The Romance of Atlantis (2 page)

Salustra inclined her head slightly.

“Once I yearned for a son! But no son could be more capable than thee. But thou art still a woman. Thy hands are soft and white, for all the steel underneath. Thou hast far more need of courage and wisdom than hath a male sovereign. But I feel the people will accept thee.” His voice took on an almost prophetic note. “Approaching death is removing the veil from my vision. Listen well to these words, for they come as from beyond the grave. A ruler may make laws that are marvels of mechanical precision and justice, but he will still fail if he heeds not the hearts of those he rules. A fool, loved by his subjects, hath them always. A wise man, unloved, is met with stone ears.”

His breath was labored, but he struggled on tenaciously. “How, thou wouldst ask, do I keep the love of my people? Not by loving them, my daughter. This incontinent people, decadent in their sophistry, can only be ruled by understanding their vices, insolences and ambitions. This is a nation in decay. We have reached the height of scientific achievement, but old morals, standards, codes and restraints have passed.

“The greater part of humanity is composed of greedy souls, disguising their lust in family love, hiding their lascivious lips under pious smiles, loving their neighbors outwardly but hating them in their hearts; shocked at vice but absorbed surreptitiously in lewdness.

“Take care, Salustra! Do not expect too much of these animals, who, though they no longer swing by their tails, yet babble in the jargon of the jungle. Understand them, feed their vanity even more than their mouths, and they will love and acclaim thee.”

He looked at her intently to make sure she understood. The intelligent light in her eye reassured him. Tyrhia still sobbed against his breast. The physician bent down and touched the pulse of the dying man.

“Religion hath lost the power to hold them,” went on the Emperor “They scoff at all things; they treasure the national religion, however, for it is a reassuring symbol of tradition. They deck the temples, and build great altars. They maintain a corrupt priesthood, seasoned in vice and licentiousness. They celebrate the birth of the goddess Sati, daughter of Chaos and Strife. But they perform their religious duties tongue in cheek. Not believing, yet they are intolerant of those honest enough to confess they do not believe. They laugh at the gods but would rend the first man to suggest abolishing them.

“I would advise thee, Salustra, to maintain the national religion. Young nations can survive the eruptive violence of new ideas; a fat and bloated nation, on the verge of disintegration, cannot withstand the constant jars of a virile assault on its crumbling institutions. This nation is much too old for new things.

“Pale thought doth ever numb the arm of ruddy action but the day of action has passed for this land. Do not use the atom-splitter in any way, lest it be used against you by a bolder enemy. Our people will capitulate rather than meet such a threat. We have grown too civilized with thought, too rich with conquest; too much success carries with it the very seed of destruction for that which nourished it. It is too late to turn back the clock. The damage is done; thou wilt be carried along with the tide.” With a groan, he raised himself to an elbow. His eyes took on a prophetic gleam. “If the people should at any time demand thy abdication, if thou art of the opinion that thou hast been wise and courageous, hold fast to thy scepter and fight for it. The virus of democracy infects the very lifeblood of an imperial people. Whenever a nation is tired of self-restraint and discipline, it demands so-called liberation as a means of slipping the bonds of authority. Discourage democracy; it is thy foe, and the foe of thy people.”

“And what of the external foe?” she asked intensely.

He sighed. “Look to the north, daughter. The Althrustri are a mighty nation, young and adventurous. Althrustri hath the spirit and enterprise we once owned. The Emperor Notar, I hated; he was crafty and cruel. He is dead, thank the gods! But beware the wolf’s cub, the resourceful Signar. Watch him! I have sent him conciliatory messages, but he has not replied except to sow disloyalty in our ranks with his gold and promises.”

He rested for a minute before going on. “At one time I thought to give him one of my daughters in marriage, but flinched from the thought of delivering any child of mine to such a savage.

“And now, thy dear self, my daughter, my beloved! Whatever thou dost, forswear the rejuvenation chamber. It is enough for man to live the natural span of seventy-five years. There are too many memories to live with when life is prolonged beyond what nature intended. We become jaded with the things that pleasured once, until we yearn for nothing but endless oblivion. Come not to that, dear daughter.”

For a long time he lay in silence, his lidded eyes sunken in his gray face. Tyrhia sobbed afresh, but none heeded her. The physician shook his head, and moistened the dry lips with a wet cloth.

The Emperor was not through. He held up a finger. “But be jealous in how thou guardest the rejuvenation chamber. Hold it up as a constant reward for loyalty and achievement, but grant it only once in a lifetime, else in the experiencing it will lose its enchantment, and thou wilt no longer have this inducement to dangle before the ignorant.”

Lazar stirred faintly. “My daughter,” he went on, “thou mayest desire to marry. But think long before thou takest on so burdensome an anchor. Yet I would not advise a dull life of continence. Have thy lovers. Have thy lovers, indeed, but be judicious. Take only those thy equal in intelligence. To take less would be to court boredom and self-contempt. But marriage—ah, my daughter, I would not advise that for thee.”

He fumbled for his younger daughter’s hand. “Thy sister, my poor little Tyrhia, into thy hands I commend her, knowing thou wilt love her as I do.

“And now, Salustra, I have some hard-won philosophy to whisper to thee. Thou mayest scoff at it, but I have found it true after a double lifetime of power. Better to appreciate a sunset than to be lord of a thousand conquered cities. The man that can be moved by music is happier than he whose acclaim is shouted from the hilltops. The soul grows not by material things, but only by thought. If a man thinketh not, even though he sitteth upon a throne, his soul is still in embryo.” He seemed to have come to the end of his valedictory. His breath rattled in his throat. She bent low to catch his last feeble word. “To thee, Salustra, I commend my people. If I know consciousness beyond that dark gulf yawning between us, I shall make every effort to see thee and to guide thy hand. For these are troubled times for our dear Atlantis.”

With a sigh that was almost a groan, he fell back.

The doctor picked up the Emperor’s limp wrist. He shook his head with an expression of grief. “The Emperor is no more,” he said. “Long live the Empress.”

It was not until the Emperor had died that Salustra wept. And then she threw her body over her father’s and sobbed until it was time to carry him away. It was well that she did this, for it was the last time for years she was to know the luxury of tears. As she stood there, she knew not whether she mourned more her father’s passing or the terrible responsibility that was now hers.

She had pleaded with her father to visit the rejuvenating Temple Beautiful once again, but he had explained it would be to no purpose. “The gods allow no man to live more than two centuries. And it is well, for the gods know more than man.” He had smiled thinly, as she recalled, saying, “When your time comes, daughter, you will better know what I mean.” He had gestured to the heavens. “Who knows but what there is something better on the dark side of the sky, something that gives meaning to our empty pursuit of happiness?”

She had been too young to grasp the full portent of his words, and saw no reason why life’s benefits should not be expanded indefinitely. As it was, only a favored few among the elite were even considered for Temple Beautiful and the special rays which reactivated the cells and restored the endocrine balance of the glands. Wrinkles disappeared, hair was restored, muscles and circulation renewed, and the years miraculously shorn away, except for what remained in the heart and mind. Lazar had received the rejuvenating rays first when he was seventy-five, and again at one hundred and forty. The second time, he was already tired of life and would have preferred the Unknown. But as yet then he had no heir.

No woman had ever achieved the Temple Beautiful, for none, until Salustra mounted the throne, had the opportunity to merit this reward. Salustra herself knew of nobody deserving this distinction, except old Mahius, her father’s First Minister, and he soon pleaded for her not to prolong a life already freighted with one rejuvenation experience.

With tears in his eyes, he had appealed to her better nature. “I deserve better at your hands, Majesty.”

“Where can I find another like you?” she had rejoined sadly. “Who but you will stand firm with me when the hordes descend from the north?”

2

How stupid were these men, the Empress thought. For a week now, as a low, swirling mist hung over the land, Atlantis had been in the grip of a mysterious power shortage. Nothing operated by solar or nuclear energy could move—neither vessels of the sea nor land craft nor the ships of the air. All rapid communication via the vibrations of the atmosphere was at a halt, electrical energy was at a standstill, and it seemed as if the very empire must fall apart at the seams. And yet these men, these stupid men, were driveling nonsense for hours, inconsequential nonsense, which not only had no bearing on the present crisis but was also irrelevant to any of the immediate internal and external threats confronting the stricken nation.

As matters stood now, the Empress had been sitting in Council with the Nobles and Commoners for many hours, and the conversation had been more than usually oppressive. She moved restlessly upon her throne and tapped the floor irritably with a foot. Her eyes idly roamed the Council Chamber, passing from the walls of gleaming white marble to the tremendous soaring columns and the vaulted ceiling, so lofty that the upper pillars were lost in hazy shadows. Her gaze shifted to the center of the vast chamber, where a fountain featured a nymphlike figure holding aloft a torch so brilliant it illuminated the entire chamber. The Empress’ eyes then returned to the twelve Nobles representing the aristocracy of the Twelve Provinces and the twelve Commoners representing the people of the Twelve Provinces. The Empress barely heard what they were saying. The Empress was unspeakably bored, her mind vaguely preoccupied with the power stoppage that threatened to paralyze the nation. Yet, as always, she looked serenely majestic. Her robes, heavily brocaded with gold, barely concealed the smooth roundness of her bosom and her gleaming shoulders. Her hair was lightly braided with pearls, and on her head rested the crown of Atlantis with its twelve points, one for each province. Her face, with its cold, indifferent beauty, gave the impression of an impassive nature. Against the pallor of her face, her full mouth provided an arresting touch of color. Her nose was a trifle too high and arrogant; the turn of her head expressed too obviously an easy imperiousness. Her frown perhaps was too pronounced. About her throat was her father’s necklace, heavy links of polished gold fastened by the sparkling gem, which became a circle of fire in the warm hollow of her throat. Despite this energizer, stimulating the body, she was mentally very tired. One of the Nobles was speaking, his voice a dull drone in her ears. She looked beyond him to the slumbering Mount Atla. Through the blur of a heavy haze, a suggestion of red shone above the purple crags and peaks. Below, the blue bosom of the bay gently rose and fell, and great ships dipped and bowed at anchor while others dove underneath waves occasionally to mine the ocean floor for precious minerals, copper, uranium, nickel, cobalt, magnesium, gold, silver and many rare alloys. She turned her head, and the city struck her eye with a dazzling white light. The city climbed upward, until great pillars and walls and shining domes mingled together in a vast forest of gleaming stone. She frowned; she hated her capital of Lamora. Her best efforts had not been entirely successful in banishing dirt and disease and noisome spots. She remembered what her father had once told her: “One cannot teach courtesy to asses, nor cleanliness to hogs.” So, despite the pearl-like whiteness of the city at a distance, she knew that narrow alleys and fetid streets lurked behind the pillars and domes and the shining walls. She had had great trees planted in the main streets and the vast parks, the fresh greenery making vivid patches in the glittering stone. But many died of the stagnant air and others became wilted through neglect. Above all, there came from the city a ceaseless murmur, a distinctive, throbbing hum, which reflected the soul of the inhabitants, ebbing and flowing like the changing sound of the sea.

As her eyes returned to the Council Chamber, she looked absently at a large relief map carved in color upon a marble wall. It showed a mighty continent. The whole continent was called Atlantis, but only the central section was really the nation of Atlantis. Mighty Althrustri, to the north and west, was as vast in territory as Atlantis but was a land of endless pine forests, frozen lakes, bleak mountains, breathtaking precipices and terrible stretches of virgin snow and ice. The upper fringe of the continent was white with snow for most of the year, but Atlantis proper had a versatile climate. It was livably cold in the north, with a pleasant summer, warm and temperate in the central portions, and hot and languorous in the south. In the south, in the First Province, was Lamora, the capital, with seven million inhabitants. South of Atlantis was a cluster of tiny island principalities, Mantius, Dimtri, Nahi, Letus, Antilla and Madura. The Emperor Lazar had guarded their independence as an indulgent lion would his cubs.

At one time Lazar had taken his daughters on a journey across the continent. They had visited all of the Twelve Provinces. Seven were industrious, with thriving cities and broad fertile areas. Some, distinctly urban, boasted large manufacturing centers. Others were agricultural, with small towns and hidden villages. Two were indolent, shiftless provinces, feeding on the rest. Two were thinly populated, with dense matted forests, rocky gorges and a sparse soil that made life too precarious for a soft generation. In a vast region comprising large parts of three provinces, there was an endless swamp and jungle. Here, baboons, monkeys, lions, crocodiles and elephants, which had somehow reappeared after the dinosaurs vanished, filled the tropic nights with their cries. Another province was a great, gray desert, unoccupied save for creatures of the sand.