Stealing Sacred Fire (47 page)

‘Over here,’ Salamiel said.
Together they walked towards the gate.

Daniel felt hurt that Shemyaza
had gone to Salamiel rather than himself. Salamiel was the
trouble-maker, who asked awkward questions and argued for the sake
of it. Why had Shem singled him out for affectionate gestures?

The group assembled around
Shemyaza at the gate, Daniel loitering moodily at the rear.
Shemyaza examined the lock. ‘We need the key-keeper to open
this.’

‘There’s no-one here,’ Daniel
said.

‘Of course there is,’ Shemyaza
replied. ‘There is always a key-keeper.’ He pushed through the
bewildered group and went to stand, hands on hips, before the
altar.

Daniel was surprised to see
that a bent, old priest was standing in the shadows near the
pulpit. Had he been there all along, listening to their arguments?
Daniel felt a shock course through his body. For the briefest of
moments, he was sure that the old man was Mani. Then, the priest
took a step forward from the shadows, and Daniel realised he was
mistaken.

‘I am Shemyaza,’ Shem
announced.

The old man shuffled forward.
He was dressed in a long, faded black cassock, his face as brown
and wrinkled as a raisin. ‘I am John,’ he said, ‘and I have
prepared the way for your coming, Lord.’ He raised his hands and
champed his lips over his toothless gums. When he spoke, his aged
voice boomed out with the strength of a fanatic. ‘The true light
that enlightens every man has come into the world and the world was
made through him. Yet the world knows him not. From him we will all
receive grace and truth.’

Shemyaza nodded imperceptibly,
faintly smiling. With one giant step, he drew close to the old man
and enfolded him in a long-armed embrace. The shabby black figure
all but disappeared within Shemyaza’s hold.

Nobody spoke. Daniel knew instinctively
that John had been waiting in this place a long time for this
moment; all his life, as had his father before him. The line of the
generations appeared before Daniel’s mind’s eye: fathers and sons
disappearing into infinity. Two thousand years of waiting.

Shem released John from his
embrace and stepped back. Daniel thought he could hear a faint
sound as of rushing water, accompanied by the beat of hand-drums
and ululating cries of tribal women.

‘I say to you,’ Shemyaza
murmured, ‘that the hour has come when all the dead and the living
will hear the voice of the fire and of the waters, the light and
the darkness.’ His voice was low, but rang clearly throughout the
old building. ‘For as the father had the light of life, so I, his
son, also have light. Do not marvel at this, for the hour of
judgement is here.’

The exchange had been like a
ceremony, played out with ritual responses. Daniel knew now that
they were in the right place, and that the entrance to the Chambers
of Light lay very close.

John lifted his chin, and took
a key from a chain around his waist. ‘Come, Lord, I will open the
gate for you.’

Daniel glanced at the statue of
John the Baptist. Was it possible?

The old man went slowly to the
gate and here spent some minutes fiddling with the key and the
lock, but eventually, he turned to the group with a smile and
pushed the iron gate open. Shemyaza nodded respectfully to the
priest, then led the way down the steps. As Daniel squeezed past
John, he looked at the old man. He was still chewing upon nothing,
his red-rimmed, rheumy eyes gazing at the rafters overhead, his
fingers clasping and unclasping before his chest. It was almost as
if he was totally senile, unaware of what was happening around him,
and had played his part through instinct alone.

The steps were damp and worn, and led
down to an ante-chamber that issued onto two low-ceilinged rooms.
The air was moist and foul-smelling. On the right, the group
discovered a musty vault that housed a single, unadorned tomb. The
floor was submerged beneath half an inch of oily water. They could
see an iron gate in the far wall, which appeared to lead to some
kind of gully from which water was leaking into the crypt. Gadreel
suggested that at some point the gully must have led to the holy
Nile, before its course had deviated away from Old Babylon.

Shemyaza looked around this
chamber briefly, then ducked back into the ante-chamber. He entered
the second room which lay directly ahead of the steps. Daniel was
the first to follow. His eyes were drawn immediately to a slit in
the opposite wall, where the rays of the evening sun shone through
in dim, gilded beams. They illumined a small room that had a
flagged floor covered in a layer of gritty dust. But at least the
room was dry. Overhead, the ceiling was comprised of enormous,
oblong slabs of stone. In the centre of the chamber lay what
appeared to be a well-head, surrounded by a low wall of rough
stones and covered by a black iron grille. Shemyaza walked to the
well and beckoned for the others to draw near.

‘This is what we’ve been
looking for,’ Shemyaza said.

Daniel peered at the well. He
could see that it was filled with dry earth, nearly to the rim of
the surrounding wall. A strong musty smell rose out of it that
reminded Daniel of a long-abandoned house.

Salamiel laughed. ‘At last: the
ceremonial gateway to the Chambers of Light.’ He clearly intended
it to be a joke.

‘That’s right,’ Shemyaza
said.

‘But…’

Shemyaza silenced Salamiel with
a wave of his hand. ‘Look at the floor around the well-head. Do you
see those rough slots? There are six of them, and that’s where
Qimir’s swords will be inserted. I trust you have them with you,
Gadreel.’

Gadreel nodded. ‘Yes. But there
are seven swords…’

Shemyaza ignored her
observation. ‘I want you all to sit around the well in a circle,
each of you behind one of the slots.’ No-one moved. ‘What are you
waiting for?’ He glanced at the window behind him. ‘We don’t have
much time.’

The group assembled hesitantly
around the well and sat down as directed.

‘Where are you going to sit?’
Daniel asked.

Shemyaza did not answer, but
gestured for Gadreel to distribute the swords. She took them
carefully from her back-pack and handed them around the circle to
the others. Shemyaza took the largest sword from her and positioned
himself, standing, behind Salamiel.

An air of urgency had come to
fill the room, a tense expectation. No-one spoke.

‘Place your swords into the
ground,’ Shemyaza said.

Silently, the group obeyed. A
couple of the insertion points were blocked by ancient dirt and it
required some effort to pierce them with the swords, but
eventually, all six blades rose firmly from the ground.

Shemyaza nodded approvingly.
‘Now, place both your hands upon the pommel of your sword.’

Once this was done, he withdrew
the key crystal from his pocket and leaned forward to place it upon
the centre of the grille covering the well. Then he straightened
his spine, staring straight ahead, the seventh sword held upright
before his face. Conjuring a halo of golden fire from his hair, the
last of the sunlight poured around him and struck the crystal.

The light entered and empowered
the stone. Seven laser-like radials, of different colours, spat out
from the crystal and struck each of the swords, so that every one
of the bearers became bathed in a specific, pure hue of the
spectrum. Shemyaza’s ray passed right over Salamiel’s head. He was
enveloped in golden light, while beneath him, Salamiel was wreathed
in a brilliant crimson glare. Daniel was enwrapped in green light,
Gadreel in violet, Penemue in orange, Pharmaros in indigo and
Kashday in blue.

‘Whatever happens,’ Shemyaza
said, ‘do not let go of the swords.’

Now, the crystal began to emit
seven distinct tones that, in turn, were absorbed by the swords.
The blades vibrated in the hands that encircled them.

‘Keep your hold firm,’ Shemyaza
said, ‘and concentrate on directing the energy you are receiving
into the ground through the swords. The light around you is your
colour. The crystal has chosen the sphere of your soul. Flow with
it. Use it. Let the light draw substance from your spirit. The
guardians of the upper gateway will see only the colours of the
heavens.’

The resonance of the tones grew
louder, until they became a dissonance. The highest note was a
shrieking stridency, which was almost ultra-sonic, while the lowest
rumbled inaudibly in the chests of the avatars. The effect was
extreme, but oddly harmonious.

Daniel’s teeth were set on edge
by the resonance. He wanted to let go of his sword, but forced
himself to keep a grip. Presently, he noticed that the vibration
now seemed to have extended beyond the sword, because the ground
beneath him had begun to shake. He looked around himself and met
the surprised glances of the other avatars. Only Shem seemed
unmoved. Plaster flakes sifted down from the walls while, overhead,
the massive blocks of stone in the ceiling shook ominously. If even
one of them should shake loose, the entire group would be crushed
to death. Daniel found that his lips were stretched into a rictus
grin. His hands seemed welded to the sword.

The intensity of the crystal lights
grew brighter and the hum of the tones reach a painful crescendo
that passed beyond the range of sound audible to living ears.
Daniel felt as if he was being electrified, as if every atom within
his body oscillated to the clamorous frequency.

I can’t hold on, he thought.
I’m going to burn alive, spontaneously combust.

His muscles were spasming
throughout his entire body: it felt like the pulsing tides of a
thousand synchronous orgasms. Daniel soared on the overwhelming
extremes of terror and ecstasy. When he opened his eyes, his vision
was completely obscured by a vibrant green veil of light. Around
him, the eyes of his companions had become burning orbs of coloured
fire: gold, orange, crimson, violet, indigo, blue. Their mouths,
like his, were stretched unnaturally wide to emit soundless cries.
Streams of ether poured from their lips, filling the air with a
boiling, multi-coloured mist. The sight was terrifying, but
peculiarly beautiful. Now, Daniel knew what it was to be truly
Grigori. He closed his eyes again and forced himself to flow with
the energy, conduct it into the ground.

Gradually, the trembling ground
began to settle and the tones started to die down. The tremor
lasted only for another minute. After the rumbling had fallen
silent, a sound like that of shifting sand hissed out from the
well-head. The group opened their eyes. The coloured lights had
vanished; the chamber was barely illumined by the dying
sunlight.

Shemyaza rubbed his face; he
looked exhausted. ‘You may let go of your swords now.’

Daniel tried to release his
grip on the pommel but found that his hands were rigid and
immobile. Everyone else appeared to be experiencing the same
problem.

Shemyaza reached over
Salamiel’s shoulder and removed the crystal from the well-head. The
hold upon the avatars was released, and a powerful last discharge
of energy threw them all backwards onto the floor.

Daniel was the first to stand
up and nearly fell down again immediately. He felt so dizzy that
whenever he tried to walk in one direction he found he was
staggering in another.

‘Don’t worry,’ Shemyaza said,
smiling at Daniel’s reeling attempts to walk. ‘The disorientation
will be short-lived.’ He put his arm around Daniel’s shoulders and
supported him to the well-head. ‘Look, our work has been
successful.’

The soil which had filled the
shaft was fast disappearing downwards, as if a plug far below had
been removed. Daniel shook his head in wonder. ‘The vibrations have
cleared the shaft.’

The other avatars were rising
slowly to their feet, brushing dust from their clothes. Like
Daniel, they seemed dazed.

Daniel’s dizziness had abated
now. He pulled away from Shemyaza’s arm and leaned on the low wall
to peer down into the lightless vertical tunnel. ‘We haven’t got to
go down there, have we? There are no hand-holds. How could we
manage it?’

‘You don’t have to go down
there,’ Shemyaza replied. ‘But I do.’

Daniel glanced up in surprise.
He had envisaged that their journey into the Chambers of Light
would involve visualisation. ‘This is absurd! You can’t go down
there alone. Surely the journey through the gateway must be astral
rather than physical?’

Shemyaza shook his head. ‘No,
the chambers are physical and so is their entrance, although some
astral travel is involved. I shall go into them alone.’

Salamiel looked over Shemyaza’s
shoulder. ‘So, are you just going to jump down there, or should we
have brought a rope?’

Shemyaza turned round slowly and stared
unblinkingly into Salamiel’s eyes. ‘Neither of those things.’

Salamiel pulled a quizzical
face. ‘What, then?’

Shemyaza closed his eyes for a
moment, then swallowed. ‘In order for me to enter the Chambers, all
physical life must leave my body.’

Salamiel stared at him mutely,
while Daniel cried in a shrill voice, ‘What?’

Salamiel spoke harshly. ‘More
to the point, why?’

‘Remember the time of Solomon,
when he called upon the knowledge of our race to build his
temple.’

Salamiel nodded. ‘You might say
I was instrumental in shaping that noble edifice. What of it?’

‘At the temple’s heart, lay the
shrine to the holiest of holies. It contained the altar to the
creator, the grand architect. You must remember that any initiates
who wished to enter the shrine were required to go completely
naked. They were purified in the sacred baths and all hair removed
from their bodies. To be in the presence of such power, they had to
return to a symbolic natural state. Their souls were laid bare
before the source of all. The ritual was about purity.’