Priestess of Paracas

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Anlon kicked off the conversation. “Well over ten thousand years ago, there was a race of people who called themselves Munuorians, pronounced moon-war-E-uns. They were seafarers and they were unique, physiologically-speaking, compared to other humans living at that time. They possessed an ability to detect and interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, sort of a sixth sense just as palpable to them as our other senses are to us today. You following me so far?”

  With a nod, Sanjay said, “Yes. I am with you.”

  “Okay, good. Now, over time, they learned to use that extra sense to build tools that allowed them to manipulate magnetism, kind of like how we’ve built tools that allow us to manipulate water and air. Windmills that help generate power, water wheels that help generate motion, those kinds of things. In the case of the Munuorians, the tools they built were made of stone…stones with unusual — and powerful — properties.” Anlon hovered his hand over the table. “Like these, right here.”

  Anlon continued his description of the stones by telling Sanjay the Munuorians created the tools for a variety of purposes: to build, farm, heal, communicate, travel and defend themselves, among other applications. He told him the stones were forged into various shapes and sizes, but all had similar components — olivine basalt, kimberlite, diamonds and gold. Some of the tools, Anlon explained, could be used as stand-alone devices, but most applications required simultaneous use of at least two different stone types.

  “The most remarkable of those tools allowed them to store important cultural memories.” Anlon lifted the black stone. Sanjay studied the designs etched into its surface. “It was the Munuorians’ way of solving an age-old problem: how does one ensure a civilization’s collective knowledge and wisdom are preserved and passed from generation to generation without loss?

  “Oral traditions become altered as they are passed from one person to another. Some details are left out while new ones are added, different words are used, meanings change and so on. Written traditions face different challenges but the same basic problem. Paper disintegrates, paint and ink fade, stone surfaces erode. Even in our modern world, photographs, audio recordings and videos degrade over time, regardless of the medium used to store the memories. It’s impossible to escape the decay of time, or the impact of natural disasters—”

  Griffin interrupted. “Or wars. Conquerors have wiped out plenty of monuments and libraries over time.”

  “Sad, but true,” said Anlon. He lowered the black stone to his lap.

  The Munuorians’ solution to this problem, Anlon told Sanjay, was to create a memory storage device embedded inside a stone — an ancient flash drive the Munuorians called an Aromaegh. Only instead of storing bytes of data, Aromaeghs stored fully constituted human memories, including not just the factual recording of events or traditions, but the sensory elements of memories as well.

  Sanjay had been content with Anlon’s descriptions thus far, but this last statement caused him to bristle. “When you say sensory elements, what do you mean?”

  “I mean sights, smells, sounds. Sensations of touch and taste. Emotions. Every component of a memory that we file away in our brains, they figured out how to extract and store on their memory stones.”

  Anlon must have noticed the frown forming on Sanjay’s face because he immediately launched into an example. “Let’s say you accessed one of their Aromaeghs that housed a tutorial on how to spearfish. You don’t see an instruction manual, you know, words with illustrations. No, you experience a vision way beyond the most sophisticated virtual reality simulation you could find today. You’re inside the memory of the student receiving the tutorial. You are standing in the surf. You can feel the cold of the water on your legs, the shifting sands move over your feet. You can feel the weight of the spear in your hand. You see the fish swimming beneath the surface of the water in full color. You hear the crash of waves on the beach, smell the salty air. An instructor stands beside you, speaks to you and guides you on how to use the spear. You feel yourself thrust it, the vibrations from the fish as it wriggles to escape. You sense the student’s exhilaration as a result of his success.

  “It’s stunning how realistic it is. There’s no ambiguity to the memory, no information lost in translation. And because it includes so many different memory cues, it sticks with you in a way that words or illustrations never could.”

  “It’s true, Sanjay,” Griffin said. “I’ve experienced the memory stones. They’re wicked cool.”

  The two men spoke with such conviction in their voices, Sanjay found it hard not to believe them. Yet the entire notion of extracting human memories and implanting them in any kind of device, stone or otherwise, seemed impossible. But then again…

  Whether by physical or sensory interactions, Sanjay had witnessed supposed “telepaths” communicate with other humans. And at its core, telepathy was the transfer of thoughts or ideas from one person to another. While Sanjay knew there was considerable scientific skepticism about telepathy, he also was aware of the growing body of research projects aimed at examining the possibilities of brain-to-brain communication. And some of those projects had proven rudimentary success in transferring thoughts between humans.

  On the other hand, transferring a thought like “hello” or “move” is dramatically different than transferring a fully formed memory. The brain does not store all the components of a memory in one spot. No, the various sensory inputs of a memory are housed in different locations in the brain. It is a complex process that requires a gatekeeper-cataloger-retriever to capture the memory, break apart and code all the sensory inputs, send the coded inputs to their assigned storage locations, maintain a map where all the inputs are stored and then when called upon to retrieve the memory, summon and reassemble the various inputs back into a person’s consciousness. In humans, this gatekeeper-cataloger-retriever is a structure in the brain called the hippocampus.

  To accomplish what Anlon described about the memory stones, the Munuorians would have not only had to construct a storage device, but also a hippocampus-like controller. That seemed impossible to Sanjay and he said as much to Anlon.

  “Memory is too complex for such a feat to be possible.”

  Anlon smiled and nodded. “I know. You’re right. But as you’ll see for yourself in a few minutes, the Munuorians did indeed accomplish that feat and a lot more. They also found a way to embed a human’s consciousness along with their memories.”

  He held up the black stone once again. “This here stone is a special type of Aromaegh the Munuorians called a Sinethal. Unlike other Aromaeghs, it doesn’t just house a tutorial. It houses a person’s full memories and consciousness. By that I mean, you can interact with the mind of that person just as if he or she were sitting here talking with us. You can ask questions, and so can the mind of the person embedded in the stone. They can show you mental visions, you can share visions back. The Munuorians created Sinethals to store the minds of the most knowledgeable, the most revered, members of their society so that future generations could directly tap these venerable minds for wisdom and knowledge. This one houses the memories and consciousness of a woman named Malinyah. Her mind has been inside the stone for over ten thousand years.”

  The urge to laugh bubbled up within Sanjay. While he was able to suppress the sound, his mouth widened into a “yeah, right” smile — a smile that quickly faded as he exchanged looks with Griffin.

  “I’m telling you, Sanjay, he’s not bullshitting you,” Griffin said. “I’ve met her. She asked me to play one of my songs for her. I’m like…what? She says…play a song. I’m like…I don’t have my guitar, my instrument. She’s like…hold my hands and imagine playing a song. I’m like…okay. And bam…I’m sitting next to her under some big-ass tree with pink leaves playing “Under the Waterfall” from our Frozen Dreams album on my favorite acoustic guitar. Dude, I could feel wind on my face. I could hear the leaves of the trees flapping around. There were all these butterflies floating by. It was grade-A crazy shit.”r />
  Arms crossed, Sanjay said, “You cannot be serious.”

  “Actually,” Anlon said. “Griffin had a bit of an unusual experience with Malinyah. He was able to understand her language, speak with her and vice versa. There are only two other people I know of who can do that, Pebbles being one of them. When most people visit with her, including me, there are a lot of hand gestures required in order to communicate. She’s made an effort to learn some English and French, so you may be able to communicate basics, but I can’t promise you that you’ll understand what she says when she speaks to you.”

  Dumbfounded, Sanjay stared at the two men. His stupor was interrupted when Anlon said, “You don’t have to believe us. Just lie back and see for yourself.”

  Lying on the sofa, Sanjay watched Anlon kneel on the floor next to him. The black tablet and gray hockey-puck-like stones were in his hands. Anlon placed the puck on the sofa cushion near Sanjay’s hip and flipped over the black stone so Sanjay could see the three depressions cut into the back side.

  Sanjay studied the depressions. Two were half-circles carved on the left and right sides of the stone. In the center was a circular cut. Anlon slid his fingers into the side-cuts and said, “These are fingerholds. You slide your fingers inside the cuts. When the visitation starts, you’ll feel a tingling in your fingertips, somewhat like low-level static electricity. It won’t hurt, but you’ll definitely notice it.”

  He handed the stone to Sanjay, who edged his fingers into the slots as Anlon instructed. The surface of the stone was coarse, but Sanjay felt no other sensation. He looked at Anlon. “Am I holding it wrong? I do not feel any tingling.”

  “No, you won’t. Not yet. First, we have to insert the key, so to speak.” Anlon held up the puck-shaped stone. “The Munuorians call this stone a Naetir. For all intents, it’s an ignition key. It activates the Sinethal. As soon as I insert the Naetir in the center cut on the back of the Sinethal, that’s when your fingers will start tingling and, within a few seconds, you’ll be in Malinyah’s presence.”

  Sanjay looked over at Griffin. “Why do I feel like this is a prank of some sort?”

  “It ain’t no prank, bro. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Uh huh. Better not be.” Turning his attention back to Anlon, Sanjay asked, “How long will this so-called ‘visitation’ last?”

  Anlon shrugged. “Depends. If you freak out, it’ll be real quick. Seconds. If you can keep your emotions in check, stay calm, it could last for hours if you and Malinyah wanted it to go on that long.”

  Sanjay shook his head from side to side while staring at the ceiling. “This is bizarre.”

  “Hey, it’s no worse than tripping on peyote, and I know you’ve done your fair share of that!” Griffin said.

  Before Sanjay could retort, Anlon said, “Now, I visited with Malinyah when I went to borrow her Sinethal. Told her—”

  “Excuse me? What do you mean you borrowed her Sinethal?”

  “Oh, uh, we’ll talk about that later. Anyway, as I was saying, I visited with her and let her know she would be meeting with you. So, she’s expecting you. And she knows why we’ve come to you. She knows what happened to Pebbles and she wants to help. Pebbles won’t accept her help directly, so we’ll—”

  “Hold up. Why won’t Pebbles accept her help?” Sanjay interjected.

  “It’s a long story. She’s angry at Malinyah,” Anlon said. “She feels Malinyah wasn’t truthful about some things. Plus, she’s not willing to get anywhere near any of the Munuorian stones after what happened to her. Brings up bad memories. She feels contact with the stones will only make her nightmares worse.”

  Confused by the cryptic explanation, Sanjay stared at Anlon. Meanwhile, Anlon edged the Naetir closer toward the Sinethal. “Just relax and close your eyes. You’ll hear a loud slap when the Naetir locks into place.”

  The clap of the two stones bonding together sounded like a gun firing. Sanjay was so startled he nearly dropped the Sinethal. At first, he still felt nothing in his fingertips but the scratchy surface of fingerhold cutouts. But then, just as Anlon had indicated, he started to feel small shocks of electricity. Well, not really shocks, more like a sizzling sensation. They did not burn, but Sanjay could feel the vibrations of the electrical current begin to slowly snake up his forearms. Then, like a bolt of lightning, the vibration shot upward. He felt a prick inside his head, right between his eyes, and then the darkness behind his closed eyelids began to lighten.

  The cloudy vista grew brighter and soon he could detect blob-like shapes swaying back and forth against the grayscale backdrop. Sanjay flinched when he heard the sound of rustling leaves. He tried to suppress the sensation, believing it to be nothing more than the power of suggestion from Griffin’s earlier description.

  But an avalanche of sensations followed and overwhelmed Sanjay’s effort to fight off the sound of the leaves. Colors began to fill the splotches of gray. More sounds infiltrated his mind. Crashing waves, creaking branches and the strangest of all — a woman’s voice humming the tune of the Ice Zombies’ “Under the Waterfall”. Aromas mixed with the other senses — the smell of saltwater, the fragrance of flowers and the earthy odor of moist soil. He felt wind upon his face that was strong enough to lift strands of hair. He could sense them tickling his forehead as they moved.

  All the while, his vision continued to sharpen until there was a flash…and then he could sense everything in vivid detail. Ahead of him was a white-barked tree with massive roots that spread atop the red clay surrounding it. Its leaves — just as Griffin had described them — were pink, though as Sanjay stared at them, he noticed the undersides were a darker shade than the tops of the leaves. And perched on one of the roots was a tanned, blond woman in a sleeveless cream-colored tunic. Several butterflies rested on her bare shoulders. To Sanjay, it seemed as if they were listening to her hum. Beyond the tree was a cliff and beyond that was a tropical-blue ocean.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed movement. The woman on the root stood and ceased humming. She smiled, holding out both hands toward him. She spoke. “Sahndge-yay?”

  Sanjay staggered backward, his heels depressing the soft clay. He looked down and saw the impressions of his bare feet in the soil. “This is impossible.”

  A butterfly floated in front of his face as another sound from behind invaded his ears. Sanjay wheeled around to see a sloping hill leading down to a wide cove. The hill was covered in flowers of a deep-blue hue Sanjay had never seen in his life. Running among the flowers were the sources of the sounds. Children. Several of them frolicked in the field of blue, their white-blond hair jostled by the wind, as they pursued a formation of darting and weaving butterflies.

  As his mind grappled with the scene, he felt a touch on his shoulder. He looked around to see the woman standing next to him. Her blue eyes seemed to sparkle as she once again said, “Sahndge-yay?”

  He could see the weave of her tunic, smell the floral scent of her perfume, feel her fingers on his shoulder. “Yes, I am Sanjay.”

  “Malinyah,” she said, patting her chest.

  “Hello, Malinyah.”

  She reached for his hand and squeezed. “Will you please help Pebbles?”

  Sanjay dropped the Sinethal on his lap and his hands began to tremble. Eyes riveted on the ceiling, he tried to speak but could only muster a few mumbled words. The Naetir separated from the Sinethal and rolled off the sofa. Anlon caught it before it hit the floor. Recalling his own stupor after meeting Malinyah for the first time, Anlon said, “Just take it easy, Sanjay. Concentrate on your breathing. Slow and steady…that’s it…nice and easy…big breath in…long exhale out…there you go…that’s it. Keep it going. We’ve got some water for you if you want some.”

  The psychologist closed his eyes and nodded his head. Anlon patted him on the shoulder. “Pretty impressive, Sanjay. You lasted a little over two minutes. That’s about twice as long as I made it during my first visit with Malinyah.”

  Three glassfu
ls of water later, Sanjay was finally capable of speaking. He opened his eyes and looked at his two guests. “I am speechless.”

  “Told ya it wasn’t a prank,” Griffin said, a wide smile on his face.

  “Yes, you did. And still I did not believe you.”

  “But you do now?”

  “How could I not?” Sanjay shook his head as if to clear cobwebs from his mind. Fluttering his eyelids open and shut, he said, “I can still hear the ocean in my ears, the warmth of her fingers on my hands. I close my eyes and I see pink leaves. It is surreal.”

  “Beats peyote by a long shot, doesn’t it?”

  “Wow, does it!” Sanjay turned from Griffin to look at Anlon. “She asked me to help Pebbles.”

  “Yeah, she has a soft spot for Pebbles. Malinyah says Pebbles reminds her of her daughter, Alynioria.”

  “One of the children in the meadow.”

  Anlon and Griffin shared a smile. Anlon said, “That’s right.”

  Sanjay propped himself up on his elbows and directed his gaze at the Sinethal now resting on Anlon’s lap. “And you say Pebbles’ mind was transferred into one of those.”

  “Yes. Obviously not this one, but one like it.”

  “How?”

  “The short explanation? They use electromagnetism to stimulate the hippocampus to ‘download’ a person’s mind,” Anlon said. “There are several of their stone devices involved to make it happen, and I couldn’t begin to explain what triggers the hippocampus to comply. The best analogy I’ve come up with is that it’s like tuning a radio to a certain frequency. Adjust the electromagnetic stimulation just right and the hippocampus starts downloading your memories.”

  Sanjay sniffed the air. “My God, I can still smell her perfume.”