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.
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 lef
t 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 st
ars. 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.
At the Sphinx, Tiy still observed the inside of the central chamber. She saw the giant crystal fill completely with blinding white light. She saw the great stone begin to revolve and hum like a spinning top. Rays of light shot out from all over its surface, inundating the lines, grooves and circles carved into the chamber’s floor and walls. Soon this light would flood the whole chamber complex and spill out into the world. The soul of Mankind was being reconceived. In time, a golden age would be born. And a new sun would rise in the east to greet the gaze of the watchful Sphinx. Her son. Now Tiy began to weep for his loss.
Chapter Twenty-Six
New Epoch