by Duane W. Rimel
The council of twelve seated on the jeweled celestial dais ordered that
Aphlar be cast from the gates of Bel-haz-en. He sat too much alone,
they decreed, and brooded when toil should have been his lot. And
in his obscure and hidden delvings he read all too frequently those
papyri of Elder æons which reposed in the Gothic shrine and were to be
consulted only for rare and special purposes.
The twilight city of Bel-haz-en had climbed backward in its knowledge.
No longer did philosophers sit upon street corners speaking wise words
to the populace, for stupid ignorance ruled within the crumbling
and immemorially ancient walls. Where once the wisdom of the stars
abounded, only feebleness and desolation now lay upon the place;
spreading like a monstrous blight and sucking foul nurture from the
stupid dwellers. And out of the waters of the Oll that meandered from
the mountains of Azlakka to pass by the aged city, there rose often
great clouds of pestilence that racked the people sorely, leaving them
pale and near to dying. All this their loss of wisdom brought. And now
the council had sent their last and greatest wise man from them.
Aphlar wandered to the mountains far above the city and built a cavern
for protection from the summer heat and winter chill. There he read his
scrolls in silence and his mighty wisdom to the wind about the crags
and to the swallows on the wing. All day he sat and watched below or
drew queer drawings on small bits of stone and chanted to them, for he
knew that some day men would seek the cave and slay him. The cunning
of the twelve did not mislead him. Had not the last exiled wiseman's
screams rent the night two moon-rounds before when people thought him
safely gone?
Had not his own eyes seen the priest's sword-slashed form floating by
in the poison waters? He knew no lion had killed old Azik, let the
council say what they might. Does a lion slash with a sword and leave
his prey uneaten?
Through many seasons Aphlar sat upon the mountain, gazing at the muddy
Oll as it wound into the misty distance to the land where none ever
ventured. He spoke his words of wisdom to the snails that worked in the
ground by his feet. They seemed to understand, and waved their slimy
feelers before they sank beneath the sand again. On moonlight nights
he climbed the hill above his cave and made strange offerings to the
moon-God Alo; and when the night-birds heard the sound they drew close
and listened to the whispering. And when queer winged things flapped
across the darkened sky and loomed up dimly against the moon Aphlar was
content. Those which he had addressed had heeded his beckoning. His
thoughts were always far away, and his prayers were offered to the pale
fancies of dusk.
Then one day past noontide Aphlar rose from his earthen chair and
strode down the rock mountain-side. His eyes, heeding not the rotten,
stone-walled city, held steadfastly to the river. When he drew near
its muddy brink he paused and looked up the bosom of the stream. A
small object floated near the rushes, and this Aphlar rescued with
tender and curious care. Then, wrapping the thing in the folds of his
robe, he climbed up again to his cave in the hills. All day he sat and
gazed upon the object; rummaging now and then in his musty chronicles,
and muttering awful syllables as he drew faint figures on a piece of
parchment.
That night the gibbous moon rose high, but Aphlar did not climb above
his dwelling. Queer night-birds flew past the cavern's mouth, chirped
eerily, and fled away into the shadows.
Many days passed before the council sent their messengers of murder;
but at last the time was thought ripe, and seven dark-browned men
stole away to the hills. Yet when that grim seven ventured within the
cave they saw not the wise man Aphlar. Instead, small blades of grass
were sprouting in his natural chair of earth. All about lay papyri dim
and musty, with faint figures drawn upon them. The seven shuddered
and left forthwith when they beheld these things, but as the last man
tremblingly withdrew he saw a round and unknown thing lying on the
ground. He picked it up, and his fellows drew close in curiosity; but
they saw upon it only alien symbols which they could not read, yet
which made them shrink and quaver without knowing why. Then he who
had found it cast it quickly over the steep precipice beside him, but
no sound came from the slope below whereon it should have fallen. And
the thrower trembled, fearing many things that are not known but only
whispered about. Then, when he told how the sphere he had held was
without the weight a thing of stone should have; how it was like to
have floated on air as the thistledown floats; he and the six with him
slunk as one from the spot and swore it was a place accursed.
But after they had gone a snail crawled slowly from a sandy crevice and
slid intently over to where the blades of grass were growing. And when
it reached the spot, two slimy feelers stretched forth and bent oddly
downward, as if eager to watch forever the winding river.