Setos was genuinely surprised, yet not displeased over the turn of affairs, and readily agreed with Imos that the temple should be razed and never rebuilt. He had always opposed the White Brotherhood, and could see them exterminated without regret.
It was rather an imposing procession that filed out of Iaqua at noon, and marched over the rising ground, lately a scene of bloodshed, to the Temple of the Sun, where Setos and Rahula were to receive the fealty of the populace.
Each male adult in Tlamco, brought earth in a square jar and water in a deep disk for an oath-offering. Unclasping a pair of interlaced bracelets, the citizen placed his right hand flat upon one band, and, detaching the other, carried it to his forehead, saying:
“Name I thee to witness, I make loyal oath by two rings. So help me, All Powerful One.”
This formula was repeated thousands of times in the next three days, and then, in response to a general proclamation, the warriors and citizens assembled to give burial to the slain. These were interred in a large circle at the base of Mount Olympus, with their heads turned toward the center.
Setos’s first public work as Servitor was to erect a tall shaft with four fire-altars at the base, on the cardinal points, on which sacrifice was offered to the “Martyrs of the Lost Soul,” as the dead in this conflict were subsequently termed.
Beginning at the northern side of East Avenue, and circling in a radius of three thousand and ninety feet to the same side of West Avenue, was a set of pillars supporting a low crenellated wall along which was a sentry-path, used for public observation in the residence part of the city.
This crescent gave the distance of the lost planet from the center of Tlamco, Mount Olympus being in the same radiation. It was indicated again from Las Papas to Lime Point, and also from Lone Mountain to the artificial sugar-loaf surmounted by the Tower of Refuge, south of Blue Mountain, and between Las Papas and Strawberry Hill.
The gilded domes on the Temple of the Sun were the five-pointed star in the center of the crescent, a device which anciently figured as the lost planet[[23]]—the present star and crescent of the Turkish Empire.