CHAPTER XXIX
The Shaping of the Shining One
WE REACHED what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I
may so call it. Smaller than any of the other chambers of the
domed castle in which we had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought articles
of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the Akka -
and no mean metal workers were they. One of the window
slits dropped almost to the floor, and at its base was a wide,
comfortably cushioned seat commanding a view of the
bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the handmaiden
beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
motioned me to sit close to him.
"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you
may weigh all things in your mind and answer as your spirit
bids you a question that the Three will ask - and what that
is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they say, must answer,
too - and it - frightens me!"
The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she
sighed, shook her head impatiently.
"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from
which they sprang like those from which we have come.
Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the Taithu, the race of
the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where now we sit,
close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
dwelt for time upon time, laya upon laya upon laya - with
others, not like them, some of which have vanished time
upon time agone, others that still dwell - below - in their -
cradle.
"It is hard" - she hesitated - "hard to tell this - that slips
through my mind - because I know so little that even as the
Three told it to me it passed from me for lack of place to
stand upon," she went on, quaintly. "Something there was
of time when earth and sun were but cold mists in the -
the heavens - something of these mists drawing together,
whirling, whirling, faster and faster - drawing as they
whirled more and more of the mists - growing larger, growing warm - forming at last into the globes they are, with
others spinning around the sun - something of regions within
this globe where vast fire was prisoned and bursting forth
tore and rent the young orb - of one such bursting forth that
sent what you call moon flying out to company us and left
behind those spaces whence we now dwell - and of - of life
particles that here and there below grew into the race of
the Silent Ones, and those others - but not the Akka which,
like you, they say came from above - and all this I do not
understand - do you, Goodwin?" she appealed to me.
I nodded - for what she had related so fragmentarily was
in reality an excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton
theory of a coalescing nebula contracting into the sun and
its planets.
Astonishing was the recognition of this theory. Even more
so was the reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great Swede, of life starting on earth through the
dropping of minute, life SPORES, propelled through space by
the driving power of light and, encountering favourable
environment here, developing through the vast ages into
man and every other living thing we know.1
1 Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his Worlds in the Making -
the conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted from
all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space for
years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the heat of
some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on globes
which have reached the habitable stage. - W. T. G.
Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was
the matrix of our solar system similar, or rather DISSIMILAR,
particles in all but the subtle essence we call life, might have
become entangled and, resisting every cataclysm as they had
resisted the absolute zero of outer space, found in these
caverned spaces their proper environment to develop into the
race of the Silent Ones and - only THEY could tell what else!
"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say
that in their - cradle - near earth's heart they grew; grew
untroubled by the turmoil and disorder which flayed the
surface of this globe. And they say it was a place of light
and that strength came to them from earth heart - strength
greater than you and those from which you sprang ever derived from sun.
"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say
again, was this time - they began to know, to - to - realize -
themselves. And wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from
their cradle, because they did not wish to dwell longer with
those - others - they came and found this place.
"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in
which lived only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save
hunger and its satisfaction, THEY had attained wisdom that
enabled them to make paths such as we have just travelled
and to look out upon those waters! And laya upon laya
thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the paths and
watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things
which had grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the
flats rise higher and higher and green life begin to clothe
them; saw mountains uplift and vanish.
"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept
and crawled grew greater and took ever different forms;
until at last came a time when the steaming mists lightened
and the things which had begun as little more than tiny
hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
tallest of my Akka would not have reached the knee of the
smallest of them.
"But in none of these, in NONE, was there - realization -
of themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving them to still its crying.
"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took
the paths no more, placing aside the half-thought that they
had of making their way to earth face even as they had made
their way from beside earth heart. They turned wholly to the
seeking of wisdom - and after other time on time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life
and death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted
the veils of creation and of its twin destruction, and they
stripped the covering from the flaming jewel of truth - but
when they had crept within those mysteries they bid me tell
YOU, Goodwin, they found ever other mysteries veiling the
way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of truth they
found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
"And for this they were glad - because now throughout
eternity might they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways
illimitable.
"They conquered light - light that sprang at their bidding
from the nothingness that gives birth to all things and in
which lie all things that are, have been and shall be; light
that streamed through their bodies cleansing them of all
dross; light that was food and drink; light that carried their
vision afar or bore to them images out of space opening
many windows through which they gazed down upon life
on thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light
that was the flame of life itself and in which they bathed,
ever renewing their own. They set radiant lamps within the
stones, and of black light they wove the sheltering shadows
and the shadows that slay.
"Arose from this people those Three - the Silent Ones.
They led them all in wisdom so that in the Three grew -
pride. And the Three built them this place in which we sit
and set the Portal in its place and withdrew from their kind
to go alone into the mysteries and to map alone the facets of
Truth Jewel.
"Then there came the ancestors of the - Akka; not as they
are now, and glowing but faintly within them the spark of
- self-realization. And the Taithu seeing this spark did not
slay them. But they took the ancient, long untrodden paths
and looked forth once more upon earth face. Now on the
land were vast forests and a chaos of green life. On the
shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small
that slew and ran from those that would slay.
"They searched for the passage through which the Akka
had come and closed it. Then the Three took them and
brought them here; and taught them and blew upon the
spark until it burned ever stronger and in time they became
much as they are now - my Akka.
"The Three took counsel after this and said - 'We have
strengthened life in these until it has become articulate; shall
we not CREATE life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt,
dreaming. "The Three are speaking," she murmured. "They
have my tongue - "
And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she
were but a voice through which minds far more facile, more
powerful poured their thoughts, she spoke.
"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant. "We said that what
we would create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds,
of the waters, and of all upon and within these. Upon that
universal matrix of matter, that mother of all things that
you name the ether, we laboured. Think not that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what has
been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the
forms the mother bears and countless are the energies that
are part of her.
"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of
our abode and through them we stared into the faces of
myriads of worlds, and upon them all were the children of
ether even as the worlds themselves were her children.
"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye
term the Dweller, which those without name - the Shining
One. Within the Universal Mother we shaped it, to be a voice
to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go before us lighting the
mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it, giving it the
soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever may
know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming
deep in the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we
filled it. And we wrought with pain and with love, with
yearning and with scorching pride and from our travail came
the Shining One - our child!
"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung
star, that transfuses all that ether bears, that sees and speaks
and feels in us and in you, that is incorporate in beast and
bird and reptile, in tree and grass and all living things, that
sleeps in rock and stone, that finds sparkling tongue in jewel
and star and in all dwellers within the firmament. And this
ye call consciousness!
"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light
which are the channels between it and the sentience we
sought to make articulate, the portals through which flow
its currents and so flowing, become choate, vocal, selfrealizant within our child.
"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of
our pride; in giving will we had given power, perforce, to
exercise that will for good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished of that which poured into it
through the seven orbs or to withhold that knowledge itself;
and in forging it from the immortal energies we had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe
with all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the
countless worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye
symbolize as gods and all ye symbolize as devils - not negativing each other, for there is no such thing as negation, but
holding them together, balancing them, encompassing them,
pole upon pole!"
So THIS was the explanation of the entwined emotions of
joy and terror that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of all the Dweller's slaves!
The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the
brooding passed from her face; the golden voice that had
been so deep found its own familiar pitch.
"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said. "Now
the shaping of the Shining One had been a long, long travail
and time had flown over the outer world laya upon laya. For
a space the Shining One was content to dwell here; to be
fed with the foods of light: to open the eyes of the Three
to mystery upon mystery and to read for them facet after
facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of consciousness
flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes of
their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always
stronger of ITSELF WITHIN ITSELF. Its will strengthened and now
not always was it the will of the Three; and the pride that
was woven in the making of it waxed, while the love for them
that its creators had set within it waned.
"Not ignorant were the Taithu of the work of the Three.
First there were a few, then more and more who coveted the
Shining One and who would have had the Three share with
them the knowledge it drew in for them. But the Silent Ones
in their pride, would not.
"There came a time when its will was now ALL its own, and
it rebelled, turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the
Portal, offering itself to the many there who would serve it;
tiring of the Three, their control and their abode.
"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we. Over
water it can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it
cannot, through rock or metal. So it sent a message - how I
know not - to the Taithu who desired it, whispering to them
the secret of the Portal. And when the time was ripe they
opened the Portal and the Shining One passed through it to
them; nor would it return to the Three though they commanded, and when they would have forced it they found
that it had hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not
overcome.
"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the
seven shining orbs; but they would not because - they loved,
it!
"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have
shown you, and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it.
And ever they turned more and more from the ways in which
the Taithu had walked - for it seemed that which came to
the Shining One through the seven orbs had less and less of
good and more and more of the power you call evil. Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were
they flares pointing the dark roads that lead to - to the
ultimate evil!
"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of
the Shining One. There were many, many, who would have
none of it nor of its power. So were the Taithu split; and to
this place where there had been none, came hatred, fear and
suspicion. Those who pursued the ancient ways went to the
Three and pleaded with them to destroy their work - and
they would not, for still they loved it.
"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay
before its worshippers - for now so they had become - the
fruits of its knowledge; and it grew - restless - turning its
gaze upon earth face even as it had turned it from the Three.
It whispered to the Taithu to take again the paths and look
out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great fertile land
on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts, seeking
and finding wisdom - mankind! Mighty builders were they;
vast were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a
god Thanaroa whom they imagined to be the maker of all
things, dwelling far away. They worshipped as closer gods,
not indifferent but to be prayed to and to be propitiated, the
moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the
other high priest to the sun.
"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun
king and his nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and
the moon king and his followers were like Yolara - or
Lugur. And this, the Three say, Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that whenever a
ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the blackhaired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own
kind. Until at last from the black-haired came no more of the
light-locked ones, but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still
arose from them."
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