A story that I began to write, years ago, was mentioned by the guys. It occurred to me, a sample might be of interest. Here is the first chapter of the six or seven I wrote.
The Stone
Book One Redirection
Chapter One. Insertion
Only minutes remained. Less than a mile away the last defeated remnants were sacrificing themselves to buy these minutes. Still the body wasn’t quite dead, and it must be quite dead before he could move. He must not risk breaking the connection in the final moment.
Closer, now. Very close. The enemy were chasing. Die, oh friend! Finish your dying, quickly. Die, while there is still time!
There was no pulse. There was no faintest haze of breath on the glass. But he was painfully aware that he did not have the training to see, and he must not try to rush the moment. Good intentions did not mend marred pots, or failed crops.
All that noise! The heavy clumping of hooves, the sound of steel against steel, men’s curses and shouts, unheard even by themselves, quickly getting louder as the retreat became a rout. They were here. A fast glance – they were in sight, riding men down, killing, killing. Now, or not at all. A later age – ours – would have said “now or never.” He picked up the stone, and his bow and quiver, and ran.
“If possible,” he had been told, “bring the stone to safe-keeping among friends. If that cannot be done, then at least keep it from them. I will have quite enough to do to avoid them without giving them a physical focus.”
He ran, one man afoot running from many men on horseback. But there were others between them and him, and they all required killing, and all were making a hard job of it. They might buy him just enough time, though they would not know why they were laying down their lives to buy seconds. He might make it away. Not likely, but possible. Barely possible. He ran.
If they had been on their own island! They knew that island. Fleeing, they might have had time enough. Or if the raiding party hadn’t come just while they were here on Mull, or hadn’t spotted them here, to come swooping in like the sea-born spawn of hell that they were! So long a time preparing, to be undone by a chance encounter. The devil’s work, surely.
The woods were too far. He ran toward the small river. A current could carry a man far, fast. Perhaps –
Despite the danger of losing his footing, he could not stop himself from looking back, and so he actually saw the man decide on him. In an age of gunpowder, he would have been dead in an instant – but then, in an age of gunpowder everything would have been different and perhaps intelligence would have made a better stand against overwhelming numbers. He ran faster, visualizing himself reaching the water before the rider could reach him.
But he was only an apprentice, half trained. In a blinding instant he was no longer able to see himself reaching the river. It was like a blow on the shoulders, staggering him, though the rider was still out of reach behind him. He struggled against the knowledge, but he knew, as the rabbit knows just before its bones are snapped in the fox’s jaws.
Gasping now, stumbling, he saw that he would not reach the river. So close! The man was well within bowshot; apparently he preferred to ride him down. But they must not obtain a physical focus! Could he throw the stone into the river? Too far! Too far!
And it was as though he was hearing his dead friend and teacher telling him what to do. He did as a despairing warrior might do who still hoped to escape. Still running full speed, he dropped the stone, and after three more running steps, threw down bow and quiver. He was jerking at his sheath-knife when the long sword’s downward hack cut him nearly in two. He could feel the man’s exultation and derision – “didn’t lighten up fast enough, sonny!” – and then body and soul separated and he passed fully conscious to the other side.
The rider wheeled his horse and found others to pursue. He was not able to return to the body until the killing was done, and by then it was late afternoon. He found the bow and quiver easily enough, and found the knife where it had fallen when pulled out of its sheath. He took the man’s boots and pants for trade, leaving the remnants of the shirt, which was as torn as the body. The stone he did not find, not least because he did not know to look for it. It had fallen among bushes, in no obvious spot. Besides, he was guiding the man’s mind to assure that he would not think to look.
Fortune assisted foresight. The stone was not seen and was not looked for. Only two people had known what he was doing, and both of them were safely disembodied.
.2.
We have been calling it merely “the stone,” but it was not just any stone. It was a piece of quartz crystal, and choosing it had cost the man a certain amount of thought. Of course it had to have the ability to hold, but the man’s plans imposed other requirements as well. The volume of material needed meant that it could not be so small as to be inconspicuous, yet it must not be too large to be carried by a fleeing man – or woman. It must not be polished or look in any way worked, lest it draw the attention of the unknowing, who might in turn draw the attention of others less innocent. It must be clean – that is, it must never have been used – lest by cleaning it to prepare it he draw the attention of someone at the time, or someone later casting backwards.
He had spent years, such was his foresight, quietly searching for what he needed as he went about his other duties. He had found several possibilities, had come to three that would suffice in a pinch, and had settled finally on one of the three because he liked it and responded to it – which was indicator enough. He had worked with it carefully, had wrapped it in soft cloth sometimes and other times held it for a quarter of an hour or so, meditating, letting his essence flow into it, developing an affectionate relation with it. He went nowhere without it, which as it turned out was just as well.
It was a broken-off stone that weighed a pound and more. Four inches long at its longest, it had six irregular sides. At the end opposite the broken-off end it came to a point. Looking down on it from the point, it looked like a hexagon formed of the pieces of two or three hexagons of different sizes. No three sides were the same width, nor were any two opposing sides the same width. One day, out of curiosity, he measured the width of the sides: 1¼ inches, 1½, 1, 1¾, ¾, 1½. Nor did the sides come up to the point in any way more regular. To the point from whatever the angle made when the sides changed from parallel to converging, he measured ¾ inch, 1, 2½, 2½, 2½, 1¼.
No symmetry whatsoever. But he liked the way it fitted in his hand. He held it with the broken-off edge down, supported by his little finger, the point sticking up between his thumb and circling three fingers, cradling the widest sides against his palm, the way it fitted most naturally.
The interior had texture – that is the way he thought of it. The stone was no more uniform internally than externally, and he liked that. It was neither uniformly transparent, nor uniformly translucent, nor uniformly opaque, but an interesting jumble. Overall it gave the impression of transparency sinking into translucence. In one place near the point, and in another through the three narrowest three sides in a place near the broken-off end, it was nearly transparent. And along almost all the surface it gave the impression of transparency to a varying degree. Here the eye seemed able to penetrate a tenth of an inch, a quarter of an inch; here and there, half an inch or more, till it reached the milky vagueness within that seemed like the surface of the sea as seen from overhanging cliffs. Where this milky texture lay at the surface, the eye found no entry. Where the eye did enter, it found internal fracture lines like membranes, as clear and definite and thin as surgical scars. They seemed to mark fault-lines. Tap here, they seemed to say, to break this fragile unity.
.3.
The man’s given name is lost to us. To his colleagues he was known as Father Bertram. He was a monk of Iona, living in the time of Charlemagne, 200 years after the death of Columba, the founder of the island’s monastery.
Bertram was a monk, but he was many things besides that. For one thing, he was what he today might call a sorcerer, or magician – a white magician, to be sure, but after all the chief difference between white magic and black is intent. One seeks the highest good, the other seeks for self. All differences, all consequences, follow inexorably.
Now, “magician” must not be thought to mean “conjuror,” or “charlatan.” As a magician – though he probably would have objected to being so described – he knew how to manipulate reality to make it conform to his intent. As magician he knew how to wield immense powers. Yet his magic was so severely constricted by his scruples, so bound within the search for wisdom and grace, that he might perhaps be better described as a magus, one armed with the results of his search for wisdom.
Part of his learning – part of his magical power as well, to put it in such terms – came out in his remarkable healing abilities, unusual even for that time and tradition.. He was a sorcerer and healer, and, without contradiction, a priest of the church, subscribing to its doctrines, obedient to its disciplines, partaking in its fellowship, invested with its authority. Hr took his responsibilities seriously and cherished the support he received from the church in his spiritual and intellectual strivings.
His was the Christianity of the Celtic west, a tradition all but lost to memory. The Roman church had unavoidably been molded by Roman imperial habits, Roman authoritarianism, Roman bureaucracy. The Western church knew none of these. The mainland had known the heavy tread of the Roman legions, and had fallen to the darkness that had followed where the legions had been pushed back. But the Western Isles had known neither the legions nor the darkness. During the long decades when the heirs of the vanished empire had struggled to preserve any vestiges of learning, the Western Isles had quietly flourished, the church organized around individual holy men whose authority stemmed mainly from their personal qualities. Far away on the mainland, where Charlemagne was being crowned Holy Roman Emperor, his monks like Alcuin were feebly beginning a rebirth of learning after the long centuries of darkness. But Alcuin and others like him had come from Ireland, and from Iona, in the days of their greatness.
But the late 700s were an evil time for the Holy Island. The last years of Bertram’s life were spent in the shadow of the Viking raids that began in 794, raids that increased in severity year on year. In the first raids, the Vikings had learned how defenseless were the prey, and how rich the plunder. Every year they returned in greater strength, with unslaked blood lust. And one year when the raiders came, some of the monks were not on Iona but on Mull, the large island to the east, gathering herbs. The monks had looked up to see the terrifying longships, and had taken up arms even knowing that it was the end. They had served to delay, as Bertram and his servant Joseph fled inland, needing time.
The monastery on Iona would not be abandoned for nearly another half century, but already the island had ceased to be a center of learning and wisdom, and had become a revered relic, besieged and helpless, with no possible protector to appeal to. Charlemagne’s kingdom was far away, and had no peaceful contact with the sea. For the long decades of Viking supremacy, civilization lived inland, and looked to seas or rivers never with hope, only with relief or dread. For all that time, the Isle of Mull, like Iona, lived in isolation, with few remaining inhabitants and nothing to tempt new ones. And for all that time the stone lay unseen and unregarded, where it had fallen.
.4.
Of the kingdom of the dead, many people have said many things. Some of these things are true things seen clearly and interpreted truly. Some are true things seen dimly, interpreted badly. Some are a mixture of true things and distortions, or hallucinations. Some are things glimpsed, but then so thoroughly mingled with pre-existing ideas and assumptions as to become unrecognizable. And some are lies, proceeding from one of two sources. Either they are produced by people pretending to know what they do not, or they are the work of the father of lies, seeking to sow confusion that he may harvest fear.
Leaves fall on the forest floor, and are covered by new layers. Rain and time change what had been a mass of individual elements into a matting. It becomes more or less one thing, made from long accumulations of smaller disconnected things. So it is with our heritage of truth and falsehood and interpretation. Each generation is faced with the impossible task of weighing all these beliefs, all these “facts,” for truth or falsity. Of course it cannot be done. At best we can examine any small section of the forest floor, and that superficially and haphazardly. For all the rest, we rely on authorities and accept what our generation accepts. What can most of us decide about inadequate generalizations commonly accepted? What can we know of epicycles, or gravity, or phlogiston? We can know so little, and can adequately weigh so much less!
When the Viking sword sent Joseph headlong to the land of the dead, it sent a Christian with Christian beliefs, simple and definite. Joseph knew that he was going to judgment, and – if God in His mercy pardoned his many weaknesses – was then going to heaven, where he would be reunited with his parents, his dead brother, and his friends – not least Father Bertram, who had preceded him by so short a time. Beyond these few ideas, Joseph had no very definite expectations, but these ideas were firmly fixed.
Being dead, he at first experienced what he expected to experience, for it is the law that what we have within us is all that we can see around us. Fortunately for our potential growth, we are far more than we commonly suspect, and so we have far more within us than our individual conscious mind ever recognizes. Thus there are always surprises.
First came judgment, and of course he initially experienced it as he had so long pictured it.. There before him was a luminous being radiating love and compassion and a calm clear awareness of who and what Joseph was. To put it in terms the senses could relate to, the being was shining. Joseph had never felt himself in the presence of such love and acceptance. He was overwhelmed, awed, and he totally forgot to be afraid. When alive he had feared Judgment Day, knowing in sad detail how little good he had done, and – what was worse – how much evil he had done by many small acts of commission or omission. Alive, he had shuddered, knowing that his hope lay not in God’s justice but in his mercy – wondering, despite himself, which would prevail.
The content of Joseph’s judgment is no business of ours. Suffice it to say that in an instant that cannot be made to occupy a time, he saw the pattern of his life and saw it in every detail, and saw what it had amounted to. Only then did the surprises begin.
For one, he discovered that he (and his time) had mistaken the nature of the judgment. It was not judgment followed by a verdict of guilt or innocence, but discernment. He had seen with new eyes. He had seen, now, so much that until now he had not seen, or had seen only from too limited a point of view. The things that had been hidden were now plain to him, and for the first time he understood the life that he had shaped. He had never had such insight. He could have done so much! And yet he could see that he had done his best with very limited awareness. It wasn’t a question of passing a test or failing, and it never had been. It was about choosing what he was going to be.
“Precisely, my friend. That is the question. What are we going to be?”
The luminous being was gone – and there was Father Bertram!
“Father,” he said, again overwhelmed, “I am so glad to see you!”
Bertram placed his hands on Joseph’s shoulders. They seemed solid hands, solid shoulders. “And I am glad to see you, beloved brother.” Joseph forgot, for the moment, questions that would arise again later – questions like, how could Father Bertram be in heaven (assuming that that is where they were) and at the same time be mingled in the stone?
.5.
It was as if they were sitting in a cool spot shaded by trees. Before them, seemingly, lay the ocean. They might have been back on Iona on a summer’s afternoon.
“It strikes me, father,” Joseph said, “how nothing of this surprises you.”
“That is because I remember and you as yet do not. But call me Bertram. We have lived as Bertram and Joseph, and this relationship will provide us with a comfortable background to be going on with – but you needn’t call me father, and needn’t regard me as having authority over you. That belongs to the life we have quitted.” (Of course, it must be understood that Bertram’s words were not spoken in Latin – although for the moment to Joseph they seemed to be. They were, shall we say, spoken in “thought.” For that matter, his words were not spoken at all, speech being a matter of air and vocal cords. Again, though, that is how Joseph perceived it. Identifying still with the life and body he had just quitted, he could not easily have done otherwise. Nor did he stop to consider it.)
Joseph smiled. (And, of course, he did not smile. As speech is a matter of vocal cords and air, so smiling is a matter of facial muscles. But, again, this is how it seemed to him, just as it seemed that they sat out in the afternoon sun, and it is more convenient to speak of it “as if” than to continually be saying “but of course this is only how it seemed to him.” Psychologically it was real, as a dream is real, and who is to say that how we experience physical life is any more real than our experience of dreams?)
So – Joseph smiled. “It will seem strange, calling you by name.”
“It hardly matters, in a way. But it does matter if it reduces the distance between us. Too much reverence can be as alienating as contempt. We have a long time, and difficult circumstances, to master. It is best to begin as clean and simple as possible. Bad enough to fight the distortions that can’t help coming in because of circumstances.”
Joseph felt the mild summer breeze on his face, and marveled inwardly. His friend picked up his reaction. “Perfect, is it not? You would never know that we were not in the world. While here, you remember, you can create whatever you want, when you want it – or you can create it implicitly by what you are, and let it come to you.”
He did remember. In fact as he turned his attention to the fact, he found that his feeling of the reality of the constrictions of earth was rapidly fading. Why ever do we keep returning there, he wondered. (Aloud? To himself? Here it made no difference. He and Bertram were open books to each other. In a realm where “speech” is not physical but is intent, concealment is impossible and undesirable, and would not even be comfortable.)
“We return because it is only in the world that we can act, Joseph. You remember that.”
Yes, he did. “Whereas here we can only envision, and plan, and influence.”
“That is so. Here we create, and if we don’t like what we have created, or even if we do, it may vanish like the morning dew. What is done in the world, though, stays done, and then we build from where we find ourselves.”
“It seems so constricted, there.”
“Yes it does. Yes it is. So enjoy your little holiday while you have it.”
Joseph pondered his future. “I’m not ready to return yet, that is certain. But of course I will go when it is necessary.” He smiled. “It is very comfortable, not being bound by time.”
Bertram nodded. “Very convenient.” And it was at this point that Joseph remembered Bertram’s circumstances. Bertram responded as if his friend had spoken. “It is true that I poured my essence into the stone. That is no barrier to my being here, any more than your presence in a body will be a barrier to your returning here while you dream. Or rather, it will be no barrier to your dwelling here and there both; it is just that you will not remember, and many things will not come through to you, and much of what does come through will be distorted, and confusing. You will again be seeing through a glass darkly.”
“Which is why you are in the stone, to preserve your consciousness intact.”
“Continuity, yes.”
.6.
They neither one spoke directly of the struggle ahead. Joseph’s next excursion remained to be decided, and since the “what” and the “when” of it – if not quite the “why” of it – would depend upon many choices yet to be made by very many people living in the world, his attention was not yet being drawn back to the six-dimensioned world that he would again experience as three dimensions of space and one of time. Instead he wondered what it was like for Bertram to have his consciousness set in stone.
“Well, I haven’t had a lot of experience with it yet.” (Said smiling.)
“But what did the process feel like?”
If it had been in 3D, there would have been a pause, as Bertram reflected. “Not too different from what happens when we leave here to go back into physical matter, actually. In fact, very similar. It was pouring something from a greater freedom into lesser. I feel more constricted, just as we do when we are going over.”
“Because you can’t move?”
“There isn’t anything to move. My external freedom is absolutely nonexistent. Physically, I can do nothing. Of course, that means that my internal freedom is at its maximum, for the same reason: The greater the external freedom, the less the internal. But I admit, it is an adjustment, getting used to having no movement. More of an adjustment than I had expected.”
“Do you think it is going to work?”.
“Time will tell, won’t it? We can only do our best, and meet the adversary’s moves one by one as they come up. With God’s help we will prevail.”
It occurred to Joseph that Bertram’s remaining connected to the non-physical side of things would give him a universal viewpoint, as well as his local viewpoint, on whatever happened. He would thus remain informed on the greater meaning of whatever went on around him.
“To a degree,” Bertram said. “In the physical world I have quite an acute awareness, but it is limited to my immediate surroundings. As long as I am physically in the midst of things, I will be able to influence them. Being sure that I get to the right place at the right time is your job.”
“Yes. I only pray that I can do my part well enough to meet our needs.” A moment’s thought. “How is it that your perceptions are limited? If you in the stone remain connected to yourself over here, does that not connect you to everyone and everything?”
“It does, but that isn’t quite as helpful as you may think. You know how it is here. Ask and you shall receive – but you need to know what to ask. If I were to ask what is the state of the thinking of half the world, what useful information could I receive? If I were to ask for a complete list of the adversary’s troops and allies, what could I expect as a response? Only a focused question obtains a meaningful answer. So, in practice, I can see already that I am going to be limited to people and events fairly nearby, either physically or at least emotionally or mentally. In practice, I think that amounts to my being affected chiefly by whatever affects those near to me.”
It worried Joseph. “Yes, and that somewhat depends upon me, yet I shall be subject to always forgetting and needing to be reminded.”
The equivalent of a smile. “That is why one of us is in the stone, after all. Don’t worry too much. Have faith. Continuing assistance will be provided. Faithfulness is all.”
Fascinating! More please!
That’s GOOD – can you share more please….and finish the book too?😄