第91章

"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart.They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom--and after other time on time they at-tained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the half-thought.For they crept far within the mysteries of life and death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering from the flaming jewel of truth--but when they had crept within those mysteries they bid me tell YOU, Goodwin, they found ever other mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!

"And for this they were glad--because now throughout eternity might they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable.

"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding from the nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink; light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their own.They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay.

"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones.

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 the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they are now, and glowing but faintly within them the spark of --self-realization.And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not slay them.But they took the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon earth face.Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green life.On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew and ran from those that would slay.

"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_had come and closed it.Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time they became much as they are now--my _Akka_.

"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have strengthened life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not CREATE life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming."The Three are speaking," she murmured."They have my tongue--"And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their thoughts, she spoke.

"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant."We said that what we would create should be of the spirit of life itself, speak-ing to us with the tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of all upon and within these.Upon that universal matrix of matter, that mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured.Think not that her won-drous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what has been on earth from its beginning.Infinite, infinite are the forms the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.

"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were her children.

"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller, which those without name--the Shining One.Within the Universal Mother we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go before us lighting the mysteries.Out of the ether we fashioned it, giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it.And we wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching pride and from our travail came the Shining One--our child!

"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purpose-ful, 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 star and in all dwellers within the firmament.And this ye call consciousness!

"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate, the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child.