. My people destroyed most of them, and bred down and tamed those they spared, to their own uses. And here for another age they dwelt as they had in the south, where their cities were now beneath mountains of ice.
"Then there were earth shakings, and the mountains began to lift. Their wisdom was not strong enough to keep the mountains from being born, but they could control their growth around their city. Slowly, steadily, through another age the mountains up rose. Until at last they girdled Yu-Atlanchi like a vast wall—a wall which could not be scaled. Nor did my
people care; indeed, it gladdened them. Because by then the Lords and the Mother had closed the Gate of Death. And my people cared no more to go into the outer world. And so they have dwelt—for other ages more."
Again she was silent, musing. Graydon looked at her, struggling to hide his incredulity. A people who had conquered death! A people so old that their ancient cities were covered by the Antarctic ice! The latter—well, that was possible. Certainly, the South Polar continent had once basked beneath a warm sun. Its fossils of palms and other vegetation that could only
have lived at tropical temperatures were proof of that. And quite as certainly what are now the poles at one time were not. Whether the change had come about by a sudden tipping of earth's axis, or a gradual readjustment, science was not agreed. But whatever it was that had happened, it must have taken place at least a million years ago. If Sierra's story were true, if she were not merely reciting myth, it placed the origin of man back into an inconceivably antiquity.
Yet . . . it might be . . . there were many mysteries . . . legends of lost lands and lost civilizations that must have some basis in fact . . . the Mother Land of Mu, Atlantis, the unknown race that ruled Asia from the Gobi when that dread desert was a green Paradise . . . yes, it might be. But that they had conquered Death? No! That he did not believe. He spoke with an irritation born of his doubts. "If your people were so wise why did they not come forth and rule this world?" "Why should they have?" she asked in turn. "If they had come forth what could they have done but built the rest of earth into likeness of this Yu-Atlanchi—as it was built in likeness of that older Yu-Atlanchi? There were none too many of them. Did I not say that when the Door of Death was closed so also was the Door of Life? It is true that always there have been some who elect to throw open these doors—my father and my mother were of these, Graydon. But they are few—so few! No, there was no reason why they should go beyond the barrier. All that they needed, all that they wanted, was here. "And there was another reason. They had conquered dream. Through dream they create their own worlds; do therein as they will; live life upon life as they will it. In their dreams they shape world upon world—and each of these worlds is as real to them as this is to you. And so—many let the years stream by while they live in dream. Why should they have gone or why should they go out into this one world when they can create myriads of their own at will?"
"Sierra," he said, abruptly. "Just why do you want to save me?"
"Because," she murmured, slowly, "because you make me feel as I have never felt before. Because you make me happy—because you make me sorrowful! I want to be close to you. When you go—the world will be darkened—" "Sierra!" he cried, and drew her, unresisting now, to him. His lips sought hers and her lips clung to his.