one variation of the Law; they would all be subject to me, and pay me tribute as I cared to exact.

For days after I knew the secret of how to dissipate, not once, but repeatedly, and so forever, the Creeping Mist, I struggled with my decision. If I kept my secret to myself, millions of human beings would die in the submersion. But had they not earned such end? Had not the Supreme Master so accused them all, and each of them? Who was I to stand in the way of proper Consequences of the Law? Just because I myself had inspired some of the people to rebellion in their minds? Were they any the less to blame for their failures because I had, ever so little, inspired them? Oh, it was easy enough to justify myself.

For days on end I would assure myself that at the proper time I would give the secret to the Masters, that Atlantis might be saved. But always I somehow held it back. There were many days when I was sure I'd keep the secret as my own until after the Catastrophe, and thus emerge into the new world with the secret of Creations, wherewith to design and people the Eden of Anghor.

CHAPTER V

Traitor to His Trust

Even as I wavered between right and wrong, the law and lawlessness, so that I was sometimes not quite sure just which was which, I was fashioning a vessel in which my own carcass would be saved. The vessel was a tube, just large enough for me, a special tube of propulsion, using the power which Atlantis had used for ages upon ages, with a subtle difference. I made a visit to the twin peaks of Ba and Ku, in the warm south, and in each peak I set, and carefully hid, the master magnets to which the magnet in the nose of my vessel would travel unerringly when I freed the power between them with the flipping of a switch.

Thus, even when the great waters broke, and overwhelmed Atlantis, I could step into my vessel, seal it tightly, and let the waters take and turn and spin me wherever they might—but when I pressed the switch, releasing the magnetic power—it was really absurdly simple—the vessel would rise up through the worst maelstrom and rest on the sea between the peaks of Ba and Ku. I would not need then to make haste to leave my vessel. I would be Master of the New World, with no need to hurry. I would be THE Master!

Into this vast indecision I stepped, through the tiny door in the Building of The Skull—forgetting the door, the key, and the building, to become Anghor of twelve thousand years ago.

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