Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/52

ing about me with twinkling, gliding feet and waving hands, the Dance of Sleep.

I do not mean the ordinary sleep of the material world—but the mystic Temple-sleep wherein the bodily faculties are all in abeyance and the self is free—free to go, but, perchance, never to return—free to reach to whatever plane it merits, be that plane one of the many hells of the universe, or—to the very Presence itself.

Softly, sweetly, the voice of the singer came to my ears, and, highly attuned as I was, I could sense in every nerve-fiber the vibrations which were fast filling the place; due to the mystic geometrical patterns and figures formed in the ether by her words, her tones, and her motions.

To me came the sensations one would experience were that one reclining full length in a boat on a gently heaving sea. It was a slow, easy, inexpressibly soothing lift and sway and rise and fall. I was drifting, half-conscious. The light of the shrine, even through my closed lids, became softer than moonshine yet surpassing vivid sunlight . . . an even greater rise and fall . . . a lift, with no after-feeling of sinking back—and I was free!

If an arrow from a powerful bow has sensation, it must feel as I felt in that moment. I was shooting through space—at first the ordinary atmosphere of this gray old earth which the ancients very truly styled Myalba, the "Abode of Trouble."

Thence I passed out into interplanetary space; through the blue-blackness of night wherein stars, planets and suns shone as bright spots of different colored lights, yet gave forth no illumination.

On and on I sped until a vague fear assailed me and several very definite questions took form within my consciousness—for I had not counted on any such extended trip as this!

"Whither was I bound? What lay before me? Should I ever return to earth, my home-planet? Or had the merit I had acquired during life been of such evil nature that I was to be expelled out of the known universe into some unknown and probably very dreadful realm outside all finite concept?"

I tried to check my progress, but to no avail. I tried to slow down my speed at least. Utterly futile! In fact, the effort seemed to accelerate it.

I noted, as I shot past it, a constellation to my left very near, and my astronomical knowledge informed me that it was one of the remotest in our solar system. And at that, the fear became anything but vague; for I became certain that ahead of me lay the Unknown—and what effect would that have upon me?

I thought of the Temple; of my brethren in the Occult Order; I thought of the couch whereon lay my earth-body. I thought of the Black Shrine; of the cubical stone altar; and finally I bethought me of that awful, beautiful and terrible, supernal goddess to whom that shrine was dedicated, to whom that altar had been raised, and who—if the whispered word spake truth—sometimes descended and rested thereon for a few moments; manifest as a tongue of flame of dazzling silvery brilliancy.

Would she let one of her followers come to grief—to an eternal wo? True, I knew that great though she was, she still was subordinate to the Presence Itself—although she was one of Its ministers—and might not be able to aid, despite her known powers.

I knew that to utter her secret name unworthily meant death on earth and punishment thereafter. But it seemed to me that never again could my need be so desperate—and I pronounced (not vocally, for my body was lacking, but shall I say "telepathically"?) her awful word.