CHAPTER XXXV.
OUR VISIT TO THE INFERNAL PALACE.
The infernal palace was a congregation of subterranean rock-hewntemples under the spiritual control of the grand sorcerer Charka andthe grand sorceress Zooly-Soase.
The grand sorcerer's dominion was directly underneath the supernalpalace of Egyplosis. An ornate pagoda of stone covered the entrance tothe underground palace. The descent was by means of a wide gradient ofpolished marble, and there was also an elevator car, beautifullydecorated with electro-plated sheets of gold and lit by electricity,which was the most rapid means of descent to the pavement beneath, adistance of two hundred and fifty feet. The procession of twin-soulsand attendants, who carried Lyone and myself in a splendid litter ofgold, entered the palace by means of the inclined marble highway whosesculptured walls were radiant with electric light. The many temples ofthe underground palace were devoted to the most occult worship ofHarikar. There was an immense central edifice whose roof, supported bylofty columns, and sculptured in fantastic beauty, rose two hundredfeet above the pavement. Here electric suns lit up what was merely thevestibule of a hundred temples all hewn from the same pale greenmarble, the aquelium floors glimmering like a fathomless sea.
As we entered this splendid abode of sorcery, we were received by theaugust officials of the sanctuary. The grand sorcerer Charka was a manof imperial presence, gracious and subtle. His flesh was of the hue ofsilver bronze and he possessed noble features. His hair was blue andhis blue beard was trimmed into a rounded semi-circle on his chin,while his mustache spread nobly on either side of his lips. He wore arobe of emerald blue silk, embroidered with silver flowers. The grandsorceress, Thoubool who accompanied him, possessed the complexion of apearl, was arrayed in a robe of celestial blue silk, and, like thegrand sorcerer, wore a diadem of rubies.
Our reception was extremely gracious, the grand sorcerer saying hefelt highly honored with our visit.
As we passed down the palace pavement, an immense bell opened itsmouth of gaunt and glorious bronze. Soft explosions of music swept inthrilling moans through temple and cloister, the echoing wallsresounding with ritournels of enthusiastic peace. As if inspired withpassion, I could hear the bell swing and roll on its delirious pivotuttering its deep-sounding fantasy.
I saw, illuminating the sculptured archway of each temple on eitherside of us, the name thereof in letters of incandescent light. I sawthe names Amano, Biccano, Demano, Hirlano, Kilano, Pridano, Redolano,Ecthyano, Oxemano, Jiracano, Oirelano, Orphitano, Cedeshano, Padomano,Jocdilano, Nidialano, Bischomano, Omdolopano and many others,indicating the various departments of soul development to which eachtemple was dedicated.
The sorcerer waved his wand and suddenly a band of priestessesappeared on the pavement moving in strange and fantastic measures.Their attire consisted of low-cut circles of bright and beautifulstuffs with short skirts, having in front of each a sheaf of heavyfolds that expanded and fell as the dancer moved. All wore jewels andrings of precious metals on wrists and ankles. Their faces, perfect infeature, were pale rose in color but marvellously delicate. Rangingthemselves on either side of the immense aisle, they formed adelightful guard of honor for the grand sorcerer and his retinue.
They were not only souls, but the materializations of souls, thatdanced and sang as when on earth. They were souls of formerpriestesses reincarnated by the sorcerer and who vanished when wereached the entrance to the temple of the labyrinth. It certainly wasa delicate and superexcited imagination that wrought the splendidarchway through which we passed into the grotto garden beyond. NeitherGreek nor Moor, Hindoo nor Goth ever conceived such arabesques as weresculptured on the walls of the entrance to the holy of holies.
In the garden, hewn from the solid stone, were interminable thicketsand hedges enclosing labyrinthine walks. There were open spaces inwhich stood veritable trees with strangest leaf and flower, branch andstem delicately chiselled from the solid rock. There were also acresof grass and flowers, wonderful creations of art. There were rosebushes, heavy with their eternal bloom, the flowers stained crimson asin life and the leaves their varying gradations of green.
Fruit trees, with pale pink flowers and leaves light and dark green,stood amid the green grass that never waved in the breeze. Animmovable streamlet ran down its bed of carved irregularities betweenflowery banks and underneath a bridge formed of a single arch.
I looked up expecting to see the sky, but my gaze met the solidheavens of stone, and I knew again I was in a cavern. The feeling wassomewhat suffocating. The garden was lit by an electric sun in thecentre of the roof two hundred feet overhead. The pathway, wide enoughfor six people abreast, led by labyrinthine dells to the pagoda of thesorcerer, which stood in the centre of the garden. The mazes of thepathway were so numerous that none save the initiated, when once inthe labyrinth, could find their way out again.
It was a weird experience to find myself walking between the mastertwin-souls of that subterranean paradise, exploring its manymysteries.
We arrived in due time at the entrance to a mighty temple at thefurther side of the labyrinth, whose bronze door suddenly opened toreceive us, and the sorcerer bade me enter.
Passing through a pillared porch we entered a wide and lofty spacelit by tall windows and a roof of many-colored domes of glass thatthrew wonderful lights on the polished aquelium floors of thebuilding. The light that shone through window and dome was produced bymyriads of electric incandescent lamps that glowed in recesses of therock behind each window. This was the inmost shrine of the sorcerer.
As I walked toward the centre of the mysterious temple the sorcererinquired if creative magic was cultivated on the outer sphere.
I informed the sorcerer that necromancy, divination, magic,clairvoyance, esotericism, and theosophy were things known andpractised in many countries. "But," I added, "the idea there is thatof self-abnegation and miracles are only to be performed by asceticswho practise the most rigid austerities. Men who desire to possessoccult power live in complete solitude, subjecting themselves to cruelmortifications. They abstain from all fellowship with their kind, theytry to live even without food. They absolutely mourn existence,avoiding all contact with everything earthly. They hope by renouncingall the actions of life to enter more and more into the spiritualexistence. They believe they can build up an enormous soul out of theruins of the body."
"Do you find that such a method produces a high development ofcreative power, love, justice, conscience, truth, temperance, order,and benevolence?" said the grand sorcerer.
"I cannot say," I replied, "that the devotees to whom I refer areconspicuous for those qualities, certainly not for a highly activestate of such qualities. Their abnegation develops fanaticism, whichis intemperance itself, and fills them with hate toward those outsidetheir creed. The starvation of every appetite of pleasure withers upthe appreciation for every form of human delight."
"Then what virtues are derived from ascetic practices?" inquired thesorcerer.
"Certain virtues of a negative order," I replied. "The adepts claim tohave power to create and transport matter; a claim which reliablehistory does not, except in a few cases, recognize, and in a verylimited sense they have power to separate the soul from the body.While the body remains in a comatose state, the soul traverses space,holds consultation with similar souls, and returns to its mansion inthe body again."
THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN, WHOSE TREESAND FLOWERS WERE CHISELED OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK.]
"Your magicians," said the sorcerer, "weaken or kill the body withoutimparting corresponding power to the soul. Now we of Atvatabar believethat the body should be developed equally with the soul. We believethat contact with the noblest and best of earthly things developspower and beauty. We feed both body and soul on the perfection ofthings, that both may thereby absorb perfection.
"In the brilliant activities of the supernal palace, and in the goldencalm of the infernal palace, priest and priestess, as twin souls,naturally intermingle in the enjoyment o
f a long Nirvana of ecstasy.We have not only the occult power to perform miracles like theascetics of the outer sphere, but the soul possesses an enormousdevelopment of every noble quality without which our golden century isimpossible. We are able by means of our baths of life to obtain ahundred years of glorious youth, during which period age and decay ofthe body is suspended. Our devotees when they arrive at the age oftwenty years, when youth is fully developed, begin their Nirvana ofblessedness and love. They do not grow older during these years. Theeye is as bright, the pulse as bounding, the heart as lively, thecomplexion as pure and lovely, the feelings as fresh, at the end ofthe interregnum as at its commencement. Then when the golden centuryis exhausted, the body begins to be twenty-one years old."
"Do you mean that a man who has lived one hundred and thirty years isbut thirty years old?" I inquired.
"Precisely," said the sorcerer; "why should we call a period age inwhich there is no change?"
"Do all souls live until their century of youth is accomplished?"
"Not all souls. Many die of accident or in consequence of sin. Withsome, Nirvana consists of but a single day's felicity, with others amonth, or a year, up to a hundred years. It is the ideal for which westrive, and there is no reason why the body should not live onethousand years as well as one hundred, when vitality becomes moredeveloped."
I was astonished at the remarks of the sorcerer, and yet I rememberedthe case of Adam, Noah, and Methusaleh. I told him that men on theouter sphere had lived almost one thousand years.
"You may be sure they never practised the austerities of the asceticlife you have just mentioned. They must have enjoyed life alwaysturning their faces to the sun."
"I think one hundred years a great step toward immortality," Iremarked.
"At twenty years the body is developed, but even a hundred thousandyears will not develop the soul. Think of the development involved inhaving power over disease and death, power to create substantialitiesof matter!"
"Do you create matter?" I inquired breathlessly.
"I will show you what we can do," replied the sorcerer; "if you willfollow me."
The sorcerer led the way to seats upon a platform of silver, on whichstood in terrific grandeur the figure of a hehorrent, or dragon ofgold, whose eyes were blazing rubies. He stood before the dragon, atleast twenty feet above the pavement of the palace.
Presently the sorcerer shouted with a loud voice, "My host! my host!"and at once several thousand twin souls thronged into the immensetemple, dancing with naked feet on the polished aquelium pavement.Beneath the monster miles of wire were wound in a coil, and to thewire were attached twenty thousand fine wires of terrelium, each wireterminating in a terrelium wand. These wires were held one each bypriest and priestess, who began to move in a strange dance on thepavement and sing an anthem to Harikar. As they moved more and morerapidly the clamor of bells arose, and explosions of sound, likebullets rained upon drums, shook the building. In the semi-darknessthe body of the hehorrent seemed to quiver, and, as I gazed, lo! ashower of blazing jewels issued from its mouth. There were emeralds,diamonds, sapphires, and rubies flung upon the pavement, scintillatingwith fire the colors of the stones themselves!
The sorcerer, waving his terrelium wand, shouted, "Hold! It isenough!" and the seance was at an end. He received the jewels that hadbeen collected by his hierophants, and descending, offered me asplendid ruby as large as a hen's egg. I looked at him with awe, as Ifelt its size and weight. He simply said, "These jewels have beencreated by spirit power."
"Do you," I gasped, with a feeling of mingled exultance and fear, "doyou create matter?"
AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS ISSUED FROMTHE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT.]
"The abnegation of hopeless love is the source of the spirit powerby which we create matter such as this," replied the sorcerer. "Thetwin-soul is the cell that generates the creative force."
"And can you create other matter than jewels?" I eagerly inquired.
The sorcerer gazed at Lyone for a moment, who had been strangelysilent in the presence of her most powerful spiritual coadjutor, andthen replied: "Yes, we can create all things if necessary. We can, forexample, create islands in the sea, with mountains, forests, lakes,valleys, winding walks and thickets of flowers, palaces and pagodas."
I was breathless with excitement at such a reply. "Oh, that I couldsee such an island," I rejoined, "and tread, if but for a single hour,its ecstatic shores!"
"You can both see it and walk upon it, if the goddess so wills it,"replied the sorcerer. "What is the command of your holiness?" heinquired.
"I would like the commander to see Arjeels, if your priests andpriestesses are willing to perform the necessarily arduous ritualinvolved in its creation," replied Lyone.
"My hierophants," replied the sorcerer, "are only too happy to servetheir goddess at all times, and I will at once command them to prepareto execute the ritual for creating the magical island of Arjeels."
"Your devotion," said Lyone, "fills me with the purest joy."
As we conversed, the large ruby I held in my hand had grownconsiderably less in size, as though the elements of which it wascomposed had to a degree evaporated as unseen gases, so that in ashort time the jewel might wholly disappear. The sorcerer,anticipating an inquiry as to its disappearance, stated that allobjects created by spirit power could only be maintained in their fullmaterial splendor so long as they were sustained by the power thatgave them birth. The creations were not additions to already existingelements; they were simply focalizations of matter from the elementsof the surrounding world, held together by the force that withdrewthem from their normal habitat as long as the spirit power remainssupplied. The jewels would in a few hours cease to exist, because theywere not enfolded with the power that produced them.
"As to your magical island," said I, addressing Lyone, one of whosetitles was Princess of Arjeels, "where is your principality situated?"
"It is located anywhere in the wide sea," said Lyone.
"Do you mean to say," said I, "that Arjeels is not a real, veritableisland of the ocean, but only a ghostly island, a mirage that retreatsas we approach it, a phantasy of the imagination?"
"Arjeels is a real island, with real rocks and waterfalls, lakes andforests, birds and flowers. There is a real palace, and all theappurtenances of an ideal life. All this is a materialization of theideal desires."
I was astonished at her reply. "Once called into being," I inquired,"how long can the island exist?"
"So long as the twin-souls support it by never-ceasing ecstasy, solong as they perform their magical dances on the aquelium floor of thetemple of the dragon, holding in their hands the terrelium wands. Oncethe island becomes materialized it requires thousands of twin-souls tosustain and preserve its reality, and it only vanishes when thetwin-souls are utterly weary of their ecstasy."
"And when the twin-souls grow weary of their joys, what becomes of theisland and its glories?" I inquired.
"We can preserve the island for a long time," said the sorcerer, "byhaving fresh dancers take the place of those that are exhausted, butafter the lapse of a month, or longer, when all are utterly vanquishedwith fatigue, the spirit power becomes exhausted and the islanddisappears upon the sea."
I rose and enthusiastically grasped the sorcerer by the hand. "Ah,dear sorcerer," said I, "will you show me this magical island?"
"The command of the Princess of Arjeels," he replied, "will beobeyed."