The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (35 page)

I allowed the journal to drop into my lap. All of my fears and aspirations were reaffirmed: I was the violet flame-bearer, destined to open the great Hall of Records and Amenti. That is, if my father truly was the ghostly knight of these tales remanifested on Earth. But the coincidence of the Anunnaki queen being called Kali and my sudden bout of automatic trance writing in her name just couldn’t be ignored.

My parents had both read these journals, and since they’d given them to me to read on my thirteenth birthday, I could only assume they were trying to scare the life out of me, suck me into an elaborate practical joke, or that they really were attempting to awaken my subconscious awareness of who I really am.

And what of Mathu’s vow to watch over Charlotte in her next life? Was he here watching over me now? Could he have been my mysterious caller, who warned me of danger? The idea was both disconcerting and exciting. I’d never had a boyfriend—I’d never really been interested—and
if I proved to be anything like Charlotte Granville-Devere, then perhaps I never would be interested in a human mate. The idea of a celestial admirer was quite a turn-on though.

It was approaching midnight and my eyelids were drooping, but still I took my personal journal in hand to record the events of the day whilst they were still fresh in my mind. By the time I had completed my account it was fast approaching one o’clock. I snuggled under my bedcovers and allowed my weary eyes to close, wondering what Kali had planned for this evening—more coding work most likely. ‘Fine with me,’ I mumbled, so long as I could sleep through it.

I access
The Book of Codes
as easily as I did last night, but am interrupted in my work by the male of this house. Do not fear, our work is not exposed: with a wave of my hand, I will our father back to his slumber; he shall not recall our confrontation. As a result, I do not accomplish as many activations as hoped, integrating only the next three time codes. This amounts to six codes now integrated. Our sixth DNA strand is braiding—the human consciousness and extraterrestrial subconsciousness are beginning to meld. Soon Tamar and Kali will be one. Only two more nights of encoding and our full potential will be realised and our being safeguarded.

‘What!’ I sat upright in bed, my journal in hand, gaping at Kali’s overnight entry. My eyes were very sensitive to the sunlight streaming through my window, as if I hadn’t had enough sleep. Not surprising, as it seemed my body wasn’t really getting any rest at all. In fact, I felt like I was
coming down with something: I was in a cold sweat, my breathing was laboured, my skin felt like it was crawling over every aching muscle and bone in my body, and my head hurt at the base of my skull. I touched the area: it actually felt swollen.

‘Christ, what the hell’s happening to me?’

Perhaps my symptoms were a reaction to what I’d just read and I was in shock, or maybe it was simply the flu? It wasn’t until I stood that I felt the cramping in my intestines—was this just more of the joys of having my first period? But then I noticed something very strange—my pyjamas had shrunk! The legs now rose up well over my ankles, the sleeves were too short and the top felt tight across my chest. In the process of trying to stretch the fabric back out to fit my body, I noticed that my inconsequential breasts were somewhat enlarged this morning.

I rushed to the mirror and opened my pyjama top: sure enough, I exposed a pair of rounded, pert breasts—not huge, but definitely bigger compared to those I’d been sporting yesterday. My face too had altered slightly: my features were more refined and slender; in fact, my entire form seemed to have slimmed down and become curvier at the same time—I was BEAUTIFUL! I’d never really thought myself ugly or anything, but
wow!
—it was hard to believe the transformation.

Leaning towards the mirror to take a closer look at my face, I realised that my dressing table sat lower on my body, as if someone had trimmed the legs overnight. That’s when I realised it wasn’t my PJs that had shrunk, but that I had grown several inches. I confirmed this by trying on every
pair of trousers I had—none of them covered the full length of my legs any more. How on Earth was I going to hide this? I could temporarily get around the problem by wearing a skirt, but that sure wasn’t going to hide my rapidly developing form for long. And come to think of it, why would I want to hide it? I looked fabulous, even if that wasn’t how I felt.

A hot bath soothed my numerous ailments and made me feel quite sensual. My body felt more like a woman’s; the young, underdeveloped teenager was gone forever. Afterwards, as all seemed quiet in the house, I headed for the kitchen to make some breakfast. I planned to return to my room to eat, read and avoid my parents as much as I could until Kali had finished her work on us. She obviously had a plan, and didn’t seem to have any problem dealing with adults.

My father’s ‘good morning’ nearly startled me out of my skin. ‘You look very nice today,’ he commented, placing a hand on my shoulder to reassure me. ‘Have you done something different with your hair?’

‘It’s the skirt, probably,’ I said, grabbing hold of it and swishing it about to distract him from the rest of me. As I rarely wore a skirt, Dad nodded to accept that must be it.

He didn’t mention anything about seeing me in the library last night, so I guessed Kali’s claim that he wouldn’t remember was good—it seemed she was powerful indeed. Secretly, the idea of being able to wield all that power was very inviting, and despite my underlying fear of the rapid changes manifesting in my body I was eager to become one with my tenacious, confident alter ego.

I didn’t grant much of an opportunity for Dad’s memory to be jogged—I finished making my breakfast and, with a kiss on the cheek, wished him a good day and retreated to my room. Phew, that was close, I thought. Thank goodness I’d chosen to wear a big sloppy jumper or Dad might have noticed more than just my change of attire.

I returned to the journal, eager to read more about Charlotte’s new romance, and was a little disappointed to note that the next entry was Charlotte’s chronicle of her mother’s journey through the second of the Halls of Amenti. I was tempted to skip ahead for passages about my new love interest, but guessed these episodes from various journals had been intermingled in this volume in a very specific order, and if I didn’t wish to lose the continuity I’d best just keep on reading.

‘Take all the time you need to prepare for the next passage,’ Captain Sinclair said kindly. ‘Time is not an issue.’

‘It can only get better from here,’ I said, assuring myself that I was ready to move on.

Sinclair frowned, clearly not wishing to lie. ‘Not very likely. The third root race manifested into the physical world and their forms were perishable.’ Then he grinned. ‘Even so, you are bound to witness many amazing things, for the Lemurian races were truly a wondrous breed who became the substance of the great myths and legends that would inspire every root race that came after.’

Now I was curious, and stood tall to indicate that I felt ready to embark into the next hall.

Sinclair motioned to the orange-gold plate. ‘Lemuria awaits you.’

I hesitated a moment. ‘And shall I be seeing you there?’ I gazed into Sinclair’s blue eyes and his smile was answer enough. ‘So who was my key third root race incarnation?’ I continued. Sinclair had already walked the Halls of Amenti, therefore I assumed he knew all that had happened in this second hall.

It seemed I was wrong for he was shaking his head. ‘Although you and I have incarnated together in all of our lifetimes in order to aid each other to greatness, we did not necessarily reach enlightenment in the same lifetime,’ he explained. ‘When I entered this hall, I only bore witness to my own key Lemurian lifetime; your key incarnation may have been born in another lifetime altogether.’

‘I see.’ I gave up trying to siphon information from my host and turned to face Amenti’s second porthole.

When I stepped onto the activation plate, I perceived a great welling of energy within my navel area. The whirling force extended to my spleen, where the second chakra of my subtle form was located. The chakra began to vibrate with a sonic tone, and as the note grew deep in my belly, the sound resonated up to my larynx and became a deep vocalisation. The particles of my subtle body went into an excited frenzy as they brought themselves into alignment with the glowing orange-gold porthole before me.

The water within began to swirl clockwise into the centre, and the second counter-clockwise water spiral penetrated the swirling column from behind. Orange light erupted from the vortex and my consciousness was drawn into the otherworldly
passage, back to the time of the first physical manifestations of humanity.

I am Antiope, daughter of Otrera, of the Hamazon. Our enemies have come to call us the
Antianeira
—‘those who fight like men’—or the
Androktones
—‘killers of men’; both are well founded. We Ha-mazon are a tribe of warrior women, the progeny of gods and queens, legendary for our prowess in battle and despised by every kingdom in the known world for our independence from the shackles of male bondage. No Ha-mazon has ever married, nor will ever do so. We seduce any prisoners of royal blood, then kill them to prevent any attempt to claim us or our offspring. Our daughters are raised to be warriors; our male progeny are slaughtered at birth.

Today we have two captives: Herakles, whom it is said has the blood of the Lord of the Sky in his veins, a man of Lilian stock belonging to the clan of the god, Enlil; and Theseus, the son of Queen Aethra of Attica and a fair specimen of Kian stock. Both are of bloodlines that could empower our race. Our warriors ambushed them on the shores of the Euxine Sea, before they could begin their attack on our capital, Themiscyra, with the aim of possessing the legendary girdle of invincibility worn by our queen, my older sister, Hyleana. Their quest is folly, however, as the only way the treasure can be transferred is if it is given freely. And as our queen is renowned for her chastity and her skill in combat, any man believing he will one day possess the girdle of power is the greatest of fools.

Herakles and Theseus are brought before Queen Hyleana in the High Temple of Lilith, the great founding mother of my tribe.

Our great foremother was not of Lillian stock, as her name suggests. For although the god Nergal, a son of Enlil, raped Lilith’s human mother, her mother claimed that the spirit of the Lord Enki had come over her attacker just before Lilith’s conception to transform the base act into one of love and healing. Because of this, Lilith considered herself Kian. Her father, Enki, had been cast out of the Nefilim city of Eden long before Lilith’s birth and branded as a serpent traitor thereafter. Due to Lilith’s insistence that she was the daughter of Enki and not Nergal, she was branded a serpent also—the Dragon Queen—and considered a lowly creature, giving the gods the perfect excuse to use her for their pleasure and for the breeding of other demi-god daughters to abuse and exploit. They even tried breeding Lilith with a man, Adama, but as a demi-god Lilith refused to take a subservient role to a human. For twelve thousand years the gods held her captive, first on Earth and then in the heavens. During the course of her long suffering, Lilith’s spiritual father spoke to her in her sleep and eventually she came to realise that the legacy of her spiritual parentage had instilled in her many superhuman talents: the ability to read minds, to see spirits, to predict the future, to comprehend different languages, to move objects with her mind, and the art of levitation. When the Nefilim returned to resume their mining and scientific projects on Earth, Lilith and her many daughters rebelled against their oppressors and fled. They founded the Ha-mazon race—‘Ha-mazon’ being
our word for ‘warriors’—and for thousands of years Lilith ruled the Ha-mazon, nurturing the superhuman talents of the women in her company and teaching them how to use these talents for the construction of cities and to make war on those who tried to take what was ours. Once the Ha-mazon were well established and prosperous, Lilith, weary of her earthly burdens and battles, called upon her father, Enki, asking that he show her the way to her repose. It is said that the Lord of the World sent his seraphs to escort Lilith to his heavenly house of many halls, where she sleeps peacefully in a flower beneath a healing ray, where she will remain until the end of days, when Enki shall recall all his spiritual warriors to battle for the redemption of this Earth and her human children.

Today our Queen Hyleana is dressed as a goddess. Her golden hair hangs in long ringlets and the crown of our foremothers is upon her head. A veil covers her face, but many necklaces, rings, anklets and bracelets adorn her person and her prized girdle of gold bands the top of a fancy flounced skirt—a plainer version of which is our warriors’ uniform. Every Ha-mazon wears a metal vest that exposes one breast and flattens and protects the breast of our bow arm. It is rumoured among our enemies that we Ha-mazon burn one breast in infancy to more fully develop our weapons arm, but those men who learn the truth never live to tell.

‘I live in the opulence of Athens and I have seen the splendour of Troy, yet never have I witnessed architecture so remarkable and elegant as this,’ Theseus compliments her, on being introduced to our queen.

‘Women are by nature constructive,’ our queen explains. ‘Men have proved more efficient at deconstruction.’

‘A sweeping generalisation, your Majesty.’ Herakles speaks up in defence of his sex. ‘Indeed, your entire tribe proves that there can be an equal amount of creator and destroyer in one person, so does it not stand to reason that some men are gentle and creative by nature too?’

Our queen is more amused than insulted, thus Herakles ventures to expand on his argument.