This is evidently a familiar pattern for the Prince. Remember how upset he was when he first found out that a “demon” was hiding in his mind? Trembling, shaking, pressing his hands violently against his head to drive me out? But then he calmed down completely. In the Labyrinth, again, he got pretty excited while he was trying to work that exorcism on me; but once he realized that he had failed to expel me, he became so cheerful and tranquil that I wasn’t sure he knew I was still there. He’s extremely tough and well balanced. Something strange can really get to him and shake him; but in his steady, determined way he works on it, gets control of it, regains his poise. And then every thing’s all right for him again.
He said to me,—You’ve been very quiet lately, wizard.
—I didn’t think you needed to hear from me. You’ve had enough to handle.
—You saw what I saw? The destruction of the city?
—Yes.
—And what do you think, wizard? You know all that is to come. Was it a true vision? Or only a bad dream, a nightmare designed to test me?
I could have given him false consolation then, I suppose. I could have lied, and said that what he had seen was a fever dream, a fantasy, that Athilan would endure forever and a day. But I’m not much good at lying. And I knew that he wasn’t looking for lies from me, or consolations, or anything else that might make him feel good for a moment at the expense of the truth.
So I said,—The city will be destroyed, Prince.
—Truly.
—Truly, yes. In my era nothing will be remembered of it except that it once existed. And many people will think that even that is only a foolish tale.
—Destroyed and forgotten.
—Yes, Prince Ram.
He was silent for a while. But I was monitoring the flow of his moods, and there was no return to the bleakness that had gripped him in the days just after the Rite of Anointing. He was calm. He was steady.
He said at last,—How far in the future is the time of destruction, wizard? Ten thousand years? Five thousand?
—Perhaps ten thousand years. Perhaps much less.
—Perhaps it will happen this year, even?
—I don’t know, Prince.
—A wizard should know the future.
—But your calling me a wizard doesn’t make me one, Prince. What you speak of as the future is the remote and misty past to me. I have no way of knowing when Athilan perished. Believe me, Prince.
Another period of silence. Then he said:
—I believe you—wizard.
And then I said, taking myself completely by surprise,—Prince, you need to save your city while there’s still time.
—Save it? How could I possibly save it?
—Leave this island. Lead everyone across to the mainland. Build a new Athilan in some place that will be invulnerable. And it will endure forever.
I felt undertones of amazement coming from him. I tell you, I was amazed myself at what I was doing.
But I couldn’t help it, Lora. I was caught up in the crazy rapture and wonder of my scheme.
I told him where to erect his New Atlantis.—Go to North Africa,I said.It’s warm there. There’s a place called Egypt, where a mighty river flows out of the heart of the continent. Your ships can get there easily from here, by sailing east and south. The land is fertile. You’ll have access to the sea. There’s stone to build with. You can create a new empire ten times as great as this one, one that will spread around the world.
—Or else,I said,go further east, to a place known as Mesopotamia. There are two rivers there, and it’s warm there too, and the land is perhaps even more fertile than in Egypt. And from there you can expand ever eastward, to a land called India, and one called China. You’ll be better off there than in Europe—in the mainland right here. Europe will be locked in ice for many more thousands of years. But China—India—Egypt—
I was berserk, Lora.
I was grossly interfering with the past. Not only had I opened direct contact with my own time-host, but here I was trying to get him to take a course of action that would beyond any doubt change the entire direction of history! Carried away by my own brilliance, I was telling him to go and found Egypt long before the Pharaohs would. Or better yet to create his new kingdom in Sumer or Babylon, and then to colonize the Orient, and—this part didn’t even matter to me, so crazed was I, so eager was I to be helpful—set up a Second Athilantan Empire that might become so powerful it would last on and on right into what you and I think of as historical times!
How about that? A tremendous sprawling kingdom ruled by extraterrestrial aliens, dominating the world for the next twenty thousand years, while none of our “real” history gets a chance to occur! No Greece, no Rome, no England, no United States—only eternal Athilan, all-powerful, reaching out in every direction, controlling everything! What a vision! What lunacy, Lora!
I offered to draw maps for him. I offered to give him geographical lessons. I promised to ransack my brains for every detail of what I knew about the Paleolithic Near East.
He let me rave for a long time.
And then he said, finally,—What a rare vision this is. What a wondrous scheme.
—Yes,I said, sure that I had convinced him.
And then: —But you know I would never do anything like this, wizard. Not even if I were Grand Darionis today, and I knew that the calamity would fall upon us in ten months’ time, would I do such a thing.
I was caught off balance.
—You wouldn’t?
He laughed.—Why do you think the princes of Athilan are shown the vision of the Rite of Anointing?
I said, really flustered now—Well—it’s because—I would assume—that is, it seems to me that it’s done in order to prepare you for the eruption. In case you happen to be the one who’s King at the time when it actually takes place. So that you can plan to take protective measures, arrange a safe evacuation, things like that.
—No. Not at all.
—Why is it done, then?
He paused a moment. Then he said,—To teach us that even though we are kings, we are as nothing in the hands of the gods.
—I don’t understand.
—You are no wizard then.
—I have never pretended to be one.
He said,—The gods have decreed that Athilan one day must perish, just as they decreed the fiery death of Romany Star. Don’t you think that we were aware that that would happen, too? And this city came out of that one. New greatness flowers out of lost greatness. It is our destiny, wizard, from time to time to be chastised by the gods, to be driven forth in sorrow from our homes, to begin anew, to create that which never existed before to replace that which was taken from us. Do you think we dare defy the gods? Do you think we dare thwart their will? We must accept what comes to us. That is the lesson of the Rite of Anointing. That is the thing I had to learn, if I am to be Grand Darionis some day. The vision was a test, yes. And I have passed that test.