The Shaping Of The Shining One
: The Moon PoolWe 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
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]
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, self-realizant 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
black-haired 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."
[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.
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On a bleak, distant unchartered world two ships lay wrecked and a lone man stared at a star hyacinth. Its brilliance burned into his retina ... and he knew that men could easily kill and kill for that one beauty alone. The r... The Star In The East
It was in October of the same year that Constans and Esmay stood one day in the court-yard of the Greenwood Keep, now restored and rebuilt. His father's blood friends had helped generously in the rehabilitation of his fortunes, and Constans had ... The Stars My Brothers
He was afraid--not of the present or the future, but of the past. He was afraid of the thing tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, companion to dead worlds and silent space. ... The Stillness
My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the previous day. At that discovery... The Stockade
When Oliver and Felix started, they left Philip, the third and youngest of the three brothers, still at breakfast. They turned to the left, on getting out of doors, and again to the left, through the covered passage between the steward's store and... The Stolen Document
The last ordinary train to Antwerp had gone long before Heideck reached the station. But a short interview with the railway commissioner sufficed, and an engine was at once placed at the Major's disposal. When he had mounted to the stoker's place ... The Storm
On the little stern seat of the boat Mercer and Anina sat side by side, the girl steering by a small tiller that lay between them. They were well out in the middle of the river now, speeding silently along with its swift current. They made extraor... The Straits
The passage contracted there to little over half a mile, but these narrows did not continue far; the shores, having approached thus near each other, quickly receded, till presently they were at least two miles apart. The merchant vessel had passed... The Strange Bravery Of Miss Blank
Telescope, rifles, and shields were tumbled into the projectile pell-mell, and without stopping to close the port-hole, we steered towards the city as we mounted rapidly. When the soldiers, weary of running, saw us start, they were stricken with a... The Strange Face
WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing our way. He was standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering over the combing of the hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked b... The Strange Man's Arrival
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved h... The Strategy
General Sebastian MacMaine, sometime Colonel of Earth's Space Force, and presently a General of the Kerothi Fleet, looked at the array of stars that appeared to drift by the main viewplate of his flagship, the blaster-boat Shudos. Behind him, G... The Strife Of Giants
As it happened, it was a fine, cold wintry day that dawned as the two great fleets drew towards each other. As Denis Castellan said, "It was a perfect jewel of a day for a holy fight," and so it was. The French fleet was advancing at twelve knots....