‘Mother,’ Avery mumbled as he collapsed onto his knees, realising he was in the presence of a truly divine being of whom his parents were only one tiny aspect.
The apparition floated over to settle alongside the overawed lad. Perhaps you would be more comfortable if I chose another incarnation to assume, and perhaps a body of lower order. One moment whilst I transfer myself to your plane of demonstration.
The bright aura of the master retracted into a male physical form with only the glow of an enlightened being about it. He appeared to be about thirty-five years old, of slender form and average height. There was a striking intellectual and regal countenance about the man, although he was only dressed in a robe of violet that was trimmed with gold. His hair was long, straight and dark, falling to below his shoulders, and he had a tiny moustache and a triangular beard on his chin. When he smiled he displayed a perfect set of teeth, and his eyes of soft blue sparkled brightly.
‘The Comte de St Germain,’ he announced verbally, much to Avery’s astonishment. ‘But you can just call me “the Count”. Everybody else does.’
‘Everybody else?’ Avery ventured to ask.
‘The Members of the Great White Brotherhood, the other Chohans, my co-workers and adepts,’ the Count explained.
Avery understood that by Chohans, the master referred to the master souls who had ascended beyond the sixth initiation of the Logos, the same initiation Avery was approaching himself. ‘So you are the Chohan of the Violet Ray of whom Gwyn ap Nudd spoke?’
‘Not for very much longer,’ the Count explained. ‘I too have an Apprentice, who will assume the role of the Chohan of the Seventh Ray of the Violet flame very soon. I am still aiding the new Seventh Ray Chohan to hold and process the patterns for the principles of freedom and liberty in the physical world. It usually takes many years for a new Ray Master to become conditioned enough to hold and process so much energy alone, but I am very pleased with my apprentice’s progress so far.’
Avery floated to a standing position. ‘And what will you do then, lord, move on to the higher work?’
‘Well, in truth, Avery, I have already assumed the appointment of the Mahachohan — The Lord of Civilisation for the physical world. I’m at the Head of the Third Ray Department of Active Intelligence. This means that I am responsible for the evolution of human civilisation. The four sub-rays of attribute … art, science, religion and transformation are channeled through my department to collectively influence civilisation.’
Avery boggled at the lord’s responsibilities. ‘Can you instruct me as to how to find my sister-in-law if she has been abducted and hidden in time?’
The Master R is the authority on time travel, Sire, Templeton boasted on the lord’s behalf. He created the concept. For among his many titles and responsibilities he is the Lord of Time.
‘It is true,’ the Count confessed in a modest fashion. ‘But you have much to learn about a great many things before you will become a Lord of Time. I am here to help you prepare for your forthcoming initiation.’
‘My initiation?’ Avery was confused. ‘But Templeton here said that Gwyn ap Nudd has handed the Otherworld over to my guidance, because I had nothing left to prove?’
‘Nothing left to prove to the Night Hunter,’ the Count clarified. ‘But still you must prove your worth to the Cosmic Logos.’
‘But, if Gwyn ap Nudd has gone, what shall happen if I fail my test? Who shall manage the Otherworld then?’
The Count chuckled away the lad’s concerns. ‘Gwyn has not gone altogether, think of him more as … taking a vacation, so that you can have the opportunity to try Otherworldly leadership on for size. And you need have no fear of failure. I am a very good teacher,’ he assured Avery. ‘But you must put aside the affairs of the physical world for a time and concentrate on the bigger picture.’
‘But I have made promises to my Governor to help find —’
‘You are not ready to face your earthly foe,’ the Count informed abruptly, albeit kindly. ‘You have already admitted that there are things you still don’t know about the realm you are to rule. For you to rush off and attempt combat with physical world affairs at present would be like sending a carpenter to build a dwelling without his tools.’
‘But Gwyn has taught me so much.’ Avery didn’t like to argue with an obviously superior being, but he felt like he was being asked to abandon his kin.
‘Gwyn has taught you how to utilise the beings within your realm,’ the Count concurred. ‘I am here to enlighten you about the existence and purpose of your allies dwelling beyond the planes of demonstration with which you are familiar, and to make you aware of how to best utilise the light within yourself. Only once you have learned to detach yourself from earthly affairs will you be able to aid your kindred.’
‘Well, there is still one thing I can do. Templeton …’ Avery approached the willow to give his instruction. ‘Send out word throughout our realm that if anyone spots the Aten space station, I want to know about it.’
Yes, master. Anything else?
Avery looked to the Count to see if he had any suggestions, but the master only smiled and shook his head, as if Avery was wasting time. ‘Make it clear to everyone that I am not to be disturbed from my tuition with the Count,’ he added. ‘I’ll report to you to be updated about the Aten, as soon as I have the Count’s leave.’
The Count closed his eyes and gave a nod, pleased by Avery’s resolution.
Noah had never used the Tablet of Destinies for detective work before and, concerned about understanding its insights, he had asked Tory to be present when he consulted the tool on the issue of the vanished Aten.
‘Tea?’ Rebecca, Noah’s wife, offered as Tory took a seat on the lounge in Noah’s private chambers at the Purcell Institute of Immortal History, which bore his name and was dedicated to him.
‘Afterwards perhaps,’ she smiled, knowing Noah wanted to get on with the task at hand.
‘Right, then.’ Noah lowered himself into a seat, as did his wife, as he detached the three-sided pyramid from its setting that hung on the chain around his neck.
Anyone could see the pendant engraved with ancient hieroglyphs and fashioned from Orichalchum — the strongest metal known in ancient Gaia — but only Noah could touch the tool or see what it divined and so it would be until the Sage passed it on to the next keeper.
Noah held the base of the pyramid against his third eye area, between his brows. Eyes closed, he focused on the cause of his concern, and within moments the pendant drifted away from him and began to unfold, expanding in size ten times over. The sides of the pyramid fell flat to form a large triangle, with four smaller triangles contained therein; this was positioned so that the lone triangle crowned the lower three. The Sage opened his eyes to take in what the divine tool disclosed as it hovered in midair before him.
Tory and Rebecca waited patiently for Noah to speak. His eyes drifted from the central triangle where he saw the Aten, the cause of his concern, to the quarter depicting the best that could eventuate, at which he’d smiled warmly. The joy fell from his face as he viewed the worst outcome, and as he viewed the crowning pyramid depicting what would come to pass should no action be taken, the Sage went into a trance. This might have alarmed some people, but, having previously been a keeper of the tool, Tory had experienced similar episodes.
‘Oh, Goddess!’ Noah gasped as he was released from the mental grip of the Tablet’s prophecy.
‘Are you all right?’ Rebecca urged him to speak of his experience.
Tory added in encouragement, ‘What did you see?’
‘I saw, I saw … I’m not entirely sure what I saw,’ Noah said, momentarily dumbfounded.
‘How about you just start at the best outcome and work your way from there?’ Tory suggested.
‘In the quarter depicting the best outcome, there was …’ Noah suddenly came back to the present and looked at Tory to inform her, ‘… a vision of Sparrowhawk getting married.’
&nbs
p; Tory was bemused to hear this. ‘What could the Aten being stolen have to do with my son getting hitched?’
‘I have no idea,’ Noah emphasised, having already explained that not a lot of what he’d seen made sense to him. ‘Perhaps the connection lay with his bride, but I didn’t glimpse her face.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘In the quadrant that divined the worst outcome I saw the Chosen fighting a holy war, against —’
As the Sage gasped to a pause, Rebecca pressed for an answer. ‘Yes?’
Noah had seen more in this segment than he was prepared to tell Tory, for it had been Avery he’d seen leading the army of darkness against them. ‘It was hard to see,’ he said finally. ‘A veil of darkness shrouded our adversaries. But I got the distinct feeling that they were immortal, like us. It was as if they’d ingested Charichalum Orme, as the Goddess Aya did in an attempt to postpone her destiny.’
‘Heaven forbid! I don’t see how that incident could have become common knowledge.’ Tory shuddered at the thought, thankful that only a handful of the most adept of the Chosen had borne witness to the event.
Aya had been one of the Nefilim who, during the fall of the great Pantheon twenty years ago, had ingested the substance produced by reducing the metal Charichalum to its purest form.
ORME was the abbreviation for the process of the purification of base metals — Orbitally Rearranged Monatomic Elements. Gold subjected to the Orme process produced what was variously known to the ancients on Gaia as ‘the Water of Eternal Youth’, ‘the Philosopher’s Stone’ or ‘the Alchemist’s Key’. If this substance was introduced to a human body containing a dormant immortality gene, passed on to a select few humans by their Nefilim forefathers, then the gold Orme activated the dormant gene to bring about a quickening of the subject’s psychic talents and an accelerated spiritual enlightenment. The atoms of the body, now in a high spin state, became magnets for the cosmic light of the Logos. The atoms, after drawing in the vital life force, project it back into totality with love, via the heart centre of the subtle body. This explained why the Chosen Ones were felt to exude such a positive, calming and inspiring energy, for their chakra centres spiralled outward, projecting their goodwill to all around them. This kind of spiritual enlightenment was not exclusive to the Chosen, of course; any human being could become adept by devoting themselves wholly to the divine will. However, the discipline required was such that a spiritual adept was a rare occurrence among mortal men. A heart that loved more than it feared was the key to maintaining the immortal state induced by gold Orme. On a more mundane level, gold Orme defied gravity and had major super-conductive properties and applications.
As opposed to gold, Charichalum was the densest, darkest, strongest substance in the inhabited galaxy and yet it was incredibly lightweight. The pure Orme derived from this metal was found to have the opposite properties to gold Orme in many regards, save three. These were that Charichalum Orme still defied gravity, granted life eternal, and was super-conductive.
But Charichalum Orme absorbed light and energy continuously and this was the way of the inward spiral, the way of the destructor. Any human taking this substance to achieve an immortal state of being pledged themselves to the dark arts and powers derived from the Planes of Density that existed below the physical. Charichalum Orme production would have ceased under Lahmu’s government — to curb the risk that the substance posed to the future of humanity — but Charichalum Orme was needed to power the shield that was currently protecting one quadrant of the galaxy from the radiation of a dying star. The shield completely encompassed the sun, Anu, that would otherwise be a black hole in space if not for the thousands of brightly lit shield generating stations that surrounded the black orb.
‘But none of the Chosen would choose the dark path, and nobody else has the immortality gene in their DNA.’ No sooner had Rebecca finished her claim than she realised it was false. ‘Except —’
‘The children of Dumuzi,’ they concluded at once.
‘Yes.’ Noah was shocked to a standstill by the implications. ‘In order to orchestrate a challenge against the Chosen, our opposing force would have to have significant numbers and there could be hundreds of the Nefilim lord’s offspring by now.’
This ascended Nefilim lord had been the God of Fertility in ancient times and living up to his name, Dumuzi had seduced many human women and produced half-caste bastards of nearly every breed. Sexual relations between immortals and mortals were forbidden under Pantheon law, but Dumuzi repented the error of his ways and had been forgiven his indiscretions. His soul-mind had ascended from the physical realm with the last of the Nefilim, twenty years ago. In the wake of the Nefilim departure, the existence of a spaceship of potential demi-gods of questionable moral upbringing posed somewhat of an ethical dilemma to Lahmu’s government. Looking at the big picture, all of Dumuzi’s bastards should have been killed, to ensure none took the divine plan into their own hands by activating the dormant immortal gene in their DNA. But at the time there were over a hundred children and grandchildren that had been spawned by the lord, and Lahmu could not bring himself to murder so many — nor even one innocent soul, if the truth be known. Instead, Lahmu decided not to inform any of the souls in question about their hidden potential and had given them free passage throughout the inhabited galaxy. They were forbidden to go to Numan or Anu, as was anyone not working on the sun-shield project, Numan being the planet where Charichalum was mined and the dark Orme produced.
Only one of Dumuzi’s children so far had been recognised as one of the Chosen. She was the wife of Zabeel, Cordella, who had gone missing along with the Aten. Thankfully, Cordella was not one of the handful of souls who knew about the human applications of Charichalum Orme, but the Delphinus Governess was living proof of gold Orme’s superhuman properties.
‘If the descendants of Dumuzi were the ones who stole the Aten, that would seem to explain why they kidnapped Cordella.’ Tory feared the track her thoughts were taking. ‘Some of her kindred are probably wondering why, in twenty years, Cordella has not aged a day.’
‘If a person carrying the dormant God gene in their DNA was of low morals and hateful intentions, gold Orme’s superhuman effects would be short-lived, Rebecca outlined. ‘However, if such a person had a large stock of the substance they could take it indefinitely, just as some of the Nefilim did, but then they would also run the risk of overdosing and accidentally enlightening themself.’
Noah was turning pale and shaking his head. ‘And would you say Gaia has the largest population of undeveloped souls in the galaxy?’
Tory was startled by his query. ‘What has Gaia to do with any of this?’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ Noah commented, not eager to disclose his concern. ‘In the quadrant of the Tablet that foretells of what shall happen if no action is taken, I witnessed a great division in the human consciousness on Gaia.’ He looked Tory in the eyes, looking forlorn as he understood what it meant. ‘Our foe won’t try and take Kila or any of the other planets within Lahmu’s alliance straightaway, as there is too much goodwill among the human inhabitants. On Gaia, the Dark Lodge knows it has a chance of winning the fight for control of human consciousness, as it has partially succeeded before.’
Tory thought back through her history. ‘The fall of Atlantis,’ she gasped.
‘The witch hunts, the great world wars!’ Noah listed a few more instances.
‘But Doc has reported great progress on Gaia,’ Tory argued. ‘With the co-operation of Gwyn ap Nudd and his dominions, most of Gaia’s body will soon be repaired and many of those humans who have assisted with the renewal of the earth have achieved great leaps in spiritual awareness.’
Noah nodded, allowing that her claims and Doc’s were quite true. ‘Still, inside Gaia’s great biodome cities, moon colonies, space and sea stations, all the lower desires still thrive,’ Noah was sad to concede. ‘I feel we, the Chosen, are to blame for their lack of comprehension. If every other human race in the galaxy can b
enefit and learn from our example, then we should have made an effort before now to bring Gaia’s children into our alliance.’
‘We’ve been working towards that,’ Tory defended.
‘Obviously not fast enough.’ Noah was annoyed that over the years he’d foreseen these problems arising, but had hesitated to voice his concerns, trusting that the government knew what it was doing. ‘The Dark Lodge has a perfected form of mind control at use on Gaia now. Back in Atlantis you had to study to become a devotee of the dark arts. Now you can be seduced to the dark path and not even know it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Tory had lost his train of thought.
‘Glamour,’ he announced. ‘The same glamour that you and I and everyone on Gaia were seduced by before we were called to the service of the Logos.’
‘I understand Otherworldly glamour, but by physical world glamour, do you mean magic?’ Tory frowned in question.
‘Perhaps I should have said glamours. Magic is a form of physical world glamour whereby you fall victim to the illusion of another; this is also the case with the glamour of the Otherworldly inhabitants. But more often in the realm of matter, it is material world desires that cause us to inflict self-induced glamours upon ourselves. The media on Gaia is what makes glamour there so pervasive, and there are so many forms of glamour to choose from … such as the glamour of physical strength, ambition, personal wisdom, aloneness, the love of being loved, selfish unselfishness, self-importance, personal comfort, devotion, sentimentality, narrow vision, popularity, sex-magic, excess, and a million other distractions that make glamour such a problem on Gaia, and indeed everywhere. My attachment to this Institute, and my library, is a glamour of sorts,’ Noah admitted. ‘In the knowledge that everything in manifestation is but an illusion and a transient tool for creation to learn and evolve by, I would like to think that if this Institute was destroyed tomorrow I wouldn’t give my creation a second thought. Still, I fear I would mourn the loss of my glamour as all victims do.’
The Cosmic Logos Page 5
