Clan on the Sacred Mount. So the end was not to be yet.

The old man faced me and spoke in the sacred tongue, which the
common people do not know. "My brother," he said, "which have you
come to serve, Deucalion or Atlantis?"

"Words are a poor thing to answer a question like that. You
will know all of my record. According to the Law of the Priests,
each ship from Yucatan will have carried home its sworn report to
lay at the feet of their council, and before I went to that
vice-royalty, what I did was written plain here on the face of
Atlantis."

"We know your doings in the past, brother, and they have found
approval. You have governed well, and you have lived austerely.
You set up Atlantis for a mistress, and served her well; but then,
you have had no Phorenice to tempt you into change and fickleness."

"You can send me where I shall see her no more, if you think
me frail."

"Yes, and lose your usefulness. No, brother, you are the last
hope which this poor land has remaining. All other human means
that have been tried against Phorenice have failed. You have
returned from overseas for the final duel. You are the strongest
man we have, and you are our final champion. If you fail, then
only those terrible Powers which are locked within the Ark of the
Mysteries remains to us, and though it is not lawful to speak even
in this hidden tongue of their scope, you at least have full
assurance of their potency."