The Blind Spot, Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall [books to read for 13 year olds txt] 📗

aggrandisement. He became like his machine, a fine thing of perfectly correlated parts, but with no higher nature, no soul, no feeling; he was less than a brute. The animals disappeared one by one, passing through the channel of death, into the world beyond the Spot of Life, leaving behind only these tiny survivors, playthings, kept in existence longer than all others because of a mere fad.

“Does your spiritism include animals as well as men?”

“Naturally; everything that is endowed with life.”

“I see. Let me ask you: why didn't the Rhamdas interfere and put a stop to this wanton sacrilege against Nature?”

The Rhamda smiled. “You forget,” replied he, “that these events belong far in the past. At that time the Rhamdas were not. It was even before the coming of the Jarados.”

Watson asked no more questions for a while. He wanted to think. How could this man Rhamda Geos, if indeed he were a man, accept him, Watson, as a spirit? Solid flesh was not exactly in line with his idea of the unearthly. How to explain it? He had to go back to Holcomb again. The doctor had accepted without question Avec's naturalness, his body, his appetite. Reasonably enough, Geos, with some smattering of his superior's wisdom, should accept Watson in the same way.

And then, the Jarados: at every moment his name had cropped up. Who was he? So far he had heard no word that might be construed as a clue. The great point, just now, was that the Rhamda Geos accepted him as a spirit, as the fact and substance promised by Avec. But—where was the doctor?

Chick ventured this question:

“My coming was foretold by the Rhamda Avec, I understand. Is this in accord with the words of the Jarados?”

The Rhamda looked up expectantly and spoke with evident anxiety.

“Can you tell me anything about the Jarados?”

“Let us forgo that,” side-stepped Watson. “Possibly I can tell you much that you would like to know. What I want to know is, just how well prepared you are to receive me?”

“Then you come from the Jarados!”

“Perhaps.”

“What do you know about him?”

“This: someone should have preceded me! The fact and the substance-you were to have it inside three days! It has been several hundred times the space allotted! Is it not so?”

The Rhamda's eyes were pin-pointed with eagerness.

“Then it IS true! You are from the Jarados! You know the great Rhamda Avec—you have seen him!”

“I have,” declared Watson.

“In the other world? You can remember?”

“Yes,” again committing himself. “I have seen Avec—in another world. But tell me, before we go on I would have an answer to my question: did anyone precede me?”

“No.”

Watson was nonplussed, but he concealed the fact.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite, my dear sir. The Spot of Life was watched continually from the moment the Rhamda left us.”

“You mean, he and the Nervina?”

“Quite so; she followed him after an interval of a few hours.”

“I know. But you say that no one came out ahead of me. Who was it that guarded this—this Spot of Life? The Rhamdas?”

“They and the Bars.”

“Ah! And who are the Bars?”

“The military priesthood. They are the Mahovisal, and of the Temple of the Bell. They are led by the great Bar Senestro.”

“And there were times when these Bars, led by this Senestro, held guard over the Spot of Life?” To this Geos nodded; and Watson went on: “And who is this great Senestro?”

“He is the chief of the Bars, and a prince of D'Hartia. He is the affianced of the two queens, the Aradna and the Nervina.”

“The TWO of them?”

Whereupon Watson learned something rather peculiar. It seemed that the princes of D'Hartia had always married the queens. This Senestro had had a brother, but he died. And in such an event it was the iron custom that the surviving brother marry both queens. It had happened only once before in all history; but the precedent was unbreakable.

“Then, there is nothing against it?”

“Nothing; except, perhaps the prophecy of the Jarados. We now know—the whole world knows—that we are fast approaching the Day of Life.”

“Of course; the Day of Life.” Watson decided upon another chance shot. “It has to do with the marriage of the two queens!”

“You DO know!” cried the Rhamda joyously. “Tell me!”

“No; it is I who am asking the questions.”

Watson's mind was working like lightning. Whether it was the influence of the strange drink, or the equally strange influence of ordinary inspiration, he was never more self-assured in his life. It seemed a day for taking long chances.

“Tell me,” he inquired, “what has the Day of Life to do with the two queens and their betrothal?”

The Rhamda throttled his eagerness. “It is one of the obscure points of the prophecy. There are some scholars who hold that such a problem as this presages the coming of the end and the advent of the chosen. But others oppose this interpretation, for reasons purely material: for if the Bar Senestro should marry both queens it would make him the sole ruler of the Thomahlia. Only once before have we had a single ruler; for centuries upon centuries we have had two queens; one of the D'Hartians, and the other of the Kospians, enthroned here in the Mahovisal.”

Watson would have liked to learn far more. But the time seemed one for action on his part; bold action, and positive.

“Rhamda Geos—I do not know what is your version of the prophecy. But you are positive that no one preceded me out of the Spot?”

“I am. Why do you persist?”

“Because”—speaking slowly and with the greatest care—“because there was one greater than I, who came before me!”

The Rhamda rose excitedly to his feet, and then sank back into his chair again. In his eyes was nothing save eagerness, wonder and respect. He leaned forward.

“Who was it? Who was he?”

Watson's voice was steady as stone.

“The great Jarados himself!”