"The chamber Lake discovered."
"Oh, yes! Well, that's but one of the thousand mysteries of Angkor, Ramey. There are many more. I might point out some of the peculiarities of the sculpture itself. Oddly mingled with painstaking representations of ordinary men, are the figures of incredible, fabulous monsters. Dragons, great nagas, hypogrifins, monkeys garbed in human clothing, acting like men, apparently talking to each other and to humans.
"You might reasonably say that these representations are figments of the creative imagination, a sort of 'artistic license,' so to speak. But here's the rub! Whenever men are depicted, they are reproduced with elaborate fidelity. Not a single effort is made to aggrandize or conventionalize, as is the case in the artistry of other ancient races. The Minoan, for instance, or the Egyptian. The builders of Angkor seemed to pride themselves on faithful portrayal.
"But why, then, did they detract from their accuracy by delineating the figures of nonexistent creatures? And the colors they used—why did they portray some human figures as white, others yellow, and still others blue? Unless—" Ian Aiken's voice throbbed with eagerness—"these were creatures and men they knew?"
The older man's excitement communicated itself as an uneasy chill to Ramey. He said, "You mean—?"
"I don't know what I mean, Winters—yet. I'm still studying, still trying to unite in coherent oneness the facts imperishably carven here for someone to discern.
"All I know is that Angkor Vat is old—considerably older than baffled science has hitherto been willing to admit. By the eyes and the feet of the statuary we judge its period. Blank, staring eyes, unfocussing; feet carven by artists so unaware of perspective that they exposed the soles of a walking person.
"I know, too, that the explanation is written here on these walls for him who can solve the Angkor script. We have not yet found the key. The letters seem to resemble the elder Siamese, which itself resembled Sanskrit. Perhaps we'll never unlock that lingual door.
"But there is one universal language, Ramey Winters! The language of science, mathematics, astronomy! And here we have a whole city written in that language. The arrangement of Angkor is as truly symbolic, as truly based on the mystic science of numbers, as is the famed King's Chamber of Cheops' pyramid.[2] And there are certain astronomical carvings—"