by James Axler
With appalling suddenness, the expressionless face of Balam dimmed, blurred and all Kane could see were the huge eyes, engulfing everything. First there was an utter blackness, then vague, evanescent shapes wavered within it before taking shape.
Like storm clouds dispersing, the blackness rolled away and Kane saw a huge city of dark stone rising at the base of towering, snowcapped mountain ranges. A massive, round column of white rose from the center of the city, jutting at least three hundred feet into the sky. With a faraway sense of shock, he recognized it as a prototype of the Administrative Monoliths in all of the villes. On a subliminal level, Kane understood the city was more of a symbol, representing many similar settlements scattered over the world.
A thready nonvoice whispered, This was who we were.
Kane floated over the buildings, receiving an impression of odd angles and immense green-black blocks. Though the lines of the structures looked simple, they possessed a quality that eluded real comprehension to their size and shape, as if they had been built following architectural principles just slightly apart from those the human brain could absorb.
From the city, silvery disks like polished coins seen edge-on rose and flitted across the sky. Some were very small and delicate, while others were gargantuan spheres, like moons given the power of flight.
Through the streets of the city moved beings cast in the mold of humanity, but they were not human as Kane defined the term. They were dome-skulled, slender creatures, very tall and graceful. Their tranquil eyes were big and opalescent, their flesh tones a pale blue.
Somehow, Kane understood that they were a branch on the mysterious tree of evolution, yet the twigs of humanity sprouted from their bough. In physical appearance, they were as separate and as apart from Balam as humanity was from his Neanderthal progenitors. In spiritual and intellectual development, they were as superior to mankind as a Neanderthal was to an ape.
Kane knew that they existed, much less thrived, as part of a pact between two root races that had warred for possession of Earth. They were a bridge, not only between two races, but flowing within them, mixing with the blood of their nonhuman forebears, was the blood of humanity.
These beings were mortal, though exceptionally longlived. Like the humanity to which they were genetically connected, they loved and experienced joy and sadness. Their cities were centers of learning, and the citizens didn't suffer from want. They knew no enemies; they had no need to fight for survival. As the end result of a fight for survival between their ancestors, the beings had been born to live on the world of humans and guide them away from the path of war that had nearly destroyed Earth.
Their duty was to keep the ancient secrets of their ancestors alive, yet not propagate the same errors as their forebears, especially in their dealings with mankind, to whom they were inextricably bound.
Humanity was struggling to overcome a global cataclysm, striving again for civilization, and the graceful folk in the cities, the outposts, did what they could to help them rebuild. They insinuated themselves into schools, into political circles, prompting and assisting men into making the right decisions.
They sought out humans of vision, humans with superior traits. They mingled their blood with them, initiated them into their secrets, advised them. On many continents — Mu, Gondawara, Hyberborea, Atlantis — new centers of learning arose, empires and dynasties spread out carrying the seeds of civilization.
The folk had no god, no true deity they worshiped, but they valued a relic, a totem, an oracle. Kane saw it in a vast space. He couldn't see the roof or the walls, but had the impression of an enormous chamber. In front of him, a strange radiance played about an altar made of six sharply cut slabs of stone.
The source of the glow he couldn't see, but on the altar lay a night black, yet shining object. He inspected it from all sides, but its confusing lines looked different from every angle. Its facets were highly polished, and it didn't resemble a stone. It was a sculpture, incorporating much of the same geometric principles as the city itself.
It pulsed with life, yet it wasn't alive. It exuded an immeasurable intelligence, but it wasn't sentient. Kane only vaguely understood its nature. The trapezohedron was the sum-total of all that the root races knew and believed. It was a teacher, a means of communication, a key to parallel casements. Kane wasn't quite certain of what that meant, but it didn't matter. He was only an observer of the panorama of a prosperous, self-satisfied civilization, of the accomplishments of a prideful people who had tamed a savage world.
The trapezohedron wasn't the deity of their civilization, yet it was their heart.
Then, after uncounted years, came the new cataclysms. The magnetic centers shifted, the great glaciers and ice centers at the poles withdrew toward new positions. Vast portions of the ocean floor rose, while equally vast land masses sank beneath the waves. The configuration of the Earth altered.
Convulsions shook mountains and the nights blazed with flame-spouting volcanoes. Earthquakes shook the walls and towers of the city made of green-black stone. Many of the folk died quickly, while others lingered in a state of near death for years. The vast knowledge of their ancestors, the technical achievements bequeathed to them, became their only means of survival.
The survivors consulted the stone, the shining trapezohedron, desperate to find a solution to their tragedy within its black facets. It showed them how to build thresholds to parallel casements. Over the stone appeared what seemed to Kane to be an archway surrounded by fireflies, strung around it in a combination of glimmering colors.
In ages past, the root races had used such thresholds, knowing that Earth was the end of a parallel axis of these casements. Kane only dimly realized what all of it meant, but he understood the basic principles of the mat-trans units were in use, although expanded far beyond linear travel from place to place.
The stone also suggested that they changed themselves with the world, to alter their physiologies. Using ancient techniques, the race transformed itself in order to survive. Muscle tissue became less dense, motor reflexes sharpened, optic capacities broadened. A new range of abilities was developed, which just allowed them to live on a planet whose magnetic fields had changed, whose weather was drastically unpredictable.
Their need for sustenance veered away from the near depleted resources of their environment. They found new means of nourishment other than the ingestion of bulk matter. They had no choice.
The proud, unified race of teachers and artisans degenerated, scattered, a lost tribe skulking in the wilderness. The survivors had no choice but to spread out from the city.
A few of them stayed, trying to adapt, the land changing them before they changed the land. Their physical appearance altered further as they retreated. The changes wrought were subtle, gradual. In adapting themselves to the changing conditions of the planet, they who had been graceful neogods became small, furtive shadow dwellers. Only a handful of the folk remained among the lichen-covered stone walls of their once proud city. The new generations born to them were distortions of what they had been. The weak died before they could produce offspring, and the infant-mortality rate was frightful for a thousand years. They did not leave the ruins to find out how humanity had fared in the aftermath of the changes.
Humankind adapted much faster to the postcatastrophic world, and new generations began to explore, to conquer. They conquered with a vengeance and ruthlessness and spilled oceans of blood. In their explorations, they found their way into the city — men in leather harness, helmets of bronze, bearing bows, spears and swords.
They brought war to the stunted survivors of the catastrophes, viewing them not as their progenitors had, as mentors or semidivine oracles, but as things — neither man, beast nor demon, but imbued with characteristics superior and inferior to all three.
Scenes of screaming chaos and confusion filled Kane's mind, bloody sequence following bloody sequence, coming so swiftly they melded into one long tapestry of atrocity, murder and theft. H
e glimpsed a bearded man working the blade of his sword between the facets of the stone, prying them out, putting them in his cloak and fleeing.
The men pursued the small folk through the vast ruins of their city, slaughtering and butchering until they had no choice but to fight back. The farther they had retreated from the world, the greater had grown their powers in other ways. The humans fled in blind panic, but the folk knew others would inevitably return, perhaps to steal the rest of the trapezohedron.
They had not been defeated, only beaten back. They knew they couldn't hope to defeat humans, but they determined to control them. If nothing else, they still possessed the monumental pride of their race and devotion to the continuity of their people. To accomplish that, they knew they had to retreat even further.
Kane glimpsed a mountain and a cavernlike opening hidden between great boulders. He groped through a long, narrow tunnel built of heavy joined stones. Small worn steps, too small for human feet, led downward out of sight, into clinging blackness. He came to a round, low chamber with a domed ceiling.
In its center, on an altar sat the black stone, incomplete yet still pulsing with power. The small, stunted folk clustered around it, caressing its dark surface with their six-fingered hands, drawing on its wellspring of knowledge, projecting their own experiences into it, using it as a means of broadcasting to any of their brethren who might still live on the face of the world. The message was simple: "We are here. Join us."
A pitifully small few did, descending into the bowels of the Earth to live and plan. One who came was the last of the parent race, still alive and unchanged. The name Lam entered Kane's mind. He rallied his people, becoming a spiritual leader, a general, a mentor. He knew his folk could not stay hidden forever, nor did they care to do so. The human race could not be influenced without interaction.
Under Lam's guidance, he and some of his people ascended again into the world of men, to influence the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Aztecs. Lam was known throughout human historical epochs, but by names such as Osiris, Quetzacoatal, Nyarlthotep, Tsong Kaba and many others.
Lam and his people watched many nations and tongues be born and die, and they were proud that they survived while so many human civilizations did not.
The visions came faster now, images whirling through Kane's mind, then vanishing.
Legends filtered out among holy men about the underground city beneath Asia. It was called many things, Hsi Wang Mu, Bhogavati, Shamballah, Agartha. Myth and yearning built Agartha into a noble and beautiful metropolis with streets paved with mosaics of emeralds, rubies and diamonds. It was, of course, nothing but a refuge for the pitiful remains of a once proud people.
Though their life spans had been reduced over the preceding centuries following the changes, they were still long-lived. But they weakened and died while the human race was still young and virile. Within humans lay their salvation.
As they were themselves the product of genetic manipulation, Lam turned to humankind, first to restore their own flagging vitality, then to carry the seed of his folk onward so it wouldn't vanish.
Most of the bioengineering experiments took place in Asia, and there were many, many failures. Sterility was the common defect in the hybrids birthed in Agartha.
Finally seven hybrids were born who could reproduce. The seed of Lam's once proud race lived, albeit in diluted form. If there were such a thing as pure-blooded hybrids, these seven creations were it. Kane saw them, slender and compact of form, amber skinned, wearing simple draperies, huge eyes displaying wisdom but little passion.
They were attuned to the trapezohedron, the Chintamani Stone. They used it to manipulate the properties of the stolen facets, to lead those humans seeking Agartha away from it.
With Lam as their guide, the seven ventured out into the world, visiting the lamaseries, teaching lessons as their forebears had done. Legends collected around them, and they became known as the Eight Immortals.
But they were not truly immortal, and even long life spans have their limitations. Eventually they died, but not before spreading the concept of Agartha, the mystical community that guided the evolution of humanity. In reality, Agartha was a refuge for Lam's people, drawn there by the beacon of the stone.
In the centuries that followed, Lam and his people continued to interact and influence human affairs, from the economic to the spiritual. They allowed things to happen they could have stopped, or nudged events in another direction. Employing the technology left behind by their forebears, they visited their ancestors' bases on the Moon and the other planets in the solar system.
Balam himself was returning from a mission in space when his vessel malfunctioned and exploded over the Tunguska River region in Siberia. He lay in cryosuspension for over thirty years until discovered and revived by a Russian scientific expedition.
After another accident involving one of their flying vehicles in the late 1940s, an Agarthan emissary was dispatched to war-weary Europe for a twofold purpose: to sprinkle fanciful tales about the hidden city of Agarthans with its perfect beings with diplomatic ties to extraterrestrials, and to make certain the Roswell incident was properly covered up.
The ambassador, who went by the title of the Maha Chohan, was one of the most human appearing of the hybrids, and possessed a glib tongue and pronounced psionic abilities. He was instrumental in negotiating the release of Balam from the Soviets.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the number of Lam and Balam's people had dwindled as humanity's population had exploded. They had inbred the same gene pool too often, replicating it over and over, until the bloodlines had degenerated, and only pale, disease-prone imitations of their people were born.
Now, Balam's nonvoice whispered, see us as we are.
Once more, Kane saw the altar room of the trapezohedron, but the chamber had become a catacomb. Around the altar reposed bare bones, the skeletal remains of the seven immortals, hollow eye sockets staring at the roof for eternity.
Lam stood at the altar, eyes wide open and seeming to stare straight into Kane's soul. Within his long fingers rested the cube of dark stone.
Spare him his pitiful immortality, sighed Balam.
* * *
With a savage effort, Kane tore his gaze away from the obsidian depths of Balam's eyes, glimpsing for an instant a reflection of his face, drawn in a bestial snarl.
Immediately, his ears rang with shouts, and he felt fists battering at his arms, hands wrenching at his fingers. He released Balam, and the small figure alighted on the floor without a misstep.
Kane allowed himself to be borne backward by Brigid, Banks and Lakesh. Banks cried out angrily, "What the hell are you doing?"
Bewilderment was in the stare Kane cast him. "How long?"
"How long what?" Lakesh demanded, breath coming fast and frantic.
Kane yanked his arm away from Banks's grasp. "How long was I holding Balam?"
"I wouldn't call it holding," Brigid snapped. "You were trying to strangle him."
"I know what I was doing," Kane retorted. He winced as a needle of pain stabbed through the left side of his head. "How long was I doing it?"
Banks scowled. "Only a couple of seconds, thank God. We kept you from getting a good grip on him."
The strangeness of Kane's question finally penetrated Banks's anger, and he looked at him curiously. "Why do you ask that?"
Kane probed his temple with fingers. The pain was already ebbing. "I think I learned more about Balam in those couple of seconds than you learned in the last three years."
Balam stood and blinked calmly at them, completely unperturbed by his brush with violent death.
"He telepathically gave me a history lesson," continued Kane. "He didn't answer all the questions, but he answered a good deal of them."
Brigid, Lakesh and Banks stared at Balam in silent wonder. Kane did, too, and for the first time realized Balam's pride and dignity had foundation.
He said to him quietly, "
You never tried to escape because you have no place to go. There's nothing for you in Agartha. Your work is done, you've accomplished the mission to keep your race alive."
He did not ask a question; he made a statement. Balam inclined his head in a nod.
"And you fear that if Zakat returns the facets of the stone to the trapezohedron, he'll accidentally tap into these 'parallel casements' and undo everything you have achieved."
Again came the nod.
"What are parallel casements?" asked Lakesh, sounding mystified and intrigued.
Kane shrugged. "I don't know. Some phenomena associated with the stone. Phenomena that Balam fears."
"Why?" Brigid asked, enthralled yet disturbed.
Kane shook his head, still trying to reconcile the history Balam had imparted with his own hate-fueled prejudices. "He wasn't clear about it."
He forced himself to lock gazes with Balam, mentally comparing the small, pale, big-domed entity with the images of his parent race. It was like seeing a reflection in a distorted mirror, a cruel reminder of what might have been. As his people had risen higher than humanity's aspirations, so they also sank lower than mankind's nightmares.
But for humanity, Kane felt even worse — he had no sense of the mighty brought low by an indifferent cosmos. Compared to Balam and his people, mankind was always low, not the first lords of Earth at all. They only arrogantly imagined themselves that they were ever really its lords, but older and more enduring races preceded them.
Balam met his gaze dispassionately, but Kane sensed the loneliness and pain radiating from him like an invisible aura. But regardless of his reasons, Balam and his kind had conspired against humanity for uncounted centuries. A natural cataclysm had decimated their civilization, so in turn they had orchestrated an unnatural one to bring mankind in line with their concepts of unity.
He remembered what Balam had said to him: Humanity must have a purpose, and only a single vision can give it purpose… We unified you.
