Stealing Sacred Fire (50 page)

The black stone in the centre
of the door had also begun to glow red. Gradually, this radiance
grew stronger, until all the rings merged into one vibrating red
disk. The light increased in intensity, until it was glowing pure
white.

Shemyaza flexed his stiff
fingers away from the upper sphere. Taking a deep breath to summon
his strength, he gripped the two horn-like projections on the
bottom crystal. With all of his energy, he willed his desire to
pass through the door into the crystals.

One moment he was staring at
his own hands, the next, his body was flipping over and over
through a void. He felt as if he had been turned inside out. A
powerful, hungry force had sucked him forward. He was spinning and
spiralling: falling. All sense of identity was peeling away from
him, and seeds of panic took root in his mind.

Then, abruptly as it had
started, the experience was over. He stood in another dark
corridor. The door was behind him now; a red glow diminishing in
its central stone. He had been projected right through it.

Shemyaza summoned his astral
light once more, but found he was unable to illuminate the
passageway. Despite the darkness, he could sense its walls, floor
and ceiling. He began to walk along it and presently saw another
red glow ahead of him. His astral body felt alien and uncomfortable
after his passage through the door, almost as if it was losing
substance. He must not linger in this place. As he travelled deeper
into the Chamber complex, he risked losing his sense of identity
completely. His task must be completed as soon as possible, before
he lost the memory of why he was here.

After twenty steps or so,
Shemyaza became conscious of a low, deep hum that vibrated the air
around him. The sound invaded his being, conjuring greater
discomfort. Abruptly, both the red glow ahead and the humming
ceased. For a moment, he was suspended in darkness, then the walls
of the passageway bloomed with a soft radiance. He could see a door
not far in front of him.

Just ahead, two carvings of
enormous serpents looped out from the wall. Their bodies were
encased within the walls, as if they had been frozen in the act of
moving through them, like ghosts. Shemyaza knew that these were
guardians, perhaps of a more technological nature than Cosmocrator.
Cautiously, he approached them, aware that anything might happen if
he acted impulsively. Pausing just in front of them, he extended
one hand. At once, a curtain of red light appeared, accompanied by
a shrill, harsh tone. Shemyaza winced and quickly withdrew his
hand. Immediately, both the red field and the shrieking tone
disappeared. The air was filled with a pungent, bitter odour; a
residue of the force field. Shemyaza was unsure of what to do. He
had left the crystal key behind in the Hall of the Twelve. He could
not use it again.

Hesitantly, he extended his
hand once more to invoke the field. No matter how hard he pressed
against it, the force repelled his being. Maybe he would fail here,
a victim of ignorance.

The rigid form of Tiy sprawled
in Melandra’s lap, barely breathing. The old seeress still watched
her son’s journey. She could see the serpents that barred his way
and, to her, they were very much alive, rippling constantly through
the solid stones of the wall. It was obvious to her what Shemyaza
must do. The legends of his own notoriety provided the clue.

‘Look at the serpents,
Shemyaza,’ she cried in her mind. ‘They are like you. They are you.
Remember, you are the serpent in Eden, whom the vengeful god
commanded to crawl on his belly in humility.’

Shemyaza did not hear these
words, but they invaded his instinctive mind. He thought nothing of
Eden or temptation, but simply experimented with an idea that had
come to him. Keeping the red field in place with one hand, he ran
the other slowly down its surface, until he was squatting on the
floor. He laughed in surprise, pleased that his wild supposition
had been correct. The field did not extend right to the floor.
There was a gap. Was it wide enough for him to wriggle under it? He
removed his hands and the field disappeared. Then, he lay down on
his stomach, facing the door ahead. Slowly, he began to inch
forward.

The curtain of light did not
appear until the crown of his head had passed between the serpents.
Then, it manifested with its shrill scream, and Shemyaza felt as if
someone had punched him in the head. He turned his face to the side
and kept wriggling. The high-pitched hum filled his being,
vibrating so quickly, it made the bones of his astral body itch and
ache. His mind felt as if it was under a terrible strain and he was
afraid he’d lose consciousness, trapped beneath the force field.
But gradually, driven by determination, he slithered forward,
flattening himself as much as possible. The pressure on his back
felt like intense pins and needles, as if the red energy was
cooking his etheric substance. But it was too late to turn back
now; he had to keep moving.

He only knew he was through
when the infuriating hum ceased abruptly. Pulling his body up into
a ball, he rolled over and then knelt up. Behind him, the serpents
stared placidly out from the walls. For a while, he could not
continue. When he tried to stand up, lights pulsed in front of his
eyes and he felt nauseous. Willing these uncomfortable sensations
to ease off, he sat with his knees up, his head thrust between
them. This is an astral experience. Fight it! After a while, he was
able to get up without falling over, although he still felt dizzy
and sick.

Adjacent to the door ahead of
him was another black pedestal supporting two spheres. Shemyaza
groaned, unwilling to endure another nightmare journey through a
crystal portal. Leaning against the pedestal, he blinked at the
door. It took him a moment to realise, with relief, that it did not
possess a central passage stone. Perhaps his intention alone would
be enough to open this door. Weakly, he gripped the horns
projecting from the lower crystal on the pedestal.

I can’t do this. I’ve no energy
left. No strength.

But he had to go on. If not,
he’d be trapped in this corridor, with no hope of rescue and would
remain there until his astral body broke up and dispersed.

You have to try.

He braced himself on splayed
legs and arched his spine. With his remaining strength, he
projected his will into the crystals, and visualised the door ahead
opening up. At first, nothing happened, but then the top crystal
began to glow weakly, sporadically. Shemyaza slumped. He felt
exhausted.

‘Do it, Shem,’ he said aloud,
and heard Salamiel’s voice in his mind.

‘Don’t stray from revolution,
brother. Do it; do it now.’

Yes! Shemyaza gripped the stone
once more and poured his will into it, but it was not enough. He
slammed his fists down onto the pedestal, filled with anger.

‘What is this?’ he cried aloud.
‘I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want me to be. Why all these
obstructions and difficulties? Don’t tell me love will open this
door.’

With a cry of rage, he gripped
the horns and blasted the crystals with the energy of his emotion.
He was sure his mind would burst with the effort, but then it
seemed he broke through an invisible barrier. The crystals sang out
their tones for him, and a bolt of energy knocked him backwards,
although he did not fall. His body was shaking. Something was
different. Something…

He became aware of an alien
presence around and within him; an unfamiliar personality that
haunted the corners of his mind. The etheric temperature had become
lower and his body seemed to be moving in a way that was strange to
him. He stumbled forward and of its own volition, his body
straightened up before the doors. Instinctively, he raised his arms
high and a voice issued from his throat. It was not his voice.

‘I am Sin-Na-Ru! I am the
Opener. Open unto me.’

Immediately, and with almost
inappropriate slowness, the doors swung gently inwards. At the same
time, the alien presence rushed out of him, in a spasm that felt as
if his whole body was sneezing violently. Shemyaza did not pause to
think about what had just occurred. He hurled himself through the
doors before they could swing closed.

Shemyaza lay winded on a hard
surface, his eyes squeezed shut. He felt totally spent. Gradually,
a deep rhythmic sound seeped into his awareness. It was impossible
to classify accurately, as it sounded like a sibilant drum, a deep
heartbeat and gravel shifting all at the same time. The pounding
became louder, until it filled the whole chamber. Shemyaza opened
his eyes.

He was in a trapezoid room that
was wider behind him than ahead. The door through which he’d
entered had already closed again. Doors led off to left and right
and there was another in the opposite wall. Shemyaza lay down again
on his back, with his knees raised. There was time to recuperate
now. He would allow himself that. Feelings coursed through him:
shock, ecstasy, relief. This was one of the twelve antechambers to
the Crystal Chamber itself. Only one more obstacle lay ahead: the
door in the opposite wall.

Once he felt rested, he sat up
to examine his surroundings. The chamber was lit by an invisible
light source and built entirely of the familiar, polished green
stone. Its floor was carved with deep concentric grooves, trisected
by straight channels that led from the centre of the circles to
each of the three doors ahead. Shemyaza recognised them from Tiy’s
descriptions of the Chambers. The straight furrows were part of a
geometric pattern that connected all the ante-chambers with the
great, central chamber itself. In the middle of the concentric
grooves lay a deep hole, which presumably was once used to
accommodate a crystal key, similar to the one he’d left in the Hall
of the Twelve. The walls of the ante-chamber were covered in
abstract patterns; cubes, oblongs, triangles and dots, which
Shemyaza identified as the script of the Elders. The room felt
unthinkably ancient, but the patterns and the substance of the
walls themselves reminded him of an advanced technology. There was
something strangely futuristic about the place.

In the distant past, each
ante-chamber would have been used by one of the Twelve as a place
to prepare for communication with the source of all creation, which
they accessed via the crystal gate in the central room. The Elders
had used a process that enabled them to resonate their astral
bodies with the sonic vibrations emitted by their key crystals.
These astral forms, once freed from the encumbrance of flesh, were
able to traverse the grooves cut into the floor, using them as
etheric highways. The astral forms were projected along the
interconnected lines towards the crystal gate in the central
chamber, and there the Elders would enter into its matrix.
Neolithic shamans had once learned to use the energy of ley-lines
in much the same way, and had travelled in spirit along lines of
earth energy that criss-crossed the land. This was one aspect of
the Elders’ vast knowledge of natural science and technology, which
over the millennia had become shrouded in ignorance and lost,
remembered only as magic or sorcery

Shemyaza knew that if he
succeeded in his task, the science of the Elders would be
rediscovered and utilised for the benefit of all. If humanity were
able to harness the power of their own natural life-force they
would have access to free energy. The implications were enormous.
At the very least, the planet would be saved from environmental
destruction. And that would only be the beginning. Soon, if all
went well, scientists and archaeologists would come to these
chambers and embark upon deciphering the Elder script. Perhaps they
would learn the secrets of the Chambers and the power that built
them. And maybe, with that knowledge, they would see the folly of
their narrow-minded beliefs, and learn to initiate change. They
might dare to dream; anathema at present to those lords of academe,
who clung to what was solid and physical, and understood only by
the limited perceptions of the human intellect.

Shemyaza got to his feet,
putting aside these ideas for the future. They would remain as
dreams if he did not fulfil his destiny. Before he could make a
decision about whether to investigate the other ante-chambers or go
straight for the heart of the complex, the air became filled with a
buzzing noise similar to static electricity. Shemyaza’s astral body
shivered in alarm. He turned round quickly and found himself face
to face with a tall, alien figure that towered over him by at least
a foot. Shemyaza instinctively backed away. One of the Elders stood
before him, but this was impossible. They had long been dead.

The image shimmered like a
badly-tuned TV picture, then appeared to become completely solid.
The muscles of the Elder’s face rippled with small, subtle
movements that conveyed communication. His eyebrows rose and fell,
his mouth pursed and stretched, he blinked and twitched the muscles
of his cheeks and throat. It was a form of speaking, but without
language. Shemyaza understood the Elder completely, almost as if he
could hear the words. ‘I have waited long for the advent of a child
of the Twelve. A son of Kharsag has come. I have analysed your
etheric substance. It is apt that you are of Ku-na-el’s seed.’

Shemyaza approached with caution. The
Elder had communicated his message and now stood expressionless and
utterly without movement. Shemyaza had never beheld such stillness.
Like the ghostly forms he had encountered in the Hall of the
Twelve, the Elder was dressed in a turquoise robe of thin,
shimmering fabric, embroidered with silver thread. Around his neck,
he wore a peculiar necklace of golden balls, perhaps a symbol of
office. His long white hair fell down over his chest, but apart
from that, he appeared to have no body hair at all. His skin was as
glossy as polished stone, and his smoking blue eyes gazed upon
infinity.