Tell Me I'm Dreamin' (34 page)

Melanie was stunned into silence by the transforming vibrations of the music, the trance-inducing smoke, and the cliff dwellers' chant, but the guilt upon Rodney's face told the entire story.

As if by secret command, five young girls carrying tiny mounts fashioned from the cliff dwellers' stone came forward and stood in a semicircle beside the high elder. The four outsiders watched as the head female took the jade slab from the wooden case and placed it within Ulysses' bronze one. Afterwards she brought the bronze case which now held the original Five Pieces of Gaia forward, and stood among the other females.

The high elder's lips turned up in an almost imperceptible smile as he looked over the contents of the ancient bronze case, and his wise gaze rose and held the supportive gaze of the eldest female.

Slowly, she extended the case forward, and with reverence he removed his headband, laying it inside the open lid. One of the female cliff dwellers who attended Nadine stepped forward and gave the papyri Nadine had placed inside her pocket to the elder. He held the papyri in one hand as he slid apart the carved bronze sheets inside the lid, revealing the secret compartments. Then, with reverence, he unrolled the pages and placed them inside the lid, before concealing them behind the shield. Next, one by one the elder removed the gold coins, with their images of the cliff dwellers' symbol, from the headband, and placed them inside the carved medallions on each of the slabs. When the elder turned the coins they acted like ancient keys, opening the stones. This allowed the female cliff dweller to remove the manuscript. Afterwards the slabs were closed and put on the mounts held by the five young attendants. Once the last stone was mounted, the onlooking cliff dwellers brought their soul-satisfying melody to an end.

Chapter
29

The high elder looked out into the throngs of his fellow cliff dwellers and began to speak. First he motioned toward Ulysses and Nadine, then Melanie and Rodney as he talked in his native tongue. Ulysses was the only one of the four who understood his message, and despite his obvious indignation toward her, in a voice that sounded far off even to her own ears, Nadine could not resist asking what the cliff dweller was saying. Ulysses responded as if he were in a semi-trance, translating the ceremonial words.

“The Rite of Commencement could not take place without bringing together the symbols of good and evil.” His rich voice reached out to her through a pleasant mental haze. “Both were part of the original cause. Evil, the dark, had to be born to prove the power of the light, for all comes from God/Goddess/All That Is. Everything from the tiniest stone, to every human being, to Gaia herself, is an expression of the trilogy. The uniting has begun and in the end darkness will be no more.”

Melanie could only hear the low hum of Ulysses' voice, and although the trance-inducing smoke was taking hold, she visibly blanched as she stared at the five original pieces in their sacred holders. Her mind resisted understanding that all along the cliff dwellers had known who the true owner of the manuscript and the Five Pieces of Gaia was. She had underestimated these people who appeared to be uneducated and uncivilized. How could she accept that all the years she and her mother had spent dreaming of owning the cliff dwellers' jewels had come to naught?

Melanie had come to the cliffs believing she could outwit these primitive people, but in reality they had not only outsmarted her, but had prophesied her coming to their settlement as well.

She thought of how her life might have been different had she not become obsessed with possessing the jewels, and she thought of all the hideous things she had done to obtain them. The jewels had been her sole motivation in life since her mother first shared the secret with her. A secret Evelyn felt would free her daughter, but had actually chained her to a life of evil intent, and had contributed to creating the twisted person she had become.

Melanie thought of the years she had seduced her youngest brother, inviting him to know her in ways that were indecent, obscene. How she had felt triumphant and powerful at the confusion in his dark eyes. Eyes that longed for motherly love. Their mother's love. Eyes that had witnessed the death of their brother. A death that she had wanted. Planned.

On the verge of hysteria Melanie rose up, crying and laughing melodiously. The sound rang within the quiet cavern as her glazed eyes scoured her brother then Ulysses and Nadine. With Melanie's rise the cliff dwellers' music began again, this time a combination of rich, even tones, flowing from instruments created from seashells.

The music seemed to coerce Melanie further into her madness, and she began to spin and turn in a maniacal primitive manner, working her way toward the platform and the ritual fire. To Nadine it was like watching a strange ballet, Melanie's display of animated madness accompanied by the cliff dwellers' song.

Melanie danced about the ring of fire, her wild, flailing arms graceful in their insanity as she swayed perilously close to the edge. In the beginning the wailing was almost indiscernible it mounted so slowly. First, like a distant calling, the high feminine voices of the cliff dwellers were hypnotic as they accompanied the concluding notes of the ritualistic music. Their peaking notes foretold the end was near.

By now the trance-inducing smoke was in full command, and as if in a waking dream, Nadine, Ulysses, Rodney, and the cliff dwellers watched Melanie take a final leap into the ring of fire. There were no cries of anguish or terror from her or the hypnotized onlookers, only the vibration of a shrill final note struck on the quivering strings of an instrument resembling a lyre.

Unmoved by the scene before her, Nadine continued to stare at the ceremonial fire that had become Melanie's funeral pyre. Words which seemed like her own filled her mind. The dark will be enticed by the light, seduced by the Five Pieces of Gaia and named similar to a melody. Melanie.

Somewhere behind her she heard the sound of grating stone. The bizarre incident was over, and was accepted by all as the rightful end to Melanie's horrid, tragic life.

By command Nadine and Ulysses rose and followed the head cliff dwellers through a newly revealed opening to an adjoining cavern. Several males and females followed before the stone door was closed behind them. Rodney remained in the outer cavern in blissful silence.

A rainbow of colors met Nadine and Ulysses as they entered the space on the other side of the stone. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Small fires had been lit and placed strategically throughout a grotto. The flames were enclosed in mounted rings of quartz crystals, amethyst, rose quartz, jade, and tiger's-eye; therefore each fire was encapsulated by a tiny wall of white, purple, pink, green, and brownish-gold. The marvels created colorful, natural spotlights.

A profusion of long streamers made of blossoms and green leaves hung throughout the grotto, decorating uneven walls of cliffs and crannies. It was a natural fantasyland with several small waterfalls tumbling into a sapphire-blue lake. A boat fashioned like a scallop shell floated silently upon it. The masthead on the tiny bow was an exquisite young girl, delicately holding a butterfly in her hands.

Two males led Ulysses to a cliff where he was undressed and bathed under a trickling waterfall that fell into the crystal lake. His dark-brown skin gleamed from the water's touch as he stood beneath its gently massaging fingers. The shower plastered his black curls to his head. Ulysses' face turned up toward the source of the water, and his thick lashes imprisoned the luminescent beads like a silken spiderweb.

The sound of the gently rushing waterfalls pressed upon Nadine's consciousness as the ceremonial white robe she wore was removed from her slender shoulders. Coaxed, she was led to the tiny boat trimmed in peonies and orchids. Nadine sat obediently as the tiny craft was steered through the clear water toward the platform where Ulysses waited.

Despite the silent cliff dwellers who watched at a distance, and those who assisted them, when Ulysses and Nadine looked at one another they could have been the only two human beings on earth, existing in a phenomenal haven so far removed from the reality they had always known. Their actions reflected their feelings as he guided her behind the translucent shield of the waterfall, where a soft covering of pummeled reeds awaited them. Like Melanie, they too had a predestined role to play. Their union would mark the beginning of a new way of living for the cliff dwellers on Eros that would reverberate throughout the indigenous peoples of Gaia, Mother Earth.

It was all part of the prophecy. Melanie, the dark, whose hidden passions had distorted her view of life, allowing greed to be her master, had been consumed by the fiery blazing light. Ulysses, the dark, who had never let the light of love shine fully upon him, would soon be physically consumed by the fiery passion and pure love of Nadine, the present reflection of the light one.

Closing his eyes, Ulysses sat cross-legged upon the reeds and waited for the warm feel of Nadine's nude body to descend upon him. She wrapped her supple lower limbs around the base of his back, then they held each other tight, their bodies flush.

Initially, they sat very still, inhaling the mellow aroma of the smoking braided twine that burned in nearby crevices, their only conscious thought being the smoothness of the other's body, and the sound of the other's breath.

But soon their breathing turned deep and synchronized, and their bodies resembled one flowing instrument as nature took its course. Small moans escaped Nadine's lips as Ulysses' hands began to explore the velvety softness of her back. His fingers strummed up and down her spine as if they were playing an instrument.

Nadine's hands also began to explore, and she combed through the ebony curls that nestled at the base of Ulysses' strong neck. They felt slick and cool to her touch, and the need to get even closer to him overwhelmed her as she nestled her face in the space between his neck and shoulder.

Tiny whimpering noises like those of a young animal in need of love and affection formed deep in Nadine's throat. The sounds were answered by Ulysses' mating call, a throaty guttural noise, and the couple nuzzled each other in an affectionate primitive display.

At first their kisses were meager samples of the other's lips. Tiny, testing strokes of their tongues. Soon they evolved to slower, more languid explorations, their lips welding together as the passion mounted between them, until the kisses were deep and draining. The potency of the kisses plunged Ulysses and Nadine into a drunken state of unparalleled eroticism.

The cliff dwellers who had been watching from a distance, all except the head female, left through the stone entrance. With decorum she turned her back, and began to read from the manuscript hidden within the original Five Pieces of Gaia.

Ulysses and Nadine were oblivious to the goings-on around them. Somehow they had been transported to a place and time where love and sex were the epitome of communication and giving between a woman and a man. The movements and murmurings were sacred.

Free of the societal guilts that are present to lovers, Nadine gave of herself to Ulysses, pressing her small rounded breasts against his eager lips, urging him on with strange utterances that he reciprocated as he traced each bud with a feverish tongue.

With escalating intensity she gave back the loving attention, each one wanting to give the other the ultimate pleasure. Their bodies positioned themselves to ensure their desires were carried out, and they focused on the most sensuous spots of their being, until neither could take any more. The ache for their physical union had become a burning force.

Nadine opened to Ulysses with complete abandon, and his entrance itself sent intense pleasure throughout their bodies. Bright sparks of color passed rapidly behind her closed eyelids as the fluid motions of their bodies propelled them forward. Now their union became more than a physical experience as Ulysses and Nadine shared the same mental pictures. They saw themselves hurtling together toward a center of light. The closer they came, the more intense the pleasure grew. When they entered the light's core their bodies and minds exploded in ecstasy.

Again Nadine called out the strange phrase,
“Mu Kam-ma xi!”
Mu shall rise again! Then she and Ulysses both passed into a sleep of oblivion.

Chapter
30

Nadine awoke to bright sunlight pressing against her defensive eyelids. She wriggled down further into the soft, comforting covers. She wanted to remain in the world of dreams where her body coveted a soulful satisfaction it had never known before. But she could not avoid the pull of reality as her hazel eyes opened under the white coverlet. Was it a gossamer net? Or . . . then Nadine realized she was lying in her bed.

She pulled the covers down from her head, and looked at the familiar surroundings of her bedroom at Sovereign. Bits and pieces of memory floated in her mind, but there was no continuity as she tried to separate reality from her dreams.

The last place she remembered being was in the cliff dwellers' cave, kneeling beside Ulysses. She was hurt by what she had seen in his eyes. They told her he loathed her. But that was all she could remember, and she wondered how she had gotten back to Sovereign.

Nadine threw back the linen coverlet to look for the markings the female cliff dwellers had made on her legs and arms. There was no trace of them. Quickly, she put on her robe and dashed down the hall to Ulysses' bedroom door. Before she could knock the door opened. There he stood, fully dressed. She could smell the fresh soap from his morning bath.

“Ulysses . . . for a moment . . . I tell you I am totally confused,” she said, then rushed on. “I woke up and realized I was back here, at Sovereign.” She stretched out her arms for her own benefit as well as his. “The painted markings, and everything associated with the cliff dwellers' cave is gone. I don't even remember how I got back to the house.” She raised her hands, befuddled. “Did you, I mean, do you remember what happened last night?”