If you’re like most Atlanteans these days, you’ve heard all
sorts of unnerving claims about the future of our continent. Some people are
even saying that recent earth tremors are harbingers of a cataclysm that will
plunge Atlantis to the bottom of the sea. Those old prophecies from the sacred
scrolls of the Sun Temple have had the dust blown off them again, adding to the
stew of rumors.
So is there anything to it? Should you be worried about the
future of Atlantis?
Not according to the experts. I visited some of the most
widely respected hierarchs here in the City of the Golden Gates yesterday to
ask them about the rumors, and they assured me that there’s no reason to take
the latest round of alarmist claims at all seriously.
***
My first stop was the temple complex of black orichalcum
just outside the Palace of the Ten Kings, where Nacil Buper, Grand Priestess of
the Temple of Night, took time out of her busy schedule to meet with me. I
asked her what she thought about the rumors of imminent catastrophe. “Complete
and utter nonsense,” she replied briskly. “There are always people who want to
insist that the end is nigh, and they can always find something to use to
justify that sort of thing. Remember a few years ago, when everyone was running
around insisting that the end of the Forty-First Grand Cycle of Time was going
to bring the destruction of the world? This is more of the same silliness.”
Just at that moment, the floor shook beneath us, and I asked
her about the earth tremors, pointing out that those seem to be more frequent
than they were just a few years back.
“Atlantis has always had earthquakes,” the Grand Priestess
reminded me, gesturing with her scepter of human bone. “There are natural cycles affecting their
frequency, and there’s no proof that they’re more frequent because of anything
human beings are doing. In fact, I’m far from convinced that they’re any more
frequent than they used to be. There are serious questions about whether the
priests of the Sun Temple have been fiddling with their data, you know.”
“And the claim from those old prophecies that offering human
sacrifices to Mu-Elortep, Lord of Evil, might have something to do with it?” I
asked.
“That’s the most outrageous kind of nonsense,” the Grand
Priestess replied. “Atlanteans have been worshipping the Lord of Evil for more
than a century and a half. It’s one of the foundations of our society and our
way of life, and we should be increasing the number of offerings to Mu-Elortep
as rapidly as we can, not listening to crazies from the fringe who insist that
there’s something wrong with slaughtering people for the greater glory of the
Lord of Evil. We can’t do without Mu-Elortep, not if we’re going to restore
Atlantis to full prosperity and its rightful place in the world order, and if
that means sacrifices have to be made—and it does—then sacrifices need to be
made.”
She leaned forward confidentially, and her necklace of
infant’s skulls rattled. “You know as well as I do that all this is just
another attempt by the Priests of the Sun to dodge their responsibility for
their own bad policies. Nobody would care in the least about all these crazy
rumors of imminent doom if the Sun Priest Erogla hadn’t made such a fuss about
the old prophecies in the scrolls of the Sun Temple a few years back. The Sun
Temple’s the real problem we face. Fortunately, though, we of the Temple of
Night have a majority in the Council of the Ten Kings now. We’re working on
legislation right now to eradicate poverty in Atlantis by offering up the poor
to Mu-Elortep in one grand bonfire. Once that’s done, I’m convinced, Atlantis
will be on the road to a full recovery.”
***
After my conversation with the Grand Priestess, I went
uphill to the foot of the Sacred Mountain, where the Sun Temple rises above the
golden-roofed palaces of the Patricians of Atlantis. I had made an appointment
to see Tarc Omed, the Hierophant of the Priests of the Sun; he met me in his
private chamber, and had his servants pour us purple wine from Valusia as we
talked.
“I know the kind of thing you must have heard from the
Temple of Night,” the Hierophant said wearily. “It’s all our fault the
economy’s in trouble. Everything’s our fault. That’s how they avoid
responsibility for the consequences of the policies they’ve been pursuing for
decades now.”
I asked him what he thought of Nacil Buper’s claim that
offering up the poor as human sacrifices would solve all the problems Atlantis
faces these days.
“Look,” he said, “everybody knows that we’ve got to wean
ourselves off making human sacrifices to the Lord of Evil one of these days.
There’s no way we can keep that up indefinitely, and it’s already causing
measurable problems. That’s why we’re proposing increased funding for more
sustainable forms of worship directed toward other deities, so we can move step
by step to a society that doesn’t have to engage in human sacrifice or deal
with Mu-Elortep at all.”
And the ground tremors? Do they have anything to do with the
sacrifices?
“That’s a good question. It’s hard to say whether any
particular burst of tremors is being caused by the prophesied curse, you know,
but that’s no reason for complacency.”
A tremor shook the room, and we both steadied our golden
goblets of wine on the table. “Doesn’t that lend support to the rumors that
Atlantis might sink soon?” I asked.
Tarc Omed looked weary again, and leaned back in his great
chair of gold and ivory. “We have to be realistic,” he said. “Right now,
Atlantean society depends on human sacrifice, and transitioning away from that
isn’t something we can do overnight. We need to get those more sustainable
forms of worship up and running first, and that can’t be done without
negotiated compromises and the support of as many stakeholders as possible.
Alarmism doesn’t further that.”
I thought of one of the things Nacil Buper had said. “But
aren’t the prophecies of doom we’re discussing right there in the sacred
scrolls of the Sun Temple?”
“We don’t consider that relevant just now,” the Hierophant
told me firmly. “What matters right at the moment is to build a coalition
strong enough to take back a majority in the Council of the Ten Kings, stop the
Temple of Night’s crazy plan to sacrifice all of the poor to Mu-Elortep, and
make sure that human sacrifices are conducted in as painless and sanitary a
fashion as possible and increased only at the rate that’s really necessary,
while we work toward phasing out human sacrifice altogether. Of course we can’t
continue on our current path, but I have faith that Atlanteans can and will
work together to stop any sort of worst-case scenario from happening.”
***
From the Temple of the Sun I walked out of the patrician
district, into one of the working class neighborhoods overlooking the Old
Harbor. The ground shook beneath my feet a couple of times as I went. People
working in the taverns and shops looked up at the Sacred Mountain each time,
and then went back to their labor. It made me feel good to know that their
confidence was shared by both the hierarchs I’d just interviewed.
I decided to do some person-in-the-street interviews for the
sake of local color, and stepped into one of the taverns. Introducing myself to
the patrons as a reporter, I asked what they thought about the rumors of
disaster and the ongoing earth tremors.
“Oh, I’m sure the Priests of the Sun will think of
something,” one patron said. I wrote that down on my wax tablet.
“Yeah,” agreed another. “How long have these prophecies been
around? And Atlantis is still above water, isn’t it? I’m not worried.”
“I used to believe that stuff back in the day,” said a third
patron. “You know, you buy into all kinds of silly things when you’re young and
gullible, then grow out of it once it’s time to settle down and deal with the
real world. I sure did.”
That got nods and murmurs of approval all around. “I
honestly think a lot of the people who are spreading these rumors actually want
Atlantis to sink,” the third patron went on. “All this obsessing about
those old prophecies and how awful human sacrifice is—I mean, can we get real,
please?”
“You can say that again,” said the second patron. “I bet
they do want Atlantis to sink. I bet they’re actually Lemurian sympathizers.”
The third patron turned to look at him. “You know, that would make a lot of sense—”
Just then another tremor, a really strong one, shook the
tavern. The whole room went dead silent for a moment. As the tremor died down,
everybody started talking loudly all at once. I said my goodbyes and headed for
the door.
As I stopped outside to put my wax tablet into the scribe’s
case on my belt, one of the other patrons—a woman who hadn’t said anything—came
through the door after me. “If you’re looking for a different point of view,”
she told me, “you ought to go down to the Sea Temple. They’ll give you an
earful.”
I thanked her, and started downhill toward the Old Harbor.
***
I’d never been to the Sea Temple before; I don’t think most
Atlanteans ever go there, though it’s been right there next to the Old Harbor
since time out of mind. When I got there, the big doors facing the harbor were
wide open, but the place seemed empty; the only sounds were the flapping of the
big blue banners above the temple and the cries of sea birds up overhead.
As another tremor rattled the city, I walked in through the open
doors. I didn’t see anyone at first, but after a few moments a woman in the
blue robes of a Sea Priestess came out of the sanctuary further inside and
hurried toward me. She had a basket of scrolls in her arms.
I introduced myself, explained that I was a journalist, and
asked if she minded answering some questions.
“Not if you don’t mind walking with me to the harbor,” she
said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Sure,” I told her. “So what do you think about all these
scary rumors? Do you really think Atlantis could end up underwater?”
We left the temple and started across the plaza outside,
toward the harbor. “Have you read the prophecies of Emor Fobulc?” she asked me.
“Can’t say I have.”
“They predicted everything that’s happened: the rise of the
cult of Mu-Elortep, the sacrifices, the earth tremors, and now the Sign.”
“The what?”
“When’s the last time you looked at the top of the Sacred
Mountain?”
I stopped and looked right then. There was a plume of smoke
rising from the great rounded peak. After a moment, I hurried to catch up to
her.
“That’s the Sign,” she told me. “It means that the fires of
Under-Earth have awakened and Atlantis will soon be destroyed.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I thought about it for a moment as we walked, and the ground
shook beneath our feet. “There could be plenty of other explanations for that
smoke, you know.”
The priestess looked at me for a long moment. “No doubt,”
she said dryly.
By then we were near the edge of the quay, and half a dozen
people came hurrying down the gangplank from a ship that was tied up there, an
old-fashioned sailing vessel with a single mast and the prow carved to look
like a swan. One of them, a younger priestess, bowed, took the basket of
scrolls, and hurried back on board the ship. Another, who was dressed like a
mariner, bowed too, and said to the priestess I’d spoken with, “Is there
anything else, Great Lady?”
“Nothing,” she said. “We should go.” She turned to me. “You
may come with us if you wish.”
“I need to have this story back to the pressroom before
things shut down this afternoon,” I told her. “Are you going to be coming back
within two hours or so?”
I got another of her long silent looks. “No,” she said.
“We’ll be much longer than that.R#8221;
“Sorry, then—I hate to turn down a cruise, but work is
work.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that, and the others more
or less bundled her up the gangplank onto the ship. A couple of sailors untied
the cables holding the ship against the quay and then climbed on board before
it drifted away. A few minutes later the ship was pulling out into the Old
Harbor; I could hear the oarsmen belowdecks singing one of their chanteys while
the sailors climbed aloft and got the sail unfurled and set to the breeze.
After a few more minutes, I turned and started back up the
hill toward the middle of town. As I climbed the slope, I could see more and
more of the City of the Golden Gates around me in the afternoon sun: the Palace
of the Ten Kings with the Temple of Night beside it, the Sun Temple and the
golden roofs of the patricians’ palaces higher up the slope. The ground was
shaking pretty much nonstop, but I barely noticed it, I’d gotten so used to the
tremors.
The view got better as I climbed. Below, the Old Harbor
spread out to one side and the New Harbor to the other. Next to the New Harbor
was the charnel ground of Elah-Slio, where smoke was rising from the altars and
long lines of victims were being driven forward with whips to be offered up as
sacrifices to Mu-Elortep; off the other way, beyond the Old Harbor, I spotted
twenty or so sails in the middle distance, heading away from Atlantis, and the
ship with the priestess on it hurrying to join them.
That’s when it occurred to me that the Sea Priestess
couldn’t have been serious when she said that Atlantis would soon be destroyed.
Surely, if the prophecies were true, the Sea Priestesses would have had more
important things to do than go on some kind of long vacation cruise. I laughed
at how gullible I’d been there for a moment, and kept climbing the hill into
the sunlight.
Above the Sacred Mountain, the cloud of smoke had gotten
much bigger, and it looked as though some kind of red glow was reflecting off
the bottom of it. I wondered what that meant, but figured I’d find out from the
news soon enough. It certainly made me feel good to know that there was no
reason whatever to worry about the far-fetched notion that Atlantis might end
up at the bottom of the sea.
