The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition

by JM HART

  “Slow down,” Casey said, trying to secure the tablet. “That’s a lot of maybes. I haven’t even got the tablet in place yet and you want me to position the stones.”

  Sophia touched the emerald gemstone. “And what’s this one?”

  “The dodecahedron, the universe, and that one is a tetrahedron. This one is my favorite,” she said. “It looks like two stars merged into one. It is named merkaba and this one is Metatron’s cube, which has the element of earth.”

  Tim immediately picked up the transparent cubed stone and Jade could see inside it were thirteen suspended spheres. Twelve small crystallized rods came from the centers of the twelve spheres into the middle sphere, connecting them all. “Check this out. It’s like the drawing on the Emerald Tablet and on Sophia’s medallion,” she said.

  Tim, pointing at the dodecahedron, said, “It reminds me of a flower and — what do you call it? One of those superfood fruits … a pomegranate. What about the three marbles, Jade?”

  Jade dismissed Tim’s reference to marbles. “This is what Shaun had in his pouch; they were so much more than gemstones.” She examined the remaining gems. “All spheres. A sphere contains all forms and all measurement is equal.” The sphere took her breath away. “This is beautiful.” She felt connected to them and couldn’t quite find the right words to express how they made her feel. She held it up to look into its content: she beheld a tiny universe floating inside it. Quickly she studied the other two and saw wisps of colored clouds, like gases, continuously moving, folding, fusing together; creating sparks of light. “Continual potential. It’s like the birth of a star,” Jade said. “This is incredible. This is absolutely mind-blowing. These are phenomenal and they are the key to the lock.” She looked over at Shaun. He sat on his heels by Rachel. We did have the keys all along, she realized.

  “What about this last one?” Kevin picked up the clear quartz sphere and stared into its depths. He dropped it back into Sophia’s hands, as if it had given him a shock. “Wow!”

  “What?” Jade picked it up and turned it around and around. “What did you see?”

  “My … me … looking back at myself … as if I was inside the crystal, looking out.”

  “What does it all mean?” Tim said.

  Jade’s eyes moved from right to left and up and down, thinking, constructing ideas and thoughts before she spoke. “S = K log W. Entropy, a measure of disorder,” she mumbled. “Life is filled with entropy. This whole situation reeks of disorder, it’s totally dysfunctional.” She held up the sphere with the spiraling gasses. “These gemstones will help us to close the gate to go back to the seed level perhaps. Back to the past maybe. I’m not sure, but certainly back to a state where we can create a new future within this reality, the element of earth. It’s a paradox. Life is a paradox.”

  Tim took in a deep breath, loudly exhaled and said, “She’s lost it.”

  *

  Casey blocked out the chatter around him and the images of the ever-expanding silent vortex. The others seemed to be forgetting about their purpose. It was as if all the logical thinking was actually the darkness stalling for time. Casey focused on the Emerald Tablet and following Rachel’s instructions. He jerked his head as if he was shaking the hair off his face and immediately the breastplate flipped over with the circles facing the dark roof of the cave. It floated down, feather-slow, as Casey placed it on the statue.

  It locked into place.

  “K, look at that,” Tim said, hitting Kevin in the arm. Everyone’s attention zapped to Casey. They held their breaths, expecting an explosion of light, something miraculous, anything to swallow the darkness and consume the power of the vortex. Nothing happened.

  Nothing at all.

  12

  Light of the endlessness.

  He’s doing it, Sophia thought. The stones vibrated and moved in their hands, lifting off from their palms.

  “Now to lay the stones.” Casey held them suspended with his mind. They spun in the air three feet above the statue. The markings on the Emerald Tablet cast a faint glow. Casey’s intensity increased. Like an orchestra conductor his hands moved in all directions and the stones darted in the air under his command. Sophia felt the pulse of the repelling force around the statue. It was unyielding. The black hole expanded, stretching the force field. The amulet was shaking violently, losing control. She had to do something, but what?

  “There must be a way,” Casey said. “Which circle and which stone. It was created by the light of God. How are we going to come up with the correct formation? We need more time.”

  “We have to go back to the seed level, return to the beginning,” Jade said.

  “Back to where? Where’s the starting point? Where do we start, Jade?” he said anxiously.

  “Earth, we have to start with the Platonic solid that represents earth, the hexahedron, the cube, and ascend to …”

  There is only one seed level I know and that’s the oneness of the universe. Sophia sat down and closed her eyes, ignoring Jade, and opened up her mind to the heavens: she stepped through her internal door into the endlessness of the universe, no limitations, all desires waiting to be realized. She could have floated forever; it was like soaking in a lukewarm bath. She wanted to stay. I must find the solution of the stones. She accelerated along her timeline, searching for the telling moment in the future, forgetting to anchor herself to the present.

  Sophia levitated off the ground and the gems gravitated towards her, gliding through the air away from the statue and tablet to hover around her.

  “Sophia, what are doing? Sophia,” Casey yelled as he lost control of the stones.

  Sophia felt her aura swelling — the essence of each color changing from warm reds and oranges to cool blues and violets as it continued unfolding — and she recognized her soul expanding, ready to receive the abundant wisdom of the universe. Her aura turned to a shimmering magenta light, a beacon to the darkness. She felt her sense of self melting away; her connection with physical reality was disappearing as she searched along her timeline. Like an untethered cosmonaut, she floated in space, waiting in the silence of the universe. She was in love and wished to stay.

  Cloaked by inner peace, her sense of self drifted away.

  *

  Casey headed for Sophia’s floating body, she was almost transparent, like a ghost. “Sophia!”

  Father McDonald’s body contorted in pain, fighting against the demons inside him for control. He yelled, “Don’t touch her!”

  Kevin could do nothing to stop Casey. He reached out and touched Sophia’s dangling foot and was thrown into the air like he had touched an electric fence. Casey sailed backwards, passing Shaun, Rachel and Tim as he tumbled down the set of stairs and over the edge into the second-tier crevasse. Kevin sprinted after him, and could see Father McDonald crawling on all fours, bent out of shape like a dog. He’s going to maul him, Kevin thought, and that’s when Father McDonald stretched his arm out to Casey.

  “Ahhhhhhh,” Father McDonald screamed as Casey let go of the edge and latched onto his arm pulling it out of its socket.

  Kevin didn’t want to begin to imagine the pain Father McDonald was in. He could have sworn he heard tendons and bones snapping. Casey was frozen, glaring into Father McDonald’s black eyes.

  “Climb,” Kevin yelled, looking down at them from the top of the stairs.

  Casey used Father McDonald’s arm like a rope and quickly climbed up and over his body. “Thank you,” Casey said and ran to Sophia. She had floated higher and soon she would be out of his reach.

  Casey ran faster than Kevin had seen anyone run before — up the stairs two, three steps at a time, to the third tier and hurdled over the crevasse. He looks like he’s flying, Kevin thought. He glimpsed Father McDonald on all fours tip over the edge, as if in slow motion, and without a sound, disappear into the crevasse.

  “Sophia,” Casey yelled. “Sophia. Come back, Sophia.”

  Sophia was flickering.

  She reminde
d Kevin of a light bulb about to explode. Casey reached for her foot again. Kevin knew Casey would be electrified and maybe even injure Sophia. He fixed his eyes at the ground, imagining millions of tiny particles of golden light weaving a rubber mat under Casey’s feet before he touched Sophia. The mat will ground Casey’s energy, he thought, soaking it up like a sponge and sending it into the belly of the Earth. Casey touched Sophia’s foot and, as he did, her amulet, on the edge of the vortex, lost its hold. It was flung into the air and skipped like a pebble, hitting Casey on the side of the face, slicing open an old scar. Suddenly it was like being in the middle of a storm.

  The magenta force field disappeared. The repelling magnetic energy of the statue receded. Sophia’s aura started to turn inward, creating an up-draught, repelling against the darkness. She was imploding.

  The sound of the two forces is like being caught between two massive jet turbine blades, Kevin thought.

  *

  Sophia looked out at the expansion of the universe, and watched a dot on the horizon moving closer and closer, growing into myriad shapes and colors. Something was forming: a blur, an image, a memory. It’s Shaun. This wasn’t the future, this was the past: he was a child playing on his bedroom floor with the gemstones, making different patterns. Then it changed, and Shaun was no longer a child but a troubled young man who was out of control, devastated by the loss of his mother and Rachel. Then the images changed again to the present day. His shoulders were slumped, tears rolled down his face, his grief splashing over Rachel’s lifeless body as he willed her to live.

  Shaun knows the combination! she yelled inside her head. She turned and looked right, then turned again and looked left. Her excitement vanished. The endlessness of the universe was magnified and that’s when she noticed she had forgotten her lifeline — she was a lonely astronaut floating in the silence of space. She squashed the panic, allowing the peace to spread within. Free of chaos, her surroundings took over. Her aura continued to expand, brighter and more colorful than any nebula in the galaxy. Sophia was merging back into the endlessness from which she came when from a far, far away corner of the universe Sophia thought she heard a whisper. There it was. She started to feel again, to remember her physical being, the sensation of being inside her body. She listened, moving her thoughts towards the sound. She searched her mind and again heard a whisper. She knew this sound and saw a flash of an image, then suddenly she felt heaviness, as if rising from an ocean pool.

  “Come back, Sophia, come back.” Casey held fast to Sophia’s foot, screaming over the noise of the two repelling forces. “Sophia, come back, we need you, come back.”

  A flash burst into her solace as her consciousness fully awoke. She screamed inside her head, Casey, I hear you. I’m lost. Is Kevin still with you? Kevin, are you there? Can you hear me?

  *

  Yes, I hear you. How are you doing that? Sweat dripped from Kevin’s temples. It had taken intense concentration to manifest something as simple as an industrial rubber mat, and it barely held together, the atoms jumping as if they would pull apart at any moment. Casey and Sophia had an enormous amount of energy pulsing between them.

  “Show me the way back.”

  Casey held onto her ankle determined not to let her disappear. Kevin could see his fingers through her leg.

  “Let go, Casey, you need to move back,” Kevin said.

  “No, I’m not moving. I’m not leaving her like this, she needs to be grounded.”

  “We don’t have time! You have to let go or we will all die. Trust me, I’ve got her,” he said, tapping himself on the temple.

  Casey looked up at Sophia. Then he let go.

  Kevin concentrated on creating a pathway to Sophia and the image of the mat evaporated. He sat on the ground, his pulse racing. He was so nervous he wanted to scream, or run. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, breathing in through his nostrils and out of his mouth. He shook out his arms and rubbed his hands on his knees, and tried to relax. Involuntarily, he inched across the cave floor, pulled by the expanding swirling black hole. He ignored the external mayhem as Sophia had and went inside himself. He stood before the old door he kept locked. The feeling of the ground beneath him disappeared as he too began to rise. Kevin could only imagine the look on Casey’s face.

  All his life he had avoided the door, but now he touched the tough hardwood. It was inviting, warm. He reached up and felt the cold metal of the first bolt and slid it back. He imagined he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, and reached out for the second latch and pulled it back quickly. He lingered, braced himself and took hold of the third bolt and pulled it all the way back. The door unlocked, opened, and he was looking out into the expansion of the universe. Kevin stepped over his sacred threshold into nothing and everything, imagining a carpet of glittering golden light unrolling towards the essence of what he thought was Sophia. He stepped upon the carpet and ran towards her.

  *

  A remote memory of lemon soda came into her mind. Sophia felt something. Searching her expanded mind she knew someone was coming. Her nose was tingling, as if she had one, and it smelt a sweet smell: a memory of soda pop. No, it was sweet-smelling and it tingled in her nose like effervescent bubbles. Nose — I have a nose again, she thought, and then she tasted the essences of life popping on her tongue like pop rocks. The connection grew stronger. Ahead, a conveyor belt of sparking golden light appeared. She moved her mind towards it, finding Kevin. An awareness of someone else was also behind her, and she felt goosebumps along her arms and wanted to shiver. Kevin was nearly in sight. The sensation behind her grew. She turned, dreading what was there. Sophia decided to move to Kevin.

  “Sophia, wait!” It was Rachel. “I have seen the concealed light. It is greater than any light you have ever seen or felt. It will be as bright as the birth of the universe, and you will all be incinerated. Only the purest of souls, the greatest of sages, can merit this sight. You are all key to the survival of the world, and Kevin is the final key.”

  “Yes, he’s coming. That’s him, Rachel, come with us.”

  “No, you don’t understand.”

  “Yes, I do. Come with me. Please.”

  “My fate is in Tim’s hands. Tell Shaun he must do it. Go now. Seal the gate, Sophia. There are only two more sets of blowing. Can you still hear them?”

  Sophia listened. “No.” She looked again, back at Kevin. He wasn’t getting any closer, he seemed to be running on the spot.

  Rachel said, “He can’t come any closer. If he does, he won’t be able to return to his body. He will die, and you will die, everyone will die. You have to meet him halfway.

  “Go! Go now, Sophia!” Rachel screamed.

  The urgency became overwhelmingly real and Sophia felt like she was in a nightmare, climbing stairs that turned to quicksand. She willed herself to run, imagining one complete step after another. She visualized her legs moving, seeing her knees lifting up, higher and higher as she ran. She saw the image in her mind of running in shallow water, until she was flying towards Kevin as if zooming above the water. Then suddenly she found herself skimming the surface of the golden pathway Kevin had created.

  Sophia began to feel the millions of atoms that formed her body being drawn from across the universe, aiming for the spiritual essence of Kevin. Sophia yelled out to him, “It’s Shaun! He knows the combination of the stones.” She flew above the golden carpet Kevin had unfolded in the astral plane for her.

  “Hurry, Sophia, we have to get back. My body is going to combust,” Kevin said, just as the impact of Sophia’s spiritual essences sent his physical body into convulsions. He could feel his nose dripping with blood.

  *

  Shaun and Tim took turns and did what they could to keep the blood circulating through Rachel’s body. It was Shaun’s turn. He knew they all thought it was pointless, but he didn’t care. I won’t stop. Tim was a big help and didn’t ask questions.

  He could see the others on the altar. Casey was transfixed, watching Sop
hia’s body flare. It sparkled and flickered, infused with light, and solidified. Her energy was drawing into herself, causing the gemstones orbiting in her aura to start falling away. Kevin’s body trembled. Casey tried to reach out for him when simultaneously everything was tumbling down: Sophia, Kevin and the stones. Jade scrambled to catch the gems, throwing herself towards the swirling dark matter with her arms outstretched as if she was an outfielder catching a fly ball. She missed one and it rushed towards the vortex. Kevin’s limp body hit the ground hard on top of the stone. Casey, the true knight in shining armor, was there to break Sophia’s fall. Dazed, Sophia and Casey clumsily got to their feet and pulled away from the vortex.

  “Shaun!” Is she calling me? Why would she be calling out to me? He had been doing compressions for so long his body was acting purely on muscle memory now. Sophia, as if she carried a heavy burden, tucked her head down and quickly descended the flights of stairs, yelling his name. “Shaun! It’s you. Only you know the sequence.”

  What now? he thought, seeing them all coming his way, except for Kevin, who stood by the altar watching, holding his head. Sophia’s silky hair was flying everywhere as she jumped down the last few steps and rushed to his side. Out of breath, she said, “I saw Rachel. Shaun, she said you are the only one who knows the sequence of the Platonic stones.”

  He looked down at his bloody hands. “I don’t know any combination,” he yelled, resuming the compressions.

  Sophia put her hand on his shoulder. It was soft and delicate, cool on his hot, bare skin.

  “She’s gone, Shaun.”