Not Without Pain

copyright by John R. Barker (penname for Philip Petersen)

Valerie's mind raced in time to the visual 'click' of regular-spaced palm trees she passed at seventy-five. She slowed down to look for 'Tree Lane'.

'God, that's synchronous,' she mused.

She found herself maneuvering a long, twisted driveway through thick underbrush. The old mansion appeared from behind rows of unkempt hedge, the front walk almost invisible in the overgrowth.

'Unlikely place for a piano teacher,' she thought. The mansion suffered from perennial neglect: unhinged shutters, peeling white paint, and a tarnished brass gargoyle knocker. An unidentified snake slithered past in the long grass.

She knocked timidly at the huge carved door. The act thundered into the interior.

Valerie waited. A blue heron flew by, blue-grey against the pink sunset. She knocked again. The door opened immediately.

Mr. Burntree was a portly middle aged man, whose cigar-clenching, square jaw reflected latent physical power.

"Miss Kristen?" he said.

"Yes. Are you Mr. Burntree?" He nodded. She was taken aback at his attire. He

wore a red satin lounging robe, embroidered with a Japanese maiden carrying a conch shell across a narrow bridge. The bridge spanned a 'bottomless' abyss.

"That's beautiful," she remarked.

"My Mother made it for me," he said, turning and beckoning her to the interior.

They walked through the long bare entrance hall and made a sudden right turn into the den. Valerie noticed that the inside of the house was well-kept, though the furniture was quite old: antique caned chairs, a large fireplace, and a piano.

The keyboard rested in the hands of a fierce demon with a bull's head and a wrathful grin. The beast's body was the body of the instrument: human with eighteen

arms. Except for one on either side of the wood sculpture each finger ended in a key.

There were smaller human heads alongside the bull's, and a smaller peaceful Buddha's

head on top. A string of ivory skulls adorned the beast's neck, as if trophies of his feasting.

"Sit down!" said the teacher.

"Here?" she asked.

"Don't be frightened," he said, "It's Yamantaka, lord of death."

Valerie's seat was a blue oriental rug atop a tree stump. She placed herself cautiously in front of the bizarre piano.

"Middle C?" he suggested.

How did he know she knew what it was? She hit the note. It had a rich tone, as if resonating from the depths of time. Valerie could swear she heard a whole chorus of pianos playing the same note. Was this multiplication only in her mind?

Mr. Burntree smelled of a pine scent, clean in spite of his cigar. It was musky and wooden, elegant like his Japanese robe. He parted his thick black hair much lower on the side of head than fashionable. For a bulky man, his hands were fine, fingers long and articulate.

"Now, let's try some rhythm." Burntree cocked his cigar to the side of his mouth.

With his index finger he hammered, 'da da-dit da-dit da'.

She tried to reproduce the rhythm, but paused in the middle. He asked her to try again. She found herself looking squarely into his determined, deep-set eyes. For a moment she thought she saw a broad river, swans landing peacefully in a line across its still waters. She broke from his hypnotic gaze and played the rhythm perfectly.

She was possessed with the urge to repeat the figure over and over. Her hand trembled as the impulse passed from her brain to her fingers. She played louder and faster with each repetition, until it was so loud and fast she could swear the stars overhead vibrated to the beat.

She felt embarrassed at her impulsive act. Mr Burntree smiled widely in full acceptance of her humanity. New vistas of communication opened. She trusted.

He taught her a few chords, relating each one to feelings. The C major triumphant, D minor mysterious and foreboding. The G major chord was one of unfulfilled longing. For her it brought out her deep capacity to love someone special she hadn't found yet.

"These three chords are easily played using only the white keys," he said.

"Minor chords are sad, major happy. It's not hard to tell them apart."

He showed her how to combine these three chords with a melody and sang:

"Love is caught in the wind, singing along with the sparrow

You are as free as you've been, think not at all of tomorrow

On the river, a sprinkle of silver glow

Love is caught in the wind, singing along as we go.

"Spring is coming along and winter is taking a lover

Sunshine is baking my home, taking me back to my Mother

On the grassland, pheasants may sport for the grain

Spring is coming along and loving is on my brain.

"Up here with fire aglow, taking the chill off the shoulder

Too soon the fire will die, and only the embers will smoulder

So cut some branches, feeding them into the fire

They're just dead anyway, and burning them makes it rise higher."

Valerie surprised herself by learning to sing the song with the chords she had learned. Mr. Burntree explained the songs origin: "I discovered the words in a long-forgotten book of poetry from the Renaissance. I put them to music. Do you like it?"

"I do," she said. "The music is really nice. I can hear an ensemble of Renaissance instruments when you play it."

"You mean saxbut and psaltry?"

"Kind of." She paused and then asked, "Are you going to teach me how to read notes?"

He paused to gather his thoughts. "For me, notes only get in the way of the feeling of the music. I teach everything by ear."

It wasn't what she expected, but the ease with which she learned amazed her. He

taught her to see the keyboard as groupings of black and white notes. This made it easier for her to find her place in a melody. He played a simple Mozart piece and showed her the right hand.

The hour was over. "If you need help, just call me... anytime," he said.

"OK," she said. 'What a contrast,' she thought, 'between the bloodthirsty demon

in the piano and Mr. Burntree. His serene demeanor contrasted the bloodthirsty rage of Yamantaka.' There was something about this she didn't quite understand.

"Here's your coat," he said, uncovering a stuffed pelican in the hall closet.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

"The pelican? My Mother left it to me with the house--when she died."

"Do you live here alone?"

"Quite alone... "

His words left her with an empty feeling in her stomach, as if she had just set out on a journey with an unknown destination. She said goodbye, made her way through the tangled yard, and headed home in the dark.

2.

"Where is your music?" Mrs. Kristen asked her daughter.

"He teaches by ear, Mom."

"I never heard of such a thing."

"Listen." Valerie began a halting rendition of the Mozart piece. Her mother lifted one eyebrow in surprise, but retained a doubtful, mocking smile.

She changed the subject. "Will you be ready for your cousin Jenny's wedding on Saturday?"

"Yes, Mother," she said bitterly. She didn't want to go, but her Mother insisted on things like that. Valerie was also expected to carry on intelligent conversation with friends of the family when the occasion arose.

"Don't forget to pick up your new dress at Nussman's."

"I won't." Valerie chronically found her Mother's demands on her lifestyle offensive. 'Dress well, talk human'--that could easily be her motto. Her Father, Tim, worked long hours as an executive for a summer clothing firm, so she had no dearth of things to wear. However, when it came to her relatives, her tongue twisted into knots. She felt like a hypocrite talking about the world's problems and not doing anything about them.

For Valerie, the wedding came and went in a flourish of boredom. She couldn't wait to be home and out of her starchy dress, back at the keyboard. Several times that week she had played herself into oblivion to escape family tension. Saturday night was no exception. She ploughed into Mr. Burntree's renaissance piece and soon found a smile on her lips. She was so absorbed that she forgot to call her friend, Don back about the outing in the woods she had planned for the next day. He called her.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"You'll see," she said.

"Is it far from the road?"

"A couple of miles."

"Well, at least we'll have a chance to be alone," he said. "That doesn't happen often." They became friends in their first year in high school, but Valerie was wary of too much closeness. Donald Armand was a rebel. She preferred not to mix with his crowd and partake of all his habits. She liked him, though, and they spent a lot of time sharing ideas and opinions. Some of his ideas were expressed in his songs.

"Hey, I just wrote another song," he told her. "It's about a war protester who goes to jail rather than Viet Nam."

"Another protest song. Don't you ever write about love?" Don, and his group, 'Firepower', were well known locally for their angry songs.

"Just give me a chance, baby." Valerie knew very well what he meant.

Sunday afternoon was breezy, threatening rain. Valerie got dressed for the excursion.

"Where are you going?" her mother hollered up the stairs.

"A secret, Mom," she replied in an amused tone.

"If I know you, you're gonna go out in the woods and get bombed with that bum!"

Anne knew well that Valerie didn't do that, but she half wished she would. Her daughter was a little too careful for her taste. Val's father, Tim, was religiously immersed in the Sunday funnies.

"Who's getting bombed?" he asked, rising from a deep philosophical reflection on the antics of Pogo.

"We all are." So saying, Anne pirouetted, ran to his chair and seductively added,

"Right now..."

Upstairs, Valerie found her mother's statement ironically true on another level. Television news stories vividly depicted the loss of young men in the war as a result of bombing raids. 'No one is immune to the suffering' she thought. "We're all getting bombed.'

They cautiously kept to the high ground on the swampy path through the cypress.

Don looked lost and bewildered.

"How much farther is it to your special place?" he asked, his brown eyes darting anxiously to either side of the trail. He felt out of control.

"We should be to the meadow soon."

Twenty silent minutes later they cam to a huge clearing, empty but for a ramshackle

Dutch windmill.

"I don't believe it--a windmill in Florida!" Don shouted, observing the massive rotating blades. Each revolution promised to be the last, the propeller of the strange engine wobbling and groaning in the strong wind. He got the feeling that its feeble churning kept the earth turning.

"This is what I wanted to show you," she said. A C chord sounded in her head as clearly as if Mr. Burntree had played it. She lost her balance and fell clumsily to the long grass.

"Are you all right?" he asked, helping her to her feet.

"I think so, but I still feel very strange." She brushed off. "I've been depressed lately, and I guess seeing my windmill again knocked it all out of me." she didn't want him to know about Mr. Burntree yet, since she knew he would want her to play piano for him. However, she also felt the need to talk.

"I've started piano lessons, and for some reason the rest of my life seems just plain dull in comparison to the music."

"Are you depressed when you're with me?"

"No. Come on, Don, let me show you my mill."

They opened the very low door and stooped to enter. "Must have been made long ago when people were smaller," she said. A small, bug-eyed mouse startled her as it stopped to examine her, and scurried to a crack in the wall. They climbed the narrow staircase, and from the top, they could see the town resting comfortably in the swamp

like whipped cream in the center of a pumpkin pie. It seemed insubstantial enough to be swept away with a brush of the hand.

Every few seconds a blade passed the window and cut the fragile world momentarily from view. It was as if the town, the swamp, and the whole world were merely a film played in slow motion for their benefit.

They both felt as if time had been pulled out from under them like a rug, and reached for each other for reassurance. Don kissed her with his body. She was tempted to surrender, but at that moment she heard a voice.

'I am your windmill,' it said as if the source of the male voice were right next to her.Valerie whirled around to see who had spoken and then realized it was Mr. Burntree.

No one was there. She was upset and let Don hold her, unable to explain how she had heard a voice.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing... I.... just feel strange."

The momentary spell was broken, and Don suggested they leave. They found their way down the stairs, through the meadow and the swamp to his car, leaving as silently as they came.

Don spoke as he opened the door for her, "You've changed. I'm finding it hard to understand you."

She replied. "Thanks for taking me to my mill. Please don't let it bother you. It wasn't your fault." They kissed briefly and he drove off. He was worried about her.

In school the next day, Valerie was introverted and despondent. She didn't absorb much in class. However, one thing made an impression. Her English teacher talked like a Shakespearean actor and was portly dignified in his well tailored suits and neatly trimmed straight white hair. That day he launched into one of his numerous digressions.

"Our friends in the history department," he began, 'would have us believe that writing was invented in Egypt and the Near East about 6,000 years ago. I tend to doubt that myself, in light of the fact that cavemen in Europe were painting excellent representations of deer and bison thousands of years earlier. I'd hate to think of literature lagging that far behind art."

"Hooray for art!" someone shouted mockingly from the rear of the room.

"Ahem... It even makes one wonder whether the cavemen were as primitive as the archaeologists make them out to be. They weren't nearly as primitive of course...

As you scallywags in the back of this room!" He screamed his epithet, causing several of the troublemakers to fall low in their seats. Mr.Chambers had a way of holding a feigned anger in his hip pocket for the right moment.

He continued. "The possibility exists that they didn't use caves as dwellings, but rather as temples for their rituals of the hunt."

"Hail Diana!" Don trumpeted from five seats back.

"Don, why don't you come sit up front here," Mr. Chambers suggested with contrasting coolness. "I want all my literary 'experts' to sit where I can hear their comments." Valerie suppressed a giggle as Don marched forward.

"May I go on? Some 'disreputable' historians suggest that the homes of cavemen were made of something which decayed over the years--like wood or grass--and didn't leave a trace."

"To think that man had been on the earth for at least three million years without building a dwelling is inexcusable. We've all heard of the mythical civilization of Atlantis... I know. Hail, Atlantis!" The class roared.

"The fact that the myth exists must mean that there is some reality behind it. We tend to single out our cycle of civilization as the only one that has ever devastated the planet, but we know the Earth has been here a long time."

Valerie intuitively felt he must be right. What also could explain the great secrets 'ancient' civilizations kept hidden from their average citizens? Why all the tales of lost continents and strange unaccounted-for figures filtering down through the art of the ages? She vaguely promised herself she would find answers to these questions , but the darkness of her depression obscured the resolve in her memory.

On her way home her thoughts started to clear. She realized that her piano playing was a threat to her life as it had been. Her relationships would have to change to make room for the hours she wanted to spend on her music. Her depression stemmed, as she saw it, from apprehension. She had entered the musical garden of pleasure and was afraid of the reaction of others to the change. How could she fulfill her obligations and become fully immersed in music?

The day ended with little resolution to this question, but at least she had found the question. She could call Mr. Burntree, but it seemed inappropriate to relate to him on

a new level for now.

When she got home, she laid down her books and purse and went straight to the piano. She cried softly. No one was home.

3.

The next morning the sun penetrated her Mandarin orange curtains and woke her much earlier than usual. She opened her window, pulled back her long blond hair out of her nightgown, and gazed longingly at the day. Palm trees bristled in a swift breeze. The sky was entirely cloudless, the sun so bright she felt she needed Eskimo sunglasses.

She got in some early morning practice before school. With her second piano lesson approaching, she still had trouble changing chords fast enough. However, she was determined to improve, and vowed to practice regularly in the early hours of each morning.

As a watched pot never boils, she felt like her after-school lesson would never come. It was an eternity before she was wading through the weedy front lawn of the Burntree estate. She noticed a little more about the house and grounds this time. The main building paralleled a wide river at a distance of a hundred yards. She presumed from its width that it was an inlet from the ocean, which was a few miles away. Ducks were chattering on the banks and swans lay motionless at the edge of the swift central current.

The mansion itself was antique white with dull green shutters. Two wings led to the river on either side of the main entrance. Untrimmed hedges led to the pillared portico, giving the impression the grounds were being absorbed into the wilds.

A Buddha seemed to glare at her through a ground floor window from the interior dimness. His finger was gently arched, pointing to cryptic writing hanging on the back wall of the room. A polished wooden surface beamed a few diffuse rays her way.

Burntree was soon at the door, smiling his almost extravagant smile and smoking a thick aromatic cigar. He was dressed, as before, in his red robe and an aura of absolute serenity.

"Why are you so sad," he asked, as if she were his little girl.

She was surprised by his intimacy, but managed an answer. Somehow she had no fear of her mentor. "I think I really want to devote myself to the piano, but don't know how to handle the changes in my life."

"That'll take care of itself," he assured.

As they passed the dining room, the door was slightly ajar, and she could see the 'Buddha' smiling wistfully at her. She would ask to see more of the house later.

As they entered the den, he questioned her, "Have your parents given you any trouble over my methods?"

"A little. My Mother wondered where my music was."

"Well, maybe we can satisfy her this time." He began to scribble the Mozart piece

onto a piece of paper. "When you left, I felt uneasy about not having given you something written. This is the first time I have ever felt moved to study musical notation. It wasn't so much the difficulty I have gone through with my other students in teaching by ear, but more the special talent I sensed in you."

Valerie blushed and turned her head, but was pleased by the special attention. What he said was awkwardly delivered, but was from the heart and to the point. It was as if he knew the effect it would have on her devotion to the piano and her mentor.

The second lesson flowed more than the first. When she played his melody for him, she did it without pausing for chord changes. His presence seemed to transform her clumsiness into confident clarity. She couldn't recall a single person having such an effect on her.

He refined her technique, demonstrating glissando and arpeggio figures, using a simplified Brahms piece to illustrate. When he had demonstrated the work and she repeated it successfully, he asked her, "Are you still afraid of devoting yourself to the piano?"

"I see now that I don't want my family and friends to think that the piano is more important to me than they are, but I do also see how my music can be a gift to many others."

"They'll make it through the change. Maybe they will benefit from seeing somebody passionately devoted to their art."

"But what am I in for if I take the plunge?"

"You already have. Ask yourself about music. What makes it move the soul? Is it the artist, the work itself? The most communicative works of art are a result of necessity rather than plan."

"Look at Van Gogh," he continued, "Did he want to paint sunflowers? No, he had to paint sunflowers or go mad." Valerie pictured herself with tousled hair, hunched over the piano, hopelessly involved in a soul-scraping composition, the way she often thought of Beethoven.

"Will I go mad?" she asked.

"In the eyes of the world, that's what it takes. That passion, that devotion, that labor. The spirit of the works you play will possess you in a sense. Be careful of what you play. The spirit behind real art is eternal and unchanging."

Valerie could grasp the deep feeling behind what he said. He continued, "No war could ever destroy this spirit; famine could never starve it to death; no chemical could ever choke it; no dictator rule it."

She felt an almost primitive surge passing from Mr. Burntree to her, like thousands of compressed notes passing through her body and filling it with the desire for more.

As she gazed at his half-closed eyes, she saw a glow about him she had not seen before. In the protective silence, his face shone with a radiance far more real than its features. For an instant, his face was obliterated by the penetrating light.

She felt uncomfortable, and broke the reverie. "How old were you when you started to play the piano?" she asked.

He smiled broadly. "I was five when I took my first piano lesson. Although my Mother played very well, she thought it unwise to teach me. I was sent to a Mrs. Clayburn for private lessons. She taught me out of a book, and I watched her hands carefully. I remembered how the music sounded and how her hands went, and practiced without reading the notes. I hated the idea of relying on notes."

"Soon the assignments got harder, and in about three months I was in over my head. Although the teacher appreciated my agility, my mind could hold only so much music at once. Four part pieces taxed my memory, and when I stared blankly at the music script, she saw I wasn't reading it. She gave up."

"What did you do then?"

"For about five years I played only occasionally. One day, though, I happened to put on a record of Brahms pieces. I was unusually relaxed, and lay on the floor. I was deeply moved by the music. It was playing my body. I transcended it, feeling my soul expanding to the limits of the universe. My interest was rekindled, and I started to play again, this time imitating records, and grilling my Mother for the techniques she had mastered."

More of Burntree was visible to Valerie, but she hungered for greater understanding. "Could you show me the house?" she asked.

"Why not?" he said, walking her to the dining room. She immediately saw the wooden surface she had glimpsed was a coffin. Between the coffin and the portrait was an open flame burning in a hammered gold cup. It was cold in the room.

"Is that the Buddha?" she asked, avoiding the casket.

"No, that is Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage of the Tao. This coffin contains a portion of his remains my Mother was given by a Taoist monk. One of my favorite sayings is from his Tao Te Ching:

'Lazily I drift

as though I had no home

All others have enough to spare

I am the one left out

I have the mind of a fool

muddled and confused

When common people scintillate

I alone make shadows

Vulgar folks are sharp and knowing

only I am melancholy

Restless like the ocean

blown about I cannot stop

other men can find employment

but I am stubborn; I am mean

Alone I am and different

because I prize and seek

my sustenance from the mother!'"

(Translated by R. B. Blakney.)

Burntree intoned each word with power and bell-like clarity. She felt the outpouring of his soul, his pain, and his triumph. She understood the significance of the coffin and lapsed into a silent reverent mood.

Without talking, he sensed her mood, and walked her to the front door. "Take it easy." he said, giving her a fatherly pat on the shoulder.

She left, vowing that next time she would get up the courage to ask more about the terrifying Tibetan god carved into the piano. It was clear that it was tailored to fit the keyboard and works of the instrument. It's black arms flowed into the keys. Could Burntree have made it himself? She halfway hoped he hadn't. The ferocity of the face of the bull-like head haunted her as she drove home.

Driving into the setting sun, she had difficulty seeing. Several times she adjusted the visor to block the glare. Suddenly a cow darted out into the road. Turning the wheel to avoid it, she slammed on her brakes. The car spun in a tight arc, the tail just clearing the cow's hind end. She came to a halt beside it. It continued peaceful across the road. 'How strange' she thought, 'it acted like it didn't notice.'

It then stopped and turned to look at her, finally bellowing in fear, and mirroring the features of the Tibetan bull. Shaken, she drove away. As Mr. Burntree suggested, she took it easy--all the way home.

4.

Valerie found the Brahms piece difficult, but the 'spirit' of the music kept her cemented to the bench until she mastered it. She locked the room so she could feel more alone with her work.

She listened to all types of music: rock, classical, folk, jazz. They all had meaning for her. There was so much surfacing as she plunged into her interior world. Music became a tool for self discovery.

Her friends were puzzled to find her in class: glassy-eyed and staring into space, sometimes tapping her fingers to the euphonies of the universal voice.

Friday after school Don approached her, "I'm sorry I didn't catch your mood last Sunday at the windmill. I figure you've been goin' through changes with music and all."

"It's all right," she replied. "We out to get together and play sometime. I know I'm not very good yet, but maybe you could help me figure out some pop stuff I've been dying to learn."

"Right, no prob babe. Say, how about a party tonight? The band's puttin' on a benefit over at the Gates' Mansion."

"A benefit?"

"Yeah, for all the freaks in the area."

"Does that include me?" Val had never turned on, in spite of Don's persistent nagging.

"You don't have to use dope to be a freak." They laughed a little. She gave him a gentle punch in the belly.

"Maybe you're right" she said. "My behavior lately probably fits in just right."

"See you tonight at 7:30," he said on the run. "I've got my Chevy hot and runnin' for a big date."

"With who?"

"Some mad piano freak."

The grounds of the Gates place were humming with sound, the flickering light creating a sense that time was hip-hopping along at a jolty pace. Inside were hundreds of candles melting into oddly-shaped, layered pools on the old hardwood floor.

Randal met them at the door. His eyes beaded out from his brow and his smile was

cheshire-like, but placed slightly off to left of center. He had short stubby hands and

sported a shine on a balding front pate. Known as a quite pleasant elementary school teacher during the day, his night reputation among the 'freaks' was quite different. Don

knew him as a guide to psychedelic heaven. His place was called 'freak central'. He had connections with the town officials in some way nobody quite understood. Somehow he evaded losing his position at the local school.

'Something strange about him,' Val thought, at first meeting.

The band was already rocking the center of the large hall-like room. Don's lead guitarist was singing, "Followed my conductor to his respected place, pity and starvation's seen on every face..." This was Don's arrangement of 'The State of Arkansas', a rock version of a folk tune. He watched his band without joining in.

Other things occupied his mind.

"Hand me one of those cigarettes...," he motioned to Randal. He fired up a thick joint rolled in sticky brown paper. "How about it Val?" he prodded.

"I don't know. The way things have been it might send me to the funny farm."

"Maybe you'd see things clearer. It does that for me sometimes."

She took the stubby cigarette and imitated Don, inhaling and holding. She released the smoke, blue in the lighting, and coughed a little. The warm smoke curled sensuously in flowing ribbons in front of her.

She felt mellow and danced close to Don. The band pounded a steady blues rhythm,

while the guitarist ran the range of the instrument, gyrating as if animated by imaginary lightning bolts.

"As they danced Val found Don's scent intoxicating. He smelled of oranges, marijuana, and patchouli with a bit of car grease mixed in. The oranges reminded her that he worked part-time in a citrus co-op to be able to live in his own place. Though she never had before, she found herself wishing she could go home with him.

His body melded into her. She shuddered as he held her even closer and kissed her gently at the base of the neck.

"Why don't we go upstairs?" he asked.

"Isn't it a little early?" She weakly resisted what she knew was inevitable.

"You don't mean it, baby."

"You're right, let's go."

Don borrowed a reefer from a tall sad girl in the corner, took a drag, and handed it to Valerie. The extra boost made her numb with pleasure. They circled up the staircase, found an empty room, and bolted the door. A few records and a ragged mattress lay scattered on the floor.

Alone with Don, she found herself unsure of what to do. "I'm losing my virginity in two ways in one night," she said. "I wish we had a nicer place."

"I knew you were the one ever since I saw you." Don caressed her silken hair gently.

"I never thought I loved you," she said. "But now..."

His hands took a while to work their way to her breasts. He gently caressed a nipple. "Help me get undressed," she said. Her clothes were soon scattered over the room, filling in the empty places of the collage. She stretched out self-consciously on the bed. "Don, I'm cold," she said, shivering uncontrollably.

"I'll make you warm." Quickly he undressed himself, and lay down beside her.

Her shivering stopped. Her hands stroked his back. All barriers gone, they moved slowly with desperation, Val feeling every part of her body responding. She was soon the focus of a web of color, binding her to his body in neonescent electricity. It was over.

The band had gone on a twenty minute musical escapade in the middle of the song,

and the singer was bringing the piece to an end. They lay in bliss and could hear the

last verse:

'Going' to the Arizona Territory, gonna live outside the law

Say goodbye to the farmers in the state of Arkansas

If you ever see me back again it'll be by tooth and claw

Haveta see me through a telescope, from hell to Arkansas.'

As they dressed, Val felt deep inside of herself, and could see herself through Don's eyes. She experienced him admiring her graceful movements.

"Do you love me?" she asked, putting her fine yellow hair in place.

"I'm thinkin' I do," he smiled. Unexpectedly he catapulted off the mattress and held her tight, his naked body against her fully-clothed one. "Id like you again."

"I'm all dressed."

"Does it matter?"

"No."

This time they moved more in tune, with a taste of deathlike agony. The end was like switching on a light in a dark room. Valerie just couldn't come down.

Don had to help her dress, and she was still writhing as they descended. She leaned on him for support to keep from stumbling. He was tired.

"Must be the grass," she mumbled, "I can't get myself together!" There was panic in her voice.

"Try this," Randal suggested, appearing out of nowhere. Before she knew it she had taken a long toke and was steady again, in a corner fixed by 'candle city' in the corner of the room. Boom--the hundreds of candles split into thousands of fiery fragments.

She turned, and there were millions of Randals glowing in her mind.

"Randals and candles," she muttered and fainted to the floor.

Don carried her to his car and tried to revive her. He kissed her. She awake singing,

'Oh waters deep, keep me in sleep." Don hadn't heard the melody before. "I want to go home," she said, garbling her words like a midnight drunk.

Don took her home. She went inside and to bed, dreaming of cats, broccoli, and sword-fighting mice.

Morning: toast and marmalade; coffee, corn-fritters, and tupelo honey. She felt a lot better. In fact, extraordinarily good, as if her adventure had lightened her load.

Her father was out watering geraniums, and her mother wrestled with a crossword in the living room.

"My God," she said, "I'll never do that again."

'At least the dope,' she thought. Her girlfriends told her Don was good, but she never imagined how good.

Sharp shouting came from across the street. Her father came in from the garden.

"They've cornered an alligator in the vacant lot!" he said with excitement.

As they crossed the street to watch, they heard a primitive dinosaur-like roar. A D chord sounded in Val's head.

Two sheriff's deputies tried to lasso the animal's legs. They missed several times,

and the gator seemed annoyed, as if he had been wakened from a long nap. He wasn't in the mood to move.

One of the tin star cowboys deftly dropped a loop of his jaws and tightened it. He jumped back like a frog when the beast gave a twitch.

She and her father moved closer. Her mother stayed on the safe side of the road, pencil and newspaper still in hand.

The alligator lurched forward and stepped into a rope loop waiting for him. Pulling it taught, one of the sheriffs bound the two front legs together. Carelessly Val moved forward to see the final capture.

"Get back--watch the tail!" the sheriff yelled. Wham! Val was laid flat on the swamp grass. They took the gator away in their wagon, and a couple of the officers tended to Val.

"I can't move it. I think my it's broken!" She pointed to her leg. The officers carried her to her parent's car, making a seat with their arms. Val was in pain. All the way to the hospital she recalled Burntree's words, "Take it easy, take it easy, take it easy..." At least now she would be able to.

It was a dreary Sunday. Valerie munched on gingered pears and fingered the piano. Her heavy cast rested on a red pillow underneath the instrument. 'Gloom, gloom, I live in a tomb,' she muttered, playing a dirge. Don called. It helped a little. She was tempted to fall into the clutches of the 'vampire television', as she called it, but resisted.

The passionate music of Brahms flowed boldly into the wet Florida air.

5.

Val became more devoted to her piano and to Mr. Burntree. Each visit opened new musical vistas. Classical techniques, modern composers, and even ragtime and the blues became accessible.

"Whenever I feel down, I play a little ragtime--it's as infectious as popcorn--it can't help but make you feel good" he told her.

One of her favorites was 'When You're Down and Out'. When he played it, she sang in a husky female voice words she had heard in a coffeehouse version.

"Not Bad!" he exclaimed to her throaty rendition. "I'll show you how to compose

originals." He gave her a sense of how to experiment with chords and words. "My mother used to sing quite well," he added.

"Tell me about her," Val requested.

"My Mother was a generous woman who had a lust for the wandering life. In her travels, she encountered mysteries which led her into the labyrinth of religion."

"My Father made a huge fortune in tobacco, and when he died, she gave away most of his money to charity, and took off on a world-wide journey. Were he alive, he would have fought her philanthropy to the death. She got on very poorly with him in his later years, and she left home, often for years at a time. My Father, of course, managed to live it up while she was gone."

"One of her early journeys led her to a lost tribe in the New Hebrides islands. This tribe made a practice of worshiping each other. The ritual was quite elaborate. The natives would pick one of their number by lot and leave him in a hut without food or water."

"Sounds cruel," Valerie remarked.

"They knew what they were in for," Burntree continued. "They then adorned the outside of the hut with all the food they could find: carcasses of a type of ground hog strung on poles, tapioca roots, bananas, and so on. The decoration was all the food they had gathered on that day. Meanwhile, the rest of the tribe lived on mango juice, routed from its skin with a spear point, and ground to a pulp in coconut shells."

"On the second day, the tribesmen gathered brightly-colored cloth to cover the horrendous, smelly coating of food. Oranges, reds, and greens were the dominant colors. The door to the hut was carefully watched to insure that the 'worshipped' one didn't get at the eats."

"I'd be famished by that time," Val commented.

Burntree shifted a little in his seat and went on.

"The third day a giant head was made out of palm leaves woven in a tight ball, using whole coconuts for eyes. Holes were bored in the coconuts so that sticks could be used to attach the eyes to the head. A bulbous root was the nose, and the mouth was formed by the skin of a black snake, hunted for the purpose. Tree trunks were attached as arms and legs, and the beast was worshipped in an elaborate fire ceremony in which the name of the chosen tribesman was invoked as if a god. A large wheel was set on fire and whirled after being attached to the belly of the beast, and the natives danced, passing as close to the flames as possible. The fire was thought to impart magical powers."

"The morning of the fourth day the hut was opened, and each time they performed the yearly ritual, the inhabitant of the hut was gone. They could find no trace of the 'worshiped' one inside, except for the red loincloth he was wearing. My mother had a valet watch while she slept to make sure the native inside hadn't skipped town."

"What did she think about that?"

"She was mystified. She never saw any signs of reappearance. Never, that is, until two years later in Tibet."

"Isn't that a long ways from the New Hebrides?" she asked.

"Quite. Her meandering took her two years to reach it. She had heard that the 'worshiped' one would reappear somewhere else in the world, at a location only hinted at by omens. To help her in her search, she drew an accurate sketch of him during the ceremony."

"She was led to trace contacts of merchant ships with the island shores, and managed by probing conversations with Japanese sailors to limit the possibility of escape to a trading ship whose home port was Canton, China. It was rumored that the

native could teleport first only upon the island, then knowing his destiny, he would leave for points unknown."

"Her next stop was Canton. The head of the trading company had nothing to say about a mysterious New Hebredian passenger, but Hilda felt he was lying. She managed to contact the tax overseer in the province, who told her that a caravan had gone inland, carrying with them a suspicious slave."

"So she followed the caravan and caught up with him in Tibet?" Val was guessing.

"Not exactly. His description matched her drawing, so she began to trace out the steps of the caravan into the Chinese mainland."

"While enroute, an old man led her to the grave of Lao Tzu: a beautifully kept garden surrounding a markerless mound of earth. Elephantine vines grew protectively above small plants and flowers. The caretaker was evidently meticulous in his efforts to honor the sage. Nevertheless, he had his eye on her fancy jewelry and offered to sell a handful of Lao Tzu's ashes for a sum of nearly one thousand pounds. The ashes were probably worthless, but my Mother was charmed by the beauty of the place. She carried the remains in a small jewelry chest, giving the rest of her jewels to a poor farmer in the neighborhood, hoping to redeem her desecration of the sage's grave."

"Where did she go from there?"

"Her journey continued into the cold Tibetan highlands. The hardships along the way were many, but my Mother, with the help of a native guide, walked, or should I say limped into Lhasa."

"Did she have an accident along the way?"

"Yes. She wasn't hit with a flying alligator tail, but she did receive a bad scrape

when her horse bolted on a mountain trail."

"What caused it to bolt?"

"Lightning struck a tree about a hundred yards ahead of her. The animal panicked, banging its side and Mother's leg against the jagged rocks along the trail."

"Thanks to the guide's application of a medicinal herb, her leg healed to walking strength in a few days. She managed to complete the trip, much of it on foot.

Like you, she limped for quite a while."

"Two miles from the city, she was unexpectedly greeted by couriers of the Dalai Lama. They took her to his golden palace, and there the Pope of Tibet told her the following story. I hope you don't mind if I dramatize it a bit."

"'Mrs Hilda Burntree,' he said in a high oriental wail, 'our oracles have predicted you would come in search of a solution to a puzzling situation. They did not, however,

tell us the nature of the problem. They saw an American woman in her forties, carrying a jewelry case containing sacred relics. Do you have such a case?"

"'Yes,' she answered nervously, 'it contains a portion of the remains of Lao Tzu, the Chinese sage.'"

"'May I see it?' Handing him the box, Hilda was gratified to see him peer into it reverently. Of course, he was only trying not to offend her, as he knew the relics could not possibly be genuine."

"'What is it you seek?' he asked."

"'I am trying to find a certain native of a certain tribe in the New Hebrides.'She showed him her sketch and described the miraculous disappearance."

"'Summon Lama Gon Ting.' After a short wait, a tall stately young lama was ushered into the hall. He was dressed in the traditional saffron robe and had his head shaved, but Mother immediately recognized him as the young man in her drawing."

"The Dalai Lama explained. 'Thirty years ago, one of our very special Lamas passed from this body. The oracles agreed that rebirth was immanent ten years hence, and described a certain island in the great ocean. Anxious to reinstate our Lama to his rightful place as the Abbot of To Ling, we sent our envoys to the island when he was a full-grown youth, and secretly arranged to have his lot drawn in the ceremony.'"

"We had a tunnel and trap door constructed inside the hut by which he escaped to the trade ship and China and Tibet. That particular tribe had penalty of death for anyone leaving the village for good. That is why we had to make such elaborate arrangements.'"

"'Now he stands before you--Lama Gon Ting, Abbot of To Ling.'"

"My Mother was astounded that her quest found such sudden success, and in time she came to know the Abbot well. His friendship instilled religious curiosity in her, and soon she was initiated into the delicate rituals of the Tibetan Tantra."

"What is this Tantra?"

"Tantra is a system of rituals for arousing the dormant forces of the mind so that their energies can be applied toward spiritual goals. Kind of a 'dangling the carrot before the horse' procedure."

"You mean the horse gets to look at the carrot, but doesn't get to eat it."

"Sometimes. And meanwhile the cart reaches its destination. In Tantra, though, there are cases where the horse is allowed to eat the carrot, but only if this would help him go faster."

"What spiritual goals was your mother seeking?"

"Aside from seeking her own Buddha nature, she also had a temporary interest in some of the occult powers."

"Which ones?" Valerie had heard of some of the amazing feats of yogis in the East.

"She eventually became such an adept that she was able to rearrange the atoms of certain materials by the power of her mind alone. Wood was one of those substances."

"With my own eyes, as a small boy, I saw her transform the trunk of a large tree into the piano you see here today. She had the workings of an old piano brought into the den. Some workmen put the tree trunk through the window. We left her completely alone in the room for two days, and, allowed into room, I saw the tree had been transformed into the wrathful Yamantaka."

"Are you sure she didn't just carve out the demon?"

"She wouldn't have had time, had no experience in woodcarving, and the outline

of the demon extended beyond the limits of the trunk." Valerie glanced at the piano and noticed the fierce expressiveness of the bull's mouth. She grimaced when her eyes touched the macabre necklace of human skulls.

"What's the significance of those?" she asked.

"The skulls belong to a band of robbers, according to Tibetan legend. A sage who was about to achieve liberation was meditating in a cave, when he was disturbed by

a group of men who had stolen a cow. He watched at a distance as they slaughtered the animal, and was caught and slain by the robbers to prevent him from telling the authorities. They cut off his head as well, but the rage of the monk went beyond death, and he raised up his body, placed the bull's head on his neck, and killed the robbers.

He was so angry at being deprived of enlightenment that he hung their skulls in a garland around his neck and terrorized the countryside. This continued until he was subdued by Manjusri, the white, peaceful human head on top of the piece. The whole

sculpture represents a wide assortment of human characteristics. The bulls head indicates the animal nature. Combined with the human body, it produces the demonic

Yama, master of death. This demon when subdued by the higher nature of active compassion, yields the godlike power of the whole figure: Yamantaka, the slayer of death."

"Does this figure have a significance in the religion of Tibet?"

"Yes. Those who are given this figure as their protector attempt to become on with its nature. In order to understand the animal nature, one must let it show through. My Mother did just that. Sometimes I would hear angry, almost fitful music coming from the den where she practiced. She later reassured me that this was a time when she had merged with Yama to become the embodiment of rage itself. She became a beast-human, angry at the sins of her fellow men. Later, with the help of correspondence with her Lama, she was able to completely destroy the image of the demon in her mind and go into spiritual ecstacy. This particular device works best for someone who has repressed anger as an obstacle on the path."

"Well, I guess I've repressed a few things," Valerie admitted, " but the carving still frightens me. I wouldn't want to use it as an enticement toward some spiritual goal."

"You'll get used to it," he said. Mr. Burntree was right; his description had already taken a lot of the mystery out of the demon. She could at least look it in the face with

fearing its effect on her mind.

6.

Don taught Valerie how to play his brand of folk-rock, as well as joining her in the blues. They spent frequent evenings pounding out chord progressions in the Kristen

den.

The winter passed with them finding every opportunity to be together, making love and music until the two flowed into one another. Sometimes they went to his little house across town, sometimes the woods. Val liked the privacy of indoors, while Don liked nothing better than to feel the wind at his back and see the sun on her well-formed, youthful body.

Don sometimes expressed an interest in Mr. Burntree.

"You don't tell me much about your piano teacher," he said. "Is he any good?"

"Can't you tell?" she replied, looking down at her hands in position on the keyboard. "I haven't told you because you haven't asked."

"Has he made any advances toward you?" he asked with a tinge of jealousy.

"He's forty-five years old, you snoop. And besides, our relationship is different."

She told him about Burntree's mother and her New Hebredian adventure.

"That piano sounds unbelievable," Don said. "I have a feeling it's possible to change matter with the mind, but never heard of anyone who could do it."

"I'm sure Mr. Burntree is telling the truth as he sees it, but he wasn't actually there when she did it."

"Guess what?" he said, changing the subject. "I finally wrote a love song--for you."

"Can you play it?"

"I'll try." He unplugged his hollow-body Martin, and fingerpicked a delicate pattern. It was almost a calypso melody:

"Now this world it holds no greater treasure

Than the one I hold in your embrace;

I seek but I can find not pleasure

Like looking on the love-light in your face;

And at times when I just feel so empty

I think of the fullness of you--what can I do

But wait for you...

"Other worlds I live in

Are nothing like the world I find

When my love I'm giving

To the woman who takes my mind,

And in hours of despairing

You lead me to the joy that is you--what can I do

But wait for you...

"The loving you so freely give me

You've given me without regret

So fully and so deeply and completely

Beyond the other women that I've met,

And if I ever leave you

I'll leave you for the folly in my soul--how could I go

When you'll wait for me."

Valerie liked the song, but didn't know whether to trust its sentiment.

"Can I sing it with you?" she asked.

"Why not?"

He led off and her voice trailed behind his for a few verses. Soon she was singing a clear harmony line, right in synch.

"I didn't know you could harmonize," he said. "It makes me think more than ever that we ought to live together."

"I'd like to, but what about my parents?" She had just turned 18, but didn't want to hurt her father and mother.

"You could explain it. They're kind of liberal, aren't they? They don't seem to mind that we hang out together."

"I guess I'll try. Just give me a few days, O.K.?"

"Sure."

"Could we get an old piano?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I have an friend who wants to sell an old upright."

"You won't fool around on me , will you?"

"Not if you don't," he offered.

"Me--fool around? Where would I find the time.?"

"I don't know, but I do know I won't give you any." Don put his cool hand up her blouse and caressed the warm skin of her breast. She shivered. They were sitting face to face.

"I feel so alive when you do that. I've been dead so long, Don. Did you know that?"

"I guess I did. I feel something new myself. Like I'm sitting with you on a piece of cardboard at the edge of a grassy hill--ready to slide."

"You used to do that too?"

"Yeah backwards." Both had lived in hillier states than Florida, Val in Colorado

and Don in the mountains of Georgia.

It was a big week for Val. She had to tell her parents she wanted to move in with Don and she had a dinner invitation from Mr. Burntree.

She didn't tell Don about the dinner date.

She spent long hours completing her first composition. In it she explored a dream she had, hoping to share the completed work with Burntree on Tuesday night. The dream centered around a mysterious old friend. He was a solidly built man in an ochre robe, whose face was rendered invisible by a dense cloud, hovering above his shoulders. His voice and hands were familiar, but no face presented itself.

After a few comforting words, he stopped speaking and handed her a pen, gesturing as if her wanted her to write something. In his other hand he held a brilliantly-faceted diamond. He held it perfectly still, as it was an object of meditation. She felt herself absorbed into the lattice of its reflected light, then woke up.

The next morning she recalled an experience she had as a young girl. Walking in the woods alone, she came upon a thin, weathered old man sitting in a rocker on the porch of a run-down shack. His smile was radiant, as if his life of poverty was no burden upon him at all. He just sat, smiled, and rocked. His contentment made a deep impression on her, and now she felt that he and Mr. Burntree had something indefinable in common.

Tuesday evening found her at 7 Tree Lane once more. Burntree met her at the door.

"I'm waiting to hear your new song," he said.

"Won't it interfere with dinner?" she said, trying to catch her breath.

"No. Not at all. It has to simmer for a while anyway."

"Well, O.K." she said as they retired to the den.

She sat nervously in front of Yamantake's hands and started to play. The first few chords came out wrong, she stopped, and resumed:

"Last night as I fell on my pillow, I fell into a dream

Or so it seemed, that some kind friend, left behind did say,

'You can live to spin unseen like a willow

In the forest all alone

By each passing wind your thrown,

But growing, ever growing to the sun.'

And to this day

I seek the long-lost friend

I want to tell him of my dream

While we spin unseen

"The face of that lost friend was a mystery

And clouded by the mist, a clenching fist

Held a pen to bid me now to write

And if I ever see him I will know him

For his hands are hands of peace, they hold but one belief

That sparkles like a diamond left unseen.

"One day in the back woods I thought I found him

As I walked down some back road I caught a hold

Of a glimpse of an old man with idle hands

And turning quick around I chanced to see him

Smiling just a bit, and he always there will sit

On a rocking chair 'til all his years are through

And to this day

I seek the long-lost friend

I want to tell him of my dream

While we spin unseen."

She told Mr. Burntree about her dream and her walk in the woods. She connected the old man on the porch with the 'long lost friend' in the song.

"Can you write out the music?" he asked, handing her a pen.

The man in the ochre robe flashed momentarily in Burntree's place. The voice, the hands, and the fact that he was handing her a pen all seemed to fit.

"If you are the long-lost friend, what about the diamond in my dream?" she asked.

He smiled and said nothing. It was as if he knew something that she wasn't ready for yet.

They wrote down the melody to her song together, and then moved into the dining room to sit down to the Indian dinner he had prepared for her. They sat face to face across the middle of a long table, a warm fire flickering behind her, and two tall yellow candles burning in front of her. The food was exquisite: triangle breads stiffed with a hot vegetable mixture and sweet saffron rice with nuts and raisins. Curries and coconut, yoghurt and chutneys were neatly arranged in small bowls. She tasted a little of everything first, being wary of hot food.

She noticed that there was no meat in any of the dishes and asked him about it.

"Meat? I don't partake of it. Some people need it for the minerals."

"Doesn't it supply protein?"

"Yes, but nuts, beans, milk, vegetables, and whole grains do very well to substitute,

in the right combinations. Cholesterol and uric acid, two disease-causing elements abound in meat. Besides, eating flesh makes one prone to violence and anger. You only have to look at the difference between a tiger and an elephant to see what I mean."

"But if you eat vegetables, won't you become just that--a vegetable?"

"Perhaps," he admitted, "but wouldn't that be far better than becoming a dead cow?" His ironic image reminded her of the bull-headed demon sitting in the next room. Was the inference intentional?

She enjoyed the meal, however, and was almost too full to eat the desert--a creamy pink pudding that tasted like roses. That she could get behind!

"You're a good cook," she joked. "You'll make someone a good wife."

The cliche seemed quite funny in light of his devotion to bachelorhood, and they both had a hearty laugh.

Over spiced tea she brought up her telling her parents about moving in with Don.

"What will I do?--I have a feeling they will resent it, even if they let me go."

"You mean they'll feel cheated that some guy's taking their daughter away without marrying her?"

"Exactly."

"It does seem to me that you really want to do this. Maybe it will be good for you sense of identity. Most people waste their lives as slaves to what others think. This may be your chance to begin to step out of the rat race. He knew the risks, but was reenforcing a decision he knew she must make.

Enjoyable conversation continued until ten o'clock, when Valerie realized she must leave. He got up and saw her to the door.

"What happened to your pelican?" she asked seeing the empty hall closet where the bird had resided.

"I changed my mind about him. I used to think of him as a reminder of the remarkable way pelicans fly, but finally gave him away to a taxidermist because I was getting too attached."

"How do pelicans fly?" Val asked, never having watched them closely.

"Several times I've seen groups of them--ten or so--fly in a perfect sine wavealong the shore. Kind of a collective consciousness. Every so often one would dip into the surf and come up with a silver minnow, then fall back into formation."

"It seemed to me a beautiful example of how harmoniously animals live in nature. Some day humans may learn to live in that harmony too." She saw that his eyes were no long looking outward. They became narrow slits, and a smile flashed for a moment across his face.

"Val," he said, "why don't you bring Don over sometime? I'd like to meet him."

"O.K.," she said, hesitating, wondering how they would get along.

"Oh," he said, "if I ever don't answer the door, feel free to come in and look for me."

Valerie left, half elated that she could share Mr. Burntree with Don, and half afraid Don's jealousy would close him off when they met.

She just couldn't seem to bring herself to tell her parents that week. What made it double difficult was that she also had decided to stop eating meat--sh couldn't spring both changes on them at once.

She decided she would wait on the meat thing until she had moved in with Don, but she planned on telling them eventually.

Saturday afternoon she told her mother she had a date with him for the evening. Anne was beginning to suspect they were more than friends.

"You see enough of that guy to be living with him," Mrs. Kristen remarked.

"Mom...," she said warily. "I'm going to move in with him."

Anne's face took on a look she had seen only once before: when her grandfather was finally laid to rest in Pine Grove Park. "Live with him?" she managed. She considered his long hair a symbol of irresponsibility. Although she knew he had a job working for the Citrus Coop, she doubted he would ever amount to much.

"Mom, I'm 18 and know what I want to do!" She stood her ground.

"Val," her father broke in. "Go ahead, if that's what you want. Try it, but while you're at it try supporting yourself too. You'd better find a job." She didn't suspect he would be so agreeable. "You'll come and see us sometimes, won't you?"

"It's not like I', moving out of town," she said. "I'm just moving out of the house--to see what it's like on my own."

"Do you love him?" Mrs. Kristen asked.

"I think so--but that's what the arrangement is for--to find out if I really love him."

"What if you have a baby?" Anne continued.

"We'll be careful," Val promised. She was surprised her mother was so touch on that point, since she had been a leading advocate of abortion reform.

Don came to pick her up and her parents stayed out of the way.

"Did you tell them?" he asked as they got in the car.

"They made it easy," she said.

"Then it's all set?"

"Like two kids in a cardboard box," she said.

7

She climbed slowly out of bed, dawn light streaming through her upper story window. Her head felt like an apple being pressed for next years cider, a little fermented from the Liebfraumilch she had shared with Don the night before. She groped through the blinding morning to the bathroom sink, and splashed heavy water over her high cheekbones.

She made her way back to bed. Yamantaka was tickling her toes with all eighteen hands, she could swear. However, when she opened her eyes, there was only the gold mirror--with the Baroque frame--reflecting the light blue ceiling. "Salt!" she said out loud, cupping her hand over her mouth in recognition of her sleeping parents next door.

Tiptoeing down the stairs, she got the Morton's out of the cupboard, poured some on her palm, and wrenched her face for the shock. "Ack," she said, crawling back upstairs to the womb of her blankets. Val slept until mid-afternoon.

Her mother let her borrow the car for her move, and began to pack and load it herself. She didn't want Don to help. Her parents were upset enough as is. She put a few things in a cardboard box, threw her music and clothes into a suitcase, and dragged it all downstairs.

Don was still sleeping when she arrived at his place.

"Get up, Don, you're late for church."

"Good. Then they won't need me to fix the sun." He rolled over and faked a convincing snore. Valerie contemplated tossing a cup of cold water, and decided instead to sit on the edge of the bed and strum his guitar. Don betrayed his feign. She lunged, reproaching him for sleeping late.

"You bad boy--momma will just have to send you to bed without supper."

"Not a bad idea." He rolled over on top of her.

"Wait. Wait," she exclaimed. "I have to move in first. It has to be official."

"Oh, no," he complained. "You women are all alike."

She sat up suddenly still, and let a smile creep over her like hot fudge on a sundae.

He redoubled his attack. The 'enemy' fell.

The sun was below the horizon before Valerie was officially moved in.

Val got a job as a ticket taker at the Rocket Ballroom where Don's group regularly performed. It meant giving up some of her weekend social life, but she found consolation in her roommate.

Don borrowed an old pickup and carted an old upright into his living room. The piano looked as if it belonged in his run-down shack. The inside walls being unfinished, made it look like piano guts were put together to make his home.

The instrument had a couple of cat-bodied gargoyles glued to the front panel. Valerie loved it like a new child.

Don practiced with his band almost every evening at the Gates mansion. Randal was acting as their agent. He came home smelling of marijuana, but she abstained, both from it and alcohol. She didn't like the effect on her mind.

Finally, Val convinced Don to visit Mr. Burntree. They knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Val knew from her conversations that he never left the house.

"Maybe he's around back," she suggested.

They went around the house and found nothing but three red lounge chairs, the river, and a few swans. Opening the kitchen door, she led Don into the house.

"Are you sure it's OK?" he whispered.

"Sure. He said so. He's probably wrapped up in something." She didn't hear any music, and searching the first floor, they found no Mr. Burntree.

They mounted the staircase and entered a small door at the end of the first flight.

The door swung open quickly, and there was Burntree, sitting in an old rocking chair, in some kind of trance. He wasn't breathing.

"Is he dead?" she breathed, an image of the demon Yamantaka carrying him up the stairs flashed through her mind.

The room was completely empty except for a small table sporting several silver lavers and ornaments and an odd bell-shaped object. Keeping watch over this altar was an elaborately-dressed Buddha, seated on a large pink lotus flower. He stared questioningly from his home on painted cloth. A black and red oriental rug graced the floor.

Valerie approached him to see if he was alive, and his eyes opened. They widened to two narrow slits, as if he had been sleeping in a dark room.

"Hello," he said, beaming generously. "Don't worry about interrupting me. I'm glad you're here." The bass tones of his voice resonated the room.

"Mr. Burntree, this is Donald Armand."

"Hello. Hello. Valerie has told me about you. Are you two living together now?"

"Uh, yes." Don could sense his approval and relaxed.

"Good. Good. I'm glad to see Val going for what she wants."

"So am I," Don said.

"Now that your here, perhaps I should show you around." Val could tell Burntree completely accepted Don. His eyes sparkled with joy. "Let me show you my 'museum'. My Mother traced more incarnations of the New Hebredian 'worshipped ones. Does Don know?" Valerie nodded.

Burntree turned a brass doorknob across the hall. "A guru in India, a Zoroastrian

priest, and a New England white 'witch' were among the finds." The door opened to a small compartment, revealing a statue of a half naked man with an elaborately curled beard.

"That looks like Zoroaster," Don commented, having seen his likeness in a history book.

"It is. As you may know, he is the founder of a religious sect now called the Parsis.

His conception of good and evil have influenced the development of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity." At the foot of the prophet were models of short, flat circular towers with miniature skeletons arranged on the top of the structures.

"Are those human skeletons?" Valerie asked.

"Yes. Accurate in every detail. The stone structures are called 'towers of silence'. Instead of burying the dead, the faithful let the vultures pick at the corpses on top of the towers. They hoped to protect the earth from the decaying flesh."

Valerie winced as Burntree suddenly turned on a bright light. "It looks like the sun," she said. A globe of fiery light was suspended in midair above Zoroaster's head.

Flames leapt like lightning from one portion of the globe to the other. Vortices illuminated the interior of the globe, reminiscent of sunspots.

"One of my scientific endeavors," Burntree explained. "Shall we go on?"

He led them out of the room, the globe still glowing in their vision. The sun through the south windows seemed to glow brighter.

The second room was larger. On a sand colored mat, grass appeared to be growing, and above it a living figure was suspended about six inches from the floor. A turbaned yogi seemed to be deep in meditation and levitating. Burntree passed his hand through the fakir's body as if it wasn't there.

"Swami Durgananda," he said, "another 'worshipped one', projected holographically. The idea is that the yoga was seen in later life to have this same etheric property. He was known as the disappearing saint. Often invisible, and sometimes intangible but visible to his disciples.

"What is the story behind his reappearance?" Don asked, familiar with the Hebredian ritual.

"After he died, his body was put on view for several days. On the second day, it disappeared. His closest disciple was directed by the master's voice within to search for him in the islands. He found him and arranged for his escape in the same way as was done for the Abbot of To Ling."

"You mean they found his reincarnation?" Don was curious.

"Yes, and the Swami returned to India and his disciples only fifteen years after he shed his previous form."

"Then he must still be alive."

"Perhaps, but no one know where he is. Seven years later he disappeared for good, at least it seems so."

"What about the Zoroastrian priest?" Val asked.

"Again it was the case of a previous incarnation, but he realized it himself, and arranged his own escape, only to be reinstated among the white-smocked Parsi clergy."

The third room was on the second floor as well. They entered and smelled something like burning flesh. "What is it?" Val asked.

` "A simulation of a witch being burned at the stake. Another 'worshipped one'. She

is a good friend of mine in her present body."

Don gazed at the wax statue.

Burntree continued. "She died by burning in the seventeenth century after being dunked a thousand times in Flint's Pond in Massachusetts. Her heinous offense was to burn candles in the likeness of herself. She lived in a small hut in the forest. Some of her candles were as large as the one you see. As she became more proficient at making them, her spiritual presence 'waxed'. It was said that instant healing could be attained by a mere glimpse of her form. In spite of her gift, she avoided people, and never gave them a sign of healing. She never admitted a part in any of the miracles."

"Why yellow wax?" Val asked.

"Burning a yellow candle was reputed to increase her wisdom. Also in her room is a remnant of her robe. Found in her hovel, it was placed with her ashes in her grave. Mother discovered it in a private museum in Boston and payed a fortune for it."

"Could we see?" Val asked.

"Yes." Burntree stooped to a small table and opened a miniature chest. An irregular grey cloth lay in the bottom. Valerie reached down to touch it.

"Don't" Burntree exclaimed. "It may fall apart."

He closed the box and led them out of the room. Valerie's headache was gone. Was Burntree protecting her from something?

Ascending to the third floor, Valerie's leg acted up, but she managed. At the top, they entered a large room, it appeared to take up the entire floor. Reduced to circular shape, they found themselves in a cylinder, full of statues, murals, and paintings.

Partitions radiated inward, separating six compartments. At the hub of this enormous wheel was a wheel itself, a kind of carnival "Wheel of Good Fortune' spinning with a clacking sound.

"A Tibetan prayer wheel," Burtree expalined, his sonorous tones reflecting from the wall and lending the illusion of a vast hall. "We slightly modified the idea to make it more comprehensible."

"We?" Don asked.

"My Mother and I put this room together just before she died. This room is another kind of wheel: the Tibetan Wheel of Life. In a sense, it is like a wheel of fortune. Each time a being dies, the wheel is spun and could land in an of the six sectors, or types of existence. This wheel, however, is governed by the laws of Karma, not chance.

"Karma?" Val asked.

"Yes, whatever you do, good or bad, for which you reap a like return."

"What are the types of existence you mentioned?" Don asked.

"Let's start with the humans. That's what we are--I hope." He pointed to a sector on the North side of the room. "These figures represent man's urge for accomplishment--his attachment to action, you might say. Mother took the figures from the original Tibetan frescoes and gave them Western forms: a man with a suit with briefcase in hand, a woman with a dust mop, and several other busy figures--all half- sized to give a feeling of separateness. All of them are ignoring the beggar who walks among them. He symbolizes the way of liberation."

"You mean we all should become beggars?" Don asked.

"No. He is symbolic of renunciation, that is, renunciation of attachment to worldly action and its fruits. This doesn't mean to stop acting. It means stopping the grasping

in acting."

"What does that mean?"

"Our essential nature is like that of the beggar, free from the taint of desire."

"Isn't it a good idea to try to help others?" Valerie asked.

"Yes, but not to dwell on them or be attached to helping. To be an actor in the cosmic play--'in the world but not of it'. Very few ever realize it. Most are too involved in getting a family, a house, a name, or this or that, to recognize that it's all a drama."

Valerie was beginning to see why Burntree lived alone, unmarried and unknown.

She recognized the same thirst for isolation in herself. Her song 'Spin Unseen' indicated that, as an echo of her dream. 'But even this aversion to worldly life can be a clinging,' she thought.

"You are right," Burntree said, as if in response to her thought. "Let's move on.

Within the human realm some live like animals, some like gods. Others are thirsty for things they cannot get and lead ghostlike lives. Other use power to get what they want.

And so we have the other realms of rebirth. At opposite ends of the room we have heaven and hell: both limited modes of being."

The heavenly sector was peopled by smiling robed figures, while the sector of the 'damned' pictured naked bodies in all forms of torture. The warring gods were pictured by generals in modern military garb shouting orders to their shrinking inferiors. Opposite to them, ghostlike filmy veils hung from the ceiling as if out of touch with the world of material objects. Artificial air currents lent them a restless motion.

"What are these animals all about?" Val asked, pointing to a mosaic inlayed with a circle on the floor around the prayer wheel.

Burntree replied. "These are the symbols of the three root causes of bondage to the wheel of life: the red cock symbolizes greed, the green snake hatred, and the black pig

ignorance. These three perpetuate one another, and are shown biting each others tails,

running round in a circle."

"What happens when someone goes to the realm of heaven?" Val asked. "Do they stay there?"

"No karmic reward or punishment is permanent. Once the spirit of good deeds is exhausted, the inhabitants of heaven must fall into another of the six realms unless they achieve liberation. Heaven is not a place of permanent happiness."

"Is there such a place?"

"Yes."

"How do we get there?" Don asked, imagining a road-map to the place hidden under Burntree's silk robe.

"By overcoming the illusion of ego--separateness."

"How?"

"By transcending desire, through unselfishness."

"What's wrong with wanting something?"

"It creates a state of blindness," he answered. "Here, let me show you." He pushed a black button on the wall and projected figure of a blind woman appeared above it.

"The slides I am going to show you are all links in the continuous chain of becoming. Spiritual blindness could be considered the result of the chain, or the cause--it doesn't matter." An elderly lady was being led across a busy street by a seeing-eye dog.

"Next in the chain comes the potter." An old craftsman was giving a kick to his wheel. "We form our lives from patterns, patterns we make ourselves."

"These patterns are represented by a monkey jumping vine to vine, just as our own consciousness jumps from object to object."

"The two persons in the boat in the next slide are 'mind' and 'body'. The body is formed by the patterns held over from the previous life."

"Why do I have a woman's body?" Valerie asked.

"Either you were one in your previous life, or your karma or desire required it."

"You mean I might have been a man?"

"In your case, I doubt it, but it is a possibility." He smiled reassuringly.

"The next step is the body 'coming' to its senses. To the five senses, we have added the sixth sense--thinking. These are portrayed by a house with six windows."

"The senses experience objects--two teenagers hold hands. This experience leads to a feeling symbolized by a man whose eye has been pierced with an arrow." The last slide was taken from a Tibetan painting.

"The eighth link in the chain of becoming is the thirst for life arising from the feeling of contact." An old man was being served a drink at a bar by a waitress. He looked wrinkled and dried up, like a salted plum. "This thirst leads to a clinging to objects, as a man clings to the fruit on a tree to pick it."

"Clinging, in turn, leads to becoming, a condition you see here pictured in the sexual union of a man and a woman." This slide was graphic.

"The next step is rebirth." A mother was pictured, naked from the waist down, holding her newborn child in front of her pelvis, the afterbirth trailing behind and the umbilical cord still intact. Valerie felt a churning sensation in the pit of her stomach.

It wasn't altogether unpleasant.

"Rebirth to death." A mummified corpse appeared, challenging them with a serene smile.

"It's seems like one big merry-go-round of suffering," Valerie commented.

"Indeed." Burntree took on a consoling look. "But there is hope. We can learn to accept it all and do what we think is right. That's the path that the Buddha in the alcove is pointing to." A robed figure was gesturing toward the river.

"Why did you bother with all this?" Don asked on the way down to the den.

"My Mother's way of initiating her disciples," he said.

"And she really made the piano...?"

So saying, Don turned the corner and faced Yamantaka himself. They all remained in silence for a few moments. Burntree clasped his hands gently behind his back.

"Where did she get the power?" Don managed.

"In India they call is Samyama, or concentrating the mind on an object until you become absorbed in it. In her case, it was done in conjunction with a mantra, or chant." They had both heard about mantras from their meditating friends, but Don had always thought that repeating the same words over and over was a waste of time. Now he was beginning to wonder.

"What was the mantra your mother used?"

"There's nothing secret about it. She just repeated, 'Om mani padme hum'"

"What's the story behind it?"

"An ancient king was so wrapped up in materialistic pursuits that a sage came from the forest to convince him of his folly. He told him of a greater treasure that lay beyond the objects of his desire. This fascinated the king, so he took the sage into his court as his personal guru. The guru gave him the mantra, having first experienced its vibration in deep meditation. To aid the ruler in his quest, the sage materialized a bracelet set with a large diamond. Since the king was quite attached to his own jewelry, it was difficult for him to keep his eyes off this magnificent stone."

"The king was told to repeat the mantra while gazing into the gem, and told that he could visit the guru in the mountains when he had found the real treasure in the stone."

Valerie was reminded of the diamond in the hand of her long lost friend in her song.

"The king practiced long and hard, until one day he saw light shining from deep within the stone, the light of infinite spirit. He journeyed to the guru's cave to ask for further instruction. The sage told him to repeat the mantra and visualize the diamond as resting in his heart. He asked him to let it disappear and its essence to appear. This was the way in which the king was led to the greatest treasure of all, the divine Self."

Don thought about the words to his song: 'This world holds no greater treasure than the one I hold in your embrace.'

"This story is one of my favorites," Burntree continued, "because it illustrates a way, though dangerous without a proper guide, of overcoming materialistic urges. One merely has to concentrate on an object one is attached to and repeat the mantra."

They tried the phrase together a few times, then Burntree taught them some breathing exercises to go along with their meditation.

"Begin the meditation as soon as you decide on an object. If you practice twice a day, you should be able to feel the results in a short time. Before you go, I have something for you." He reached into an ornate Hindu wooden box and handed them a thin pamphlet with a turbaned yogi on the cover. It was the same floating fakir in the room on the second floor. 'Sayings of Durgananda', it read, but from the expression on his face it seemed as if he could have never said anything.

Don read from the booklet that night:

'My fondest dream is to have a love affair with the whole human race. To live in heaven with all of you, a heaven on earth where there are no obstructions to the flow of love, where everyone who feels love expresses it appropriately, and where anyone who is an object of love receives it.'

'What simpler way to overcome the passions than by each one fulfilling the other in all ways. To me this is the infinity of love: to give and receive at the proper time. Give and receive: to all and from all, always and everywhere.'

'The heart, after all, is a circle of giving and receiving. One moment giving, the next receiving. Though Christ said, 'it is more blessed to give than receive',' I say that giving and receiving are equally blessed, and that receiving is giving, giving receiving. They are each a part of the same circle: the circle of the heart.'

8.

Meditating came naturally to Val and Don. Val repeated the mantra, visualizing her piano, and Don visualized her. He soon found himself with no desire for liquor or marijuana. He was ensconced in the joy of the Buddha. His new 'straighthood', however, didn't leave him in very good graces with his band.

That spring they both graduated, leaving them free to pursue their music more vigorously. Don stopped playing with the band, and he and Val started playing singing jobs, first as second acts to the stars, and then as headliners. Val had an offer from her Mother to finance a college education. She refused, explaining that she wanted to devote her time to music and Don exclusively.

Once a week they visited Mr. Burntree, and when the weather was good they worked on their spiritual practice down by the river. Their teacher told them more.

"There's a Hindu legend," he began slowly, "that if you leave a swan a mixture of milk and water, he will drink the milk and leave the water." His eyes were fixed on a large white bird preening itself on a grassy island in the swift current. "If we could be just as selective of our thoughts, the possibilities would be endless."

Valerie got it into her mind to test the legend. She went into the kitchen and mixed water and milk into a carved wooden soup-bowl.

"If this works, I'll do your dishes for a week," Don promised.

"And if it doesn't, I'll do yours," Valerie responded. Mr. Burntree almost spilled the milk.

They left the mixture on the riverbank and retreated to the dining room to watch. The swan leisurely finished its careful search for parasites, and then cautiously plodded toward the bait, pausing every few seconds to stare fixedly to the left, as if danger only came from that direction. Then craning his neck into the mixture, he then lifted his muzzle high into the air and shook his head. He looked like someone who has just swallowed too much horseradish. He repeated the process several times and waddled off down river.

Valerie was first to reach the remains. "The bowl is empty," she said disappointed.

"Oh no, it isn't! I just couldn't see the water at first. He really did it--drank the milk and left the water.

"I hope you don't mind paper plates," Don groaned.

Don was on fire for his study of the occult. Though he worked full time to support them, he spent every spare moment they weren't playing music reading and practicing the mantra. In his readings, he found several references to an underground society called the Agartha. This mysterious cult was said to inhabit an elaborate network of caves in the Tibetan highlands. Accounts varied, but some authors described a membership of millions, thousands of Lamas, yogis, and scientists allowed access to its innermost secrets. These were contained in the Agartha library and in devices hidden in secret caves, the writing said.

Finally he asked Burntree about these statements. "Yes the Agartha does exist," he replied, "but descriptions in the literature are exaggerated and distorted beyond belief.

One of the reasons for the distortion is that the society is a lot more exclusive than the author's claim. I dare say none of them is an initiate. Only those who show some progress toward occult powers and who have the proper moral credentials are considered for admission. They also must be recommended by several members of the group, and pass a rigorous initiation ritual. Once a member, an initiate has access to all the books and archives relative to his progress on the path. The books and manuscripts are closely watched, however, and may not be removed from the library.

"Was your mother an initiate of the Agartha?" Don asked.

"Yes, because she had been an adept in previous lives, she began to show prowess in mind over matter a few months after tutelage under Lama Gon Ting. She could change letters on the written page by concentrating on them one at a time. This talent was soon developed to the point where she could 'write' with her mind; that is, she could think words and have them appear in neat script on paper. She could only work with paper with writing on it already."

"You mean she kind of made old newspapers into new books," Valerie asserted.

"Right. She was never able to create something out of nothing, only use what was there in a new way."

"Could she destroy matter with her mind?" Don asked. "I've heard that Tibetan books were carved out of wooden blocks. It would save time if this was done mentally. "

"No," Burntree replied, "destroying matter involves resolving it back into the primal energy. To do it completely one must first create a replica of the object out of antimatter from existing materials, superimpose the two, then disperse the energy rapidly. Otherwise the effect would be similar to an atomic bomb. So you see that one must know how to create in order to destroy."

"I had no idea it was so scientific," Val said.

"Oh yes, the occult does not refute science, it only completes it."

"How did your mother get into the Agartha?" Don continued.

"Lama Gon Ting himself was an advanced initiate and arranged to have her demonstrate her word-making power for several others. She was soon granted admission to the initiatory tests."

"One of the vows she had to take was to never divulge the nature of her initiation to an outside. I remember her glazed, almost frightened look when I asked her about the rite."

"Can you tell us anything about what she learned when she was admitted?" Don asked.

"For reasons of secrecy, she was not allowed to instruct me in the secret teachings of the Agartha. However, she did initiate me into Tibetan Tantric ritual. She thus qualifies as my guru."

"Have you learned anything about the teachings from other sources?" Valerie was curious too.

"Only what other authors have written. One author, whose opinions I respect, tells of a race of men with knowledge far beyond our own spiritually and technically, who inhabited the earth nearly one hundred thousand years ago. When a 'great flood' threatened their existence, they created several 'time capsules'. These were placed in the mountains, to preserve their knowledge for later civilizations. There are said to be three major ones, two of which remain hidden to modern eyes. One is located in a cave in Mexico and another somewhere in Africa."

"The third cave, in Tibet, is accessible to a select few. Most of its secrets have not yet been revealed to the world at large. The Agartha holds a tight grip on this information, awaiting the spiritual progress necessary to hand such revelations."

"Are each of the caves pretty much the same?" Don asked.

"No, and that's the fascinating thing. Each of the caves is different in scope, reflecting the civilization in that part of the world."

"Where did these superhumans come from?" Val asked.

"Although there are references to the source in the literature of every religion, the truth is shrouded in fable. A clearer picture can be reconstructed from oral legends."

"In the Andes there is such a tradition which describes a lady by the name of Orejona."

"I remember reading about her," Valerie said. "Didn't she come to earth in a spaceship?"

"At least a mindship. How did you come across that?" Burntree asked.

"I was inspired by my English teacher."

"The legends indicate that she possessed the secret of antigravity and certain other devices. In fact her spaceship, some say, is written into the inscriptions on the Gate of the Sun in Peru."

"After landing on Earth, Orejona is said to remain in the mountains to have air light enough to breathe. Soon she grew lonely and mated with tapirs (genetic manipulation?), producing the first giants in the earth--represented by the immense statues on Easter Island."

"I myself doubt the validity of the story, but as far as the source being another world--that tickles my fancy. Just the fact that so much of this knowledge has been lost or hidden through the ages, indicates the Ancients thought it wise to conceal it from men who needed to evolve to handle it. Make sense?"

"Yes," Val said. She had often wondered how the pyramids of Egypt were built, for example, and why we couldn't do it today with all our scientific knowledge.

"But then again," Burntree continued, "knowledge is not wisdom. Although I am fascinated by the scientific mysteries in the caves, I am more enthralled by a possible discovery of an ancient religion from an advanced civilization. Today we have so much scientific knowledge without the spiritual ability to handle it."

"For this reason, I went down to Mexico to look for the cave there. Studying geological writings and maps, I decided on the Eastern Range of the Sierra Madre. Portions of this mountainous area have survived many ages of prehistory--floods, inundation of land masses, and volcanic action. This is not true of most of the rest of Mexico."

"If a truly great spiritual secret were concealed in the cave, I figured the locals would reflect it in their own spirituality. I set off for the mountains in hope I would find a haven of spiritual natives. It was kind of like using a divining rod to find water."

"I found what I was looking for in the mountains on the road to Mexico City just

north of a town called Jacala. That stretch of about 50 miles is the highest in altitude on that highway."

"I never thought of Mexico as mountainous," Valerie countered.

"That's par. Most think of it as flat desert. I guess that's from all the cowboy flicks filmed near the border. However the Eastern Sierra Madre is rather like the Andes--green hillsides, terraced crops, and snow-capped peaks."

"The Indians I saw in the area all seemed to have the slow gait and joyful serenity of the mystic--living close to the land, they seemed to thrive on the thin air. In fact it felt as if they knew what I was looking for, and were observing me to find out if I was worthy to know."

"When I mentioned the caves--cuevas to the Indians--they led me to several sanctuaries dedicated to the body of Christ and the Holy Virgin. My guides didn't quite get it, apparently. I found only statues of Jesus and Mary and hundreds of candles."

"Did you have any idea what kind of a cave you were looking for?" Don asked.

"Not really. All I had was a mantra my Mother gave me for 'opening doors'. I tried it everywhere I could--with no success." Valerie got the amusing picture of Mr Burntree shouting strange words at stone walls, while Mexican guides stood around giving each other 'isn't he crazy' looks.

"Frustrated by my progress among the natives, I set off on foot into the mountains, carrying seven day's food and a lantern. I crossed a high ridge just off the road and walked parallel to it, a few thousand feet below the summit. I found only a few shallow caves where animals apparently had found shelter. Giving up this pattern of search, I descended a precipitously steep valley to a fast-flowing mountain stream. I assumed it was the wiggly line on the map. I waded the rapids and ascended the other face of the valley. Signs of human life were not evident. I went in that direction for two days, flowing with the current of my intuition, until I came to a large high-altitude lake. Seeing a young Indian tending sheep in the green pasture near the waters, I asked him

about caves in the area. He told me I could find what I was looking for up on a rocky ledge, a kind of platform that could be seen thousands of feet above, overlooking the valley."

"I thanked him and started to climb. Gradually the wall of the canyon steepened.

Large boulders made the going difficult, and loose stones forced me to lose a step for every two I gained. It was two hours before I reached my goal."

"My shins were badly scraped from sliding on the loose rock, and by the time I pulled myself over the sharp edge of the escarpment I was raw with pain."

"The view from my new vantage helps me forget my wounds. I could see the round lake resting beneath like a silver dollar in a gambler's palm. In the distance, I could see, over a distant mountain ridge, the central high plains of Mexico. The silver blue of the lake and the iridescent sky seemed of a similar alloy, and the pale green valley flowed around the lake like a swarm of chameleons."

"What about the cave?" Valerie asked.

"Oh yes. My revery at the view had to be cut short, owing to the lateness of the hour. I turned to a circular entrance a little lower than my head. I now realized that I might not be able to explore the cave and return down the mountain before sundown.

I resigned myself to a night on the ledge. Lighting my miner's cap, I entered the hole.

A winding passage led for about a hundred feet to a vast room whose length eluded the penetration of my light. I walked in the black hall until I came to its end, and there against the stone, facing me, was a mammoth crucifix. Apparently the statue hadn't been tended for some time. Made of wood, it was suffering from water rot, and part of it was powdery to the touch. The source of the damage was a trickle of cave dew, dampening the cheek of the suffering Christ and falling to his feet below."

"The vault was barren except for the remains of candles in small burnished alcoves at regular intervals along the cavern walls. The adorning statues had probably been long since removed. Why had such an awesome cathedral been abandoned by its parishioners? A chill swept through my loins as I considered the possibility of a curse on the cave. If it were true, then why no warning from my friendly shepherd boy? In search of some clue, I began to look for tributary passages. Then I remembered the mantra. With the reverence demanded by my position, I intoned the magic syllables into every corner of the place--with no result."

"I left, carefully examining the winding tube I had first entered, finding nothing, and screwing up my courage for the night on the ledge."

"Night was shading the sky by degrees, and as I turned around to look at the opening I noticed something I hadn't seen on the way in. Earlier in the light of day, the rock I saw must have blended with the stone around it, but now the light of my own lantern revealed a slightly darker stone. Etched on it was the form of a llama."

"It would have been a surprise if the llama had been of the Tibetan human variety;

but, unfortunately, it wasn't. It was in fact the animal that inhabits the Andes and high Mexico alike."

"What troubled me was that there are llamas in almost all regions of the world where evidence of pre-flood civilizations has been found."

"You mean there could have been a parallel between llamas and the Caves of the Ancients?" Don asked.

"Yes, and I had nothing else to go on. All that was left was to tend to my scrapes and slip into my sleeping bag. As I fell asleep, I had a vision of massive stone doors parting to a high-pitched whine, but sleep soon swallowed that."

"The next morning, a fine mist hung over the valley. As I stared out into this kind of microcosmic Milky Way below me, my inner voice began to speak clearly, as if mocking me, 'Can't you see?' it said, 'the only fog is in your mind. It hides the valley, just as your own ignorance makes you blind to the secret of the Cave of the Ancients.'"

"'The devil take you!' I cried. 'I'll find out!' I felt I was in position to make the discovery, but never did. Since then I have been waiting for someone who could remove the ignorance, weighing so heavily on me that day."

"Broken, I went down the mountain, retracing my steps: passing the lake, crossing the river, ascending and descending the high ridge. All the way back to Florida my Mother's 'opening' mantra kept echoing in my inner ear--the way it did in the chamber. If I could only figure out how to use it!"

"Mr. Burntree, could we help you?" Valerie offered. "I mean help you find the cave?"

"Would you be interested?" he asked.

She and Don agreed to the possibility. Don piped up, "It sounds exciting, but I'm not much for sleeping on rocky ledges."

"We could bring a double sleeping bag," she winked. "Will you come with us?"

She asked Burntree.

"I had a dream not so long ago that the cave would not be found with me along--in fact it was my Mother who told me so. This makes me hopeful for you two--if you go alone. I'll help you plan the trip, if you like. In fact, it would be useful for you to be initiated into Tibetan Tantra at this point, if you are willing."

They agreed, and he gave them a warning. "At the outset, let me say that the performance of ritual for a selfish purpose was regarded by Buddha to be one of the main hindrances to liberation. Ritual should be performed with detachment, not just as magic rites to give the adept power. The main purpose of assigning deities is to take away the ego's claim to progress in meditation, and to arouse dormant forces in the mind."

"The first step is to assign you each a Yidam, or personal deity for your own practice. The Yidam is an emanation of your own mind and must always be regarded as such. I'm afraid I must talk to you each alone for a few minutes."

"Valerie went first, and Don went for a walk by the river. "I'm going to initiate you into the Vajrayana," Burntree said, "or the sect of the diamond vehicle. The diamond symbolizes the elemental pure essence of the mind; and as a diamond refracts light into all colors, so does our myriad universe proceed from the pure mind within you."

He assigned her the Yidam Vajrasattva, the diamond vehicle, as embodied in the guru Rimpoche; and then sketched the outline of her sadhana or practice. He gave her a written description of the rites she was to perform.

Valerie saw that it would be formidable task to learn this sadhana properly, and questioned her own ability.

"You have a powerful mind" he replied, and left it at that. His smile was her reassurance. He gave her pictures of the deities and symbols involved, and recited a mantra of blessing.

Arya Tara, the embodiment of compassion, was chosen as Don's Yidam. Similar in spirit to the Virgin Mary or the Hindu Divine Mother, she was a beautiful female who commanded love and respect, a deity appropriate to Don's emotional temperament. Both their rituals involved internal manipulation of word symbols and eventual identification with the deity.

He spoke a few final words to both of them: "These rituals will prepare you for receiving the mysteries hidden in the cave, should you find it. I'd suggest you also make yourselves look as straight as possible to avoid problems with the authorities."

Don agreed to cut his hair.

"When you're ready to make the trip, I'll explain the highways and give you maps. You'll need some caving and hiking equipment--I'll send for that immediately. I'd suggest that while you are searching for the cave or exploring, you carry a week's food supply. Take your packs with you when you leave the road." He also showed them how to avoid Montezuma's revenge--dysentery.

"Should we get a Land Rover or a Jeep or something to cover the rough ground?" Don asked.

"I would go the rough territory on foot. Do you need a better vehicle?"

"My old Chevy just wouldn't make it," Don said.

"Come out to the garage," Burntree suggested.

The left by a rear door and followed him down the driveway about two hundred yards. In a red barnboard structure, peering out at them through half-opened doors was an old green Ford pane truck.

"It's a '49, but in good condition. I haven't driven it much in 20 years." Burntree climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine on the first crank.

"That's not possible," Don remarked, but there it was--an ancient green monster, growling after a 20 year hibernation. It was in far better shape than his Chevy, read only 20,000 miles on the speedometer, and was roomy enough to sleep in."

"Why don't you drive it home?" Burntree suggested. "I don't have any use for it."

Burntree told them to keep it, and said he would sign the papers over to Don.

"Can I give you a ride back to the house?" Don asked.

"No, I'll walk with the river a piece." He looked troubled by something unnameable as they drove away. He was looking up to an approaching thunderhead in the West. Halfway home the rain came down in wind-driven sheets.

9.

Don christened the truck, 'The Green Drölma', another name for his protector goddess, Tara. Burntree's camping order provided them with light packs and sleeping bags, foldaway cooking and eating utensils, a Coleman stove and lantern, and caving caps with carbide lamps. Ropes, pitons, and hammers also came in the bundle, but Don hoped they wouldn't need them. Burntree also gave them each a vajra bell and scepter, implements to be used in their rituals. Don constructed a table behind the front seat of the truck as an altar.

In a goodbye visit to his mother, Don discussed the mission with her. She wished him luck and then said, "Don't let yourself get mixed up with any wild animals down there." This brought to mind a lucid nightmare from childhood. He had sworn there was a black panther behind his bedroom door, and he wouldn't leave his room until his father took it away.

They left for Mexico on a cloudless day with Valerie reciting Allen Ginsburg, "Now the mind is clear as a cloudless sky. Time, then, to make a home in the wilderness." On the front seat they had a large brown paper map Burntree had made for them.

He told them to "follow the Gulf of Mexico around to Brownsville, Texas. Cross the border there and stay on Route 101 until you reach Jacala." Compass directions on the map were indicated by pointing fingers of a kind of four-armed Vishnu Burntree had drawn himself.

The summer sun seemed like a parallel world of light to Valerie. Somewhere on that world was another Valerie, another Don, leaving on a similar journey. Valerie felt somewhat nauseous as they pulled out from the driveway, and during the trip stopped several times to empty her system. Thinking about the batter-operated organ she had purchased for the trip seemed to settle her a bit.

Pensacola pines whizzed past. As they crossed the bridge into Mobile, they saw a whole flock of swans flying upstream. Night fell as they drove into Louisiana, kept awake by a tapestry of frog sounds, and feeling happy-sleepy. Don began to sing:

"If I had wings like Noah's dove,

I'd fly the river to the one I love

Fare thee well, oh honey fare thee well."

Valerie took the second verse:

"One of these mornin's and it won't be long

You'll look round for me, and I'll be gone

Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well."

Don shivered in the evening cool. Valerie handed him his jacket. He let go of his fear,

and released himself into the sounds and smell of the bayou.

They spent the night in New Orleans with Jackie a long-time musician friend of Don's. Jackie was a jazz trombonist and had a lot to do with interesting Don in music.

Don used to tag along to Jackie's gigs, somehow avoiding the fact that he was to young for bars. The B girls in the clubs used to joke with the boy, and he had his first lovemaking from a generous streetwalker named Lorraine. It was her image that filled his mind as he stepped onto the landing of Jackie's apartment. Small dark hair flowing long in front of her tiny bosom, a perpetual smile, and one eye that didn't quite look straight at you. She told him that love was best taken 'slow and easy, like in a dream'.

Jackie beamed when he saw who was at his door.

"Don! Come on in man!" He had shaved his head since Don last saw him, and seemed a little older, wearier. "How's your guitar?"

"I pick at it. Write songs," Don said.

"Who's your friend?" he asked, giving Valerie an approving up and down glance.

` "Valerie. Her thing's piano."

"I hope I can hear you sometime. You remember Lorraine?" he said. "She died of an overdose two months ago." Don tried to hide his concern.

"The three of us had some great times," he said.

Valerie was feverish, and hardly noticed Don's reaction.

"You don't look so good," Jackie said.

"Could I just go someplace and lie down?" she asked.

Don took her to the spare room and rolled out her bag for her. The two old friends went into the livingroom to reminisce. A few hours later, Don went in to sleep.

Valerie was sitting up. Her eyes communicated a strange mixture of joy and fear.

'Almost like an LSD high,' Don thought. "Some kind of light is rising up my spine", she said unsteadily.

"Must be the Kundalini, Val." Don had read about the rising of the vital energy in

yoga books, but only experience a glimpse of it once, on peyote.

"This is painful." she said.

Don knew that the best thing to do was to remain silent, and just 'be' with her. In a few minutes, she rose slowly and made her way to the bathroom. Don could hear the shower.

She came back radiant. "I know what it is--creation," she said.

"Where is the light now?" Don asked.

"Up... Up to my neck. Oh Don! I feel like I'm gonna die!"

"You won't die," Don said. He hoped he was right. He took her hand and felt her pulse race in random bursts.

"Got to slow down," she mumbled.

Don noticed an immediate change. Her pulse was normal again, but her breathing was sporadic and extremely rapid. Soon, though her breath normalized. Valerie sat up straight and closed her eyes. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Her golden hair tumbled across her shoulders, and she sat perfectly still and breathless for several minutes. Don knew the breathless state as Samadhi, the yogic trance. He saw only joy

emanating from her face. 'Death is nothing like this,' he thought.

Soon her eyelids fluttered as if after a short sleep. Her face shone in the moonlight.

"It still hurts," she said, her body falling limp like a deflating balloon. "Did you see him?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Mr. Burntree."

"I didn't see anyone but you," he said. He went to sleep, convinced she was all right now, but Valerie was up all night, absorbed in contemplation and bliss. Morning came, and she still had no thought of sleep. "Let's get going," she suggested.

They had breakfast and said goodbye to Jackie. "You sure you're ok?" he asked.

"Look, if you need any pills, I've got just about everything."

"No thanks," she said with a warm look, "all my problems have been solved."

They drove through East Texas, Valerie in meditation most of the time. Don did all the driving. They went past Corpus Christi into Mexican America, prairie lands, sparsely populated, low lying scrub, occasional straw hat.

They spent the night on Padre's Island, Just off the tip of Texas. Insomnia caught up with Valerie on the beach. She fell asleep and Don contemplated the moon for a while.

In the morning, Val woke to see a crab the size of a softball peering at her from atop her bag, its beady eyes extended toward her on tentacle-like projections. She half laughed, half screamed, and the creature scurried away on spindly legs.

"Fiddler crab," Don said, "must be a good musical omen."

Sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico was glowing pink, the sun beaming from behind an immense cloud that dominated almost half the sky. They left, passing what seemed like endless red-brown sand dunes. They soon saw Brownsville in the distance.

Val bought a used Brownie camera, before they crossed the border. "I just want to know someday how you looked in Mexico," she said.

They crossed the short bridge over the Rio Grande, dodging scores of Mexicans headed in the same direction. They came to a large white stucco building on stilts.

"Looks like an airplane," Don commented.

"Bureau Turismo," Valerie read in a phony accent. "That's what we want."

They ascended a steep flight of open stairs and entered the office through swinging glass doors. There were forty or fifty Chicanos and Mexicans waiting in different lines. Only a few white Americans bustled as well, most tourists not wanting to travel this poorly-paved route to Mexico City. They were soon ushered to a generously mustached official seated behind a cluttered desk. He asked for their driver's licenses

and birth certificates and asked their destination.

"Jacala," don replied.

"Going to live with the Indians a while, eh? Well, don't eat any of their mushrooms, or you'll get a stomach ache. How long do you plan to be in Mexico?" he asked in a scratchy voice.

"Not more than a month or two," Don answered.

"Temporary pass... How old are you?"

"Both eighteen."

He looked at them obviously faking an expression of doubt.

"Es su esposa?" he asked.

"No she's not my wife," Don admitted, slipping the officer a five dollar bill. He completed the forms.

"Hasta la vista," he said, "Good trip niños."

They got Mexican insurance and drove around to the side of the building. The officials had him open the back doors, and selected one backpack and their suitcase for examination. The asked about the altar in front of the truck.

"Religiousa," Don replied. They stood with respect, perhaps mistaking Tara for the Virgin Mary, and went about their business.

They boarded the truck and cruised down the slender byway, Mexico 101. After a half a dozen turns following arrows and signs past Coca Cola billboards and green and pink houses, they realized that the first '101' sign had been their last. They blindly followed the same road to the edge of town. Instead of clean, bright-colored stucco, they found hovels formed of mud, sticks, and old boards. Children were begging for pesos. They handed them a few Mexican coins and asked the older boy for directions.

He responded in perfect English, "Turn right at town hall," and pointed back the way they came. The truck turned around into a cloud of dust, taking them back a few miles to a large white building. They turned right.

Hundreds of hand-drawn carts and battered trucks were backing from every direction into the wide dirty thoroughfare. The sound of engines was punctuated by impassioned shouting, and the street was so pocketed by rainholes that it was a wonder that the whole crazy mass kept moving. Not one of the well-worn vehicles had trouble. The rocking and socking of the chuckholes seemed endless, but disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. The highway was paved again. On the right was a marker. '101' it said. They cheered.

They passed half-clothed children and stick huts. Each hut had a very lean cow and several skinny chickens in its yard. They passed an old man driving three or four pigs with a piece of gnarled wood. The desert sun beat down on the green plain.

They passed the deep Mexico check station and drove on through flatlands for about 200 miles. The desert terrain was vacant except for a few white cows of the Brahma variety, whose shoulders protruded high above the usual cow, and who were free to ramble at will.

The monotonous landscape changed gradually into rolling hills, purple mountains on the distant horizon. They looked almost like the triangular cuneiforms children make in imitation, they were so steep and pointed. The plant life also gave indications of an increasing supply of water. They saw banana trees and cornfields, suggestions of yellow amid the deepening green.

Ciudad Victoria appeared from behind a hill, surprising them with its neat, whitewashed buildings. They stopped for gas and asked the white-smocked attendant whether there were caves in the area.

"Cuevas? Far in the mountains," he replied, pointing up to the rapidly rising ground

which was the city's dramatic backdrop.

10.

The road out of town led steeply up the side of a mountain. Climbing a few thousand feet, they came out onto a highland plateau. Nightshades tinted the landscape in blue. They had been nibbling from their stores all day, but now they craved a real meal.

The highway lay in a plain between buttes, whose origin was volcanic. Bare spots in the vegetation appeared at the side of the road. As the sun slid behind a cone-shaped mountain, they turned off into one of the clearings.

Valerie threw together some vegetables and Moroccan wheat and they feasted heartily. The texture of the manna-like grain soothed their dusty throats, and the food and the aroma of desert sage left them happily high.

They conquered their fear of the wilderness by sleeping on ancient magma instead of retreating to the truck. When the sun woke them, Don went into the woods to urinate and on the way back found a small clearing hidden from the road for setting up their ritual altar.

They had only enough water to wash their faces. Doing so, they sat and did their chanting and meditation on an Indian blanket. The Mexican air came alive with the calls of birds, and the piquant fragrance of mesquite added a refreshing quality to their

chants.

After breakfast, the decided to climb the 'volcano' behind them. Winded by the time they reached the peak, they surveyed the vast panorama of buttes and desert. In the distance they made out the forms of a new series of higher mountains. In a clearing they found a heap of cow bones. 'Perhaps the poor creatures come up here to die,' Valerie thought. 'Maybe the mountain is sacred to them.'

The sun seemed to welcome them with arms of light as they plunged down the steep hillside to the 'Drölma'. They drove on chanting, 'Om mani padme hum', as the wheels whined against the blacktop.

The road became a roller coaster ride up and down mountains where corn grew terraced against the slopes. They descended into tropical valleys reminiscent of Africa with their round thatched huts and banana trees. Children held out hands which Don and Val filled with cookies and candy. Smiles were everywhere, even on the faces of those loaded with inhuman bundles of firewood. The road curled up the edge of a plateau and revealed another city--Ciudad Valles.

"Vayez," Don said, over-enunciating the syllables.

"Sounds like Val's to me," Valerie joked.

Their shared a boisterously jovial mood as they passed through the colorful town,

past an ornately pavilioned square, and back out onto the plateau. Their gaiety was interrupted by a man in a large black Pontiac sedan who crept up behind them and motioned for them to pull over. The car had Texas plates.

He was dark, with short-cropped hair and a fashionably-trimmed beard. He looked more American than Mexican, and sported a pistol slung in a holster hanging low about his gabardines. He wore sandals, and aside from the gun, there was no sign of

anything official.

He asked them to get out of the truck. 'Uh oh, a narc,' Don thought, but since he was carrying no drugs, his momentary fear evaporated.

"What do you want?" Valerie asked politely as they stepped to the pavement.

"Where are you headed?" he asked, sticking his thumbs inside his pistol belt.

"Jacala," Don replied.

"Show me your passes." They did what he asked without question, but felt he was perhaps out of line questioning them in Mexico.

"All right," he said, handing back their papers, "you can go on." He went back to his car, passed them, and drove away.

They sat stunned for a few minutes.

"What do you think he wanted?" Val asked.

"Maybe he's just a Texas lawman on vacation showin' off his authority," Don suggested.

"But he doesn't have any right down here, does he?"

"I'm not sure." don scratched his head. He still felt uncomfortably bald after cutting his hair for the crossing, but was glad he looked a little more 'straight'. "What if the Mexicans have a deal with the American narcs?"

"You mean allowing them to investigate in their territory?"

"Right."

"Then why didn't he search the bus?"

"You got me." Don was beginning to think the bearded interrogator was just a nut.

"Could be he's just keepin' an eye on us."

Valerie took the wheel, and the beauty of the unfolding spectacle soon made them forget the puzzling encounter.

They climbed again, the road uncoiling like a lazy serpent, leading them through dozens of vicious hairpin turns. The tropical trees gave way to scattered pines. Rocky slopes were interspersed with a deep orange soil. Dense mists hung over portions of the road, forcing slow progress. The pavement was not as wide as before, and there were holes in it where the rain had washed it away.

Suddenly two Indian girls appeared out of the mist and flagged down the truck.

Fortunately they had slowed for the fog. The girls approached Don and held out large shiny crystals of quartz.

"Cinco pesos?" the older one asked, as she displayed a stone the size of a golf ball.

"Dos pesos?" the younger one cut in, reaching around her competition with a bony arm and holding up a marble-sized crystal.

Instead of giving them money, Valerie suggested they give them a loaf of the bread she had baked for the trip. They had more than enough.

"Pan?" Don asked, and the young one shook her head with an eager "Si."

The older one held out, but when Valerie held out two loaves of whole wheat, her eyes brightened.

"Dos para los dos," Don said, indicating he would trade two loaves for two crystals.

"O.K." the older one agreed, and accepted the foil wrapped loaves. As they walked away they noticed how they were dressed. The older girl had a grey towel-like shawl draped across her head. Her white blouse abounded withe embroidered sea urchin-stars, and she sported a wrap-around brown flannel skirt--no shoes. They walked to the road's edge, sat down, and tore generous hunks from the loaves, eating and laughing.

With Don at the controls, they flew up the incline above the clouds and into the bright mountain sunshine. A young Indian man, red bandanna under his small straw hat, bright blue serape across his broad shoulders, tended a herd of sheep and a few small llamas.

"Llamas!" Valerie bubbled. "Just like on the cave entrance."

"We must be close." Don senses were honing their rough edges on the mountain air. Flowers alongside the highway seemed intensely fragrant, and the gaping deep green ravines made the heights seem higher. It was as if they were magically transported to the high Andes.

The mood deepened, and around a bend appeared a weathered grey stone fort, suspended over a light green valley--an obvious remnant of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Don easily imagined Spanish solders ala Pizarro peeking over the top of the structure.

"I wonder why there are no tourist signs in Mexico?" Valerie asked.

"I guess they feel everyplace belongs to everybody," Don said. "It certainly lends an air of mystery to things."

They pulled over and entered the dark doorway. There were seven or eight stone rooms, and names had been carelessly initialed over a recent coat of plaster. One was far from brief. In block letters ascended a particularly garrulous 'Jose Maria Guiermo Jesus Garcia Valdez 1957. Viva Elvis!'

"At least these Mexicans achieve a unique identity," Don remarked. "No other person by the same name has ever or will ever walk the face of the earth." They came to the end of the main hallway. A steel-runged ladder was embedded in the wall. Don

climbed and motioned for Val to follow. She declined, and decided to go outside to see Don's conquest of the fortress. He soon appeared on top.

"There's a deep round hole in the roof," he said from two stories up, "like a well."

"Do you think it's a dungeon?" She had visions of poor conquered Indians huddling in the corners of a dark stone prison.

"More like a water storage bin," he answered.

Val took pictures of Don playing Spanish soldier, and they left, stopping every so often to pick multicolored mountain flowers on the way. They took a 'Sayings of Durgananda' pamphlet out of the back and set up an instant shrine on the dash, offering their 'garlands' to the grinning yogi. A sandalwood joss stick added its scent to the flowers. All was peace, and they met no one else on the road.

The stillness gave Valerie opportunity to think. Already had experienced so much:

Jackie, the border, the smiling native, the girls with the stones--all these images flashed through her consciousness like flipped pages in a book. She had an idea for a song. She asked Don to stop the truck, and he swerved to a gravel ledge high above a riverbed. On one side was an almost vertical drop of thousands of feet, and on the other a solid grey rock mountain. Don went off alone and left her to write her song.

The wavelike music of the portable organ flowed like a surging sea into the deep valley.

"Well, we didn't mean to leave you, bound off for Mexico.

We've got lots of things to see to, lots of things to do you know.

One thing that's restin' on my mind:

I'm a wonderin' what we're bound there to find...

In the mountains of Mexico."

She wrote down five verses and looked out the back door of the truck. The mountain mist was settling in again. She felt a heavy pressure in her temples and was just about to lie down to rest, when she heard Don's voice:

"Val!" he called out excitedly. "Come out and see what I've found." She was weary, but could tell he was onto something. She climbed out into the white foggy air.

Only objects near the road could be seen through the soup, and a Don led her down the hill she had to tell herself it wasn't a dream. The stone out of which the highway was hewn haunted her like misty phantoms from another world.

The last thing she wanted to see was a graveyard, but there it was--a level plot of ground on the lower side of the road. Planted in the soil were crosses and wooden markers, each decorated with brightly colored strips of cloth. The strips rippled in the gentle mountain breeze as if spirits had been awakened.

However, Don's discovery was more importantly something else. He motioned for Valerie to cross the pavement, and together they clambered up a thirty foot embankment. It was a cave.

The late hour and the thickening fog lent an aura of unreality to the discovery. Valerie brushed the moisture from the top of her head. Below her a sizable stone hole challenged her with its uncanny symmetry.

"It's like a telescope!" she exclaimed. The circular entrance, which they estimated to be fifteen feet wide, tunneled down in three perfect cylinders, diminishing in size. It was like looking into the wrong end of a telescope. It seemed as if the hole had been bored out of the granite by some monstrous machine, cutting first a large hole, then two successively smaller ones.

"I've never seen anything like it," Don said. "Even the heat drill they've developed to penetrate the earth's crust couldn't have done this. The stone doesn't look like its been melted--it's not glassy enough. It's like someone carved it by hand..." Don's voice trailed off as he contemplated the talk: he imagined hundreds of Indians chipping away tons of stone with chisels and hammers, then scraping the surface smooth. It would have taken generations, and why? The entrance funneled down to a dirt floor with a natural passage leading off in a direction just about parallel with the surface. How had the Indians known there was a cave passage beneath the rock?

The possibilities made Valerie dizzy. Standing up to recover her balance she saw something even more disturbing: a rectangular black stone set in the grey rock directly over the hole. It was a perfect likeness of a llama.

Don looked up. "That's Burntree's llama!" he exclaimed, "but his cave was way inland from the road."

"I know," Val answered. "Do you think the caves could be connected?"

"It could be an Indian symbol. You know, a tribal 'flag' or something."

"Could be," she said, "but I feel a strange vibration coming from down there." She pointed into the hole as if her hand was a compass point drawn to a lodestone. They heard voices. Turning toward the road, they could see a young Indian family walking in the direction of the truck. An old woman hobbled several yards behind the mother and father and an infant child.

"Let's go back and get our equipment," Don suggested. "I think we have a rope ladder somewhere."

Cautiously, they climbed down the hillside and headed for the truck. Halfway there they passed the family standing in a niche carved out of the mountain face. Their 'bus stop' was a baffling perfect hemisphere, betraying a knowledge of geometrical construction almost as accurate as that for the cave.

The family stood completely still as if posing for a photograph, the father and grandmother looking on with Nativity like adoration, as the mother held the swaddled child. It was like a Christmas store window with live figurines.

Don stopped short, captivated by the characters who ignored him in deference to a tiny infant wrapped in a thin white cloth. He looked into the mother's eyes and she returned his gaze, with ultimate compassion. Here eyes transformed into the eyes of Arya Tara--thoughtful and understanding gates to the infinite.

Suddenly this woman became the transcendent goddess herself, with thousands of arms stretching to infinity, touching Don all over with a tingling sensation. Light streamed from her eyes and blinded him. Her glowing body was adorned with celestial flowers of carmine, yellow, and violet. A string of sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds garlanded her neck, and she wore a belt of human skulls, each one unique in its death agony. Every few moments a spirit body would fly to her arms only to crumble into fine golden dust and leave behind another skull for her endless waistband. The sympathy she showed toward her victims radiated as a blue light from between her eyes. Every being who approached her dissociated in the same terrifying way. It was as if she wanted only to hold and console the dying on their journey, but could not do so without turning them into powder.

Don found the vision awesome and terrifying, so much so that he wished he could see her human form instead. His wish immediately changed her again, this time into a beautiful half-naked maiden with dark skin, gazing at him with the passion of longing love.

His eyes met hers again and he fell into the magnetic bliss of the void. Only for a moment, Val saw him reel from the experience, nearly falling and catching himself, turning to her with eyes nearly popping from his head.

He remembered where he was and what they were doing, and they continued walking to the truck. A gentle rain began to fall. The cold of the evening was closing in. Almost to the truck, they heard a voice behind them.

"Por favor." They turned to find the old woman. She smiled and revealed her almost toothless gums, and asked if they could drive the young couple and their child to the nearby village of Jacala de Ledesma.

There was no doubt--they would. The 'grandmother' motioned to the others. Valerie could see the child was shivering in its thin white covering, and the mother pulled the cloth over its head to shield it from the chilling rain.

"Here," Val said, "let me get you something." She reached into the back of truck and came out with a heavy green towel. She handed it to the grateful young mother and said "its yours."

"Es suyo," Don translated.

The woman smiled, and Don gestured for them to get into the cab. Valerie went to the back. They drove the few miles silently. From the two small windows in the rear Valerie could see the passing mountainside. The rock formations were astonishing. Countless naturally sculptured heads seemed to appear out of the mist. Serpents and eagles almost jumped from the lines of the rock. The mountains were alive with the symbols of Indian lore. She knew it was all an emanation of her own mind, simply because it didn't make sense otherwise.

They rolled downhill all the way to the village, where they stopped to let the family out. Don asked whether it was permitted to enter the cave they had seen.

"Si. Se permite," said the father. He tipped his hat politely and turned to join the others who were already ambling toward a narrow rose adobe building. Under the eaves of the structure were dozens of peasants, occupied with the boredom of waiting for a bus. The late afternoon sun dried up the rain only to be swallowed up by approaching darkness.

They asked a young boy where they could cam and he mentioned a 'parque nacional' a few miles down the road.

Again they drove on, intending to tackle the cave in the morning. A few miles out, they discovered that the mother had left the baby's white shawl on the front seat. It was beautifully crocheted in a pattern of stars--white on white.

"Maybe it's a record of where the stars were when the baby was born." Don was guessing.

"Do you think we out to try to return it?" Valerie asked.

"I think she much preferred your gift," he said. "I think she was giving you something in return."

"You're right' My mind is saying 'return it' but my heart is saying 'keep it'." They went on. The full moon could be seen above the mountain by the time they found a place to stay.

Although they saw no signs, they assumed they had entered the national park, by the markings on the map. They found a quarry with a small hut nearby and parked the truck. Don found the hut made of metal highway rails bent into an inverted V over a central pole. Inside was a soft bed of grass.

They slept in the shelter under a pile of blankets. Nestling close to Don on the pine-scented straw, Valerie asked him for a bedtime story.

Unable to refuse her anything she asked for in her 'little girl' voice, he began a long saga.

"Once upon a time, high in the Andes, lived a little girl by the name of Desmonina."

The setting was comfortably like their own. "She grew up with her mother and father in a neat little cottage in a valley between snow-capped peaks."

"Desmonina loved to pick the flowers of the valley and bring them home to her mother. But, more than this, she loved to gather the strawberries which grew high on the mountainside in the special soil her father had terraced and planted."

"One sunny day on the winding trail up to the garden she saw what she though was a giant condor circling high overhead. Not being given to fear, she followed the path to the strawberries and began to pick."

"Her father had warned her to pick only the berries growing on the brown soil of the garden and leave those growing on the yellow part of the plot alone. A strange dust had settled on it, he said, and poisoned it, causing the earth to turn yellow."

"Time after time she had climbed the mountain and obeyed her father's instructions, picking only from the larger patch. However, this time she saw how much faster the berries were growing in the yellow soil, and admired how juicy they were compared to the others. She was sure that strawberries that delicious looking couldn't be poisonous."

"Desmonina followed her whim and popped a particularly scrumptious berry into her mouth. No sooner had she done this than a white-bearded man fell straight down from the sky and landed in front of her. He was wearing a light brown cape over a dark brown shirt and trousers, and sported deep red boots with wings that reached almost to his knees."

"Desmonina was a little surprised, at first thinking it was the condor she had seen on the trail. "Who are you?" she asked.

"'I am Turad, messenger of the Urks. For many weeks I have been watching this garden to see if anyone would eat from the yellowed ground. You are the first to have that privilege'."

"'Why is that a privilege?'" she asked.

"'You see, we have a legend that someday a young girl would be found who could do wonderful things for our people, the Urks. The stories say that she will have great courage, and almost troublesome curiosity.'"

"'In hopes of finding this unusual girl, I dusted many gardens on the continent with a magic yellow dust, a potion which will allow anyone eating it to fly at will--provided they have a kind heart.'"

"'Only a most curious girl would eat strawberries from apparently poisoned ground. That's how I found you.'"

"'Do you think I really could help your people?' she asked."

"'I hope so. At any rate, the strawberries you have just eaten contain a small amount of the yellow dust. Fly with me to my kingdom to see what can be done.'"

"'You see, at this time our very existence is being threatened. A primitive tribe in the mountains above our city has been killing us like flies and we are defenseless, having given up weapons long ago. Our numbers have slowly diminished, so that now there are only a dozen or so of us left. This has made us desperate in our search for the little girl of the legend.'"

"'Can I truly fly?' she said, trusting his gentle nature. In an intuitive flash she picked a few more of the 'poisoned' strawberries and put them in her basket."

"When they concentrated, Desmonina and Turad shot into the air and flew over the mountains. They crossed a large inland sea speckled with islands, and flew above the ocean to another continent. They followed the coastline for a while, coming to a city of towers. Gently tapering round stone structures reached hundreds of feet into the sky. Guiding her to one of them, Turad signaled her to land in a small opening near the top.

Desmonina didn't see any other entrances or windows in the towers and asked him why."

"'We had to defend ourselves against the primitive Rogs without weapons,' hea answered, 'so we built the towers with high entrances to keep the beasts away. Fortunately, they can't fly. We built our homes so they could only be entered in flight, or with ladders. Now the Rogs have learned to build these and scale our towers at night, killing us in our sleep.'"

"'What makes them so vicious?' she asked."

"'We think they are jealous of our power to fly.'"

"'Then why haven't you shown them how?'"

"'That would be dangerous--they might still want to kill us, and with the advantage of flight they could extinguish us immediately.'" Turad frowned.

"'But they wouldn't be able to fly unless they had kind hearts; and if they had kind hearts they wouldn't kill you,' she suggested."

"'We are not so sure of the necessity of having a kind heart. It's only a remnant of the ancient stories surrounding the magic dust.'"

"'There must be a way,' she said, looking out at the distant forest. 'Is there a way I could meet with the chief of the Rogs?'"

"'Let's go meet my wife,' he said, shuddering a little at the girl's daring offer."

"They descended a steep staircase spiraling into the tower. On the way down, Turad unlocked three heavy wooden doors. His wife, Bara, came to meet them at the third door. She was tall and pleasant to look at and wore a simple tunic of coarse cloth. She offered Desmonina cakes and fruit, and they sat at a low table."

"'She ate from the magic dust?' Bara asked."

"'Yes, and she wants to meet with the Rogs chief.' Turad's love of his wife shone through his eyes. 'Do you know of a way?'"

"'Many seasons past,' she said, 'I accidentally flew over the Rog village. I would not have don this--knowing the cruelty of the Rog bows--had I not lost my way."

"'How was the village laid out?' Desmonina asked."

"'The huts were arranged in a circle, with a larger dwelling in the center..'"

"'The chief's?' Turad asked."

"'Yes, I think so, although I didn't stay very long. I did see many warriors enter the main hut, however.'"

"'Could you take me there?' Desmonina asked."

"'Yes, but not without danger,' Bara replied. 'I've heard that the warriors kill any non-Rogs on sight..'"

"'Maybe you could take me at night. I could fly straight to the chief's hut and talk to him.'"

"'That would be very risky, but I will do it, if you wish.'"

"'That evening Bara guided Desmonina and Turad to the Rog village. Desmonina

took her basket of strawberries with her. Hovering in the darkness, Bara pointed out the main hut."

"'We'll circle at a safe distance until you are through,' Turad suggested. 'Fly to us

if you have any trouble.'"

"Desmonina carefully descended to the door of the central hut. Everyone who wasn't asleep was watching the jungle. Boldly she knocked on the doorpost and waited. A huge hairy man, clad in a loincloth, bumbled angrily to the door. 'What do you want?' he roared."

"'Are you the chief of the Rogs?' she asked meekly."

"'Yes, I am Rak, king of the Rogs, but why have you awakened me?"'

"'I've come on a mission of love,' she said."

"'Love--I haven't heard that word in a long time. What is your mission?'"

Don was making good use of the contrast between Rak's gruff voice and Desmonina's soft one. Valerie smiled.

"She told him she wanted to teach him how to fly, but only if he would stop killing the Urks. The innocence and bravery of this little girl melted Rak's heart. 'Could you teach us all to fly? The whole tribe?'"

"'Yes, if you keep your promise, but I warn you that the moment you harm anyone you will lose the power.' She was stretching watch she knew a bit."

"Rak was enthusiastic and struck the gong outside his door, assembling the villagers. Torches scurried in the darkness, an immense bonfire was lit, and when the tribe gathered Rak spoke to the sleepy Rogs."

"'This little girl has promised to show us the secret of flying.' The natives cheered. 'She will do it only if we promise to stop killing the Urks.' A few groans could be heard, but Rak gave them a fierce look and they chained their disagreement. The rest of the tribe consented to the conditions of the agreement and crowded around her, each one wanting to be the first to fly."

"'All right,' she said, 'but if just one Urk is harmed, you will lose all the power. I have some strawberries here which have been treated with some special magic dust. I want to share them with you.'"

"She held out her basket and the tribesman filed by, each taking a berry and popping it into his mouth. There wasn't a berry left over when she was through."

"'Now,' she commanded, 'fly!' And fly they did, colliding into one another int he dark with ferocious laughter. They didn't come down until dawn crept over the jungle.

Their hearts were changed, or rather the kindness in them came our, for didn't Turad himself say that it took a kind heart to fly?"

"The Urks and Rogs lived in peace from then on, intermarrying and flying to their hearts content. Desmonina returned to her home in the Andes, and lived happily ever after with her parents, never disobeying her father again--that is, unless she had to."

Valerie was asleep on the sweet dry grass next to Don.

11.

The morning sun climbed high over the mountains. They rose slowly, trying to control their excitement. Tempted to forgo their morning rituals, they resisted temptation. By the time they were finished, the sun had risen to its zenith.

They hopped aboard the Drölma and turned her around, breakfasting on dried fruits and nuts while they rode back to the cave. They hoped the remaining hours of daylight would be sufficient for what they had to do.

They arrived at the entrance in dazzling sunlight, but threatening mist-laden clouds hovered hereby. They opened the truck and pulled out their backpacks, checking to be sure they had a few days food, and adequate caving supplies.

They dug up their spelunker's caps and poured Carbide crystals into the lantern chambers. To this they added water, and lit the escaping gas. Pinpoint flames burned in the reflectors of their silver headpieces. It all seemed very professional for what might only be another worship cave. Carrying the rope ladder in his hands, Don led the way to the opening. They both felt good, if a little burdened by their loads. 'We must be a sight,' Valerie thought as they marched down the mountain road.

With a bit of effort, they climbed to the cave, and while resting looked for the llama insignia. They only found it by feeling along the rock surface, since in the overhead light, the stone-piece blended in with its surroundings. Mr. Burntree said that the llama on his cave inland was only visible at sundown, so this didn't surprise them; and it confirmed their suspicion that the two caves might have something in common.

They lowered the rope ladder into the pit, and anchored it to a tree near the opening. It was just long enough. Typing a rope around her middle, Don let Valerie climb down first paying out the rope as she went.

"It's sandy down here," she remarked, stepping to the bottom. "Looks like a crawl-hole," she added, looking down into the hole leading from the back of the pit.

"Wait for me!" Don yelled, and clambered down the ladder.

Both on the cave floor, they knelt and examined the crawl-way in front of them. It was short and they could see some kind of reflected light at its end.

The passage was too narrow for them to manage with their packs, so they took them off and went in feel first, dragging their provisions behind them. Progress was slow, but foot by foot they wiggled themselves backward toward the mysterious light.

Once through the narrow oval tube, they stood in a large natural room.

"Big enough for an elephant," Don said.

"Maybe two or three," Valerie added.

Prayer candles burned all around them, some in little alcoves containing sacred mementos of saints, some just lighting the hall from the floor. The room had a bend which prevented viewing it all at once, so they walked around the bend. At the other end was a life-size gold-plated crucified Christ. His eyes alone were painted--a deep green--shining out from the well-formed gilded body. The cross was formed from an unplaned tree trunk with a similarly natural armrest. The expression on the face was one of realization of a great weight, a burdening that seemed to drag the form downward more than gravity demanded. The choir of candles reminded Valerie of her first experience at the Gates Mansion. Her stomach twitched.

The cross was up against a smooth stone wall. No signs of exits could be seen anywhere in the chamber. Don recited the door-opening mantra Burntree gave them,

intoning each syllable with theatrical efflorescence as he wandered through the hall. He tried it all throughout the chamber, with no success.

"Let me try," Valerie offered, starting to chant, making her way from the front of the room to the crucifix in the back. Within a few strides of the cross, the room began to shake and the stone behind the Christ parted from left to right, a slab retreating in the wall. Behind a pair of stone doors was a passage of a about twice a man's height.

Numerous lights suddenly lit the tunnel before them.

They stepped around the crucifix, and into the passage. The light emanated from circular buttons at eye level on either side, providing enough illumination to make their headlamps superfluous. They snuffed them.

"Maybe we should try to close the doors behind us," Don said. "If the tunnel is dangerous we wouldn't want any of the natives to wander in. Besides I'd always be turning to see if anyone was behind us. Valerie said the magic words once more, and the panel slid shut.

The walls of the passage were perfectly smooth, but not glossy. In a few places the surface was fissured or cracked. The tunnel was a perfect cylinder, and as they walked further into the mountain, they realized it was perfectly straight, sloping at a constant angle downhill. It was as if an enormous bullet had been fired into the mountain.

"Why didn't the mantra work for me?" Don asked.

"Maybe it just takes a woman's voice," Valerie replied.

"I guess that's why Burntree had no success," he added.

"But certainly he didn't try it in this cave?"

"It does match his description of a typical worship cave. He could have missed the llama."

Don tripped on some bones lying helter-skelter on the curved floor of the tunnel.

"It's human!" he howled, examining the unbleached skull.

"And it's not all here," Valerie observed. "Missing a thighbone."

"Wouldn't the cave have preserved some of the flesh?"

"Probably not," she observed, but noted no trace of dust on the smooth rock floor.

Don got a sudden chill and took off his pack to get at a sweater. Valerie did the same. A slight breeze fanned them from ahead.

They continued, and the angle of the descent steepened. They were headed right into the heart of the mountain, and through into the valley Burntree had crossed on the other side of the ridge. Perhaps they were underneath its far slope, paralleling the surface. They walked for several miles before Don spotted something.

"Looks like water ahead," he said. A glimmer of reflected button lights could be seen in the distance. A few moments found them at the edge of a small underground lake.

Water had eaten away the rock, which looked like limestone at this point, producing a large football-shaped chamber in which the lake had formed. They could hear the sound of rushing water coming from the darkened end of the room. When they looked hard across the lake, they saw the continuing tunnel at a distance of several hundred yards.

"I'd say we're under the river now," Val theorized, "the one Burntree had to cross on his way to the other cave. Perhaps the water from the stream seeped down into the limestone through a fissure and ate away this chamber."

"Reasonable," Don responded, "but it still doesn't give us any clues about the purpose of the tunnel."

"You're right. How can we cross the lake?"

"I guess we'll just have to go to Mexico City, and buy a raft."

"Oh no!" Valerie groaned. "Maybe we could wade across."

They removed their shoes and rolled up their pantlegs, lifting their packs above their heads as they entered the water.

"Cold," Valerie said as she stepped in.

They went slowly on balancing on a labyrinth of stones on the bottom. About a quarter of the way out, the water had risen to their thighs and was getting their pants wet.

"At this rate we'll be over our heads in the middle," Don complained.

"Wait," she said, "don't we have air mattresses?"

They trudged back to the shore and pulled them out of the bottom of their packs.

Blowing them up made them winded and dizzy. They pushed the mattresses ahead of them, the packs in front. A third of the way out the bottom receded sharply. The subsurface current was strong, and Valerie started to drift. Don caught her hand, pulling her to higher ground. They knew they had to reach the small circle on the far shore somehow, but swift waters made it difficult. In desperation, they grabbed an end of their 'boats' in a lovers clench and kicked furiously for the other side. Valerie got there first, aiming slightly upstream to reach her goal. Still a ways from the shore, but standing, she found Don drifting toward the narrow end of the lake. Coasting with the current, she swam to him easily, and they kicked toward their destination together. It wasn't working. They redoubled their efforts, reaching stable bottom at last. Wading to shore, they sat on the shore utterly exhausted, eating after a short rest. They had some rice wafers, shouldered their packs and moved on.

The tunnel, now on a sharp upgrade, loomed endlessly before them. The climb depleted their fresh energy quickly, and they stopped frequently. After what seemed like hours of ascent, the cave leveled off. They needed to rest again in a few minutes,

so they sat on a large anvil-shaped rock, fallen from the ceiling. They tried to get up and go on, but couldn't.

For the first time, Val looked at her watch. Nine o'clock. Eight hours in the cave!

They unrolled their sleeping bags, and fell into slumber.

Their rest was interrupted by what Don thought were gunshots. He leapt to his feet, and found it hard to stand. The lights flickered on and off and the tunnel shook in waves, building in intensity. The cave gave a colossal 'crack', and the lights went off for good. Minor tremors continued for a few moments.

"What was that?" Valerie asked.

"An earthquake?" Don replied. "We lost the lights."

Don groped for a flashlight and lit one of the lantern helmets. "Let's check around,"

he said, "I don't feel safe without lights."

"Why don't we go on," Val suggested, "I feel rested enough."

They lit another carbide lamp and packed up to continue their trek. In about a hundred yards they encountered a vast chasm cutting them off from the rest of the cave. Whether it was formed in the quake was immaterial--they had to cross it.

Don leaned over the edge on all fours to see if he could climb down and then up the other side, but his light couldn't penetrate the darkness below. He decided to measure the width of the gap. He tied a metal piton on the end of a rope, and threw it to the other side. He carefully pulled the steel spike toward him until it reached the edge of the abyss. Marking the edge by holding the rope, he pulled it back and paced off about seventeen feet.

He began to think he could clear it with a well timed jump. He was a state track long jump champion at twenty feet, but not under these conditions. Val told him not to try it.

He went ahead, against her pleadings. He felt confident of success. Anchoring a piton to the floor of the passage and tying the rope to it, he attached another piton to the other end. He tossed it over the gap. He chipped out several notches in the tunnel and put light candles in them, moved the packs back, and paced off his approach. He

had to make stride.

Valerie watched him race for the gap, his shoes clomping on the stone floor. His

last footing was inches from the edge. His leading foot just missed the other side, knocking loose rock into the abyss. Reaching for his life, he stretched out an arm and caught the rim of the far side. His body dangled pendulum-like over the bottomless gorge. Adrenalin surging, he pulled himself up on one elbow and then the other. Raising up on his hands, he dragged his weight over the brink.

Valerie sighed, and said nothing.

"Throw me a hammer," he said.

She catapulted a piton hammer past Don into the dark cave, and it clattered raucously against the granite walls. He picked it up, and pounded the piton on the other end of the rope firmly into the stone. Retying the rope so it was taut, he asked Valerie to loop the packs over the rope bridge and give them a shove. Soon they had the packs on his side of the pit.

"Now you do it," he said.

Repressing her fear of heights, she lowered herself into the hole, hanging by her arms. She crossed reluctantly, hand-over-hand. Don helped her into the tunnel on the other side. They knocked the piton hammer over the edge. Hearing no sound of it hitting bottom made them feel a strange fear in the pit of their stomachs.

"I guess we'll leave our monkey bridge. We may need it again." Don was energized by his success.

They put on their packs, relit their caps, and moved on. Stopping for breakfast, they were too fired up to stop for their morning rituals, and the ache of too little sleep settled in their marrow.

Their progress was on the level until about five in the afternoon, when the ground started to rise again. This was their steepest ascent. After about an hour of half-crawling, half walking, the tunnel ended in a blank stone wall. No cracks betrayed a doorway.

"Is this it?" Don said.

Valerie repeated the words of the mantra. The edges of the wall crumbled as if they were a seal, and the stone barrier pulled to one side, revealing a dark, unfathomably large room.

Before they could investigate, a large white cat-like creature leaped at Don's throat, toppling him. He and the beast struggled a moment, each standing his ground.

Valerie remembered her knife. She quickly unbuckled it from her waist. The panther had its claws in Don's chest. She ran up, and in one smooth motion ran the blade through the neck of the white beast. With a spasm, it succumbed on the cave floor.

Don was not seriously wounded, and a few taped compresses on his chest had him in better spirits. He lay in the darkness. "Where would an animal like that have come from?" He asked, still short of breath.

"Maybe it bred in the cave," she said. "You know, like cave fish--turning white over successive generations."

"Fine, but where would these 'panthers' find food in a closed cave?" Before long, Don recovered enough to look around. He relit his lamp, blown out in the scuffle. They were excited about the new room they had entered.

The chamber was in the shape of a teardrop, and they were in the narrow portion of the drop. The cavern was natural, in contrast to the tunnel. Stalactites and stalagmites were abundant, sometimes growing together into large columns several feet in diameter, indicating the great age of the room.

As they walked to the far end, the floor descended evenly. Reaching a pile of sharp -edged boulders, they stopped and stared into the blackness ahead. Their narrow beams were like lasers cutting the vast dark. Suddenly Val's caught the glint of gold

from an object a hundred yards ahead. As they moved toward the object it seemed to change from a rough saucer shape to a glowing rectangle. Up close, they realized they had seen the reflection from the pitted surface of a golden cube about four feet on an edge.

Resting on the center of the top face was an ordinary conch shell. Valerie sighed,

and picked it up to examine it. It was large as conchs go, and was graced by a silver -pink streak which ran from the focus of its spiral to the apex of the opening. It was as large as a loaf of bread, and considerably heavier.

"Nothing unusual," she said. "I've seen shells like this on the gulf in Florida. Except for its weight and this funny silver streak, it wouldn't surprise me if it came from the same body of water." They were less than a hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

"What do you think of the cube?" she asked.

He rapped his knuckles on the surface. "Solid!" he exclaimed. "It's in the center of the cave--seems to made to draw attention to the conch."

Valerie continued to scrutinize the shell, but her biological acumen found nothing

extraordinary. She handed it to Don.

He turned the shell carefully between his palms, and shook his head. He put it down and examined the large triangular impression which covered the cube. "Looks like giants stood around with hammers and belted it," he said. "If it's hollow, it's a pretty thick shell." Frustrated, Don began to speak to the conch. "I command you to speak to me!" he trumpeted in a mocking tone, rubbing his hand over the surface as if it were Alladin's lamp.

Don immediately felt a flashing pinpoint of flame in the center of his brain. It accompanied the sound of his own voice."Did you address me?" he heard himself ask from within. He gave a perplexed glance at Valerie.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'm hearing voices--I mean my own voice," he gasped.

Val gaped at him. "What?"

"I heard myself answer myself," he muttered.

"I still don't understand." She was uneasy and felt a cold draft on her ankles.

Don paused. "It's hard to explain; but as soon as I commanded the shell to speak, I heard my own voice answer, from the center of my head. It hurt too, like their was a tiny surgeon probing in there."

"Let me try it," she responded. He handed her the conch, a dazed expression stealing up on his features. "I command you to speak to me!" she said firmly.

"Did you address me?" it answered, using her own diction and tone. She was able to withstand the piercing pain well enough to maintain her balance.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am a conch shell," was the reply.

"What's happening?" Don asked, recovering from the confusion.

"It's speaking to me too," she said, pulse racing. "Some kind of telepathy." She returned to her interrogation: "Could you speak to both of us?" she requested.

"Yes. Tell him to put his hands on me."

"Put your hands on it," sh told Don. Warily he placed his palms on the opposite side from Val's.

She continued. "How are you able to talk to us?"

The stabbing reply was felt in both minds at once. " I was made by Amlon, disciple of Rongay, at the request of the master from beyond the veil of death." Don's knees felt like paper.

"What do you mean 'made'?" he asked.

"As a flower buds from the stalk, so also I budded from the mind of Amlon, and am still one with that mind." These words brought to mind Burntree's mother creating objects out of raw matter, only this time there were no raw materials. The budding process suggested to Valerie something natural like lovemaking. The result was similar: the creation of an entity which shared in the consciousness of its maker. However, in this case, the shell indicated he had access to the whole of Amlon's mind, a startling implication, if this 'disciple' was dead. She recalled the prophecies of the 'cyborg', a combination of computer and human brain. This was more than brains living without bodies--it was minds living without brains. Was their an interaction between the shell and Amlon's mind?

"Do you have a consciousness of your own?" she asked.

"You might say so," it answered. "Although my initial existence depended on Amlon's mind, I am able to think independently since my birth, a kind of clone, so to speak. You see, though I look like a sea shell, my atoms are arranged to reason as well as contact Amlon's mind, even now."

The conch was evidently an independent mind existing in symbiosis with its parent mind, a kind of cyborg of the intellectand spirit. "Can you experience Amlon's emotions and spiritual sensations?" Don asked.

There was no verbal answer. Instead Don felt a renewed awareness of his inner being, a new approach to reality. It was kind of like landing in a familiar airport under unfamiliar weather conditions. He experienced a source of light within, condensing gently out of a kind of dense infinite fog.

Valerie was busy considering the scientific possibilities of objects that could think.

The whole world could be transformed into a thinking partner of unimaginable power. All human problems could be solved at no time by 'Nature's Computer', but maybe this was only one of the possibilities. She returned her query to the source of the shell.

"Could you tell us about Amlon?" she asked. "How long ago did he live?"

"Over 100,000 season cycles have passed since we made this place." The words picked up speed, as if Amlon had taken over.

"I wonder if years have always been the same length." Don interjected.

She ignored his statement. "Why was this place made?"

"To answer that question is for the qualified only. You have passed many tests."

"Could you speak with a little less... intensity?" Don asked, his brain splitting.

"Softer? Yes," the conch replied, toning down the pain-inflicting ferocity of its response. "You have had the privilege of discovering Amlon's cave, a repository for the secrets of the Drogai. Our sages foretold the decline of this knowledge, and it's rediscovery by chosen ones in the distant future." The conch now had the personality of a dignified old man.

"They told of how the spiritual ways of our land would disappear from the earth for a time, only to reappear when humankind would be on the brink of destroying their home. Amlon was advised to hide this knowledge in a high place where the waters of time could not ravage it. This is the purpose of the cave."

"Although there is knowledge of the elements, time, and space hidden here, the important part of the treasure is spiritual, involving great powers. So that doubting ones of your time would believe, we provide them with a written testimony of our teachings.

You must avoid at all cost revealing my role as your guide to the testimony. They would not understand. They would call it a hoax. Tell everything only to those you trust, and bind even those to secrecy."

"The teachings have been burned in stone tablets..." At this point the side of the cube facing them faded slowly out of sight, as if dematerializing. A layered stone disc became visible within. It had a semitransparent, mica-like surface and rested on a midnight blue oval dias. The stone was about a foot and a half in diameter, having seven thin layers piled one over the other like pancakes. Each layer was no more that a quarter inch thick. Writing from the second layer could be dimly seen through the first. The circular plates were geometrically perfect and polished smooth. If they were not told the tablets were stone, they would have assumed plastic. However, when Don lifted them out of the cube, the weight betrayed a density on the order of iron. Close examination revealed striations indicating a natural source, perhaps crystalline in nature.

The conch continued. "Take these stones to the authorities and have them translated." Don pulled a shirt from his pack and started to wrap the stones, but Valerie wanted a closer look.

"Some of the characters look like stick figures," she said.

"Almost Chinese," Don added. The wall of the cube faded back into view, leaving the cube as they had first found it. "Will they be understandable?" he asked the conch.

"Your men of knowledge will determine their age and content. Your duty will be to keep the location of the cave a secret until mankind is transformed. The spiritual gifts will help to end war and greed. You will know when this process is complete. We had to go through it too, but unfortunately alien influences..." Valerie and Don sensed a great sadness emanating from the conch, and out of respect, did not ask further questions.

"When the leaders of every land are converted to these teachings, you must return for further revelations. Only then will the world be prepared for knowledge of the elements, space, and time. This knowledge will open you to the stars and beyond."

"The trials and difficulties you have overcome in getting here have been a test of your worthiness to guard the stones. The white lion was kept in suspended animation in the alcove to your left."

"Where did your people come from?" Don asked.

He spoke as Amlon. "Our people have a legend of how the world began. On a distant world in the stars, the god-man, Drog, a mere youngster in the art of world shaping, was learning his vocation from the elders of his kind. He started by making trees out of stone, water out of land, and mountains out of seas. Their was a portion of their planet set aside for practice. A mistake was made, however, and Drog was certified for planet-shaping long before he was ready. Sent out alone in his space egg,

he came to our Earth, which at that time was covered with ocean. The orb was the right size and distance from its star for supporting life, so Drog set about meditating out of time, visualizing, and constructing the DNA patterns. He had trouble visualizing the time-line, however. He was good at the steps to plants and animals, but he could not complete the cycle to intelligent life to rule over his completed nature."

"While he was brooding over the final step, the mysterious urge to create came over him. For his race, this impulse was as irresistible as the urge to mate. The force of his emotion changed him into a beautiful flower, resting on the ocean. He then changed into his creator form: a beautiful human-like being with four heads, each facing in a direction of the compass. The new Drog was ready to follow the wishes of the 'Ancient One'."

"He first withdrew the whole Earth into his heart, and sat floating in space. He then allowed the planet to emanate once again with a continent dividing the waters where there was none before."

"The eyes of the head facing south blinked, and the continent and oceans were filled with plant life. The head disappeared. The north-facing head provided teaming millions of animals and insects."

"The new Drog, now with two heads, had no pattern for creating intelligent life, as he had not been trained in that final discipline. So, emulating himself, he brought forth men whose form was identical to his original body. He did this without dissolving his remaining heads. This was fortunate, because members of the new race turned to meditation and died out, having no way to propagate the race."

"You mean they were all one sex?" Valerie asked.

"Yes, the god-men were unsexed beings who created descendants at will, but these created beings seemed to have no desire to 'bud', as it was called."

"Were the god-men immortal?" Don asked.

"Yes, but it had to be learned, and our young Drog was not equipped to teach them. When the created race was gone, succumbing to the ravages of discord in the universe, i.e., death, he became depressed. To alleviate this melancholy mood, he played a little game with himself. He allowed each half of his body to do as it liked, and the two halves went through a series of fluid changes. The part facing east spoke in a lower voice, and the west face spoke with a higher one. 'What shall I do' the eastern face asked. 'Be different' spoke the western face. The features of the western half softened,

breasts grew and a womb. The eastern half developed an outreaching organ to penetrate that womb."

"Are you saying that woman was created first?" Don asked.

"The polarity developed simultaneously as one side of Drog complemented the other. Both bore a resemblance to the new Drog and contained his spirit of creation in them, though they soon forgot. From this man and woman came all men."

"A strange Adam and Eve," Don commented.

The voice went on. "It is said that time is much slower in passing for Drog's god-man relatives, so that many Earth eons passed before his elders came to check his creation. Ten centuries before our time, we experienced their brief return, and made steps toward regaining the powers of creation Drog possessed. We also learned how to meditate out of time."

"However, evil aliens came after the god-men left, and turned us from the path of purity which was necessary to maintain our powers. Amlon maintained a preisthood link to the god-man planet and they advised him telepathically to store their spiritual secrets in the mountains. They were aware of the impending fall of their civilization."

"It is thus that I, the conch, came to be. We had our struggles, rose above war and killing, with the help of the god-men and then fell again by the trickery of the fallen ones from another evil planet. Only the sage Rongay, the teacher of Amlon, remained on the planet with the attunement to the god-men. He carried on the tradition of the secret priesthood teachings which abolished war and strife on the planet for a millenium."

"These teachings utilized missiles of thought, love instead of arrows."

"Did your people have a knowledge of destructive weapons?" Don asked.

"Yes. Our men of science had released the fire from stone and the wind from water. Rongay in an earlier embodiment led the people under the direct tutelage of the god-men."

Their science reminded Valerie of nuclear weapons and weather control. "Did Rongay teach the people to abandon these weapons?" she asked.

"No. He changed the minds of the people so these powers were put to peaceful use.

For many years they lived happily following the precepts he taught them."

"When the aliens perverted the minds of the people, our prophets foretold a rebellion of the elements of nature. 'The second light in the night sky will fall, the earth

tremble, and the seas return to cover us.'''

"Most of the people did not heed these warnings. When the cataclysm came, as small few of the priesthood escaped to the stars, and others to the high country, but most perished in the earthquake and flood. This place and two others leave the only unchanged testimony to our civilization, destroyed by undreamed-of natural forces."

"What are Rongay's teachings like?" Valerie asked "What will we find on the stones?"

"Wait. It requires study. You might mistake them if I tell you now."

"Will the stones tell us more about your civilization?" Don was curious.

"Enough to make the teachings clear. More will be revealed later, when the world is ready."

"What do your people call themselves?"

"The Drogai, in honor of Drog who created the continent we lived on, which was later to fall into the ocean."

"What was the second light of the night sky."

"A second moon, which fell to earth when an asteroid hit it."

To Valerie this sounded like the story of Atlantis, the lost continent said to have dropped beneath the ocean 12,000 years ago. However, their demise happened 100,000 years ago. Perhaps all legends of a lost continent came from the story of the Drogai.

She formulated a question. "Why did the secrets have to be hidden? Why couldn't the survivors pass them on to their descendants?"

"When Drog landed on our planet, he thought it was completely covered with water, but on a small island continent on the other side, unknown to him, lived a race of fierce savages. They ate flesh and spread their pernicious wars to the continent of the Drogai.

"The Drogai were peaceful, intelligent beings, living in natural harmony, with the power to control nature in a small way. However, their encounters with the savages --the Rogandin--diluted their purity, and war spread through the land. This was early in our history."

Don's bedtime story flashed through Valerie's mind. Rogs--Rogandin: a striking similarity between the 'bad guys' in both stories.

"How did they get that name," she asked.

"Drog had a long-forgotten predecessor named Roganda, an outlaw and former god-man. Roaming the universe without a license to create, he brought forth the Rogandin and their island out of his own image. When Drog landed, that side of the planet was facing away from him. He didn't see the previous creation."

"The genes of the inhabitants of Earth are now a mixture of the Drogai and the Rogandin and thus they are not to be trusted with these teachings without spiritual preparations and purification. Some on Earth are now ready, having been guided from above by Rongay and Amlon."

"What distinguished the Drogai and the Rogandin?" Valerie asked.

"For one thing, the Drogai did not eat meat, they were vegetarians."

"And the Rogandin?"

"Ate only meat, and each other."

"What did they look like?"

"That must wait for later. However, I can give you an idea how they talked." The conch spoke from within their minds in a high-pitched droning voice. The language was totally unintelligible and the words were spoken very slowly, as if vehicles of deep significance. "The Drogai were about twice your height." he added.

They had many questions about the Drogai, but the conch was silent on most matters. They finally were convinced to leave the cave, promising Amlon to get the stones translated.

"It may take time to spread the word," the voice reassured, "but I am certain that one of you will return to learn the rest of the story. You must use your own judgement as to when the time has come."

They shuddered to think that only one would return, but shouldered their burdens and asked whether they should return the way they came.

"There is a door behind you," was the prompt answer. "Leave the conch on the cube." They obeyed and turned to the stone wall. "Here we go again," Val said, and recited the door mantra. The stone cave wall slid aside once more.

The door led to another natural room, and they stepped around a trickle of water dripping from the ceiling near the entrance. Out of their eyes they saw a massive wooden crucifix receding slowly with the stone panel. It was not in good shape.

"Mr. Burntree's crucifix!" Valerie exclaimed. "Just as I pictured it. The water should drip on its cheek, if we put the door back in place." She said the mantra again, and the time-weathered statue drifted into place underneath the stream.

"If this is the right place," Don said, "we can get out of here in a few minutes. There should be a winding passage back this way..." He led her to a man-size hole in the back of the chamber. They would through the maze and found themselves out under the night sky. They were exhilarated. Turning around, their lanterns illuminated a familiar sight--the carved stone llama. This was the connecting symbol.

"The caves are one," Don breathed, "connected by miles and miles of cylindrical tubes!"

"Right, but how do we get back to the truck?" Valerie asked.

They spent the night on the ledge, vowing to figure it all out in the morning.

12.

In the morning they paused for chanting and meditation, then scrambled down the rocky incline to the dollar-shaped lake below. On level ground again, Don told her how he planned to get back to the road.

"We should hit it if we go due North," he said.

"How do we find due North?"

"The Sun rises in the East; so if we keep it to our right in the morning and our left in the afternoon, that should be North. I wish we had a compass." That was one obvious thing they had forgotten.

They headed in the suggested direction, walking quickly. It took them all day to get to the river. "We're making good time," Val said. "It took Mr. Burntree two days to go the opposite route."

"I hope this is the same river ," Don said, scratching his skull.

They waded the chilly waters and climbed the ridge. The sun was going down into the valley. They had only the light of the full moon by the time they crossed the divide. Cautiously they made their way down the mountain. The rambling mountain road appeared ahead of them, but their truck was nowhere in sight. They sat down to rest a moment, then decided to follow the pavement West in search of the 'Drölma'. A truckload of Indians came around the bend. The driver wore a splitting grin, and everyone was laughing, as he turned the corner with no hands on the wheel. "How'd he do that?" Don asked, sticking out his hitching thumb.

" I don't know," Val said, as the blood-red, wood-framed monster pulled over.

Climbing in the back, they smiled along with the Mexicans, not saying a word. Their intuition was confirmed about a half mile down the road--their truck was still there, perched like a beatle on the gravel turnoff. Knocking vigorously on the driver's cab window, Don got him to stop. Waving goodbye, they walked to their home on wheels.

The next morning they slept late, rising when a busload of noisy natives flew by on their way to Mexico City. Every cell aching, they sat up the ritual table and performed their morning 'mumbo jumbo'. Valerie got an idea for a song during her meditation. "You know that Indian family we gave a ride to? I want to write about them," she said .

" All right," Don agreed. "I'll go they some pictures of the cave entrance for Mr. Burntree. The llama should blow his mind, if the light's right to get it." He picked the camera out of the front seat and walked away into the partial sunlight of the mountain morning.

Valerie was inspired, and before long she found the right chords to express her feelings. The heavy rhythms were hard to get right on her little organ, but she knew it would sound fine on a piano. The words were kind of a protest against the timid side of her nature, which had almost been afraid to get involved with the natives along the way.

"Rambling onward from city to city

Eye on the wheel and the unchanging road

Stopping at places others have called beautiful

To secure and tighten your load,

But in of place in the mountains, not far from a Mexican town

A cave and the mystery of loving

Are waiting for those who'll be found.

"And the woman with compassion, looking down on her child shivering rain

Can you see them? Hurry by them.

In an hour you'll be down from their mountain...

"My friend, climbing up from a bright-colored graveyard,

Shows me the way to the mouth of a cave;

Written above us in some blackened stone piece

The symbol of some long past age.

Slowly a family is walking

They stop by a niche in the road,

Ask for ride to next town

Leaving behind a baby's shawl of white linen.

"And the woman with compassion,

Looking down on her child shivering rain

Can you see them? Hurry by them.

In an hour you'll be down from their mountain. "

Don returned with the camera in some tiny purple flowers. "For you," he said.

"Thank you," she said, responding with a warm full length embrace. It was strange to think that she had ever held back from Don, now that they had faced so much together.

"I been thinkin'," Don said.

"What about?", Val asked, cranking up her smile up three notches.

"I been thinking that we've slid a long ways together down this grassy knoll. Maybe it's time we made it official."

"Get married?"

"Right. Maybe Burntree would do the honors when we get back to the States."

"Down by the river?"

"Sure. If you want." He kissed her and she felt like a cascade of explosions, writhing beneath his hands. They tumbled into the back of the truck to seal the bargain.

After a short rest. They felt like getting on the road again. They were anxious to get back to the States with the stones. They turned the Drölma around and beamed for the border, feeling like they were inside of some instant teleportation machine and would wake up to find themselves suddenly home.

In Vallés a few hours later, they stopped at an empty white stucco motel. Valerie used the phone to call Mr. Burntree. "Hello. Is this Don or Val?" he asked without hesitation.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"No one else calls," he said. "Any leads on the cave? You found it..."

"Yes. I don't know where to start, but... We found an entrance near the road. It had a llama--just like your cave at the lake."

"What was it like inside?"

"It seemed like another worship cave at first, but when I said the mantra the wall behind a crucifix opened into a long tube, extending for a day's walk."

"Did Don try the mantra?" he asked.

"It didn't work for him. Wait a minute... The Drogai had high voices, maybe the doors were tuned to them and not us."

"Who are the Drogai?"

"The giants who hid the secrets in the cave."

"You heard their voices?" he asked, incredulous.

"Not exactly. A conch shell communicated directly to our brains in their voices. After many challenges in the tunnel, we came to a large room with a golden cube and a conch shell resting on it. The conch answered our questions telepathically." Burntree was silent in amazement. "One of the giants, a sage named Amlon, created the shell with his mind to communicate the spiritual teachings of his master to people of the distant future. The conch placed a series of inscribed tablets in our trust: seven stone slabs stuck together and covered with picture-like script."

"Where are you now?"

"Ciudad Vallés."

"You know," he said, "I have an archeologist friend at the University of Mexico."

"Where's that?"

"Mexico City."

"How do we find the University?"

"You can't miss it. It's on the main drag through the city. Beautiful mosaic art on the buildings. His name is Carlos de la Tierra, room 311, in the Department of Sciences. He has a lot of experience with Egyptian and Mayan writing. Should be just the man."

"Great. We'll keep you informed."

"Be sure to see the sights if you have time."

"Sure. Oh, by the way, The conch showed us an exit leading us to your cave by the lake. It was just as you described: the wooden Christ, the winding passage, the llama, and the rocky ledge."

"My inner voice was right. All I had to realize was that what worked for my Mother's voice might not work for mine. The answer was as close to me as my own falsetto."

They had some lunch and turned the truck around again, heading for the capital.

"I forgot to tell him we're getting married!" Valerie exclaimed.

The road wound endlessly through tropical valleys and around mountains. They passed the cave entrance and drove on through Jacala and the National Park where they had spent the night what seemed like ages ago. The landscape then dried up. Although they were still up high, the horizon leveled off, and the towns began to look like story book Mexico with cactus, desert, sombreroed cowboys, and bleached white missions.

It was well past dinnertime when the great city loomed in the dusk. They passed through dusty suburban towns and gave rides to several polite hitchhikers. Near the city, the narrow road became a busy freeway.

Turning at the University exit, they parked and unloaded the stones, basking in the orange setting sun. They walked briskly toward the 'science' building guided by a student. The mosaic on the side of the building depicted a man reaching toward a glowing light. The air was heavy and Val coughed lightly from the pollution. Don worried about finding Carlos at such a late hour. They were exhausted.

They took an elevator to the third floor, and Don knocked gently on the door to room 311. A friendly voice came from behind the cold metal door. "Come in." They entered a cloisterish room stuffed with bookshelves. Behind a small desk, Dr. de la Tierra looked up at them over round wire-frame glasses.

"I was just about to go home for dinner," he said. "What can I do for you?" He was a short Mexican of light complection with a well-trimmed black beard and short curly hair. His eyes sparkled like a deer's.

"Mr. Burntree sent us," Don offered.

"You are from the U.S.?"

"Yes we came to Mexico to look for a cave in the Sierra Madres. We found these." Don handed him the stones. Carlos unwrapped them delicately.

"Interesting," he said. "Picture writing--heiroglyphic--very old. I have never seen anything quite like this... The writing seems to be burned into the stone. I could do a luminescence test. Would that be alright?" They nodded. "Meanwhile, would you like to stay at my place?" His English was impeccable.

They agreed. He called his wife, and she had dinner ready by the time they arrived. His wife, Teresa was petite and worldly, lively, with active eyes. Her smooth black hair was bound in a knot behind her head. She was dressed in a fashionable navy pantsuit.

The rough-hewn table was set with tacos and pintos, chopped vegetables of wide variety, cheese enchiladas, guacamole, and home-made bread. "Watch out for the chiles and enchiladas. They're hot," she warned. The meatlessness of the meal made Val and Don relax.

"Are you vegetarians?" Carlos asked. They nodded.

"We must have more in common. Our mutual friend, for example. How did you meet Burntree."

"He is my piano teacher," Val said, helping herself to a pungent enchilada.

"Bueno," Carlos trumpeted. "Would you play for us after dinner? We have a piano downstairs."

"Don plays guitar as well," Valerie suggested.

"Then, both of you can play for us."

"I lost interest in the piano," Teresa said, "couldn't make my fingers move fast enough. This cave you found--is it the one Mr. Burntree was looking for?"

"Yes. The cave of the ancients," Valerie said.

Carlos gave his wife a look of gravity. "You must be yogis too," he said cheerfully.

They all smiled. Later they all meditated together.

Though Carlos was curiously silent about the stones, he opened up after meditation. They related the whole story.

"The Drogai," he asked, "were they scientifically oriented?"

"You might say so," Don replied. "They at least knew how to burn stone."

"Yes. I wonder how that was done. At least the thermoluminescence test might work. It could give us a date. Fired pottery, for example, may be dated that way. Of course, we're treading on unknown territory if the stones are as old as you say. Did they tell you how the burning was accomplished?"

"They were able to release the 'fire from stone' and the 'wind from water'. Otherwise they held back about their science. They believed it wise until later."

"Sounds like nuclear energy," Carlos replied calmly. "We may have to heat the stones a bit to run the test."

"Will they be able to take it?" Valerie asked. "They look so fragile."

"We'll do a chemical analysis first to be sure. This could take some time."

After desert, they retired to the room with the spinet, an instrument whose depth of tone surprisingly paralleled Burntree's 'demon' piano. Halfway through her first song, the piano transformed into her own. Don joined in. Their hosts were delighted and wanted to hear their entire repertoire. Later they watched the city lights dazzling in the deep blue evening. After a bath, Valerie fell asleep in Don arms.

The next morning Carlos waited patiently for them to sleep off their weariness, then joined them in morning meditation. The atmosphere was clear and the colorful buildings looked sharp and unreal as they made their way to the University. The city was almost like a toy cardboard reproduction of itself.

"The city's strange today," Valerie commented, "kind of like a toy."

"We often have days like this," Carlos added. "We're about seven thousand feet closer to the sun than most places. How long have you two been lovebugs?"

"Less than a year," Don replied. "We're getting married when we get back to the States."

"That's serious," Carlos said with a smile. "There is something powerful in your relationship. I feel I've known you both for a long time."

On the way to the Science Building, Valerie asked about the mosaic on its front face.

Carlos responded. "It depicts man's progress from darkness to light. The mural was designed by Chavez Morado, one of our well-known artists." The stones were still on Carlos' desk. He went to work. Pulling a special chisel out of his drawer, he tapped gently between the layers of the tablets to see if they would separate, with no success.

They went down the hall to the laboratory where several of his graduate students were introduced and briefed on the stones.

"First we want to break off a small piece for chemical analysis," Carlos explained. "This should give us an idea of how hot the writing device had to be to melt the stone. Then we will try a thermoluminescense test, trying out my theory of corrections. My new method has been successful for several antedeluvian samples. If necessary we will attempt radioisotope dating. The scientific community will probably accept my conclusions with some corroboration."

"How will we get the layers apart?" Valerie asked.

"A solvent might work. I don't want to heat the stones, because that might invalidate the age test."

"The principle of thermoluminescnense," he went on, " is based on the fact that when you heat an earthen object to temperatures of from 100 to 400 Centigrade, the thermal glow is proportional to the length of time elapsed since the same heating process was last performed. We have to be careful not to melt the stones, so I'll try a small chunk first. We also have to correct for the fact that the writing was much hotter than the rest of the stone during the etching process."

Carlos took a bottle of solvent down from a shelf and poured some in a plastic pan. He immersed the top layer. With a little prodding, it came off.

"Just as I thought," he said. They were stuck together with a kind of glue." He picked up the semi-transparent disk and wiped it dry.

"Beautiful," he said examining the writing. "I think we are dealing with a graphic type of picture writing--perhaps not to difficult to translate. I've seen some of the symbols before. Others will have to be assessed."

"What's the difference between this type of writing and say Egyptian heiroglyphics?" Don asked.

"Most heiroglyphic writings are either phonetic or alphabetic. Egyptian is a combination of the two with a little picture writing thrown in. In other words, its symbols have to be sorted out first, and translated in groups. Of course, phonetic translation is difficult without a sample of the spoken language. For example, if we were to use the number 'three' for the word 'tree', it would be indecipherable without the code. Alphabetic language is easier; we sometimes can use related languages. Picture writing is easiest of all, if you recognize the forms. If you see a story in the figures, it becomes clear. Your story should help me immeasurably. I may have some difficulty, though, with punctuation and special markings on words."

"How can you be sure this is picture writing?" Valerie asked.

"I was able to translate a couple of sentences," Carlos responded. "Look--the meaning of the symbols is clear if I read from outside to inside, following the spiral. The sentence that caught my eye was right here." He pointed to some characters and translated.

"'The visitors spoke about the sinking of our continent soon to come and told us to preserve our religion on these stones.'"

"When I compare the characters with the rest of the text, the translation may change," he explained." At this rate the translation and the age test should take me a matter of two or three days to complete. Why don't you see some of the sights while you're waiting?"

"What would you suggest?" Valerie asked.

"The pyramids of Teotihuancan are nearby. There is a nice museum. One of my favorite places, however, is the drive up between the two volcanos, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. If you follow a map to the town of Amecameca southo of here, you'll find a dirt road leading up just about a mile beyond.

"Are they active?" Valerie asked.

"Not now. Popocatepetl became inactive just recently. If you are interested in hand-made goods, the town of Taxco is nice. It's just a short distance." He had lots of places to recommend, but know they had limited time.

"Why don't we go to the pyramids first, and camp in the mountains later?" Valerie prompted.

"It gets cold up there between the peaks," Carlos warned. "Make sure you have sweaters and sleeping bags."

"Yes," Val said, "we're used to your chilly Mexican weather."

Carlos chuckled and bid them well.

The pyramids formed a complex the size of Disneyland, and were almost as crowded with tourists. They parked and climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon, and although it was hot, the arid climate left them dry after the ascent. From a height of 135 feet, they could see the layout of this 'City of the Gods'. It was a complex of stone temples, lined up along a central walkway called 'The Avenue of the Dead'. Each temple was a sort of truncated pyramid, surrounded on at least two sides by step-like tiers. The guidebook indicated that different rituals and dances were performed at special times atop each one of the structures. The purpose was often to guide spirits of the dead to higher realms.

From a young boy, Don bought a stone replica of one of the Toltec gods and gave it to Valerie. Theories about visits to the Indians from outer space were popular, and Valerie had a hard time shaking the inclination to see her figurine as a spaceman. The clay statuette had inhumanly small ears and a hairless head far to small for its angular body.

They descended and made their way down the 'Avenue' to the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. It was situated in a stadium-sized quadrangle outlined by a sunken stone wall. In this field were several pyramids, one of which contained sophisticated stone carving of mask-like god heads as well as the fierce serpent after which the temple was named. They were admiring the stonework when Don started to complain of stomach cramps. In search of relief they headed for the main office where they hoped to find a bathroom.

Don came out looking very pale, his usual smile eroded. "Montezuma's Revenge," he groaned.

"Maybe Teresa can help," Val suggested. They drove back to Carlos' house. Don was feverish. Teresa met them at the door and invited them in. Valerie explained.

"You have diarrhea?" Teresa asked.

"That's not the word for it!" Don exclaimed.

She put her hand on his head. "Caliente." She took his temperature at 102 degrees.

"My husband fell ill the same way when he came to Mexico. Although his parents were born in this country, he was born in the States. We were just married and flew to Acapulco for a honeymoon. There he contracted amoebic dysentery. Finally the hotel manager recommended an herb. We will get some from the herberria down the street."

Valerie and Teresa rode in the truck down several crowded streets to a busy market area. Teresa pointed out a small shop with baskets of plants hanging in the window. Next door was a butcher shop with whole pig carcasses hung by their feet.

Teresa rang a summoning bell. A very thin wizened old woman ambled from the back room.

"En que puedo servirle?" Mrs. Sanchez asked.

Teresa explained in Spanish about Don's dysentery. The shopkeeper rolled her eyes and stood still. She went into action. Taking a dozen bottles off the shelf, she spooned a little of each herb into a brown paper sack. She told Teresa he should take the tea whenever symptoms occurred.

On returning, Don asked what was in the mixture.

"Angel hair, blackberry root, lemon verbena, and several other herbs," Teresa explained.

He gulped the tea down quickly to avoid the bitter tast. "Whoah!" he exclaimed, shivering from the medicinal bite of the brew.

"It will probably work better if you go and lie down," Teresa suggested.

While Don slept, Teresa told Valerie she was welcome to use the piano while she prepared dinner. Losing herself in music, Valerie adapted the songs she had written on the organ to piano. Don was up by the time dinner was ready.

When Valerie entered, Don was sitting almost comfortably on the couch. He was leafing through a magazine and chuckling at the ads.

"Is it gone?" she asked.

"I think so," he said, "but I still feel a little weak. I'm hungry though. That must be a good sign."

"I'm surprised you recovered so quickly. Burntree talked about weeks of agony."

Teresa invited them into the kitchen. "Carlos won't be eating with us. He doesn't want to stop. He's very excited."

"Has he completed the age test?" Valerie asked.

"It looks like the data indicates an age of over 120,000 years!"

"Wow!" Don managed. "What about the translation?"

"He said something about an old unknown mantra. He wasn't sure." Teresa set bread and soup in front of them. "Gespacho.":

"A mantra," Don repeated. "That's tangible. Hey, this soup is good!"

Two hours later Carlos returned excited. "I've got it!"

"Got what?" Teresa asked.

"The key. Rongay's idea was to repeat certain words over and over like mantras with visualizations. Somewhat like the Tibetan technique, but quite different. Their purpose was to transform the world. They believed that they would change in the process. They indicate the techniques work in any language, using the same words."

"What is the mantra?" Val asked.

"'PEACE AND JOY, STRENGTH AND HEALTH'. The rhythm and visualization I have yet to translate. Apparently the methods of usage depend on circumstances"

"What was the history of the mantra?" Don asked.

"From what I could gather, the words were like missiles sent to destroy harmful thoughts in those savages who made war on the Drogai. The essence of the mantra's effectiveness, however, is in its application to a wider variety of situations, and I haven't translated enough to give you a better idea. Except that the power of the mantra can be transferred to any object."

"Kind of like investing things with energy?" Valerie asked.

"Exactly."

"How long will the translation take?" Teresa asked.

"I think about another day and a half or so."

Don was curious about the chemical structure of the stones, and Carlos related his findings. "The stones have a chemical composition not found anywhere on earth, or the moon either. Although it's similar to mica, it's much less brittle and forms thicker layers."

"How do you feel, Don?" Valerie asked.

"Much better now. Not so weak."

"Weren't you feeling well?" Carlos asked. "I was so excited about the translation that I forgot to ask why you were back so soon."

"He had a touch of dysentery this afternoon," Teresa answered.

"So you took him to Mrs. Sanchez and she cured it," Carlos said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, that's just about how it happened." Teresa was a little surprised at Carlos' guess, though several 'miraculous' cures had been worked in their family by means of her herbs.

Carlos called Mr. Burntree after eating. He told him of the age of the rocks, their composition, and the message he had just begun to decipher. Burntree had no immediate insights, but Carlos could tell the wheels were turning. In fact he detected a trace of excitement in the usually calm voice of his guru.

Carlos conveyed a message to Val and Don. "He wants you to know he'll do the honors whenever you want to get married."

"How'd he know about that?" Valerie asked. "I forgot to tell him when I called."

"He knows a lot of things," Don reminded her. Carlos nodded in agreement.

The four went into the meditation room. Lighting some candles and incense, Carlos suggested a simple mind-relaxing technique: "Just watch the mind and let the thoughts come and go, remaining detached from them." Great peace filled the room, and the were all sure Burntree was there meditating with them.

Valerie's imagination took over. She saw herself in a snowstorm, walking down a winding country road. At every bend she say again the valley which was her destination, only to have her view interrupted by the hills she had to pass around. After a time, it began to snow harder, and she could no longer see her destination. She wandered on, losing track of the road and the valley below. In her distress, she called out for Don to help her, the sound of her voice triggering an avalanche which completely covered her. She let go.

The meditation was over and the candles blown out. Valerie was puzzled by her strange waking dream, while Don went downstairs with his guitar, troubled by the muse.

He wrote their adventures in the cave into a song. He used a special tuning which gave him the feel of the Drogai:

"In the cavern, candles flick'ring

Light the crucifix that hides the stone

Doorways opening to the mantra

For a hundred thousand years unknown

Now we find creation's story

Told again in oldest written form.

"Hail to Drog, the young creator,

Resting on his ship in silence

On the earth, the unformed planet

He sailed the empty sea.

"Then by accident the changeling

Turned into a lotus on the wave

From the flower sprang the four-faced

God-man who projected out dry land

And the many plants and creatures

Just as Drog before the time had planned.

"But when it came to fashioning beings

Who could guard and watch the changes

As the world itself arranges,

Drog had made no plan.

"Then the four-faced, who had lost two

Heads in forming all the plants and beasts

Created sages who meditated

While their numbers did decrease

With no means of propagation

The race soon died and Drog was left alone.

"Then a notion stirred the two heads,

Split them into man and woman

Separately as we now know them

They sailed the empty sea."

13.

It was late afternoon the next day before Don felt up to traveling. Though it was Saturday, Carlos went to campus early to have his materials for the translation close at hand. While he worked, Don and Valerie rested. At about 4 pm, wanderlust hit, and they headed out for the two volcanoes.

Weekend traffic was at its peak on the road to Amecameca. What should have been a short drive took two hours.

"Maybe they're all going to the volcanoes for the weekend," Valerie suggested, imagining resort hotels, restaurants, and ski lodges near the peaks.

Amecameca was a bustling city, with lots of hotels and a large commercial square. Just through town, traffic diminished and they headed up an unmarked dirt road leading between the snow covered peaks. Popacatepetl and Iztaccihuatl glistened like golden temples on the horizon, as the sun began to set. They passed a small village of sheep-herding natives, and the road got narrower, but smoother, as the angle of the climb increased. It was soon pitch black, and fog settled on the highway in thick fleecy patches. Mammoth pines taunted them like Druid spirits from the dense forest

on either side of the mountain road. The ascent seemed endless.

Out of the black, a pair of headlights came rushing down the mountain and swerved by, glancing off the shoulder to avoid them. For safety's sake, they decided to stop for the night. The incline made it difficult to sleep in the truck, but they managed a half-slumber. After a few hours, it got so cold, Don had to rev up the engine. Later, Valerie woke to a resonant growl coming from the woods. A few seconds later something large brushed against the truck.

Valerie roused Don, who in his half-sleep had heard the noises. "There are no bears in Mexico," he said with authority and went back to sleep. Valerie wasn't convinced, and heard grunts and foraging noises throughout the night.

Rising with the dawn, they drove on immediately. For miles the steep clay highway wound through enormous trees and uninhabited meadows. Suddenly they were in a clearing between the peaks. Popacatepetl, on the right, was a thick inverted ice cream cone in shape, being capped with an even coat of snow. The rough-cut Iztaccihuatl was on the left, challenging them with its steep forward face and the large fallen slabs of rock at its feet.

They got out of the truck and read the inscription on a large stone monument. The place was called Cortez Pass and boasted an altitude of almost 13,000 feet. Don wondered how the Spanish conquistador could have prodded his soldiers to such a height on foot. The peaks rose another 5,000 feet above the sunlit plain. It was still bitter cold.

A fragment of a road went on, and they drove further and higher toward the rocky Iztaccihuatl. The road ended suddenly, and they left the truck, walking as far as they could in the direction of the peak, out onto a rocky escarpment a few hundred yards beyond. They could see Mexico City from this vantage, sprawled along the plateau like a virulent brown mold under a biologist's microscope. They took pictures of each other with the mountain and the distant city as a backdrop. The setting and Don's yellow blanket, draped over his shoulders like a robe, reminded Valerie of Tibet. She wondered whether the visualizations the Tibetans used while chanting their mantras were similar to those of the Drogai. They would soon know.

Hiking to Iztaccihuatl looked treacherous, so they turned around and headed down the mountain.

Stopping to eat breakfast by a lonesome dead tree, they continued to descend. Halfway down they stopped again to watch a large flock of vultures circling an object at some distance from the road. The carcass must have been a large one, as dozens of the predators swooped and dived on the distant black speck in the yellow-green grass. Interrupting the scene, a small black and yellow bird flew in a zig-zag, as if in search of a place to rest. Passing between the vultures and the carnage, it headed to the opposite rim of the meadow. On of the vultures left the pack and swept down on the little yellow bird. Biting it's neck viciously in mid-air, the helpless bird plummeted deadweight to the meadow. They wrenched at the sight, and hurried to see if they could help the poor creature. It was lifeless on the pale green meadow, it's neck nearly severed in two.

"Vultures don't usually attack other birds, do they?" Don asked.

"I don't think so," Valerie said. "Maybe they thought he was intruding on their dinner."

"It looked to me like they just knocked him off just for the fun of it." He was angry.

They clambered into the Drölma and went on. Don switched on the radio to help him relax. He got a news program in English. The newsman read:

"Today the U.S. announced its entry into the War in the Philippines. The President is stepping up enlistment and resuming the draft. 100,000 will be called in the next two months. The intention is to support the President of the small country in the growing war against the rebels."

Don moaned as he switched the radio off. "Wasn't the draft ended long ago?"

"I guess he changed his mind," she said.

"I should have known this would happen when that dictator put newsmen in prison for speaking out against him."

"Wasn't he the one who made owning a gun a crime punishable by death?" Valerie asked.

"Yes. Half his countrymen defied the death sentence and banded together to fight his army. And we are getting in it because North Korea and Lybia are feeding them arms. There's a good chance I'll be called."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just the right age... Let's pull over a minute." Don stopped and grabbed his Martin out of the back, sat down on a stump to write a song, while Valerie stayed in the cab and wrote letters.

"Little bird that falls

Never knew no walls

Never had no home but the sky

See how the cloud

Misty with doubt

Watches as she falls, as she falls

Like a leaf to the ground.

"Little wind that blows

Empty as she flows

Stops to take a breath, I don't know why

Overhead there soar

Fifty birds of war

Cutting off the sun, off the sun

Like a knife with no sound.

"All that passes by

Soon will have to die

There will be no room for the wind

Then will come again

A murmur in the glen

Ordinary dust, dust

And a mold in the crust."

Valerie asked him about his song as he climbed back into the truck.

"Kind of a protest thing," he said laconically.

They continued silently down, passing a large herd of sheep and several Indians walking to town in their Sunday best. It was still fairly early in the morning, so when they reached the main road, traffic was moderate.

Valerie wanted to pick out some gifts, so they drove straight into the heart of the city. In downtown Mexico they found a museum store with items from all over the country. She bought a plaster unicorn painted in white, pink and gold. Adding some hand-made clay platters, her gift list was filled. Don found a colorful ceramic necklace for his mother and some baskets for their friends.

They shared a picnic lunch in the park and returned to Carlos' in later afternoon. Don called him at the university. "How're the stones?" he asked.

"Finished!" he exclaimed. "My secretary is typing the manuscript. Come on down.

It will be ready by the time you arrive."

Don sped down the Avenue of the Insurgents, heart racing. The city buildings fled by like phantoms. Valerie couldn't keep her mind on letter-writing. Don thought of the mysteries of the cave left unresolved. Valerie recited her mantra.

Carlos handed them the manuscript immediately. "I was in doubt about some of the words," he said, "so I left them in parenthesis." The title is 'The Bullets of Rongay'.

"That's really the title?" Don asked.

"'Bullets' could be changed to 'missiles' if you like."

Don read aloud in a confident clear voice:

THE BULLETS OF RONGAY

(A stone manuscript of picture writing found in the cave in the Eastern Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. With all the methods of dating at our disposal, we estimate that it is somewhere between 120,000 and 130,000 years old.)

In the third year of the Great War, when the fire contained in stone was first released, there came from the mountains to the east a great sage by the name of Rongay. He found our continent divided in two: a peaceful faction, and warlike migrated (savage ones) who banded together with the warlike among the Drogai. Their objective was to wrest the secret of the fire stone from the Palace of the Great,

and plunder the dwellings of the peaceful citizens of the west.

These peaceful citizens, led by the Great One himself, refused to bear arms in their own defense, in accordance with the teachings handed down by the great ones. They held that strength in battle lay with the side that held no weapons. They had only the technique of 'encircling another's mind'. With it they could overpower the will of another for a sort time, and take control of their body. Adepts could do this at great distance, while others had a shorter range. These citizens were able to confuse the ranks of their enemies, making them do inappropriate things.

However, the (savage ones) and their (allies) learned to divide into smaller groups, with which they penetrated the western defenses. The Great One himself became unsettled, and decided to frighten the enemy without harming anyone. He unleashed the fury of one his most powerful secrets--the fire in stone.

Sending his (henchmen) to the greatest concentration of enemy forces, he demonstrated this power by destroying a large mountain nearly the size of the Great One's palace. The fire from the holocaust lit the sky for ten days, and those who approached the mountain had to turn away from the heat, unbearable at a distance of

2,000 body lengths (4 miles?).

In spite of this, the enemy called the Great One's bluff. They continued to march to the west, killing and plundering. The Great One still hesitated to use his power to kill. In desperation, some of the peaceful took arms and warded off the attacks with violence.

It was at this point that Rongay appeared, walking through the hosts of the enemy unclad. They fired on him, the missiles passing through his body as if through air. When they tried to delay him bodily, he passed through their arms like a (spirit).

Word of his powers came to the Great One, and he sent for him. Rongay spoke:

"You, O Great One, have been wise in avoiding the use of weapons in defending your people and the Great Secrets of the Drogai. Now I have been sent by the (spirit)

to reveal to you a greater weapon, greater even than the fire in stone. It uses missiles, and yet does not kill, stops aggression without force."

The Great One, adjusting his Eternal Robe, asked the sage to explain.

Rongay replied. "Thought is the greatest weapon. If you could get all your citizens thinking the same peaceful thought in a powerful fashion, the enemy would drop his attack."

Rongay was so forceful in his (presentation) that the Great One fell back on the Throne of Space. "What though would you suggest?" he asked.

"Peace and Joy, Strength and Health," the sage answered, in a rhythmic voice. "This thought touches body, spirit, and will simultaneously; it alone is the reason I have passed through the ranks of the enemy unscathed. Combined with the visualization I will provide, it will conquer the greed and hatred of the enemy."

Rongay instructed the Great One and his (henchmen) in the technique of 'thought bullets'. He commended four steps to his new disciples:

1. Practice the (mantra) by repeating out load. Then soften it to silence on your lips.

Concentrate fully on its meaning.

2. Coordinate the (mantra) with your breath, mentally saying 'Peace and Joy' as you breathe in, 'Strength and Health' as you breathe out. Gain some proficiency at this before you engage in step 3.

3. Imagine bullets made up of the individual written words of the (mantra). This may be done in any language. Picture the sun shining from within the object in which you wish to place the vibration. Send the Peach and Joy bullets to the sun within the object, causing that sun to explode with imagined light, emanating in turn missiles of Strength and Health in all directions.

This third step is effective for investing any object or person with the power to strengthen and heal anyone around it. The psychic ('love') energy is stored in the object proportionate to the power of the repetition. If many engage in a group meditation, the effect is overpowering.

4. Upon becoming adept at step three, so that the visualization is absolutely clear, proceed to step four. While step three deals with the 'outer' world, step four deals with the 'inner'. Of course, realizing the (Self) who dwells within is the most effective way of dealing with the 'outer' world, and thus practice of step four is superior, unless one already has received illumination.

Transfer the image of the sun to one's own heart. Imagine many bullets of Peace and Joy coming from infinity and penetrating that sun from all sides. Then visualize the flash and the emerging Strength and Health bullets emerging and penetrating the universe. The more (dimension) in which the visualization is carried out, the better. Also, with practice, the number of bullets and their individual force may be increased.

This (mantra) is self-transcendent. With ordinary mantras, the words themselves become an obstacle to ultimate freedom, even when all other thoughts have subsided. However, this (mantra) unites with the infinite light as the imagined light from the sun becomes more and more real. When this occurs, the bullets are automatically transcended.

All four steps may not be necessary. Simply by repeating 'Peach and Joy, Strength and Health', great wonders may be worked. Rongay suggested this particular set of words so the needs of the time could be met. He knew it would be most effective against the violence of the enemy.

It was. After nine days of synchronized mass repetition by the peaceful citizens, the (savage ones) laid down their weapons and embraced them in joy. Never before had the minds of men been used together in such a powerful way. It is said that all physical infirmities were transcended by everyone on both sides for a period of six days.

After this miracle, Rongay instructed them in his new methods. He asked each person to choose any word or words as his own (mantra). They then received initiation from his new disciples, the (henchmen) if the Great One. The (henchmen) were trained in rhythm, melody, and the art of visualization so that they could create appropriate (mantras) out of the selected words. The one who 'made' the (mantra) was held by the one who chose the words to be his (guru). In this way Rongay insured the continuance of the essence of the spiritual message, and established a new form of meditation more relevant to the times.

The Age of Rongay lasted nearly 1,000 season cycles before his teaching began to decline and evil once more stalked the earth. The disciples of Rongay fell into disrepute and were forced to hide in the mountains to the east. There they perpetuated the teachings until they were visited by god-men from the sky who came to check on Drog's creation.

The god-men gave them many secrets, and in return, the disciples constructed a city for them in the mountains. This city was made by the power of mind on stone, and build to house the god-men when they visited the earth. The visitors gave the disciples these stones on which to write the essence of their teachings for men of the distant future, for they were not sure when they would be able to return. It was then that they came to know that they had been in psychic communication with Rongay all along, and that his teachings were one with theirs.

The visitors promised to return again when the men of the future learned to use the teaching inscribed in the stones, and asked that the mountains be flattened near theircity so that their ships could land when they returned.

The disciples journeyed north to this cave and wrote the story in the stone by the very fire within it, hiding away their chronicles within the pedestal of the conch.

We, the spirits of the disciples of Rongay, await the return of the visitors, and I Amlon, greet you from the distant past.

Don hand the text back to Carlos, who received it like a hot potato. Valerie had so many impressions, she didn't know where to start. The three stood in a contemplative stillness, like a collective Alice who had just been handed a bottle of 'Drink Me'.

Valerie made the first move. "Do you have any idea what the rhythm of the mantra is?" she asked.

"Yes," Carlos replied, " there were markings above the word symbols in the text." He enunciated for them, giving even emphasis to the first two words and letting his voice trail off on the last two. "Peace and Joy, Strength and Health," he said, the fading of the last two words suggesting the passage of the escaping bullets to infinity.

"Can we try it together?" Don asked.

Unsure at first, the three voices soon blended in a forceful chant. Several passers-by stopped outside Carlos' door to puzzle over the strange liturgy, almost reminiscent of a football cheer. The fact that they did it in English and not Spanish lent a religious air to the sound coursing down the hall, mingling with the rhythmic 'chunk, chunk' of the laboratory vacuum pumps.

They let the intensity of the 'mantra' slowly die to a whisper and stood silently, repeating the chant mentally. In a few minutes, they opened their eyes, each noticing a euphoric glint in the others.

Valerie spoke first. "It's like a series of blissful explosions."

"Very powerful," Carlos added.

"Remind me a little of 'Sieg heil', on commented jokingly.

"I'd like to try the four steps," Valerie said. It's hard to believe the mantra could have an effect on world leaders, but I'm willing to try."

"If it does work, it will be interesting to see if the 'visitors' show up," Carlos added.

"What should we do with the stones?" Don queried.

"I'd like a friend at Columbia to check my translation," Carlos replied. "How would you like to visit New York City?"

"It's the music Mecca of the world," Don commented with excitement.

"We'd love to take the stone up for you," Valerie agreed. "It's about time to try out our music professionally."

"I was hoping you'd offer," Carlos said, " and it will probably get you across the border without any trouble. You will have an official letter as archaeology students transporting a valuable manuscript. I've contacted the Mexican government, and they've agreed to release the stones temporarily." Carlos described his friend at Columbia, Ron Redwick, and gave them his office and phone numbers.

"How soon do you want to leave?" Carlos asked.

"As soon as possible," Valerie answered. "There's no time to waste, with the the war oncoming."

They decided to leave the next morning. That evening Carlos gave them a present.

"A wedding present," he said, "a ring I dug up in the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes. Nearly 5,000 years old. The setting is carved ivory with two asps twining around the black stone." The jet ebony stone piece seemed to absorb any light striking its surface. "The composition of the stone is unknown. It's so hard it has remained unmarred throughout the centuries."

"A black diamond?" Don asked.

"Not in the usual sense of the word. My diamond drills had no effect on it."

In the morning, Carlos handed them the stones carefully packed in a leather satchel, a large envelope, and their notes for the Border Patrol. "Here are two copies of the manuscript, one for you and one for Mr. Burntree. Have him call me."

Don felt uneasy, the responsibility of getting out the message of the stones weighed on him. He was also concerned about his draft eligibility.

After a round of hugs and kisses, they climbed into the 'Green Drölma'. "Good luck in your new life together," Teresa said, as Don started up the engine. They were off again, on a new quest.

Several hours of driving brought them to San Luis Potosi. "They had a gold rush here in the late 1500's," Don said, recalling a little history from his Spanish class. "The town is supposed to have beautiful colonial architecture.

The noonday sun, however, was too hot for touring, so they drove on. The passed up through the middle of Mexico, the fastest route to the states. In the desert, the roadway shimmered with heat, and the sand took on the appearance of an inland ocean.

Night approached as they reached Saltillo, detouring around construction, and dusted by powdered byways, and pelted by graveled roadbeds. They gassed up. The desert sky was skillfully painted by the retreating sun. Turning toward Monterrey, they passed through a narrow canyon cut between steep cliffs. At some places the map indicated a thousand feet from the ridge to the valley floor. They decided to stop for the night.

Early next morning they rose with the sun mounting in the furrow of the canyon like a golden pinball. They washed in a stream, and did Rongay's mantra. The repetition seemed to summon the heat of the day, and as they drove, a dry unquenchable thirst settled into their throats.

They drove through the picturesque town of Monterrey without stopping, passing by idle model-T taxis, colorfully fringed for the tourists. Even the beer factories hadn't wakened. They drove.

The terrain began to look like Texas. Fenced-in ranges and dry brown brush made them feel like tired vaqueros. It was no time at all before they crossed the Rio Grande and pulled into a stall at the American Border Patrol station.

The officer in charge took one look at their old truck and Don's wild eyes, and summoned three companions to help him. Don hopped out quickly and showed them the letter. The spectacled patrolman motioned his coworkers away. From then on, it was routine.

They rode on, passing featureless landscape and featureless highway. They drove straight to New Orleans, stopping to rest well before they reached the city. They were wakened by a rap on the window of the truck. Don rolled it down to face the thin, partially drunk patrolman who was smiling chesire-like, surrounded by daylight.

"You folks O,K,?" he asked. Since it was midday the question seemed reasonable.

"Yeah, sure," Don said.

"Just wanted to be sure--hate to see anyone stuck out here so far from everyplace."

"Thanks," Don managed, the officer returning to his car, whistling some unidentifiable country run.

They drove without event through New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola, arriving home early next evening. They collapsed at Don's place, too tired to bother calling anyone.

Their heads swam in gas stations, soft drink signs, and hamburger stands. They made love and fell into an extended restful slumber.

Next day in the mailbox was a notice from Don's draft board, asking him to report for a physical. He was upset.

A little yoga and they were ready, however, to see Mr. Burntree. As they turned into the familiar tree-lined drive, all the burdens of the journey and the draft notice seemed to fall away. It was a glorious day and their friend was waiting for them by the river.

"Glad you're back," he said. "Let's go for a boat ride." He motioned to a small blue motorboat resting in the still water.

"Don't you want to hear about the stones?" Valerie asked.

"No for a while. It can wait. Isn't it a beautiful day?"

They were both taken aback by his lack of interest in their discoveries; but soon, as their craft approached midstream, they saw he was up to something.

"It's almost high tide," he said. "Another few hours and it'll go out again. We can't stay out too long, or we'll get grounded." Burntree's mansion was dwarfed by the shoreline trees. From the far side of the inlet, it looked like just another house. They approached a line of swans swimming close to the far shore

"You know," Burntree began, "some swans are said to be reincarnated yogis, adepts whose mental powers reached such a point that they could no longer associate with ordinary humans. You might say that's why there are so many fairy tales and mysteries surrounding them. Their apparent animosity toward humans could even be interpreted as a defense mechanism to keep both sides from harm, though I would guess that some swans are just vicious by nature." He made a shrill whistle with his tongue against his cheek and turned off the engine.

"While you were away, I attempted to get closer to the wily swan who drank the glass of milk for us. I fed him choice grain and milk, and each day he would come a little sooner to wait for it. Finally, he came right up and ate out of my hand. That night I had a dream in which he spoke to me. He told my his name was Rongay, and that he would be my guide to the secrets of the swans.

"Rongay?" Don asked, in shock. "The Rongay of the Drogai?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I was startled when you mentioned his name in your call.

That's why I was anxious for you to meet him." Don kept silent in utter disbelief.

"Then you already know what's on the stones?" Valerie guessed.

"Peace and Joy, Strength and Health," he said, accenting it with a slight distinction from the way Carlos taught them.

"Did Carlos tell you the mantra?" Val asked, still doubtful.

"Yes, but Rongay told me first."

"Telepathy?"

"You might say so." Mr. Burntree turned to face the swan and held out a bit of feed.

The large bird waited while the other two ate their share, and then glided forward to finish the offering.

"Are you Rongay?" Burntree asked.

The bird hesitated a moment and then shook his head up and down several times. Don and Valerie were amazed.

"Maybe you will all believe if we meditate on the mantra," Burntree suggested.

"Right here? In the middle of the river?" Valerie questioned.

They began to chant, using Burntree's intonation. Their companions rested motionless on the water, a short distance away. As they internalized, they were able to see the sun clearly in their hearts, and felt the bullets of Peace and Joy explode and

emanate the bullets of Strength and Health. The bliss was unbearable, the visualization extending to previously unknown dimensions.

Valerie had not been able to penetrate the fourth level of the teachings before. Now they were all doing it. After about a quarter hour of silence, Don and Burntree broke out of the meditation. It was too much for Don. Valerie sat still for another fifteen minutes, then slowly opened her eyes. "Rongay told me to begin the 'warfare'," she said in a semi-trance. "He told me to aim the mantra at the President."

"Did he give any instructions for us?" Burntree asked.

"Yes," she added. "Don is to send the mantra to the leaders of the opposing factions in the Philippines, and Mr. Burntree to the Russian leaders. Later, when we're ready, he'll give us rhythms and visualizations for the mantras of our own choosing."

Valerie's eyes lost their vacant expression, and she stretched her limbs. Mr. Burntree pulled the starter cord and the engine propelled them toward the shore.

Inside the house, he asked to see the stones and the translation. Don got them out of the truck. Pulling out the large wads of padding, Don laid them out on the dining room table.

"Did Carlos find out what these are made of?" Burntree asked.

"Nothing on earth," Don replied. "He said it was similar in properties to mica, yet crystallized in larger, less brittle sheets. As you'll se, when you read it, the text says the stones were given to the Drogai by god-man visitors from another star."

Burntree read and commented. "This continent of the Drogai--did the voice give you any hint of its location?"

"It lay to the west of the cave," Valerie answered.

"Not Atlantis," he said.

"Wasn't there a continent--Mu or something--in the Pacific?" Don asked.

"Oh, you mean Churchward's Muror. The evidence is shaky, but some say the references to it go back 40,000 years. Like Atlantis, they say most of it's land mass sunk below water level after some natural upheaval. Even if it's true, it's still not ancient enough to be the continent of the Drogai, which disappeared 120,000 years ago. That is, unless it rose and sank again, you know, like islands in the Pacific."

"How large was the continent of Mu?" Valerie asked.

"Not as large as I would assume the Drogai continent to be. To give access to the Mexican mountains, the Drogai lands must have extended a good distance further north than Muror, and as far south as Peru."

"Why Peru?"

"Because the tablets mention a city for the ''gods' built in the mountains to the east. The ruins near Macchu Picchu seem likely and they're in the middle of Peru. Part of the reason I think so is the fact that there are mountains flattened like runways nearby, just like the stones said."

"That reminds me," Don said. "The conch told us to return to the cave when all the major world leaders are converted to the teachings. He mentioned scientific secrets. He said something about opening us to the stars."

"Interstellar travel. But if the visitors were superior to Amlon and he could create a conch shell out of thin air, who knows?"

"He also told us to keep the location a secret," Val added, "until the time comes."

"That I can understand," Burntree nodded. "Did you find out what the Drogai were like?"

"They were vegetarian giants--about twice our height."

"It's a wonder they got through the narrow entrances to the cave, but then maybe Rongay's disciples learned how to imitate his ability to pass through solid objects. They must have known how to disintegrate matter as well. Your description of the tunnel verifies that, at least to my thinking."

Valerie related the story of Drog and the creation, a part Burntree hadn't heard yet.

When she brought him to the conch's version of the cataclysm, he want to know the cause.

"The voice talked about a second light falling from the sky..."

"A second moon?"

"Right. There's a legend that a second moon circles the earth long ago. A lot closer than our moon, and heavier. After it fell, the earth's gravitation would have increased considerably. Maybe that's why we are shorter than the Drogai."

"Do you think there might be some trace of the collision under the ocean?" Valerie asked.

"A reasonable thing to look for," Burntree assured.

"Do you think the stone faces on Easter Island might have been made by the Drogai?" Don asked.

"Well, they could have been scale models of the visitors..."

"Wouldn't beings that size need enormous space ships?"

"You're right. You know, the more I think about it, the more Tiahuanaco fits the description of the city built for the god-men." Tiahuanaco was a vast ruined stone complex in the Bolivian highlands--not far from Macchu Picchu. "It's structure seems to be based on an outlandish conception of size. Besides that, there are picture of space ships inscribed on the Gate of the Sun, a stone archway nearby."

"Do you thing that the Egyptians used knowledge from the visitors to build the pyramids?" Don asked.

"If so, I would guess that it was handed down by the survivors of the Drogai catastrophe. It would have been dangerous to give the secrets to the more savage members of the Rogandin, so it was probably entrusted to their priests or shamans."

"Maybe the two civilizations made contact like in the story of 'Desmonina'.' Valerie was thinking of Don's bedtime story and how the Urks and Rogs learned to share the secret of flight.

"Desmonina?"

Valerie told her piano teacher the story.

"You know," Burntree added, "there's a place in southern Rhodesia that has stone towers almost like the Urks'. Zimbabwe, I think it's called. The towers are oval-shaped, and can only be entered through the top. Legends say they were made for flying men, like the Urks in the story."

Valerie was tiring rapidly. After a while, she asked if they could finish their discussion later. They agreed, but had some business to settle first.

"Oh, Mr. Burntree, what about the wedding?" Don asked. "Would it be all right if we had the ceremony down by the river?"

"I'm glad you asked."

"You'll do the honors?"

"I'm no 'man of God', but I'd love to do it."

"Just friends and parents," Valerie added.

They decided on the next Saturday at 3 pm. Burntree agreed to cook Indian food for the reception. He was gazing at the demon head of his piano, particularly the skull necklace. It was as if he was picking up a sinister vibration. "Do you have a ring for the ceremony?" he asked.

"Carlos provided that. Look at this!" Don pulled out the Egyptian ring.

That night, Valerie called her family, and invited them. Her mother put herself at her disposal to help with arrangements, but Valerie assured her there was nothing to arrange.

Don also called his mother.

"I'm so glad for you," Sarah sobbed. Don could almost see her daubing her eyes with her perpetual rose-scented lavender handkerchief. Reluctantly, he told her they were planning to move to New York after the wedding.

"That bit of news isn't so nice," she said, almost building to a full cry.

"We'll fly you up when we get rich and famous," he said.

That night, Valerie began sending her mantra bullets to the President, visualizing his form and focusing her attention on the sun in his heart. Don similarly sent the vibration to the Philippine President and the rebel leader of the opposing forces. Meanwhile, Burntree was sending his missiles of divine love to the Kremlin.

14.

In the morning, Valerie worked on two songs describing their discoveries in Mexico. The first was an introduction to the teachings of Amlon and the story of the find:

"Balance and harmony extended, only to end

Within the flood remain suspended, only to rise again;

Love and life both merged in oneness, only to die,

Living on in words and places in mountains high;

Powers and thoughts beyond our own passing away

For centuries remaining hidden in mountain caves.

"Now the truth remains revealed on tablets much like mica

The picture-thoughts before concealed so fragilely awaken

"To a world that needs the story told on the stones

To regain the former glory mankind has known;

And if you want to know the secret etched by the light,

How the wars and tribulations were put to flight,

Just put your love in anything and everything if you can,

Free your love like burning fire throughout the land

And understand... "

The second song came to her as she was making lunch. To keep the morning light from waking them, the window shade had been rolled down the night before. She tried to roll it up again, but it wouldn't budge. Trying to fix a cup of tea by artificial light when she wanted natural, Valerie got so flustered that she dropped her cup. It shattered. She recovered her composure by writing:

"Try to fill everything full of our love

And peace will come dropping down from above.

Loving each other, we'll soon fill the earth;

Very soon everyone will know what it's worth.

"Try to love the window shade when it won't go up,

Try to love the pieces of a broken cup,

And try to love the people who want to put us down;

And when it's going wrong--all around,

"Let's try to fill everything full of our love,

And peace will come dropping down from above

Our power together equals the sun

On a cloudless morning when day is begun.

"Try to love the killer, try to love the gun,

Try to love the gambler clutching what he's won;

And if you say you can't love him, how can you love the sun?

Who gives his light so fully, no matter what we've done,

No matter what we've done,

"Let's try to fill everything full of our love

And peace will come dropping down from above... "

Meanwhile, Don was at the Gates mansion talking to Randal about their move to New York.

"We missed you while you were in Mexico," Randal explained. "Are you planning to rejoin the group."

"No," Don admitted. "Valerie and I are going to sing together."

"Quitting for good?"

"Yeah."

"No hard feelings. Valerie must be pretty good on the piano by now."

"She learned fast, and has written a lot of nice tunes."

"How was your Mexico trip?" Randal asked, lighting a filtertip.

"Eventful," Don answered, taken aback at the sharpness of the smoke coming from the turkish import. "We found a cave... "

"No gold?" Randal asked.

"As a matter of fact... " Don hesitated, realizing it was the Acapulco 'gold' he was referring to and not treasure in the cave. "Not the way you think," he added. He told him about the cube and the conch, but was sketchy about the stones and the 'mantra'.

Randal wouldn't believe the full story without proof.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Randal asked.

"As a matter of fact, you lived in New York for a few years, do you know any agents or publishers in the music business?"

"Bert Soloway was publishing a group I handled in the city. He worked with folk and folk-rock acts--getting them bookings and contracts. He might be just what you want."

"Is he honest?" Don asked.

"Never did us wrong," Randal replied. He gave Don his address and the scoop on clubs in the 'Village'. "Try the 'Sweet Beginning'. Agents hang out there looking for new talent.

Don made his way back home, and found Valerie working on her new song. 'Try to Fill Everything' was a natural for two part harmony. He worked out an extra part and a 'soul' fadeout at the end. They worked on a few more songs, put them on tape, and realized they were starting to create a unique sound.

"All we need is a bass player and a drummer, and we'll hit the charts," Valerie said, with a trace of regret. She knew how corrupt the music business could be.

Wedding plans loomed on the horizon. Valerie and Don got a blood test, but Don's draft notice worried them.

"One way or another, I'm going to avoid the draft," Don said with unsteady passion.

"If not, I'll act crazy, homosexual, you name it. They won't get me in uniform. If all else fails, I refuse to fight and go to jail." Valerie looked distressed.

That night the redoubled their meditative efforts, spending hours projection their 'bullets' of peace. They had gotten to the point where the mantra went on continuously while they focused on other things.

That same evening the great swan--alias Rongay--pecked open the screen door and entered Mr. Burntree's kitchen. Early next morning he found the animal squatting peacefully near the window of his meditation room. He spent the rest of the day in contemplation, with the bird as his companion.

At the same time, Don and Valerie felt a strong vibration when they started to chant. Extra power was coming from the north, where they visualized their two friends in meditation.

They had a lot to do that day, however, and broke off the reverie after an hour.

Valerie prepared her wedding dress. It was a simple robe of white cotton with a small jewel embroidered over the heart. She created the jewel herself, stitching it in golden thread. She had Don pin up the hem of the dress.

They got the marriage license from City Hall without difficulty.

"It feels like we're already married, doesn't it?" Valerie said, rubbing the coarse paper certificate between her fingers.

Don put his arms around her, almost ripping on a crack in the sidewalk, as he thought of the freedom he was about to leave behind.

"What are you going to wear? She asked.

"My cowboy shirt?"

"Oh no! Couldn't you dress up a bit--for the sake of our parents?" A black country and western pullover with op art buttons and blue jeans just didn't fit her idea of a wedding outfit.

"My brother has a dinner jacket I could borrow."

"That sounds fine. We have to save our money for our assault on the Big Apple."

"What about your friends?"

"You mean the band?" Don was momentarily blinded by a flash of sun in the rear view mirror of a passing blue Pontiac. "They'll dress up a little, I'm sure."

"Randal?" Val asked uneasily.

"You don't mind if he comes, do you? He did give me some tip about surviving New York.."

"Maybe I was a little paranoid the night I met him."

"He's a really nice guy, in spite of the drugs."

Don left for his physical at ten the next morning. Valerie rose with him, and they listened to the news over tea. The announcer was unusually brisk:

"Early this morning the President announced a change in plans regarding the war in the Philippines. The Philippine president communicated substantial compromises

with the rebels. These agreements make US intervention unnecessary. The President is canceling all draft calls for this month. Notices may be ignored."

Valerie smothered Don with congratulatory kisses. The celebration was interrupted by another news item.

"Late last night, the President received a message from the Russian President informing him of a unilateral decision to destroy all nuclear weapons, and appealed to him and other nations to do the same. Pressure from the Russian people had been building for some time.

Don and Valerie stared at each other in disbelief for a moment. They hadn't expected such immediate results. Something special was happening.

"Things seem a lot better than they actually are," Don said.

"I was going to say the same thing," Valerie replied. "There has to be a catch."

Nevertheless, they celebrated, catching a movie, and spending the night before their wedding in bed.

The day dawned almost cloudless. Mr. Burntree rose early, mixing a batch of rose fruit deserts and peeking out the kitchen window every so often at the baby blue sky.

He was smiling and singing. The weather was always a sign for him. The political change, but more importantly the union of his two friends, were outpictured in the sky.

As he mixed powdered milk in with the wheat flour, he got an idea for the ceremony.

At the same time, Don was picking daisies in an open field. He brought them back to the house and wove a crown for Valerie's head. He hid it outside her door.

Valerie was busy covering her shoes (and her hands) with white dye. She set them aside and put the finishing touches on here dress. Don came in just as she was about to slip it over her head. "You don't need that." he said, in a throaty voice, slipping his own hands alongside hers and into the sleeves. They stood there like straight-jacketed

Siamese twins, enjoying the feel of their bodies together with only a silk slip between.

"Hey, we don't have much time," Valerie finally said, lifting the dress up and over Don's arms. She let it fall loosely over her body.

Don surprised her with the garland and placed it on her head. The picture was complete. The yellow of the daisies matched the color of the embroidered jewel. She stood, seeing herself reflected in Don's eyes, letting his love for her strip away the worries she had built up.

Don got dressed, and they were on their way to the river, feeling like Shakespearian actors on their way to an engagement.

Mr. Burntree led them to the waterside, smiling through the sunshine. He was wearing a saffron Lama's robe, and looked ecumenical with an old bible under his arm.

Valerie's mother was crying.

Burntree asked them all to stand in a line facing the river and the anxious, but glowing couple. A pitcher lay on a coffee table between them and the river. Burntrees fact turned suddenly solemn, and a serious air poured down on them.

Don stepped forward for a moment to whisper something in his ear, and then stepped back beside Valerie. His right hand nervously fingered the ivory ring Carlos had given him.

Mr. Burntree began.

"I call on you all today to witness the eternal union of the spirits of Valerie Kristen and Donald Armand. As two drops of water once added to the river can never be separated again, so it is with the spirits of two who are truly wed. They are eternally joined together in the River of Life." So saying, he dipped his hand into the pitcher

and touched the top of Valerie's head, afterwards flicking a drop of water into the river. He did the same for Don.

"In our time," he continued, "it is traditional for rings to be exchanged as a token of love. We are prepared to meet this tradition halfway. Don, since the woman always needs to be reminded of her husband's love, it is appropriate that you should present her with such a reminder." Don brought out the ivory ring which fit perfectly without sizing. He kissed her.

"Before I pronounce you man and wife I want you to swear on the bible that you will always express grievances openly to one another, and not let them fester inside."

He motioned Don to come forward.

He stepped toward Burntree and placed his hand on a well-worn scripture book.

"I so swear."

Valerie repeated the oath as well. After an appropriate pause, Mr. Burntree declared: "I now pronounce you man and wife... As you always were." They embraced deeply, and Don's friends cheered. There was almost a mocking tone in their voices, as if they felt the ceremony was a little silly. Mrs. Kristen cried harder, and Don's mother smiled broadly. Out on the river an immense swan began to stir, taking off gracefully and maneuvering in a wide arc toward the bride.

Rongay landed gently on Valerie's head for a brief moment, keeping a slow motion to his wings to keep from collapsing her with his weight, and not disturbing her daisy crown. She looked up at the great bird and saw only the blinding light of the sun overhead as she faced the West. Her mother screamed--a short piercing shriek, quickly absorbed by a sudden gust of wind whistling through the trees along the river. The swan lifted and rose to a very high altitude, making his way to the ocean and the East.

"Third and Twelfth," Don said, as they drove up Houston Street, South Greenwich Village. It took them a while to find Randal's friend's apartment in the East Village. Third became Bowery down that far.

A little frazzled by New York driving, they knocked on a black door with gold trim.

A short hippie with long dark wavy curls opened the door somewhat reluctantly.

"Roger?" Don asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Friends of Randal's from Florida. Val and Don."

"Randals, wow.. Come on in. Meet my old lady, Christa." Christa, about Roger's height with sailing dark eyes, winced at the 'old lady' routine. She shook her frizzy auburn hair like a brush across her purple satin dress. She was not unattractive, but had a slight hunch to her shoulders.

"Toke?" Roger asked, handing him a joint. The air was sweet with Kief--Morrocan flowers of the marijuana plant.

"No thanks," Don answered.

"What brings you to the big city, fame or fortune?" Roger queried, noticing Don had a guitar in tow.

"Both--in a way," Don replied. "Puttin' together an act."

"Need a Drummer?"

"Wow, we do. At least we'd be glad to try it out."

"What kind of stuff do you play."

"A little folky--a little rocky."

"Right where I'm headed. I just broke off with 'The Dangers'. They were gettin' into

heroin and scenes we don't dig."

"They got too loud too," Christa chimed in, "so he walked out on them. I'm waitressing at the Out and In Cafe 'til he finds another gig." She took another drag off her super-thin reefer, concentrating until her eyes crossed. She let it go as if she were blowing up a balloon.

"Where could we find a piano?" Val asked.

"There's one at the Out and In no one uses during the day," Roger said, " I have my drums set up down there. Shall we try a few numbers tomorrow?"

They agreed and spent the rest of the evening listening to Val and Don's songs. Christa showed them the spare room. They collapsed without undressing. They had no trouble sleeping through some of Roger and Christa's friends stopping in after they went to bed.

Next morning Don and Val rose early and called Carlos' professor friend at Columbia. Ron Redwick was puzzling over a manuscript from Nineveh.

"Carlos called me a couple of days ago and said you were bringing up some 'Prehistoric' stones for me to translate." He said the word 'prehistoric' as if it were a joke. Val and Don felt apprehensive.

"When can we see you?" Don asked.

"Right away," he replied enthusiastically.

Ron explained how to get to his office at Columbia. Valerie bought a newspaper.

The headline blared:

'EGYPT RETAKES SINAI--U.S. VOWS ISRAELIS AID'

"Egyptian forces, bolstered by secret Iranian supplies of tanks and planes, today reclaimed the Sinai Peninsula in a massive attack. The President vowed to equal or surpass the military aid by sending U.S. fighters and tanks to Israel."

"It looks like the world is up to its old tricks," Val complained, "Our victories may have been temporary."

"It's going to take more people doing the mantra," Don responded.

"How can we convince people?" Valerie frowned.

"We'll have to use our music," he said.

They drove West Side Drive uptown past Grant's Tomb. Valerie's ring irritated her finger, so she took it off and stuffed it in her pocketbook.. Soon they were in Prof. Redwicks office, peering around stacks of manuscripts.

Redwick was in his mid-thirties, soundly built, with hair like Ben Franklin's. He had a beard, however, and wire-rimmed glasses.

"Let me see the stones," he said eagerly.

"Don handed him the cardboard box.

Carefully Ron unwrapped the wheels of stone. "Carlos was right--picture writing.

Amazing! Let me look at this for a couple of days. I'll give you a call."

"Will you check on their age?" Val asked.

"Goes without saying. Carlos didn't prejudice me by telling me his estimate. Say, why don't you meet me Friday night at my place for dinner? My old lady would love to cook for someone besides me." Valerie winced this time.

They left the building. "Does every man in New York call his wife 'old lady'?"

Valerie asked.

"I think it's kind of a term of endearment," Don replied.

They walked in on Roger and Christa eating scrambled eggs and chorizo. The odor was hard to resist for vegetarians. "Could we use your phone?" Don asked.

Roger nodded with his mouth full. "Who you gonna call?" Val asked.

"Bert Soloway, the agent Randal reommended."

Christa invited Val back into the kitchen. "Why are you in such a hurry to get started? She asked.

"It's a long story," she said, telling them about the cave and the mantra. By the time she finished they both wanted to learn the chant. 'On an upward spiral, these two,'

Val thought. She instructed them.

Don came in and joined the meditation. They soon drifted into silent repetition. Don gave them a copy of the manuscript.

"What did Soloway have to say?" Val asked.

"'Come to my office about seven'," he repeated.

They headed to the Out and In to give Roger a shot at the drums. Climbing below sidewalk level they entered, wading through chair-stacked tables to an old upright and a set of silver-speckled drums.

"It's in tune!" Valerie exclaimed as she drifted into a song. Though it was missing ivory, all the notes were intact.

Roger sat down and shuffled off a few rhythms. Don got out his hollow-body and

plugged in to an amp. For number after number Roger seemed to have a sense of where the groove should be. Tasteful and confident, his musical talent shone. They soon forgot about the beat and concentrated on singing. They spent the afternoon polishing off several tunes.

"You have to meet this guy at seven?" Roger asked. "How about some Chinese food first. There's a place on Third Avenue where we won't have to wait. By the way,

your music is absolute dynamite."

They smiled, returned the compliment, and packed up.

Everyone enjoyed the meal. "You guys vegetarians?" Christa asked. Valerie explained what Mr. Burntree had taught them.

Stuffed and quieter, the troupe piled out onto the avenue.

"Why don't you come with us?" Don asked.

"You sure?" Roger replied, suprised.

"Sure. You might as well be in on the business end too."

They rode the subway uptown. Val enjoyed her first subterranean train ride. "The people here are so different," she said, feeling compassion for an unshaven dark man with whisky on his breath. She could see the man had problems with his wife.

Valerie could read faces very well. It was a developing talent. Christa was almost afraid of her penetrating gaze, but was beginning to warm up to her loving nature. She felt Valerie was a little too perfect, and waited for her to make a mistake.

"163 West Fifty Third," Val said as they came a tall modern building. The elevator man smiled as they told him who they wanted to see.

"Mr. Soloway?" he said. "He's a good man--take you a long ways."

Valerie had saved her fortune cookie from the restaurant, and opened it in the elevator. 'Where love is planted, death will be harvested.' 'How strange,' she thought.

Don wanted to see her fortune, but she kept it to herself.

Soloway had a large suite on the thirtieth floor. A tall brunette greeted them: "He should be back from dinner soon," she said, smiling at Roger. Christa wore a frown like a cinch, while her 'old man' checked out the secretary's accessories.

Fifteen minutes and five phone calls later Bert walked in. He was dressed in a white shirt and black pants, but his eyes gave away the fact that he wasn't an ordinary Manhattan executive. He had an indifference which penetrated to the essential neutrality of everything. Short, heavy, and elfine, he was dark complected with bushy eyebrows and curly black hair.

He invited them into his 'sanctum'. Don and Val seated themselves on chairs, Rog and Christa on a plush blue oriental shag. The pattern on floor reminded her of Yamantaka.

"Write songs..." The question was a statement. He offered them a tequila flavored after-dinner mint.

"Yes," Don answered, refusing the candy with an upturned palm. "Val plays piano and I play guitar, electric and acoustic. Roger here," he said smiling, "has just joined us on drums."

Bert gave Christa a long smile that unwrapped her frown. "I've got a piano in the next room. Play me a few?"

They moved from his plush pink office to a bare practice room. Drums and amplifiers were scattered, next to a spinet by the window. It shone in the light.

Don plugged in and they launched into one of his favorite tunes called '14 Blue Caribou.' It showed off Don's electric virtuosity.

Then Val played a series of songs dealing with their Mexican saga. She did 'The Mountains of Mexico' alone and the other pieces with Rog and Don. Bert's face showed deep thought, and his eyes radiated a twinkle.

"You found something in a cave in Mexico?" he asked.

"Stones with picture writing," Val answered. "An archaeologist estimates they are

120,000 years old."

"No kidding?" he said with restrained excitement. "Maybe this will help get your music across."

Valerie told him about the mantra and the Drogai.

"Kind of like the Beatle's 'Yellow Submarine'. Peace bullets and all that." Bert combed his hair with his fingers.

"The important difference is in the rhythm of the mantra and the way it's visualized," she reflected. "The Beatles movie was a glimpse of it. We are hoping to get people to try it together--a serious spiritual work."

"I'm not a serious person, but I'd like to try it," Bert responded.

Val told him about her work with the swan, and Bert gave her a look of acceptance.

She showed him how to repeat the words and visualization. Val could see the form of the swan in the corner of the room.

A peace descended. Roger mentioned the conflict in the Middle East.

"I hear the U.S. has already sent a dozen planes to Israel." Bert looked confused.

The others ignored the interruption of the flow. Valerie had been instructed during the session to concentrate of sending the 'missiles' of peace to the heads of state involved.

She passed it on.

That evening, Bert had them play every song they had written. Bert kept a recorder running, and it was midnight before they left for the Lower East Side.

Bert promised songwriting contracts in a day or so, and some singing jobs. He mentioned a bass player, and invited to come up to practice every day in his office. They agreed to meet the next day. They all left in an elevated mood.

It was raining when they arrived to practice the next day. New York City was one grey mass of wet concrete. They had a little trouble getting the music moving.

"That's terrible!" Christa said when they finished the first number.

Discouraged, but courageous, they played on, working into the music, but after a half hour, it still didn't sound right.

Bert walked in with a long-haired blond, lanky bass player he introduced as Marty.

"Marterson Lovestone at your service."

"Is that your real name?" Val asked.

"Naw," he replied. "Marty Stevenson. I couldn't stand it, so I took the meaning and made a new name."

"Marty's got talent on that thing," Bert commented, pointing to his electric bass.

"We need help today," Don admitted.

Marty plugged in, and they broke into 'Ramblin' Onward'. Marty brought it together.

He seemed to know where the music was going. He didn't play any wrong notes.

After the session, Marty apologized. "I hope I didn't screw you guys up."

"Are you kidding?" Don replied. Without you we sounded like jello on a rainy day."

"Marty's always like that," Bert said. "He always take the blame--you know, 'Marterson' is his name." They all broke up.

The clued Marty into the mantra, and played music while they chanted.

That evening they arrived at Ron Redwick's Riverside Drive apartment at about six.

The building was old, and molded into the baroque decor were inappropriate concrete lions and bulls, defying them to enter.

Odors of aromatic spices emanated from his apartment. While they waited for him to answer the door, Val noticed her ring finger was no longer sore, and put her wedding ring back on.

Ron welcomed them in. "My wife's cooking a Middle Eastern feast," he said, "a little something she learned while I was on a dig in Iran."

He introduced his wife, Cary, a dark-haired woman with simple features: a small mouth and eyes without much makeup. She extended her had to Valerie and Ron noticed the serpent ring.

"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed hysterically. "Where did you get that ring?"

"Carlos gave it to us as a wedding present," Val answered, her interest mounting.

"He said he dug it up in Thebes--2500 years old, he says."

"There's no doubt about that," Ron said, still in a state of agitation.

"Is there anything wrong?" Cary asked her husband.

"That's a secret ritual ring of the cult of Ahriman!" he exclaimed, "a black magic society with the sole purpose of subverting the teachings of Zoroaster."

"I thought he was Persian," Don suggested.

"Yes, but when the cult was discovered, the Zoroastrians expelled them from Persia, and they migrated to Egypt. I happened to find one of there manuscripts in our archives, when I was tracing down the history of the teachings of Zarathusthra."

"Who was he?" Val asked.

"Persian name for Zoroaster," Ron countered. "At any rate, the scroll described their bizarre rituals, one of which involved the consecrating of a man and a woman."

Don was frightened by Ron's wild look. "What was it all about?"

"The woman was given a symbolic ring identical to yours. She was commanded to cohabitate with a cult priest. They lived together for one month, and if a child was conceived, the spell cast on the ring caused the mother to die giving birth. It may be that a drug was administered. I don't know."

Both Val and Don were in shock. Don spoke with a shaky voice. "Val's ring won't do the same thing will it?"

"The power of the incantation may live in the ring. Perhaps this particular ring is curse free, though."

"Is there a way of ending the curse?" Val asked.

"The ivory setting of the ring is destroyed after the mother gives birth and succumbs. This means that if there is a spell on the ring, it hasn't been used up yet."

"And if there's not?" Don asked.

"The ring is as harmless as a birthstone."

"How can we find out?"

"I'd suggest you call Carlos and see where he found it. Meanwhile, I'll try to find out more about the spell."

"Poor Carlos--he didn't even know..." Valerie sobbed. "Was there any purpose to the ritual?" she asked.

"If the conditions of the spell were met, the child was supposed to be born with knowledge of the evil one--Ahriman. That is, if the mother died in childbirth wearing the ring. The father also had to destroy the ivory setting after her death."

"What if she took the ring off while the child was being born?" Don asked.

"The spell still took its toll, and her child would not have the knowledge."

"Heavy." Don said.

"Yes. Knowledge of Ahriman, the spirit of evil, could be a very powerful thing. Depending on who obtained it, it could be used to work miracles of light, or to sink the world further into darkness. You see, in Zoroaster's scheme, Ahriman was the twin of Ahura Mazda, the essence of good. Both good and evil existed independently from the beginning, but Ahriman will be destroyed when the great renovation comes and goodness triumphs. Perfect knowledge of Ahriman in the hands of a righteous man could do much to lead to 'his' defeat. Unfortunately, this ritual has usual been performed by evil men."

"What makes you believe the spell really worked?" Val asked.

"The fact that black stones similar to the one in this ring have been found with female skeletons in the graves of the cult." Ron was convincing.

Though none of them were hungry at this point, Cary suggested they sit down and eat, and try to forget the ring for a while. They were met by platters of stuffed grape leaves and shis kebab.

Don and Val artfully dodged the meat by picking off the vegetables, and eating the rice-stuffed grape leaves. After the meal, Ron talked about the 'Bullets of Rongay'.

"A remarkable manuscript. 130,000 years old, within the limits of Carlos' estimate.

I called him after I ran the test. Did you bring his translation?"

Don handed him the envelope. "Almost identical," he said when he finished reading. "We disagree on a few words, but the essence is the same. This seems to be an authentic spiritual document. Have you tried the mantra?"

"Yes," Don said, "we've been doing it for almost two weeks. Unfortunately, there is the Mid-East crisis."

"Maybe you need a larger group. Cary and I have been doing the visualizations ourselves." He demonstrated, and Valerie correct the inflection on the word, 'Joy'.

"Where did you learn that inflection?" Ron asked.

"You may not believe this, but a swan told me."

"What?" Cary interjected.

"Yes, a swan." Valerie told them about Mr. Burntree and Rongay's reincarnation as the swan.

"Whether we believe it or not, the stones bear evidence of a remarkable story."

They did the mantra together, concentrating on the parties in the Middle East dispute. The room seemed full of electricity when they were through.

"Look," Ron said, "Carlos' and I are thinking of releasing your discovery to the press as soon as possible. Our standing as scholars should give it impact. He said you've written songs about the cave. Is that true?"

"Yes," Val said.

"Could we see you sing?"

"Sure," Val replied. "We have an audition at the 'Sweet Beginning' Monday night.

You're welcome to come."

After a lengthy discussion of the ancient Zoroastrian religion, to which the Redwicks had converted, Val and Don left. It was pouring rain.

15.

Though the possibility of the curse cast a shadow over them, Valerie and Don practiced their music and patter carefully in preparation for their first audition. They were scheduled for the 'Sweet Beginning' on Monday night. Bert warned them record producers would be there, and they both realized that this was a big opportunity for them and the teachings of Rongay.

The Sunday Times carried the following article as if on cue:

RELIGIOUS TABLETS FOUND

MAY BE 120,000 YEARS OLD.

"Two young musicians have found seven stone tablets in a cave in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. Don and Valerie Armand took them to Dr. Carlos De La Tierra at the University of Mexico, who determined their age to be between 120,000 and 135,000 years. Dr. Ronald Redwick of Columia University has confirmed the thermoluminescence test.

"The tablets illuminate the spiritual teachings of an ancient sage by the name of Rongay. His method, recorded in simple picture writing, is to use the words: 'Peace and Joy, Strength and Health'. He recommends sending them like missiles to those in need of those qualities. The record says that an ancient people, the Drogai, were in such a way able to bring about a time of peace after a time of destructive war.

"The stones indicate that these people lived on a continent submerged when earth's second moon plunged to the planet. The Drogai, although technologically advanced, were unable to stop the disaster which struck after a millenium of peace."

The full text of 'The Bullets of Rongay' was published in entirety on a back page. They were elated at the scope of the story, but realized that conveying the full message was up to them.

On Monday night the 'Sweet Beginning' was packed with reporters and TV cameras

hoping to make contact with the two 'celebrities'. They were very nervous, but Roger and Marty, who had both been members of popular rock bands, took the media in stride.

"Just wait until you see the act," Marty told a questioning TV reporter who wanted to interview right away.

They were third on stage, following a hip comedian whose Freudian material didn't

do much but somewhat warm up the audience. A female blues singer followed. The MC gave Don and Valerie nice buildup: "Recently a couple of song writers found the oldest written manuscript we know of in a cave in Mexico. Her to tell their story in song are Don and Valerie..."

The applause was encouraging. Over half the audience was there to see them. Bert had done his job. Their numbers came off more polished than they expected. It was as if they had some divine assistance. When they finished the series of five songs about their Mexico trip the audience responded warmly, demanding an encore. Don and Valerie went back on stage.

"The story we've told in our songs is true," Valerie began. "The spiritual power of an ancient civilization is now in our hands. The tablets gave us the key to ending war and hatred."

"You can try it with us," Don suggested. A few joined him in reciting the mantra.

"Come on!" he said. They kept repeating until everyone was chanting. Marty and Roger came on stage and played behind the mantra. Valerie and Don soon were accompanying the 'meditation' with guitar and piano. The place literally 'rocked' to the mantra.

Reporters mobbed them as they walked off stage. "Is it true that you are going to try to get everyone to repeat this 'mantra'?" one asked.

"Yes, all who understand," Don said. "It worked for the Drogai, who were much like us, and it can work now. We can have peace now."

"Ladies and gentlemen," the reporter spoke into the camera, "the simple words 'Peace and Joy, Strength and Health' may or may not play a major role in the future history of this planet, but as the stones indicate, they already have. At least Valerie and Don are destined for a very unusual musical career, if the enthusiasm of this audience is any indication."

Bert Soloway dragged Valerie and Don away from the reporters into a private back room. There he introduced them to James Turbin of 'OM' Records. He was a pleasant black-bearded, middle-aged 'hippy', with a sandalwood rosary around his neck.

"Look," he said, "I know you guys are still working on your act, but I feel you should be recorded as soon as possible. "OM Records is willing to offer you a substantial contract and artistic control of the arrangements. Of course, if you need any help, we have the contacts."

They were looking at agreeable conditions, made more inviting by Bert's assurance of the validity of the deal. "I like your name, anyway," Valerie commented.

The week was filled with negotiations, arrangements, and practice. In between, they sandwiched interviews with the press and radio shows. Bert told them their first recording session was the following Monday, and that he had them booked for a Los Angeles club the following weekend. The speed of events was unheard of, but he expressed his faith in them and their progress.

Don called Carlos and found out that the snake ring had been discovered in an ancient Egyptian jeweler's workshop. Perhaps the spell had not been cast. Ron agreed.

However, he had not found a way to break the spell. He suggested Val and Don avoid having children for a while. They were too busy anyway, and the ring soon drifted into the background of their awareness.

The recording session began at 10 p.m. on Monday. Instead of laying down the singing and instrumental tracks separately, they tried to do the whole thing at once. Although it took several times through to get the numbers the way they wanted, it seemed more honest to do it that way.

In addition to their own tunes, they recorded Mr. Burntree's song, the first thing Valerie had learned on the piano. When Valerie called him for permission, she also told him about her further contact with Rongay. The great swan had telepathically suggested they begin working with objects which might come in contact with world leaders. He instructed them to 'invest' them with the energy of the mantra. Burntree became intent on traveling to Washington to charge the fence around the White House with the vibration. He asked them to come down when they had a day free to help him. Since they had a day between their Los Angeles gig and another one in Philadelphia, they promised him some time.

Some of the tracks on the record were orchestrated, but for the most part the music was kept as simple as possible, so that the message was in the forefront. By the end of the week they had finished the album, except for some orchestral overdubs, and things were set for their tour.

Los Angeles was a smashing success. When they took off after a full week of singing, they left thousands of enthusiastic fans behind. They asked the devoted ones to chant the mantra every day for a quarter of an hour at 7 p.m. Pacific Time. This would synchronize chanters and magnify their efforts.

From Los Angeles they flew to Washington DC. Mr. Burntree requested them to come directly to the White House, where he was making his stand outside the gate. They arrived at the airport and took a cab to Pennsylvania Avenue. There they found their yoga teacher dressed in hip clothing and sporting a phony beard.

"How do you like my whiskers?" he said.

"Makes you look ten years younger," Don joked.

"Val, how's the music," Burntree asked.

"We finished our week with rave West Coast reviews and thousands of promises to chant the mantra." Valerie was proud of their accomplishment. Overhead, dark clouds were swiftly moving across the sky. The streets were still wet from a recent rain.

They told him of their plan to synchronize the chanting at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.

He invited them to walk with him and chant the mantra. They chanted silently and visualizing the energy charging the fence with a sun at the gate. "There are rumors the President is due out here in about two hours," he said. "We may be fortunate enough to have him as an object."

Valerie looked up for a moment and saw a small white speck approaching them from the South. She nudged Burntree's shoulder. A lonesome swan was making a beeline for the White House grounds.

A look and they all understood. It was Rongay: twice the size of a normal swan.

He had flown all the way from Florida to joint them.

The swan gracefully landed in the yard, just missing the iron gate, plummeting to the damp grass inside. There he sat facing the gate, motionless, with open eyes.

Inspired by the presence of the master, they engaged in their meditation anew. The black wrought iron gate was soon aglow with radiant cosmic energy. About forty-five minutes later a guard opened the gate and several secret service agents appeared at the door of the mansion. The President walked with them to the gate, pausing a moment to look at the immense swan on the lawn.

"Unusual," the chief executive commented to his aid. "We'll have to leave some food out for it sometime." With that, he reached for the gate with his right hand. Transfixed for an instant, he smiled into the eyes of Rongay, and felt the flow of energy.

The President started to laugh and joke with his companions. The group piled laughing into limousines and he was driven off to some unknown destination.

"What timing," Don commented.

"Why don't we have some lunch," Burntree suggested. After lunch, the afternoon newspaper indicated the president had withdrawn his offer of jet planes to Israel. He said he felt it would only further inflame the conflict. In addition, he announced he was flying to Egypt to confer with Arab leaders directly, in an attempt to bring about peace.

Valerie and Don felt better about leaving to continue their rigorous road trip. Burntree also left for Florida, moved by inner direction.

The process of preparing their album for release accelerated. In a matter of only two weeks it had gone from recording to marketing. The news reached them at their hotel room in Philadelphia. Bert also informed them of a concert in Carnegie Hall to be given in about a month. "Until then, I have some college concerts lined up at some of the larger campuses. Are you game?"

"Sure," Val said, not realizing how much work Bert had for them, and how intense their travel schedule would be. Performances happened almost every night, with flights in between. They began at Ohio State, and visited almost every major college in the Midwest in the first two weeks of the month-long tour.

Their act was becoming very polished, and reporters hounded them constantly. At the end of the tour, they were exhausted. Bert suggested a week off. Their last concert was at the University of Michigan. As they left the stage, Val told Don how she felt: "I think we need some real solitude--I'm really strung out."

"You're right," Don replied. "We hardly have time for any meditation."

"What would you think of living in the desert for a while?" Val asked.

"Great," he said. "We could fly to Las Vegas in the morning and buy a little place hidden away in the sand dunes. I'm tired of civilization. I just want a place where we can be alone and get it back together again."

They found a phone in an Ann Arbor restaurant, and made arrangements for the Vegas flight. That night, Valerie had a nightmare. She dreamed she was lost in a maze of sand dunes, searching for something on her hands and knees in the scorching desert sun. She began digging a hole, as if she knew it was buried. As the hole deepened, her digging became more frantic: her hands were flinging sand desperately in all directions.

After dream hours of scooping sand, she found the object of her search. It was her wedding ring. As she gazed into the ebony stone, the two snakes coiled about it came to life, swelling to life-size white asps, which arched their backs and slithered up the sides of the immense pit she had dug around herself.

Looking up at the snakes disappearing into the gleaming sunlight, she noticed that the sides of hand-dug vault were slowly beginning to give way. The momentum of the sliding sand increased, burying her in an overwhelming avalanche.

She awoke with a start and grabbed Don's arm. "Let's not make it too sandy!" she told him, rousing him from a state of semi-consciousness.

Arriving in Vegas the following day, they hailed a taxi and went looking for a realtor. It was 115 degrees in gambler's paradise. They found a realty office with a camel out front: 'Desert Realty' the sign said.

They entered the office carrying two suitcases and a guitar.

"What can I do for you?" asked a middle-aged portly woman in a flower print dress.

"A house," Don said. "An isolated one-bedroom house."

"And lots of sand nearby," Valerie added, shuddering as the words came out of her mouth almost against her will.

"We'd prefer it to be older and not too expensive," Don said, "but with lots of land to stretch out in."

"I may have just the place," she said. "It's quite a distance away, and has all the facilities, including air conditioning."

Valerie looked relieved. Her vision was one of comfort, not austerity.

Mrs. Carstairs showed them a photo. It was a small wooden house with a peaked roof, and a slightly-faded white exterior. "It's a few miles out of Yucca Arizona," she said, massaging her earlobe. "It needs a paint job, but there's so much loose sand in the area, it doesn't pay."

"You mean the sand blows against the house?" Don asked.

"Yes. There are dunes nearby, and when the wind blows hard enough, some drifts against the house. High winds are a rarity, though."

The picture showed small piles of sand up against the house. The shrubbery was modest: a few cacti and yucca trees.

"How much land?" Valerie asked.

"Twenty acres. None of the neighbors have plans to develop. You can't see anyone else from the house. Lots of privacy. You're a couple of miles from the main road."

The selling figure was what they could afford. "Could we move in right away if we like it?" Don asked.

"Yes. No one is in the place now. You could live there even before the title comes through. I'll give you a key and you can drive down and see it now. You could close the deal at our other office in Yucca."

They agreed, and she made them a map on the back of an old lottery ticket. Don had spotted a used car lot near the realty office. They bought and old yellow Chevy sedan and headed south for Hoover Dam. They crossed into Arizona and switched to Route 66 at Kingman, a decent-sized town with grocery stores and other essential services. They turned north on a dirt road, somewhere between Kingman and Yucca.

The landmark was a cows skull cemented to a fencepost. A few mountains could be seen in the distance, interrupting an otherwise barren, flat landscape.

They drove about five miles to the house. A small orange lizard scurried into the shelter of an old tire as they stopped the sedan. The screen door hung low on its hinges, not quite closed. The house was, however, clean and cosy inside. It was bare except for an old brown metal-frame bed. The kitchen was a step lower than the rest of the house, and it sported a decent stove and refrigerator. There were two small bedrooms, one of which they saw as a meditation room.

"Good if we want to get away from each other," Don commented. "What do you think?"

"The house is nice, but it seems so... empty."

"We'll have to fill it up," he suggested. "We'll break the spell of the ring first. It there is one."

As they embraced, they felt the desert air reach into their hearts, untying the knots of travel weariness and expanding their consciousness to the unlimited vista seen from their front window.

They drove to Yucca to arrange the transaction and have the electricity turned on.

They bought food and supplies and some furniture, tying it on to the car.

They sun was going down in a red-orange sky by the time they returned to the house. Valerie opened a can of vegetable soup. It was a meager meal, but they were more tired than hungry. They fell asleep immediately after 'dinner'.

The desert seemed like a natural place for them to live. The only signs of life were lizards, rabbits, vultures, and carrion crows. The birds suffered so much in the heat of the day that they would often hide behind fenceposts to avoid the direct sun.

They relaxed into life and did a lot of meditating, timing their session to culminate at the hour set aside for worldwide 'peaceing'. Their life floated in a sea of bliss. However, one night Valerie told Don she was worried about Rongay.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"My contact with him has been weakening."

"Could he be busy with other things?"

Valerie shook her head and looked concerned.

Don began teaching Valerie guitar. She missed her piano, and they went in to a cattleman's bar in Kingman a few times that week to practice and perform. The locals enjoyed they renditions of some popular numbers.

Their vacation nearly gone, they traveled to Las Vegas and caught a night flight to New York City.

Bert met them at the airport, and discussed plans for an East Coast tour. He told them their album had risen to the top ten in the charts. Requests were pouring in for concerts, and a people-oriented major news magazine wanted to run a cover article on the two archaeologist-singers.

From their arrival in New York to their return a few weeks later for their Carnegie Hall appearance, their time was not their own. Press interest increased during the Eastern tour, and engagements were mobbed, filling large gymnasiums and halls all along the Atlantic seaboard.

A week into the tour, Valerie called Mr. Burntree and her parents to invite them to the Carnegie concert. Her parents made plans to come, and were thrilled by her overnight success. Her conversation with Mr. Burntree, however, took a different turn.

He seemed doubtful about being able to attend. "Rongay has been very ill lately," he said. "After his flight back from Washington he began to slow up a bit. Noticing his lack of rigor, I consulted a veterinarian who recommended an antibiotic. I put it in his food, but his condition seemed to worsen. One day I finally asked him how old he was, thinking perhaps his malady was 'old age'. He told me he was over four hundred years old, and that he was soon going to leave his swan body."

Valerie began to cry. She couldn't console herself with the fact that it was only a swan who was dying, because Rongay was much more to her. He was a guru and a friend.

"Look," Burntree said, "if he gets better, or leaves the body before the concert, I'll come. He's not eating well."

"We'll miss you," Valerie said, "but don't come unless you think he is all right."

Don invited his mother up for the concert. "I didn't forget you, did I Momma?" he said.

"I'd love to come, but I can't afford the trip."

"I'll send a couple of plane tickets. Don't bother your head about money."

The President's trip to Egypt had resulted in further negotiations with the Arab governments. He sent a close advisor to that country to continue his secret consultation. The Israelis were outraged: first by the withdrawal of the offer of military aid; and second, by the apparent flirtation with the enemy. Meanwhile war in the Middle East went on, with heavy skirmishes at the front, which now extended from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Neither side was making headway. The Israelis could not win back the Sinai, and yet fought boldly to keep the Arabs out of Israel.

Meanwhile, countries in the Soviet Bloc were strengthening ties with the Americans. A few days before the Carnegie Hall concert, Russia and the U.S. announced an agreement to gradually disarm all nuclear bombs and missiles. In addition, the Soviets made the USSR open to any American who wished to visit, and gave complete access to all her military bases by U.S. inspection teams. Real disarmament had begun.

Although Don and Valerie felt gratified by the apparent success of the mantra, they knew it was still a long time before all threats to peace were removed from the earth. They continued their synchronous chanting periods, focusing their attention on other leaders of world government: China, France, England, and Laos were among their 'targets'.

Bert Soloway had arranged a world tour for after their New York appearance, and the world press began to catch on to their story. Many people who were into meditation already decided to chant at the prescribed time, and a network of 'cannons' for the 'Bullets of Rongay' was established world-wide. Some formed clubs which met to chant the mantra. Others overcame the ridicule which arose as a backlash by chanting in secret.

Valerie was putting finishing touches on a new song on the afternoon of the Carnegie concert when Don burst into Bert's studio.

"The war is over!" he exclaimed.

"You're kidding," Valerie responded.

"I was in the little grocery on the next block when the music on the radio was interrupted by a bulletin. The U.A.R. has given back half the Sinai Peninsula to Israel and stopped all hostilities."

"What about Israel?" Val asked.

"They agreed to stop fighting too, satisfied that the Arab intentions were honorable.

You know the President's visit to Egypt? He offered to build atomic energy plants for them to reclaim the desert, on condition they give back part of Sinai."

"It's hard to believe. Won't Israel be jealous?"

"He promised them a similar gift if they would end the war."

It was the first time since the formation of the Peace Corps that the U.S. had initiated a major unselfish action in the interest of peace alone. This made them hopeful for the rest of the world.

Carnegie Hall was packed a half hour before the concert started. The crowd was youthful and well-behaved.

When Valerie and Don appeared, everyone rose to their feet and applauded with almost reverent restraint, as they were the Congress welcoming the President for a State of the Union address. Don came on first and took his place slightly to the left of the piano. He was wearing a yellow shirt and dark green slacks. Valerie followed, limping to her instrument and folding her white silk dress under her as she sat down on the piano bench.

Don quietly picked the introduction to 'Folly In My Soul', dedicating it to Valerie. She joined him on the piano, and they harmonized, the notes filling the hall and flowing out into the street.

During the number, Valerie spotted her mother and father in the front row. Through the thick beams of the spotlight she also spied Mr. Burntree smiling at her from his seat at the end of the row.

As her voice warmed to the music, she began to wonder about the fate of the great swan: had he died, freeing her piano teacher to attend the concert?

After the first number Valerie adjusted her voice mike and told the story of their Mexico trip: how Mr. Burntree had given them the clues to the location of the cave, and how some Mexican girls in the mountains had traded them crystals for bread. She sang 'The Mountains of Mexico' to carry the story that far.

Don then outlined the discovery of the cave. He was careful not to reveal its exact location. He related the story of the family who had asked them for a ride near the entrance and left behind their child's white linen covering. He hinted that the Mexicans might have been wise to the secret of the cave.

"When an Indian driver makes a sharp turn in a big truck with no hands on the wheel, it makes you wonder," he said.

Roger and Marty joined them, and they rolled into 'Ramblin' Onward' as a team. Their arrangement had a rock samba flavor. The audience loved it.

Before the applause died down, Don went right into his song about the little bird. An extra musician accompanied them on sitar. They continued, doing several traditional folk and blues numbers as a group.

Valerie then introduced the creation story of the Drogai, and the music of 'Empty Sea' held the audience spellbound. They followed with 'The Secret', Don taking the vocal lead. Valerie chimed in, and did a long scat at the end which brought the audience to its feet. Several bouquets of flowers and offerings of fruit were brought to the stage and laid at her feet, and when the noise died down, she presented their plea.

"We would like to share the message of the stones with everyone," she said humbly. "About 120,000 years ago a sage by the name of Rongay introduced a teaching which saved his people from a devastating war and brought about a golden age. The stones of the Drogai were left in the cave in hopes some future civilization could benefit from the teachings on them." She explained the mantra and the time for synchronous chanting.

They began 'Try To Fill Everything', featuring their combined vocal talents. They music built, layer upon layer, until the crowd was again on its feat, demanding more.

They came back on stage.

I'd like to dedicate this song to my piano teacher, Mr. Burntree," Valerie said, radiating joy. She blocked out the opening chords to 'Love Is Caught In The Wind', and as she sang, she pictured the river as she had first seen it, reflecting the sun.

The audience didn't want to let them go, but they had no other numbers prepared, so they came back on stage for a moment to say a parting 'thank you'. The ovation lasted for nearly five minutes.

Mr. Burntree and their parents left the noise of the crowd and met them in the dressing room. Bert Soloway invited the whole group out to dinner.

"Wait," Don interrrupted, "it's ten o'clock. We have to chant first."

Valerie, Don, and Burntree sat on the floor and removed their shoes, fixing their legs in the lotus position. Burntree began the chant. Val's mother tried to remain calm, but expressed her anxiety by twirling her wedding ring around her finger. Her father went out of the room in search of a cigarette machine. When the meditation was over, Valerie apologized for the delay, assuring them it was important. They headed to an uptown restaurant.

It was an Italian extravaganza with the waiters dressed in medieval costumes. The vegetarians in the group ordered salads and meatless pasta.

"You know," Valerie's mother said over salad, "I really felt something very peaceful during the chanting."

"You ought to try it yourself," Valerie suggested.

"You couldn't get her in that pretzel position!" her father exclaimed.

"That's not really necessary," Con replied, "but we can use all the chanters we can get."

"I'll give it a try," Don's mother promised, speaking for the first time. "What can I lose? It's only fifteen minutes."

The waiter brought in the antipasto. Burntree picked up a piece of celery and asked Don a question: "Do you think the Indians knew about the tunnel?" he asked.

"Hmmm..." Don replied. "They did seem a bit secretive when we mentioned the cave--knowing looks and a suppressed undercurrent of awe. Oh!" he interjected. "We also found a skeleton in the tube near the entrance. It was missing an arm and leg bone, and there were no traces of flesh."

"Do you think the white panther might have gotten someone? Perhaps an Indian who tried to enter the cave?" Don had previously told him of his battle with the pale lion that came at him from a suspended animation chamber.

"That would explain the Indian attitude toward the cave, but it just doesn't jibe with the facts."

"Why?"

"The lion was not supposed to be released until the doors at the other end were opened. The skeleton was miles away from those doors."

"Maybe the skeleton was one of the Drogai," Val's father suggested.

"Too short," Val replied. "The Drogai were about twice our height."

"It must have been very old," Burntree surmised. "That's the only way the absence of sign of decay could be explained." Everyone had forgotten the salad.

"Could a wild beast have chased a man into the cave from the outside. You know, eating off an arm and a leg?" Don's mother looked puzzled.

"That's a good thought mums," Don said. "Maybe the first set of doors were open at some time, allowing a wild animal in. I guess we'll just have to ask the conch when we go back."

"Go back?" Val's mother asked, a little concerned for her daughter's safety.

"Yes," Don answered. "It instructed us to return when the world is a little more peaceful... for further instructions."

The gallantly-dressed waiters arrived with the pasta. Valerie refused an order of pasta and spoke. "Mr. Burntree, I've always wanted to ask you if you have a first name."

"That's understandable," he said.

"I felt the question might offend you," she continued, "so I never asked, thinking you had a reason for not using it. Even Carlos, your close friend never mentioned it."

"Yes... Ah, I do have a first name. It was given to me under unusual circumstances. The night I was born, my Mother heard a strange voice in a dream tell her to name her child 'Reymosona'. Not knowing its meaning, she felt she should be obedient to the prompting. A few years later, she went on her expedition to the New Hebrides, encountering the tribe of the 'worshiped ones'."

"The tribe used the word 'Reymosona' to denote 'knowledge of the devil'." Don's mom trembled. "Since it was applied to certain of the natives who were possessed by evil spirits, my Mother took the meaning negatively, and never told me my full name until the day she died. She always called me 'Ray' and had me sign my name that way, telling me that someday she would tell me the full story. In college I dropped the 'Ray' and became Burntree. On her deathbed, Mother asked me to keep my name a secret until the right time came."

"Why do you feel it's right now?" Val asked.

"I just know."

"Knowledge of the devil..." Don said. "That could be taken positively. The bearer of the name might know the wiles of evil and use that knowledge to defeat it." Don avoided revealing the significance of the ring Carlos had given them. He would tell Burntree privately.

"I agree," Burntree responded.

Don's comment put his mom more at ease. The main course arrived. Conversation stopped. Valerie helped herself to the spaghetti, and started to fit things together silently. She reflected on how the beliefs of several of the New Hebrides 'worshiped' ones had come to play a part in their lives. There was the curse on the ring, which arose as a reaction to the teachings of Zoroaster. A Zoroastrian priest was one of the escaped Hew Hebrides natives. There was also the Tibetan tantra which helped them understand 'The Bullets of Rongay'. The 'worshiped' ones produced a Tibetan abbot. In addition, there was Durgananda, the yogi whose sayings had guided them in their early spiritual quest. He was a 'worshiped' one as well.

The only one of the New Hebredian adepts who had not touched their lives was Madame Zaratus, the medium burned as a witch in her previous life. This fact lent a puzzling incompleteness to her speculation that the 'worshiped' ones were somehow psychically involved in the reestablishment of the mantra.

Don broke the silence. "Why don't we all visit some of the museums tomorrow?" he proposed. "I think you'd all enjoy the Met, and we can visit the Modern Art if you want."

Their parents agreed, but Burntree said he had to get back to Florida to make sure a friend was all right. Don and Val knew he was referring to the swan.

They had dessert and the party split up: Valerie and her parents went to their hotel, Don and his mother headed downtown to Roger and Christa's for the night, and Mr. Burntree caught a taxi for the airport.

16.

After showing their parents the city, they flew west for a two week tour. There they encountered some resistance from hecklers. So many young people had begun to chant, that some of their more conservative parents suspected a conspiracy. At the Phoenix concert, one irate father stood up shouting after their appeal for chanters.

"What are you trying to do?" he yelled, "leading all these young people away from their beliefs. If I had my way you two would be put in prison!"

"They only chant because they want to," Valerie responded gently. "That doesn't mean they have to give up whatever else they believe."

After the West coast, Valerie and Don were scheduled for a two week rest, then a world tour. Bert planned to visit all the major cities in Europe and a few in other areas.

The album was a world-wide best seller, thanks to their overdubs in several languages early in the game. Their two week break was badly needed. In spite of the Hatha Yoga they managed to squeeze in, Don was suffering from nervous stomach; and, for the same reason, Valerie was not eating the way she should have been.

On break, they flew from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and picked up their yellow Chevy from the airport parking lot.

The deed to their property was waiting for them when they arrived at their Arizona home. A few days later an old truck arrived with Don's furniture. Joe Greenhorse had agreed to bring it down. They were glad to see the piano arrive unharmed.

A good deal of their vacation was spent in meditation. Valerie began to fast, and went for a week without any solid food, living on peppermint tea and apple juice.

A few days after her fast, she and Don made love without the usual precautions. Valerie had miscalculated her position in her cycle. The next morning she realized her mistake.

"My period is over on the twenty-fourth, not the fifteenth!" she exclaimed.

"That puts us in the danger zone, doesn't it?" Don said.

"If I'm pregnant, I don't want to get an abortion. Even if we find out there is definitely a curse on the ring. I don't want to end my baby's life to preserve my own."

"What would I do without you?"

"Take care of our child."

Don was silent, contemplating the void that would be left in his life, if she moved on.

That morning Mr. Burntree called them. They didn't expect his first call to bring such sad news.

"Rongay has left the body," he said.

"When?" Don asked.

"Last night about eleven."

Don realized that it was shortly after that he had made love to Valerie.

"How did it happen?"

"After I got back from New York, his condition worsened. It got to the point where I had to feed him with an eyedropper. I brought him into the house to protect him from the elements, but he was already too weak."

Valerie came to the phone and asked what was happening.

"Rongay's dead," Don told her. "Mr. Burntree says he went last night about eleven.

Don continued the conversation. He told his mentor about the ring and what Carlos and Ron had discovered.

"The curse, if it exists," he said "means that Val will die if she has a child, and child itself will have 'knowledge of the evil one'. I wanted to tell you at the restaurant. Your first name reminded me, but I didn't want our parents to get upset."

"You did the right thing. Look... what are the chances there is a curse on the ring?"

"Ron Redwick seems to think 50-50, but it is hard to say."

"You're not planning to have a child, are you?"

"We didn't plan to 'til last night."

"Changed your mind?"

"No. Miscalculated."

"Maybe there's a way to break the spell."

"Ron says there isn't"

"Madame Zaratus sometimes has success with these things. You could visit her in Boston." Burntree gave him the address.

"I think we'll try that. We'd like to be free to have children... Did Rongay tell you anything before he passed on?"

"Yes. He communicated to me that the time had come for us to permanently move on to step four of the teachings."

"Visualizing the sun in our hearts?"

"Yes."

"We'll do that."

They spent the day in half-gloom, wondering how they would handle the 'revolution' without Rongay's direction.

The next day they flew back to New York to get briefed on their world tour. They practiced some of the foreign versions of their songs: Singing in Japanese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, and German. They assembled passports and visas, and got the necessary inoculations.

The tour was an enormous success. They did several days of concerts in London, singing to packed houses and eager crowds. The audiences seemed even more open to the chanting than their American counterparts, so they added a ten minute silent chant to the end of their program. The press and worldwide distribution of their album had literally paved their way with roses.

At the Paris concert, the local society for the mantra presented them with a long-stemmed rose from each member. At the end of the final number, which Val and Don sang in French, the fans threw hundreds of roses on the platform, and they did their encore amid a sea of dark red petals.

In Italy and Germany, they received almost royal treatment. They spent their last two weeks in India, Russia, and Japan; often playing for audiences who understood very little English. Often a translator assisted in their between-song patter.

When it was all over, they rented an apartment in uptown New York, and started to work on material for their second album. A week later Val realized she might be pregnant.

"I'm a week late," she told Don calmly.

"You're usually right on the button, aren't you?" Why don't we see a doctor?"

"All right. Should we visit Madame Zaratus if I'm pregnant?"

The doctor's tests confirmed their fears. She was harboring new life.

Valerie reacted to the news with a look of almost desperate frustration. The nurse asked her if the child was unwanted.

"I want the child," Val replied. "I just don't know whether I'll survive the birth."

"Is there a medical reason for feeling that way?"

"No."

"Then I wouldn't worry. Childbirth isn't all that difficult these days."

Valerie didn't think she would understand the truth.

When Don heard the news, he translated his fears into action. He arranged for an immediate flight to Boston.

The next day found them riding the M.T.A. to Harvard Square. Madame Zaratus lived in a neat little brownstone building she had rented as a whole--all three stories, one room wide. There she conducted spiritualistic sessions and group meditation. Expecting a heavier woman, clad perhaps in gypsy clothing, they were taken aback at a tall thin woman in a plain brown cotton dress. She was very old, but apparently healthy and vigorous. One thing betrayed her calling: her eyes. They were too large for her gaunt, lean face. It was impossible not to feel you were being watched--all of you--through those fixed brown portals to the infinite.

She invited them into a room with bright orange walls and asked them to sit down on a black naugahide couch.

"What can I do for you?" she asked. So saying, Valerie's worries seemed to fly away for the moment. The knot in Don's stomach uncurled and he relaxed for the first time in weeks.

"We would like to know if you can help us break a spell," Don answered. "Mr. Burntree said you've had some experience with that kind of thing."

"Bernie sent you?" she asked, in a more intimate tone.

"Yes. We have a ring given to us as a wedding present. There may be a curse on it." Valerie took it off her finger and handed it to the medium. She examined it carefully.

"Curse?"

"The ring is from ancient Egypt, and was probably used in the rituals of the Black Cult of Ahriman." Don could see a wave of disgust pass over her face as he spoke. "Are you familiar?"

"A little. I know that human sacrifice was part of their 'liturgy'. Wasn't there a dragon involved? Ahriman?"

"We have it on authority that this ring was used in a type of birth ritual," Don explained. He related how the man and woman were forced to have a child, and how the ring brought about the mother's death.

"Are you having a child?" she asked.

"I'm expecting," Valerie replied.

"Who told you about the curse?" Madame Z. asked, fixing her eyes on a small stone and wire mobile which moved in a slow circle under her gaze.

"Ron Redwick, a professor at Columbia."

"Did he give you an hints as to how to break the spell?"

"He said it was impossible." Don told her more about the rite: how giving away the ring couldn't break the spell, how the ivory snakes were destroyed when the mother died, and how the baby would possess knowledge of the 'evil one'. "We both feel this knowledge could be useful if the child were trained properly."

"I agree fully," the spiritualist replied. "Great things could be accomplished with that knowledge in the right hands. Look," she said thoughtfully in the direction of Valerie "the spell could yield to a symbolic destruction of one of the other parties involved in the curse. For example, if you were to have a statue of your husband cast in stone--a perfect likeness--and then destroy the figure, taking certain precautions, it might serve as a substitute, a 'scapegoat' for the sacrifice involved in the curse."

"What would be the precautions?" Val asked.

"As you probably know, mutilating an image of someone is often a black magic technique for causing harm to that person. For instance, the Voodoo doll. When pins are stuck in portions of the doll's body, the victim suffers pain in those areas. If the doll is destroyed, it may result in death to the doll's counterpart. For this reason we want to be sure that destroying a likeness of your husband..."

"Don."

"Don would not result in any physical and spiritual harm to him. For that purpose, I would recommend a special incantation. Let me get it for you." She went into a back room and returned with a photocopy sheet containing some strange handwritten inscriptions. "This is called the 'Helmet of Moses and Aaron'." The writing was enclosed in a figure the shape of a kidney bean. "The words are Hebrew for the 'Fire of God' and the 'Strong Rock of Faith'. Whoever wears these words on his person, inscribed on a gold plate, will not suffer sudden death. I'd suggest you have such a plate made, Don, and wear it around your neck when you are ready to destroy the statue."

"Wouldn't the same thing work for Valerie?" Don asked.

"No. The combination of the spell on the ring and mutilation of her image would be impossible to counteract," she replied. "The magical arithmetic just doesn't add up. It has to be someone else involved. A voluntary sacrifice, so to speak, to save her life. That attitude is important. If you are worried that it might result in your death, let me assure you that the method I am giving you is part of the Kabala, and very powerful."

"See if you can find a ram's horn somewhere," she continued. "You'll need that to go along with the incantation, which I suggest you read just before pulverizing the statue. Make sure you follow the instructions for sounding the horn very carefully. In addition, I want you to read Psalm Thirteen from the Bible, along with the prayer printed under the incantation. If you follow my instructions carefully--the medal, the horn, the Psalm, and the prayer--I can almost guarantee you will come to no harm. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Don replied. "Will all this help Val?"

"That I'm not as sure of, but it is worth a try. This method has worked a few times before."

"Don gave Valerie a grave look.

"Don't worry, Don. Even if it fails, there's still a chance there is no spell on the ring." Valerie was hopeful.

"Look," Madame Zaratus began, "destroy the image as close to the birth as possible. I would recommend the fifth or sixth month of the pregnancy, so a premature birth doesn't catch you off guard. Also, Don, be sure to fast three days before reciting the incantations. This will increase the power and purpose."

"Is there a special way to destroy the statue?" Don asked.

"Just make sure none of the pieces are larger than an acorn."

They left madame Zaratus, assuring her they would try her suggestion. She promised to help if they had any difficulty. "Call me and let me know what happens. I pray it will all be for the best." She smiled the toothless, youthful smile of an old woman who had lived a useful life, and bid them farewell.

Back in New York, they recorded their second album. The strain of the overseas tour and the weight of the curse showed their effects on their work. It took them twice as long to complete as the first one.

Bert recommended they not work too hard, considering Val's pregnancy. He suggested a two week rest before further concerts.

Valerie didn't like the idea, so they compromised. They would rest for one week.

She was suffering from morning sickness, so they remained in new York for the week. During that time Don started collecting the items necessary for the curse-breaking ceremony.

He was on his way back to their apartment on 84^th street when he encountered an antique gun shop. In the window was an old powderhorn.

"Is that a ram's horn?" he asked the shopkeeper.

He yawned. "I believe it comes from a Rocky Mountain bighorn. Used by mountain men back in the 1800's. I'm not quite sure I want to part with it--it being so old and all. Don paid a dear price for the horn.

When he got it home, he removed the cover and the strap. Lifting the naked horn to his lips, he gave a short blast on his new instrument. It sounded much like the moan of a sick cow. With a little practice, he was able to improve the tonal clarity, and soon he was able to sound the horn in a smooth, clear, high-pitched blast. Neighbors wondered what the noise was all about, but Don was careful not to try it too often.

A jeweler on Columbia avenue was his next stop.

"I'd like to have this inscription etched onto a gold plate," he told the old man, handing him a copy of the 'Helmet of Moses and Aaron'.

"You Jewish?" he asked.

"No, but the inscription is in Hebrew," Don offered.

"I'll do it as long as there is no black magic involved."

Don assured him, and he picked out an appropriate scrap of gold plate from a box of odds and ends.

"I'll have it ready for you tomorrow," he promised, and went back to his work.

They were soon on the road again. This time, they covered they entire country. The crowds cheered, even on bad nights. Weather changes took their toll on the travelers.

They fought a blizzard in Wisconsin, only to burn up in the warm California sun. Two weeks into the tour, Val came down with bronchitis.

They called Bert to let him know. He was disappointed, but understanding. The rest of the tour was canceled. "How about a key concert every couple of weeks when she gets better?" he asked.

Valerie agreed, but Don didn't.

Bert acceded to a two month layoff, and they flew to Vegas, Val suffering a rasping cough. The dry desert air made her feel better, but she coughed more frequently. Meanwhile she was beginning to show.

Her recovery was rapid and within a week they were enjoying their time off. They passed the winter discovering the secrets of life: the first kick, the heartbeat, the restless movement in the womb. They could sense something special about the child. Valerie expressed her feelings to Don:

"I've felt detached ever since that night we made our little 'mistake'. It's almost as if I don't even care if I die. A part of me is feeling through the child. I can fell his little arms and legs growing out of his body."

Don felt an irresistible desire to be close to her. Sometimes he would even grow restless while she meditated alone.

Valerie began to sculpt an image of Don from a black sculptor's blank he had purchased in New York. The work was slow, and she felt she wasn't equal to the task, not having worked with the medium before. She got his general form blocked out, but she knew an exact likeness would be slow in coming. Time was running out.

Valerie often recalled her spiritual 'enlightenment' in New Orleans. When the burning light had risen up her spine to her neck, she had experienced something unique. She felt she could have rearranged the universe if she wanted to.

One evening after dinner, she retired to the spare room to meditate, hoping to regain the feeling. First, she brought in the unfinished statue and lit a large green candle in front of it. Soon she was at the fourth level of the mantra. After several hours of continuous sitting, the exploding sun she had imagined within her heart overwhelmed her in a sea of light. For the rest of the evening she stayed in the room. Don was startled when she appeared later with the completed statue in hand.

"Incredible," he exclaimed, fingering the image and noticing the mirror-like reflection of his own face. The broad nose, the intense eyes, the large ears, and the high forehead: all his features were reproduced with uncanny accuracy.

"How did you do it?" he asked.

"With my little chisel!" she said jokingly and gave him a wink.

Don knew better--she had done it with her mind.

The time came for Don to fast in preparation for the incantations. Valerie was in her sixth month and as large as a Mississippi watermelon. It would be a big child. They agreed she should give birth at home, and were practicing exercises. They didn't tell their parents they were going to have the child at home, sure they would object.

However, there was an element of uncertainty--the possible curse on the ring. At one point Don changed his mind and insisted they go to the hospital. He felt that perhaps modern medicine could overcome the spell.

Valerie replied to his suggestion. "This baby is special, and I don't want him born in a hospital. Even if I die, I know it still would be right to have it at home."

Don gave in, but was still intent on removing the curse. He had some trouble completing a three day fast, suffering from severe stomach cramps on the second day. However, the third day was better, and left him light and strong.

That afternoon he prepared for the incantations. He went outside and faced the desert sun, clad only in a tee shirt and swim trunks. He hung the medal around his neck

and began to chant from the Kabala:

"Wochuta, Tukal, Beschufa, Gutal," he intoned, standing firmly on his heels. The mountains tantalized his senses from the horizon. It was almost a lunar landscape. "If I sin," he went on, "I shall blow with the great horn." So saying, he lifted the immense ram's horn to his lips and blew four long blasts, once to each direction of the compass. The piercing notes seemed to shake the very sand on which he stood.

He fell to his knees, reciting the thirteenth Psalm from a small white lambskin Bible:

"How long wilt thou forget me, oh Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" A gust of wind pelted him as he read the next verse:

"How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How ling shall mine enemy be exalted over me?" The gusting quickened to a steady breeze. The sand irritated his nostrils. He continued:

"Consider and hear me, oh Lord, my God: lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death." The wind was howling around the house, and by the time Don completed the recitation, he could see clouds of sand rising from a dune are not far from the house. He went on, chanting the prayer:

"Protect me according to thy will and pleasure from sudden and violent death, and from all other evil accidents and severe bodily afflictions." The wind was whirling the medal around in front of his chest--it was banging against his breast as if, in atonement for sin, his own fist were beating a repentant rhythm. "For thou art my help and my God, and Thine is the power and the glory, Amen."

The formula was complete. Don struggled to his feet, fighting a devastating blast of sand and wind. Luckily the current was with him as he went back into the house. Val was in the extra room--meditating? He wasn't sure. Quickly he grabbed a sledgehammer sitting in a corner of the kitchen. In his free hand he picked up the statue of himself and went out on the back porch. The house shielded him from the wind and partially from the sand, which now swirled about in dense golden-brown clouds. The sky grew darker.

Taking a deep breath, Don lifted the sledge high above the image and paused a moment. He let go. Before the hammer reached its goal, he heard Valerie yelling.

"Stop! Stop!" she screamed.

Deftly he averted the blow so it missed its intended mark. A three inch hole gaped at him from the concrete floor of the porch.

"Come inside," Valerie beckoned.

Don went in, carrying the statue.

"Don!" she exclaimed, out of breath, "Our child is Rongay."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I was meditating, and suddenly I saw the form of a swan in my belly. Then Rongay's voice spoke to me."

"'Don't let Don destroy the statue,' he said. 'His karma is such that no amount of sorcery will save him if he does. Stop him! Save my father! I need him.' I knew then our child was not ordinary. I came out of meditation to stop you."

"Thanks," Don said. "I don't particularly want to die. You know, it does make sense--just minutes after Rongay died we had our little 'accident'. Is it possible?"

"It is... " Val said with absolute certainty.

Their minds were as restless as the storm that raged outside. Filled with uncertainties, Don went to the spare room to chant and calm himself. Valerie joined him. The sun went down behind massive clouds of dust leaving them in the utter blackness of the storm.

Don found it difficult to begin the mantra. A host of questions disturbed his mind. How could they stop the curse? Would Val die? If she did, how would he raise the child? Especially if he were Rongay. He got up from his seat in despair, and looked at Val. She was perfectly still. Could it be? He watched for signs of respiration. There were none. He waited a few minute: still no breath stirred in Valerie's breast. A Madonna-like smile on her motionless lips warmed the space. It was as if there was no life in her.

"Either she's in samadhi, or... ' he thought. Samadhi without breath is a spiritual enlightenment that can last for days. He had seen her in a similar state in New Orleans, but it was only for a few moments. He sat for an hour, alternating between watching her and doing the mantra.

Finally he noticed a breeze through the door. He went out of the room to find its source. The kitchen door was wide open and sand was starting to build up on the floor. A small dune was forming around the statue. It was almost covered.

Suddenly Valerie burst into the room. "My body!" she screamed, "I can't see my body. Only my baby!"

"Take it easy," Don suggested nervously. "I see it--it must be there." For about ten minutes she continued to insist she couldn't see her body, and that only her child was visible to her.

The storm abated. Light filled the room as if by magic. Don parted the curtains and saw the full moon, brilliant in the still, starry desert sky. It made him think of the full moon they had seen when they first came out of the cave. Now the storm was gone and Valerie seemed quieter. He went from the window to the open kitchen door and closed it, first moving aside a good deal of sand. When he was finished he went over to Val and took her hand.

"I can see my body again," she said.

"I'm glad." Don kissed her on the mouth and she felt it.

In the morning, Don uncovered the statue and shoveled the sand out of the kitchen.

When he finished his yoga practice, he sat to think things through while Valerie continued to meditate.

In his mind, he conjured up the face of the child heroine of his bedtime story. "Desmonina looks a lot like Val,' he thought. It was true: the large seeking eyes, the high cheekbones, and the long smooth blonde hair all reminded him of her. He had seen childhood pictures of his wife; and although she was a little heavier in the photos than he imagined Desmonina to be, they could have passed for sisters, if not twins.

Just as the little girl from the Andes had brought the secret of flight to the warlike Rogs in the story, so had Valerie played the major role in communicating Rongay's teachings to the troubled world. The thought still staggered him. Both of them had a hand in what was becoming a revolution in human thought, and he considered himself to be an ordinary guy.

Letters were pouring in, asking for assignments of personal mantras. Bert sent them bundles of notes addressed to them, asking for initiation. He knew it wasn't time for that yet, since the original mantra--'Peach and Joy, Strength and Health'--still hadn't accomplished its work. However, he wondered when and how they would receive the knowledge or means to supply the rhythms and visualization to all the thousands of prospective initiates who would undoubtably seek them out.

He turned his thoughts back to Valerie and the night before. Using Desmonina instead of her name, he began to describe the beatific transformation he saw her undergo. The words and music came in one big rush:

"She was caught in a sandstorm and then the full moon.

A day to remember, when it flooded her room.

Desmonina come closer--take hold of my hand,

Desmonina come closer--take hold if you can.

"The back door was blown open, and then slowly the sand

Came and covered the statue of her lover man.

Desmonina come closer, and feel what you are.

Desmonina come closer--I'm not so very far.

"And then she felt larger inside of the storm

As the sand held suspended could do her no harm.

Desmonina come closer--and feel your own moon.

Desmonina come closer--she it shine in your room.

"Now they tell her to travel, to leave her desert home

To pack up her rice, and to distantly roam.

Desmonina stays closer--Desmonina stays home.

Desmonina stays closer--Desmonina stays home."

When he finished, Don was anxious that he hadn't made plans to take care of the baby when it was born. There were a few things they needed. Even though Val's parents had sent clothes and blankets, he knew they might need baby bottles and accessories. If Val wasn't there to nurse the child, he would have to carry on. He also wanted to build a simple cradle.

Though Valerie was still in the meditation room, he decided to go into town for wood and baby supplies. He left a note and drove away, leaving a stream of dust behind the yellow Chevy.

When he returned, Val came out of the room. One of her eyes was strangely turned slightly upward as if out of focus.

"I've been thinking of calling Madame Zaratus again to see if she has another suggestion for breaking the spell," Don told her.

"Don't," Valerie replied tersely.

"Why not?" he asked.

"My voice tells me not to resist the curse if there is one. I'm convinced the knowledge our child would gain is worth more than my own life. I'm halfway living in the next world anyway."

Valerie's words shocked him as much as if he had touched a live wire. You'd die just so our baby could have some vague knowledge of the devil?"

"Our child is Rongay," she retorted powerfully. "Rongay could transform the world with that knowledge. I'm certain the evil one would be defeated forever."

Don had his doubts, but didn't know how to respond. She seemed to be speaking with great authority. After a pause, he changed the subject. "How can we explain to your parents that we aren't going to have our baby in a hospital? Maybe we should try to."

"No. I'm writing a note I want you to give them if I die. It explains that it was my idea--having my baby at home. That should keep them from blaming you for my death."

Already she was talking about 'her death'. It was about four months until the ring's effect would be tested, and she talked as if it were all decided.

"I don't want you to die," he said. "I may call Madame Zaratus in spite of what you say."

"Don't," she demanded. "I'll stop you."

Secretly he formulated a plan. If it looked like she was going to die, he could destroy the statue, taking on the risk of his own life to save hers. He wasn't convinced the child's knowledge would be worth her demise.

"You're forgetting that death is just another mask for reality," she said.

"You're right, it's just hard for me to accept," he replied. Tears clouded his eyes.

Valerie saw and came to him with outstretched arms. Don wept, finding comfort in her embrace.

Four months passed without any change in Valerie's determination to die. He resisted calling Madame Zaratus on his own. He held on to his plan to destroy the statue in case she needed help.

They decided to name the child 'Reymosona' or 'Ray', after Mr. Burntree. Although Valerie was convinced she was carrying Rongay, the name 'Ron Armand' just didn't appeal to them. Don wasn't sure it was a boy, but Val insisted so adamantly that they settled on a boy's name.

Without concert performances, progress toward a united world continued by means of their record sales which reached the ten million mark. They gave a lot of the money to charities, saving a good portion for the monastery they wanted to build in Mexico.

In April the President announced he was interested in the mantra, and would try it.

He promised to join in with the other chanters at the 'hour of unity' as they now called it. He urged other world leaders to join in as well. He contended the chant was not religiously partisan since it only used words to describe what everyone wanted. "It is no more that an affirmation of well-being," he said.

Nevertheless, many heads of state turned down the President's suggestion with a flat denial. They claimed the mantra hadn't been the reason for recent progress toward world peace. Skirmishes broke out along the Russian-Chinese border.

One fact world leaders were hard-pressed to explain was the startling improvement in world health since the chanting began. Heart disease was down 30%, and figures for other diseases similarly diminished. Those with faith believed heaven was at last coming to earth. Those who didn't gave science the credit for the change. Day by day showed gains in the adherents to the faithful attitude.

Valerie and Don kept the location of their Arizona home a secret. Religious seekers would have mobbed them with demands for 'mantra filling'. The hopeful wanted a rhythm and visualization to fit their own chosen key words. This movement toward the final step of Rongay's teachings was prompted by the supposed 'success' of the first mantra.

On a sunny June morning, Valerie started to feel contractions. They got stronger and closer together. Everything appeared normal, and she began to breathe rhythmically along with the 'pains'. Don helped her time the space between them.

As the sun rose overhead, the sky began to cloud. Ominous heavy, clumpy formations of grey mist filled the sky. Val shifted to the second phase of natural childbirth.

There was a sudden shift. She could no longer control her breathing and began to writhe in pain, holding on to the bedposts with a steely grip.

"It's out of my control," she said.

"Can you feel his head?" Don asked.

"Yes!" she yelled between contractions. "He's in the canal."

She looked frantic and started to shake. Don draped a blanket around her shoulders in case she was cold, but the trembling didn't stop.

Valerie's face was blue with intensity of the pain. The shifting dark clouds moved heavy shadows over the walls of the room. Don turned on a light. With a heavy crack, the sky opened, and it rained--torrential desert rain, falling in solid sheets to the bajada, obscuring the mountains in the distance.

Valerie screamed, piercing the veil of sound created by the rain. "Don't look at me, Don. Turn away!" she pleaded.

Don turned around.

Val was shouting. "My God. My God! Oh... My God!"

Don started to turn toward her again but was stopped by a desperate "No! Don't look! I don't want you to see me... Die."

Though he wanted so much to see and be with her in the crisis, he followed her wish and remained with his back to her. Then he remembered--the statue!

Rising quickly from his squatting position beside the bed, he hurried into the kitchen where he expected to find the black stone image. It was gone. 'Valerie must have hidden it,' he thought. 'She must have guessed my plan.' He searched the house, finding no trace of the statue.

Grieving, Don returned to the bedroom to see Valerie contorted in an anguished gasp. She crumbed to the bed, lifeless. Looking don between her still legs he saw the child, a boy, beautiful and pink, eyes closed, and reaching for the sky as if saying goodbye.

He checked Val's pulse with no result.

He washed the child in warm water and cut the cord with a kitchen knife, tying it off carefully.

Trying to ignore what had happened, he wrapped the child in the white linen shawl given to them by the Mexican family. He laid it carefully in the simple wooden cradle he had made. It was quiet, but wiggled its feet and hands frantically, as if here were trying out his new body.

Don remembered Valerie and fell to the floor and cried.

The rain stopped a few minutes later, and a fierce wind rose, blowing the dense clouds away. The sun came out.

Remorse-stricken, Don boiled some more water to sterilize a bottle for his child. Valerie's body still lay on the bed.

He filled the bottle with warm mild and picked up the child. 'Ray' soon found the nipple and sucked vigorously. Don could hear his yidam, Arya Tara, directing him to care for the child.

'Hold him gently,' she said.

The next day, Don built a small raised platform for Valerie's burial. It was the closest he could come to a 'Tower of Silence'. He recalled Indians often disposed of the dead that way--it gave him some consolation to know the 'Great Spirit' was watching.

He then called a doctor to come and certify her death. He reassured him he had tried to get her to a hospital. He certified 'natural causes'.

When he left, he wrapped her body in a white wool blanket, surprised to notice rigor mortis had not set in. Her flesh was still soft and supple to his touch. A faint smile still graced her lips.

He took the ring from her finger and carried it out to the back porch. There he destroyed the ivory setting with a hammer, and brought the black stone back in, putting it in the pocket of Valerie's robe.

He carried her limp body to the pine platform and lifter her up to eye level. Placing her arms at her sides and straightening her legs, he left her there--facing the sun.

That day he noticed vultures circling above the platform. He watched carefully for a while, but none of them landed. 'By now they should have done their work,' he thought.

On the second day, no vultures had touched her. Her skin was still as white and soft as when she was alive.

Don sent Valerie's letter to her parents.

Two month's later her body was still unchanged and untouched. Don realized the Zoroastrian method of platform burial was not performing its function. Eventually her flesh would meet the earth anyway. 'Besides,' he thought, 'her body had decayed so little, if at all, that it seemed possible it would never 'pollute' the earth at all.' Buried her in a wooden coffin in the sandy soil.

Little 'Reymosona' had acquired a strange habit. Every so often he clapped his hands in a repetitive rhythm. Three claps, then a pause. He only did this when Don was looking at him, and then the child stared deep into his eyes.

It took Don several days to comprehend the meaning of the strange clapping. In the meantime, he felt an urge to choose his own mantra. He was drawn to the word 'forgiveness'. There was nothing he wanted more for himself and others. To forgive man for war. To forgive him for nearly destroying the planet with pollution and thoughtlessness. To forgive himself for letting Valerie die...

That was it. Ray's three quick claps were the rhythm for his mantra: 'For-give-ness'.

As soon as Don realized that, his sun turned his palms upward in front of him and slowly traced a half circle with his eyes from one hand to the other. Over and over the child clapped and moved his eyes in a perfect arc. Don's mantra had been 'filled.

He went to his guitar and sang the following song without hesitation:

"My love is a legend, a tale that's just begun.

Within her's a babe, sleeping in the sun.

So walk by on tiptoe, and do not disturb;

The sensitive ones, they don't speak a word.

A nursery rhyme in the time of our youth,

An upside-down crying that speaks of the truth,

Not without pain--not without pain.

"I remember the hours, they were hours of anxious weight,

And sometimes I felt the deed had come too late,

For a cancer is growing lodged deep in my mind,

To believe is not knowing, and knowing is blind,

My love has conceived as the seed falls to earth.

We live in the moment, the moment of birth.

Not without pain--not without pain.

"Like Orpheus of old I lust to turn and view

While the devil of pain paints scenes of grey and blue.

The ivory setting, the ebony stone,

My love she is buried. I grope for her bones.

In a world of names, my babe has but one,

So I'll live in my sorrow and call him my son,

Not without pain--not without pain."