The Goddess of Atvatabar: Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of AtvatabarBradshaw, William Richard
Science
The Goddess of Atvatabar: Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar
Bradshaw, William Richard
Science fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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