CHAPTER XXXIV.
LYONE'S CONFESSION.
The following day I again met the goddess in the same magnificentapartment in her palace. She was in a contemplative mood. A white robeof the finest silk enveloped her, showing to full advantage her superbfigure. Her silky, shadowed eyes shone with a mild translucent light.The ripe beauty of her face was somewhat pale, for some tearful memorypossessed her. Over her shoulders fell the torrent of her hair, whileon her brow gleamed a diminutive diadem whose central part wasfashioned like the throne of the gods. She wore a heavy necklace ofshrimp-pink pearls.
As we reposed on wide, luxurious couches a maiden of rare beautybrought us dishes of curiously-prepared meats and wine of the finestvintage in flagons of gold. From distant cloisters came wafted theechoes of singing priestesses breathing their intoxicating Amens.
Lyone had been reciting her past soul experiences, now and thenpausing as the story would grow more sacred. To me the revelations ofthe goddess were of breathless interest. I dare not urge her tooforcibly, fearing to break the spell of her confessional mood.
She was pleased to say that my advent in Egyplosis had revived thepast as no other event of late times had done. She was willing torecall the sweet experiences of her early life, prior to her elevationto the throne of the goddess.
I knew she was in that mood when confession to a kindred soul is mostconsoling to the heart. I urged her to continue the story.
"Well," she continued, "my parents, who were people of importance inCalnogor, had destined me for marriage and the outer world, but beforeI even knew of Egyplosis I had a day dream. I saw with my waking eyesthis temple-palace as one might see it in a picture, splendid as thereality. I saw myself with a youth of noble aspect standing in a courtof the garden, and his arm was around me. He was tall and shapely as apalm tree and was all tenderness and devotion. The picture vanished,yet its influence remained. It utterly transformed me from theundreaming girl that I was to a soul active and ardent, alreadyexperienced in what life really was. I learned that the mystery oflife was love, and longed for spiritual companionship with an inmateof Egyplosis."
"Was the dream fulfilled as you expected it would be?" I inquired.
"Exactly as I anticipated," said Lyone. "I entered Egyplosis in spiteof the earnest desire of my people to remain in the outer world andlead a life of barren conventionality."
"Had you not learned," I inquired, "that it was impossible to overleapthe purposes of nature without paying a penalty therefor, that idealpassion will in time give way to the commonplace, just as waterfollows the law of gravity?"
"I knew nothing but that ideal love might be eternal. It is thepassion that makes a goddess human and the mortal divine. Within amonth after entering the temple walls I discovered the very reality ofthe image I had seen years before. He was my twin-soul, my lover, mygod. At our first meeting we simultaneously burst into tears. It wasan ecstasy in which the body did not participate to any marked extent,but belonged purely to the region of the soul. We accepted the vowsmade at the installation of a twin-soul and became a completedcircle."
"Being the goddess," I said, "your lover must have died?"
"He died some years ago," she said, "and on his death, by reason of mywidowhood, my gifts, my spirituality, my love and my beauty, I waselevated to the throne of the gods when vacant, and was worshipped assupreme goddess of the faith. It is utterly against our laws for agoddess to choose another counterpart; she is supposed to belong onlyto Harikar, the ideal soul whom also she symbolizes; hence I amobliged to dwell largely alone."
"You doubtless regret the loss of your earthly counterpart?" I urged.
"Regret it! Ah, that was life!" she said, "for my soul then knew whatspiritual freedom means. I experienced ecstatic agonies, bliss waspain and pain paradise. I flew as a bird full of anguish, bearingtreasures of love and tears. I desired self-sacrifice, I wanted tosmile on every one, to help every one. I loved life; I had no fear ofdeath. My capacity for rapture seemed to expand continually. Everyscene I gazed upon trembled in a new blaze of delight. Thoughts, likelightning, rent open new worlds of passion and tenderness, wherein Imoved as a goddess peerless and supreme. But when the tomb closed uponmy heart of hearts I begged them to lay me by his side and seal thedoor upon us forever. The glory of life had departed, and day afterday I swooned upon the sarcophagus that held my treasure, my life."
Lyone was unusually excited, and to divert her attention from the pastI spoke of the present, of her proud position as supreme goddess ofAtvatabar.
"How does it affect you," I exclaimed, "to be the recipient of suchadoration as you receive as goddess?"
"At first it was soul maddening," she replied; "I thought I shouldnever be able to sustain such adoration. My soul, blinded andbewildered by the incense of song and prayer, seemed unable to bearthe intoxication. Even yet, as I sit upon the throne of the gods,fantastic, astonishing emotions thrill me into swooning away. Oh, itis incomparably glorious to hear around you those earthquake surges ofprayer, to see souls quivering with adoring love. I feel at times asthough I were the cone of a volcano radiating fire and flame into aburning sky!
"Then, again, I smile, and feel as I smile that I have power over lifeand death--oh, you do not know what love is--you do not know itstremendous power until you feel its splendid flame breathed from tenthousand souls clasping your shrieking soul in a blood-crimsonembrace! If thoughts be things it makes me a creator. If thoughts canchisel matter, then I am gracious in face and figure. Men say my fleshis smooth as marble, soft as velvet, and bright as gold, even as theforms of our priests and priestesses are sculptured and colored by thethoughts of love.
"Only a goddess knows such thoughts as hers that burn in the soul likefluid gold. Imagination fills me at times with vast and phantasmalsplendors. Adoration glorifies me like light raining on the palms andpalaces. I see shapes of burning sweetness, and the air around me isladen with the caresses of heavy, strange perfumes. Unclothedraptures, exquisitely soft and tender, surround me, like heavenopening its wings of flame upon the world. Happy voices, ringing inthe sensuous arcades of music, fall on my ears, the blown spray ofimmortal friendships.
"Yet, is it not strange that all these delights, violent and gloriousas they are, do not wholly satisfy the soul? I continually long forsomething sweeter yet. It seems the greater the joy the more enormousthe capacity, and no joy completely fills the ever-expanding soul."
"You think," said I, "that even the rapture of a goddess is not whollyadequate to create a feeling of repletion of satisfaction in a soulsuch as yours?"
"It is contrary to our laws to think so, yet at times I know I couldforego even the throne of the gods itself for the pure and intimatelove of a counterpart soul."
"You are not so desirous of the human soul in its collective form asyou are of individual soul wholly yours?" I ventured, shaken with aquivering thrill.
"The soul ever seeks that which is beyond and individual," said Lyone;"having once loved the individual soul, I know what such holy rapturemeans."
"What are the difficulties to be surmounted in your quest of acounterpart soul?" I inquired, with a secret delight.
"The sacrilege of a goddess becoming attached to the individual to theexclusion of all other individuals. The goddess-elect must have beena novitiate and priestess of Egyplosis and the survivor of hercounterpart soul. Her experiences as a noble and pure priestess,together with special beauty and popularity, are the conditions forthe peerless office of supreme goddess and incarnation of Harikar. Byher vows she can never again become the exclusive possession of anyone soul. She belongs to Harikar, the universal soul."
"And what is the punishment for renunciation of your office andattachment to another soul?"
"A shameful death by magnicity for the twin-soul. No goddess canresign her office. No goddess can seek a lover and live."
"Not even an ideal affinity?" I asked.
"Why, even ideal affinities who forget themselves are punished withlifelong
imprisonment, and their names blotted out of the priesthoodas though they were dead," said Lyone.
"Are there many such transgressors of their vows in Egyplosis?" Iinquired.
"There are, I believe, some five hundred twin-souls at present immuredin the dungeons," said Lyone.
"Poor souls!" I murmured, "their apostasy was but their reformation."
"I often think of them," said Lyone, "but I know I can never liberatethem except by my own successful apostasy. And yet when all else ispeaceful and happy, or at least appears so, why should I become theleader of an insurrection that would precipitate a hundred times moremisery on the nation, to say nothing of the possibility of defeat?"
I saw that a crisis had come to Lyone, a tremendous debate agitatedher soul. I forebore treading further on the sacred ground. She, withtrue delicacy, was striving to hide the intensity of her proud unrest.I felt that in time she would have the courage to take the irrevocablestep that led to freedom or death.
As I sat devouring every word spoken by Lyone I felt a strange powersurrounding me, an emanation of the soul of my beloved friend. Iresisted for a long time a sacrilegious desire to fling myself at herfeet and clasp her in my arms. I thought of her supreme dignity, herlove for her faith and her people, and I knew one cold glance from hereyes would pierce me through and through like a sword. The more Ithought of my position at that moment the more amazed I became atthe audacity that led me to ever think of claiming the soul of thegoddess as mine, much less my encouragement of an enterprise sodesperate as we had already assuredly embarked upon.
HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF FLAME AND TEARS!IT WAS THE PROCLAMATION OF WAR UPON ATVATABAR. THENCEFORTH WE BECAME ANEW AND FORMIDABLE TWIN-SOUL.]
As I gazed in adoration at the splendid soul before me the scenethrough the open windows seemed to grow more ideal. There was a newglory in the gardens around me, a finer flashing of fountains in thesunlight, and a bolder chiselling of palaces and temples. Beyond andabove there wheeled the roof of the world, with its still moreprodigious forests and mountains and a wider expanse of gleaming seas.
I sprang forward with a cry of joy, falling at the feet of thegoddess. I encircled her figure with my arms and held up my face tohers. Her kiss was a blinding whirlwind of flame and tears! Itssilence was irresistible entreaty. It dissolved all other interestslike fire melting stubborn steel. It was the proclamation of war uponAtvatabar! It was the destruction of a unique civilization with allits appurtenances of hopeless love. It was love defying death.Thenceforward we became a new and formidable twin-soul!