"Up and out of the long tunnels they returned to the clawed, long-armed monstrosities. On others, leathery wings had sprouted, and many were no -longer biped, but were horned and spined and doubly dangerous. In the mad eyes of all there gleamed the lust to kill. In the under land the bodily form of each had taken on the semblance of his inner spirit and that spirit had been warped by blasphemous arts until, no matter how mild previously, it had become the contaminated soul of a murderer!
"The host, men and women once, crossed the sea and met the would-be invaders at Gebira. In their Vimanas they fell upon the assembled armies, scattered and destroyed them. Flakes of fire fell from the skies like snow. Whole lands became as ash and cinders. Oduarpa was killed and upon his death his lieutenants vanished, for their pseudo-life was an extension of his. Mercilessly, the murderers wandered to and fro upon the tortured surface of the Earth, ravaging, wantonly slaying, stamping civilizations flat, destroying the long work of eons.
"The White Emperor recalled them, but many would not come. Those have gone down in the pantheons of the other lands as fearful deities to be propitiated with blood and tears. Hawk-headed, dog-faced, baboon-shaped—lion- or bull-bodied monsters. Our loved ones of Poseidonis who fought and suffered and lost their souls to save our endangered country! r
"Some thousands came back. White Magic warred with Black Magic that they might be cured in the healing temples—our protectors who were at the same time our greatest criminals. Some were beyond redemption and were mercifully exterminated. The remainder resumed their human shape once more, but their kindly nature had been warped. Their behavior was unpredictable and it was found that the slightest irritation caused them to fly into fits of ungovernable fury.
"Yet, though they had been blighted by their experiences, the mass of the nation regarded them as heroes. In order that they might still continue to live and enjoy life as fully as possible, an island off the coast of Alata was set apart for them.
"This was surrounded by a wall of force through which they might not pass to continue the infection from which they suffered. It was a gentle exile and they were granted every luxury. Whole families went to dwell with those they loved and here through the ages that followed they found happiness as they and their descendants fulfilled their destiny. It was a fertile island and now and again new blood came to it when convicted murderers were sent there, for who can slay a murderer without becoming one himself?
"Supplies were sent them for many years until they became self supporting and then, the need no longer existing, they were almost forgotten by Poseidonis. My country, now the only civilized land upon the globe, suffered terribly during the passing centuries.
"All the rest of the world had lapsed into deepest barbarism. Again men returned to the caves and the forests. In a few places they even forgot the use of metals and the value of fire. The Spirit of the Wave, not holding
Poseidonis guiltless for its part in the general ruin, caused the glaciers to melt and retreat into the north. The rising waters of her disapproval overwhelmed the large islands of Ruta and Daitya, remnants preserved from a former inundation.
"In other places there were encroachments, dismaying the people. Again they renounced war, and the last few happy years began for the dying continent of Atlantis. During this period, I was born.
"Several centuries before, an exploring expedition had crossed the dead sea bottom of the Gobi, searching for the fabled White Island. Its glories were gone, but they found Oduarpa's spaceship there and stripped it of its secrets. The metal of its structure was foreign to Earth and they called it orichalcum.
"This is the only metal in existence which lives. A tiny grain of it, added to a large quantity of lead, transmutes the lead into mercury, mercury into gold, and gold finally into orichaluum. This is the metal of which my artificial body is composed and all the substance of this Vimana!
"From that time onward, any body or movable thing constructed from orichalcum draws energy from sunlight and docilely submits to man's direction.
"When this discovery was made, aided by writings found on the spaceship, life was made easier for the inhabitants of Poseidonis. Artificially made men and women, scarcely to be recognized as non-human, carried on all the disagreeable work necessary without complaint or recompense. Swan-ships sailed the skies, never tiring, beautiful and swift, wafting the human population about in accordance to its frivolous will. Life became too easy. It no longer had purpose. Boredom came.
"As I have said, Colrane, my father, was a star-seer. I helped him in his work in his observatory, high in the Siluane Hills, searching the sky night after night as thou-sands of others were doing, lest another visitation from the stars take us unaware.
"Little we suspected, with our eyes turned heavenward, the land slumbering peacefully about us, the nearby harbor of Colicynos a crescent moon of soft light upon the bosom of the dark sea, that destruction was creeping upon us from the realms beneath the ground.
"After the defeat of the nations, our people in their fear had tumbled in the entrance to the Land of the Dark Sun, sealing it with talismans, shutting it off, they thought, forever. But now, in their boredom and idleness, fools opened the unhallowed road and passed within, while back along the way they had trod came the inhabitants of the Dark Land to seize upon upper Earth.
"From our observatory my father and I • felt the concussion and saw the flare as Mount Gartola split wide open. Father swung around the small scanner and focused it upon the rent, but with the naked eye I could see black winged things tumbling out of the mountain, hurling themselves down upon the plain and the sleeping city below.
"His face was white with fear as he dropped the tube. He clutched my arm, hurried me out upon the landing and into our Vimana. Earth shocks almost threw us from our feet. The Vimana rocked and fell from the landing, but caught itself without attention from us. It sprang into the air and spread its pinions.
"Father willed it to Mount Gartola and as we soared above the seething abominations he seared them with the dyro-blast. The Vimana flew back and forth just in front of their line of advance. I think he hoped to drive them back below ground, but if so there was no time. The Spirit of the Wave was at last enraged beyond forgiveness with the folly of sinful Atlantis.
"Far out at sea we saw the wild white line coming at us, while we wheeled and fought. The crest of the Wave was higher than any mountain I had ever seen. It pounded down upon CoHcynos, and when it fell, flame leapt from the hills to meet it. Water rushed down into the Dark Land, Poseidonis blew itself apart in thunder—something struck against the Vimana's wing; I heard the crash and the crumpling—I knew we were falling but I do not remember the shock of striking the water.
"When I again became conscious, I was in dreadful pain. My back was broken and I felt that I had only moments to live. My father was near me, also suffering intensely. His arm was broken, both legs and several ribs. I could see that his condition was most desperate.
* 'Daughter,' he whispered, 'our bodies are dying, yet we need not die unless we will it. Shall we take, the bodies of the servants?*
Tie referred to two bodies of orichalcum, made to serve —one permanently placed upon a dais as an object of art and to be available if needed, the other packed away for future use. These were usually made in the likeness of living persons in the family which owned them. It was possible for an adept to will his or her astral self into such a body, becoming its ego. This was often done when a person's fleshy body was weary of living and it hampered a spirit still restless to complete a problem or an experiment. It was not a difficult matter to adjust oneself into its new home and it is only a little harder to take over a real body for a short time and look out of its eyes at strange surroundings."
"I know about that," Gwalchmai interjected. "My godfather, Merlin, spoke of it in his books of magic. He called it possession."
"Yes, it is possession, and it was then that we meant to possess the orichalcum bodies, activating them to take the place of our own. The hea
ving of the Vimana upon the turbulent ocean, as it swam half-submerged, gave me ex-cruciating pain. I gasped, 'Anything, father, but do it quick-ly!'
"He gazed steadily at this female figure and I added my thoughts to his. I felt a sudden cessation of pain. I opened my eyes, which I did not remember having closed, and found myself standing, looking down upon two distorted figures on the floor. The experiment had been successful. Father said, faintly, 'Come here to me.'
"I walked toward him, feeling alive, human as any normal girl, which was odd to think about, although this metal body was modeled from my living form. He raised himself, high as he was able, trying to reach the stud on my back. The experiment was never performed without an assistant close at hand to do this when the interchange was completed. I could have lifted him, but he did not command it and this servile form responded only to commands. I could not help him or myself.
"His good arm reached upward to my knees, my waist —his breath whistling with pain. He touched the small of my back and I felt his fingers fall away. I heard the thud as he fell and I knew he was dead, but I could do nothing. Oh, Ahuni-il I could not even cry.
"Then the body, receiving no other order, returned to its original spot on the dais, as it must always do upon the completion of a command. In it, I was imprisoned. I could never escape from it through any act of my own will. Here, magnetically held, I have stood for untold years. Waves cradled the ship, winds have rocked it, weed has gripped it fast, but nothing has stirred me.
"I have projected my astral body far. In spirit I have roved the world. For moments I have looked out of other eyes and heard with other ears. I have known of love, of hate, of death—all the emotions of others, never of mine.
"I have seen great nations rise from barbarism and sink into oblivion, and other nations, a score of times, build proud new cities on the ruins of the old, whose very names had been forgotten. I have seen the land rise and fall like the waves of the sea and forests become deserts and lakes become dry land and lake again and I have stood here waiting.
"I have learned languages for my amusement, of which no word is now spoken upon any living tongue, but rove as I might, leam what I would, I could not escape from my prison.
"Then, looking down upon the sea out of the eyes of an albatross, I saw your little wooden boat being borne to me into the weed by the currents and the breeze. I studied you. I knew that I must draw you to me and I influenced the sea worm to make a channel through the weed, a path which I hoped your curiosity might urge you to follow. You have a strong mind, when it is not sick. I could not move you to my will and it surprised me.
"You know the rest, but know this too: I could have done nothing to help you had you not given this unruly body of mine definite orders for it to obey. In my deep gratitude, you may command anything in my power to fulfill and it shall be done. At last I am mistress! Mistress of myself!"
"I have no commands," said Gwalchmai. "I do not know who I am or how I came to be here, and I am weary of loneliness."
Corenice studied the young man's face. She took his head between her hands and pressed it to her breast. Her touch was warm and soothing and her hair fell upon his shoulders as gently soft and trailing as that of a girl of flesh and blood.
He felt a sense of healing pouring into his mind and suddenly the blank spot there was filled. Again he had an identity. He remembered his parents and his mission. He recalled his promise to fulfill the duty he had vowed to complete whatever might intervene-Now it was the man who fell to his knees in gratitude, telling her his story and giving thanks that it would, with her help, be possible to complete his vow. Surely it was for this that he alone had escaped alive from the island of the thirty slain.
Surprisingly, she agreed and smiled upon him. It was a young, gay, girlish smile. He was good to look upon. Gwalchmai saw it and wondered. Could her story be true? Was it possible that she was not human? He studied her. In every aspect, except for little golden glints which twinkled just under a translucent skin, if it was skin, and her golden color, she was as other girls that he had known in Aztlan.
Her nudity, to Gwalchmai, was nothing to be concerned about. With his upbringing in a hot climate and his background, clothing of any sort meant only an opportunity for embellishment, or a protection against tie weather. This was normal and as it should be, yet as Corenice twisted her metallic hair into a coiled coronet, dimples sprang out in her elbows. As she stood before him with her head thrown back, her every gesture was so purely feminine that the breath caught in his throat.
Her tiniest motion was grace and beauty. He was stirred as none of the girls in his father's capital of Miapan had ever affected him, and they were the pride of the empire.
"When you were as I am, Corenice, did you seem as I see you now?"
"Would you like to see me as I was then?" she asked, almost shyly.
"It would please me very much, if I could; but so long ago, you say—?"
She opened a compartment in a desk and took out a transparent block. Two little figures stood within it.
"My father and I appeared thus upon my last birthday. Hold it to your eye, so—and press this corner hard."
Now, to Gwalchmai, the figures seemed life size. They moved and smiled at each other. The man said something. The girl laughed and pirouetted before him in a swirl of white silk while he stood back and admired her. There was great love in his expression. She kissed him on the cheek.
Then, with their arms about each other, they stood and seemed to look directly into Gwalchmai's eyes. He gasped. The girl in the cube looked exactly like the living statue.
"That is you and this is you! You are the same!"
"I told you the image was molded from my living body. Now, thanks to you, I live again."
"How old were you then, Corenice? How old are you now?"
But Corenice was rearranging her hair and although he repeated it, she obviously did not hear the question, for she did not answer. When she had finished, she looked upon him seriously.
"Your vow I will help you keep. I shall be most happy to do anything for you that you can ask and I can do, but I am, in my own way, as firmly bound to a duty as are you. There is a vow I made to my ancestors during the long centuries I stood alone in yonder alcove, looking out upon the wickedness of the world. There is a danger coming which I alone can ward away, lest other lands be destroyed as was Atlantis and for the same reason. I swore to somehow thwart that danger if I were ever set free, and Ahuni-i listened and sent you. That promise binds me now.
"My observations of you and of the sword you carry, and perhaps also the ring you wear, lead me to believe that your help would be valuable to me. If you would not come with me, I will take you now upon your way, aid you to complete your mission, and bring you back to your own country, but I would have you gladly at my side when I do what I must, for I may need help and time runs short."
"Where will your vow take us?" Gwalchmai asked.
"North! North to the coast of Alata. North to Atlantis' last surviving colony on all Earth's surface—to Nor-um-Bega, the Island of the Murderers!"
"I will go, Corenice of Colicynos. My sword hand upon it and my sword when you need it!"
Perhaps, since man first learned the binding power of a handclasp, no stranger pact had ever been sealed in that manner, nor one fraught with more far-reaching consequences.
5 The people of The Dawn
They had again seated themselves at the rim of the pool while they were talking. Corenice sprang to her feet with a harmonious chiming of mechanism.
"Follow me!" she cried, like a peal of elfin bells, and led the way below to the engine room. As before, the fishes swam beneath the transparent floor and green-gold light flooded over the humming power boxes and the weed fronds waved lazily below in the slow currents. As on his other visits, the excess energy spat and snapped, as for uncounted centuries it had done, exhausting itself into the sea. At last, it was to be directed by an intelligence and work again for man.
"We cannot fly, as I should like to do," explained Cor-enice, "because of the broken wing. However, as you can see through the observation panels, the feet are uninjured. Our trip will be longer, but we shall reach our destination as surely, by swimming."
"How about this crowding weed? Can the swan-ship force a way?"
"We could burn a channel through, but all our power may be needed before we are done. There is yet an easier way."
She depressed five of a bank of keys upon a horizontal panel board and the Vimana woke once more from its long rest. Air raced out in swift bubbles along the translucent sides. The weed fronds lashed and swung as shadows danced against the walls. Water rumbled into hidden tanks. The long arching neck and head dipped like a diving bird, and leaving only a clear spot in the weed-carpeted sea to mark its passing, the swan-ship plunged beneath the surface.
Down, down, in long easy spirals, driven by the powerful thrusts of the webbed feet. Deeper yet, while the sunlight dimmed and the interior of the ship grew twilight dark and the eternal cold of the great deeps drove away the long stored warmth of the upper air.
Other keys being depressed, heat returned from glowing grids in the walls and brilliant shafts of light shot downward from the eye lenses. Briefly illuminated, as they wheeled and circled lower, marine creatures darted to safety, some huge and monstrous, fearsome, tentacular, with powerful snapping beaks which might easily rend metal.
Gwalchmai repressed a shudder, but the girl, unmoved, sat peering down through the floor, waiting patiently as the searchlights cut broad swathes through the dark water.
Suddenly and with a sharp ejaculation, she snapped down another key which released the first five from their previous positions, and, leveling out, the ship hung at that level with lights still showing. The bottom, which had become as visible as a beach on a misty day, rushing up at them abruptly, now slid easily by with the yet unexpended impetus of their descent. For some moments he could see only ooze and broad furrows made by crawling things, though it was apparent by her interest that Corenice was aware of something more.
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