Nohor?”
“May the gods forbid! I have your oath; dispose of me.”
“Finally! You don’t decide without reflection. The hiding-place isn’t far away, I hope? “
“I don’t think so…if we’ve understood the text correctly; but one obstacle looms up before us: the route designated in the inscription—at least, I assume so—by the words ‘the narrow path’ has been walled up for half a century.”
“What does it matter if there are other passages?”
“I don’t know of any.”
“What route have you followed, then?”
“I haven’t set foot in the crypts since the death of my father. He was the one who, after teaching me the turnings, had the entrance blocked. We were threatened by pillage.”
“The subterrains conceal immense treasures?”
“Argall’s dykes are founded there. Every stone of these bases is more precious than gold; the salvation of Atlantis rests upon them.”
“And, knowing that inscription, you weren’t curious?”
“You’re forgetting that I hadn’t deciphered it in its entirety.”
“All right! We’ll have to pierce the wall, then.”
“It’s not very thick. Time was pressing.”
“It’s even more pressing now. Fortunately, I’ve anticipated the circumstance. My mutes have picks and levers. What other obstacles are to be anticipated?”
“None, if the darkness, the heat of the lava and the growling of the waves don’t offer any. We’ll pass between the water and the fire.”
“That’s in the text. Will it be necessary to break down the bronze door?”
“You’ve reminded me…that I found in our family treasury a silver key whose purpose I didn’t know. I wondered what it did, for its value isn’t considerable.”
“Go fetch it.”
“It’s there.” The priest pointed at the bay behind the altar.
“And the entrance to the crypts?”
“That too.”
“Prepare yourself, then, while I summon my servants.”
The priest went into the private nave.
Yerra, returning to the peristyle, put the whistle to her lips. The last vibration had not died away when a group of men emerged from the shadow of a clump of bushes, and ran across the parvis of the alternating stones, gleaming like ice in the moonlight. Ortiz was bounding at the head. The mutes, in accordance with the agreed form of the signal, were each carrying a pick or a lever on the shoulder, a coil of rope and a bundle of torches, and a hatchet in the belt. With a gesture, the Queen ordered them to follow her, and, after crossing the forbidden threshold, found Ruslem standing on the first step of a fairly broad stairway, which a rotating flagstone had just unmasked.
Each of the mutes lit a torch. Ruslem gave his candle to Ortiz, who took the lead with two of them. The Queen and the old man followed, the other two servants bringing up the rear. The five torches illuminated the route sufficiently; it was easy, in any case, for after going down thirty steps in a straight line, the little troop came into a sort of tunnel neatly hollowed out in the rock, with a smooth, moderately-inclined floor. That sinuous corridor seemed to plunge indefinitely into the bowels of the earth, but Ruslem eventually stopped at a slightly sharper bend.
“Here!” he said, indicating the right-hand wall, the smooth and shiny surface of which did not present any apparent lack of continuity.
At the first blows of the pick, however, a superficial layer came away in flakes, uncovering masonry work of large blocks of stone, carefully cemented.
“Your memory is good!” Yerra observed. Where does the corridor that we’re about to quit lead?”
“The entire hill is a kind of quarry. The materials were taken from it for the temple, the dykes and other constructions. Some shafts must have been dug solely for the purposes of exploration. The excavations are immense. Without a map or a guide one could wander there for days on end…and never see the sky again.”
“Are you sure of not getting lost there yourself?”
“I followed the principal turnings as a child, but many parts remain unknown to me. I couldn’t even guarantee the existence of the bronze door mentioned in the inscription.”
“We’re risking having to search for a long time, then?”
“I don’t think so. The region to explore is limited, and the greater part of it is known to me.”
“After fifty years?”
“Thus far, as you’ve observed, my memory hasn’t let me down.”
Meanwhile, the mutes were attacking the wall with picks. At every blow, the steel struck sparks from the granite. The torches, attached to the wall nearby, illuminated their muscular torsos, streaming with sweat in the humid atmosphere. After a few minutes, an enlarged joint permitted the employment of the levers.
A stone, dislodged, fell away. The work become easier. When the fifth block had been removed, the Queen judged the opening sufficient.
“Enough of that!” she said, gathering up the folds of her mantle. “You don’t have any objection to my men coming with us? They might be useful again, in case the silver key doesn’t turn of its own accord after two centuries.”
“Do as you please. I doubt that, once returned to the daylight, they’ll have any desire to make the journey again.”
The question and the response, exchanged in the old tongue, had remained incomprehensible to those they concerned.
Ortiz grabbed a torch and slipped into the fissure first, not without fraying the embroidery of his cloak somewhat. Two mutes followed. The young woman passed through behind them, scarcely brushing the rough edges, and extended her hand to the old man.
“Courage, my Father! This ought to remind you of your youth.”
The tunnel continued in a similar fashion, with a slightly steeper slope and also more sinuously. Branches and bifurcations presented themselves at intervals, sometimes occasioning a slight hesitation on Ruslem’s part. The temperature varied continually, although the flames of the torches, as soon as they paused, rose up vertically in the still air. Sometimes there was the cool humidity of a grotto, sometimes the burning aridity of a forge, impregnated with sulfurous exhalations and metallic effluvia. A muted rhythmic thunder was audible; one might have thought it the clatter of giant hammers on some colossal anvil.
“The waves,” Ruslem contented himself with saying.
The din became deafening. A hand applied to the right-hand wall could perceive the vibration clearly. It was no longer the raw rock, but a wall built by human hands, a superimposition of enormous blocks of stone, geometrically carved, sealed by a cement harder than iron. In spite of its thickness, which was doubtless prodigious, it gave the impression that the rampart, quivering from summit to base, required all its resistance, and the perfect liaison of all its components—and that the slightest fissure would have determined its ruination under the formidable pressure and furious violence of the waves.
To the left, there was still the native rock, generally ocher-tinted, with veins of brown, green and other tints. The rough, brittle surface was streaked by gaping crevices. Deeper fissures allowed dark red and livid blue glimmers to spring forth. Vanishing at the approach of the torches, they reappeared at a distance, resembling the play of fantastic beings fleeing and pursuing one another in the darkness.
The heat was now becoming unbearable. Yerra abandoned her mantle and unclasped the top of her tunic, careless of baring her shoulders, her bosom of a young goddess aspiring the air effortfully. The mutes were exchanging glances of distress. One of them, stumbling over an asperity in the ground, plunged his fist into a depression in the rocky wall to retain himself, and pulled it out with a howl of pain, burned. Ortiz was panting.
“Courage!” said Ruslem. “We won’t be as hot in a little while.”
There was a bend in the tunnel. The sound of the waves decreased, no longer anything but a distant rumble, soon imperceptible. A very different murmur succeeded it: the rumor of running water, the streaming of inexhaustible springs, alimented by the snows of Bol-Gho. A mortal cold descended from the vault, abruptly lower to within arm’s reach, where droplets sparkled as the torches passed by, producing a sensation as they fell icily on to the sweating bodies almost of burning. Shivering, Yerra put her mantle on again, enveloping herself with a little giggle of wellbeing.
“We must be getting close—here are the steps!” said Ruslem, stirred by the memories that struck him in passing.
It was a stairway carved in a vein of basalt. The tunnel cut through it in the form of a landing, prolonged beyond as far as the torchlight could reach. One part, to the right plunged toward the depths; the other rose up, turning, leaving three passages to the left, the second of which opened at the level of the seventh step. The air became heavy and still again, the silence absolute. The anxiety of the return and the oppression of the unknown, for want of any immediate peril, creased the foreheads of the mutes, curbed their backs, and clouded their coppery complexions with a grayish pallor. The equerry, although striving to put on a brave face, did not appear any more reassured.
“The second staircase!” Ruslem announced.
This time, there was a kind of shaft, where the narrow steps wound down in a spiral. Five or six tunnel-mouths were detectable in the shadows, at different levels and heading in different directions. The one that Ruslem took, after going down three steps, initially took the little troop back the way they had come, but almost immediately two branches presented themselves.
Ortiz could not retain a gesture of discouragement. “Are you sure you’re not mistaken, venerable priest of the ancient gods? For hours, I think, we’ve been going in circles in these caves!”
“There is no certainty in this world,” replied the old man, in a coldly mocking tone, “but if you want to return on your own, I think the Queen will permit you to do so.”
“We could at least have made a few marks on the vault!”
“Excellent idea! Why didn’t you mention it to me sooner?”
“Is it for me to teach your prudence?”
“No more that I ought to educate your bravery. No, believe me, leave your blade in its sheath. The thrust with which you’d transpierce me would add nothing to your glory and would deprive you of a guide whose services you might appreciate even more when this moment’s repose has permitted you to recover your composure and overcome the weakness of your nerves.”
The equerry, ashamed, lowered his head. His mistress, with a disdainful gaze, concluded: “In truth, my poor Ortiz, I have no luck with you before my Father Ruslem.”
“Forgive me, O Queen,” stammered the young warrior, in an imploring tone.
“Enough!” said the young woman, dryly. “Show us the way, my Father, and let him stay here if he wishes. We can collect him on the way back.”
“To the left,” the priest commanded, in a firm voice.
Reanimated, Ortiz set forth at the head of the mutes.
Meanwhile, Yerra continued, in the old tongue, for Ruslem alone: “Excuse him, my Father. These young men only have the energy to draw the sword, once in a while, in bright light, before the eyes of their beauties and their rivals, to give or receive death, but with the secret hope of getting out of it, at the worst, with some favorable wound that will do them honor and render them interesting.”
“Don’t treat him too severely, O Yerra. Even the most courageous are disturbed in the darkness.”
“Good! We’re now, I think, in the rising tunnel mentioned in the inscription?”
“I think so. It ought to end at the bronze door.”
“You’re not sure of that?”
“I’ve only seen the door marked on a very ancient map, with the distinctive sign of abandoned hiding-places, of which there are many in these subterrains. My father didn’t attach any importance to it either, so we never ventured this far—for the route, as you’ll be able to take account, isn’t one of the easiest.”
The ground, in fact, was becoming uneven and slippery. The rock was given way to clay. Pools of water shone in the hollows. A gaping void appeared, too wide to be crossed in a single leap by the most agile gymnast. In any case, the low vault did not permit the acquisition of any impetus. On the other side, the tunnel was prolonged. A torch lowered twenty brasses on the end of a rope did not illuminate anything but the walls of the abyss.
“A passage must exist!” said Ruslem. I remember having skirted this gulf, out of the sheer bravado of youth, for I had nothing to do on the other side. My father stayed where we are…and I wasn’t sorry to get back to him.
“The hole might have been enlarged.”
“That’s certain.”
“What do we do?”
“Enlarge the tunnel too. We have tools, and we’re no longer in hard rock.”
The mutes took up their picks again. The stratum was, in fact, easily cut away. In a matter of minutes they had hollowed out a groove on the edge of the precipice sufficient to accommodate the feet. An extended rope served as a balustrade. The dull sound of detached fragments hitting the bottom after a long fall was not at all encouraging. One of the mutes nearly followed them. Ortiz risked the same fate ten times.
“That’s a little better,” said the Queen, accepting the aid of his hand at the end of the perilous traverse.
The equerry stood up straighter, radiant with joy and pride.
A hundred paces further on the entire troop came to a halt again. This time, there was neither a crevasse nor a bifurcation, and no reason to hesitate as to the route to follow; there was simply no more route at all.
The tunnel ended there.
“Well?” demanded the young woman. “The door?”
“We must have passed it,” said the priest.
They sounded the terminal wall with the picks, to make certain, but it was immediately evident that they were confronted by native rock, virgin of any modification. On both sides, the result was the same. Nowhere, to the impact of the implement, was any resistance, void or difference in sonority revealed. There was no lateral excavation, and no hidden opening could have escaped Yerra’s feverish investigation.
Returned to the edge of the gulf, the exhausted mutes lay down on the damp ground. Even the young woman, although seemingly inaccessible to fatigue, allowed Ortiz to range a coil of rope, on which she sat down, with an elbow on her knee and her chin supported on the cupped fingers of her left hand. Those of the right mechanically picked up and rolled a small pebble. Nothing was heard for several minutes by panting respiration and the sizzling of the torches in the moist air.
Finally, the Queen looked up, and stared at Ruslem. “You don’t have any idea where this door can be?”
The old man shook his head.
On the map that indicated it to you, was this gulf also marked?”
“Yes, and the two symbols were so close that they were almost confused.”
“The hiding-place couldn’t be on the other side? We might have passed it without realizing.”
“It’s scarcely probable. My father knew that part of the subterrain very well. He wasn’t unaware of the cellar we’re searching for, although he believed it to be empty and didn’t think it necessary to risk his life guiding me to it. If he’d only had to pronounce a single word in passing, he would surely have indicated the location to me.”
“You know what awaits us today if we emerge from here without the Sword. At midday, Nohor will be there for the sacrifice.”
“But you wouldn’t allow him to accomplish it, O Yerra! I’ve done everything that you asked of me! I’ve guided you loyally. It’s not my fault if success hasn’t responded to your expectation.”
“What does your loyalty matter to me? Can I offer it as an excuse to Nohor? Do you think he’ll be content with it?”
The old man remained silent, sensing that any representation would be futile. With an irritated gesture, the Queen extended her arm, and threw the stone with which her fingers had not ceased toying nervously at the far edge of the hole. The stone vanished into the darkness, but they could tell that it did not cross the abyss. It must have touched the wall, however, for a feeble resonance rise up from the gulf, followed after an interval by the dull sound of the fall.
The young woman stood up, her eyes flashing.
“Did you hear? That prolonged sound…the vibration of metal?”
“Try again.”
Three or four attempts were vain—but Ortiz, having assembled heavier projectiles, at the second throw, obtained the response of a dull rumble, frightfully lugubrious, which caused the mutes to pale with fright and their mistress leap for joy. Even Ruslem allowed an exclamation of contentment to escape him.
“The hiding-place is there. It’s just a matter of getting to it.”
They followed the narrow ledge again. The equerry, burning with zeal, lay down prone on the edge of the shaft, his head and shoulder over the edge. Anxiously, Yerra knelt down beside him.
“Have you found something?”
“Nothing but clay...and slippery. Don’t come any further forward, I beg you.”
“Don’t worry about me. Nothing yet?”
“Nothing...but the rock reappears beneath the clay... Ah!”
“The door?”
“A kind of stirrup sealed into the stone. My fingers can scarcely reach it. I can feel the cold of metal.”
“That’s sufficient. Don’t expose yourself further.”
“A rope and a torch! I’ll go down.”
“No, it’s me who’ll go down.”
Without listening to the supplications of her servant, Yerra gave her orders. One of the levers, solidly embedded in the ground, received one end of a rope, whose other end hung down into the gulf. A second line, fitted with a loop in which the Queen placed her foot, would be slid through the hands of the mutes at her command.
She gave the signal and sank down slowly, taking the torch that Ortiz held out to her as she went. For a moment, her face was level with the ground; then they continued to hear her clipped and cheerful voice, while the equerry alone was able to follow her with his gaze, his toes clenched around an iron spike and half his body overhanging the abyss.
“Quicker! Like that! Ah! There’s the rung...and another…and another. Don’t lean over so far, Ortiz! You’ll fall on my head and we’ll both end up at the bottom! Ah!”
A cry of joy and triumph came just in time to reassure the young warrior, for the torch had appeared to go out abruptly, and at the same time the two extended cords had swung limply. For a second, he thought that his mistress had fallen.
“Yerra! Yerra! What’s happened? Permit me to join you, I implore you!”
A burst of laughter rose up from the blackness. Then, once again, the clear, imperious voice, albeit slightly muffled, as if absorbed by the dense atmosphere, rang out.
“No, no…not you, my brave Ortiz. If my Father Ruslem wants to have himself attached...it’s quite easy. In any case, let him pass me the key. Quickly! And on your life, make sure you don’t drop it!”
“I’ll go down,” said Ruslem.
Resigned, at first, to seeing Yerra take possession of the Sword, the ardor and difficulties of the search had ended up making him forget the consequences, leaving nothing in him but a passionate interest in the result. On reflection, without even thinking about Nohor’s triumph, what purpose would it serve to know that the divine weapon was sheltered from profane covetousness if it were necessary to forsake, by the same token, almost any hope of it ever being recovered? At least he would be able to contemplate it with his eyes, touch it with his fingers, perhaps sense something of its mysterious virtue passing into him. His pious lips would touch the metal at the very place where the pure hands of the celestial Protectress had gripped it.
The rope came back up to ground level. Ortiz, with filial precaution, placed the old man’s sandal in the loop, and passed his own sash under his arms, solidly tied. The thought of the labyrinth to be traveled on the return journey rendered the life of their guide precious to him.
The mutes recommenced the maneuver of descent. The cable extended tautly once again.
The voice of the Queen rose up.
“Good, that’s it! Rest for a moment. We’ll call you shortly.”
The priest had set foot in a kind of niche hollowed out in the flank of the gulf, in the rock, presenting a form akin to an oven. That first excavation, broader than it was deep, might, strictly speaking, have contained four of five people. The entrance, low and narrow, opened directly to the void. A dozen iron rungs shaped like horseshoes sealed into the stone, would have rendered access easily enough to and agile initiate not subject to vertigo. The real difficulty seemed to be discovering and reaching the highest one; perhaps others had existed once.
The interior vault, high enough to allow someone to stand up there, was uniformly covered with a greenish coating, indicating the vicinity of some copper ore whose infiltrations had impregnated the age-old moisture, discolored in any case in the eternal obscurity of crypts. Already, the Queen, scraping the viscous layer with the end of her torch, had revealed the joints of regular masonry-work framing a darker area where the slightest impact of a hard object awoke the sonority of metal. The surface only corresponded obliquely to the entrance; it had required a veritable fluke for two of the stones thrown by her and Ortiz to reach the bronze door.
“You see, my Father, that the gods are with us! Try the key. The lock is there! I’m sure that it won’t resist for a second.”
“You’re assuming a lot,” said the priest, smiling involuntarily at that confidence and juvenile ardor.
But the trial succeeded, in fact, more fully than could have been expected. The key went in at the first thrust, and turned with a slight effort. The massive batten swung on its hinges almost silently.
There was an oblong room, rather vast, rounded at the two extremities, entirely lined with blocks of granite. No part of the subterrains, except the dykes, manifested work so perfect. Undoubtedly, Ruslem’s ancestors, in a distant epoch, had established their place of safety there and buried the treasures of the temple in it. Perhaps other tunnels and communicated with it then, for it seemed impossible that the present entrance and the perilous way of the gulf had ever permitted the mass of necessary materials to be brought into play. At any rate, once the work was completed, the passage must have been carefully walled up, for no trace of it was discoverable.
“Let your lamp illuminate, at the back, the upper ridge of the fifth granite block from the base,” Yerra pronounced, slowly, repeating the terms of the inscription.
The foundation-stones were almost half a cubit thick; the first one was at breast height. The words “at the back,” given the form of the room, scarcely admitted any ambiguity. The upper ridge of the last block, studied minutely, did not reveal any mark, hollow or projection, not even a difference in coloration—except that the cement was lacking over an extent of a few inches. That could have been the effect of time, an insignificant negligence on the part of the mason, or a gap intentionally left by the architect. In any case, the wall fell so precisely vertical and the cut of the blocks was so exact that mortar seemed almost useless there. However, the piercing eyes of the young woman, scanning the rest of the walls, discovered no similar defect. Everywhere else the chalk-white line cut through the gray of the granite neatly and cleanly.
“The hiding-place is there,” she said, putting a finger on the gap. “It’s a matter of divining the secret...or the pick will reckon with it. I detest employing force when intelligence suffices, however. What can one introduce into that slit? The tip of a stiletto at the most.”
She took a small dagger from her belt.
“Let’s see if I’m mistaken! Is the blade going to be long enough…? Yes!”
Again her laughter burst forth, joyful and triumphant, almost child-like, strange beneath that tenebrous vault. The slab, sliding forwards like a horizontal tablet, unmasked a shallow cavity, a stone coffer hollowed out in the basaltic mass, each interior face of which reflected the light of the torches like a mirror of polished steel.
A long and narrow cedar-wood box was lying there, the lid simply retained by two clasps, with neither ornament nor defense. A child could have opened it.
With the tips of her fingers, Yerra slid it to the exterior edge of the tablet. With a single movement, her two thumbs undid the catches—but she did not complete the gesture commenced, and took a step back, covering her face with her hands. Ruslem saw her lips stir, as if she were murmuring some incantation—a prayer perhaps—in a whisper.
Her arms fell; she turned to him, almost imploring.
“Wouldn’t it be better if it was you?”
The priest smiled, ironically and harshly. “Excuse your servant, O Queen. If the gods have chosen you to possess the holy weapon, you surely have no need of me to take it.”
She stiffened, her pupils pale, her voice dry. “You’re right! Me alone!”
She lifted the lid. The box, lined inside with a byssus fabric rare and more precious than silk, contained a sword without a sheath, only wrapped in a cloth of the same substance, so fine that it outlined the form exactly, allowing the double edge to be divined, along with the sold rib, the acute point, the horizontal hand-guard, swollen at the hilt, just long enough for the grip of a robust hand.
The wrapping ended there, and the young woman had scarcely parted it when gleams sprang forth, a dazzle of splendid gems encrusted in the mat bronze of the handgrip.
The priest bent his knees; the Queen leaned over and applied her lips to it.
“I salute you, O Sword!”
Her pupils, dilated, were radiant. Her voice rose up tremulously, with a contained sonority, like brushed crystal. And it was in the old tongue, with words sometimes incomprehensible even to Ruslem, that she intoned a hymn, a chant, a confession, an action of grace, an act of faith or a mysterious appeal to unknown powers, an imperious conjuration of forces. One might have thought, at certain strophes, that it was the beating of the wings of a captive soul against the window of infinity.
The old man listened, stupefied. Some scarcely-murmured phrases escaped him; others only left him with a vague, colorless impression; a few fixed themselves in his memory like penetrating arrows, vibrating long after they had hit the target.
“I salute you, O Sword, sovereign steel, talisman of heroes, king of blades, stainless, faultless, unsoiled, incorruptible, invincible! Born of the earth, forged in fire, tempered in the glacial air and the holy wave, a divine will unites in you the essence of light, in order that, before you, the elements are appeased, the scourges recoil, the darkness is illuminated, and crime trembles! For that, the one who carries you must be inaccessible to fear, pure of lies, pitiless to evil. Alas, I have lied, I have done evil! Fear alone is unknown to me. But no sin is irredeemable, and I shall touch you without fear, O Sword! I shall evoke your mysterious virtue...
“I know how, with your aid, to find the holy cavern, the marvelous spring, a single drop of which can transform my being. I shall go, I shall confront the ordeal! I shall be purified by it. Immortal and omnipotent, I shall be, I swear to you, benevolent to wretched mortals. You shall be my guide and my strength. You shall open the obscure path to me, the radiant and terrible threshold! I shall go!”
The incantatrice fell silent, her bosom palpitating, her irises radiant in the darkness, her hands joined together for some unexpressed prayer. She parted them, returned to the sword, piously lifted up and unrolled the byssus cloth. A ripple of light ran along the handgrip; the blue-tinted blade scintillated.
“That is enough sleep, O Sword! Work demands you that only you can accomplish. Brother of lightning, living flame, who saw the world surge forth from chaos, I demand more of you! With your aid, Argall triumphed over the abyss; with your aid, I shall vanquish death!”
Her lips brushed the steel; she mirrored herself therein, watched the light veil of her beneath form there and evaporate. A few engraved letters attracted her attention. Her eyes fixed upon them; her brow furrowed, betraying a sudden anxiety.
“Give me light!”
Her voice had changed: curt and hoarse, almost menacing. Ruslem had planted one of the torches in a ring sealed into the wall. He brought the other forward.
“Both of them! I can’t see it! Closer!”
She would not have spoken differently to her slaves. The priest was not about to take offense for so little, but an anxiety gripped him. In the humor that the sovereign was exhibiting, the interval between favor and disgrace seemed to him to be as thin as the edge of the blade balanced between her fingers—and disgrace might take him a long way.
He brought the two torches nearer. The examination lasted a long time. When Yerra raised her head, the expression in her features was so terrible that the firm old man could not repress a shudder.
“Ah!” she said, in an icy tone. “You understand?”
“I can see that you’re irritated, O Queen!”
“Wretch!”
“But I search in vain for the cause of your anger. Have I not served you faithfully? Have you not found that which you were seeking?”
“That which I was seeking!”
She burst out laughing. The priest’s attitude translated his impression so clearly that she stopped, suddenly calmed. That lack of respect saved Ruslem’s life.
“You think I’m mad? Good, good...don’t apologize! Perhaps you are, in fact, acting in good faith.”
“I can attest that this blade is the relic of Argall, the protective talisman of Atlantis.”
“A redoubtable oath, which would almost convince me…if the relic weren’t a fake. The artisan who forged this blade lived two centuries ago, at the most. And he has signed it! Look!”
She showed him a monogram engraved in the metal near the hilt.
“Ortiz and two or three of his comrades could show you similar ones, my good Ruslem. They’re valiant weapons, such as one hardly ever sees; the stones of the hilt are worth four or five thousand head of cattle—but it’s not with this that I can redeem you from Nohor’s yoke!”
She threw the sword across the room. The steel rendered a clear sound on the granite pavement.
“Enough jokes!” she said, with a tranquility more frightening than any anger. “The talisman isn’t here. This one is nothing but coarse bait, designed to put vulgar curiosities off the track. Let’s look elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“That depends on you.”
“I’m falling down with fatigue. Even your servants are exhausted, and the torches are reaching their end. The sun will doubtless rise soon, and the return journey is a long one.”
“That’s true…especially for me. I still to have myself taken back to the palace, and then come back to witness Nohor’s triumph. That will be a fine ceremony. It’s necessary that my absence doesn’t spoil it.”
“Yerra!”
“Well?”
“You must not permit that iniquity. Give me time…perhaps I’ll find it.”
“And do you think I shall renounce searching for it. I’ll have the temple demolished, stone by stone.”
“The blood of the victims will cry out against you! I beg you, O Queen, don’t abandon us to our enemy! Don’t surrender us without defense!”
Fatigue, disappointment and anxiety for his people had demolished the priest’s pride. A tear rolled down his cheek. The Queen, with one hand on his shoulder, considered him momentarily.
“Listen: this is all I can do for you. Don’t thank me, it’s very little…unless…but I believe that you’re sincere, for the moment. I’ll find a pretext; I’ll delay the sacrifice for three days.”
“Three days!”
“Not one hour more! And don’t hope for anything beyond that. If your gods have any power, they won’t need as long to put you on the right track. Bring me the Sword—the real one! I won’t ask you any questions. I won’t torment myself to find out how you succeeded, any more than I’m doing now. I’ll protect you and yours, as I promised…and better. You won’t have to complain of me, I give you my royal word!”
“What hope…?”
“I’ve told you: favor is precarious. But you’re not despairing yet! I can sense that merely in the way you pronounced those two words. I don’t know the reason—it doesn’t matter.”
Ruslem lowered his head, frightened by the young woman’s sagacity. She was not mistaken; he was thinking about Illaz.
“Ortiz! Let’s go!”
She had returned to the entrance of the first vault, and placed her foot in the loop of the rope. The mutes pulled her up rapidly. A moment later, they pulled Ruslem up.
The return journey was as rapid as everyone’s fatigue permitted. The torches were completely consumed when they got back to the temple. The sun had risen. The faithful were arriving for the morning prayer. Yerra pulled up her hood. Ruslem escorted her back to her litter.
“Your servants will never have the strength to take you back to the palace!”
“We’ll find my chariot nearby. Don’t forget that you only have three days!”