Abraham Merritt

“ Those who pursued the ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their work—and they would not, for still they loved it; sitting lonely, mourning in their place like those from whom a best beloved has run.
"Stronger grew the Dweller's pride, darker its power and less and less did it lay before its worshipers—for now so they had become—the fruits of its knowledge. And it grew restless, turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had turned it from the Three. It whispered to the Taithu to take again the paths and look out upon the world. ”

“ I said. "How did he and his wife come together in the Dweller's lair?"
"I do not know," she answered, slowly. "You say they loved—and it is true that love is stronger even than death. By soul, Larry dear, you mean, I think that which is in us that lives forever. But I do not know. I only know that those whom the Shining One has taken live ever as you see them; fed by its own life, doing as it commands and in a measure partaking of its power. Whether their souls go far—or dwell there, being imperishable—when life fire has been eaten—I do not know." ”

“ There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses all that ether bears, that sees and speaks; and feels in us and in you, that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds sparkling tongue in jewel and stars and in all dwellers within the firmament. ”

“ Infinite, infinite, are the forms the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.
"We have looked upon the strange blossoming orbs that circle the sun ye call Arcturus, the crystal-clear globes that girdle Betelgeuse, the fantom spheres that diadem Aldebaran, the worlds of cool misty flame that swims within that ye name the Pleiades, and upon others, countless, countless others and upon them all were the children of ether even as they them- selves were her children. ”

“ In giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold that knowledge itself. ”

“ The people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they forgot where was the portal the Taithu had sealed. The moon king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a beautiful woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess. The Shining One is kinder to his priestess than to his Voice; and so really the woman rules. Long have they dwelt here and many have been the ladala who have danced—before the tiers of jet, upon the ivory daïs, and passed in the Shining One's train over the Silvery Waters and through the Veil. ”

“ At all other times it dwelt below; the Moon Pool Chamber was free of it, and bold, determined men might well enter, close its Portal and shatter the spheres of power.
NOW suddenly vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and there was wide slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor any of the ruddy-haired folk ”

“ They led them all in wisdom so that in the Three grew—pride. And the Three built them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and withdrew from their kind to go alone' into the mysteries and to map alone the facets of truth jewel.
"Then there came here the ancestors of the Akka; tribes of them, not as they are now, and glowing but faintly within them the spark of—self-realization. And the Taithu seeing this, did not slay them. But they took the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon earth face. ”

“ Open to all consciousness it held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless worlds and suns and all their sorrows. ”

“ All that ye symbolize as gods and all ye symbolize as devils—not negativing each other, for there is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing them, incompassing them, pole upon pole! ”

“ Another tumult—and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy, pulsing, triumphant and clasped within its vapors a man and woman, ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side by side—gloriously, hideously. ”

“ Drawing as they whirled more and more of the mists—growing larger, growing warm—forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning around the sun.
"Something, too, of regions within this globe where vast fire was prisoned, and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb. Of one such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell—and of—of life particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent Ones, and those others. But not the Akka which, like you, they say came from above. ”

“ For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been brought up, Lakla. What with people like frogs, and a half god three-quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. ”