Ruben gazed into her eyes. ‘It takes a wiser woman to know it.’
‘If you two need to be alone,’ Jason said.
Sarah laughed and Ruben looked away, embarrassed.
‘So how can we save billions of lives?’ Trish said.
‘We find a way to bring them here,’ Sarah said.
Jason looked dubious. ‘I don’t think the Anakim will like a gazillion humans stomping into their world.’
Sarah looked to where starlight glinted off distant Anakim towers, her belief she could achieve her goal unyielding. ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’
‘What if Avery was lying,’ Jason said, ‘and there aren’t any more asteroids?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I’ve seen what’s to come, or at least a possible future of many. We can still change that future, and besides, why create so many underground bases? I saw the Sistine Chapel being dismantled.’ She looked at Ruben. ‘It was being taken underground—’
The Templar nodded.
‘—no, Jas, the asteroids are real.’
Jason sighed. ‘And now they have another Anakim pendant.’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said. ‘Something sent me here to protect it.’
‘The giant,’ Trish said.
Sarah shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think it wanted me to stop Avery, and it would have killed him to do it, but she wasn’t what sent us here. At least, it wasn’t her alone.’
Jason opened his mouth to ask another question, but Sarah said, ‘Avery told me it was my drawings which led them to Mongolia. Drawings I made before the GMRC took me back to Sanctuary and Dagmar Sorensen, before I even came into contact with the giant.’
‘Then what sent you?’ Jason said.
‘I don’t know. But I activated the monolith containing all three giants before we escaped USSB Sanctuary.’
‘We barely escaped with our lives,’ Jason said, remembering their desperate flight from the SED into Sanctuary Proper.
‘Then you think ...’ Trish said.
Sarah nodded. ‘I think the giants communicated with me that night. When I first touched the monolith something transferred from them to me. A message, or a purpose, embedded in my subconscious, or maybe just a single thought. Whatever it was, I don’t think their main purpose was the pendant. In fact, I know it wasn’t.’
Ruben moved to stand just behind her. ‘What was its purpose?’
Sarah looked up at him and then back out at the rolling waves beneath the starlit sky. ‘To bring us here. To help me unlock a door many thought didn’t even exist, or if it did, was closed to them.’
‘Like a gate?’ Jason said.
Sarah smiled. ‘Yes, exactly like a gate.’
Everyone turned to look up at the stars that now shone bright in a black sky.
‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Ruben said, placing his hand on Sarah’s shoulder.
Sarah reached up and interlaced her hand with his, and Trish and Jason exchanged another look that spoke volumes. Ruben, however, didn’t flinch; his hand remained entwined with hers. Sarah glanced at Trish, who raised her eyebrows, and Sarah smiled again and looked away. How her friends loved to speculate, such dear hearts.
‘Hang on,’ Jason said. ‘If we’re underground, how are we looking at a sky full of stars?’
‘I was just thinking that,’ Trish said.
‘Just before we left Sanctuary together,’ Sarah said, ‘the device I activated revived the ceiling. I overheard Dagmar Sorensen talking about it, and his staff, too. The entire system was lit up like night and day, like the USSB’s dome, but on a grander scale. Riley pointed it out to me before he—’ She paused, as Ruben withdrew his hand from hers.
‘So, you’re saying this is a simulation?’ Jason said. ‘It looks so real.’
‘Yes, basically.’ Sarah turned her gaze from Ruben – who couldn’t look her in the eye – and back up to the stars.
Jason’s face screwed up as he struggled with something. ‘But this looks identical – identical – to the one on the surface.’
Sarah nodded. It was beautiful.
‘Then—’ Jason shook his head and said. ‘Nah.’
‘Then what?’ Trish said. ‘Go on, what were you going to say?’
‘If Sanctuary has a simulation and Agartha does, too. Then what if,’ – he paused – ‘then what if the Earth’s is a simulation, too?’
Sarah looked at him in surprise.
Trish laughed. ‘Because we’ve sent rockets into space, you idiot.’
‘Yeh, but what if they were faked? Everyone knows the moon landings never happened. What if they faked the other ones, too? We can’t believe anything they say anymore. They’d say white was black if they thought it’d keep us in line. Just look at the GMRC. How can we trust them?’
‘He’s got a point,’ Sarah said.
‘And even if the rockets were real, and say even the moon landings were, too – which they weren’t – but say they were. What if the simulation only begins outside of our solar system? How would we ever know?’
‘We wouldn’t,’ Ruben said. ‘Unless we tried to go beyond it.’
‘Exactly,’ Jason said. ‘And when’s that going to happen? On the far side of never, the way we’re going.’
‘It’s a good theory,’ Sarah said.
‘And if that’s true, how do we know we’re not on the surface now, and the surface we were just on was not underground? This is making my head hurt.’ Jason rubbed at his temples. ‘And if the Earth is not really the Earth, then where the hell are we now? Or if it is the Earth, how do we know we’re really underground? We might be beyond it, on another planet or in another dimension—’
Sarah grasped his wrist. ‘Jason stop, you’ll drive yourself mad.’
Jason looked at her, wild-eyed. ‘We could be anywhere!’
‘It doesn’t matter where we are,’ Sarah said. ‘None of it matters.’
‘And why doesn’t it matter?’ Trish said.
‘Because you can’t control anything outside of yourself. You only think you can, and the sooner you realise that the better, for the time will come when the world will make you see you control nothing at all. I thought I could control what was happening around me, but nothing I did ever worked, and usually it just made things worse. The only way to find peace is to relax and surrender to the flow of life. I see that now. If you resist something, you draw it to you.’
‘You attract what you focus on,’ Trish said.
‘Exactly,’ Sarah said. ‘Exactly that. Cry when you need to cry. Laugh when you need to laugh, and love when you need to love. Be envious when you need to envy. Fear when you need to fear, and be angry when you feel anger. But never be jealous or lustful, never suppress your emotions, and never hate, never that—’
‘As you’ll only be hating yourself,’ Jason said, his expression thoughtful.
‘Sarah,’ Trish said. ‘What really happened to you up there? In the storm?’
‘I’m not sure, but I saw and felt all my past traumas leaving me and then ... I think I might have died, if only for a moment. There was a light.’ She looked off into the distance. ‘A beautiful white light.’
‘She’s been touched by divinity,’ Ruben said. ‘And she’ll not be the same. It changes everything.’ He looked at her with envy. ‘Everything.’
Jason looked at him like he was mad. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Can’t you see?’ Ruben said. ‘She’s now displayed all nine spiritual gifts, not one, two, or eight, but all of them, all nine. Healing herself was the final act. Avery may be a lot of things, but about that, about Sarah, he was right.’
Trish and Jason looked at Sarah like she’d just sprouted wings.
‘I’m still me,’ Sarah said, trying to play it down, despite wondering herself what it might mean.
‘What does it mean?’ Trish said, dragging her gaze from Sarah to look at Ruben again.
‘I’m not sure.’ The Templar shook his head, as if disbel
ieving his own words. ‘What with her visions – some would call her a mystic, others a prophet. But whatever this means, and whatever’s happening back on the surface, there’s one thing we know for certain.’
‘And what’s that,’ Jason said.
‘Whether she likes it or not,’ Ruben said, ‘In Sarah, we have something precious, something sacred.’
‘Of course we do.’ Jason reached out and squeezed Sarah’s hand. ‘She’s our friend.’
‘More than that,’ Ruben said. ‘Much more. She has something people have killed for, the world over. Wars have been waged for it. Religions have started because of it and nations have been forged and destroyed by it.’
The night seemed to close in around them, enfolding the ledge in hushed silence.
‘What do you mean?’ Trish whispered.
‘She has what I’ve always wished for. What I’ve always dreamt of beyond anything else. She has, she possesses ...’ – Ruben gazed at Sarah in wondrous awe – ‘... a direct line to God himself.’
Epilogue - Chapter One
Sarah, Trish, Jason and Ruben remained sitting on a ledge, atop the ancient Anakim temple. Their legs dangled down, while the ocean’s inky black waves rippled in the moonlight, their steady wash against the sandy beach below a meditative repetition of calm.
‘A direct line to God?’ Jason said to Ruben. ‘That’s what you think?’
‘Yes. It’s as I said, Sarah’s been touched by the divine. She has God’s ear and he works through her.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t have God’s ear, Ruben. I am God, as are you, as are we all. We are gods, all of us – pure consciousness itself.’
‘That may be, yes, we are the sons and daughters of God, but you have communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit. You possess the trinity: the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirit.’
‘As do we all,’ Sarah said.
‘No!’ Ruben said in frustration, his expression angry. ‘Not as we all do.’
‘Does it matter?’ Trish said. ‘Sarah is alive and well and back with us. Isn’t that enough?’
Jason nodded his head in agreement, but Sarah could see Ruben needed to continue the discussion. He thought she was something more than she was, when all she was, was her. ‘I’m still, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I’m still me, can’t you see? I’ve had an experience, yes. Has it changed me? Yes.’
‘Even your voice sounds different,’ Ruben said.
‘But my voice is not me, nor is my body, nor is my name, nor are my experiences, all of these things can change, but not the soul within.’
Ruben glowered at her as he struggled with the concept.
Jason flicked a stone off the edge and sniffed. ‘So, the pendant’s no longer in you, either of them?’
‘No, they’re both gone, and the giant, too.’
‘So, no more super strength, then?’
Sarah chuckled. ‘No, no more super strength.’
‘Pity,’ he said. ‘It could have come in handy.’ He cocked his head. ‘What about the Pharos? Are you sure there’s not one inside you, lurking, waiting to jump out at us?’
‘No, there’s nothing lurking inside me.’ Sarah’s smile faded. ‘I don’t even think the Pharos was fully inside me. At least, if it was, it was only a tiny part, and I threw up the black ooze after I was healed by the storm. My body had been cleansed and it just couldn’t hold something like that inside a second longer.’
‘But you’re normal, now, right?’
‘Yes, Jas, I’m normal, whatever normal is.’
‘Not Jason,’ Trish said, ‘that’s for sure. They didn’t just break the mould when they made him, they broke the whole damn factory.’
Jason scowled at her and Sarah laughed.
‘So, what was Nicola Dowling really doing?’ Trish said. ‘Or the thing inside her?’
Sarah thought about it for a moment. ‘It was trying to get the pendant and was using me and the giant within me to do so. There might be more to it than that, but I think that’s why it came to me at night. It knew it couldn’t influence me while I was awake, so it attacked me in my sleep, when I was most vulnerable.’ Sarah recalled seeing herself on the mountainside before she’d found out it was a gigantic pyramid. ‘I think that’s what happened in the Vatican, too. Avery and Zinetti took me to see a part of the frieze found at the dig site. Zinetti didn’t want me to touch it, but I think Avery did. I think he wanted to see what would happen. I think he wanted me infected and knew the gloves he gave me wouldn’t protect me. He wanted me weak and disorientated, so I’d be easier to manipulate, and kill, at a time of his choosing.’
‘A sacrifice to open a gate to the underworld,’ Ruben said, ‘as you prophesied.’
Sarah gave a nod.
Ruben gave a growl of anger. ‘Avery,’ – he clenched his fists – ‘he made me kill a man.’
‘A man?’ Sarah said.
‘One of Konstantin’s knights. He was wounded and I killed him.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘I’m a murderer.’
‘If you were forced,’ Trish said, ‘then you had no choice.’
‘You always have a choice,’ Ruben said. ‘Better to die yourself than kill another.’
‘That’s a funny way of looking at things,’ Jason said. ‘You being a Templar knight ’n all.’
Ruben shot Sarah a sidelong look, but said nothing.
‘Oh,’ Jason said. ‘I almost forgot.’ He withdrew something from his pocket and handed it to Sarah.
Sarah looked down at a wooden cross, nestled in the palm of her hand.
‘I found it at the bottom of the hole,’ Jason said, ‘after we’d fallen down it.’
‘It’s Avery’s,’ Ruben said.
Sarah frowned. The cross had fallen only seconds before she had, but Jason had been nowhere to be found when she’d reached the bottom. It made no sense, but then it seemed the laws of physics weren’t as fixed as she’d previously thought, and if her experiences were anything to go by, that wasn’t the half of it.
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise.’ Jason went to take it back. ‘I’ll get rid of it.’
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s fine. It’s a reminder.’
‘A reminder?’ Trish said. ‘Of what?’
‘Of God,’ Ruben said.
‘I thought you hated religion,’ Jason said.
Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t hate anything, not anymore, anyway. I just don’t believe a religion should make its followers fearful of a God who loves them deeply, even when they make the biggest of mistakes.’ Sarah held up the cross. ‘It’s as Trish told me before, religion doesn’t own God. In fact, in many instances religion suppresses God. It stifles our intuition and freedom to find out what does and doesn’t serve us. How can we ever understand and appreciate the good, if we’ve never witnessed or known the bad?’ She held the pendant up higher. ‘The cross doesn’t represent religion, sin, dogma, secrecy, misery, judgement or even oppression. It represents what Jesus always preached. It represents love, freedom, joy and truth. Yes, it also represents Christ’s sacrifice, but he didn’t die for our sins. We have no sin. How can we have sin if we’re just doing the best we can with the tools given us by our parents, society and the environment? Christ died to show us the way. He died to show us all who we are. Think about it, Christ didn’t preach religion. He didn’t preach that God would punish us, he preached the opposite. And what’s that? Freedom. Freedom of choice to think for yourself, to create the greatest you. He preached love, no judgement, just faith. Faith in yourself and God’s love for you. The cross means all of those things, but you don’t need any thing, or any cross to tell you what you are, especially if you experience who you are through trial and error. And what are we? We are joy, truth and love.’
‘It represents one other thing,’ Ruben said, as if seeing her in a whole new light. ‘Resurrection.’
Sarah held his gaze for a moment, smiled and then looked up to the twinkling stars, which continued to sparkle in the clou
dless heavens.
Trish also looked up at them and said, ‘Have you ever seen a clearer sky?’
Sarah hadn’t. Not ever. The sight took her breath away. It was almost as if she could reach up and pluck one of the stars from its cosmic canvas – almost like she was God herself.
♦
Agartha’s dawn had broken in dazzle of glory and the time of waiting was over. Jason, Trish and Ruben descended the ancient staircase to the pristine beach, but Sarah hung back. She looked up to the temple’s entrance and the large tree that grew above it. It felt like someone was there, watching her. It was the same sensation she’d had when looking up at the universe, back inside the cavern with the whirlpool. She glanced at her friends, who moved away towards the forest.
‘Sarah,’ Trish said, glancing round. ‘What are you doing?’
Sarah continued to look up the stone steps, the compulsion to return to the opening tugging at her soul. ‘I’ll catch you up!’ she said, and ascended the staircase to the entrance. She hesitated, then moved inside and worked her way back to the pool she’d found herself lying in when she’d arrived. The water remained shallow and motionless, its mirror-like surface drawing Sarah to its edge. A barely perceptible shimmer bent the water’s interior, like air, and somehow Sarah knew the watcher was located just beyond this curious anomaly. It was almost like this watcher was reading her life as if it were a story, like something made up in a book, seen by many but experienced at that instant by one single being. She knew that being was staring back at her, believing this was the end, when it was just the beginning. Sarah peered through the fluctuation and gazed into their eyes, her mind touching theirs. She then reached out to the shimmering water, paused, and then sank her hand through space-time and the dimensions of reality and held her hand before their eyes. The watcher, or perhaps the reader, as that’s who Sarah knew they were, shifted in surprise as they’d believed they were experiencing a dreamlike fiction. But they could now feel Sarah’s hand hovering there, just millimetres away from their face – it was almost like it was coming out of the page towards them. Sarah waited a moment longer, and the reader felt the sensation build. And then, quite deliberately, Sarah touched their forehead, between their eyebrows. A tingle rippled through the reader’s head, into their mind, and then moved deeper within and on to their soul. They knew, like her, this wasn’t supposed to be happening. This isn’t real, they thought, is it? And yet it was, and Sarah smiled at them with deep fondness and said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re waking up, it’s who you are. It’s who you were born to be ...’
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