One Great Year (26 page)

“I believe in proof … in the value of my senses to understand reality,” Aristotle explained.

“Yea, and are your perceptions truth? And what is truth? You cannot separate what you see from what you interpret, and they are likely not the same. Show two men the same image and they will each report differently.”

“But if both men question and puzzle over the same image … if they discuss and study its form … they must find agreement,” Aristotle reasoned.

“Yet experience has taught me that they do not. Truth is subjective. Answers are often conclusions not yet disproved.”

“Truth can be found through solid deductive reasoning where proof is evident,” Aristotle argued.

“And again we disagree,” Plato said, smiling.

The years passed and Plato and Aristotle remained together at the Academy. Marcus was overjoyed to be near Theron, and their relationship flourished despite the fundamental differences in their beliefs.

Occasionally, Plato would get the sense that Aristotle was growing more in tune with Atitala. Plato had a plan to try to spark Aristotle's past-life memory. For the first time in all of his lifetimes Plato openly revealed the story of Atitala, in the
Critias
and
Timaeus
dialogues. He wrote of his homeland's beauty, perfection, and downfall. And though the name Atitala would be lost and mistranslated to Atlantis in years to come, many of the details would be immortalized. He described the layout of the city, its politics, its esthetic beauty. He explained the higher thinking, emotion, harmony, energy, and Oneness with God and each other that the citizens had gloried in.

Plato was not only interested in inspiring Aristotle's memory, he also hoped to present Atitala as an example of what mankind should aspire to and emulate. Plato remained true to his memories of the fair land and also warned of the darkness and deceit that had emerged and were threats to all societies. There was always balance, the dark to the light.

Aristotle read the dialogues and debated their contents, and still Theron slept unconscious in him. She was awake only in Aristotle's goodness, purpose, and desire to contribute.

Plato was passionate and, at times, melancholic while he wrote of Atitala. His soul longed for his home as he remembered the beauty and closeness of Theron in their final days. With the beauty came the ugliness, and he was haunted by the dark scene he had witnessed in the caverns.

Aristotle listened, studied, and questioned. His nature was to be optimistic, to embrace art, and to trust science. He wanted proof, not metaphysical assertions. Plato argued that science was nothing but perception, and they spent endless hours debating, even arguing, and helping fine-tune one another's beliefs.

Aristotle graduated from student to teacher, taking his place as a mentor at the Academy. While his reputation grew, Plato withdrew, concentrating instead on his writing. His Marcus-brain pushed him forward with his writing, certain that it was important. He loved the hours of respite that the work offered him.

As Plato aged, his eyesight and hearing grew poor. He would often miss bits and pieces of conversations, and he became increasingly moody and cantankerous. The students at the school began to avoid him, and only Aristotle, now in his late thirties, sought him out daily. Plato, nearing his eighty-second year, was frustrated and betrayed by the breakdown of his human shell. His mind was still sharp, spry, and young, and his days had become increasingly focused on his time with Aristotle. They chatted often but argued and debated less.

Plato's life was nearing its end, and he hadn't thought about the Oracle prophecy in many years. Once he had found Theron, he had lost interest in the prediction. The Oracle's prophecy had amounted to nothing. The boy who was destined to change the world had not materialized. The Oracle had foretold that Plato was one of three: fates woven together like the strands of a whip. She said that Plato's knowledge would be summoned in the young regent's initiation, but it had not happened. Not yet.

343 BC

Aristotle stood on the luminous, white Academy steps surrounded by students. The sun was bright and the gardens around the school were at their most lovely. A young servant ran into the fold of scholars and beckoned timidly to the professor. He had a message from Plato.

Aristotle rushed to the bedside of his ailing friend. The headmaster's humble chamber was cool and dark as he entered. The old man lay in his bed, small and frail. What remained of Plato's hair was white and coarse, his eyes were heavily lined from years in the sun and years of broad grins, and his lids sagged loosely, ready to close forever. He smiled as he felt the familiar aura snug against his own like a snail in its shell, and he reached his feeble hand to him. Aristotle moved to his side, taking the arthritic fingers in his own.

“You have given me the most valued friendship of my life,” Plato croaked dryly.

“My dear friend … drink,” Aristotle said, reaching for the water beside him and placing it to Plato's lips. The patient refused with a subtle shake of his head.

“Death, which people fear to be the greatest of evils, may indeed be the greatest good. But for me to be parted from you, to be so betrayed by this weak bag of skin and bones, is a tragedy,” Plato whispered. Aristotle's eyes filled with tears, and his dying friend attempted to soothe him. “My dear Aristotle … must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death? No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.”
¹⁹

Though Plato sought to ease Aristotle's grief, his Marcus-brain was in turmoil, bitterly resisting the inevitable outcome. He would die and once again be separated from Theron. He lay there, steeped in her vigor. She was everywhere, but she remained oblivious to him. Light, sound, and energy resonated between them at the most basic molecular level. The love of Aristotle had been earned and enjoyed and his friend stood grieving before him, and Marcus was suffocated by the reality that he was losing her once again.

“Philo se, I love you,” Plato said. Marcus wondered how many years, how many lonely, difficult lifetimes, he would have to endure before he found her again. He breathed in her violet aura and basked in her light. As he began to slip away he wondered, had he done enough as an Emissary in this lifetime as Plato?

It happened quickly. Plato's soul passed through the room and through Aristotle, mingling with Theron's soul like dust particles in a sunbeam. Unseen, he was reclaimed by the Source. There was not a rush of wind or a whispered goodby.

Marcus was once again flowing through the Grid, destined for the place in between, the “Meadow,” as Plato had called it. He was at complete peace, in harmony with the divine Source and all creation, and he suffered no conscious separate thought. He existed in complete bliss, lightness, and color.

Marcus, like all of the world's souls and Emissaries, was born and reborn in the generations to come. Each lifetime had its own lessons, difficulties, highs, and lows. His childhoods continued to be unfettered by past recall. But eventually in each life, his memories came to him as lightning or in whispers. They always came, piled upon one another like a wardrobe from countless centuries, layer by layer.

Without fail, in adulthood Marcus searched for Theron's spirit in everyone he met and was wary and alert for Helghul. Entire lives passed without finding her. He was tortured, knowing too much yet not knowing enough to certainly lead him to his love.

Present day

Quinn studied history intently. He was thankful for the gaps the scholars filled and the clues as to what had occurred in the lifetimes flowing in and out of his own.

Marcus had awakened in Quinn, stronger and louder than in any other lifetime, perhaps because of the turn of the Great Year to an ascending Age.

Where was Theron? What had happened to her? He was obsessed as he looked for threads of her. Aristotle—how grateful he was that she had been someone important and that her words, or almost her words, were contemplated even now. So much had been lost. Aristotle's most brilliant works had vanished, most likely in the fire at Alexandria. The great library had been torched during the darkness of the Iron Age, and thousands of years of carefully collected ancient knowledge had been destroyed. What a terrible waste.

Alexandria and the importance of Egypt could not be overstated. Quinn felt it deep in his bones. News articles, documentaries, movies, travel advertisements, Ashton Kutcher on Jimmy Fallon in front of the Giza pyramids with an iPhone. Images of the ancient, sacred land inundated him and with them came a rush of familiarity.

Quinn had returned to Egypt in this lifetime. He had wandered the same dusty terrain he had walked thousands of years before as Plato. He had returned to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oasis of Siwa and its temple. Quinn had heard that a new ruin had been discovered, and it was believed to be a calendar of the Great Year. He went to Nabta Playa to see it for himself. Unfortunately the stones had been dismantled before he got there, under the guise of protecting them from vandals.

He had again felt the heat and mystery of Heliopolis, though the symbol of Horus was now found on T-shirts and tattooed arms rather than over a secret doorway. It had seemed a good a place to look for her, but Theron had not been found.

Quinn had done his homework. He found that after Plato's death, Aristotle had gone to Macedonia to teach a young prince, a future king who became known as Alexander the Great. The boy king had indeed been great, but he had been terrible as well. “Three destinies tied together,” the Oracle had said to Plato. Marcus remembered the prophecy with a shiver, and Quinn pulled closed his sloppy black velour robe.

Alexander the Great was rumored to have visited the Oracle of Amun in Siwa and to have found the Emerald Tablet in the tomb of the rebel, Pharaoh Akhenaten. Akhenaten was the father of King Tut and had recorded, for the first time in history, the concept that there was only one God. He seemed likely to have been Red Elder, the protector of the Emerald Tablet's secrets, but Quinn could only guess.

Aristotle had probably helped Alexander to accomplish this feat. Perhaps the knowledge of the Mystery School that Plato had shared with Aristotle had been instrumental.

Quinn thought of Amnut, the guide who had helped Plato find the Mystery School so long ago. Had he helped Alexander as well? He wished he could ask, and just as he thought it, his computer pinged with an incoming message.

“U up?” it said. Quinn smiled at the coincidence—the uncanny connection they all had and the synchronicity of the Universe.

“It's noon,” he replied.

“Ur point?” the faceless person typed.

“Come on over,” Quinn answered, without thinking, as if he had been born with keys connected to his fingertips.

“15,” the screen announced.

Quinn had his theories about Alexander the Great. So close to Theron, so important in history, second only to Genghis Khan as the greatest conqueror the world had ever known. Quinn suspected that Alexander had been Helghul, just as Alexander had supposed, thousands of years before, that Plato had been Marcus. They had both been correct. They had missed one another by a generation, but Theron had linked them once again.

Alexander was said to have found and displayed the Emerald Tablet. Quinn wondered where it had gone next, certain that Helghul would have hidden it for himself to find in a future life.

Quinn read and reread, looking for new information, new blogs, new links, and evidence of other Emissaries. Theron might be out there somewhere.

There was a quick rap and the door opened.

“Dude … you should lock your door,” Nate—a metrosexual artist in his late twenties—said as he let himself in. He wore skinny jeans, a long sloppy sweater, and a toque that covered his mop of dark hair, except for the pieces that were arranged in deliberate poky bits across his forehead.

“If I had, you'd still be standing in the rain,” Quinn pointed out, readjusting his robe.

“How goes the computer biz? You look like you got some work,” Nate said, eying the pile of hard drives and laptops on the kitchen table as he helped himself to a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, some. How's it going with you?” Quinn said, pushing back from the computer and rolling closer to the overstuffed chair behind him. Nate moved a small pile of newspapers and a dog-eared copy of
The Secret History of the Mongols
²⁰
and sat sideways. His long legs dangled over the worn arm as he drank.

“Not doing well, actually. My car's not driving for shit these days and I hate the thought of taking the bus at my age. I really thought I was done with that, you know? Anyway, Sarah's been nagging like, insane, about the whole marriage and kid thing, and I was thinking, like seriously, if she's going to nag and bitch like this do I really want to get tossed into some crazy, formal, man-made cage with her? Voluntarily? Fuck no, so we had another huge fight. Hey, whatever happened with that woman who gave you her number at the art gallery?” he said, finally taking a breath. Quinn passed him a joint and blew out a lungful of smoke.

“Man, when someone says how's it going … seriously … do you have to go into the unedited, Bible-length version?” Quinn asked, shaking his head.

“Yeah … explain
that
why don't you? Why do people ask if they don't wanna know?”

“I wanna know, relax,” Quinn said, amused by his friend's rant.

Nate was so easy to rile, but it was only because he cared so much. When Nate asked someone, “How's it going?” he meant it. He wanted to know. Right down to the smallest, most insignificant hangnail. If it mattered to you, Nate wanted to know. Quinn loved that about his pal. He had loved that same energy when he had known Nate as Amnut in Egypt centuries earlier, and before that as his merciful guard in Stone-at-Center. He was a good soul, and Quinn wondered what they were meant to accomplish together. There must be some reason that they were a part of the same soul group and that Nate had come into his life once again.