The Lost Continent · Chapter
VI: The Biters of the City Walls explained
Deucalion, newly returned to Atlantis, reflects on the political turmoil between Empress Phorenice and the Priests' Clan led by Zaemon.
What happens
Deucalion, newly returned to Atlantis, reflects on the political turmoil between Empress Phorenice and the Priests' Clan led by Zaemon. He decides to assess the rebel faction before choosing sides. After a tense banquet where Tarca is cursed with leprosy, Deucalion leaves the pyramid and tours the city at night, witnessing the oppression and suffering of the people under Phorenice's rule. At the city gate, he intervenes to save a woman from being thrown to cave-tigers, confronts the captain of the gate, and secures her safety.
Themes in this chapter
Power and Tyranny
Phorenice's oppressive rule is shown through the eviction of families, starvation, and the use of prisoners as prey for tigers.
Rebellion and Revolution
Deucalion considers the claims of the rebel faction besieging the capital as a potential alternative to Phorenice's tyranny.
Decay and Destruction
The city is physically transformed by new palaces but morally decayed, with dead bodies in the streets and widespread suffering.
Characters to notice
- Deucalion
Returns to Atlantis, reflects on political choices, tours the city, and rescues a woman from the gate captain's tigers.
- Phorenice
Presides over the banquet, curses Tarca, and speaks to Deucalion about thawing his coldness.
- Tarca
Stricken with leprosy during the banquet; Deucalion offers to help him.
- Zaemon
Mentioned as the mouthpiece of the Priests' Clan who defied Phorenice.
- The Captain of the Gate
Commands the gate, uses prisoners as prey for tigers, and defers to Deucalion after learning his identity.
- The Woman
A prisoner saved by Deucalion from the tigers; later found with a dagger.
Key passages
“I freely confess to my own inaction and limpness; but it was all deliberate. The old ties of duty seemed lost, or at least merged in one another.”
Deucalion admits he is deliberately passive, as his former loyalties are now confused.
Reflects his internal conflict between serving the Priests' Clan or Phorenice.
“I must find out which rule promised best of Atlantis, and do my poor best to prop it into full power.”
He decides to support whichever government offers the best future for Atlantis.
Shows his pragmatic approach to choosing sides.
“The city, as I saw it during that night walk, was no longer the old capital that I had known, the just accretion of the ages, the due admixture of comfort and splendour.”
The city has changed drastically from the balanced, comfortable place he remembers.
Highlights the physical and social transformation under Phorenice.
“From each grant of ground, where one of these stately piles earned silver under the moon, a hundred families had been evicted and left to harbour as they pleased in the open.”
For every new palace built, hundreds of families were thrown out onto the streets.
Illustrates the cost of Phorenice's building projects on the common people.
“By the ancient law of the land all the people, great and small, were the servants of the king, to be put without question to what purposes he chose; and Phorenice stood in the place of the king.”
According to ancient law, everyone is a servant of the king, and Phorenice now holds that authority.
Explains the legal basis for Phorenice's oppressive actions.
“I am captain here, and my word carries, subject only to Phorenice's nod. Do you hear that? Do you know too that I can have you tossed to those striped gatekeepers of mine for meddling in here without an invitation?”
The gate captain asserts his authority, threatening to feed Deucalion to the tigers.
Demonstrates the captain's cruelty and his subservience to Phorenice.
