Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Blind Spot by Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall (iphone ebook reader .TXT) 📖
- Author: Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall
Book online «The Blind Spot by Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall (iphone ebook reader .TXT) 📖». Author Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall
“We are a body of learned men, you understand, and we stand at the peak of all that has been discovered through hundreds upon hundreds of centuries, so that at the present day we are the culmination of the combined effort and thought of man since the beginning of time. Each generation of Rhamdas must be greater than the one preceding. When I die and pass on to your world I must leave something new and worth-while to my successor; some thought, wisdom, or deed that may be of use to mankind. I cannot be a Rhamda else. We are a set of supreme priests, who serve man at the shrine of intelligence, not of dogma.
“Of course, we are not to be judged too highly. All research, when it steps forward must go haltingly; there are many paths into the unknown that look like the real one. Hence, we have among us various schools of thought, and each following a different trail.
“I myself am a spiritist. I believe that we can, and often have, communicated with your world at various times. There are others who do not grant it; there are Rhamdas who are inclined to lean more to the materialist's side of things, who rely entirely, when it comes to questions of this kind, upon their faith in the teachings of the Jarados. There are some, too, who believe in the value of speculation, and who contend that only through contemplation can man lift himself to the full fruits of realisation. At the head of us all—the Rhamda Avec!”
“What was his belief?”
“Let us say he believed ALL. He was eclectic. He held that we were all of us a bit right, and each of us a whole lot wrong. It was his contention, however, that there was not one thing that could not be proven; that the secret of life, while undoubtedly a secret in every sense of the word, is still very concrete, it could be proven!”
Watson nodded. He remembered hearing another man make just such a statement—Dr. Holcomb.
“For years he worked in private,” went on Geos. “We never knew just what he was doing; until, one day, he called us together and delivered his lecture.”
“His lecture?”
“Rather, his prophecy. For it was all that. Not that he spoke at great length; it was but a talk. He announced that he believed the time had come to prove the occult. That it could be done, and done only through concrete, material means; and that whatever existed, certainly could be demonstrated. He was going to pull aside the curtain that had hitherto cut off the shadow.
“'I am going to prove the occult,' he said. 'In three days I shall return with the fact and the substance. And then I propose to deliver my greatest lecture, my final thesis, in which my whole life shall come to a focus. I shall bring the proof for your eyes and ears, for your fingers to explore and be satisfied. You shall behold the living truth.”
“'And the subject of my lecture—the subject of my lecture will be The Spot of Life.'”
XXXII. — THROUGH UNKNOWN WATERS
The SPOT of Life! And the subject of Dr. Holcomb's lecture, promised but never delivered, had been announced as—The Blind SPOT!
To Watson it was fairly astounding to discover that the two—Holcomb and Avec—had reached simultaneously for the curtain of the shadow. The professor had said that it would be “the greatest day since Columbus.” And so it had proven, did the world but know it.
“And—the Rhamda Avec never returned?” asked Chick.
“No.”
“But he sent back something within three days?” Watson was thinking, of course, of the doctor who had disappeared on the day which, Jerome overheard the Rhamda to say, was the last of his stay.
But Geos did not reply. Why, Chick could not guess. He thought it best not to press the question; in good time, if he went at it carefully, he could gain his end with safety. At the moment he must not arouse suspicion. He chose another query.
“Did Avec go alone?”
“No. The Nervina went with him. Rather, she followed within a few hours.”
“Ah!”
It was out before Watson could think. The Rhamda looked up suddenly.
“Then you have seen the Nervina! You know her?”
Chick lied. It was not his intention, just at present, to tie himself down to anything that might prove compromising or restraining.
“The name is—familiar. Who is this Nervina?”
“She is one of the queens. I thought—My dear sir, she is one of the queens of Thomahlia, half Kospian, half D'Hartian; of the first royal line running through from the day of the Jarados.”
Chick cogitated for a moment. Then, taking an entirely new tack:
“You say the Rhamda and this Nervina, independently, solved the mystery of the Spot of Life, I believe you call it. And that Spot leads, apparently, into the occult?”
“Apparently, if not positively. It was the wisdom of Avec, mostly. He had been in communication with your world by means of his own discovery and application. It was all in line with the prophecy.
“Since he and the Nervina left, the people of the world have been in a state of ferment. For it was foretold that in the last days we would get in communication with the other side; that some would come and some would go. For example, your own coming was foretold by the Jarados, almost to the hour and minute.”
“Then it was fortuitous,” spoke Watson. “It was NOT the wisdom and science of Avec, in my case.”
“Quite so. However, it is proof that the Rhamdas have fulfilled their duty. We knew of the Spot of Life, all the while; it was to be closed until we, through the effort of our intellect and virtues, could lift ourselves up to the plane of the world beyond us—your world. It could not be opened by ourselves alone, however. The Rhamda Avec had first to get in touch with your side, before he could apply the laws he had discovered.”
Somehow, Chick admired this Rhamda. Men of his type could form but one kind of priesthood: exalted, and devoted to the advance of intelligence. If Rhamda Avec were of the same sort, then he was a man to be looked up to, not to hate. As for the Jarados—Watson could not make out who he had been; a prophet or teacher, seemingly, looming out of the past and reverenced from antiquity.
The Blind Spot became a shade less sinister. Already Watson had the Temple
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