The Romance of Atlantis (7 page)

“Or on thine, little hypocrite.” The Empress smiled, twining a yellow curl about her finger. “Go to! Send for the necklace now if thou so desirest. Seneco closes his shop at sundown, but he will gladly open it again. Let the necklace be my present to thee.”

Tyrhia, with a cry of joy, kissed Salustra’s hand. Salustra saw only the childlike blue of those eyes, the light in the eyes of a pleased child, so she considered. She saw nothing of Tyrhia’s mother, Lahia, in her. She called for a messenger and dispatched him for the necklace.

Tyrhia prattled on, and Salustra listened, smilingly, as she continued to eat and drink. Then her smile faded and her brows drew together thoughtfully. Her eye moved over the radiant girl, speculatively, appraisingly. Her hand glided smoothly over that golden head, gently brushed the velvet of that girlish cheek. She broke into the girl’s chatter. “Thou art no longer a child, Tyrhia,” she said suddenly. “Hast thou ever thought of marriage?”

Tyrhia stared at Salustra, and slowly, under the other’s gaze, her color changed. “No,” she answered in a low voice.

“And thou hast no yearning for any youth?”

Tyrhia avoided her gaze. “No,” she said.

Looking at her sister, Salustra was suddenly struck by an idea. “After all, thou art a princess, Tyrhia,” she said briskly, “and must marry wherever it is politic. We live and marry not for ourselves, but for Atlantis.” She quickly turned back the unspoken query. “I myself shall never marry. A queen can only reign alone. But thy children shall rule Atlantis.”

With a flash of insight, Salustra had seen a way to save Atlantis for Lazar’s line.

Not quite heeding her sister, her mind preoccupied with her party, Tyrhia stood at the window briefly and shuddered as a distasteful odor flooded into the gallery with a shift in the breeze. “When will it leave? My air-cooling device no longer works, and it becomes too humid to move a finger.”

Salustra gave her an ironical smile. “And the aircraft, the ships of the sea, the pumps, the land wagons, the wireless, telesound, all things that depend on the electrical vibrations in the atmosphere, what of these, child? Does it not trouble thee that none of these work since the great cloud came?”

The Princess pouted prettily. “I am more concerned about my toilet,” said she, “than the greatest ship at sea.”

Salustra looked at her sister as if she were seeing her totally for the first time. “Dost thou put thy little conveniences ahead of thy proper concerns as one next to the throne?”

The Princess stifled a yawn. “Oh, sister mine, thou art but a handful of years older than I, and with the rejuvenation chamber, wilt go on forever.” She frowned. “Besides, this is a mere atmospheric condition, and will pass soon. All say as much.”

Salustra bit her lip. Her own propaganda, meant to quiet her people, ironically had boomeranged in the royal household. For a moment, she had the impulse to reveal her own vague uneasiness and that of her ministers, but one look at that vapid face convinced her that it would serve no useful purpose. Not for long did Tyrhia’s thoughts stray from pleasures and comforts.

5

The royal Palace stood upon an eminence in a great park, with luxurious hanging gardens, replete with statues and fountains and small artificial lakes fed by Lamora’s canals. From its south colonnade, a broad road ran from the great gates to the ocean moat. The road, over a mile long, provided a clear view of the ocean from the colonnade. Salustra had added a gallery to one of the upper floors, and here she often sought solitude.

While she carefully watched over Tyrhia, she was grateful they had different mothers. Her mother, Maxima, came of an older, more distinguished family than even her father’s. Lazar, a warrior Noble from the Fifth Province, had been adopted by the childless Emperor Clito. Lazar came of a melancholy strain and Salustra sometimes wondered whether her growing ennui was part of his legacy.

Tonight her mood was more somber than usual. Having obtained the guest list from a rebellious Tyrhia, she sent messages to the older and more sophisticated guests at the birthday party, bidding them remain after the younger fry had left.

It had occurred to her, disconcertingly, that she had no companion to share the later hours. She was almost tempted to recall Lustri. He had the faculty of arousing her to a superlative degree if she made her mind a perfect blank. She abandoned the thought with a sigh. How predictably tiresome he was. Then, who else? Mentally, she ran her eye over the guest roll, and her mouth drooped in distaste. Too young, too old, too anemic, too fat, too unsophisticated, too cynical, too ignorant, too desiccated by learning. Her mind even more than her body had to be intrigued, at least in the beginning.

She left the gallery for the banquet in bad humor. Fifty guests were awaiting the Empress’ arrival in the antechamber leading to the grand ballroom. Most were young, sons and daughters of Nobles and friends of Tyrhia. These included the sons of Cicio, King of Dimtri, and the children of Patus, King of Nahi. The young men were in white tunics, cinched at the waist with golden girdles. The young women were in translucent robes, through which shapely limbs gleamed with a subtle sensuality. The older guests, all men, were grave in their purple togas. They talked seriously among themselves, while glancing occasionally in amused indulgence at the callow young men. The young women received a more searching scrutiny, as practiced eyes appraised the gentle swell of a maidenly breast or sweetly enticing thigh.

In the midst of this byplay, the great bronze door at the end of the chamber opened softly, and the Empress, alone, unattended, stood in the high arched doorway. The corridor behind her was dim, but the blazing light from within struck her with a dazzling effect. She wore a long trailing robe of brilliant gold, bunched about her waist with a gem-studded sash. Her hair was entirely concealed by a close-fitting helmet, from which twelve golden spikes sprang some two feet. The dark brilliance of her eyes and the voluptuous red of her mouth stood out in the cold pallor of her face.

Though they had seen their Empress many times, the guests stared in admiring awe. It was almost as though the goddess Sati had made an appearance. With every movement, every gesture, her person blazed like the very sun itself.

At the banquet tables, the seating was such that each man had a maiden at either hand. Salustra had arranged, with an eye to the midnight festivities, that the jaded tastes of the older guests might throb with the anticipation that the downy-haired maidens would be counted on to arouse in them; to be later gratified by more experienced females than these unsophisticated adolescents.

The older men were plainly bored with the younger men, but obviously enjoyed the young women, making a game of teasing and fondling them, as though it were an impersonal tribute from those detached by the disparity of years. The wine was weak, cooled with glittering cubes of ice. Rare pheasants, roasted in wine-flavored sauce, tongues of nightingales, sturgeon from the north, exotic fruits, olives, golden cakes, tiny fish in their own oil, and scented sweetmeats were brought in on heavily laden platters by beautiful slaves nude from the waist up.

Tyrhia sat opposite her sister at the main table, her voice a trifle shrill with excitement, as she bantered archly with a young man next to her, from time to time playfully slapping a too bold and experimental hand.

Salustra sat impassively in her chair. She smiled perfunctorily, and with a visible effort. She confined most of her remarks to Mahius, who sat at her left.

She spoke to him in an undertone, not wanting the others to overhear. “What do thy geologists and astronomers say of this cursed mist?”

“My scientists?” The minister sighed.

“Do not quibble,” she snapped.

“Frankly, Majesty, like all who are confused, they talk a lot, without saying much. Molanti, the geologist, points out that this mist appeared a few days after a mysterious earth tremor to the north, picked up by the seismographs at the Geological Institute.

“In establishing a connection between that quake and the mist, Molanti believes he may yet account for the power failure.”

She muttered darkly to herself. “Theories, always theories. Tell Molanti it is answers we need. And if he solves this mystery, I shall see that he is accorded the rare privilege of the rejuvenation chamber.”

Mahius sighed heavily. “Are you so certain, Majesty, that this prolongation of life is a proper reward for such meritorious service?”

She smiled slyly. “Molanti, though a scientist, will consider this boon of youth worth more than a dozen palaces or the greenest grove. What do scientists know of life?”

“What do any of us know, Majesty?”

She smiled practically. “We know that life will be insufferable if we do not soon learn why the electricity normally conveyed through the atmosphere has dissipated.” She drew her lips together reflectively. “What says the physicist Goleta? He already has earned nomination for the Temple Beautiful for his discovery of the health ray.”

“Majesty, Goleta reports that the atmosphere is so lacking that the experimental electromagnetic signals he sends out produce not even the slightest static.”

Salustra showed signs of mounting irritation. “Do not these fools know that we cannot long live in this primitive manner? We are not barbarians like the Althrustri.”

Mahius shrugged as he pushed away his food, untasted. “Underrate not these barbarians, Majesty. They have the nuclear atmosphere-changer, and they will use it, if they can.”

Salustra looked at him thoughtfully. “So you have said, but it may not even go off in this deadened atmosphere.”

Mahius’ face turned gray. “But can we take the chance, Majesty?”

She clenched her teeth, thinking of the treachery that had given Signar this weapon. “To turn against one’s own country, it is unspeakable. Yet I am ever pleasantly surprised when a friend does not betray me.” She put out a hand reassuringly as Mahius flinched. “They shall pay, either at my hand or Signar’s. No ruler trusts him who betrays his own people.”

“They are so numerous, Majesty.”

“Yes, the rotten apple is not worth saving.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Thou dost agree with the High Priestess Jupia, who prophesies some terrible catastrophe.”

The Empress snorted. “That old crone. She has been preaching doomsday ever since Sati closed her womb. How else can she express her frustrations?”

Her eyes ran over the glittering assemblage, lingering on the distinguished Nobles and Senators grouped around tables that had been lowered so that the feasting guests could sit or recline comfortably. They seemed oblivious of the multiplying threats to their country’s very existence. Masking an expression of disgust, she turned back to Mahius. “What else say these scientists of thine?”

Mahius shrugged. “Goleta and Molanti agree that the recent tremor was responsible for not only this accursed heaviness in the air but certain erratic movements in the ocean tides, which may affect all electric output before long.”

Salustra laughed bleakly.

“As any can see—” she pointed to slaves waving heavy fronds “—the palace cooling system has already stopped functioning.” She rested her chin in her hand. “Knowest thou for sure whether this atom-breaker was exploded underground or in the atmosphere?”

He nodded soberly. “I cannot be sure, Majesty, but even underground, it still might generate enough heat to thaw the frozen sea and send it tumbling down on our heads.”

She shook her head. “My scientists tell me that the subterranean earth mass safely contains an atomic blast and the ensuing radiation, but in the atmosphere there is a continuous chain reaction, with ever more heat and energy building up until the very skies take fire.”

Mahius gave an expressive shrug. “As thou knowest, the Atlantean atmosphere-changer was used but once, on an invading army of marauding dinosaurs. They not only vanished, but the vast territory they foraged vanished with them.”

Her brows knit together. “And how long ago was this, Mahius?”

“Many centuries, Majesty.”

“And we have not used one since.”

“We are too civilized, Majesty.”

She made a wry face. “Not civilized, Mahius, decadent, degenerate, cowardly. We cannot stand the thought of inflicting death on millions, yet is it not as horrible to kill but one person? If that one life is of no importance, then a million times naught is no more important.”

As usual when he sat long, the Minister’s tired eyes became bleary and his gray head began to nod.

Tyrhia had looked up brightly from the young man so free with his hands.

“So solemn, Salustra, on my birthday?”

The incongruity of Tyrhia’s demeanor, in the face of a very real national danger, nettled Salustra more than she would have thought. “How like her mother,” she found herself thinking, even while admiring her brittle prettiness.

Before Salustra could frame a reply, a smoking brazier was thrust before her. She poured a goblet of wine upon it in honor of Sati. The fragrance of the perfumed libation hung in the warm atmosphere, as the shapely slaves, glistening in their nudity, moved on light feet to serve the guests.

Salustra continued to talk seriously to Mahius. She drank little of the weak wine, and then only with a wry mouth. “Thou wilt remain for the later feast, Mahius?”

He looked at the Empress with pleading eyes. “There will be women later, of course, Majesty?”

Salustra’s lip curled a little, and she inclined her head.

“No righteous virgins; no women with weak wine in their veins. But there will be females, I assure thee, Mahius.”

Mahius looked at her directly, and there was something in that steadfast regard that caused her to drop her eyes.

She glanced around the room, at the older men, scientists, philosophers, writers, engineers, musicians, sculptors, dramatists. Already these distinguished men were bored by the simpering maidens on either side, especially as all their overtures had met with embarrassed giggles and shrinking withdrawals. The maidens did not shrink so obviously from the younger men, not even when a casual hand dropped to a soft breast. The elders began to talk soberly over the heads of the maidens, and to count the hours with impatience.