This Fierce Splendor

Towering two thousand feet above the mountains around it, the volcano’s upper reaches were composed entirely of gleaming gray-black lava rock while its foothills were verdant with trees and shrubs.

Then they came to the crest of the trail and Elspeth forgot everything but the view before her.

Kantalan.

They stood on the summit, looking down at the city spread out before them. The strong rays of the afternoon sun streamed down, bathing the ancient buildings and pyramids in golden light.

Elspeth gazed spellbound, scarcely breathing.

“Are you disappointed?” Dominic asked gently.

“No. Oh, no,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful. It’s everything I dreamed it would be.”

Dominic’s gaze was on Elspeth, and he knew if there was not one particle of treasure in the city below them, he would still be grateful they had come to Kantalan. He would remember that expression of glowing radiance on her face until the day he died.

“The four rivers aren’t rivers at all.” She pointed to a narrow ribbon of water seemingly emerging from the foot of the Sun Child itself. “They’re manmade canals. Isn’t that interesting?”

“It seems to be to you,” he said with an indulgent smile. “Though I can’t understand why.”

“Because it’s clear the people of Kantalan deliberately tried to recreate their home city. Atlantis had four rivers intersecting like a cross, so when the colonists came here they dug canals to mirror the landscape they had known. It’s much more significant than if the rivers had been natural.” She drew a deep breath and her words tumbled out eagerly. “You know, if Atlantis was the birthplace of civilization, then it probably also contained the Garden of Eden. All of the legends of the garden mention four rivers. The Hebrew scripture says, ‘And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.’ The Scandinavians claim their sacred Asgard was watered by four primeval rivers of milk. The Chinese Tien-Chan was irrigated by four perennial fountains and the Slavratta of the Hindus possessed ‘four primeval rivers’ that flowed north, south, east, and west.” She paused. “Like Atlantis.”

“And Kantalan,” Dominic said. “But if these canals are manmade, you won’t find Eden here.”

“No.” Her gaze hadn’t left the splendid city in the valley below. “But if Kantalan is a mirror of Atlantis, perhaps it’s also a mirror of Eden.” Her heels nudged Nina forward. “Come on, Dominic. I can’t wait to see more.” She was already several yards down the trail as she called back to him. “Do you suppose that large square building is the temple?”

The grounds surrounding the imposing building she had indicated were tangled and overgrown and bore no resemblance to the lush glory of Eden. Yet even as they rode through, it was obvious this had once been a formal garden, a classical one, with pools and fountains, flower beds and paths. However, it became clear as soon as they opened a massive twelve-foot set of double doors that this was not a temple but a palace. They looked into a chamber that was unquestionably a throne room.

A heavy layer of dust coated the white marble floors and the columns decorated with gold frieze. A double row of statues on alabaster pedestals formed a walkway leading across the vast marble expanse and up the three steps to a splendid elevated throne.

“It’s gold,” she whispered. “That throne must be pure gold.”

Dominic nodded. “And, if I’m not mistaken, those jewels inlaid in the back are rubies.”

Her gaze wandered around the huge empty room. “How beautiful it must have been.” She took a step closer to one of the statues lining the approach to the throne, an elephant so exquisitely crafted, it appeared ready to raise its trunk and sound a triumphant trumpet through the cobwebbed stillness of the room. Her finger gently touched the satin smoothness of that trunk. “Ivory. Where did they get large enough quantities of ivory in this country to carve statues of this size?” She turned to him, her eyes blazing with excitement. “And this is an elephant. Elephants are found in Africa and Asia, not here. How would they be able to carve an elephant in such detail if they’d never seen one? There have been a few other cases I know about of a discovery of statuary like this. There was a wooden elephant found in the mounds in Wisconsin and similar artifacts found in the Cahokia mound in Illinois. Don’t you see? They must have brought these statues with them, though I can’t see how that would have been possible. Or it could be that the people originated in a place where they could have seen elephants.

He nodded and started across the room toward an ornately carved door to the left of the throne. “And I’ll bet they brought more with them than a bunch of statues.”

“Where are you going?”

“If this is the palace, where else would the royal treasury be but here?”

“Oh!” She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her tone. “Now?”

He stopped and turned to look at her in surprise before smiling understandingly. “You want to find your temple and see if there’s any more evidence of similarity?”

She nodded. “The temple is the storehouse of learning in most societies. I thought perhaps I could find a tablet or-” She stopped. “But naturally you want to see if the treasure actually exists. I can wait.”

He hesitated and then turned and walked back toward her. “So can the Kantalan treasure. What’s a few more hours after three hundred years?” He took her hand. “Which building should we try next?”

“The pyramid in the center of the city,” she said instantly. “The shape had a mystical significance to the Egyptians, perhaps it’s the same here.” She paused. “I wouldn’t mind going alone.”

He shook his head. The city appeared silent and deserted, but that didn’t mean there were no dangers. He wanted to be within hailing distance if Elspeth ran across a snake or other wild creature. “We’ll leave the pack animals here. These gardens seem as good a place as any to set up camp. Let’s go. You’ll want to be able to look through the temple before dark.”

Dominic was sitting on the stone steps and stood up as Elspeth came out of the temple and hurried toward him. She was carrying two large but very thin stone tablets in her arms, and he could tell by the excitement on her face that the question he was going to ask was completely unnecessary. “You found what you were looking for?”

“I think so. The hieroglyphics on these tablets are completely unfamiliar. It may take years to decipher them, but there’s a chance the entire story may be here.” She crossed the road to where Nina was tethered and unfastened the thong of her saddlebag and took out the MacGregor plaid. She wrapped the tablets carefully and put them into the saddlebag. “The lodestone is in the big room in the center of the temple. At least I think that’s what it is. I wonder what they used it for.” She whirled to face him. “Oh, Dominic, you should have gone in with me. There was so much to see, so many strange and wonderful things to discover.”

He shook his head. “This was your treasure. You waited a long time for your dream to come true. It was right that you experienced it first by yourself.”

Another gift. She gazed at him, loving him with all her being. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “My pleasure, Madame Delaney.” His gaze narrowed on the sky feathered pink and gold above the mountains to the west. “Do you want to go back inside? You have about fifteen minutes until sunset.”

She shook her head. “I think I’d like to walk back to the palace. I want to see everything. I want to walk down some of the sides streets and try to imagine the people who lived in those beautiful stately houses. Could we do that?”

He took her hand. “Why not? I’ll come back for the horses later.”

Stillness. The only sound in the entire city seemed to be the click of their boots on the cobbled streets. The houses and public buildings were in amazingly good condition, Elspeth noticed. They could have been built yesterday and yet had an air of timelessness about them. She had noticed that same strange quality in the pyramids of Egypt.

“Where did everybody go?” she asked softly. “There should be bones or something, shouldn’t there? Do you suppose they heeded Sayan’s warning and left Kantalan after all?”

“Perhaps,” Dominic answered. “Even after all this time there should still be some remains. I took a good look around while you were in the temple and found a few skeletons on some of the back streets. Dogs and horses, I think. But nothing in any of the houses but dust and broken pottery.”

“But if they did escape, why didn’t they come back?”

Dominic shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t want to chance the same thing happening again. If I came back and found all the livestock dead, I might have second thoughts about-” He broke off in mid-sentence.”