“Help? From Grale and Mern? What will three iron-age armies do against an enemy who has the potential to annihilate an entire species overnight and can travel the skies?” Montague asked.
“We have something they need to acquire first—Volpi blood. But this will only delay their plans. If we had three kingdoms united together to fight for the same belief, the mind can transcend any kind of magic in all the worlds of Men. Awareness is a powerful tool, more than any human realizes. However, I’m not talking about help from anyone on this planet. Only an ascended master can help defend a misguided civilization, and since the Nekrums’ quarantine acts to prevent my kind from traveling in or out of the planet, we need help from a being powerful enough to break through. I was lucky to incarnate before the quarantine was placed.”
Montague had heard this many times before. Burton wanted to conjure a spiritual being, one who had experienced both the depths of darkness and the ascensions of love, into the world. He had told Montague that neutral beings were considered to be the most powerful in the higher dimensions. They were also known as the calmest, most patient, and largely, peaceful beings in the universe. Burton was once part of a spiritual collective with the entity he was trying to contact. Together they’d freed enslaved races from predatory attacks before. And on this day and at this hour, the Kejin Mountain was perfectly aligned with the star cluster in which the message needed to be sent.
“We have one chance. We must do this right. There are both angels and demons eager to enter the physical world. If we succeed, it is up to you to enlighten the angel to truth. If we fail, you must face the demon in my absence.”
Montague started pacing around, rubbing his head. “Now you are talking about dangerous magic. Well, for me. Burton, you are asking me to face a demon, alone. I have never done anything like this before. What if I fail?” he choked up.
“Of all the humans I have met in all the lives I have lived, I have never met anyone as strong as you,” Burton said. “Not physically, but mentally and emotionally.”
“Sensei, don’t be silly. You’ve taught me everything I know.”
“But I haven’t taught you everything that I know. I have kept certain things from you, only to protect you. I am sorry, Montague. I realize now that I was wrong for not trusting you completely. Because I do trust you—I always trusted you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Never mind now. I’ll tell you everything at another time. There are few of us left who know and believe the truth. But you are the only one to handle this, Montague. If I could, I would protect this world for all eternity. But I’m afraid the laws of the third dimension will not allow that.”
In the middle of the hollow space there was a large bowl-shaped stone filled to the brim with water. Burton held his hand over the undulating surface and stretched out his fingers. “Do you have Gabriel’s Dairy with you?”
“No. It’s at home in the same place I put it the day you gave it to me. I never take it with me on long journeys—just in case.” Montague remembered that day like it was yesterday. The documentation of Man’s history, preceding Planet Naan, felt ten times heavier when Burton had placed it in his hands. From that moment, he knew that he accepted the responsibility of keeping it hidden from an advanced species that would kill anything that prevented them of finding it. The feeling of becoming the diary’s caretaker had been overwhelming at the least.
“Good. I figured so,” said Burton.
“Why?”
“It can act as a conduit in sending messages far and wide. So now I need you to concentrate, Montague. Hold your hand out over the stone.” Burton closed his eyes and spoke softly under his breath. “Help me imagine what is happening here and everything that I have showed you about the Nekrums.”
The water inside the stone started to glow and bubble violently. The turbulence caused the water to spill out and splash all over their boots, leaving behind an empty concave stone. A radiant light blasted straight up from the empty bowl, passing through their hands and out from the tip of the mountain, up to the sky and beyond the stars, into the heavens. It carried both Burton and Montague’s thought forms of the situation on their planet, Naan, along with one simple request: HELP.
After a few minutes the light abruptly went out. Darkness returned and the wind in the cave subsided.
“Go home,” Burton said. “Secure the diary. I need to check more crop and cattle fields. I’ll fill you in along the way. Keep your mind open. I’ll come find you.”
Without question, Montague picked up his bag and torch with its struggling flame. “I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but given your condition, are you able to get out of here without a light?”
Burton laughed. “I wouldn’t be much of a light being if I couldn’t.”
When Burton Lang returned to Illyrium, the place he’d once called home, there was almost nothing left. It was the day after the greatest flood the kingdom had ever seen.
In the royal gardens on the castle hillside, he sank his boots into the sodden soil and watched the bloated bodies drift lifelessly along the surface of the murky water. Where once stood
