The Keepers of the Rose

by DJ Dalasta

  “Atlantis?” Anna almost laughed in his face. The only thing that gave her pause was his flat expression. He sat perfectly erect displaying thin lips to form a straight line and large brown eyes that stared at her, unblinking. He could have been a statue had it not been for the labored breathing of an old man.

  She curled her hair with her finger, waiting for him to respond. Two maids were cleaning the bar area in the background. They didn’t look to be listening to their conversation or did a good job at ignoring them.

  “Yes, Atlantis,” he finally said. “Of course it wasn’t called Atlantis, not by the people who lived there, but the civilization was real and in some ways we believe they were more advanced than we are today, and in others, somewhat primitive. ”

  “There’s never been any proof of the existence of an advanced civilization to that extent, anytime in the past,” Anna said bluntly. There was no possible way he could actually think Atlantis was real. Nothing had been found to present the case other than a storyteller’s myth. That would be like relying on local directions given out by a tourist. It wasn’t logical.

  Vitori nodded his agreement. “True enough, there’s no proof the public has seen or been made aware of. But let me ask, can you comprehend the timescale I’m speaking of? Let’s say, hypothetically, if Hawaii were sunk and lost beneath the waves, do you still think there would be many traces five to ten thousand years later? More than likely anything sturdy enough to weather that amount of time, would be covered up and lost by the ever-changing sea floor. Most everything else, including homes, computers, cars, plastics, roads and all, it would wear away into tiny indistinguishable bits. Some lucky pieces would be preserved, of course, falling into the precise conditions to keep them together, but those would be few. Most of it would be gone, disintegrated in the water. The advanced things that even we have today just wouldn’t last under that amount pressure and long of a timescale. Very little would remain to tell any tales.”

  “I’ll bite, what happened then?”

  “Their island home was destroyed by a recurring event, an event that they couldn’t prevent even though they knew it approached. The same type of event that we are facing very soon.”

  “Your so-called galaxial restraint.” Anna half smiled.

  “Correct.”

  She nodded and looked out the window. Her mind wondered back through the events that brought her to the current situation. Those choices, those hardships, from the beginning at Oak Island up until the point where Nate and her found the journal describing the keepers of the rose, it all pointed her to the chance that there might be more to this than what she initially realized. Just because Atlantis sounded bizarre and bordered on the insane, didn’t mean it was impossible.

  She sat up and folded her hands. “I’m going to let you continue to tell your story but I’ll forewarn you that though I will keep an open mind, there is a good chance I will not be convinced at the end.”

  “That is all I ask,” he whispered.

  Anna looked back out the window as the morning sun climbed higher into the sky. It was finally at the point where the elm just outside provided them cover from the bright rays. Across from her, Vitori’s hair had changed colors with the difference in light, his grey hair no longer looked transparent but much darker. In the background, the few servants had all scuttled into the kitchens or were off to attend other duties and left the two of them completely alone. She almost felt comfortable.

  The situation suddenly reminded her of her grandfather. He used to tell her stories when she was very young. She would sit cross-legged, in front of him, as he recited tales from memory or imagination. They were always full of adventure and fun characters but she knew they were all make-believe. This situation was different, though. This man believed his stories and wanted her to believe them too.

  “Since time is very much relevant in our actions at the moment,” his voice broke her thoughts, “what I’m going to tell you only scrapes the surface of the full amount of what we know. There is a much richer story to tell in the future and more than a few delicate artifacts have been found to verify the existence.“ Anna would very much like to see those artifacts but didn’t interrupt to tell him so.

  “Now, Atlantis was a civilization much different from ours,” he continued. “They lived on a continent in the middle of the Atlantic over 10,000 years ago. They weren’t conquerors, at this time. We don’t believe they sought out more land or slaves as that would lead to eventual corruption. Their main focus, we believe, was simply learning and the accumulation of knowledge. They were impeccable astronomers, mathematicians, physicist and architects. They built amazing cities. Not just the one you see in books but many cities and smaller townships. Homer describes such places. And he also describes that Atlantis was struck with a calamity though his dates are off and the real date is around 8250 BC instead of 9500 BC. Though it wasn’t only Atlantis, but it was the whole of the world that was affected by the incident.”

  “During this calamity, the continent of Atlantis shuttered and tore apart through violent earthquakes and began to sink into the sea. This shearing also occurred in many parts of the globe causing volcanoes to spew and tremors of unspeakable power. But in the aftermath, the survivors were able to use their knowledge and advanced technology to help halt the sinking process and save their land. How they did this, we are unsure of at the moment. After this near miss, they focused on figuring out what forces had acted upon the planet to have such wide spread and devastating circumstances and using their astronomical calculations figured this event occurred exactly 3/5ths of the time between full astronomical cycles or one great year. They also found historically, in their records that events such as this happened just over 5100 years before, at the 2/5th point in a full astronomical cycle. They, much like I believe we would be, had to figure out a cause.”

  “You‘ll have to explain great year to me at some point,” Anna said but waved him to continue on the current thought.

  “Quickly then. I’m sure you’ve read many of the calculations on all the Internet sites out there, mostly pertaining to the doomsday approaching. Any number of them will go into explanation on the galactic equator and the procession of the equinox coming to a culmination on December twenty one, this year. One great year as we think of it, is the time it takes for one full cycle to complete. The cycle is when the galactic center of the Milky Way, the sun, and the earth are in alignment. Basically every twenty five thousand six hundred and thirty years. We’re at that point now.”

  “I’m giving you the highly condensed version.” He touched her hand. “I would love to get into all the details but we don’t have the time.” He withdrew his hand when he saw it had unsettled her. “Needless to say they knew another calamity would strike the planet and once again affect their civilization. This next event they calculated to be a precise date in the year 3115BC, 4/5ths through the cycle. Around this time is where they came to the theory of galaxial restraint tempering the growth of intelligent beings. But the date was a long way off and they felt they had enough time to prepare and protect themselves. However, despite the knowledge, they couldn’t do anything in those 5000 years to curb the shearing effects of the next cycle and when the purging began again, their island sank completely into sea.”

  Anna butted in. “So they knew this was going to happen and they couldn’t do anything to stop it or curb its effects upon them?”

  “Well, they knew the potential of what could happen and had begun a second settlement in an area they calculated would be unaffected. Their new home was to be in Egypt and their influx into Egyptian culture was well received by the natives. All of their knowledge led the Egyptians to believe they were Gods and so worshipped them as such. But the survivors were few as most of the Atlantian population believed they could save their home and decided to stay on the island. After the island disappeared, the few that settled in Egypt came to the re
alization that one more calamity, even unrelated to galaxial restraint, or even due to war, could destroy them and all the knowledge they had acquired for thousands of years.”

  They couldn’t let their knowledge be lost because at this point, they had precise equations dedicated to galaxial restraint and its future effects on the planet. And this next one, the one we are facing now, is the culmination of the cycle and will be much more devastating than the ones they faced. They knew they couldn’t stop it anymore. But they knew through careful analysis, which future areas on earth would be affected the least and hence, for the next cycle, would become what we now call the safe zones. It was their decision to share this knowledge with the other peoples of the world in hopes that if for some reason, their own civilization perished, the information would live on.”

  Anna smiled to herself. “ The other people,” she said. “They were pretty much tribes at that point, nothing more than a few villages linked together. Primitive and still trying to cultivate crops, they would never understand any of this.”

  “True,” Vitori responded. “And how could these people ever understand, you ask.” Anna nodded her head. “That was the next problem they knew they faced. They had already mapped the world and knew where beginnings of civilization were developing. They sent out emissaries to each civilization with instructions to pass along this information to them by whatever means necessary. The instructions also required that the information be able to exist, unblemished, until today.”

  “By whatever means necessary,” Anna repeated.

  “So how do you get tribal people and early nomads to take notice and listen to you,” he looked at her and she shrugged. “You know the answer, Anna, it’s simple.”

  She suddenly realized what he was talking about. He had just given her the answer. “Just like they did to the Egyptians,” she said. “You become their Gods.

  Chapter 30

  Tennessee, August 2012