Descending twilight saw the Master sitting on the floor facing East in a distinctly prayerful posture, calling the Earth to witness. By the time the sun had set and Venus rose like a diamond on its band of gold, each cardinal direction and each of the elements had been called upon in turn.
Flame, Air, Water, Earth, Reflection; Starlight is the love inflection.
Looking up at the sky, the Master saw how the quintessential force was thrown into relief by the glowing pharos of Mars, silently beckoning his paramour as he bequeathed to her the dark and endless night.
The god of war was preparing his surrender at the temple of beauty, but he also had a message for the Master and this was the key to understanding other things:
Here in orbit turn the star-lings – planets binding, suns inclining – in such ways that whole dimensions fold inside the vaults of Heaven.
Mars was in perfect conjunction with Venus and the half moon, signaling the return of The Lovers to Earth.
Not only this, but the equinoxes were on the verge of their precession; together they gave rise to the most potent cosmic conditions that had been witnessed from Earth since the Star of the Magi heralded the turning point of history.
That the cosmic design might remain undefined was inconceivable, but how, precisely, it manifest was a mystery beyond even this:
The Master sighed, deep in thought, and approached an overloaded bookcase on the Eastern wall of the treatment room. The afternoon sun cast rendered certain areas invisible with its blinding rays.
Scanning the shelves intently, following the words on each well-worn spine with a finely-nailed forefinger, all but that which the Master sought was readily apparent, the object itself merely absent.
After almost an hour of fruitless seeking, the Master stamped a foot and sighed loudly in frustration. Thoughts from what was by any standards a frequently exercised brain penetrated the atmosphere with ease.
Where on Earth is the magical book?
There was no answer to this question.
Didn’t I see it just after Halle Bop came around again and the moon was side by side with Jupiter?
Again, there was no answer, but the Master felt sure this was when the rare and ancient copy of ‘Pros Theon’, which translated into English as ‘By the Gods’, had last been consulted.
Where can it be, for heaven’s sake?
Who could say? No word came, though the room was imbibed with an overpowering sense that to lose the text completely would be disastrous.
There were only seven transcripts of the book left in existence and at least two of those – the Master’s included – were incomplete. Of the other six, a well-used copy was with the exiled Dalai Lama and the Chief Rabbi – who may well have denied its existence had he been questioned – kept a pristine version hidden away in his library behind the more orthodox texts.
Mahavatar Babaji had somehow obtained a copy of the book that he subsequently left with his disciples, while a famously un-heard of Sufi Magician inherited the fifth from his grandfather. This highly revered leader of a largely forgotten tribe of nomads had escaped persecution by retreating to a hidden network of mountain caves above the plains of ancient Babylon.
The Vatican had the remaining two copies of Pros Theon. One was in fragments and a second had been retrieved by the Knights Templar from a vault below the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The Master felt a sudden chill. Could it be true that the only freely available text of Pros Theon had been lost or even stolen?
As her eyes ran over the black and white plates of the book, the two in the room became increasingly attuned to the music playing between them. In his mind it grew louder, recalling to him the daughter of memory.
She reached out a hand for the volume button and pushed it higher. Lush electronic sounds swelled like waves and a soft, angelic voice swept over them on the breeze.
A brief history of time unfolded in his fathomless mind.
*
She was wearing golden sandals, shoes that were paid-for by her father, together with a light coloured dress. Around her wrist was a bracelet full of charms and with his bright, ancient eyes, he saw that the necklace at her throat was made from the stuff of magic; a gift from her mystery-loving mother.
Over 2,400 years had passed since they had been this close. On that occasion the moon had been perfectly halved by the shadow of the Earth, and Jupiter was at the same point in its orbit as it would be in three and a half hours, that self-same night.
He looked over his shoulder and nodded to the gigantic sphere, which turned through the fragile cosmos by an intricately complex, haunting melody. Both of them saw with the eye of their mind that a gateway had opened in the ether.
Suddenly aware of time, she picked up her mobile phone and studied its display. It was only half past 9.00.
Strange.
Normally she felt this way much later in a given day. The force was usually been strongest between 1 and 2, she mused earnestly, casting aside the book.
On the Earth the Shaman shifted
