A/ N : Many thanks to TwiliteAddict for her timely return, tidy changes and slick suggestions. One more chapter to go, folks, so this chapter is twice the size of my usual posts. I hope you enjoy it!
As we got closer to the summit of the Mount Denali, where Eleazar recalled Sa's sacred cave to be, a humming sound began to drone in my ears, getting louder and louder, until I could feel the vibrations of this freakish frequency through the soles of my feet. I asked Benji and Eleazar if they could hear it, but they couldn't. Eleazar did mention experiencing something similar when Sa blessed him.. I knew I was sensitive to these energies, and yet I had never experienced something so...heady. Curious, I let my vision slide to auric, which revealed a pulsing beam at least eight miles wide streaming out of the top of the mountain and into the clouds above. It was a myriad of violet and mauve shades, swirling and mingling in a diaphanous dance as they shot up into the sky.
"What you are seeing is the Earth's energy system flowing from her crown chakra into the Cosmos." Wadjet advised serenely. I had not realized she could still 'talk' even in her walking stick form.
"The earth has chakras like we do?" I asked aloud.
"Yesss. Of course she does. She is the Great Mother and you are made in her image. She is the very Womb of all material life on the planet. Everything she offers is to nurture the life living upon her body. Her mother's milk flows in rivers and streams. Her lungs, the trees, give us clean air to breathe. We are all connected through the Earth, our Mother."
"This is very similar to the shamanic teachings of our indigenous people in North America."
"These teachings are similar the world over because there is at least one major chakra on each continent. The Djedhi priests of Egypt, the Cherokee, the Druids, the Toltec, and the Maya all lived near vortex points. They would use their songs, stories, drums, dream journeys or rituals to clear the major and minor chakras of the Great Mother – for they can become blocked and polluted as well as yours do. Do not doubt it. Mother Earth has gone through a very dark period during the colonization and genocide of so many of her indigenous peoples; the raping and pillaging of her body for dirty resources. But there is hope. These old ways are coming back. The vortexes are calling healers to come to them and sing new songs and beat new drums, and the Mother is being healed once more."
"So this is why Sa is at the Crown Chakra – for he is a very powerful healer." Eleazar stated.
"Not strong enough to heal me." Benji sulked.
"Are you ungrateful, Djinn?" Wadjet hissed angrily. "Have you forgotten how thick The Forsaken tarred you with the darkest of magics to steal away the very core of your soul? She wiped out the memory of the reason for your very existence!
"No. No, I have not forgotten. And I am grateful. I just wish..."
"Djinns and their wishes...you know what trouble THAT can lead to!"
"I know." Benji hung his head and climbed the rest of the way in silence. Wadjet's loaded statement made me really glad Emmett hadn't asked Benji to grant him a wish. Goddess knows he wanted to once he found out that a Djinn was a type of Genie, but thankfully we left before he could press the issue.
"One cannot heal what was completely removed. Sa could only heal the wounds which came afterward." Wadjet scolded after him. Despite the reprimand, Benji continued to mope. If there was one thing I was familiar with, it was the shape and form that particular body took when brooding. I was grateful I did not have to deal with a moodier, darker version of the Djinn. I was also thankful Edward's soul was tucked away and safe from the emotional turmoil brewing within Benji. Or at least, I hoped he was.
Finally, we reached the cave, and everyone focused on entering Sa's sacred space without disturbing him.
The Spirit Bear's cave had an ancient energy thrumming with primal power. Great magics had been performed here, and I knew Harry would love an opportunity to explore and experience this space. If I brought anyone back here to meet Sa, it would definitely be my shamanic mentor. Eleazar crept to the back of the cave to peek around the corner and gauge Sa's whereabouts. Walking back to us, he had a smile on his face as he whispered, "Sa is sleeping soundly. I daresay, if we are quiet, we can go about our business without disturbing the old bear."
Benji stood off to the side with Eleazar while I readied myself to call upon and manifest my most powerful Spirit Guide, the Phoenix. His powerful presence came upon me much quicker than the night previous during the battle. I assumed it must have been the accumulation of energy in the cave augmenting my abilities. I was also not segregating myself from the bird and sending him away from me, which at the time, seemed to have taken a considerable amount of energy. I still felt a loss of some sort as his body separated from mine, but it was not painful or causing any harm. I simply noticed the difference. The fierce, fiery beast preened and pranced once Benji and I mounted his back, letting out a squawk of readiness.
I don't know how I knew my Phoenix was a "he," but it just felt right to reference him in this way. His flaming wings were a magic laden trick of light – you would expect yourself to be burned by the blazing feathers, but they were as soft as duck down and the body beneath as sturdy as a rock. The power and magic rippling through him was empowering to say the least.
Wadjet wrapped herself around Eleazar's head and opened a portal behind the ancient altar, strewn with bones and flowers. Once they slipped through, my Phoenix followed suit. Interestingly, the hole accommodated our size, which, to be honest, was a bit of a worry. After all, I was still adjusting to fourth dimensional rules since crossing over into this life as an immortal, magical being.
Once the portal closed behind us, we traveled at an insanely fast speed along a web of interconnected energy highways, just as Eleazar had described. I could feel the twist and turn of Benji's body behind me as he ogled his surroundings. I would have done the same, but I was too focused on keeping my head and Wadjet and Eleazar in our sights. They were moving like lightning.
"The Hills of Tara are just ahead. We will be coming through St Patrick's well and meeting Dr. O'Riorden at the Mound of Hostages."
"Is the well open or closed?" Benji yelled at Wadjet from behind me.
"Open or closed? Why would that matter?" I hollered back.
"You'll find out soon enough." Benji teased. "If it's open, expect to get a little...wet."
We were streaming towards a pod-shaped node, which was shining a bright, buttery yellow. I had noticed these intersected portal points along the grid, and they were exactly how Eleazar had described: Some were lit, some were not.
Eleazar and Wadjet went through first with us barreling through right behind them. The pressure of re-entry wasn't immense, but it was certainly noticeable. I felt like I was being stretched and pulled and squeezed together all at the same time. The crush of Benji and the Phoenix's body against mine was making it hard to tell who began where. I could have sworn I felt Edward's voice reverberating through my bones. "I'm here with you."
Water enveloped us, slowing down our inertia considerably compared to the breakneck speeds we had been traveling through the leyline grid. The well was pitch-black except for the soft phosphorescent glow of my Spirit Animal's foliage lighting the murky depths. Eleazar was above us, agitating the water with his kicking as he squeezed through an opening barely large enough for his body. Not wanting to test physics anymore than I already had, I retracted my spirit animal with nothing but a thought. Grabbing a bewildered Benji's hand, I guided him up.
Pushing to the surface, I reached out to either side, finding stone slick with algae and moss. A black cast iron gate, which closed the well in, was thankfully swayed open. I grabbed the bars to pull myself out of the water onto a flagstone path like a beached fish. Eleazar stood in front of me, holding Wadjet, who had converted back to the stately walking stick. Though dripping with water, Eleazar had small grin tickling across his face.
"So, how do you feel about your first trip through the Lines of the Serpent?" he asked jovially.
"Let's just say, somehow it all makes sense...like remembering something you've forgotten. It's actually how I mastered my powers so quickly. I can only describe it as a...long buried instinct, triggered into awareness. Now, the trigger was not a snap of the finger kind of thing, but the work and guidance from many loved ones - Harry, my ancestors, and even my brother Jasper, a very powerful empath. His first lesson was how to play with the wind. For instance, this little trick might come in handy for us drippy ducks! Stand still for a moment."
Not wanting to meet Dr. O'Riorden in our sopping sorry state, I took advantage of the strong winds already blowing around us, converting them to speeds and temperatures suitable to drying our clothing. It worked perfectly and I felt quite pleased with myself. Alice would have loved that trick. Benji certainly did, thanking me profusely as he patted himself down.
"Dr. O'Riorden asked to meet us at the Mound of Hostages. It should be just over there." Eleazar looked around, relieved the site was completely void of visitors. "We are lucky it is fall and the end of tourist season."
As the sun sank, it splashed pastels and golden rivulets of color across the sky. Winds carried the cozy scents of pastoral autumn, mingling wood smoke with the dying breaths of summer grass and flowers. Though reduced over time to a remnant of lumps in the landscape, Tara still maintained a mysterious, majestic energy. Her power consistently resurrected in the lingering memory of her myths and the rediscovery of her sacred stones. The most sacred stone of all, the Lia Fail, stood erect in his powerful, phallic glory, boasting stories of Kings he'd christened and sang for. How I yearned for more time so I could stop and really listen - touch the stone and open my heart to the blessings he could bestow.
The bleating of sheep brought me out of my meanderings. Much of Tara had been converted to farm land over the passing of centuries, so there were many sheep scattered across the grounds, running from us if we came too close.
"This site is over five thousand years old, but Wadjet implied to me it was much older," Eleazar shouted over the wind and noise of the animals.
"Judging from the energies traveling along the ground here, I would have to agree with her. There are so many intersecting lines and vibrational frequencies sounding off all at once. I feel like I'm attending some sort of otherworldly opera!"
The magical music ran like a river through my body, echoing against my bones into my inner ear. Scanning the ground, I could discern different colored beams of light coursing beneath, each sounding off a different tone and converging into a lilting harmonic cadence. Looking back from where we came, I could see St Patrick's well had a gold line running through it, but Eleazar was leading us along a platinum line which seemed to be carrying the principal melody of the aria. Glowing blindingly within my auric vision, the singing silver strip ran right down the center of the entire site.
I held my hands out to spin and dance to the music no one else could hear. "I can't believe I'm here. But even more, I can't believe how blessed I am to be able to see what lies beneath this powerful site."
I turned towards Benji. "Edward once told me visiting Tara helped him manage the grief of losing his parents. His father was Irish, so he felt very connected whenever he would visit here. He wanted to bring me here one day...I guess in a way, he still has."
Benji gave me a sad smile before mumbling his apologies and taking hold of my hand. He pulled me to a stop while he grabbed the other. His face flushed with the coloring with embarrassment as he stammered,
"Forgive my seemingly inappropriate impulsiveness, but Edward wishes me to tell you that he is here with us."
I tried to imagine for one moment it was my husband holding my hand. I may have even convinced myself of it. I squeezed his hands in gratitude and pulled him into a quick hug. "I know. But it helps to be reminded he is still in there, waiting. It really does. Please don't apologize, and thank you for making this...strange situation, a little easier for all of us."
"You should thank your Edward. His love for you is..." Benji seemed to be searching for the right word. "Grounding. It reminds me how much was stolen from me. The possibility of having a love like the one you and Edward share is more than enough to keep me moving forward." He dropped my hands and we began to walk again towards the Mound. With a deep breath of air and a smile on his face as bright as any sunshiny day he cocked his head to one side and said, "I don't know whether it is your husband's influence or yours, but this place feels like...home."
"Have you remembered something?" Eleazar and I questioned simultaneously and probably a little too eagerly judging from the look of surprise on Benji's face.
"Not anything specifically, but this place feels familiar. Connected to me somehow."
"Perhaps this was one of the settlements you and Hathor spent some time in? It sounds like the only logical reason why her necklace could be found here," Eleazar stated. "Anyway, we'll find out soon enough. There's our rendezvous point." He nodded toward the little hillock ahead. Sure enough the melodic silver line went right through the middle of it.
Dr. Siobhan O'Riorden was hard to miss standing on top of the Mound of Hostages. She was a striking sight to behold, her long red hair dancing in the shears of sunlight, glinting like rubies. I thought of Leda and said a prayer to my ancestor to protect us. The doctor couldn't have picked a better vantage point to watch for us. The mound itself was probably about ten feet off the ground and a good fifty or better around, offering an encompassing view of the entire site of Tara. The doctor waved to us, coming down from the Mound to meet us.
"Hello! You must be Eleazar? Lord Ra told me so much about you. I was so pleased to get your call. After decades of waiting, I thought it might never come!" Dr. O'Riorden reached out her hand and pumped ours vigorously in greeting. Her strength was a solid indicator the good doctor was also a vampire, but the red eyes paired with the same shock of hair confirmed unequivocally she drank human blood. Benji tensed beside me as Dr. O'Riorden took his hand with a slower, gentler touch, her hand lingering on his for a little too long for either of our likings. I was certain I could handle her should she decided to indulge her base instincts on my now-human husband, but it most definitely caught the Djinn off guard.
Stepping up to her, my body language let her know she needed to back off. I was still pretty tetchy being so fresh from the experience of a creepy Carmen getting, well, fresh with my husband, so manners, schmanners. "I'm afraid we have not been afforded the same advantage of familiarity. Dr. O'Riorden."
She received the message loud and clear and immediately dropped Benji's hand to retreat and look at the ground, unsure of what to do. After an awkward pause, she gathered herself to rectify the situation the best she could.
"Please call me Siobhan, and accept my sincere apologies. I would never wish to offend. Especially you, Isabella. I wasn't told the Djinn would be in a human body."
"You didn't let us know that was a problem. Are you unable to control yourself?" Eleazar stood protectively in front of Benji also. Siobhan slid from embarrassment to being offended, scoffing at Eleazar's question.
"Of course I'm able to control myself. It was just...unexpected is all. I was under the impression he had been trapped within a bottle."
"Well he was," I stated matter-of-factly, "but I broke it, so he's sharing a body with my husband, Edward."
I poked at her aura. She was sincere, but also a little flustered...perhaps even fearful.
"I thought Edward was a vampire. Didn't he sire you? How is he human?" Siobhan's eyes widened with shock. "Did the Forsaken curse him also?" she whispered, her fear coming into full bloom.
"You know of the Forsaken?" Eleazar asked.
"Of course I do. Lord Ra had me turned into a vampire before ushering me into the order of The Brotherhood of the Eternal Return to protect the Menit should that unholy beast ever come looking for it." Siobhan flashed the Ourosbouros tattoo that matched Eleazar and Xandru's, a snake in a perfect circle eating its own tail.
Eleazar clapped his hands together in delight, ecstatic with the unexpected news he was not the last of his blessed brotherhood.
"Lord Ra did enjoy his secrets behind the scenes." He then became somber, grief touching him still over the death of his High Priest. "May he rest in peace."
Benji and Eleazar both bowed their heads and put their hands to their hearts in respect, and I watched Dr. O'Riorden's face crumble in that split second with realization. She had not known he was dead. I felt so sorry for her I impulsively hugged her in condolence. Despite the earlier awkwardness, it was very well received and seemed to be exactly what she needed. I managed to erase her uncertainty with simple compassion. Though I never knew Ra, only meeting him the once, listening to Eleazar speak of his dedication to the brotherhood and the lengths to which he went to protect The Source made me wish I had.
Eleazar hugged Siobhan as well and began apologizing immediately for her finding out in such a manner.
"Had I known you were hand picked by Amun Ra to be inducted into the order, I would have let you know right away. Take heart in knowing how blessed you were to be chosen by him for such an honor. Traditionally, to be a member of the brotherhood, you need to be born into it and sworn in by a relative. He must have thought you were pretty special to have made such an exception in your case." Eleazar boasted.
"That's very sweet, Brother Eleazar. Thank you." Siobhan gave him a lopsided smile and shook her head. "I have no doubt it was more for what I found than for who I was, to be honest. I was just an archaeologist who happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was always about the necklace. I found it while heading up a dig in this very mound for Trinity University in 1955.
"You found Hathor's necklace, the Menit, buried in there?" Benji looked at the mound, thought creasing his brow.
I could tell he was working hard to recall something, anything that would connect him to this place and the memories made here.
"Yes! Though at the time, I didn't realize what it was or whose it was. I was having enough trouble wrapping my head around where it came from, and then there was the even bigger problem of how old it was.
"How old was it?" I asked, as any magical item belonging to an immortal being had to be considerably ancient.
"Well, first I should let you know the accepted date for the construction of this tomb goes back to 3000 BC, so the Neolithic era. We got that date by examining the items they used to build the tomb, which were the ashes of the dead themselves. The bodies had been cremated along with a few of their belongings and placed between the slabs of stone which made up the structure of the tomb." She directed us to the entrance of the door and ran her hands over the unmarked standing stones forming the entrance. "It was assumed sometime around 1600 BC they ran out of room to place their dead, so they began placing the cremated remains within funerary urns in the passage of the tomb itself. We found about forty urns."
"So if the remains were cremated and crushed beneath slabs of stone, how did you find Hathor's necklace amongst all that ash?" Benji asked.
"Ahh, yes – well, remarkably, there was one body out of the hundreds within the tomb that was laid to rest in a completely different manner than the rest. We found it in buried in a shallow pit in the center of the passageway. Most interesting, the body was mummified! I found the necklace around his neck."
"His? As in...he?" Benji stammered, becoming visibly spooked.
Eleazar seemed to notice this as well. I attempted to say something to Benji to ask him if he was okay, but Eleazar held out his hand signaling me to hold back. I think he wanted to push the Djinn a little bit to see if he could recall anything within the depths of suppressed emotion buried within him.
Benji rubbed his arms and seemed to hug himself.
"Yes. He," Siobhan continued. "We were stumped as well as the body was draped in a woman's shawl and was wearing what looked like woman's jewelry. The necklace itself was like nothing seen from the Celtic Bronze age era, and looked like a remnant instead of a complete piece. The beads had been made with a type of ceramic glazing I knew was found only in Egypt. Faience beads. What you won't find in the archaeological record about this odd discovery is the strange medallion we found in the Mummy's right hand."
Siobhan reached into the leather satchel strapped across her shoulders and pulled out a large keyhole-shaped piece of metal. She passed it over to me to examine a little closer. The medallion itself was rather heavy, not quite silver and not quite gold. A mixture of both, perhaps. Carved into the metal was the head of a lioness and the head of a cow. Sekhmet and Hathor!
"The carbon dating on the body was around 1350 BC, but the beads and this metal piece...were over 100,000 years old."
"Holy Hecate." I rocked back on my heels. "That type of evidence could rewrite history books!"
"You got that right. If they chose to believe it. Finds like that get swept under the carpet quicker than you could blink, along with the careers of the people who found them. It was a true conundrum. The age of the body was fine. It fit within the time frame of the building of the mound and the proposed settlement date of Tara. But the way it was buried – mummified, and with the Egyptian beads - some of my colleagues wondered if we had stumbled upon proof of the existence of an exiled Egyptian Princess named Scota, who founded the race of Scots and Gaels that ruled the Isles. Before we realized the body was male, we honestly thought we had found one of the daughters of the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten, which would make her a sister of King Tutankhamen! But that damn necklace! I could never publish the true age of the carbon dating and expect to be taken seriously. The peer review would have been a nightmarish blow to my career. I might as well have told them I found the goddamn fairy king of the Tuatha De Danaan!"
"So what did you do?" I asked.
"I prayed."
"I bet I know who answered." I smiled. "Ra!"
"Yes. He certainly did. He came to me in a dream. He told me to hide the necklace and gave me beads very similar to the ones we collected. Those, he said, would pass the carbon dating test. In exchange, he would tell me the true history of Tara and the necklace. As if that wasn't enough to garner my cooperation, he also offered to make me immortal! How could I refuse this rare insight into the past, not to mention the front row seat to the future and beyond! The next morning when I woke up, I found the beads on my night table. The dream was real. I took them into to be carbon dated and, sure enough, they matched the body -1350 BC. Some of my colleagues still ran with the Scota story, saying he was her husband, Gaythelos, but it fizzled and died on the rocky shores of mainstream opinion."
"What about the medallion? Didn't your colleagues ask what happened to it?" Benji asked. He couldn't take his eyes off the piece.
Siobhan smiled. "Somehow, Ra erased it from their memory and from the archaelogical record itself – as if we had never found it. It's been in my care ever since."
"So what did he tell you about Tara?" Benji was hanging on Siobhan's every word..
"Everything and anything I could never possibly imagine. The first thing he revealed was that the name 'Tara' was actually a shortening of the original name Ptah of Ra."
Eleazar laughed out loud. "Well I'll be...Ptah Ra. Of course!"
Siobhan was tickled. "Yes! He then told me all the old mythologies and legends held rings of truth, explaining to me during the Golden Age of the gods, they had settlements all over the world. A global civilization. They would place their colonies on various cross points of the Serpent Lines across the globe. As you might know, where ever the lines crossed, the energy is highly vibrational and very pleasing to the gods. The food grows more abundantly, which made the humans who worshiped them, thrive and enjoy generations upon generations of good health and long lives.
"But what moved me to take the vows, to become OurosBouros and protect the secret of the Menit with my immortal life, was when Lord Ra then told me the story of his daughters. How Hathor and her Djinn lover moved from settlement to settlement and back again to escape The Forsaken's wrath."
"But she caught up with us here." Benji stated flatly.
Siobhan nodded sadly. "Yes, and then again in Romania hundreds of years later when she made theVolturi her lap dogs. Hathor barely escaped her sister's clutches."
"This story I know. My ancestors hid her with the Moroi kings for centuries..." I offered only to be interrupted by Benji.
"But what happened here? Whose body was that in the grave with Hathor's necklace?" Benji demanded, but the answer dawned on him at the same time as it did the rest of us.
"The Mummified body was mine," he whispered.
Siobhan looked sad. "I'm afraid so. Ra confirmed this for me, saying The Forsaken had managed to kidnap you and forty of your men as hostages. This is how the tomb got its name. The Forsaken brought you to this tomb, promising your safe return for Hathor's surrender. Hathor wanted to give herself up. She was tired of running. Ra would not let her. Instead he convinced her he could call back Benji's soul and put it in another body. Hathor did not want to risk it. She heard the rumours of the dark magics her sister had cloaked herself with."
"Sulpicia trapped me. Put me in that horrible bottle." Benji's face was ghostly white.
"With the most obscene of magics. She extracted your soul long before she marched you as a hostage to that tomb to meet with Hathor. That blackest of witches was bargaining with an empty vessel hoping to trick Hathor into giving herself up. Then she would have both of you. However, Love is the most powerful of magics. Hathor knew the moment she saw your body. you were not in it. She refused to negotiate with Sulpicia and sent in her Pict warrior army. Surprised her sister did not fall for her ruse, Sulpicia created a smoke screen and vanished while the Pict warriors ran through their own hostages in the confusion."
"How awful. They killed their own men?" Suddenly I was overcome with the re-emergence of a vision I had during my transformation in the In Between. Raging warriors covered in blue paint and strange runes, running into a mist...screaming.
Siobhan nodded her head. "Those forty brave souls were the cremated remains in the passageway. They hadn't 'run out of room' like my peers thought. They were placed in the passageway so they would have quicker access to the afterlife."
Benji began to sob. I moved to comfort him when he saw the medallion Siobhan had given me in my hands. He pointed to it, "May I?"
"Of course."
The moment his fingers touched the edges, we were both pulled into a rotating spin. I felt the vibrations of the lines beneath my feet become strong pulses, pounding like rushing blood through my veins. The scenery endlessly spun around us, gaining momentum to become a blur of color. We were both being transported to a different time on this cosmic, high speed calliope, of that I had no doubt.
Suddenly, everything stopped and I could smell smoke and burnt flesh. Through the thick haze we could make out a few funeral pyres, the bodies burning and crackling. Closer to the entrance of the tomb was a woman covered from head to toe in a beautifully woven shawl tending a body for burial. She wept inconsolably as she worked, speaking gently to him.
"They asked me to burn your body, but I refused. I have woven a dream you will come back to it someday, and I will cling to it like these beads have clung to Menit over the eons. Today, I put you both to rest."
She pulled back her hood and revealed herself to us. Benji sucked in a breath and grabbed my arm. We were both looking at the very woman we sought. Hathor.
"My goddess...she is...is...," Benji whispered.
"A vision." I answered, dumbfounded by this creature's beauty. Her hair was the color of crow feathers, dark as night with flashes of blue and green when the sun touched the strands a certain way. Her golden skin and violet eyes most definitely marked her as Other. I had no doubt the people thought of her as what she was,,, a goddess. Legends of the fae and the supernatural race of the Tuatha De Danaan living amongst the mortals didn't seem so far fetched as I had been shown proof they well and truly did since the beginning of time.
I could tell Benji wanted to get closer to her. I felt confident enough that we were merely observers to this scene, so I didn't see the harm in letting him. I desperately hoped this experience would trigger some memory, something to move us forward in reuniting him with his lover so I could reunite with mine. Nudging him forward, I encouraged him to take in as much as he could about this woman he was made for. She removed her cloak and wrapped it around the body. Reaching around her neck she removed a very worn string of beads. The medallion counterweight had hung down her back. She separated the medallion from the necklace, bespelling it with a tear soaked voice:
"This necklace has always been with me - a birthing gift from my father - and is as much a part of me as you are, my love. Let this circle of beads be a symbol of our infinite bond, keeping watch over your body until your spirit returns." She gently placed the beads over her lover's neck and kissed him in the middle of the forehead. Hathor then picked up the knife lying beside the body and slit a line across her forearm, drawing blood. The color surprised me, glinting brilliant blue in the light. She rubbed it all over the medallion and whispered, "Behold a doorway to my heart. Return to me," She placed it within his still hand.
"Benji," I said, realization hitting me like a tidal wave. "The medallion is a portal to The Source. It will take us to her."
The vision fell away, its purpose completed. The layers of time shattering like glass, dissolving like water into the ground. We must have completely disappeared during the time of our vision because Eleazar and Siobhan looked very relieved to see us.
"Where did you both go? To the Source's Sanctuary?" Eleazar asked hopefully.
"No," Benji replied with excitement, "but Isabella just figured out how we get there! Through this." He held up the medallion and grinned, then placed it on the ground in front of the passageway. "How close are we to Samhain? What's the date?"
"It's November 1st, Samhain was actually yesterday! " Siobhan lit up with the realization of what Benji was getting at. "Of course! The tomb itself is considered a 'passageway' between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This tomb in particular has her entrance lined up to receive the sun's illumination during the cross quarter days of Samhain and Imbolc!" Siobhan opened the gate of the tomb. "Place the medallion in front of the door to see if the sun's rays activate it. Hurry! We don't have much light left."
There was a spot of sunlight the size of my fist shining on the entrance of the entryway. Benji placed the medallion in front of it, but nothing happened. He spoke to it; begged it to open as the spot shrank to about the size of his thumb. I thought back to Hathor's original spell. She had activated it with her blood. Of course!
" Blood! We need to activate it with your blood!" I shouted, rushing over to Benji. I grabbed his arm and ran a fingernail as gently as I could manage across his wrist, then swiped his open wound across the medallion leaving a bright red smear.
The blood on the medallion bubbled, hissed, and spit sparks before stretching and widening to the size of a large seven foot tall door. Siobhan and Eleazar both cursed softly in amazement., but Benji didn't hesitate. He opened the door, grabbed my hand and walked through.
A/N: Alot of you are aware I like to take real history and dismantle it a bit to fit my crazy mythologies and plot lines. Well, Trinity University actually did do a dig of the Mound of Hostages in 1955 and there WAS a mummified male body dated from 1350 BC that was found with faience beads made in Egypt during the time of King Tut...so a rather co-incidental match for those who believed in connections between the High Kings of Ireland and Scotland with Egyptian royalty. However, as usual, mainstream archaeology was rather reluctant to explore this theory further to cement it in the history books. Fun Fact: The name of the archaeologist who headed up the dig and found the faience beads was Dr. SEAN O'Riorden. ;)