Chapter 27
As six pairs of eyes opened they loosed hands, stretched and scrambled to their feet. Nobody said anything, not even Frank. Gill thought he looked subdued. They gathered in a rough circle facing inwards again and slowly the brilliant whiteness around them seemed to grow until, once more, they could hardly see. This time it was Alicia who turned without turning and moved without moving, and they all put the brilliance and glow behind them, to tread again the rocky path among those barren mountains, downwards to the abyss and the rope bridge across it.
The High Priestess stood beside the bridge. "You have done what you came to do," she said to Alicia. "The way back to earthly reality is clear and easy, and the memory of what you have achieved in time will fade in time."
The bridge was no less fearsome a second time, but no more fearsome either, and they crossed it without problem. Alan went first, then Frank and Steve, followed by Gill and Manjy, with Alicia at the rear and it felt as if some kind of blessing went with them, though none was spoken.
The tree of life consists of paths between the Sephiroth, or aspects of the Creative forces of the universe; aspects of God. When they entered the 'room' that was the Sephira 'Tiphereth' the travellers found it empty. There was still a golden glow, but, as when Gill had led the way back before, no king.
The Sephiroth are not places, they are 'aspects', but the human mind must have symbols with which it can identify, so there was likewise no being on the path to Yesod and none of them even heard an elephant trumpet, much less saw anything in the violet mist. There was nothing on the final path and they came through the laurel wreath, back to reality.
As the first time, the ritual ended as it started, with the banishing ritual. When it was done, Gill and Manjy broke the wool and all of them relaxed a little, like actors after the final curtain of a play.
"So it's all over and the rings are gone," Alicia remarked.
"There's still the amulet," said Gill. "Without the rings it has no real purpose. We can produce that as a part of the excavation. Just erase all mention of the ring from the computer and change the references to it in your diary to 'amulet'."
"I take your point," said Alicia. "That does sound reasonable, I suppose. Nobody but me sees the diary anyway, so nobody will know."
"I don't understand," said Frank, "All that 'tree of life' stuff is subjective and the astral part is non-physical. I can't see where the rings went. It's like a conjuring trick."
"They appeared at Boloña like that, but in reverse," said Manjy.
"I don't know what the secret is either," said Alicia, "but the Professor said it needed a lot of power to send them out of time."
"Talking of time," said Steve, "It's time we were going back."
"Can you find your way?" Gill asked.
"There's enough light from the moon to see everything and the road leads nowhere but home," he answered.
"Seems odd that those rings have been sought so long and attracted power and evil," said Frank, "yet we gave them away as if they were nothing."
"Do you regret that?" asked Manjy.
"Not at all. There was nothing else to do."
"The rings were evil and commissioned from the very start with an evil intent. They could only have been used for evil purposes," Alan observed.
"I'm glad you see it that way," said Manjy.
Day was beginning to break as they packed up and loaded the Landrover. The fine weather seemed to have passed and it was spotting with rain as they clambered in. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds by the time Steve had turned the vehicle around and he was forced to drive carefully on the tracks. By the time he reached the road it was raining harder but getting light and by the time they arrived at the camp, there was a steady downpour.
Steve brewed cocoa all round and broke open another box of biscuits, while Gill cut wedges of bread and jam. They sat about the cabin for this impromptu meal while the steady rain beat down, still thinking much but saying little.
When the local men reported for work, Alicia saw no point or possibility in work that day, there was just too much rain, so she sent them home. This enabled the rest of the team to catch up on some sleep.
As she said, archaeologically speaking, they had actually done very well. The entrance had been found, the passage cleared, the damaged house excavated completely, the second house taken apart, excavated and reconstructed and the third and fourth houses uncovered. By the time the dig was finished for the season at least the third house would have been reconstructed and a fifth one excavated.
The autumn would be spent in analysis of the finds and the writing up of Alicia's thesis. All mention of the ring would, of course, have gone but there would still be the talisman and that strange pattern to record. The team would probably break up once this year's dig was over, but the caravans and cabin would stay for further excavation of the site next year. Although there were still some weeks to go, Alicia couldn't escape the feeling that the real work was done.
Gill listened to the beating of the rain on the caravan roof and lay in Steve's arms.
"I am all women and you are all men," she said, thinking back to the words they had heard the night before. "That's a rather strange idea, but I do sort of feel like all women at once when I give myself to you, like I did in this place once before. I want to love you totally and completely."
"And I want to love you just as completely, like I did in another place in another life," answered Steve. Gill felt comfortable and fell asleep smiling.
Frank was listening to the rain as well, and thinking that at least in the Yucatan peninsula the rain was warm and that was quite a good reason to stick to the Mayas in future.
Manjy wasn't listening to the rain at all, she was thinking that a compromise with her family now looked probable. Neither Alan nor Alicia heard rain, because they were already both asleep.