HEART OF ATLANTAN

Originally published in Weird Tales, September 1940

There are sins beyond the urge of the appetites, beyond the desires of the senses. Sins besides which murder is but an idle pastime, and all lesser evils mankind in the frenzy of bestial passions indulge in at expense of their fellows, pale into the category of mere mistakes.

For Man is a creature possessing two natures, a material one which can only transgress the laws of the material plane, and a spiritual one by which he may soar to heights undreamed, or descend to depths unfathomed.

For the sins, follies and mistakes of earth, there is punishment provided, or atonement to be made. But for the sins spiritual there is retribution, grim, lasting, inexorable, and none dare say if it will ever end.

And whose sins thus, and is punished, had best welcome his fate, and hope to outwear it with the slow passage of the years, nor seek to escape it, for though he may seem to do so, having found, perchance, the method, yet always remains the Law that in effect says: “As ye sow, so shall ye likewise reap!”

And sin they never so greatly, yet will that awful Law, with inexorable exactitude, requite them in just and perfect measure, proportionate to the harm they have done—

As It has dealt with me!

* * * *

Leonard Carman and I sat in my study, smoking and talking as old friends will after long separation. Our conversation ran along the lines of the ancient civilizations, now veiled in the murk of impenetrable mystery.

“And the veil can never be lifted,” I mourned. “Nor will these mysteries ever be solved. There are no more Rosetta stones inscribed in unknown tongue together with one familiar to modern scholars. And some of the great lost races and their works passed so long ago that absolutely no traces, however slight, remain to show that ever they lived and moved beneath the sun and moon and stars. Unless,” I added, as an afterthought, “science makes greater progress with some form of radio than is now possible.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carman interrupted. “It’s barely possible that some fragmentary bits of knowledge can be recovered. Perhaps not to the satisfaction of exact science, but still of sufficient interest to satisfy your prying curiosity as well as my perfectly normal interest.”

“Wherein do the two differ,” I snapped.

“Your curiosity concerns itself with how they lived, what they wore, and the progress they made along the lines of material achievement,” he replied, smiling slightly at getting a rise out of me; which, by the way, I had never succeeded in doing with him; for a more equable temper than he possessed, I had never encountered, while mine is short-lived at best, and, also, highly explosive.

“While my normal interest is chiefly concerned with their intellectual attainments, the extent of their knowledge regarding the finer forces of nature and their possible uses,” he elucidated.

“Just what are you driving at, Leonard?” I demanded, his words arousing within me a rapidly awakening interest.

“Simply that I believe they progressed along quite other lines than we of this modern age, thus giving rise to the tales of an ’Ancient Wisdom,’ now lost. And I likewise think that under certain circumstances, it may be recovered, if not wholly, at least in part.”

“And the method?” I queried. I was not at all skeptical now. He’d fully convinced me, and I felt, even before he replied that he already had a working basis with which to make an attempt to solve the otherwise unsolvable.

“I can have the method here any evening you may select,” he assured me gravely.

“Right now, if that is possible,” I stated, and he agreed. He stepped to the phone and called a number, and a moment later—“Otilie?” Apparently the answer was satisfactory, for he asked: Can you come to where I am, this evening?” Again the response was as he desired, for he gave minute directions for reaching my place. I was curious about this “Otilie,” and showed it, and he increased my mystification by smiling enigmatically, and saying, “Wait.”

In about fifteen minutes a taxi stopped before the house. Carman went to the door to admit the strangest-looking being I’ve ever seen. As I had surmised from the name, “Otilie” was a woman, but such a woman!

She was a hunchback; wry-necked, with a pronounced squint in her left eye. Her nose had been mashed flat at some time, her mouth hung slackly open, revealing gnarled yellow fangs, and she walked with a decided limp. Add to all this, a muddy brown skin and you have the picture. All in all, she was the most unprepossessing figure imaginable—until I noticed her hands. They were beautifully kept, with long tapering fingers, and seemed those of an artist or a musician.

Later, I learned that Otilie was a Finn, and that she was wholly illiterate. But when one looked at those hands and listened to her voice, a clear, bell-like contralto, one forgot all else about Otilie in sheer, downright fascination.

“Get me a stack of paper and a few pencils,” Carman demanded. Rapidly he cleared the top of my library table, placed a chair for Otilie, and escorted her to her seat as if she had been an empress.

“Under normal conditions,” he explained rapidly, “Otilie cannot read or write. But under other conditions she does some surprising things with automatic writing.”

I felt disappointed, let down. So his “method” was merely automatic writing! I think he saw my feeling reflected in my face, for he smiled tolerantly and told me very gravely:

“Henri, you’ve known me for a long time, and you know that I do not lie to my friends. When I state that Otilie is phenomenal, and has proven it time and again, to my entire satisfaction, I think that you may well believe it.”

“Otilie,” and he turned to the queer-looking woman, “do you know anything about Atlantis, or the dead and gone civilizations of antiquity?”

“No,” she said. “Otilie knows nothing of those. What do you want to find out? I’ll try and see what we can get.”

She picked up a pencil, inspecting it critically, laid it flat in her hand, and commenced making long, slow, magnetic passes, stroking the pencil with the fingertips of her right hand. And as she stroked, the pencil, her face, which, despite her grotesquerie, wore an habitual expression of pain and sullen discontent, assumed gradually an abstracted expression, and her usual harsh breathing grew calm and even. The change was so amazing I was dumfounded. She appeared remote, detached, as if between herself and the ordinary world were measureless gulfs of time, space, and condition.

She ceased stroking the pencil, poised it on a sheet of paper, and nodded slightly at Carman. For a minute or so the pencil moved in aimless figure eights, and Carman looked at me with deepest significance.

Suddenly the pencil started off, apparently by its own volition. Watching closely, I am prepared to state that Otilie’s hand followed the pencil, rather than the pencil following her hand.

“Atlantan,” it wrote, and paused, again describing figure eights. Yet Carman had queried concerning “Atlantis.” A second later it wrote “Tekala, priestess of Atlantan,” Then, “Kalkan the Golden.”

“And who was Tekala?” queried Carman softly.

Otilie’s face grew rapt, her eyes lit with an inward fire, her entire figure and features were transformed.

“H-m,” grunted Carman. “This is a new one. Never saw Otilie like this before. Wonder what’s coming.”

We were not long in finding out!

“Who is Tekala?” The deep, mellow tones of Otilie’s voice became wistful, dreamy, filled with a strange reverent awe. “She is lovely, beautiful, with all the beauty I never had and can never have! But she says I am to let her speak for herself.”

Silence reigned supreme in that quiet study of mine, but Carman and I felt the presence of a fourth personality, one of an alien nature, with a will so terrific in its impact that ours were less than naught beside it.

Added to that was a queer impression of incredible antiquity, plus age-long sorrow, patience beyond human concept, and longing unendurable.

Abruptly the lights dimmed, grew dully red, blinked and went out. Otilie gulped, audibly, Carman whistled softly, and I swore feelingly. Then I noted a faint glow of light close by Otilie and wondered vaguely if she were becoming phosphorescent.

But the glow increased, became a faint aura gradually growing in brilliance to a nimbus whose center was a radiantly, exquisitely beauteous being, formed of tenuous light. It was, at moments, hard to distinguish from its nimbus, while at other moments it became clear and distinct, revealing itself as a form unmistakably feminine in contour, yet robed and shrouded in particles of light, so that its actual apparel was largely a matter of conjecture. Yet there was majesty expressed in that luminous figure, a stateliness shown in the poise of the head, and an air of conscious power compelling respect.

“This,” I thought, “is no materialization flummery common to séances, but a genuine apparition—progressed to a stage far in advance of ordinary humanity.”

It took me but a second to think thus far, and it took less than that long for our shining visitant to grasp my thought, read it, and appreciate it at its true evaluation. She stared at me for a long minute, then smiled slightly—and oh, the pathos of that smile! It would have wrung the heart of a stone image! It brought a lump to my throat, and caused my eyes to sting and blur with an unaccustomed mist.

And again the radiant vision stared unbelievingly, but then, to my utter surprise, it—or she, rather—moved swiftly till the outer edge of her aura was well within a foot of my body, and there she stood, obviously reading me as a scientist might study some strange and unusual form of life.

Meantime I gazed up into her face, watching it change from curiosity to understanding, and from that to genuine hope and satisfaction. And I know that I would have given anything and everything I owned could I but lift from her the burden of sorrow, or whatever it was which gave even her smile such wistful pathos.

But apparently our visitor was not as yet completely satisfied, for she moved over beside Carman, her nimbus well nigh touching him. She started, as if surprised, but her expression of doubt lightened somewhat, as does that of one who recognizes an old friend.

One look she cast at Otilie, and that look bespoke absolute pity for the poor ugly travesty, who was watching her with visible adoration writ large in her strange eyes, and again our visitor nodded, as to a friend well liked.

Once more she nodded, vehemently this time, and moved with the speed of light, standing by Otilie’s left side. She stretched out her shapely right arm, laying her hand caressingly on Otilie’s shoulder. I saw Otilie shudder with ecstasy at the touch, and then her hand began following the pencil, but with a speed I’m positive the poor creature could not have achieved unaided.

But that pencil was bewitched; it was writing in letters and words of liquid golden light! And its first question showed plainly the interest our visitor took in all three of us:

“How are you named, you man of a younger race, who are of so deep intuition that you can read my lost condition in my features; and who holds so great sympathy and pity that you would alleviate my lot, if you could?

“And who are you, man with the calm gray eyes, you to whom emotions are strangers, being replaced by curiosity instead, ever seeking to probe into the secrets of antiquity and the lost lore of the elder races?

“And who are you, little Sister whom I envy, for you have the most precious gift in all the world—freedom, while my body and mind are held helpless prisoners in a dreary prison, not even on the bosom of the kindly earth, but far down in the dim gloom of the bed of old ocean?”

And at that point Carman interrupted. “Lady,” he asked in all seriousness, and his very tone bespoke his absolute belief in what she had caused to appear on the paper, “lady, you speak of yourself as being a prisoner, yet you have appeared here! And if indeed you indited that message through the hand of Otilie, I ask you to explain how you know our language, if you are of such great antiquity as your appearance implies.”

“I am an Atlan,” flashed the response on the paper beneath Otilie’s hand, “and this is but my projected spirit you do now behold. As to my understanding of your language—bethink you: If I be indeed of so great antiquity as I have claimed, and if I wield sufficient powers to be enabled to appear to you here, then in the course of all the long ages, I have had sufficient time in which to learn it.”

Carman nodded, fully satisfied, gave our names, Henri d’Armond; Leonard Carman, and plain Otilie. Then he coolly voiced the same question I was about to ask:

“May we be told—”

“Who I am, and why I thus appear before you? For long I have sought the society of wise men of this day and age who could understand and believe, and perchance, help me to escape an eon-old doom. And it seems that at last I have found my goal—or have I, for I dare not hope too greatly.

“But let me tell you three my tale, which will fully clear up the mystery of the Lost Land—and afterward—who knows? At the least, it may entertain you, and may meet with credence, and perchance I shall feel less lonely thereafter in my prison cell—”

And then, as Carman nodded eagerly, the pencil fairly flew across the pages, and Carman read the words aloud, while Otilie and I hung spellbound on every word as the strangest tale ever told unfolded itself:

* * * *

I am Tekala. I am that woman who with a single motion of her hand destroyed a continent and its inhabitants! Truly, a terrible tale to tell in such few words; therefore I will amplify.

It was late in the day, and the sun was slowly sinking to his rest in the calm waters of the great western sea. In the streets of Kalkan the Golden, sacred city of the sun-god, the lights were commencing to gleam; and overhead the silver stars were adorning the purple skies with gorgeous splendor.

I stood beside old Ixtlil the high-priest on the flat top of the highest tower of the great sun temple. The unearthly beauty of the scene held us both, old paba [father; priest] and young priestess in breathless enthrallment for a moment. It was a spell I dreaded to break, yet something within me drove me to voice the question which had vexed me for over a year.

“Tell me, O paba” I said softly, “who am I, and who my parents, for I never knew them. All I remember is the temple, and naught else know I, and my sister-priestess Malixi taunts me when, daily, we prepare the flowers for the altar. Tell me, O paba, and relieve my mind.”

Very gravely the old paba surveyed me, and I saw in his keen old eyes a twinkle of tolerance for my youth and natural feminine curiosity, which not even the temple discipline could entirely eradicate.

“Tekala, little Daughter of Heaven,” he murmured, laying his gentle hand on my bowed head, “it were better that you know not, for it is an evil story; but it is your right to know. Also, there is another reason why you should not, but of that, later. So—

“You are the first-born of wicked king Granat and his no less evil consort, Queen Ayara! But they wanted a man-child, and being what they are, when you disappointed them, you were placed in a boat on a dark, stormy night, and sent adrift, the tide running strongly out at the time. That was some sixteen years gone.

“A fisher-craft picked you up in the dawn, far out of sight of land. The captain, an adherent of the Old Gods, brought you to me, deeming you more than mortal, so beautiful a babe you were, and your robe so richly embroidered.

“The symbol embroidered on that garb of yours told me your identity. So I went straight to the royal palace carrying you in my own arms, whence not king, queen, or the most brutish guardsman dared remove you lest the wrath of the Sun God punish such sacrilege.

“Full into their sneering royal faces I hurled my denunciation of them and their evil ways, prophesying that in a day to come the babe they’d rejected would repay them, unless they accepted the will of the Lords of Life, and reared you as parents should.

“They laughed in my face, bidding me rear the brat, myself, if I wanted her. So, seeing that through them spoke the voice of Destiny—which is above all gods, even the sun and moon—I bowed to them and left their palace. Two sons have come to them since that time, and young demons they are! And I say that when Granat and Ayara pass to their appointed places—which are not in the sun-mansions—those two princes will complete the work begun by their parents, and this race of Atlan will be wiped forever from the face of the earth, so thoroughly that naught remains but a tradition!”

The old paba lapsed into silence. I felt his eyes probing me, reading my soul. A strange look came on his beautiful old face and he whispered:

“Our Lord the Sun forefend! Let it not be by her hand…not hers…not hers!” So low his tone I knew the words were not for my hearing…

* * * *

From the temple below us arose confused shoutings, thunderous crashes, and a chorus of ear-piercing screams and shrieks from the quarter where dwelt the priestesses. I nearly swooned! But old Ixtlil was a father indeed in that moment. He grasped my shoulder and shook me back to common sense.

“It has come,” he said quietly. “The blow falls sooner than I expected, but ’tis ever thus! Now, Tekala, hasten after me, for this temple is no longer a safe place for you.”

Down a narrow winding stair he led, and I followed, until I wondered if we would never cease descending. Finally we came into a great circular room, and across this he led into a small crypt.

“This is no time for false modesty,” he said sternly. “Take off all your robes immediately.”

Dazedly I obeyed. In the center of the little room was a big, flat disk of copper let into the floor, and to that Ixtlil motioned me, and I stepped on it. What he did I know not, but from all directions at once came peculiarly tinted light-rays of purplish hue, beating on my skin like a shower of needles. After a time Ixtlil did something which caused the purple rays to give place to a brilliant flood of light like that of the sun on a clear day.

He pointed to a wide, tall silver mirror against one wall, and I saw myself, and marveled at the magic which had changed the pale gold of my flesh to a brown tint so dark that I looked like any savage maid of the outlands. Even my light brown hair had become blue-black.

Truly the tale of Ixtlil’s magic had not stated the half! Men said that he was past-master and sole custodian of all the magic lore and ancient wisdom brought from the stars by the Shining Ones, that he knew the secret of Life. In short, he was believed to be all-wise and all-powerful, but that could not have been true, or—but perhaps it was true, and in his mysterious way he worked through my hand, despite his aversion to using me, whom he loved, as an instrument.

He brought a robe fashioned from a beautiful panther-skin, a broad belt of silver bosses and links, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a long-bladed bronze knife, and bade me dress and equip myself. Then he handed me a leathern pouch attached to a beaded baldric so that it hung from my right shoulder to my left hip.

“In this pouch,” he stated, “are a full year’s supply of tiny food tablets. One will sustain you for an entire day. Also, there is a bottle of jade containing a wine so potent that one drop allays a day’s thirst even in the hottest desert. Ten drops on the tongue of a dying man can renew his lease of life for a year, unless his wounds are hopeless. A small box of basanite contains a salve that heals wounds, sores, and bites of insects and reptiles, be they ever so poisonous. This ring”—and he slid an armlet of some dull, white metal lighter than chalk, above my elbow—“will become icy-cold whenever an enemy is nigh, but it will glow, warm and comforting, at the proximity of safety.

“Long ago I foresaw this catastrophe, and made all in readiness against the day of your need. Come now!” He pressed a stud against one wall and a section opened.

‘Through that,” he commanded. “Follow the passage. It is a long tunnel, and will take all day to traverse. Here is a bundle of torches to light your way. The passage slopes upward, finally, and emerges in the face of a cliff at the edge of the wild lands of Korgan. Wait till the stars proclaim midnight, then retire ten paces inside, sit on the floor, and look out of the opening. A star will apparently hang barely under the arch of the exit. Mark that star well.

“Stay in the tunnel until well after dawn, then survey carefully your surroundings ere you emerge, lest enemies see you, but if all seems clear, strike out across the desert holding to the direction whence the star arose. Keep that as your objective until the hand of Destiny leads, instead. And now, Tekala, princess as well as priestess of Atlantan, go! As for me, I must hasten back to the Great Shrine—”

“Let me return with you,” I sobbed. “Send me not from you, O my spiritual father! I can handle bow and knife as well as any young man in Atlantan, thanks to the training we priestesses receive! Surely if danger threatens the Great Shrine of our Lord the Sun, my place is there! Why must I be thrust forth into the wild lands of Korgan, the Desert of Demons, while my sisters are privileged to defend the temple? Let me return, I say, and if need be, die—”

“Nay!” his voice was stern, implacable. “That, above all else, you cannot, must not do! In the wild lands, your hands may keep your head, but back in the temple, certain death is your lot! Child, in your veins is the old royal blood of the Itans, the ancient kings who founded Atlantan and the Atlan race! Granat and Ayara turned from the pure worship of Sun-God and Moon-Goddess and the simple offerings of fruits and flowers, to the dark mysteries of Mictla, god of Evil and lord of Darkness! And when king and Queen betook themselves to evil ways, courtiers and populace followed the prevailing fashion.

“And now, Mitcla’s wicked priest, Tizoq, has prevailed upon our rulers to allow him and his depraved followers to stamp out the worship of the ancient gods of our race! The old order is doomed, yet in time the destroyers may go too far, and arouse the wrath of the Eternal Ones, and then—remains Tekala, of the Blood-Royal, Queen of Atlantan and all her colonies! And in her hands will lie the power to bring a recalcitrant people back to the pure gods of the Elder Days, and a new and better era will dawn for our race. But for now—again I say: Go!”

I sank to my knees, and thence to the floor, prone at his feet, sobbing bitterly. He raised me, blessing me in solemn, holy words, laying his venerable hands on my head; kissed me on my brow, making the signs and symbols of Sun and Moon on my breast with his forefinger, and—abruptly turned and left! Weeping with despair, I turned and entered the tunnel, going straight away from all the life I’d known and loved.

* * * *

Five days alone in the wild lands of Korgan!

I think most maids would have gone mad in that time, had they been bred as I, in the peace and seclusion of a temple. But now I know what then I did not comprehend—that when old Ixtlil placed his hands on my head and blessed me, he was transmitting a portion of his own spiritual strength and a generous share of his own magic powers to me—and I sorely needed them!

I’d got my direction from the star, and had carefully calculated so that I might hold the same course by night or day. And the white armlet helped in its mysterious way, for whenever I deviated, be it ever so slightly from the direct course, a chill ran up my arm, changing to a warm glow as soon as I rectified my course.

For the first two days I’d foolishly traveled during the hot, daylight hours, but then realized it was overtaxing my body. Wherefore, I rested all the third day in a little patch of shade cast by a clump of stunted bushes, and thereafter I traveled by night.

Idling there as I rested, my mind went back to the temple, and then I began to realize somewhat of Ixtlil’s blessing. Gradually I commenced to see clearly. I saw the Ancient Shrine, and the great symbol of our Lord the Sun lying on the floor, battered, bent, its burnished golden surface defiled with dirt and dried blood. The entire place was a wreck. Dead bodies lay in all directions. A priestess I’d known and loved as an elder sister lay naked, slashed and torn. Priests who had died—surely the followers of Tizoq had done their work well in honor of their devil-god.

My soul went sick within me. But I prayed long and earnestly to Sun-god and Moon-goddess for the dead whom I’d known since earliest childhood—that they might dwell in his golden mansions by day, and rest in her silver chambers by night, and presently I felt better. But then a dreadful thought arose in my mind, and would not down: What of Ixtlil?

The heat haze of the desert grew dark as I looked. Surely it was not yet night? Then I knew that I was gazing into a crypt beneath Mictla’s temple. Dim, gigantic figures, half human, half owl, wholly demon, were sculptured on the walls. Their great round eyes, made of some luminous yellow stone, gave off enough light to see the venerable paba with heavy bronze fetters about wrists and ankles, and around his waist a heavy chain.

A prisoner! That kindly old man! And then, more clearly, I saw his face. A prisoner? Nay! A servant of the high gods whom not fetters nor chains could bind. He did but wait whatever was destined, serenely assured that, come what might, at the last he would enter into his reward.

I like, even now, to think that across those drear distances of demon-infested desert he sensed me, knew that I was near him in spirit, for his lips moved, and I am sure that his words were: “Tekala, little sister, you do not forget.”

* * * *

While resting next day a tiny breeze came up, and as I enjoyed its caress—suddenly I heard it! And held my breath in sudden fright, although the armlet gave off no warning chill. It was a strange, wild, sobbing moan rising to a dolorous wail like a lost soul in search of the unattainable. Toward evening the keening died out, but I was shaken by fears and knew not whether to go onward or—

The armlet went cold! I rose to my knees and peered about, but naught could I descry. So I decided it was an intimation I’d best leave that place. Promptly I started, and well for me that I did! Just before darkness fell I glanced back, I knew not why, save that the armlet had not warmed up since its warning chill. I had just topped a rise and stood on the crest of the long sloping ridge of sand, and I could still see the place where I’d spent the long, hot day.

I saw far more than I expected! A dozen figures moved about the spot where I’d lain and slept. Although I could not hear their voices I knew they had correctly interpreted the signs I’d left. And when a bit later they grouped a moment and then started on my trail, I knew my peril. My sole hope lay in the possibility that they could not follow in the night. Which would give me a good ten hours advantage. But I merely deceived myself when I entertained that idea. The ridge whereon I stood ran in a long slant down into a great basin which, in some far-distant era, must have been the bed of some inland sea.

Reaching the floor of the huge bowl I lay flat and stared up at the crest of the ridge standing sharply against the stars. And over the comb of the ridge poured my pursuers. Down there I was invisible to them, but once they reached the floor of the basin, my chances were poor indeed of escaping their keen eyes. I betook myself to precipitate flight, running like a scared cat for at least two hours ere I constrained my racing feet to a slower gait.

Even so, I think they would have overtaken me ere dawn, save that once again that eerie ululation came throbbing and wailing through the night. It bore a distinctly forbidding, angry, menacing tone—yet the armlet on my arm grew warm again, which cheered me immensely.

Deciding that the source of the sound—whatever it might be—was friendly to me, and quite otherwise to my pursuers, I hastened toward it as directly as possible. But it was well after midnight when I first saw, looming dimly against the stars, a tall, indistinct bulk, yet oddly suggestive of the human form. But a human form—so enormous? Never was a statue, even of a god, that big, but ere another hour had passed, I knew it surely for a robed and seated image, female in shape.

Was it a goddess of some forgotten race, pre-human perhaps? or was it an effigy of some demon holding suzerainty over this desolate land? Speculation availing me nothing, as usual, I pressed forward as if it were a well-known and welcome goal—a sanctuary against those savages who sought to capture me, for what purpose I could surmise only too well!

Dawn revealed that my pursuers were closer than I liked. To my relief I saw that none carried bows, although each carried a long spear and several throwing-knives. But their faces and their bodies! The apes in the royal gardens of Kalkan the Golden were actual beauties by comparison, both in features and figures; the chief difference being that the savages were hairless as to their bodies and of an ashen-gray hue. They were without exception, hunchbacked, their necks so short they seemed sunken into the wide shoulders; heavy, squat bodies with long powerfully muscled arms, and short, thick legs with great splay feet.

Finally they drew within bowshot, and I felt that I was done for. Yet still the armlet remained warm, unless I looked back, but in that case it instantly changed. Spread out, crescent-wise, the humped men raced forward, running two bow-lengths to my one. Two I slew with a couple of hard-driven shafts from my bow—and then the horns of the crescent passed me and began closing in. But my armlet stayed warm, and the great figure, which I now could see plainly was hewn from one enormous rough boulder, was but a short distance away. And I felt if I could gain its feet, I’d be safe. But I knew, too, that never could I make it. At the apex of desperation, I halted, arrow nocked, bow half raised, fairly aflame with fury. The humped men hesitated, one or another shifting a foot gradually, sneaking a little nearer—it became evident I was to be taken alive. Then I cursed them. By Sun and Moon, by earth and air and fire. I cursed them by day and by night, sleeping or waking. By famine and pestilence, flood and tempest, by thunder and lightning and wind—

And as that last word fell from my lips a moaning screeching howl ensued! The sands of the desert came alive, rising in dense, dun-hued clouds that swept forward, roaring at terrific velocity. And in the space of a single breath—my pursuers were not! Only a low, crescent-shaped ridge showed where they had stood. Yet not one particle of grit from that hard-driving sandstorm had touched me!

I was all alone, staring dazedly at my work—aye, my work! Over me stole the assurance that old Ixtlil had indeed endowed me with more of his magic power than I was as yet capable of comprehending.

With neither let nor hindrance I walked, albeit somewhat shakily, the remaining distance to the feet of the huge figure of the Old Stone Woman who brooded ever, staring out across the desert, waiting for the world to attain to its supreme wickedness.

* * * *

That immense figure was, in reality, a vast rock-hewn temple, shaped to the symbolic semblance it bore by the hands of a people so long passed into oblivion that no legend of them remained. The main entrance was between the two feet. The temple proper was wholly under the skirt of the robe and below the waistline. From there up it rose into the air as a high tower, hollow, within which ran a winding stair leading to a chamber occupying the entire head.

It was when I gained that lofty chamber that I learned the source of the mysterious noises; for the winds that blew free up there, even when the desert below lay gasping for lack of a current of moving air—the winds, I repeat, entering through the nostrils and eyeholes and escaping through the parted lips, caused the sounds which had at first terrified me, and after, guided me.

Times there were, as I learned ere all was done, when those winds uttered chants of warning, of prophecy, and once, a soul-shaking shout of triumph. Also, nightly, voices sighed and whispered, and I, listening, learned from them the secrets of the olden days—of magic, of gods and demons, and of the dreams of the ancient dead.

There was no one with whom to associate.

So far as I could ascertain by short trips of exploration in the near vicinity, there never had been a city or village built around the temple. And surely there should have been some traces remaining, for whoever they were who had used that temple, they were giants, judging by the heights of the lifts of the stairs. I was of average height, but while I could with ease tread the steps of the great Sun-temple in Kalkan, there in the old Stone Woman temple I was obliged to raise my foot as if treading two steps at a time!

One room I found in that temple wherein were thin slabs of stone, graven with writings in small characters, bearing no slightest resemblance to our heavy, ornate Atlantan hieroglyphs; yet here again the spiritual gifts of Ixtlil became manifest, for I found that after poring over a slab the better part of a day I was able to read much of it. And after a few more days of study, I read the writings quite freely, much wisdom thus being revealed!

* * * *

Nearly a year had come and gone since Ixtlil sent me forth through the underground passage from Kalkan the Golden to the wild lands of Korgan. Again and again had I sought out old Ixtlil, throwing myself into that state wherein the sight of the soul views clearly the events taking place at a distance. And always I found him still the captive of Tizoq, still chained in the crypt below the foul temple of Mictla. With practice I’d grown able to comprehend the purport and meanings of conversations without necessity of catching the spoken words. It appeared that Tizoq ever sought to gain by coaxing and threats, some mighty secret from Ixtlil, and ever Ixtlil withstood the desire of Tizoq.

Time and again I contacted my mind with the mind of Ixtlil, beseeching him to unleash his fullest powers and compel Tizoq to release him, that he might fly into the desert and come to where I dwelt in safety and seclusion; but ever Ixtlil made the same reply: “Nay, Tekala, little sister; It may not be!”

Nor would he ever vouchsafe any explanation, but I knew I was beholding a servitor of that mightiest power in the universe, that power which Ixtlil had once spoken of as “Destiny,” and that the eon-old struggle between Good and Evil was in full swing in that darksome crypt. And I bowed my head and wept, for my heart misgave me. I knew that Tizoq was totally mad with hatred and jealousy, for never had he possessed powers such as Ixtlil wielded. That I could sense as clearly as if I were in the damnable temple of Mictla, in the city of Kalkan the Golden, where stood the flat-topped altar beneath the looming effigy of the hybrid devil-god, half man, half owl.

* * * *

Now with a disembodied consciousness, I could see that a vast concourse of people filled the fane of Evil to overflowing, keeping the temple guards busy maintaining an open aisle all the way from the narrow entrance to the foot of the three steps leading to the broad dais whereon stood the altar itself.

It was a most important ceremonial impending, for I saw my parents, King Granat and Queen Ayara, and with them my two bad brothers, Dokar and Quamac. Then came the blare of trumpets and roll of drums announcing a processional. Tizoq, leading, was followed by his devilish acolytes, in the midst of whom walked Ixtlil.

Despite his bonds he walked with head held high on his finely molded lips a calm smile, in his brilliant eyes a light of pity—not for himself, but for all the world—and surely no great Emperor ever strode to his throne with truer majesty than walked the aged Paba toward the altar of his adored Sun-God’s demon enemy, Mictla.

Even the acolytes of the God of Evil betrayed by their attitudes—which sentiment seemed general—that they held this gentle old man in actual dread. For all that he was fettered and surrounded by his enemies who hated and feared him, yet the spell of his spirit dominated them, and they knew it, fearing that at any moment he might loose upon them the unguessable, even as they would have done had conditions been reversed.

The drums and horns increased their din as Ixtlil mounted the three steps, but then the clamor ceased. The great effigy of Mictla appeared to assume life and motion. Its wings unfurled, were outstretched as a canopy over the altar, and from the round, cruel, yellow-gleaming eyes a flood of light poured down, illuminating the scene as plainly as daylight. From the ugly mouth beneath the curved beak came thrice repeated the chilling, evil owl notes.

The paba was seized violently, and his naked form stretched on his back atop of Mictla’s altar, where he lay staring up into the cruel eyes of the demon.

What humiliation had Tizoq in his malicious mind as he approached the recumbent Ixtlil? The owl-priest raised a hand. Again came three owl-notes from the demon-figure. Five acolytes seized the venerable paba—one at each wrist and ankle, and one with both hands clutched in his silvery-white hair. Tizoq raised his right arm on high; in his fist shone a knife whose blade was of ragged-edged volcanic glass. Tizoq’s arm swooped down—I strove to shut my eyes by pressing both hands over them. And saw just as clearly! For a moment Tizoq bent above his victim, then turned facing the worshippers, crying:

“Thus deals the god Mictla with the high-priest of his arch-enemy, the Sun-God!”

Tizoq held up to view a dripping human heart!

“Behold, ye people! Bow ye before the power of Mictla! Lo, the heart of the first human sacrifice to the new god of Atlantan!”

He turned and flung the pitiful, quivering, sacred thing straight into the open beak of the devil-god.

* * * *

I know not the words adequate to make plain to other understandings the awful anguish rending my very soul. Ixtlil, the holy one of Atlantan to die thus! My brain, stunned though it was by that sight of horror, was a volcano of hate and wrath, surcharged with desire for such vengeance as would make the devils in Mictlan cower in terror and seek to hide beneath the white-hot rocks of the great Sulphur Sea!

As moves a corpse animated by a life not its own, I rose from my place and started down the winding stair from my chamber in the head of the Old Stone Woman. On the landing level with the huge swell of her breasts, I stood vaguely wondering why I had halted.

Then a small spot of vivid crimson, like a drop of rich blood a-sparkle in the sunshine caught my eye and held my vacant gaze. Hesitant, as one knowing not what she does, I stretched forth a finger and touched that ensanguined spot—and from above, there pealed a thunderous shout of triumph from the lips of the Old Stone Woman. Dully I wondered why. Then a door, hitherto invisible, swung open, revealing a chamber in the left breast. I entered. Eyes still a-stare, I stood striving to understand. Suspended in the air, level with my face, yet upheld by nothing visible, hung a blood-red heart of enormous size which pulsated and beat like any organism, and yet was formed of a single crimson gem!

Directly beneath the beating heart stood a low stone table on which lay a tablet of polished black onyx, and atop of this a bronze mallet. I could have held back from that table as easily as I could have held back from breathing! And as I bent above the onyx tablet, in letters of living flame which faded as soon as noted, there formed the words:

“Tekala! In the day when your heart becomes harder than mine, lift this mallet, and if you dare, smite! Yet remember—vengeance is of the Gods!”

Vengeance?… Smite!…

The flame within my brain roared like the surges of a volcano’s angry, molten sea!

Crash!

The pulsating heart of Atlantan burst into a scintillant shower of glittering red slivers at the impact of the mallet in my hand. And ere the tinkle of tiny falling fragments had ceased—

Roar upon roar of thunder, continuous, flash following upon flash of lightning, until the world was all a-glare with purple-white fire. The Old Stone Woman, ponderous as she was, swayed and lurched like a ship on a stormy sea as earthquake shocks added their destructive forces to the universal cataclysm! And I? I lay down on the cupped floor within that harsh stone breast, and slept! Aye, like a wearied babe cradled in its mother’s comforting bosom! Nor did a single dream disturb me; and as for the tempest’s turmoil, and the earthquakes, their din was but a lullaby wooing my sick spirit to deeper, most restful slumber.

* * * *

How long that slumber lasted I never knew. Time had ceased when I awoke. Above, the skies were black as never midnight had been, and the very foundations of earth were trembling as each shock came with terrific violence.

My mind, inevitably, went out to Kalkan the Golden. Aye, Mictla’s foul temple still stood, or at least, a part of it. The great fane was but a heap of tumbled ruins, yet the effigy of the Owl-Man Devil-God was unharmed. And on the ruined dais about the altar, some standing and some crouched, were assembled Tizoq, Granat, Ayara, Dokar, Quamac, and a few of Mictla’s evil acolytes and dancing-women. Drawn up in solid ranks before them, facing outward, were the men of the Purple Cohort, the King’s own bodyguard—and they were sorely pressed to defend their charges.

Down the streets converging upon the fane came people fleeing in terror before walls of water inexorably flowing inward. The sea had risen—or had the land subsided? The spears of the guards were dripping gouts of crimson, for the dais was the sole refuge, and many strove to reach it.

Even as I gazed, a levin-bolt sped straight from the black vault of heaven. Full on the round head of Mictla’s effigy it smote with a vicious crackle—I sensed it, I say, in the distance! The great idol reeled, swayed, lurched far over, then with a dull roar it precipitated itself ponderously on the group occupying the dais. A cloud of dust arose, soon settled by the driving rain. I saw Tizoq, or, rather, his dead, ugly face, peering, hideously convulsed, from beneath a pile of debris. Then the waters reached the place, and naught remained save tossing, tumbling waves a-play with strange flotsam!

The terrific forces unleashed when I shattered the ancient heart of the Old Stone Woman were destroying an old land as well as an ancient people. The awful quakes were rending chasms wide and deep in the bosom of the solid ground, and long dormant earth-fires streamed upward. And ever the sea overcame the land. Shattering explosions took place as water and fire met. The entire continent of Atlantan became the picture of hell let loose. There was not a city left, and even the villages of savages in the wild lands were swallowed up in the vast cracks, or incinerated by leaping, roaring, whistling flames. Yet the Old Stone Woman still stared into space, waiting for a dying world to reach its end. And ever the inward rushing waters were victorious over earth and fire alike.

Atlantan was no more beneath the sun! The great continent with its millions of men, women and children, its temples and colleges and palaces, its gardens and glorious cities and fertile countrysides, its rivers and mountains and lakes and plains, its mines with eon-old hoarded treasures of precious metals and gorgeous gems, Atlantan rests at the bottom of the mighty ocean from which, ages agone, it arose!

And I, whose hand struck the fatal blow bringing all that to pass—because I usurped the prerogative of that awful power, Destiny, I am still alive, nor can I ever die while earth endures; for in the hollow of the harsh breast of the Old Stone Woman, enclosed in a new red crystal heart, by Destiny’s inexorable decree, I am compelled to take the place of the old shattered heart of Atlantan, there to remain ever young and undying until Atlantan shall again rise from the sea-slime!”

* * * *

The writing ceased. We three—Carman, Otilie and I—sat staring at each other, in speechless amazement. Suddenly Otilie sighed softly and slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

“Good Lord!” Carman ejaculated. “The strain was too prolonged for the poor creature! Help me, Henri, to lift her to the table-top.”

But Tekala’s “projection” raised a minatory hand. Gliding to where lay the prostrate form, she knelt, placed the palms of her hands on Otilie’s temples for a second, and calmly arose, nodding confidently at us.

To our infinite surprise, Otilie awoke none the worse for her experience. Carman attempted to condole with her, but Otilie waved him aside scornfully.

“I’m all right,” she stated. “For a minute I was out, no? But the Shining Lady”—as she designated our visitor—“gave me of her strength, and I feel stronger right now than ever in my life! And I would cheerfully go through a greater strain for her any time she needs me!”

Tekala started with surprise, as if she could hardly believe what she heard, but then an expression of absolute love for Otilie came upon her face as she signed her to take up her pencil again.

“It seems,” Otilie’s hand transcribed. “That I have found three friends, and I have searched the world over, inspired by such hope, but fearing that never should I succeed in my search.

“Tell me, you who are named Leonard, what would you do, were you Tekala?”

“Let me understand you more fully,” Carman replied gravely. “Are you here, or in the heart of the Old Stone Woman?”

“My undying body is in the breast of the Old Stone Woman,” Otilie wrote. “But all which is Tekala’s self is here! Oh, I tell you that in all the long ages that have passed since the great cataclysm, I have had ample time to develop powers more than mortal! I could, with ease, materialize here and now, for you, but to what avail? Ere long my will would grow wearied and I should again become but a luminous shadow. But, oh! To be free, in a proper, physical body—”

And right there, Carman interrupted:

“If I were you, I would search the wide world over for a suitable body, one young and fair, take possession thereof, and leave my old body right where it is till doomsday!”

“But my punishment—the will of the gods?” Tekala was visibly shocked.

“I’d not worry about the gods,” Carman counseled. “The gods passed when Atlantan sank, nor can the lost gods ever return!”

“But where shall I find a body whose tenant is willing to be supplanted? I would not dispossess a soul in whom the love of life runs strongly. And I cannot, will not take a dead body—there are laws I dare not transgress—”

And at that point Otilie interrupted, somewhat diffidently, but decidedly, and in her melodious voice was a queer note of reverence and pleading.

“O Shining Lady! Can you use such an ugly body as mine? For if you can, I pray you, take it! I have nothing to live for! I am so ugly that little children run from me in the streets, and what man so low as to love poor, deformed Otilie? Perhaps with your powers you can make this twisted form straight and my hideous face fair. If so, tell me what to do, O most Beautiful, and I will gladly obey! But one thing do I ask—let there still be enough left of Otilie to remember how ugly she was, and know how beautiful she has become! Lady—Lady Tekala! Help poor Otilie! Set free her soul, and take her warped body and twist it to your own semblance! It would be the sole mercy I ever knew in all my dreary life, and it is mercy that I ask!”

Had Otilie struck Tekala the effect would have been the same! Tekala reeled and almost fell, but recovered her equilibrium and glided to Otilie. Long and earnestly the two looked at each other—the ugliest woman I have ever seen, and the loveliest woman the world has ever beheld—and what silent message passed between them I dare not even surmise.

But obviously both were satisfied, for Tekala bent her regal head and kissed Otilie full on her mouth. Carman and I, watching, saw a look of unearthly ecstasy transfigure Otilie’s features, and then the unbelievable happened!

Otilie swayed and fell, lying on her back, and Tekala, standing there, turned about facing us, gradually leaning back and little by little merging herself with the other form lying so still on the floor, until the transformation was accomplished and the two had become one! And we two, staring spellbound, incredulous, saw the poor, twisted body of Otilie straighten, the bosom swell and heave, and the grotesque features slowly bloom into loveliness beyond all words!

Tekala arose from her recumbent position and faced us in triumph, and truly if she had been beautiful before, now she was Beauty’s self! She held out her exquisite arms to me—me, Henri d’Armond—and her voice that still spoke with Otilie’s deep, rich, bell-like resonance, uttered the words I’d hoped to hear, but had never believed possible:

“Henri, my beloved, I am yours, take me!”

In an instant my arms were about her, my lips claiming hers in insatiable hunger—my brain swaying, drunken with happiness, experiencing rapture unearthly—

There came a terrific crash! I saw a blaze of unbearable brilliance filled with figures not of earth, and in their midst yet dominant, a great Face, calm, majestic, awful in its inexorable justice. And I knew, even in my stunned and bewildered condition, that I looked full into the sublime countenance of Destiny itself, that power which is above all gods, and which I, a mere mortal, had, in my presumption, defied when I aided Tekala.

At the same moment I experienced an irresistible force snatch her from my arms despite the fervor of my embrace. I heard her voice, heart-broken, calling despairingly:

“Henri! Henri! Never again—”

My senses left me and I fell to the floor, unconscious.

* * * *

How long I lay there I cannot say, but when my senses returned—I could see nothing but a blaze of light. Of Leonard Carman there was no trace, nor of Tekala.

Dimly I heard a voice saying in deep contralto tones:

“Mr. d’Armond, are you alive?”

“Who speaks?” I demanded shakily, and heard the welcome reply:

“I, Otilie.”

She helped me to my feet. My hand groped until I found hers. I heard her sobbing.

“Are you hurt?” I questioned, stupidly, for I was still dazed.

“Not hurt,” she gasped. “But oh, that poor, dear, lovely lady, Tekala! Her gods were not dead, after all, even if Mr. Carman said they were—and they have taken their vengeance upon her—and me! For I am again Otilie, ugly as ever, and you—what have they done to you?”

“I—am blind,” I replied shakily. “Nor do I ever expect to see again! Help me to a chair.”

Uttering little words of pity and sympathy, she complied, and as I felt her warm tenderness for me in my misfortune flow through me with the touch of her hand, I said, weakly:

“Otilie, I need you! Will you come and live with me and take care of a poor, blind fool?”

“I—I—am so ugly,” she sobbed. “But if you need me—and can endure my presence—yes.”

Otilie and I were married the next day. After all, I am rich as compared to her and can make life a little more bearable for her in her unfortunate condition. It is purely an arrangement of convenience, yet she takes excellent care of me, forestalling my slightest wish. She at least is happy. Yesterday I heard her singing as she went about the house.

As for myself—I am blind, as I said before. Ten years now I have dwelt in darkness—tortured by memory, and blessed by memory.

Three months ago I saw dimly a dull red light glowing in my everlasting gloom. Later it came again, growing stronger. At first I thought it was my sight returning, and found out that I was wrong. Ultimately it became a crimson glory like incandescent blood. And I knew it for what it really was!

Within the swelling breast of the Old Stone Woman, deep in the ocean’s eternal gloom there beats still the great crimson crystal heart. And imprisoned, undying, facing each other yet unable to move, within the pulsating Heart of Atlantan are the two beings I loved, but who, in their arrogance, set at naught the awful fiat of Destiny—ancient priest and ancient priestess, whom Tekala recognized as Ixtlil of old, but yet the Carman I knew who counseled Tekala to her fall, and the priestess Tekala, whom, for so brief a moment I held in my arms, and whose lips I pressed but once ere she was torn from me! And there, undying and unchanging, they wait, wait, wait until Atlantan once more emerges from the depths.