Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Author:Jack Vance [Vance, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780671441845
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 1950-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

release men from all labor, and thus permit full leisure for meditation and ascetic discipline.

" 'While Rogol Domedonfors completed his great work, the city dissolved into turbulence—the result of a freak religious hysteria.

" 'The rival sects of Pansiu and Cazdal had long existed, but few other than the priests heeded the dispute. Suddenly the cults became fashionable;

the population flocked to worship one or the other of the deities. The priests, long-jealous rivals, were delighted with their new power, and exhorted the converts to a crusading zeal.

Friction arose, emotion waxed, there was rioting and violence. And on one evil day a stone struck Rogol

Domedonfors, toppled him from a balcony.

" 'Crippled and wasting but refusing to die, Rogol Domedonfors completed his underground mechanism, installed vestibules throughout the city, and then took to his death-bed. He issued one directive to his new machine, and when

Ampridatvir awoke the next morning, the people found their city without power or light, the food factories quiet, the canals diverted.

" 'In terror they rushed to Rogol Domedonfors, who said: "I have long been blind to your decadence and eccentricities; now I despise you; you have been the death of me."

"'"But the city dies! The race perishes!" they cried.

"' "You must save yourselves," Rogol Domedonfors told them. "You have ignored the ancient wisdom, you have been too indolent to learn, you have sought easy complacence from religion, rather than facing manfully to the world. I have resolved to impose a bitter experience upon you, which I hope will be salutary."

" 'He called the rival priests of Pansiu and Cazdal, and handed to each a tablet of transparent metal.

" These tablets singly are useless; laid together a message may be read.

He who reads the message will have the key to the ancient knowledge, and will wield the power I had planned for my own use. Now go, and I will die."

" 'The priests, glaring at each other, departed, called their followers, and so began a great war.

" 'The body of Rogol Domedonfors was never found, and some say his skeleton still lies in the passages below the city. The tablets are housed in the rival temples. By night there is murder, by day there is starvation in the streets. Many have fled to the mainland, and now I follow, leaving Ampridatvir, the last home of the race. I will build a wooden hut on the slope of Mount Liu and live out my days in the valley of Mel-Palusas.'"

Kandive twisted the scroll and replaced it in the box. "Your task," he told Ulan Dhor, "is to journey to Ampridatvir and recover the magic of Rogol

Domedonfors."

Ulan Dhor said thoughtfully, "It was a long time ago ... Thousands of years ..."

"Correct," said Kandive. "However, none of the histories of indices make further mention of Rogol Domedonfors, and herefore I believe that the wisdom of Rogol Domedonfors still remains to be found in ancient Ampridatvir."

Three weeks Ulan Dhor sailed the nerveless ocean. The sun rose bright as blood from the horizon and belled

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