But now Alexander knew the truth. What Aria could do, it was the same talent that these previous magicians, psychics or whatever had; but it wasn’t that they clouded their location and actions from psychics, past, present and future; it was that each moment, each action, as they were etched into the fabric of reality, like the recording of an album or digitization of video, were encoded in such a way that only certain few had the key to access them.
Only a few could translate and experience.
And see.
Some part of his psyche wanted to shout and share all this with Orlando, because for sure he would get it. Something about the theory of the holographic, Matrix-like nature of reality… that this proved it, or something like it.
But right now, at a depth of a hundred feet, with a terrified girl clinging to him, with a school of huge and potentially deadly stingrays swarming beneath their feet, and with deadly assassins above waiting for them to falter and rise, he had more pressing problems.
And only one solution.
He had to open the gift she had given him, the power to unlock the code and access the blue filter.
Once, what seemed like millennia ago, when he had a mother and a home, she had given him a game — a puzzle book that had hidden clues only visible under a magnifying glass with red transparent plastic instead of the glass. He knew, just as surely as if he had just held that toy over his eyes, he could now see what had been denied.
Show me…
A rush of sights. Overwhelming and fast, rapid-fire almost. It was as if his mind knew his current precarious situation and couldn’t linger on any one thing. Instead, it selected a myriad of images, collated and collected in no discernable order at first, and just flung them at him, spinning them before his eyes like a carnival zoetrope.
Bits and pieces at first, as the blue wall faded, chipped and blew away, revealing the sights beyond.
Two boys, natives wearing grass skirts; their heads painted bright colors, with crowns of bright orchids on wreaths. They race about a lush landscape as workers labor behind them, building great spires out of glimmering metal and basalt under a brilliant blue sky.
The boys carry slender sticks that could be play swords, except they hum and tremble, and anything they point at lifts into the air. It’s a competition as they throw heavy stones, excess basalt from the materials pile, tree trunks, and even a passing slave, into the air. Floating, kicking, laughing.
In the distance, tall men and women in bright, elegant robes stand on scaffolding and, holding similar wands, raise up even larger blocks, assembling complicated and massive towers, temples, pyramids and megalithic architecture.
The stones fall between the laughing twins, and then the sky darkens, the land trembles, and the winds howl.
Amid lightning streaks, the distant spires shiver and huddle among their silhouetted brethren as the city falls into a hush below before the sky erupts in a torrential rain and the winds howl and the ocean surges.
Another flash and it’s daylight, calm. Two tall bearded men stand at a balcony of a tower, supervising the city below — whose streets are now under water. People are crammed up higher amid their towers, congregating on the rooftops of smaller buildings while in other areas blocks are being assembled out of the water itself, layering in interlocking fashion as dwellings are created and roads raised above the new sea level.
The twins are speaking, but nothing is heard but a hum and a bubbling sound, and they both look up, over their shoulders, to another construction happening simultaneously: a massive project, creating a lattice-work shell for an arced dome.
A construction to cover the entire city, where dozens of robed priestesses stand on scaffolds and direct the immense stones to obey their commands, to rise and align and fit, and…
A flash… and the two brothers are under water, in bright rays of sunlight spearing from above. Holding their breaths, they look down and admire the shimmering dome below their feet, as sharks circle nearby, massive and hungry.
Another blinding light.
And now the dome is cracked, covered with grime, coral and silt, and half-buried in sand.
Time has written its name large upon the once-majestic structure. A giant hole in its apex seems to draw a family of stingrays…
Another flash, and words rumble in the waves…
“Show me the tunnels.”
And a glowing schematic appears, then blurs into another, zooming and moving around. Faster and faster, the tunnels extend out from a large land mass, one that subsequently shrinks and shrinks until it’s just an island and the domed city, its former capital, is only a submerged ruin, forgotten and lost to the depths.
But the tunnels expand, crisscrossing and descending and rising, one in particular, glowing in this vision, following the trail of an original, now-ruined and unrecognizable bridge, to the domed city.
Under the city…
Under the dome that had been engineered as a last-ditch effort to withstand the rising of the ocean and any number of other disaster scenarios. But like all of man’s efforts, nothing lasted forever, and nothing could forestall inevitable destruction. Not even zero-gravity technology or lost wizardry or psychic powers.
A true lost civilization, viewed for the first time by any psychic, Alexander thought — or maybe for the first time in such detail. Edgar Cayce was known to channel other spirits and visit those times; or maybe he caught glimpses beyond the blue filter that prevented future civilizations from learning the mistakes of the past. But whatever the case — the other Emerald Tablet was here.
Or it had been here…
A flash.
And back on that tallest of spires, dizzying and almost reaching the apex of the dome itself, rested a platinum coffin. About the size fit for a toddler.
The two brothers, now aged, with long, flowing grey beards. Their eyes bathed in emerald radiance, gazing down, past the thing glowing in the box, down below to the tens of thousands of colorfully-dressed citizens on the streets, on the canals in boats and on rooftops. The dome lets in the outside light and is painted with clouds that give way to stars in the evening, moving with the celestial mechanics of the outside world.
The brothers look grim, as if the future fate is inevitable and these people, their people, have no hope despite the most powerful artifact in their possession.
A flash, and then:
A glimpse of three huge pyramids, one with a golden capstone, amid a lush palm tree region beside a flowing river, and a majestic lion-headed sphinx gazing over an army of incalculable numbers. A green beam forms atop the pyramid, arcing out into the sky as the people roar their violent war cry.
The brothers, back on ancient Nan Madol, reach for the box. One shakes his head, and the other nods.
They close the lid on the box, first revealing that what’s inside is no longer a familiar tablet at all, but a smaller chip — a tear shaped gem. Just as fiercely jade, radiating power and spinning with runes, formulae and multi-dimensional knowledge.