Atlantean Secrets, teaching scenes

9.16 Streams and the warp of fields destroying Atlantis

(How the fields brought the end of Atlantis, part 2)

My brother in Thunder welcomed me with one of his solar smiles and gave me a long hug. "I have never seen your eyes shine like today! What is happening to you?"

With my finger I pointed to the centers of energy above my head. "Lady Elyani is teaching me about the Point."

"Voof!" he exclaimed.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Unlawfully startled by the explosiveness of the Warriors' Voice-laughter, Lehrmon lifted his right eyebrow, a strange flutter passing through his amber eyes.

"Hum... yes, it must be the Point," I went on, thinking I had better be careful with Mount Lohrzen's ritual landmarks.

"Gervin..." Lehrmon called himself back to his normal self, "Gervin told me he spoke to you about last week's bad news."

"A most enlightening talk," I nodded. "Hearing about the looming catastrophe shocked me out of sleep. It made me realize how much I take for granted and don't know how to appreciate. Makes you wonder if it is only when people are about to lose something that they start to understand what it means to them."

Lehrmon bit his lip and nodded.

Lehrmon was Barkhan Seer's present to Teyani. Through him, Barkhan Seer poured his love into her.

I went high up in my clear fountain and let it click with his. "Actually, this is what I would like to tell you today, Lehrmon. I think you are a wonderful person. I've been thinking this for years, and yet I never told you. And I have never really thanked you for the support you gave me before I went to the temple of the Dragon. It made an enormous difference to me. It was not just illuminating, it was warm like the Eagle's love."

Still biting his lip, Lehrmon kept eye contact with me, letting his vibrantly compassionate light shine.

Strange. I had never seen Lehrmon bite his lip before.

"Well, shall we start with the streams?" he offered.

Curiosity made the Dragon vroof with excitement.

Lehrmon made me sit by his side. "The streams," he began, "are the foundation of the energy fields. Do you understand what the fields are about?"

"Not quite," I confessed. "Shameful, considering I have been living within them for so long."

Lehrmon welcomed such enthusiasm with a patient smile, a touch of irony imperceptibly lifting the corner of his mouth. "A field is a space in which an energy is held. When you enter the chapel of Lord Gana, you immediately feel the god's presence. You don't even have to tune in and try to connect with the god, his energy is already in the room. All you have to do is be open, and let the presence flow inside you. The same is true of all chapels. When you enter the halls of Melchisedek for instance, you are immediately filled with the heartness of the Law and the special shining light of our Lord. As you may have noticed, the effect starts as soon as you cross the entrance. It can be quite amusing if you are standing in the doorway. Take one step in and instantly you are flooded with the spiritual presence. Take one step back and you are in the normal world again."

Lehrmon bit his lip again. For a few seconds he contemplated the living walls' exquisite sapphire glows. He took a deep breath and continued, "If those chapels are so vibrant, it is because of the field within their walls. The field impresses a certain quality in the space of the hall, it activates particular laws of nature. This creates a resonance through which spiritual beings can make their presence felt. Hence the verse of the Law: 'The fields are the vessels into which the gods pour their light.' But there are other fields than those in the chapels. In a music hall for instance, the field helps the audience to tune high into the harmony of the spheres, and it enhances their artistic receptivity."

"How convenient!" I remarked. "So the singers don't have to be great artists. Provided the right field is set up, the audience will be rapt."

Lehrmon approved, raising his eyebrows. "There are also fields specially designed for dining halls, so people enjoy the food served to them. The field helps their digestion too."

I found it difficult to imagine these fields fooling Nephilim people into enjoying the Eisraim style of cuisine, which they would still have found desperately boring.

"The power of the fields comes from the streams," Lehrmon continued. "The streams are like rivers of energy which run through the fabric of the cosmic spheres. From what I understand, the Great Warriors taught you much about healing. So you must be familiar with the meridians that run through people's body of energy."

I nodded.

"The streams are the cosmic equivalent of these meridians. They are to astral space what meridians are to the body. They are a profound mystery, far more than just rivers or draughts in space. They have many facets. They exist on several levels at the same time. On their most subtle level, they are so highly spiritual that they are sometimes called the sweeping breath of God. The grosser levels are nothing more than flows of elemental forces. You understand what elemental forces are?"

"The little beings that form the substance of water, fire, wind and earth. And there are some more sophisticated ones that rule the climate and the forces of nature."

"Right and righteous!" he exclaimed. "There are many levels in the streams, some subtle and some gross, which is why so many different powers can be derived from them. In the beginning, when the Lord Melchisedek upheld the fields which are the matrix of our spheres, he drew from the cosmic streams and made them shine with the Spirit of the Law. At the beginning of time, this is how the Primordial Sages cognized the Law – they listened to the streams and performed the high ritual of Melchisedek, and the Law was revealed to them: they heard the hymns. Later on, when men were created, they learnt the hymns of the Law from the Primordial Sages.

For thousands and thousands of years people lived perfectly happily, because the full glory of the Law was shining through the streams and enlightening the fields – these fields that Melchisedek had created for them in the beginning. There was peace and harmony on Earth. No one ever fell sick. People had long lives. The weather was always kind, and the land gave so many juicy fruits that no one had to till the land. Men's mandate was to chant the hymns of the Law and thus maintain the lawful integrity of the fields. As the Law says, human beings fed the streams with their hymns and their rituals, the streams fed the fields with their power, and the warp of fields fed human beings with plentiful bounty. Everyone was happy, always."

Lehrmon became pensive. Biting his lip again.

"All this sounds so perfect. How did we get from there to the present looming disaster?" I asked.

"Some say it all started with the Nephilim. Others say it was bound to happen with time, even if the Watchers had never descended on Mount Hermon. Have you heard about the Nephilim, Szar?"

Had I heard about the Nephilim! I sighed. "I met one or two of them, which was an opportunity for the most fascinating conversations. Correct me if I am wrong, Lehrmon, but I was under the impression that some people blame the Nephilim for every single evil in the kingdom, while at the same time enjoying the use of soft stones, and many other wonders the Nephilim have introduced."

Lehrmon added a touch of wit to his ever-shining smile. "I see you have spoken with them, my friend in the Law. What you say is true indeed. I must tell you that after many years of study under Gervin and Esrevin, I have come to the conclusion that the deterioration of the fields is an extremely complex process that involves a great multiplicity of factors."

"But how did it all start?" I asked.

"Long ago people began to realize that great powers could be harnessed from the streams. In time, the Windmill Keepers came to use different hymns from those chanted in the beginning, and they achieved great wonders."

"So when the Windmill Keepers perform the rituals of the windmills of the Law, they draw power from the streams, is that it?"

"Exactly. The Windmill Keepers' essential function is to manifest the fields out of the streams."

"And how did they first get the idea of deviating from the straight recitation of hymns of the Law so as to modify the fields?"

"Who knows?" Lehrmon sparked. "It happened so long ago. One legend says the first man to tap new powers from the fields was Tubal Cain. He had a sister called Naamah. As the legend goes, Naamah was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Once, looking down to the kingdom, one of the Watchers happened to see her. He immediately fell in love with her and descended from the spheres straight into the kingdom to marry her. You have heard of the Watchers, haven't you?"

"The powerful angels who first descended on Mount Hermon. The Nephilim were their children." A shiver ran through me, "I once visited the cave where Verzazyel the Watcher had lived. The dreaming I went through in that cave was bigger than the Law. A Nephilim friend of mine who was an initiate of Verzazyel explained that the dream had taken place in the Watcher's mind. Lehrmon, man of the Law, let me tell you – this was no Blue priestess' herbal tea!"

Lehrmon laughed. "So you have Nephilim friends now. Initiates, moreover! And you went dreaming with them in the Watchers' caves of power. Szar, you're becoming a big boy in the Law!"

How did Lehrmon know my dream had taken place with Felicia? I preferred not to dwell on this topic. "And so what happened to Tubal Cain?"

"Tubal Cain's sister went through a momentous awakening in the company of the Watcher. Then when she came back to visit her brother, she scorned him for being a sleeper and called him a blob-man."

Those blob-men who spent their days lying on the beach, making children without even noticing, had always fascinated me. "Was Tubal Cain one of them?"

"No, Tubal Cain was just a simple man who followed the Law without asking himself any questions. But his sister, having enjoyed the shining light and the thrilling consciousness of the Watcher, underwent a profound transformation. She became so ashamed of how asleep her relatives were that she endeavored to teach Tubal Cain how to become more awake and more powerful by tapping powers from the streams. This is how Tubal Cain became the first artificer, who taught men how to use brass and iron."

I couldn't avoid thinking of long-haired Felicia. "Are we blaming Naamah for helping her brother awaken from his sleeper's condition?" I asked.

"Of course not!" Lehrmon was amused. "This is precisely what I am trying to explain to you: no one really did anything wrong – not in the beginning anyway. Later, it changed. But in the early stages, people only wanted to become more awake and achieve wonders through the fields. And yet the modifications they made to the fields were the first seeds for the total collapse now threatening us."

"How could this happen?"

"For a start, they complicated the situation. In the beginning of the kingdom, the task of the Windmill Keepers was quite straightforward. They performed one type of ritual per season, with a few variations that followed the moon cycle and other rhythms of time – and the fields were happy.

But to tap new powers from the streams, new rituals had to be introduced, which created new fields. The Windmill Keepers did not stop performing the old rituals, of course – had they done so, the early kingdom's golden age would immediately have ended. So the Windmill Keepers added new rituals on top of the old ones, which introduced new forces in nature. Generation after generation, more and more rituals were added. And it appeared that some of the rituals had conflicting results, they conjured powers that were incompatible with one another. At times, these caused great natural disasters: extinct volcanoes re-erupted, crops were destroyed by hailstorms, and so on. To restore balance, more rituals had to be introduced.

Century after century the scaffold of rituals escalated, adding fields on top of fields. Now thousands of types of rituals are performed throughout the kingdom every day. There is no longer one, but hundreds of castes of Windmill Keepers. To assist them, castes of Field Wizards who specialize in the maintenance of the warp of fields were introduced a few hundred years ago. But so many forces are being conjured that even the greatest experts cannot keep track of them all. The situation has become so tangled that it is plainly unmanageable."

"Why can't we just simplify, and return to the good hymns of our ancestors?" I asked naively.

"Several reasons. One is the very complexity of the system. As I told you, a number of rituals have to be performed in order to balance the effects of others. If they were to be discontinued the whole edifice would be destabilized, which would immediately cause natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude. It's like a giant tower. Take away the stones at the bottom, and the tower can only collapse. The warp of fields has become so complicated that no one knows where the top and the bottom are."

"What if we stopped performing all the rituals at once?" I wondered aloud, even more naively.

"Szar, my friend in the Law, do you realize the enormity of what you are saying?" Lehrmon answered patiently. "If we were to discontinue all rituals, the warp of fields would fall flat and the kingdom would be emptied of the spiritual presence of the gods. What would life be worth then? All buildings would melt, nature would turn into complete chaos, and at least half the species of trees would disappear. So would the rare birds that speak the language of the gods, and several other precious animals dear to the gods: levlons, filosterops, pessalans, merestons, apassolos, unicorns, amarols you name it! All kinds of pests would proliferate: rats, mice, leeches, flies, fleas, mosquitoes – not to mention diseases."

There followed a heavy silence.

"So we are completely locked in, aren't we?" It was more a plea than a question.

Lehrmon did not answer.

"Still," I said, "it is difficult to believe that with all the Field Wizards, all the great sages and the initiates we have in the kingdom, all the resources of hundreds and hundreds of temples, we can't find a solution."

"One of the dramas is, when sages speak out no one listens to them. It has a lot to do with the sleepers' apathy. Sleepers simply cannot believe that dramatic changes are ahead. Change is such a foreign concept to them that they don't even notice the deep transformations taking place before their very eyes. Worrying about the future is totally beyond them. Why then should they accept any sacrifice aimed at restoring the balance of forces in the fields, which anyway they do not understand.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that many orders of priests derive their psychic powers from field rituals. If you were to take measures to simplify the fields, a number of these orders would instantly lose their spiritual connections, as well as the influence they exert over simple folk. Within a matter of years, many of these fat cats of the Law would be turned into beggars. They would lose everything – not only their spiritual sight and their peace of mind, but also their reputation and their wealth.

There are other complications, but these you must keep very secret and never discuss them with anyone, even in the temple."

For a while Lehrmon sat deep in thought. Then he went on, "There are so many things one can do with the fields. One can make magnificent flower gardens grow. One can let trees build the most delightful tree houses all by themselves. One can make people in a dining hall enjoy their food as if it were the best in the kingdom, or inspire the audience of a music hall to acclaim the artists." Lehrmon locked his gaze into mine, "A prince, supported by knowledgeable Field Wizards, could even make his generals believe he is the greatest of all sovereigns. He could set fields in his soldiers' barracks so they would all love and admire him, and remain faithful to him. The king of Atlantis has so many priests serving him, he could even set fields throughout the kingdom to make sure all his subjects remained happily tamed and loyal."

"Lehrmon..." I was dumbfounded, "do such things happen?"

Lehrmon shrugged his shoulders, keeping silent.

Then he said, "I have arranged for you to meet Ferman's team of Field Wizards tomorrow, and Woolly."

"The soft-stone man?"

Lehrmon nodded, amused by the anxious look on my face.

I gulped, "How do you think I should behave with him?"

"Hold onto the power of the Point when you listen to him. Apart from that, I can't tell you much. He is... let's say, unpredictable."

"Mm..." I pondered cautiously, a bucketful of white slime sloshing around in my thoughts.

Before leaving, I inquired about the statue of the curly-headed god I had seen in the enclave of the Most Ancient and Lawful Orders.

Lehrmon knew exactly which one I meant. "Do you like him?" he asked, enigmatic.

"I find the light that shines from his statue amazing. I had to stop for a short contemplation."

"All glory to the teacher! His name is Apollo. The Masters of Thunder invoke him in some of their highest rituals. When Master Gervin takes you through the domain of Thunder, the reason will become clear."