If you’re like most Atlanteans these days, you’ve heard all sorts of unnerving claims about the future of our continent. Some people are even saying that recent earth tremors are harbingers of a cataclysm that will plunge Atlantis to the bottom of the sea. Those old prophecies from the sacred scrolls of the Sun Temple have had the dust blown off them again, adding to the stew of rumors.
So is there anything to it? Should you be worried about the future of Atlantis?
Not according to the experts. I visited some of the most widely respected hierarchs here in the City of the Golden Gates yesterday to ask them about the rumors, and they assured me that there’s no reason to take the latest round of alarmist claims at all seriously.
***
Fresco image via Wikimedia
My first stop was the temple complex of black orichalcum just outside the Palace of the Ten Kings, where Nacil Buper, Grand Priestess of the Temple of Night, took time out of her busy schedule to meet with me. I asked her what she thought about the rumors of imminent catastrophe. “Complete and utter nonsense,” she replied briskly. “There are always people who want to insist that the end is nigh, and they can always find something to use to justify that sort of thing. Remember a few years ago, when everyone was running around insisting that the end of the Forty-First Grand Cycle of Time was going to bring the destruction of the world? This is more of the same silliness.”
Just at that moment, the floor shook beneath us, and I asked her about the earth tremors, pointing out that those seem to be more frequent than they were just a few years back.
“Atlantis has always had earthquakes,” the Grand Priestess reminded me, gesturing with her scepter of human bone. “There are natural cycles affecting their frequency, and there’s no proof that they’re more frequent because of anything human beings are doing. In fact, I’m far from convinced that they’re any more frequent than they used to be. There are serious questions about whether the priests of the Sun Temple have been fiddling with their data, you know.”
“And the claim from those old prophecies that offering human sacrifices to Mu-Elortep, Lord of Evil, might have something to do with it?” I asked.
“That’s the most outrageous kind of nonsense,” the Grand Priestess replied. “Atlanteans have been worshipping the Lord of Evil for more than a century and a half. It’s one of the foundations of our society and our way of life, and we should be increasing the number of offerings to Mu-Elortep as rapidly as we can, not listening to crazies from the fringe who insist that there’s something wrong with slaughtering people for the greater glory of the Lord of Evil. We can’t do without Mu-Elortep, not if we’re going to restore Atlantis to full prosperity and its rightful place in the world order, and if that means sacrifices have to be made—and it does—then sacrifices need to be made.”
She leaned forward confidentially, and her necklace of infant’s skulls rattled. “You know as well as I do that all this is just another attempt by the Priests of the Sun to dodge their responsibility for their own bad policies. Nobody would care in the least about all these crazy rumors of imminent doom if the Sun Priest Erogla hadn’t made such a fuss about the old prophecies in the scrolls of the Sun Temple a few years back. The Sun Temple’s the real problem we face. Fortunately, though, we of the Temple of Night have a majority in the Council of the Ten Kings now. We’re working on legislation right now to eradicate poverty in Atlantis by offering up the poor to Mu-Elortep in one grand bonfire. Once that’s done, I’m convinced, Atlantis will be on the road to a full recovery.”
***
After my conversation with the Grand Priestess, I went uphill to the foot of the Sacred Mountain, where the Sun Temple rises above the golden-roofed palaces of the Patricians of Atlantis. I had made an appointment to see Tarc Omed, the Hierophant of the Priests of the Sun; he met me in his private chamber, and had his servants pour us purple wine from Valusia as we talked.
“I know the kind of thing you must have heard from the Temple of Night,” the Hierophant said wearily. “It’s all our fault the economy’s in trouble. Everything’s our fault. That’s how they avoid responsibility for the consequences of the policies they’ve been pursuing for decades now.”
I asked him what he thought of Nacil Buper’s claim that offering up the poor as human sacrifices would solve all the problems Atlantis faces these days.
“Look,” he said, “everybody knows that we’ve got to wean ourselves off making human sacrifices to the Lord of Evil one of these days. There’s no way we can keep that up indefinitely, and it’s already causing measurable problems. That’s why we’re proposing increased funding for more sustainable forms of worship directed toward other deities, so we can move step by step to a society that doesn’t have to engage in human sacrifice or deal with Mu-Elortep at all.”
And the ground tremors? Do they have anything to do with the sacrifices?
“That’s a good question. It’s hard to say whether any particular burst of tremors is being caused by the prophesied curse, you know, but that’s no reason for complacency.”
A tremor shook the room, and we both steadied our golden goblets of wine on the table. “Doesn’t that lend support to the rumors that Atlantis might sink soon?” I asked.
Tarc Omed looked weary again, and leaned back in his great chair of gold and ivory. “We have to be realistic,” he said. “Right now, Atlantean society depends on human sacrifice, and transitioning away from that isn’t something we can do overnight. We need to get those more sustainable forms of worship up and running first, and that can’t be done without negotiated compromises and the support of as many stakeholders as possible. Alarmism doesn’t further that.”
I thought of one of the things Nacil Buper had said. “But aren’t the prophecies of doom we’re discussing right there in the sacred scrolls of the Sun Temple?”
“We don’t consider that relevant just now,” the Hierophant told me firmly. “What matters right at the moment is to build a coalition strong enough to take back a majority in the Council of the Ten Kings, stop the Temple of Night’s crazy plan to sacrifice all of the poor to Mu-Elortep, and make sure that human sacrifices are conducted in as painless and sanitary a fashion as possible and increased only at the rate that’s really necessary, while we work toward phasing out human sacrifice altogether. Of course we can’t continue on our current path, but I have faith that Atlanteans can and will work together to stop any sort of worst-case scenario from happening.”
***
From the Temple of the Sun I walked out of the patrician district, into one of the working class neighborhoods overlooking the Old Harbor. The ground shook beneath my feet a couple of times as I went. People working in the taverns and shops looked up at the Sacred Mountain each time, and then went back to their labor. It made me feel good to know that their confidence was shared by both the hierarchs I’d just interviewed.
I decided to do some person-in-the-street interviews for the sake of local color, and stepped into one of the taverns. Introducing myself to the patrons as a reporter, I asked what they thought about the rumors of disaster and the ongoing earth tremors.
“Oh, I’m sure the Priests of the Sun will think of something,” one patron said. I wrote that down on my wax tablet.
“Yeah,” agreed another. “How long have these prophecies been around? And Atlantis is still above water, isn’t it? I’m not worried.”
“I used to believe that stuff back in the day,” said a third patron. “You know, you buy into all kinds of silly things when you’re young and gullible, then grow out of it once it’s time to settle down and deal with the real world. I sure did.”
That got nods and murmurs of approval all around. “I honestly think a lot of the people who are spreading these rumors actually want Atlantis to sink,” the third patron went on. “All this obsessing about those old prophecies and how awful human sacrifice is—I mean, can we get real, please?”
“You can say that again,” said the second patron. “I bet they do want Atlantis to sink. I bet they’re actually Lemurian sympathizers.”
The third patron turned to look at him. “You know, that would make a lot of sense—”
Just then another tremor, a really strong one, shook the tavern. The whole room went dead silent for a moment. As the tremor died down, everybody started talking loudly all at once. I said my goodbyes and headed for the door.
As I stopped outside to put my wax tablet into the scribe’s case on my belt, one of the other patrons—a woman who hadn’t said anything—came through the door after me. “If you’re looking for a different point of view,” she told me, “you ought to go down to the Sea Temple. They’ll give you an earful.”
I thanked her, and started downhill toward the Old Harbor.
***
I’d never been to the Sea Temple before; I don’t think most Atlanteans ever go there, though it’s been right there next to the Old Harbor since time out of mind. When I got there, the big doors facing the harbor were wide open, but the place seemed empty; the only sounds were the flapping of the big blue banners above the temple and the cries of sea birds up overhead.
As another tremor rattled the city, I walked in through the open doors. I didn’t see anyone at first, but after a few moments a woman in the blue robes of a Sea Priestess came out of the sanctuary further inside and hurried toward me. She had a basket of scrolls in her arms.
I introduced myself, explained that I was a journalist, and asked if she minded answering some questions.
“Not if you don’t mind walking with me to the harbor,” she said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Sure,” I told her. “So what do you think about all these scary rumors? Do you really think Atlantis could end up underwater?”
We left the temple and started across the plaza outside, toward the harbor. “Have you read the prophecies of Emor Fobulc?” she asked me.
“Can’t say I have.”
“They predicted everything that’s happened: the rise of the cult of Mu-Elortep, the sacrifices, the earth tremors, and now the Sign.”
“The what?”
“When’s the last time you looked at the top of the Sacred Mountain?”
I stopped and looked right then. There was a plume of smoke rising from the great rounded peak. After a moment, I hurried to catch up to her.
“That’s the Sign,” she told me. “It means that the fires of Under-Earth have awakened and Atlantis will soon be destroyed.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I thought about it for a moment as we walked, and the ground shook beneath our feet. “There could be plenty of other explanations for that smoke, you know.”
The priestess looked at me for a long moment. “No doubt,” she said dryly.
By then we were near the edge of the quay, and half a dozen people came hurrying down the gangplank from a ship that was tied up there, an old-fashioned sailing vessel with a single mast and the prow carved to look like a swan. One of them, a younger priestess, bowed, took the basket of scrolls, and hurried back on board the ship. Another, who was dressed like a mariner, bowed too, and said to the priestess I’d spoken with, “Is there anything else, Great Lady?”
“Nothing,” she said. “We should go.” She turned to me. “You may come with us if you wish.”
“I need to have this story back to the pressroom before things shut down this afternoon,” I told her. “Are you going to be coming back within two hours or so?”
I got another of her long silent looks. “No,” she said. “We’ll be much longer than that.”
“Sorry, then—I hate to turn down a cruise, but work is work.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that, and the others more or less bundled her up the gangplank onto the ship. A couple of sailors untied the cables holding the ship against the quay and then climbed on board before it drifted away. A few minutes later the ship was pulling out into the Old Harbor; I could hear the oarsmen belowdecks singing one of their chanteys while the sailors climbed aloft and got the sail unfurled and set to the breeze.
After a few more minutes, I turned and started back up the hill toward the middle of town. As I climbed the slope, I could see more and more of the City of the Golden Gates around me in the afternoon sun: the Palace of the Ten Kings with the Temple of Night beside it, the Sun Temple and the golden roofs of the patricians’ palaces higher up the slope. The ground was shaking pretty much nonstop, but I barely noticed it, I’d gotten so used to the tremors.
The view got better as I climbed. Below, the Old Harbor spread out to one side and the New Harbor to the other. Next to the New Harbor was the charnel ground of Elah-Slio, where smoke was rising from the altars and long lines of victims were being driven forward with whips to be offered up as sacrifices to Mu-Elortep; off the other way, beyond the Old Harbor, I spotted twenty or so sails in the middle distance, heading away from Atlantis, and the ship with the priestess on it hurrying to join them.
That’s when it occurred to me that the Sea Priestess couldn’t have been serious when she said that Atlantis would soon be destroyed. Surely, if the prophecies were true, the Sea Priestesses would have had more important things to do than go on some kind of long vacation cruise. I laughed at how gullible I’d been there for a moment, and kept climbing the hill into the sunlight.
Above the Sacred Mountain, the cloud of smoke had gotten much bigger, and it looked as though some kind of red glow was reflecting off the bottom of it. I wondered what that meant, but figured I’d find out from the news soon enough. It certainly made me feel good to know that there was no reason whatever to worry about the far-fetched notion that Atlantis might end up at the bottom of the sea.
(Note: due to a date-linked transtemporal anomaly, this week’s planned Archdruid Report post got switched with a passage from the Swenyliad, an Atlantean chronicle dating from 9613 BCE. We apologize for any inconvenience.)
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