Stealing Sacred Fire (51 page)

Shemyaza reached out to touch
the Elder’s robe but before his reaching fingers made contact,
communication began again; a strange twitching of features.

‘I am the essence of Ish-na-el.
You have penetrated to the core of the complex. You that have come:
know the history of the Millennia of Eternities.’

Shemyaza was unsure of whether
the Elder existed in reality or not. ‘I am Shemyaza,’ he said
slowly.

The Elder’s features moved
again. ‘You are the one who has come, and your advent presages the
time when the Chambers may be reopened. I am the last of the
Twelve. A memory of my image will be placed here to guard this
complex. We, the Twelve, will then return to the Source, but a part
of me will be left behind to assist you with your task. It is the
duty of my son, Ra-Na-El, to complete the closure of the Chambers,
and this he will do, after my word.’

Shemyaza still wanted proof
that the image before him was interactive. ‘Tell me, Ish-na-el, how
do you know it is time for the chambers to be reopened?’

The Elder’s eyes seemed to fix
upon him. ‘Know this, son of Kharsag. As the seers of your time
look into the past, so our eyes have looked into the future. Even
as we are forced to close down the complex, we are aware that they
will one day be reactivated and used in wisdom. As you stand here,
the pole star has revolved through its seven axes six times. Six of
the twelve stellar constellations have risen before the eyes of the
Watcher, Hor-em-Akhet. The aeons of their influence have come and
gone. Now is the time for the constellation of Mankind to
rise.’

‘Ish-na-el, can you hear my
words? Do you speak to me?’

Ish-na-el seemed to smile, but
perhaps it was just the expression of a word. ‘Your world is not my
world. I no longer exist. I am a projected memory, here merely to
grant you knowledge of the word. I can no longer generate sound.
Words are lost to me, and the word alone will open the portal. Your
spirit body is the comprehension of sound and etheric light. You
must speak the word of opening. I will accompany you on your
journey to come, for by the agency of your spirit, this part of me
will return to the Source, whence my brethren have long retired,
and there forever remain.’

‘What happened to you?’
Shemyaza asked. ‘Why did you close the Chambers down?’

‘The age of our empire is
coming to an end. We have created many empires, and each one of
them has ended in destruction. This is the cycle laid down by the
will of the Source. We, the Twelve, are not the only council who
seek to govern the evolution of life. The Renowned Old Ones are the
keepers of genesis and through us, their creations, they bring
evolution to worlds and light from the Source, to the flesh of
worldly creatures. But there is an equal and opposite force, whose
nature is to stop the process of genesis and to extinguish the
life-giving light that comes from the Source. The denizens of this
force are known in your tongue as the Star-Spawn of Da’ath. Their
names cannot be given to you in our language. Know only that their
existence is as fundamental to the multiverse as that of the
Renowned Old Ones. In this way, the balance of creation and
destruction is maintained. Our purpose is only to create. We cannot
destroy, and so the Chambers must be preserved and closed. Then we,
the Twelve, will disperse our hybrid families out into the world to
bring genesis to new cultures.’

Shemyaza walked around the
Elder, examining him. ‘What happened to you? Why did your empire
end?’

The image of Ish-na-el
shimmered briefly, as if he shuddered at the recollection. ‘One of
our Brethren, Ku-na-el, has turned away from acts of creation. He
no longer travels with us through the stars to commune with the
Source. He no longer brings back the essence of creation, but
traverses the land above, recreating himself as a god in the eyes
of the humans who dwell there. His shallow hubris has changed the
function of these Chambers. One of the Star Spawn of Da’ath has
found entry to this world through the crystal gate. Its presence
has begun to affect the planet’s atmosphere and the earth’s crust
itself has shifted. This has caused great cataclysms, and we must
now close down the complex to preserve the work we have
accomplished and seal the gate. Thus, the Star Spawn will be denied
entry.’

Shemyaza faced the Elder once
more. ‘How did you close the chambers down?’

‘The tones of life within the
crystal gate have already been silenced. With what remains of our
power here, we the Twelve, have created a symbol in stone of the
constellation of the lion, which after the final procedures of
closure have been completed, will seal the entrance to the
Chambers. This great monument to our fall is He Who Watches, who Is
Hor-em-Akhet. He will be left in this place to mark the age in
which our empire here ended. His function is to watch the
precession of the equinoxes. As you stand here, the time has come
for Hor-em-Akhet to reveal his secrets to the world, and this
process has facilitated the advent of your coming.’

‘The Sphinx...’ Shemyaza said.
‘Were you responsible for erecting the pyramids as well?’

‘We know of these structures.
We have seen four aeons into the future and have witnessed their
construction. In that time, an initiate of Thoth, who is Imhotep,
will find the gate of the Cosmocrator and there devise the plans to
build three mighty edifices to map out the stars of Cosmocrator’s
law.’

Shemyaza spoke bleakly. ‘The
stars of Orion. My prison, my hell and my heaven.’

‘The edifices of Imhotep will
draw from below the remnants of our power in these Chambers. Within
the pyramids, kings and priests will, for but a brief time, be
initiated into the forgotten ways of our law. Ku-na-el seeks to
destroy us, and all our work, but he will fail. This land will
remember, and through those memories the races of the world will
dream in symbols the legacy of our achievements.’

Shemyaza frowned. ‘When I first
entered here, you told me that I was the seed of Ku-na-el. How is
that so? If I was, then surely I would not have been granted
entrance.’

‘He that changed the function
of these Chambers must come to initiate its reversal. You are the
son of Anu, who is the son of Ku-na-el. Throughout the generations
of your blood-line, our fall has been replayed.’ The Elder paused,
and lifted his hands. ‘Now come unto me. The history is told. Speak
the word, and together we shall open the crystal gate once more. We
shall traverse the duat back to the centre of the circle of
life.’

Shemyaza sighed. ‘This means,
then, I will not return to life on earth.’ He had hoped it might be
possible and experienced a pang of lonely desolation, glimpsing an
eternity of the emptiness of space, lit by cold stars.

Ish-na-el again seemed to smile. ‘Fear
not, son of Kharsag. Your province on this world has far from
ended. Hor-em-Akhet will open the way for your return.’

Shemyaza saw that the image of
Ish-na-el hovered an inch or so above the floor at the centre of
the chamber, directly over the deeply-cut hole. ‘I left the key
crystal in the Hall of the Twelve,’ he said. ‘What can I use in its
place?’

‘It is of no consequence,’
Ish-na-el replied. ‘Your form is of sound within light. We need
only the word of power to gain entry into the crystal gate.’

Ish-na-el beckoned Shemyaza to
draw nearer. ‘Now, take unto you the remnants of my image.’

Shemyaza walked right up to
Ish-na-el and found the Elder lacked solid substance, like a
phantom. Standing within the image, he felt the essence of
Ish-na-el vibrating all around him, melding with his own being.
Once he had absorbed this life-force, he could barely feel the
Elder’s presence. Standing tall, he faced the closed doors that led
to the central chamber and opened his mouth to expel the word of
opening in a gust of energy: ‘Ak-shee!’

At once the doors flew open and
Shemyaza felt himself drawn swiftly along the deeply-cut groove in
the floor that led out of the chamber. He was an etheric liquid
flowing hectically along the stone channel. Propelled into the
central chamber, he sped towards the great crystal itself. Its
immense and terrifying image burned into his senses. The crystal
was conical; a rearing structure that symbolised creative power,
far larger than the stone he had entered in the Cornish underworld.
Its exterior at first appeared rough and dull, but then a shining
bolt of energy preceded Shemyaza’s spirit to its core. Its heart
began to glow with a rosy light.

Shemyaza was drawn into the
stone itself, passing easily through the particles of the matrix.
This was almost a familiar feeling, similar to what he’d
experienced only five years before in Cornwall. He was suspended
within the stone, surrounded by flashing colours of the spectrum.
This was where the sensation of familiarity ended.

Shemyaza felt his spirit begin
to separate into seven distinct spheres of pure light and energy.
They floated and bobbed, each a dazzling spectral colour.
Shemyaza’s mind was also divided into the spheres. In yellow-gold
resided pure awareness; in flaming orange, reasoning; in violet,
intuition; in blue, wisdom; in crimson, will; in green, emotion and
in indigo, understanding. Shemyaza was suffused with a feeling of
comfort: through his seven minds, his brethren were still with him.
Ish-na-el’s essential presence also remained within and around him,
but there was now no communication between them.

Shemyaza became aware that the
spheres of his being had begun to oscillate rapidly within the
crystal matrix. He could sense once again the seven strident tones
that had cleared the entrance shaft to the chambers. The
oscillation increased and then, in one shattering wave, Shemyaza’s
spirit bodies exploded into white light that shimmered with tiny
crystal flecks of their original colour. He became one with the
crystal and passed through the particles that comprised it, into
the spaces between them. The white light had vanished and only
blackness enveloped his consciousness.

Shemyaza had passed through the
gateway and was now travelling fast. He sensed he was being pulled,
but was unable to discern any sense of direction. He could not see
any stars, but was aware that he was traversing the duat, which
comprised the constellations of Sirius, Orion, Leo and the
Hyades.

His awareness had become
limitless. He could feel the presence of every atom of matter in
the universe, avoiding collision with them through sub-atomic
resonance. Space and time itself folded around him. He moved
through the eternal, amorphic sea of black matter, which existed in
a constant state of flux and mutability.

When the journey ended, the
particles that had been Shemyaza had not experienced a sense of the
passage of time. He had simply stopped moving, and was no longer
aware of the moment when his movement had begun or ended. All that
existed was nothingness, without form: a void empty of structured
matter, time and life. Then, in the utter neverness, dim red
discarnate masses began to form around him. They throbbed with an
indescribable energy, pulsating like great jelly-fish, hanging in
the vastness of this space beyond all stars. Their appearance was
amorphic, but Shemyaza sensed they were comprised of the primal
substance from which all life derived. He knew then that he had
reached the centre of the universe; the point of creation. It was
the nucleus of the cosmic pool, from where the concentric ripples
of life had surged outwards. The energy beings, who were the
inhabitants of this realm, could not communicate with Shemyaza
through language, or even through thought. They imbued him with
instinctual knowledge, through perpetually emitting the resonance
of three tones. In this manner they informed him that they were the
Great Architects, the primordial beings of all creation, the source
of all gods. The three tones, which Shemyaza had first heard in the
Chambers of Light, were their building blocks: a sonic force that
through the medium of light created matter itself and transmuted
that matter into life. From them, the Renowned Old Ones had issued
forth, as cosmic seed to inseminate with life the barren worlds of
the multiverse.

The tones resonated through the
discarnate particles of Shemyaza’s mind, their vibrations telling
him he must become as the Renowned Old Ones. He had only to name
the three tones.

Shemyaza extended his senses
throughout the multiverse, seeking the names. They existed
somewhere, and no realm was denied to him, but he failed to find
the knowledge he sought. Then, the presence of Ish-na-el pervaded
his being once more. The Elder was leaving him, but in his passing,
bestowed to Shemyaza awareness of the names. It was his final gift
of creation.

The first tone Shemyaza named
Ain; the second Ain Soph; the third Ain Soph Aur. Instantaneously,
the blackness became limitless white light. He felt a great sense
of coagulation and pressure. Immeasurable heat and sound surrounded
him, as all of the particles of his being condensed together.

His form had changed. Now, he
was a gigantic, tear-drop shaped creature of light, almost
cetaceous in nature. He sped back through the void, and the three
primal tones vibrated through him and out of him, in the endless
black ocean between the stars. The tones constructed new life and
he would bring them back to the world of his own conception.

The crystal gate was waiting,
as a womb waits for the fertilising seed. Shemyaza’s energy form
returned to it, penetrating through the surface shell of its
matrix, like the explosion of a crashing meteorite. He buried
himself deep inside, burrowing to the centre. The tones still
pulsed out of his being, boring into the core of the crystal’s
energy source. A spark of white light flickered into life
there.