Bradshaw William Richard
The Goddess of Atvatabar
CHAPTER LIII.
VICTORY
The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects, they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet pressing against solid cylinders of spears. Mutual gravity was sufficient to hold them together, and each wayleal spread himself upon the air, as upon a bed of down, enjoying luxurious repose.
I had slept I know not how long, in company with the leaders of our army, when I was awakened by Flathootly, who informed me that a trusty messenger from Grasnagallipas, lord of invention and general of the king's bockhockids, desired to see me as bearer of an important despatch from his master.
The messenger, saluting, handed me the following document:
"To His Excellency Lexington White, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Queen Lyone, from Grasnagallipas, General of the Royal Bockhockids, Greeting:
"General Grasnagallipas begs to report that he and his bockhockids have ever been in sympathy with the late goddess, but were prevented from espousing her cause by the overwhelming presence of the royal army in Calnogor. To show his detestation of the horrible act of criminal cowardice on the part of his majesty, he offers his sword and command of bockhockids to the cause of the late adorable goddess and queen of Atvatabar, and on the acceptance of such assistance by your excellency will at once leave the ranks of the royal army and enter that of her late majesty, to fight for the sacred cause and assist in punishing a perfidious king.
Grasnagallipas."
The loss attending the withdrawal of the priests and priestesses to form a guard of honor to the illustrious dead was more than compensated for by the re-enforcements under Grasnagallipas, to whom I sent a message of gracious acceptance of his services.
The army being fully aroused for conflict, had the satisfaction of welcoming re-enforcements from two opposite directions, viz., the fifty thousand bockhockids under Grasnagallipas and the terrorite battery under command of General Rackiron.
As was expected, the departure of the bravest general in the royal army was the signal for a renewal of hostilities, and Coltonobory, mad at the serious defection of his troops, at once assumed the offensive. He had received a large recruitment of wayleals, and felt as formidable as ever. His army swept down upon us with warlike music rolling like thunder, and cries of "Bhoolmakar!" The king himself, having dealt us his most terrible blow, was a witness to the onset of his hosts. He sat aloft in a golden palanquin, borne on the shoulders of his followers, with a body-guard on either side.
The advance guard of the enemy consisted of several regiments, armed with our own hand mitrailleuses, taken from prisoners. These did a terrible execution among our wayleals.
Grasnagallipas, anxious to undo the injury he inflicted on us during the first battle, and emulous of the prowess of our own forty thousand bockhockids, plunged headlong amid the foe, creating a panic wherever his gigantic birds descended. He fought like a demon, neither asking nor giving quarter.
General Rackiron, having got his terrorite battery in position, was eager to check the advance of the enemy by saluting him with a few aerial torpedoes. There was some delay incidental to the first actual operations of a hastily-constructed battery, but the daring ingenuity of the professor overcame every obstacle. Each gun, supported by fifty men, possessed a solid foundation from which to direct its operations.
The enemy, though harassed by our bockhockids, had worked into the centre of our army by sheer weight of numbers. Our wayleals, having exhausted their ammunition, had to fall back on their electric spears, and at times were obliged to retire in confusion. At this juncture a shell of terrorite exploded among the foe with thrilling effect, destroying at least two hundred bockhockids.
Coltonobory, who evidently attributed the disaster to an explosion of gunpowder in his own ranks, closed up the broken columns and renewed the attack.
Three explosions in rapid succession, right in the centre of the enemy, caused the greatest consternation, and produced a frightful gap, where but a moment before the air was thick with an armed host.
Generals Yermoul, Gerolio, Ladalmir and Grasnagallipas plunged with their bockhockids into the living cavern produced by the torpedoes, and with their spears mowed down thousands of the panic-stricken wayleals.
Another terrorite shell, thrown in the direction of the king, destroyed a few hundred of his protectors and induced his majesty to seek safety in immediate flight.
Not wishing to lose so important an enemy, I ordered General Flathootly and the second legion of fletyemings to start in hot pursuit of the royal party and bring me back the king, dead or alive. Flathootly, delighted with his mission, started off at once in pursuit of Bhoolmakar.
The terrorite battery proved our most effective weapon in castigating the enemy. I could not thank Professor Rackiron sufficiently for his great genius and mechanical skill in so rapidly perfecting his weapons, which were modelled on the plan of the guns belonging to the Polar King. Every discharge proved a blast of destruction to the foe.
The deadly missiles wrought a fearful slaughter, steadily decimating the ranks of the royal army, which had no similar weapons with which to retaliate upon us.
The frightened hosts, constantly changing their focus, left behind them vast heaps of the dead and wounded and globes of floating blood.
On one occasion the first brigade of fletyemings, led by General Starbottle, in eagerly pursuing the enemy dashed through a pool of blood three feet in thickness, and every wayleal emerged dripping with gore.
Coltonobory, finding further resistance useless, at once surrendered himself and his army to our mercy.
My brave wayleals, flushed with victory, saluted me with cries of "Long live Lexington White, King of Atvatabar!"
But what was success now without the one priceless soul to share my triumph?
Did ever glory so grand and defeat so terrible so mingle themselves in human experience?
My wayleals, now for the first time hearing of the death of their queen, would have torn Coltonobory to pieces had I not protected him.
I knew he was personally innocent, and my wayleals were already in pursuit of the king.
We entered Calnogor in triumph. I heard on all sides a wail of lamentation for Lyone, mingled with applause for the conqueror.
It was a scene in which conquest and misery, rapture and failure, life and death, were indissolubly united.
CHAPTER LIV.
REINCARNATION
The grand sorcerer Charka and his guard had with reverend flight borne the body of their goddess Lyone to the palace of souls, mourning the death of their adored, who had been so precious, so beautiful, so holy.
The high priestess and the grand sorceress, together with the priests and priestesses of Egyplosis, on hearing of the death of Lyone, departed at once for Egyplosis, to mourn the death of their goddess.
Lyone was dead!
Ah me! what was triumph then, without my soul of souls to share its delights? The blessed cup of joy, quivering to the brim, was about to touch my yearning lips when it was dashed aside by a treacherous hand. Well might the crownless Bhoolmakar laugh in whatever damnable retreat he had retired to! His revenge was complete.
Oh, the pity of it! The young, the adorable, the divine soul who was just about to remount her throne to receive a purer adoration from her people; she who was to be queen of Atvatabar, slain treacherously, within sight of the Bormidophia, wherein she had so long been worshipped.
It was impossible for me to remain longer on the field of battle. I wanted to fling myself on that once happy form and kiss her death-cold lips!
I left Coltonobory and his surrendered army in the hands of the supreme general Hushnoly, and started at once for Egyplosis. As my wings devoured the leagues of air I thought, was this the climax for which I fought? I flew along with none to share my torture. My heart was rent wide open, and in my agony I rolled upon the air as I flew, for brain and soul seemed an ocean of fire.
I arrived at Egyplosis full of anguish. With quivering lips and burning tears I staggered into the portal that led to the subterranean palace where I knew my loved one was laid. I silently entered the magnificent abode of the sorcerer, horror-stricken with despair.
Suddenly, beyond the labyrinth I heard a golden sound, the sound of that blessed bell that once before rolled its waves of delight over my spirit. I stood leaning against a pillar, dissolved in its bewitching moans, luxuriating in the Agapamone of music breathed from the delirious bronze. I heard wafted from the mysterious temple the refrain of thousands of voices chanting a ritual of love and peace. The multitudinous sound seemed so soft and so thrilling, so powerful and so holy, that I was eager to know if such burden of love was the sorrowing passion of the twin-souls in honor of their dead goddess.
I saw through the open doors of the temple a moving throng of twin-souls, swaying in masses hither and thither, with naked feet on the aquelium floor. On every forehead burned an electric star, giving a spectral flush to the scene. That was the singing multitude I had heard, the hierophants of the holy soul.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the objects before me, I saw the interior of the temple, on whose sculptured walls and roof roses woven of smouldering electric fires revealed their burning bloom. Wires of platinum, terrelium, and aquelium had been woven into a filagree of roses, with leaves and stems made red hot by the electric current. High above the sculptured dado rose strange windows of illuminated glass, in colors sad and brilliant, made visible by thousands of electric lights hidden in the sculptured recesses behind each window. The subject of each jewelled pane was a tableau of reincarnation, in which the figures of sorcerers and magicians, robed in splendid attire, gave life to beings that had died.
The frieze was one continual blaze of color, formed also of enamelled glass emblazoned with life-sized processional figures and illuminated with incandescent lights.
In a distant part of the temple, on a terrelium pedestal, I again saw a monster of gold, with a terrible head and outstretched wings.
As I surveyed this stupendous figure, I discovered that it held in its fore paws an immense helix of terrelium wire, ten feet in length and nine feet in diameter. One end of the wire was joined to ten thousand wires, whose extremities, terminating in terrelium wands, were held by the twin-souls. Each priest held a wand in his right hand, and each priestess a wand in her left, and their disengaged arms were wound around one another's waists.
The other end of the voluminous wire forming the helix terminated in the rivet of an enormous spring that held a circular rheotome close to the circular mouth of the helix.
On a pedestal level with the upheld battery, reached by a spiral stairway, stood the grand sorcerer Charka, robed in tissues of white silk and golden embroidery. An assistant priest turned a wheel that moved a screw point toward the spring of the rheotome. The moment the screw point touched the spring, the circular plate over the heart of the helix began to vibrate audibly. Another turn of the screw, and a vital thrill filled the temple with its sonorous music.
I then knew that all that mysterious structure with its terrelium wires was an immense spiritual battery, charged with the life and love of ten thousand souls. The vital fluid, generated in the yearnings of ideal love, flooded the helix with its vitality and induced a magnetism of life that made the rheotome vibrate with emotion, until the whole temple shook with the thrilling sound.
The priests and priestesses sang their ritournels of passion and love, and the grand sorcerer waved his wand over the monster's head. It was then the thought of Lyone filled my soul with a terrible yearning.
Where was her hapless body? Was this feast of passion that I beheld her obsequies, or could it be some occult incantation to raise her from the dead?
The thought fired my brain with madness! Oh, that it might be possible for her to live again, if only for one hour, that she might hear of victory! All at once I seemed to know that Lyone was laid in the heart of the helix held by the hehorrent. I knew, oh, I knew that the spectacle I beheld was the ceremony of reincarnation. I knew that the goddess was being swathed with currents of life from her votaries. How I blessed those living batteries, so faithful in their glorious work! How I blessed the adorable sorcerer who conducted this precious ministry of life, who focussed the love of thrilling souls upon the person of their goddess!
I stood transfixed to the floor, watching with straining eyes those flamens of life perform their ritual of reincarnation. The air of the temple grew warm as blood, and infinitely holy. Soft and piercing music rose from unseen chambers of the temple, which, mingling with the blessed storm of life that beat upon the mouth of the helix, seemed to whirl away my senses.
The first circle of souls around the dragon comprised the votaries of Bishano, or Sorcery; Hielano, or Magic; Nidialano, or Astrology; Padamano, or Soothsaying.
The second circle embraced the adepts of Niano, or Witchcraft; Redohano, or Wizardry; Biccano, or the Oracle; Kielano, or Augury; Tocderano, or Prophecy; Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or Necromancy.
The third circle embraced the hierophants of Orphitano, or Conjuration; Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance; Ecthyano, or Mesmerism; Cideshano, or Electro-Biology; Omdolophano, or Theosophy; Bishanamano, or Spiritualism.
How shall I describe the spell of that hour? Glimmering figures, clad in robes of finest gossamer of the rarest colors, powderings and embroiderings, sang the songs of pained and enraptured sensibility.
They loved, they wept, they supplicated Harikar!
I saw twin-souls embrace in infinite tenderness, and again with ecstatic enthusiasm. It was a sea of supernatural emotion. It was an abyss of affection, filled with a whirlwind of bold, delicate, enormous love.
A religieuse of Tocderano shouted, "She will live again!"
A priest of Biccano sang, "She will be born again of mystical, chivalrous love!"
As the enraptured host sang of life and love, I felt a million exaggerations of the delicacies of emotion. I felt as though fanned with warm winds blowing over wildernesses of flowers. I heard the multiplied splendor of bells, roaring like the soft vociferations of far-off tropic seas. I heard music ineffably tender and sublime, wailing its intoxicating melodies. I saw strange illuminations dissolve in never-ceasing explosions of color on the glorified windows. I saw upon the floor endless arabesques of twin-souls, fantastically entangled and unrolled.
Suddenly the temple shook with an explosion of sound that seemed the concentrated madness of drums and organs and bells; the roaring of the rheotome grew deafeningly louder, mingling with a strange shivering sound, such as is produced by the suddenly transfixed wheels of a flying locomotive, tearing the metals into a hissing blaze. From the mouth of the hehorrent streamed a blaze of fire. I looked where the sorcerer stood —
Heavens and earth! He was holding Lyone in his arms, alive from the living battery! Lyone, the peerless soul of souls, alive once more and triumphant over death!
The temple whirled around me rapid as fire, and I fell to the ground insensible with joy!
CHAPTER LV.
LEXINGTON AND LYONE HAILED KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR
The extraordinary scenes attending the reincarnation of Lyone had left me, when I returned to my senses, exhausted with emotion. It was gloriously true that she who was the Supreme Goddess, she who had suffered death in the fortress of Calnogor, had been restored to life by the powerful necromancy of the sorcerer and his college of twin-souls.
I rushed forward in presence of the entire congregation and embraced in turn the radiant Lyone and the beloved Charka.
I took her living figure in my arms. She was in a limp, tranquil condition, yet happily alive. The happy priests and priestesses shouted with enthusiasm: "Long live Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar!"
It was a blissful moment to us both. The future, that had lain under the terrors of death, now smiled again. I gazed upon my beloved's face with unspeakable tenderness. I saw that she smiled at me sweetly.
Her apostasy was victorious, but who could have supposed that martyrdom and reincarnation were the path to glory? She had exchanged the crown of the goddess for that of a queen.
Handing my precious burden back to Charka again, I addressed the congregation as follows:
"Priests and priestesses of Egyplosis, wayleals and amazons of the sacred and victorious army, I thank you from the depths of my heart for your loyal salutation, but I particularly thank the grand sorcerer Charka, and you his hierophants, for your glorious restoration of her majesty to life, king and crown, thus defeating the cowardly crime of the ex-king. By reason of our victory, their majesties King Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy of Atvatabar are deposed from the throne, and his ex-majesty, by reason of his great crime, is condemned to death.
"The causes that led to this revolution are already known to you. The time was ripe for a reform in Egyplosis. Regulation and not suppression will be our aim, and they who have helped us to this great conquest will not go unrewarded.
"After her tremendous experiences, the queen will require a season of absolute rest to restore her to perfect health. I will intrust the task of establishing a reform of Egyplosis in competent hands, assisted by a council of your own representatives. The present crisis is too overwhelmingly happy to permit me to say more to you. On another occasion I will thank you more effectively."
This speech was received with enthusiastic applause.
On a litter, supported by six twin-souls, Lyone was tenderly borne out of the temple. We departed amid joyful peans of music, our pathway being strewn with flowers. We reached the supernal palace, and saw from every roof floating the flag of Lyone, in token of our victory.
In her palace, on a couch of pale green velvet, lay the reincarnated form of Lyone, filled with a sense of luxurious rest. The experiences of the past few days demanded a period of profound repose. Her face wore a blessed and triumphant smile. She had paid with suffering for that Nirvana of joy. With reincarnation, or rather resurrection, had come a holier transfiguration of form and face. She was still too weak physically to discuss at length the great changes that had come to her or to the history of Atvatabar.
She was the symbol of the more sensitive souls of humanity, who, capable of intense suffering and delirious rapture, must needs purchase all their joys with heart-rending experiences. The culture that comes from agony is our most priceless possession, and brings the soul to every feast, as well as the body. The body, daily slain by suffering, is resurrected with a purer flesh, and receives a reincarnated soul fitted for ideal delights. It has attained a measure of Nirvana. It anticipates immortality by reason of suffering and love. Lyone had more than all achieved an ideal existence. Before she would be able to return again to the realities of the world, it was necessary that time should be given her for physical and spiritual invigoration.
"I feel neither pain nor fatigue," said Lyone; "my senses seemed drowned in a delicious rest. You tell me that I have been dead and brought to life again, and although I have no sense of having passed through the agony, I must believe you. I remember touching a golden vase of flowers in my prison, and then all became a blank until I stood with the grand sorcerer in the temple of reincarnation."
"That vase you touched," said I, "was connected with a powerful magnic battery, which was placed in your apartment by the king's order, to kill you. Grasnagallipas, leader of the king's bockhockids, on learning of his royal master's treachery, immediately transferred his allegiance and important command to our army, and was mainly instrumental in securing the victory."
"So our cause has triumphed," said Lyone; "and what has become of the king?"
"The king," I replied, "is king no more. I am King of Atvatabar and you are my beloved queen."
Lyone turned aside her face and wept tears of joy.
"Our marriage," I added, "will inaugurate the reign of a religion of wedded love, and you will sit with me as queen on the throne of Atvatabar."
"That will be glorious," said Lyone, "but I fear our marriage will also end ideal love and sorcery, and the Nirvana of a hundred years, the fairest products of Egyplosis."
"Do you see now," I said, "that ideal joys in the world can only be built on more extensive miseries? It would be a glorious thing to build houses of jewels, but so long as real jewels are so rare, we must be content with rocks. Still, there are jewels, and in Atvatabar I learn they are much more abundant than on the outer planet; therefore it might be proper for twin-souls to walk on love's enchanted ground for a brief though definite period."
Lyone had undergone transfiguration. Beautiful as a spirit, her figure seemed plastic porcelain. Death had made more luminous the splendid sculpture of her face. As she spoke, it seemed to me that we had closed the door on the infelicitous experiences of actual life, and were opening the gates of a more glorious day.
I informed Lyone of the arrival of the two vessels from the outer world, and of the great services of Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes in turning the tide of battle by sea in our favor. She was delighted at the prospect of meeting fresh visitors from the outer world, and in due time Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes and their entire ships' companies stood before her who was delighted with the fuller acquaintance thus made with the people of the outer world. Both the captains and their officers realized her ideal of exotic manhood, which combined stalwart proportions with intellectual benignity of face.
Sir John Forbes was very complimentary in his praise of the grace and beauty of Lyone and her associates among the priestesses of Egyplosis. He considered Lyone to possess spiritual beauty to an extraordinary degree. The wonderful pale-gold of her complexion was in marked contrast to the old-gold complexion of the women of Atvatabar. He also praised the splendid beauty of Zooly-Soase and Thoubool, who were indeed magnificent women.
My success encouraged the strangers to consider that conquest in other realms of Plutusia would be an easy accomplishment, especially if armed with such weapons as those possessed by the sailors of the Polar King. But even admitting superiority of weapons, they thought it a marvellous thing that one small vessel with but eighty men could conquer fifty millions of people.
In my own mind I thought it possible that the Polar King might conquer still greater kingdoms, and that in time I might be Plutarch of Plutusia. But in such business one realm at a time is enough. I suggested to our visitors that there were at least twenty realms, each as large as Atvatabar, in this interior planet, that would give them opportunity for adventure.
"We also wish," said I, "both the United States and England to know that our ports are open for commerce, and foreign trade is welcome to seek our shores. We have gold enough to enrich all comers from the outer world."
The eyes of our visitors and their officers glistened at this intelligence. And well they might, for Atvatabar was worth a thousand realms like Golconda or Peru. We had wealth for literature and science, art and commerce, which rightly used would make Atvatabar the wonder of the ages, a realm of palaces and temples, the fountain of wisdom, the mother of art, and its commerce would make both the earths rich beyond the dreams of fortune. I was determined that the royal magnificence of the thrones of all time on either surface of the earth should be outrivalled by the supreme glory of that of Atvatabar. I knew there was an inspiration to human endeavor that magnificence alone can give, and would use my wealth to advance the happiness of humanity.
Lyone being at last fully restored to health, we determined to delay no longer the important ceremonies of our royal marriage and coronation, not only to complete our happiness, but to really establish the government on a personal basis so agreeable to the wishes and customs of the people.
Lyone's aerial yacht was made ready for the journey to Calnogor. It was large enough to carry the captains, officers, and men of the Mercury and Aurora Borealis, the captain, officers, and men of the Polar King, as well as Lyone and myself and the great officers of state and retinue. All being safely on board, I gave the signal for flight, and in a moment we were launched on the air with tremendous speed.