by YatesNZ, Jen
‘Hey! Little sister, you can do it,’ Case said, his voice low and rough. ‘Just you keep remembering we're not alone.’
Georgina nodded then smiled a little shakily.
‘Fran would've handled this so much better than I. She'd have been right in her element charming the uniforms and the brass. I wouldn't know how to charm a cat with a saucer of cream.’
‘Which is why it had to be you and not Fran,’ offered Case seriously. ‘It's not charm that's going to win this day, but sincerity. They're going to believe you because they'll see how hard it is for you to do it.’
Georgina shot him an arrested look then closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the seat. Please God, she murmured in her mind, please Ist, Asar, and great God Ra, please Jesus and Mary and all the angels, please Divine Guidance whoever you are, take this terrible feeling of panic from me and make me strong.
For why would the trained personnel of the US Coastguard listen to the far-fetched ramblings of a civilian bookshop keeper—a foreign, female civilian bookshop keeper?
Why shouldn't they?
The words were almost obliterated by the hum of energy through her body but not quite. She knew she'd heard them; that they'd not been her own, and took strength from that knowing.
Wellington, NZ. Thursday 1st November 1998 AD.
The faceless government official sitting across the desk from him in the Wellington office was getting on Torr Montgomery’s wick. He'd mentioned the ‘sensitive nature’ of the assignment several times now. Hawke, Montgomery & Templeton, International Mining Surveyors & Consultants hadn't acquired their reputation by being careless in handling government secrets. He was well aware the survey of possible large gold deposits within the boundaries of a National Park would have to be undertaken with the utmost discretion. Torr was also aware the acerbic nature of his temper had little to do with the anxious individual haranguing him, and everything to do with the fact he was in New Zealand; Georgina's country.
And he knew Gould Barrington was away on an expedition in the Bahamas with Fran. He'd had that piece of news from his partner, Hugh Templeton, who leased half his London house to Fran, and it had finally decided him to take the commission himself instead of sending Hugh or one of the other partners.
From the moment his plane had touched down at Wellington Airport that morning he'd had the crazy impulse to abort this surveying commission for the New Zealand Government, board another plane and fly to Auckland to see Georgina. He'd honed the edge on his temper with vivid visualizations of her in Barrington's arms to resist following a course destructive for both himself and Montgomery, Templeton & Co.
Wrestling with oneself was exhaustive and counter-productive Torr decided when he finally dropped onto his bed at Mt. Cook National Park Headquarters that night. He'd left Wellington at midday in a chartered plane feeling he'd won a major battle with himself by flying south instead of north. He'd kept his mind busy all afternoon checking and packing the supplies he'd ordered for six weeks survival alone in the wilderness. But now, as he lay on a soft mattress for the last time for the next several weeks and told himself to sleep well and make the most of it, his mind kept returning to the thought that it would only be the work of minutes to get Georgina's number from directory service, ring and hear her voice.
With the dawn came relief he'd made it without succumbing to temptation and a renewed determination to put Georgina out of his mind and concentrate on the job he'd contracted to do. By mid-morning he was setting up camp in a Department of Conservation hut in a remote area of the Park with only a field telephone for emergencies. He'd come prepared for six weeks though he estimated the job would only take five. In the interests of self-preservation, he figured, he should try to trim several days off the time by working every moment of every daylight hour and getting the hell out of the southern hemisphere while he still had his sanity and before he did something he'd regret.
For a week the weather was as near perfect as he could've wished. It was late spring with clear, warm days and cool nights, the first four of which he spent in a Department of Conservation hut with four bunk beds and an open fireplace with a corrugated iron chimney. On the fifth day, after returning the night before to find a party of trampers sharing the hut, he made three trips carrying all his gear and setting up camp in a relatively inaccessible spot by a stream in deep bush cover. Fortunately he'd heard voices as he approached the hut and had been able to stow his tell-tale pack of tools and bag of carefully labelled rock and soil samples under a fallen log out of sight.
But where there was one party of trampers there was likely to be another and he couldn't take the risk of having some nosy camper riffling through his gear. He'd lost a day in shifting camp but he'd reckoned he was already a day ahead by working from dawn to dusk and only stopping to eat and sleep after dark. He was still well on schedule and the only disadvantage was the rest of his stay in the Park wouldn't be quite so comfortable. That he'd even thought of comfort irked him a little. Was he becoming soft as he grew older? Time was when the rougher, more challenging the accommodation he had to contend with the better he liked it.
He'd be thirty-six next birthday. Was he ready to opt for a softer way of earning his living? Certainly not yet, he decided abruptly. Lying with his head near the open tent flap he could watch the night sky and test his knowledge of the unfamiliar southern star clusters and enjoy the richly layered music of the alpine stream rushing over its rocky bed, the wind through the lofty heads of the great podocarps and the varied sounds of the few hardy nocturnal creatures who called the forest home.
By day he tied down everything in the tiny camp as firmly and closely as he could to discourage the curious olive green kea with its destructive hooked beak. By night with the tent wide open he lay hoping for a visitation from the rare and secretive brown kiwi. Twice as he lay waiting for sleep he thought he'd heard the peculiar cry for which the bird had been named. His camera lay ready to his hand should he be deemed worthy of a visit.
Gazing up at the stars, which would be as familiar to Georgina as the northern constellations were to himself, he mused over his sense of oneness with the wilderness places of the world. Sometimes he thought there were two Torrens Montgomerys. Most saw the successful and knowledgeable geologist, younger son of a wealthy British peer of ancient lineage, who loved adventure, fast cars and flying. Some of these knew he was afraid to enter the sea or large bodies of water but there were probably only two or three who knew the inner Torrens Montgomery, the man who would sit for hours in stillness hoping for a glimpse of one of the rare creatures of the Earth, who looked at the sky in awe of his own minuteness, who found the wilderness places of the planet strangely companionable.
Georgina Hackville and the incredible awareness they'd shared over two brief days, was rarely far from his mind. He'd spent a lot of time trying to understand what it was he'd ‘known’ when he'd looked at her, had even started seeking out books about reincarnation and past lives. He'd found a large proportion of the world's population accepted reincarnation as part of their philosophy as naturally as Westerners believed Jesus to be the Son of God. It was the Christians it seemed, the followers of Jesus, who'd deleted the teachings of reincarnation from their books and denied this crucial piece of the human puzzle from many generations.
Why? More and more Torr found himself questioning what he believed, found himself dipping into the Bible to find out exactly what Jesus had said and then feeling unsatisfied, un-assured. How many translations had these words gone through to acquire the meaning they now offered? How many souls with the desire for power and manipulation had tampered with the original messages? What was omitted? Missed from the original? Twisted in its interpretation?
Why was he asking?
One question he didn't need to ask. He ‘knew’ he'd had at least one other life and it had been very different to this one. Where or when, he couldn't have said, but none could gainsay him that he had.
On his seventh day
in the mountains it rained. There'd been light cloud and a slight rise in temperature at dawn but nothing to herald the sudden banking of dark cloud and the drenching downpour lasting about twenty minutes mid-morning. It quickly permeated the light rain-wear he'd carried out with him that day and soaked his clothes to the skin. He'd climbed a particularly steep escarpment to reach a high gully above the forest line where one of the numerous streams feeding the main river welled from a tiny underground cavern. Any thought of returning to camp he quickly discarded and kept moving throughout the day, ignoring any sense of cold or discomfort. He'd suffered worse.
Intermittent heavy showers during the afternoon kept the bush wet. Back at camp there was no way he could build a fire to cook a meal or heat water for a wash. Stripping off his wet clothes he rubbed himself down and crawled into his sleeping bag, munching a few dry biscuits and an apple for dinner. He woke with a blocked feeling in his sinuses, a headache and a raspy throat. Neither the weather nor his health improved over the next two days but he continued working, figuring nothing would be achieved by lying about in his sleeping bag eating biscuits and cold meat stew from a can.
On the morning of Saturday the eleventh of November he woke with a high fever and a raging thirst. His water canteens were empty. He couldn't believe the effort it cost him to dress, walk down to the creek for water and carry it back to the tent. Maybe today he'd just give in and crawl back into his sleeping bag—
Atlantis 9,654 BC.
The heat of the sun burned down on his naked torso and already the potent cup of Victor's Nectar was working its power on his body. He was starting to feel satisfyingly ‘Godly’. He could always count on the Victor's Nectar to keep his mind on what was of immediate importance, taking the Goddess on the altar as many times as he was able between the hours of sunset and sunrise. That done, he could allow himself to wonder at that uncharacteristic miss-step of Gotham’s which had brought him forward onto his sword instead of away from it.
They were the two greatest warriors in Atlantis and had fought many exhibition bouts together. Drawing blood was always an aim in such contests but serious injury or death was not. Cronos! Atlantis could ill afford to lose such a man.
Taur glanced across the Sacred Pool to where the Priestesses of Qurazil had just dis-robed the Adonai and her handmaidens. He and Gotham had both paid high uson to ensure the chance of proving themselves on the altar with the glorious blonde beauty of the virgin Princess, Phryne of Gadeirus. It was said she was a crystalline copy of their ancient common ancestress, Merwin of Trephysia who'd come mysteriously from the sea to steal the heart of Madoc, who'd avowed of having no such organ.
His glance lit but briefly on the Adonai before it was drawn irresistibly to the figure of the handmaiden to her left. The Princess Gynevra of Poseidonia, half-sister to the Adonai was reputed to have imbued the Magus Yazid with new vigor through a ritual virility healing.
The darker side of the moon.
Her skin was more golden than fair, her hair more copper-bronze than blonde, and he remembered someone at the last Dragon Festival describing her eyes as being more of Fauna than Merea. Phryne of Gadeirus had the legendary sea-green Dragon Blood eyes that had come down through Madoc of Trephysia, consort of Merwin. Gynevra of Poseidonia made one think of the forests of the Nyaldan Mountains and the feral wolves for whom they were ‘home’.
In stature the two sisters could've been twins but it was the warm golden coloring of Gynevra that called to him with the uguled of the wolves rather than the fair perfection of the Adonai with whom he was bound to join on the altar.
Usod! It was for the golden handmaiden that his blood pulsed—
Mt Cook National Park, November 16th 1998 AD.
The sound of his own screaming woke him. He was being engulfed by the ocean, sucked down and in the moment he recognized it for a dream, he knew he’d dreamed it many times before. Heart pounding in his chest with absolute terror and grief beyond imagining Torr lay for a long time calming and telling himself it was only a dream, a nightmare, and the screams were an echo from a time so ancient it was almost beyond believable.
Gynevra—Gyn’a—Gina. His body convulsed with the pain of the memory of her vanishing through the atmosphere of the pyramid, his total grief and devastation that she'd finally escaped and abandoned him and the absolute certainty they would all die anyhow. He began to tremble uncontrollably and struggled to convince himself that because it was only a dream, or at most, a memory, it had little bearing on his present situation in the mountains of southern New Zealand in 1998 AD. If he didn't get himself together sufficiently to use the field telephone to call for help he was likely to be facing an untimely death once again. And he'd discovered within himself the determination to know Gina just once in the way he'd known Gynevra during the few stolen years they'd had in Atlantis.
His face was wet, as was his whole body and his bed was a sodden mess. Sweat streamed from every pore on his body and for the first time in who knew how long, he was lucid. Lucid enough to know he needed help. He was as weak as a day old chicken, as he discovered when he tried to struggle out of the tangled sleeping bag and find dry clothing and the field telephone. Dogged determination, which his mother had used to say was the base rock of his character, kept him moving. By the time the medics had flown in to the hut where he'd first stayed, then walked in to his camp he'd managed between frequent stops for rest to pack the telltale surveying equipment and rock samples and notes in a bag with his personal effects to take with him. The rest he would have to ask Park officials to lift out to Headquarters to dry and store for him.
The amazing dreams he'd had, and their horrific ending, were never far from his mind but there was so much else needing attention his meagre reserves of energy were quickly used up. At least, that was the excuse he gave himself for not wanting to go back and face the emotions, the stark terror, the awful sense of loss, vulnerability and impotence that had assailed him in what must surely have been one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the planet.
The one thing he didn't question was ‘knowing’ he'd been taken in dreams back to a lifetime he'd lived so long ago it was beyond the current memory of mankind. It was reasonable then to assume there'd been other lifetimes. He'd had at least one prior to this in which Georgina Hackville, Gynevra, had taught his oafish, warrior heart to love—then left him to die alone. His physical state was so low he didn't dare re-visit that place from which he'd surfaced in such agony. Grown men didn't cry and if he allowed himself even a brief slide back into the dream, he'd cry as he hadn't even as a child who'd lost its mother.
At the hospital there were doctors and nurses wanting information, sticking thermometers and needles, food and warm liquid into him. Then there was the astonishment and frustration to deal with when he realized it was four days since he'd given up fighting and taken to his sleeping bag. The wonder of it was his tent hadn't been flattened by rain or wind or looted and shredded by keas, the destructive mountain parrots.
He'd asked one of the medics as they'd flown him to hospital what day it was and been inclined to argue violently when told it was Monday the sixteenth. Trouble was, while his thoughts might've been violent there wasn't much capacity for even mild reaction in his body. When the nurse at admissions at Christchurch Hospital had confirmed the date he'd sunk into a fuming sulk but his physical state hadn't been able to sustain that for long either. Schedules, deadlines and even ‘sensitive issues’ had ceased to have any real importance in the face of his need for the basics of survival—clean, dry, warm shelter and a good meal.
By lunchtime on Thursday the medication had begun to kick in and his natural reserves of strength to surface. More alert, he was able to replay in his mind the phenomenal knowledge and understanding he knew he'd held in that other lifetime and began to wonder if he could retain it. Lying back on his bed with his hands flat on his chest he closed his eyes and recited in his mind a healing mantra in a language seemingly as natural to him as it
was ancient. With a sense of immense wonder he felt the gentle permeating heat of healing energy flowing through his hands and into his heart. The wonder turned abruptly to consternation when tears welled from some deep inner well and flowed in silent and unstoppable rivulets down his cheeks. Even more disconcerting was the realization that he could neither stem the tide of moisture nor move his hands in order to close off the flow of divine energy into his body as his twentieth century macho self urgently wanted to do.
The next thing he knew a nurse was gently urging him to awaken for dinner and he roused to an over-all sense of peaceful well-being that was as awe-inspiring as it was welcome. But no matter how amazing it was, he wasn't about to make himself a laughing-stock by talking about it to anyone.
After dinner that night he prowled along to the patient's lounge to watch television already thinking that tomorrow he'd check out of hospital and return to Park Headquarters to sort out gear and re-assess his program.
The ‘News’ was on the television and dropping into a chair he watched with something less than his usual avid interest in world affairs. It was local news, a protest in the north over the proposed location of a new prison, university students complaining about the rise in fees for next year. Certainly nothing to stimulate his fever-fogged brain.
Then the reporter said something about two well-known New Zealand writers who were on a yacht missing, perhaps trapped, in an apparently impenetrable force field in the Bermuda Triangle. Before he'd fully made the connection between ‘two New Zealand writers in the Bermuda Triangle’ and Fran and Gould who he knew to be on an expedition in the Bahamas, they'd switched the camera to a field reporter at the Auckland International Airport and Georgina Hackville was looking out of the screen at him, with Casey Valois at her side.
Gina! Gynevra?
