The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

  I return to the turquoise water of the porthole and am whisked up for my return trip to Polaris station.

  I return to the cabin of the Kleio to see Captain Sinclair smiling down at me. ‘Where is she?’ I ask, determined to deliver the Signet Map safely.

  The captain motions to my left. ‘She said you would be asking for her.’

  I sit upright to see the stunning redhead—the woman I will be some day—quietly awaiting my attention.

  ‘Not a word now, ladies,’ the captain warns as I slide off the bunk and move to meet myself halfway.

  ‘Thank you,’ the woman says, defying the captain’s advice. Once the map is in her possession, she unexpectedly embraces me. ‘Your service to the plan has been greater than you shall ever know in this lifetime.’

  ‘Enough.’ The captain prises us apart and takes hold of my arm to lead me from the room.

  ‘It was an honour to meet you,’ she calls after me.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘We’re taking you home,’ Captain Sinclair says and smiles.

  ‘But you said I would be away a year before returning to Chateau de Blanchefort,’ I cry.

  He looks puzzled at my obvious disappointment. ‘No,’ he corrects, ‘I said that I would return you to the chateau allowing for the lapse of a year, which is not the same thing, although the outcome will be the same.’

  ‘I’m sorry, captain, I do not follow.’

  Our discussion is interrupted by Levi, who pops his head into the hallway to call out, ‘We’ve arrived.’

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ the captain returns, then looks back to me; I am still awaiting an explanation. ‘Please trust me on this,’ he says. ‘I have a war to fight and no time for explanations that you won’t understand anyway.’

  I turn away, disappointed. ‘I am beholden to you, captain. I shall not inconvenience you any longer.’

  ‘My Lady du Lac, you are not an inconvenience; you are a past life incarnation of the being I love.’

  I knew this, and yet his stating the fact really brought it home to me.

  ‘Surely you can see how our association could land me in very hot water,’ he continues. ‘In fact, it already has. Be that as it may, you will never be an inconvenience to me. It is my honour, as always, to be of service to you, Solarian.’

  His use of the name restores peace to my being. I realise I have no more questions to ask, for all the answers I seek are somewhere inside me, and I will find them in this life, or the next.

  I follow the captain to the exit hatch and there bid him farewell. ‘I greatly look forward to our next meeting, Captain Sinclair.’

  ‘As do I. I shall see you on your way,’ he offers, cracking the white stick in his hand, which turns green and begins to glow.

  ‘No need.’ I take the glowing stick from him. ‘I will be fine on my own.’

  I head off down the ramp and across the earthen floor towards the stone arch that leads into the stairwell. Halfway there, I look back to find the captain still watching me. ‘Why are you still here?’ I shoo him away with my hands.

  ‘Lilitu, watch out!’ he cries. Too late. A clawed hand grips my throat from behind. I attempt to turn to see what has hold of me, but the creature keeps me firmly in place.

  ‘Take me to the Signet system blueprints or I will eradicate her soul! And we all know what that means—game over for everyone.’ My attacker’s gravelly voice sends shivers of fear through me and I sense a sharp instrument held to the back of my neck. Yet I do not feel like curling up in a ball. My mind is focused.

  Captain Sinclair is racing towards us, his weapon aimed at my captor, but now he stops, fearful.

  I am the only one who knows where the treasure is. Suddenly I know exactly what I must do and, for once in my life, I have the courage to do it. I feel around for my dagger and drive the blade into my stomach.

  The pain and shock hit me immediately and my perception slips into slow motion. I see Captain Sinclair’s distress at losing me, and then hear my attacker’s furious screech at the fact that I have outwitted him. He slashes at me with his claws and I fall to land heavily on the rocky ground. I am vaguely aware of the fight going on around me, but I no longer have the life energy to care about the outcome.

  I emerged from the pink-gold porthole shaking with emotion and awareness. In this past life, I had been sister to the women Albray gave his soul to protect, and I had taken my own life before the very eyes of Captain Sinclair.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, for he must have felt terrible to watch me die like that.

  ‘What are you sorry for?’ He smiled at me, completely unaware of my meaning.

  ‘Do you not remember saving Lilitu du Lac from the Chateau de Blanchefort?’ I asked.

  The captain thought hard, then shook his head. ‘No, I have no memory of that event.’

  I suspected he might be withholding information from me and said so.

  ‘Not at all. The event must take place in my future,’ he suggested reasonably, ‘beyond my hibernation beneath the blue flame. I did some time-hopping before then, and I expect I do more of the same afterwards.’ He could see I was still suspicious and added, ‘I would have kept timehopping around, doing the bidding of the Watchers on Amenti’s staff, but I was aging and so Polaris advised me to put the Kleio away for a time and rejuvenate. And that is where my body is right now.’

  ‘I saw all of the Dragon Queens alive and well on board the Kleio,’ I told him. Only then did I realise that I recognised all of the women as souls I had known in this lifetime. ‘Susan, Charlotte, Miss Koriche, Lillet du Lac and myself,’ I said delightedly.

  ‘How fascinating,’ the captain agreed. ‘But that is only five souls—shouldn’t there be six Dragon Queens?’

  He was right. ‘So where was the other one?’ I wondered.

  He shrugged, as baffled as I was. Then I remembered I had seen someone else on the Kleio who had stirred my emotions. ‘Levi was on your ship too, captain.’

  Sinclair looked pleased. ‘Excellent. So now both our minds can rest at ease about Levi’s safety, if we know he is in our future.’

  There was much comfort to be drawn from that knowledge and I smiled too. Then another wonder from my past returned to me. ‘I saw the Solarian station—it was still dormant but very beautiful. You transported me there via the Polaris pyramid.’

  ‘Did I?’ Sinclair was fascinated. ‘I did not realise the Polaris could connect to the other dormant stations…I shall have to look into that.’

  I grinned, happy to be of service. ‘It seems we are still aiding each other to greatness.’

  He gazed at me fondly. ‘Yes, we are…and always will.’

  I longed to kiss him. I thought I had known all there was to know about my dear Devere; how delightful to find there were entire worlds I didn’t know about him, our future and myself. The times we spent together may have often been perilous, but never boring.

  ‘Two more halls to go.’ My guide brought my focus back to the quest at hand.

  I moved towards the blue-gold porthole. ‘My astral evolution.’ I could not imagine what it must be like to be an eternal being, as the Anu are, and I was curious about how this lifetime would play out. If there was no death in the astral realm, where would this hallway lead? Suddenly I realised how much I was enjoying the whole Amenti experience—every soul should have the chance to feel soenlightened! And that was exactly the reason why I had volunteered to be one of Amenti’s staff: so that every being on Earth might walk these halls.

  REVELATION 23

  THE SILENT WATCHER

  ROOT RACE SIX—ASTRAL (NO TIME); THE STAFF OF AMENTI

  In this life I am born into a noble family, the only daughter of a baron, the Honourable Lord Granville, or at least that is what I am led to believe. But at the age of forty, I come across a confession written by my mother pertaining to the night I was conceived. Driven by guilt at seeing me locked away in a mental asylum at eight years of age,
my mother reveals that I am not my father’s child, but the offspring of an angelic presence that possessed my father during their wedding night. I learn that the blood in my veins is not entirely human, which offers some explanation for the fact that I am able to see things not always of this world.

  My life as Ashlee Granville-Devere is filled with many wondrous events. However, the crucial moment in this lifetime, which releases the key sonic for my passage through this hall in Amenti, takes place beneath Giza as I am bidding my son’s body farewell.

  I and my companions are under threat from the Dracon Taejax and his reptilian warriors. Taejax threatens to hunt down my family, to drain their bodily fluids and scatter their souls to oblivion, but despite this, somehow I sense good in him. To the protests of my company, I kneel before my known enemy and hand him the pendant that will stop his suffering and allow him to withdraw from the battlefield.

  From this moment, my passage through Amenti is assured.

  The blue-gold porthole took me straight back to the antechamber to the Halls of Amenti, back to the soul who had accompanied me through all my lives on Earth. ‘An astral being cannot die,’ I stated the obvious, ‘which leaves me here.’

  ‘Yet there is still a porthole to go,’ Sinclair said, playing on my curiosity.

  ‘Two, if you count the porthole back to Tara.’

  Although the captain must have known where the violet-gold porthole would lead, having taken the journey himself, he was more interested in teasing me. ‘So where does the sixth one lead?’

  I thought back to Miss Koriche’s writings: according to what I had read there, the last porthole led to the part of my soul-mind that was evolving on the mental and causal planes beyond. ‘This porthole leads to Solarian,’ I said, making my best guess.

  Sinclair raised his eyebrows, impressed by my reasoning.

  Although I was thrilled to be on the verge of total awareness, I feared being consumed by the infinite all and forgetting the individuals who had meant so much to me whilst on Earth. ‘Will I come back?’ I asked.

  ‘I am still here,’ he pointed out to allay my fears.

  It suddenly dawned on me that he had already traversed the Halls of Amenti and yet had not returned to Tara. ‘Why are you still here?’ I asked. For a brief second I had the romantic notion that he had delayed his return home on my account. Then I recalled my experience in the very first Hall of Amenti and the pact made by the Amenti Council of twelve with the Queen and Prince of the Anunnaki.

  ‘We cannot leave without the others,’ both Sinclair and I said at the same time.

  In one way I was disappointed that I would not be taking the ultimate passage any time soon, but part of me also looked forward to finishing my work here on Earth, in the company of my fellow staff members.

  Sinclair regarded me proudly. ‘You have made your own wings, my love, and now it’s time to fly home.’

  His words inspired me to confront the last stage of my soul’s epic evolution on Earth. I stepped up to the violet-gold porthole and allowed its liquid-light whirlpool to consume me and reconnect me with Solarian.

  ROOT RACE SEVEN—CAUSAL; THE CERES COUNCIL OF AMENTI

  I am in a cavern deep within the Earth, at the time when the Solarian base station was first set in place here. I now remember the physical location of the station to which I alone am the key and it is thrilling to be so close to achieving the primary objective of my mission.

  I move through the intricate underground labyrinth, pausing to read an extract from Ceres philosophy that I recorded in pictographs on the cavern wall before time on Earth began:

  The Sovereign Integral is the natural state of existence of the entity that has transformed beyond the evolution model of existence and has removed itself from the controlling aspects of the hierarchy through the complete activation of its embedded time codes. All entities within the time–space universes are in various stages of the transformational experience and each are destined to achieve the Sovereign Integral level as their time codes become fully activated.

  My efforts were not in vain, for the images stir memories of my life beyond the Earth scheme, just as I intended, and I know what I must do in order to return to my life as Solarian.

  I see that some of my work has been vandalised since I was here last, but so skilfully that only I as the artist can tell. Pieces of artificial nano-filled crystals have been deposited throughout the cavern system—a technology that is a hallmark of the Old World order—and it is therefore no stretch of the imagination to guess who has interfered with the text. Still, it matters little, as there are many other such deposits of wisdom on the planet.

  I leave the extensive cavern system behind me and pass down through several layers of rock placed in the passage by design, just prior to the demise of Atlantis. The complex in the crystal cavern beyond has never been entered by a human being and has been inactive since the flood.

  We Ceres are extremely accomplished at moulding the matter of the lower planes of density, able to extend our will into the dimensions below our own, where our thought forms manifest as beings of light that do our bidding. We designed and constructed the Signet stargate system by transporting the twelve pyramids through the dark void in the centre of the sun in order to create this world in the solar system where souls could evolve and where civilisation could be nurtured. Originally, the twelve pyramids formed a matrix on the Earth through which blue flame energy was drawn from the Sphere of Amenti and channelled into huge extraterrestrial crystal deposits. The resulting energy force was sufficient to establish portholes to inner Earth and other interstellar civilisations within this lowest harmonic universe, and each of the twelve different extraterrestrial races that agreed to be part of the Signet security system for Amenti donated life forms to the Earth’s design.

  But over time the Nefilim and Dracon began to misuse the Earth grid for selfish purposes, just as the Anunnaki had misused Tara’s energy matrix. When that misuse became apparent, the Signet power stations were transformed into security stations and the Sphere of Amenti was hidden in deep space, with all connections to the Earth blocked except for the Arc Porthole bridge. Our thought forms left the Earth’s surface in our pyramids, and many of these remain outside of the physical planet. Up until the fall of Atlantis, however, the Pyramid matrix continued to connect the crystal grid on Earth to the blue flame energy of Amenti via the Arc Porthole bridge. But when Master Hermes warned us of Poseidonis’s intent to convert the Blue Flame of Amenti to use for his own power projects, the Pyramid matrix was shut down completely to prevent its total annihilation. The Staff of Amenti buried and submerged the crystal power generators, along with the doctrine we wished humanity to find at some distant time when it might be appreciated and utilised. For although we wish all the lost souls of Tara peace and prosperity, we cannot enforce it upon them. Evolution is a choice that can only be actualised through will.

  And it is such a will that has brought me to this place; this station where my spirit will wait until the final countdown in the inter-time war. A day is coming when all of Amenti’s staff will take up their superhuman forms. We will draw down the twelve pyramids of light and fortify the consciousness of the Earth. For this planet must be ready to host the Sphere of Amenti when it finishes its descent down the Arc Porthole bridge early in the twenty-first century. Should we fail to achieve the minimum host frequency, both the Sphere and the Earth will be obliterated upon contact.

  As my spirit enters the pyramid, I feel I have finally arrived home. Here I will await my final call to arms.

  Here I connect to that sound beyond sound

  that has stalked the night-land of my dreams,

  where I enter rooms of fossil light

  so ancient they are swarmed by truth.

  I hear a sound beyond being

  that travels the spine’s invisible ladder to the Orphic library

  where rebel books revel in the unremitting light.

  Tiny words with quicksand
depth,

  embroidered with such care they

  render spirit a ghost and God,

  a telescope turned upon itself,

  dreaming us awake.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF CHARLOTTE DEVERE

  I paced the library floor impatiently, waiting for Lady Susan to hand over the desk and quill to me. Her session had been a particularly long one this time, and I assumed my mother’s adventures had her riveted. I had alerted her several times to the fact that I was here to relieve her, but she merely shook her head and continued writing.

  Even Albray was appearing a little concerned for our scribe’s wellbeing.

  ‘What do we know about the current leader of the Dracon?’ I asked Albray as I strode up and down. ‘They seem far too organised at present not to have someone in the command seat.’

  He did not answer, but merely shrugged.

  Finally, Lady Susan put down the quill, stretched and collapsed back into her chair. ‘It is done,’ she said.

  ‘But there were three portholes left to traverse,’ I said, moving around the writing table to speak with Lady Susan directly. ‘Surely Mama could not have covered so much ground in one session?’ I was concerned to discover tears streaming down the lady’s face. ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Has something gone wrong?’

  Lady Susan shook her head, then said with a smile, ‘I want to die.’

  I looked at her, confused.

  ‘So that I may complete my evolution and join her,’ she explained, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe her face. Her hand was shaking. ‘I saw myself several times during Ashlee’s journeys…in one I was Marie de Saint-Clair!’ She gave a laugh of bewildered delight. ‘I know for certain that somewhere in the history of this world, I have earned my right to join the ranks of the Dragon Queens.’

  I feared she had exhausted herself; her senses were surely on sensory overload. ‘You should rest,’ I suggested.