Then she stopped herself. Was that a past or future vision?
Before she could try to answer her own question, she caught sight of the plethora of sketches all over the table. No one had gotten around to taping any of the sheets up to the walls yet, but from her standing vantage point, she had more than enough scope to see what the others, closer to the individual scenes, could not.
“Lilies,” she said, and immediately understood part of the riddle. There were sketches of white-shaded lilies of all kinds and levels of expertise. In the water, with frogs on some, in fields, in gardens.
Once she said it, Curt apparently figured it out too, slapping the table. “Oh damn, that’s easy.”
“What?” said Craig.
“We know the manufacturer of the drug at least,” Eric replied, looking to Victoria for confirmation.
She nodded. “Eli Lily. So that’s a start. And here…” She took several of the sheets and arranged them together. Forgotten was Nan Madol and questions of time or warnings.
Pictures of what looked like vats, and a sweatshop, tiny forms that could be pills, but in all three sheets there were two similar images that chilled her to the bone.
The first: a square-shaped thing with exotic runes on it, all too familiar… Someone had even found a green pencil and colored it in so there was no mistake. It had wavy green lines bathing the vats and the subsequently-produced pills.
The other image: colored bright red in two images, and with the word CRIMSON written in the black and white version: a man on a ledge or standing over the Emerald Tablet, clearly in control of it.
He looked like a samurai, with a curved helmet and a cloak of some kind, and a sword at his belt.
She choked on the words: “Who the hell is that guy?”
7
I have become destroyer of worlds.
The thought brought him neither excitement nor guilt. It was not the first time he had felt this way. And as he floated in the immersion tank, breathing tube in place, his naked body rippled with muscles honed from an early age, before his Ascension.
He’d been groomed by the others. The Circle. The Followers of Horus.
They had many names. And had lived many lives.
After his Ascension, he had learned of his true past, the lineages and the linkages back, back to when it all began and even further. The destiny they shaped. The knowledge they sought.
It was all so close now.
His body, the talents and the skills he’d learned — mastering four martial arts forms, proficient with katana and shurikens — everything would come in play for the battles to come in this, the endgame.
He would soon be called to that ancient and sacred cavernous chamber amidst the ice and snow, deep inside the primordial shrine, the ancient place of wonder.
He would become one with the truth.
But Raiden Ziansin understood that truth was malleable, and power was everything. The power that would soon be his, power enough to take a world by force, and create a new truth.
Truth, when one had true knowledge, could be reshaped, molded and corrected.
There is another path, he thought as his hand absently moved through the cool water and grasped the gem on the chain around his neck.
The green, solid, perfectly chiseled gem…
Soon, now.
He could feel his body, but only barely. The power of the gem radiated against his flesh and muscle, absorbed in the nutrient bath; but again, it was only flesh and muscle. What was truly enhanced now was his mind.
His consciousness, freed completely in this tank…
A practice the Americans had almost perfected with their spying programs. With MK Ultra and Stargate and others. Raiden had been experimenting with the separation of mind and body for years. Astral traveling, spirit projection, whatever the term, he had been proficient by the time he had been admitted into the Order, and from there, along with his discovery of the past, of who he had been and the lives he had lived, he knew why he had been chosen.
They knew too. Especially since Raiden Ziansin died over thirty years ago.
What could he say? He liked the name. Among the hundreds, thousands he had taken or had been given as his own, this one had the most meaning. ‘Raiden’ meant God of Thunder and Lightning, and the one who had borne that name… had found the gem.
A flash of memories rose to the top of his thoughts: submerged with a tenuous breathing line… the pressure overwhelming, the surface so far up, a bare glint in the gloom and past the fan-like shapes circling overhead, closing in on something — a deeper shadow in the darkness, like a spire, the lead emissary of magnificent city under the waves, but more — a glinting silvery chest secured in chains just inside its cupola. Within his reach…
He snapped back just as his consciousness, drifting in a sea of thought and spiritual connections, a feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, detected a change in the external environment.
Someone was draining the tank. Bringing him out.
I’m not ready, he tried to project. His body wouldn’t respond yet, disassociated as he was, but he had other means of control. Just had to reach out and find…
Unnggh….
It was too much. He was close but there were so many connections. The gem…
It gave him the sight, and more. While in this state he could find the ‘markers’, those who were taking the drug, the milligrams of solvent floating in their bloodstreams, activating in their brains, and calling out.
Calling to him.
Calling to the gem, the source…
He could find them. Create a connection, like now…
With the woman coming to rouse him from his work. To enlighten him about something.
And then he was in.
Inside her mind, merging with it.
Being non-localized in his consciousness meant he could be anywhere. Be anyone as long as the anchor was in place.
As it was with his assistants here. All hand-chosen by the Followers.
Jaclyn Bennet, 44, of Houston, TX until recently. Lifelong adherent of the occult. Touch of psychic ability herself, proficient in Tarot readings, Palmistry and seances, Jaclyn was naturally drawn to the followers, recruited and propelled through the ranks. Two sisters, both younger and oblivious. Born without the gift. Likely suffering immensely now. Too bad big sis isn’t free to assist in their transition.
She had greater goals at the moment.
Using her body, upending her mind, Raiden directed her to pause the extraction sequence.
Time to learn what the fuss is all about. Why rouse me earlier, when my work isn’t done?
He had just been getting started, probing the corners of the world, seeking the Morpheus members. Tracking them at Nan Madol, scuba diving and running from Miriam’s enforcers. Raiden chuckled at their folly, then moved on. Found the new recruits in the basement of a church, scribbling away and trying to make sense of disjointed and badly drawn sketches. Then on, where the core members were in Long Island.
Interesting, and fascinating.
That bit about Tesla… Unexpected.
Miriam’s loss was a blow, but entirely in the realm of prediction. Her power could have been useful, but she had always been a rogue element. A chaos figure that couldn’t be controlled. Like the other Custodian.
They had annihilated each other. Good. And destroyed a gateway and dimensional portal in the process, closing out other timelines and variable universes.
Just fine with Raiden.
This one is mine.
He had claimed it, lived it. Over and over, he had shaped its history and forged ahead of all others to be at this pinnacle of spiritual and psychic evolution.