by Brandt Legg
“Sure enough. Be sure you practice what I showed you. I’m late for a gig. I never like rushing sound check.”
“Thanks, Flannery. I hope to catch one of your shows sometime.”
He tipped his hat. “And Nate, it must run in the family. You listen to music like your brother.” He smiled, then turned and walked through a giant redwood.
35
Two more weeks alone in the redwoods did not entice the Dark Mystic. If Flannery was him then maybe I’d passed my first test . . . or maybe I’d failed. It was time to return to the lake house. Spencer had been missing for over a month and there’d been no word from Dunaway. Perhaps he had no further interest in trading my life for the Jadeo or Clastier. Even IF had been silent. Something was wrong and I could no longer afford to search or wait for the Dark Mystic.
I Skyclimbed from Crater Lake in the dark. No moon interfered with the dazzling stars. Linh was wrapped in a blanket on the deck watching the sky. It reminded me of the night we sat out together at Amber’s beach house.
“Waiting for me?” I asked.
“So it seems.” Linh smiled. “Did you see him?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter. Your first priority should be the Jadeo. The Dark Mystic is a distraction. Have you forgotten your oath? How long until Dunaway figures out what he has, if he hasn’t already.”
“Dunaway could be anywhere and I have no way to trace him.”
“But you do. Your dad left you the list of the nine-entrusted. They are all trying to protect the Jadeo. As soon as you lost it and it was no longer safe, each of the other nine had to become engaged in the hunt.”
“If they’re aware.”
“Even if they aren’t. I talked to Rose over the astral a lot while you were gone. She thinks the only way the Jadeo has remained secret all these centuries is because the original nine-entrusted didn’t swear it as humans, but made their oaths as souls. It’s part of your strongest karma in every life. Even unknowingly, the nine will act in ways that protect the Jadeo. And the Jadeo, in danger, will awake any of the nine.”
“So you think they are searching for the Jadeo? Maybe that’s where Spencer’s been.”
“Exactly. If we can find the other eight, we may find Dunaway.”
“And it’s more than nine because we all may have any number of simultaneous incarnations.”
“I know and that’s even better. More people, more chances.”
I rewrote the original list from Dad’s desk and noted what we’d learned:
1. Dad
2. Spencer Copeland - mystic
3. Lee Duncan – original whistle-blower against Lightyear
4. Travis Curry – Mayan scholar (also an incarnation of Kyle)
5. Ripley Gaines – famous Archeologist
6. You – Dustin and also Luther Storch
7. Marie Jones – not found
8. Kevin Morrison – not found
9. Helen Hartman – not found
“One of the last three names on the list is another one of your incarnations.”
“Something is stopping me from figuring out which one,” I said, reviewing the list.
“You’ve been distracted. But you’ve got to concentrate on this now. Who are the last three?”
“And who is the traitor? Remember, one of the original nine-entrusted betrayed the oath and has killed me and the others many times, across countless lifetimes, trying to get the Jadeo for himself.” I settled next to her.
“I thought that was Storch,” Linh said.
“I did, too, when I first found out about Dustin being Storch, but now I don’t believe it. Dustin is distraught over being Storch. He saved me from being killed by Dunaway. Maybe because he’s my brother, I think he’s better than he is, but I don’t believe it’s him.”
“I’m not convinced but let’s look at the others. Likely it’s not your dad, Lee or Spencer. We’re pretty confident about Curry and Gaines. So you and the betrayer are in the final three names: Kevin Morrison, Marie Jones or Helen Hartman.”
“Pretty common names. Hard to track”
“What if you could go back to the original oath? Couldn’t you trace them through time?”
“That’s a long way back. I’ve never been able to get anywhere near that far under my own control.”
“What about Calyndra? The portal could take you right there.”
“Yangchen won’t show me.”
“What? She thinks you’re ready to meet the Darth Vader of mystics but she can’t trust you with the location of a portal? What if you just went into the Wizard Island portal and asked to go to the entrance of Calyndra?”
“I’ve tried it, no luck. Amber must know how to get there. When we met a hundred years ago, they were themselves. I was some cop in that incarnation. It was different going through an Outview, but they’d come through Calyndra.”
“So Yangchen trusts Amber with the knowledge but not one of the seven, one of the nine-entrusted, a fellow mystic, the leader of the damned Movement. Who the hell is Amber?”
“I’ll go talk to her.”
Amber answered my knock on her bedroom door by jumping into my arms. After a conspiratorial look at me and up the hall, she dragged me into her room and shut the door, landing on the bed, kissing until we were naked.
Later, as I was dressing, I noticed several boxes of books on quantum physics, mysticism, astronomy and philosophy.
“Did you read those?” I asked, pointing to several boxes of books.
“Yeah, earlier.”
“Do you ever miss reading the old-fashioned way?”
“You mean spending hours turning pages instead of absorbing a book in seconds? Uh, no.”
“Amber, I need a favor. You remember once upon a time, you and I set out to find Calyndra?”
“Yes.”
“Will you take me to the entrance?”
“But I don’t know where it is. Yangchen used Solteer on me. One minute we were in the woods and the next thing I knew we’re on a New York street in 1914.”
“Amber, I can read you and find out what happened, where the entrance is. Will you let me?”
“You can do anything you want to me.” She winked.
But it didn’t work. It was hard to tell which tree was which. The lighting was strange in the reading. “I think I could figure it out if we were closer. Can you take me to the place you remember in the woods?”
“I can get you near enough.”
“Good. I can read you there, I’m sure it’ll make sense. Let’s go first thing in the morning.”
“Okay. Will you stay here tonight?”
“I can’t.”
“Linh?”
“Yeah.”
“You think by not choosing, you can somehow have us both, but don’t you see, you aren’t having either of us.”
“I love you both. Isn’t love the most powerful thing in the universe? I’m baffled.”
“You sure are.” She kissed me.
36
I thought Amber would be upset to see Linh with me in the morning, but they genuinely liked each other. We were through the Wizard Island portal and in the Santa Cruz Mountains before anyone else at the lake house was awake. The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail stretched nearly thirty miles from the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. I’d long known Calyndra was there but had never been able to locate it. Over the past couple of years, I’d spent some time between Castle Rock and Big Basin Redwoods, the two California State Parks through which the trail passed. My ability to recognize portal entrances wasn’t perfect, but I’d become familiar enough with the area, and, based on reading Amber the night before, I was finally close enough to feel its pull.
“Do you guys feel the energy? It’s so strong, I don’t know how I missed it before,” I said.
“Is it always so windy here?” Linh asked.
Leaves and sticks were suddenly flying through the air, hitting us. “Amber, was it like this when you came through?”
“No, and where is the sun?” The sky was collapsing in on itself. Angry clouds twisted and rolled, black over purple, swallowing the sun. “Read me quickly so we can get in the portal,” Amber yelled above the oncoming storm.
The sky exploded in spectacular lightning as a deluge of thick rain unleashed. It tore down in rippling sheets, painful blades of water cut into our skin. The winds of earlier were but gusts compared to the hurricane that now crashed through the forest. In seconds all orientation and the girls were lost.
I woke up disorientated, under an old Spanish clock tower, with cars speeding past all around. A young boy was staring at me.
“I’m Tapscott.”
“Hi, Tapscott, do you know where we are?” I asked, rubbing my eyes, trying to shake off a headache.
“Santa Cruz, the town clock tower.”
“Thanks. I’m a little confused as to how I got here.”
The boy smiled, pointed up to the clock, and said, “Time’s a funny thing, Nate.”
That brought me fully alert. “You know me?” I scanned the area for police and Omnia agents.
“Of course I do, I’m a mystic.”
“I’m sure you are.” The kid amused me. I was a famous fugitive; maybe the kids play Nate and the mystics like Dustin and I used to play superheroes. Still, I needed to get out of there. How had that storm moved me so far away from the forest and were the girls okay? I stood up and decided my best escape was a small TVC.
“I’ve always wanted to travel in a TVC,” Tapscott said.
“Are you reading my thoughts?”
“You’re kind of sloppy with them.”
A little kid trying to be serious usually made me laugh but this wasn’t a normal kid. I looked closer at his face; his eyes were powerful.
“Are you really a mystic?”
“Truly.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“How does a ten-year-old get to be a mystic?”
“I guess I was in the right place at the right time.”
I studied him. This boy made me suddenly feel old, yet the wisdom carried in his eyes left me feeling trivial. “May I read you?”
“Have you ever read a mystic before?”
“No.”
“Me neither, but I’ve heard it can be debilitating.”
“Then maybe you could tell me more of your journey.” I put us in a TVC and could maintain it without holding my breath.
“For the first four months of my life, I slept well but I wasn’t fully here yet. Once my soul settled into my new body, normal sleep was lost for the next five years. Then the nightmares invaded.”
“Outviews.”
“Yes, but of course I didn’t know it then. And my parents couldn’t imagine what I went through when I slept. By the time I could talk about it, I didn’t know what to say. It was a natural part of me like playing with toys and eating candy. I knew that on most nights I would have to go to those places and hope to survive.”
“Did you?”
“No. Not until I met my first mystic.”
“Who was that?”
“A lady I called Whisper. She appeared at our public library. We went there two or three times a week, but it took a long time before I realized no one else could see her.”
“I know that feeling.”
“I was six or seven then. She spent the next few years helping me to understand, showing me which books to read with Vising; teaching me not to fear death or anything else for that matter. My parents said the public library was the best thing that ever happened to me, they were right.”
“A good book has the power to change a person; a great book can change the world,” I said.
“My father died when I was eight.”
“Sorry.”
Tapscott nodded slightly and stared with understanding eyes. “Then more mystics began showing up.”
“When did you learn about the Movement?”
“Almost two years ago. Once you started getting all that coverage, IM went from an obscure fringe group into a . . . a real movement. There are a few million affiliated now.”
“I know. Kind of amazing.”
“We need more. Omnia is powerful. People are afraid of change.”
“You’re pretty wise.”
“Past lives. Spend enough time in them and you’re not your earth age anymore. Once your soul is awakened, this life is but a blink in your existence. But you know all that.”
I smiled and nodded. “Yes. So what are you supposed to teach me?”
“We’ll teach each other.”
“I’d like that.”
“Someone doesn’t want you to enter the Calyndra.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“I wasn’t even sure it existed.”
“It does.”
“I know another way to get to the past.”
“Outviews aren’t enough?” I asked.
“Not Outviews. Something that allows much more freedom, something that anyone can do if they are of clear mind.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do you know about Airgon?”
37
Our conversation was interrupted by Linh reaching me on the astral. She and Amber were at a nearby lighthouse. Yangchen was with them and angry. It was a couple of miles away. We headed to them immediately. During the walk, I shapeshifted into a teenage girl so I wouldn’t be recognized.
Tapscott explained Airgon. It was truly an awesome power that allowed anyone to view all of Earth’s history. Unfortunately, controlling it was as difficult as comprehending it. Airgon was done through air molecules that never changed. The concept was that the air that, say, Thomas Jefferson breathed in, was still on the planet and that each time one of those molecules was present it absorbed a trace of the surrounding energy. Fast-forward to the present and any given molecule can be “read” so that the viewer can see anything that ever happened in the presence of that molecule.
“You’ve done it?” I asked.
“All the time. It’s like the craziest video game imaginable.”
“Have you found any way to direct your search?”
“No. I’m only ten, remember? I’d have to be very old to do that. It’s an unfathomable amount of molecules dating to the origin of the planet – billions of years. However . . .” He stopped walking and grabbed my elbow until we made eye contact. His were sparkling and his tone changed to an excited hush. “It’s not as hard as you might think because each molecule has seen so much and then there are their counterparts in all the parallels.”
It was impossible to do while using another power because the concentration required was intense. A person needs to squint until they can see all the surrounding energy. He told me that it would usually take a couple of minutes until a molecule could be isolated. Then through focusing attention, the molecule would glow slightly until it began producing images in the viewer’s mind. He called it “cosmic communication.”
I showed him Timefold, which had to be learned before undertaking a TVC. He slipped away just prior to reaching the others. “I’ll see you again,” he said. “I try to avoid confrontations. There’s enough of that in the world, I’m looking for peace.” Before I could argue, he was gone.
As we drifted onto the beach, Linh and Amber both shot me warning looks. Yangchen, clearly angry, seemed older and hard. “Just what did you think you were doing, Nate?” Yangchen blasted.
“I was doing my job,” I snapped back.
“Your job? What is that, exactly?”
“Yangchen, what’s wrong with you? I’m trying to get the Jadeo back, that’s my job.”
“That is fulfilling an oath. Your job, the most important part of your every thought, decision and action, should be to stay alive. Has Spencer not explained this to you?”
“Spencer isn’t the best explainer. Why don’t you tell me why my life is so important when everyone around me is dying and when death isn’t anything more than a word that me
ans, ‘went to another place’?”
She laughed for a moment, then shook her head. “Nate, the Movement is fragile, you must be strong, you are its leader.”
“It feels like you and Spencer are the Movement’s leaders.”
“We are only here at your request to help you through this. You weren’t even supposed to be in this position for another eleven years. And even so, you would have still been unprepared. Spencer and I, along with the other mystics, are trying to remind you of your power . . . Nate, this is your Movement.”
“Then why are you so upset about my wanting to go into Calyndra?” A salty breeze was blowing.
“Omnia is waiting for you at the time of the original oath. Do you not recall that one of the original nine entrusted is a betrayer? The traitor is part of Omnia. You would have been slaughtered as you stepped out of the portal. The three of you would have been wiped away and the ripples of that would be inconceivable suffering for a thousand years in the past and ten thousand in the future.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do not do, unless you know what the doing does.”
“Then there’s not much I can do, because I know nothing.”
Yangchen smiled. “Spencer did well with you.”
“Where is he?” I stared off to the lighthouse as if it might have an answer.
“I wish I knew.”
“Could Omnia have him?” Linh asked. “I mean someone as powerful as Spencer?”
“Omnia’s power is enormous. I’m not just talking about the economic and earthly resources they possess. They have more mystics than the Movement has and unlike our divided Movement, their forces are united, and they are not working in hiding.”
“But we have the advantage of being the oppressed. The more they turn the screws against their opposition, the more they fuel the fires against them. Time is on our side.”
“If only that were true. For now, they are manipulating time better than we are. We may have passion and a better understanding of the powers as our greatest assets but all of that means nothing if the Dark Mystic sides with Omnia.”
