The Cosmic Logos (45 page)

‘I hate to say it, sonny,' the watery spirit garbled, sounding as if it were speaking underwater, ‘but I think our master has led you a merry dance if that is what you believe. A human guardian of the Otherworld,' it suggested in jest and started another fit of laughter from all bar the Earth elemental.

‘We should inform our lord of this impostor,' the glowing green face suggested in a booming voice.

‘I am on to it,' the golden face of air spirits immediately calmed down to advise in a speedy manner.

‘Is this part of my initiation?' Avery wondered out loud.

‘The Night Hunter is here,' announced the Earth elemental as the Lord of the Otherworld passed through
it to stand in the calm inner circle of the whirlwind to confront Avery.

Avery was so relieved to see his mentor that he wanted to hug him, but refrained. ‘Night Hunter, I am so pleased to see you.'

‘You are out of time, lad. No one here calls me by that name.' Gwyn folded his arms and frowned, most disenchanted. ‘Who are you, and what do you want?'

‘He claims he's your successor, lord,' Earth boomed for his information.

‘But that won't happen for eons, yet,' Avery added, as the Night Hunter seemed to be most affronted by the statement. ‘You were right, I am out of time. The future —'

‘Eons, you say?' Gwyn was most infuriated. ‘My forefather's are going to leave me stuck in this realm for eons!'

Avery was intrigued by the Night Hunter's response. ‘Well, it takes that long for the rest of your kindred to finally give up Earth-bound existence, so I guess your Logos figured your soul-mind had nowhere better to go until then.'

Gwyn was clearly impressed by the extent of Avery's knowledge. ‘You are very clever, for a human being,' he granted.

‘Maybe that's why I was chosen to be your apprentice.' Avery ventured to be a little cocky, a trait he knew Gwyn ap Nudd was well disposed towards.

Avery couldn't tell for the life of him if the Night Hunter was testing him, or if he really didn't remember him. One possibility was that the Night Hunter had yet to fully develop all his etheric world abilities, including
future sight. It sounded to Avery like the Night Hunter's Logos, Anu, was withholding certain details of the divine plan until such time as the Lord of the Otherworld was deemed ready to be made privy to it. For the first time in the whole of his tuition, Avery began to wonder: ‘What did you do, Night Hunter, to become the King of the Otherworld? Did you ever belong to the physical world?'

The query seemed to spark something in the lord and he became perturbed. ‘I did not come here to be interrogated. It is you who are trespassing in my realm and thus I shall ask the questions.' The Night Hunter, who was a good foot taller than Avery, walked forward to tower over him. ‘Now, what is it you want, boy? I'm very busy.'

Fortunately, Avery was not easily intimidated and so floated up into the air until he equalled the Night Hunter in height. ‘I was hoping to put this city to sleep for a couple of weeks, and then bring down the shield that is protecting the Dark Lodge.'

Gwyn had never been impressed by a human before — certainly not a male of the species, anyway. ‘But that would aid humanity, which is not my department.' He sidestepped the request.

‘Well, whose department is it?' Avery argued, although he knew what the answer would be.

‘The White Brotherhood,' Gwyn replied, predictably. ‘And they don't want Atlantis saved.'

‘Ah! But they do want Electra and Prometheus spared,' Avery shot back.

‘Then I shall get them safely away,' Gwyn offered.

‘Prometheus won't leave without destroying Aegisthus first.'

‘Then he shall lose his second chance at love and his son's mission will fail,' Gywn shrugged. ‘I don't interfere with the evolution of man. They are making their own bed and they will lie in it.'

‘
Quid pro quo
,' Avery suggested as the Night Hunter turned to depart. ‘If you help me, I shall tell you anything about your future that you want to know. Everything that your Logos has kept from you.'

The Night Hunter stopped in his tracks and slowly turned back to the lad. ‘You assume too much. Don't try and call my bluff, boy, or you'll find yourself rotting where the sun don't shine.'

‘Then forget doing this for humanity,' Avery suggested. ‘Do it for those god-ignorant elementals that are being drawn into the service of the Dark Lodge. Are they not your responsibility?'

‘Yes, sire. Vast numbers of our underdeveloped beings are being attracted to the promise of the quick physical manifestation that the dark path offers,' Air confirmed.

‘It is of their own will that man and elemental alike flock to the service of the materialistic.' Gwyn washed his hands of the issue. ‘It is humanity that is retarding elemental growth, not I,' he reminded the elementals around him, as they seemed to be disappointed by his words.

‘And who retarded humanity's behaviour?' Avery argued. ‘The Nefilim, of whom you are one.'

‘You should get your facts straight, boy,' Gwyn
fumed, and the large elemental faces that towered around them started to look a little worried. ‘Firstly, I was never physically one of the Nefilim, but a Silent Watcher. I perform a different task in the great scheme from my kindred inhabiting the physical universe. And secondly, the Nefilim only ever affected human behaviour on a physical level. Other extra-terrestrial intelligences are to blame for humanity's consciousness. So, my cocky young friend, you're on your own.'

‘And what of elemental consciousness?' Avery called after the Night Hunter. ‘As man must learn unconditional love of all things, so must the denizens of your kingdom learn it.' Suddenly Avery realised what Gwyn ap Nudd's task in the great scheme was. ‘Is that not your mission for your Logos? To come to an understanding of the love principle that was spawned on Gaia. Ah, that's why you choose to keep your office here,' Avery guessed.

‘I'd do just fine if humans didn't keep confusing the issue,' Gwyn snapped. ‘Go back to where you belong and do not anger me further.'

‘I know you succeed in your quest,' Avery blurted out.

It took a moment, but the Night Hunter calmed down as he considered the claim. ‘But to understand love I would have to —'

‘Fall in love, yes,' Avery confirmed. ‘Although legend has it that you do have a few misadventures before you settle down.'

‘Tell me more.' Gwyn was definitely interested.

‘Put Chailidocean in stasis and I'll have two weeks to fill you in,' Avery said, fully expecting to get the offer thrown back in his face.

‘Granted.' Gwyn dismissed the elementals with a flick of his hand, whereupon they rushed off over the city and everything froze in its place. The Night Hunter manifested a luxurious lounge to sit upon and made himself comfortable. ‘Now talk.'

Avery was a little stunned by his quick reversal of fortune and looking around he saw that Rhun, Prometheus and Electra were frozen in time with everything else. ‘I need those people —'

‘Should have said so before,' the Night Hunter dismissed the objection. ‘Talk.'

The clouds in the sky above Avery's head were still moving, as was the sun, but their shadows were the only thing that moved in Chailidocean.

In the future I shall be capable of such a feat.
Avery was suddenly overcome by his own potential.

The Night Hunter caught the lad's thought. ‘What's your story, anyway? How did you get chosen to succeed me?'

Avery shrugged nonchalantly, although in the midst of a revelation. ‘You knew I was coming before I was born. You never told me why I was chosen, but maybe it was because of this very instance.'

‘Well, you've not impressed me a great deal so far.' Gwyn lied for he knew damn well the lad had nearly enchanted his elementals from beneath him. Had he not given them the order to aid Avery, they may well have joined his cause against Gwyn's will. The elementals
were well disposed towards this human. ‘I can withdraw my favour as easily as I bestowed it …' He urged the human to get over his sense of wonderment and get on with his tutorial.

‘Sorry.' Avery snapped to it. ‘Where do you want me to start?'

Gwyn served the lad a presumptuous look. ‘Tell me of my love.'

T
he days and nights rolled past as Avery talked himself hoarse about the future events that Gwyn ap Nudd would be involved in.

On the morning of the final day of the agreed time period, the Night Hunter seemed fairly satisfied with Avery's effort and so assured him that Prometheus's son had completed his mission for the Master Enki. Deukalion was now well prepared for the great deluge that would be forthcoming after this day.

‘So Atlantis will be destroyed no matter how my brother and I interfere with her history?'

‘What the Great Lodge has deemed necessary for humankind's advancement, cannot and should not be changed.' Gwyn advised. ‘Personally, I don't care either way, as I am involved in elemental and devanic
evolution, which humans facilitate no matter the lodge they are dedicated to, dark or light.'

‘You mean to say that you don't care whether Gaia becomes a Logos filled with enlightened souls or a dead moon incapable of sustaining life?' This was not the same Gwyn ap Nudd that Avery knew and respected. ‘You'll just sit on the fence and watch the great plan go to hell?'

‘You wanted to know how I became Lord of the Otherworld.' Gwyn raised the subject to clarify something. ‘It is because I have no real desire to be involved in this human evolutionary scheme, either materialistically or spiritually. That is why I am stationed here in the ethereal realm of non-movement. Whatever wraps this up and gets me home fastest, I'm all for it.' The lord rose from his lounge to have a stretch.

Avery was irked by the lord's attitude. ‘Then why did you bother coming to Gaia at all?'

‘I came because my kindred came. I am here to aid them with their passage back to Anu … human consciousness is none of my affair.'

‘After all I've told you about the future, how can you say that? It is humans of advanced consciousness who guide your stray brethren home.' Avery was very disappointed, and frustrated.

‘It was a charming little tale,' Gwyn admitted. ‘Perhaps things will unfold as you say and perhaps they won't.'

The rumbling of the ground beneath his feet caused Avery to refrain from arguing. ‘What is that?'

‘This site marks a ley crossing and as my spell is wearing off, I think you'll find that the rumbling is a build-up of the Shamballa energy that has formed beneath the plateau during the last two weeks,' Gwyn informed him casually. ‘Probably something you should have considered before making your wish.'

Avery was thunderstruck; he was going to ask the Night Hunter why he hadn't informed him of this when Avery had made his request to put the city to sleep, but the answer was obvious. Gwyn ap Nudd didn't like human beings.

‘Only once before has Shamballa released a large pulse of inspiration to the planet, bypassing the hierarchy that stand as mediators between humanity and the Logos — an “Impact” as it is known in the Lodges. Yet, while we spoke —'

‘Oh no,' Avery begged not to know what was coming.

Gwyn nodded. ‘Once my spell wears off completely this dammed energy is going to come bursting forth. If something doesn't channel it out into this world in an orderly fashion, an etheric volcano will erupt out of this mountain and the Logos only knows what kind of repercussions that will have on the physical landscape of Atlantis.' Gwyn teased the lad. ‘I've never dammed up Shamballa energy before, but I'm betting that the force will be enough to sink this shaky landmass, as per the wish of the White Lodge.'

‘What kind of channel do I need?' Avery glanced at Electra, knowing that she'd channelled the energy in a parallel existence, but she had been Mahaud at that
time and she'd had Otherworldly protection in the form of the elemental beings with whom she'd been joined.

‘I know what you're thinking, my cocky young friend,' Gwyn's grin grew wider, ‘but that option is not open to you this time around. However, if your boast of being my apprentice is true, why don't you act as a channel?' He planted the challenge.

‘I could do that?'

‘To be a Lord of the Otherworld you would have to have very highly developed subtle bodies which would act as a magnet for Shamballa energy.'

‘Have you ever done anything like this?' Avery queried, hoping to find out what he could expect from the experience.

‘Hell no.' Gwyn suppressed a laugh. ‘This kind of enterprise is reserved for the Master Rays and the highly adept. The reason being that the channel — you — will tune the Shamballa energy to your own vibration, which means your heart had better be in the right place when you attempt the feat, to save landing your future in a worse predicament.' The Night Hunter succumbed to his amusement and gave a mighty laugh, making out that he did not fancy Avery's chances.

‘But surely my spiritual state of being will serve the future better than Mahaud's did,' he reasoned out loud, hoping that the Night Hunter would back him up on this.

‘Your perspective has been warped by your physical world association,' Gwyn snapped. ‘Mahaud was serving both Lodges when she channelled the energy, completely non-biased as to who profited from the
Impact. She willed the divine will. You shall never be a Lord of the Otherworld until you too cease to judge the great plan of the Allied Logoi.'

‘I don't understand —' Avery appealed as the Night Hunter began to fade.

‘Are you so full of yourself as to believe that you know better than the Logos?'

‘But by favouring the path of light and love, am I not serving the Logos?'

Gwyn ap Nudd vanished and Avery knew he wasn't coming back. The rumbling had intensified, but as Rhun, Prometheus and Electra had yet to become conscious, the spell had obviously not completely worn off. Avery timidly floated into the centre of the site. ‘I will the divine will.' Avery tried to prime his brain and spirit by taking deep breaths. He focused on switching off his emotions, which didn't seem to be working. ‘Father!' Avery cried out in panic, as the rumbling grew louder.
Help me.
He focused his prayer inward.
Tell me what I must do to serve the great plan?

Send love to those you consider your enemies and wish them well.

Avery calmed down immediately, knowing his father was with him.

And to your dark side, most of all, wish all good things to come to pass, for only then shall he see the light.

Avery had never seen Viper's true appearance and he found it difficult willing love to someone he couldn't imagine. But as a feeling of great expectation filled his soul, and heightened quickly to a sense of complete liberation, a clear picture of his adversary took form in
his mind. On seeing Viper for the first time, it was extremely difficult for Avery not to resent the villain. Then he saw that his adversary was in a podlike tube in stasis and Avery, feeling Viper's fear and panic, wished him strength and hope.
He is me,
Avery reminded himself,
only all battered and torn
.
I do feel compassion and gratitude for what he has been through for the benefit of my evolution … for what he still endures for my sake. I shall never judge him until again we two are one.

The powerful force reached the surface of his manifestation and shot directly upwards towards the sky. Then a steady flow of energy split into hundreds of streams of light that shot out across and through the landscape in every direction.

 

Rhun and company awoke in time to witness the event.

Avery was suspended in midair, seemingly unconscious and shaking like a leaf.

Closing his eyes, Rhun focused on his third eye area to employ his etheric sight.

His brother balanced on a great force of etheric light. The fountain of energy entered his back where his heart chakra was located, and then shot out into the world from his chest in all directions until the light burst suddenly ended and Avery dropped to the ground with a thud.

‘Christ almighty,' Rhun muttered, already sprinting for the centre of the site, where he collapsed beside his violently quivering younger brother. ‘Avery?' Rhun rolled him over and was surprised to find the lad coherent. ‘Holy mother. What have you done to yourself?'

‘No time,' Avery stammered. ‘I released Abbadon.'

Rhun looked into the sky, knowing that the last time this happened a mysterious force had beset the laser weapon of an Orion craft, which detonated a force that would sink Atlantis. ‘Save Orestes, and then get them,' Avery nodded towards Electra and Prometheus, ‘out of here.'

‘But —' Rhun couldn't just leave Avery in this frightful state.

‘Come back for us all,' Electra suggested. ‘
Do as he tells you
.' The oracle's presence became very authoritative suddenly and it startled Rhun, as she was so like his mother.

‘And hurry,' Electra added.

 

In Orestes's room of court, Rhun found Shamash looking very impatient. Orestes was looking a little worried about losing the virgin on offer from the Dark Lodge.

‘I am sorry,' Rhun announced as he manifested in their midst. ‘But Electra and Prometheus have been unavoidably detained and have sent me to negotiate on their behalf.'

Who the hell are you?
Shamash was worried, as the intruder was obviously psychically adept and human.

Whomever you fear me to be,
Rhun responded, using the same thought projection process that the Nefilim lord was using in an attempt to intimidate Rhun. He crossed the room and took hold of the vase that Pandora clutched in her hands, whereupon it vanished into thin air.

‘My dowry,' Pandora objected.

‘You'll be much happier without it,' Rhun assured the past-life incarnation of Kila's Governess, before looking back to find Shamash absent. ‘Oh no.' Rhun couldn't figure if the lord's absence was fortuitous or not.
I prefer him where I can see him.
Rhun willed himself after the lord to no avail — either Shamash was using some primitive form of NERGUZ to protect him from detection, or he had returned to the protection of the Dark Lodge's fortress.

‘Take my hands,' he ordered both Orestes and his female companion. ‘Do you wish to live?' he prompted them as they hesitated. The couple complied and took hold.

 

Rejoining his brother on the plateau, Rhun found Avery had recovered the use of his body and was staring out over the city with Electra and Prometheus.

‘What, in the name of the gods, did you just do to me?' Orestes demanded to know as he recovered from the shock of being teleported.

‘He is trying to save your life,' Electra informed him bluntly, none too amused that her brother had been willing to trade her, body and soul, to the Dark Lodge. ‘And if you would be silent now, that would be helpful.'

‘The shield protecting the Dark Lodge is crumbling,' Avery informed his brother. As the shield gave way, Rhun's eyes fixed on the now visible ominous-looking tower which dominated the fortress-like structure.

‘Did you do this?' Rhun queried. This development also echoed the original story of this city's demise.

‘No. Nor was I the one who put this city in stasis.' Avery would have once found this hard to admit.
‘Gwyn ap Nudd,' he answered to his brother's unspoken question. ‘But I doubt he would do this, as he cares not for physical world events unless they threaten his kingdom. The elemental forces in this area overheard me speaking with the Night Hunter and could be aiding me of their own accord … but this would be against their lord's wishes, so —' Avery gasped as he had an awful thought. ‘What if …?' Verging on having a panic attack, Avery looked at Electra. ‘Conjure in your mind an image of Aegisthus.' He gripped hold of the oracle's hand to perceive the sorcerer.

‘Avery!' Rhun ran to tackle his brother and prevent him going anywhere. He slammed into Avery whereupon they were both set off balance.

 

They landed on a marble mosaic of occult design.

‘We don't have time for this,' Rhun hissed as they scampered to their feet to look around the opulent tower room.

‘Oh no.' Avery floated over to view the occupant of a throne-like chair that was facing away from them, in the centre of the large mosaic. ‘It is as I feared.' He backed away upon viewing the seal carved in blood on the sorcerer's stomach and the heart ripped from his chest.

‘Oh! For pity's sake.' Rhun cringed at the carnage, and then gulped on his shock as he recognised the soul-mind behind the sorcerer. ‘Dear Goddess, it's …'

‘En Noah,' Avery confirmed, having realised Aegisthus's true identity the second that he'd perceived Electra's impression of the wizard. ‘There is one thing I really don't get,' Avery frowned.

‘Only one thing?' Rhun joked to break his own mounting tension.

‘Electra mutilated herself to command the elements into her form in order to bring down the shield wall,' Avery persisted with his thought. ‘But how did Shamash convince Aegisthus to cooperate?'

The husky sound of a demon seething and the creepy sensation that Rhun had always associated with Mahaud alerted him to more trouble. ‘This is very bad.'

The two brothers turned to find the newly formed elemental force that the spirit of the Dark Lord was now inhabiting.

‘A bad move coming here, boys,' he hissed in a choir of sinister voices. ‘Now that I know what you two meddling brats look like, I shall not forget. How did Shamash talk me into it? I have become more powerful than the
gods
, more powerful than
you
.'

‘Is that what Shamash promised?' Rhun sneered, while the screams of the Lords of the Dark Lodge being massacred in the complex below echoed up through the tower. ‘I think you would do better to save your pupils.'

‘I'll have others —' The creature moved in for the kill.