Candace nodded graciously, although she would clearly have preferred to have been made privy sooner.
‘The true fight for our freedom has begun.’ Maelgwn made ready to introduce the master speaker. ‘To fill you all in on the events that have brought about this necessity, I hand you over to the good Governor of our city, Brian Alexander.’
Brian stepped up onto the table, which Maelgwn had been using to elevate himself above Kila’s government officials, advisors and warriors, as Maelgwn vacated it. Brian nodded to Maelgwn, acknowledging his opening speech, for it made the pending announcement one hell of a lot easier to make. ‘The events that unfolded upon my recent visit to Nibiru,’ he began, ‘made plain what little regard, if any, half of the Pantheon members have for human life. Therefore, I found it highly unsuitable to accept the seat offered to me in their Senate.’
Noah was listening intently to the proceedings, when Maelgwn crept up beside him and tugged at his sleeve. ‘I have something for you,’ he whispered and beckoned Noah to follow him into the next room.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened on Nibiru to trigger a war!’ Noah queried, as he joined Maeglwn who was pouring himself a drink in the large conference room.
‘A minor detail.’ He held up the jug to see if Noah wanted to partake.
‘But you were ready to kill the Governor this morning to find out.’ Noah nodded to accept a drink.
‘I was just looking to place blame for Tory’s death, and now,’ he shrugged, ‘I don’t have to.’ Maelgwn handed a goblet to Noah and clinked his own goblet against it. ‘Cheers.’
‘How can you be sure Tory didn’t perish?’ Noah had to know so that he could believe in the miracle himself.
‘Your prodigies told me.’ Maelgwn was pleased that Noah had educated the higher world intelligences in the ways of the physical plane so well.
‘You have spoken with Psyche and Sacha?’
‘I have,’ Maelgwn smiled. ‘And you were right, they do amaze me.’
The Dragon walked over to the conference table and from underneath it he pulled Durak’s old case.
‘My next mission is clear. I have to find Tory.’ Maelgwn dumped the case into Noah’s arms. ‘But here is the means to pursue your quest.’
‘The keystone is in here?’ Noah excitedly whipped the case open to find a large, but fairly ordinary looking, piece of rock. ‘Is this a joke?’
Maelgwn raised both brows in question. ‘That’s for you to find out.’ He finished up his drink and grabbed his coat.
‘This is all I have to work with?’ Noah panicked, as Maelgwn appeared to be making ready to depart.
‘There’s a couple of notebooks under the rock that might be of aid.’ He put on the coat that was standard issue space attire.
‘You’re not leaving?’ Noah protested. ‘Not without the Governor’s permission.’
‘Look Noah, if I stay and go through all the rigmarole, Brian is only going to give me the task of finding his sister, so I may as well go now and save the time.’
‘You’re going alone then?’ Noah assumed. He knew Maelgwn would not take any key personnel out of the Governor’s service during a crisis.
Maelgwn shook his head. ‘Sacha and Psyche will be with me, and that’s all the help I need. May the Logoi speed you on your journey, Noah. I shall be most interested to hear of your findings.’
‘But how shall I …’ Noah tried to detain him, but Maelgwn was out the door and gone. ‘… find you?’ Noah looked back to the hunk of rock inside the bag and sighed. ‘I think mine is going to be the shortest quest in history.’
9
THE INWARD SPIRAL
A purple mist enveloped Tory, slowly obscuring the universe in which she was adrift. As the haze thickened its cloud-like quality sparkled into a reflection. Within the mirror of the celestial sphere Tory beheld her etheric double, appearing like an ultra-violet angel — the severed etheric cord, which had connected her to the physical world, still hung at a loose end from her navel.
So this is death, she surmised, calmly. But her next thought was for Maelgwn and panic possessed her being. What shall become of him without me? In the reflection of herself Tory witnessed her subtle bodies begin to regress from an adult to a teenager. How shall we complete our quest now! Looking down upon herself she beheld the figure of a young girl, a baby, a foetus, a cell!
In a great flash of light Tory was reborn to live her life over; every long forgotten instance yielding up its secrets for review, moment by moment, event after event. Tory perceived her past from the viewpoint of her higher self, and was herself only a spectator. Highlighted, were Tory’s predominate tendencies and interests throughout her previous life, for all her pursuits would determine the shape and nature of Tory’s new life in the Devachanic world.
Brian featured in the early years, as Tory’s parents had travelled a good deal, but her brother had remained her constant companion. As a young adult studying Tae-kwon-do, Brian continued to be a guiding influence in her life, along with the young Sensei who became Tory’s first love, Teo. Tory had devoted a large part of her life to the study of the martial arts and self-defence, yet in Devachan there was no cause to defend one’s self or others and thus little use for such fighting skill. The positive aspects of this course of study that Tory would carry over into Devachan with her, were the discipline, mind control and spiritual insight that was the basis of the art.
The next phase of Tory’s life had been spent in the Dark Ages, learning the skills of a leader and learning of unconditional love in the company of her first and present husband, Maelgwn. Her first contact with the higher realms of existence had come at this time, thanks to the High Merlin, Taliesin Pen Beirdd. It was he who caused her displacement in time and he who had activated the dormant immortal gene in her DNA. The Merlin had also inspired her initial delving into the psychic arts.
In Atlantis, Tory had been taught about the healing of the mind, body and spirit, and explored the principles of time and space in the company of the technologist, Turan.
Upon her return to twenty-first century life Tory married the archaeologist, Miles Thurlow, and began her inquiry into the origins of the Chosen Ones.
At the time of the great Gathering, Tory was united with other Homo sapien immortals, including Maelgwn, and took up the challenge to move to a new planet and a life with the rest of her kind.
Her last fifty years in Chaliada were the happiest of all, for her love of people and all her accumulated knowledge had been able to develop and be put to good use. The arrival in her life of the Devas had caused a giant leap in Tory’s otherworldly comprehension, and curiosity.
Freed from the self-deception of a physical intellect, Tory realised that she had partly caused her own death to satisfy a yearning for knowledge and, with this conclusion reached, she found herself returned to the stability of the cocoon inside the reflective purple sphere. Unlike before, however, her subtle bodies felt restrained and at odds, and her reflection was that of a dull, purple statue.
What’s happened to me? She began to panic when she could not shake herself loose from the curse of non-movement — this was truly the stuff nightmares were made of, like running on the spot or being buried alive.
Fear not, your etheric double is disengaging. You shall be free of it presently.
Taliesin? Tory questioned hopefully, and so powerful was her desire to see the ascendant Master that her hard, statue-like outer casing shattered and fell away in a purple haze, leaving a sparking silver personification staring back from her reflection. This was her pure astral form, freed from the elements of physical plane existence. Behind her floated Taliesin’s celestial apparition. She turned about to confront him, to find his image was only a reflection in the surrounding purple sphere no matter which way she turned. Is this a game? she appealed to his reflection.
More a test, he replied with a smile.
Tory smiled also, realising she’d known the response before she’d asked t
he question.
Beyond this sphere is the astral realm of awareness, into which your astral presence needs to pass in order to join me. Being psychically adept as you are, you ought to be able to dispense with your incubator at will. But a caution, the Master added, as he knew Tory had always been quick to dive right in. All memory of your previous incarnation will be passed on to your Keeper, your higher self, and you shall remember naught of it.
What? The notion greatly distressed her.
In order to fathom why this must happen, I must ask you to conceive of desire as an entity with its own will, evolution and agenda to follow, and not a mere random emotion as humans would believe. Desire is the dark half of the Love Principle and Love rules the astral world through which you are about to pass. Desire detests the astral world for this reason, preferring the physical world where it holds far more influence. Still, desire cannot evolve without attaching itself to entities that are involved in its favourite plane of expression.
The physical world, Tory responded, following him so far.
Whilst inside this cocoon the desire elemental residing inside your astral body is sedated, but once exposed to the general mass of astral essence it will instinctively seek to further its own evolution, the descent into the physical world, and it will show great ingenuity in achieving its goal.
Can’t I get rid of it and keep my memory? Tory found the idea of sharing her subtle body with a hibernating elemental presence rather creepy.
Taliesin laughed at her question and her fear. You don’t want to get rid of it. It’s been with you through all your lives and you’ll need it if you wish to return to your last life on Kila.
Oh yes, I do, Tory begged him, as if her return was Taliesin’s to decide, more than anything in the universe.
And therein lies the problem. After moving into a state of astral essence, should you entertain the desire to return to your life, before your physical vehicle has had a chance to repair itself, the desire elemental will use your wish as fuel to rejoin its host, dragging your subtle bodies back down into the physical with it.
But that would mean that I would be … Tory waved her arms wide to show that she would be torn apart.
Feel uncomfortably stretched, Taliesin found a more pleasant way of putting it. And as desire thrives on all the coarser vibrations of physical matter, it would absolutely revel in the agonising confusion of your shattered atoms as they struggle to find each other and reform.
Sounds pretty gross. Tory admitted that leaving the past behind was sounding better all the time.
As unpleasant as you consider being returned to physical matter would be, the desire elemental finds it just as unpleasant to be returned to astral essence. The only way to keep the peace during your stay, is to lose the memory of your previous incarnation … the whole of which is but a tiny instance in the memory of the Logos that guides the galaxy in which you were born.
In the memory of Tory’s life past, an unconscious memory had surfaced also, one of meeting a beautiful devanic being at the place she’d dubbed Devaglen in its honour.
You have a direct link with Akasha … the true memory of Allied Logoi, it had told her.
Tory looked to her sparkling celestial reflection to note that the Tablet of Destinies still hung about her neck. I never passed it on, she fretted.
Well, if you intend on returning to your old life, you’re going to need it. A simple request to the Tablet will restore all knowledge of your previous life.
It will! She was excited for a moment, but found a flaw in Taliesin’s reasoning. But I would have to recall that I had a previous life, to want to remember it. And how am I to remember that I want to go back to my old life, if I can’t remember why, or that I lived it at all?
That’s why I am here, to remind you.
Tory felt rather ripped off suddenly. So how come you get to remember everything about everything, but I must forget?
Because I spiritually progressed, along with my soul-mate, to the causal level of existence, and beyond the Devachanic cleansing periods that take place between incarnations.
Wasn’t I supposed to do that? Tory folded her arms, feeling the universe had made a grievous error.
Yes. The Master answered simply, raising both brows to indicate that even he was surprised to see her here. But your will is far more developed than you realise, Tory. Your yearning to experience Devachan, as your babes do, has brought you to this sorry circumstance. In reality, the mental realms are somewhat beneath your spiritual comprehension. There is nothing there for you to learn any more that you could not learn in a physical personification, which is why you incarnated into an immortal being. But as you are here now, your Keeper has devised an experience that it feels will be of benefit to you before you return to the physical … if you dare to trust in the universal process and step beyond life as you know it for a while. Alternatively, you can remain inside your cocoon, which is decomposing as we speak … it may last long enough for your physical body to reform, but if it doesn’t …?
I get ripped apart, Tory stated, getting his drift. So basically this is my own damn fault … but, as there are no accidents in the universal scheme of things, my death, for whatever reason must have been meant.
Exactly. Taliesin nodded, conceding her point. It’s rare that an immortal experiences a mini-death, but it is by no means unheard of. Therefore this emergency arrangement has been devised and has been known to work in the past.
Has it ever failed? Tory wondered, wanting to get all her facts straight before deciding what to do.
Only insofar as the soul in question enjoyed its stay in Devachan so much that it refused to return to the physical world. Its Keeper was forced to allow the soul to reincarnate into its species. The soul’s old immortal body began to decompose after that, but its quest was finally realised within its new vehicle.
But I cannot afford to take such a risk, I must return soon, Taliesin, not hundreds of years from now! she appealed in desperation.
That is why I am here, to guide you through your Devachanic experience. And when it is time to rejoin your physical self, I shall see to it that you are compelled to do so.
But can’t we cheat time in the astral realm?
Taliesin gave a nod. Yes. But there is always a price to pay for cheating, and in this case I feel it would be the passing up of a great opportunity. For why would this instance have come about at all if it were not going to benefit you in some way? That which is offered to you is not a bad consolation for a minor inconvenience … I would have thought you’d be jumping at the chance to expand your natural aptitudes and understanding.
But I’m going to forget everything!
No! You are only losing all the junk you had to go through to obtain your present level of understanding. You cannot expect to carry the memory of all that physical abuse into an existence of pure love … any sooner than you could expect to carry personal emotion into a realm of pure thought.
Which is where I am headed, right?
If your fear of loss doesn’t hold you back. Taliesin made her aware of her biggest obstacle. You have developed and disciplined your physical body into the ultimate tool. Your emotions are pure and disposed towards the greater good. It is a lack of pure reason that has been your shortcoming and thus the Logos has seen fit to grant your aspiration to know more about the realms beyond your own … then you may use this knowledge to the benefit of your quest and the divine plan.
Tory couldn’t obtain information on the higher realms from a physical perspective, not even with the aid of the Tablet of Destinies, for it only made her privy to the memory of the physical world. This was a once in a soul-mind opportunity, and she felt Taliesin was right. If it were not meant to be, she would not be standing upon this precipice.
Leap into the void. Taliesin’s reflection held out his hand to her.
As the Master’s presence was seen to be behind her, Tory reached her hand across her body and up over her shoulder to take hold of
his. Guide me right, old friend.
All your life, he assured and the reflective sphere dispersed into a purple haze from which it had formed.
When the mist cleared Tory beheld a beautiful expansive landscape, the colours of which were made luminous by the ultra-violet light they absorbed from the sun overhead. So too were the many tiny beings aglow with vivid colour.
Within this great expanse there were many distinctly different worlds co-existing in perfect harmony. In the forest there were primitive-looking Norsemen, hunting to their heart’s content. On the open plain the American Indians had their happy hunting ground. Off in the distance was a beautiful golden and jewelled city, which was not unlike the New Jerusalem as described by the early Christians. On the horizon, there were still more little pockets of peoples seeming to stretch into infinity.
‘Welcome to the Summerland, a minor pitstop on our way to Heavensworld,’ announced Taliesin.
Distracted from the breathtaking view, Tory realised she had hold of someone’s hand and turned to discover to whom it belonged. ‘Hello,’ she said winningly as she beheld the splendid being.
The Master bowed his head in friendly greeting. ‘Taliesin, at your service. I am here to answer any questions you might have.’
‘How wonderful.’ Tory was distracted from their conversation, wanting to inspect a nearby tree.
Upon closer scrutiny, she discovered she could see bright little atoms moving in a rapid motion to form the structure and colour of the object; thus, the tree was not entirely solid in appearance, yet it felt solid to the touch. Tory held up her own hand and gave it a closer look, to find that it was also of the same loose density. ‘Curious,’ she said, and reaching out to touch the trunk once more she willed her hand to pass right through the glowing wood. It did.