by JM HART
About The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition
Reality disintegrates when the emerald tablet is stolen from the tomb of Thoth. Seven teenagers – with untapped spiritual gifts - must unit to return the Tablet before the universe implodes.
What if you had untapped supernatural abilities? What if you could manipulate time and space and open doorways into a parallel universe? Or move things with your mind? The Emerald Tablet- Omnibus Edition combines Shadows of Doubt, Immersion and Convergence. Humanity’s fate resides in the hands of seven young teenagers — Sophia, Casey, Kevin, Jade, Tim, Shaun and Rachel — whose untapped spiritual gifts include telekinesis, astral travel, telepathy, prophecy, and travel between worlds. The universe is inexorably pushing them to harness their abilities to save Earth. An archaeological team discovers the tomb of Thoth. Unaware that the Emerald Tablet of Thoth is a seal keeping closed the gate to Hell, Grady steals the Emerald Tablet, to sell and pay for what he hopes will be a cure, to save his dying wife. Grady's son, Shaun, is with him at the dig site, becoming a terrified witness to the exodus of a dense mass of shape-shifting micro-beasts from the tomb of Thoth. With the seal to the underworld removed, these parasitic beasts are free to pursue their one goal: to consume humankind, the inhabitants of God’s ‘seventh world’. The veil between our world and the world of ghosts, lost souls, and demons is disintegrating. While the angels do battle above, the seven teenagers fight their own personal demons to overcome all obstacles and find the Emerald Tablet. It must be returned to its rightful place before the last blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, or there will be no new year to celebrate.
Contents
About The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition
Dedication
Epigraph
The Emerald Tablet: Shadows of Doubt
1 Mephitis pestilence: Shaun. Israel.
2 Ten years later: Casey. Utah, USA.
3 Possession: Sophia. Scotland
4 King-hit: Kevin. Australia.
5 The morning star: Jade. South Carolina, USA.
6 Prophecy: Casey. Utah USA.
7 Beyond reality: Kevin. Australia.
8 Primal scream: Sophia. Scotland.
9 Doorways to a parallel dimension: Shaun and Kevin. Australia.
10 Infected: Casey. England.
11 Illusions: Kevin. Australia.
12 Astral travel: Sophia. Scotland.
13 Interdimensional travel: Kevin. Australia
The Emerald Tablet: Immersion
1 Metatron: Casey. England.
2 Frenzy of flies: Jade. Australia.
3 Pestilence’s fusion: Sophia. Scotland.
4 S = k log W: Jade. Australia
5 Celestial warriors: Sophia. Scotland.
6 Doorman for death: Shaun. Australia.
7 Echoes of the dead: Casey. England.
8 The talking stick: Jade. Australia.
9 Labyrinth of darkness: Casey. England.
10 Order amongst chaos: Jade. Australia.
11 Seeds of existence: Casey. England.
The Emerald Tablet: Convergence
1 Intrusion: Kevin. Australia.
2 Extraction: Shaun. Australia.
3 Knights at the long table: Casey. England.
4 Windows in time: England
5 Melting pot: England
6 The she-devil: England
7 Destitute: England
8 Deliverance: Egypt
9 Maze of Machpelah Cave: Hebron
10 Tomb of Thoth.
11 Jewels of God.
12 Light of the endlessness.
Epilogue: Become the creator.
Glossary
Acknowledgment
About JM Hart
Copyright
I dedicate this book to my daughter Bianca – never stop dreaming.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
William Shakespeare.
The Emerald Tablet: Shadows of Doubt
1
Mephitis pestilence: Shaun. Israel.
Shaun moved his legs in a scissor motion, kicking his heels rhythmically against the boulder; he felt each impact pulse down his feet to his toes. He heard the vibrations of the red string protecting the excavated sites being plucked by the same wind blowing the sand off the tips of the dunes. The area, empty of working archaeologists, was eerily quiet. Shaun imagined the sand spirits whispering, moving like ghosts in the sun’s glare. Ignoring his fear he started humming, mimicking the resonance of the red string.
He’d been desperate to accompany his father on a dig such as this one, but it wasn’t turning out as he’d imagined. Each time he’d begged his dad to go, he’d been told, “You’re too young! When you’re older; Mom needs you.” His dad had promised to take him on adventures Shaun read about in books, but Shaun felt the emptiness of those promises. Sensing his mother’s pain and hopelessness, he’d craved to escape the dark cloud that enveloped her.
Then, after only a few days back home in Australia after his dad had been gone for weeks, he had told him, “I believe I’ve found a cure for your mother; though I have to leave one more time.” However this time, he’d been forced to take Shaun with him.
Shaun was wishing he was home at his mom’s bedside. He closed his eyes and imagined he was resting his head on her chest. He could smell the perfumed air of her room and feel the gentle stroke of her hand on his head as she softly hummed a tune. Hours had passed since his dad and the other archaeologists had disappeared into the cave. He was in awe of his dad, but scared of him at the same time. Feeling dread creep up on him, he shivered, shifted on the boulder and pitched stones at the trucks, pretending he wasn’t anxious. The red desert behind him gave him the jitters big-time. He was glad he had company, even if it was a girl: Rachel, the daughter of the head archaeologist, his dad’s boss. She was sitting next to him on the boulder, chewing the ends of her long, wavy black hair. Rachel sat scanning the desert mountains that faced the distant blue haze of the Dead Sea. He followed her eyes, watching them double back to the track that was covered with sand and stone. It snaked down and around the side of the mountain, to the caves where their fathers had gone. To distract her he gave her half of his sandwich. She flattened the bread, squashing the slices together.
Earlier in the day, Shaun had seen her hiding on the back of one of the trucks. He’d spotted her peeking out from under the tarpaulin. He’d watched her as she cautiously wriggled over the side and jumped off. Seeing him, she’d frozen, knitted her eyebrows together pleadingly and put a finger up to her lips to beg him to stay silent. She must’ve sensed he wasn’t a threat, because she’d suddenly slid under the truck like a baseball player sliding into home plate, and as soon as the archaeologists had left, she’d just as quickly — like a lizard — crawled out from under the truck and run after them.
Shaun had sprinted after her. He’d found she was taller than him, and fast, but he was faster. She must be at least a year older, he’d thought as he got closer; at least eight. She’d been wearing hiking boots and a pretty lilac floral dress that was covered with smudges of dirt. Shaun had grabbed her by the arm, and she’d jerked to a stop at the entrance to the cave. He wanted to stop her following the men. He’d been afraid she’d get lost; mostly, however, what he’d really feared was being alone in the desert.
Rachel had shaken her arm free and stared fiercely into his face. He’d brushed his straight, sweaty dark hair out of his eyes. She’d looked back down into the mysterious cave. They could no longer hear her father or the other men. In a display of fiery anger she’d ranted and raved in her own language, waved her arms about madly, and stomped on his shoe.
She’d then suddenly stopped t
o size him up, tilting her head to the left, then the right and then back again, as if she was trying to work out what the image in an abstract painting was meant to be.
Shaun thought she looked at him as if there was something unusual about him. Whatever she’d been thinking passed and she smiled. “Rachel,” she said with a heavy accent.
A truce. “Shaun.”
Together they now waited in silence for their fathers to return. Hours had passed. At first, they hadn’t noticed the time going by, because they’d quickly amused themselves, playing games as if they’d been friends forever. They’d enjoyed seeing who could jump further, run faster and throw higher. They’d taken a large piece of cardboard from a box in the truck and sat on it to race down the side of the dune. Eventually, they’d tired of climbing back up to the top. Shaun was now growing restless seeing the sky turning black.
In the valley, the nights were cold and the days hot. Shaun could feel a wind blowing in from the west and thought of how this day was a spiritual one for the locals. He could clearly hear the sound of the ram’s horn calling across the land, from Metzoke Dragot, or maybe from as far afield as Ein Gedi. He loves the name, it sounds like Jedi. The wind whipped the sand against his legs. He watched Rachel jumping down from the rock, her long hair flowing behind her as she turned towards the golden sand dune. Having been perched on the boulder for so long, Shaun realized his bum was getting sore and his feet were throbbing from kicking against the rock. He stood up on the rock to scan the area, looking for any sign of his father, before he slid down to the ground.
They both shivered as the final light of the sun, and the first light of the moon was swallowed up in darkness.
Shaun noticed Rachel had become tense, and although they didn’t speak the same language, he could tell something was wrong. He felt himself shiver again, chilled by the frightening howling of the red string mixed with the distant bellow of the horn. He watched as Rachel pointed to her right, up into the distant sky, where the stars were twinkling brightly, arching off the horizon and up to the heavens. He saw the left part of the sky was empty, nothing but darkness: no stars shined, they were blanketed by a dirty haze, a sandstorm.
He and Rachel began to cough and choke, and he could feel the sand biting at his face and neck. The dust spirits have whipped up around us. Any air that was in the valley has been squashed! He thought.
Rachel tucked her chin into her dress to cover her mouth, and shouted to Shaun, in muffled broken English, “Quick! Come!” She reached for his hand and motioned to him to start running for the cave; they stopped just inside the mouth.
“Papa! Papa!” Rachel shouted into the darkness.
The wind was now blowing at their backs, pushing them forward.
Shaun dug into the pockets of his Levis, searching for his miniature blue LED light. It was a gift from his mother, she’d given it to him the last time she’d been admitted to hospital. She had pulled it out from under her pillow and pressed it into his hand and mumbled, “Turn on … no darkness. Thoughts make merry-go-rounds. We … thoughts control; control thoughts. She will live.” He’d felt sad and embarrassed to hear the jumbled words. He hadn’t understood what she had said, later his dad had explained that the medicine had taken hold and she was no longer coherent.
Shaun flicked the torch on and stepped further into the cave, feeling his throat being scratched by thick, coarse air. Cupping his hand around his mouth, he yelled as loudly as he could, “Dad!”
They sensed the echoes penetrating the earth and traveling under the ancient land towards Mount Zion. They waited, afraid to move.
“Dad!” Shaun repeated. Still no reply.
They walked a bit further in from the entrance, away from the storm, deeper into the old caves. Shaun ran his left hand along the grooved wall, then inhaled sharply and shook his hand in pain. Droplets of blood, like beads, had formed in chains across his palm. It stung like gravel rash. Shaun rubbed the granules of sand and blood on his jeans. “The air’s so gritty,” he said.
Scared and alone, they crouched against the wall and waited. Shaun pointed the torch towards the ceiling, trying not to shine the light in Rachel’s face. They looked at each other, wearing fake smiles to mask their fears. Outside, the storm was raging; inside the cave was deathly silent.
Rachel began to cry and whispered a prayer.
Shaun watched as her mouth moved, but couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Her eyes are emeralds. His dad had given his mom a pair of emerald earrings, but she’d never worn them; they’d stayed a sparkle hidden inside her jewelry box.
He pulled out his Swiss army knife and started drawing in the dirt.
Rachel watched him and slowly picked up a rock to use to finish his pictures of spiral galaxies, joining them together with strong lines into the shape of a kite.
The pitch-blackness of the cave was eased by the glow of the light from his mother’s torch.
The sandstorm began to pass, hard rain started to fall, and their hiding place became illuminated by quick bursts of lightning.
Shaun’s concern that something was wrong increased. He knew his dad hadn’t planned to be gone for so long. Early that morning, Shaun had woken to the tapping sounds of typing. He’d stayed under his bedcovers and had watched his dad on the laptop, booking the flights for tomorrow. They were to head home, back to mom. His dad had been unusually happy and excited, and while Shaun had been picking the sleep out of his eyes, his dad had come over, sat beside him and said, “After today, we’ll be able to afford — and provide — all the good health your mother needs. We’ll have the tablet.”
Rachel moved closer to him, breaking his train of thought. He could smell her hair and see the worry on her face. Both of them were hungry, cold and tired. Bit by bit, Rachel nudged closer, until they were huddling together.
Shaun started to hum a tune his mom had sung whenever he was afraid of a thunderstorm. In the empty cave, his voice sounded delicate and shaky.
With her head on his shoulder, Rachel soon floated off into a restless sleep. Shaun was surprised he wasn’t grossed out, her being a girl and all. At school, the girls were trouble, with their giggling and whispering, but Rachel seemed different.
He began to drift into sleep…
Something probed his mind — a distant sound. He surfaced to consciousness and sat wide-eyed, straining to hear. He gagged, registering a repulsive smell floating in from one of the tunnels like the smell at the garbage tip. He covered his nose and mouth, his eyes watering as the stench grew stronger.
He felt Rachel jolt as if her senses were rocked by the sickly vapors too. On the tail of the stench came the faint sound of screaming, mayhem unfolding, as the odor got closer and stronger. He heard the painful cries of men, as if from a distant battlefield, being amplified from the depths of the cave. As suddenly as the noises of suffering and torture had arisen, they ceased.
Shaun was paralyzed. He stared hard into the tunnel, squinting in an effort to penetrate the murkiness beyond the light of his torch. He bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood. He stood, and shuffled one step forward. The density of the blackness intensified, expanding like oil. It seemed to be moving towards him.
His saliva tasted metallic as if he’d been chewing his necklace and its dangling silver scorpion. He went to spit in the dirt but was stopped mid-spit by an explosion of harsh sound. Slowly he wiped his mouth. Shaun heard a corrosive shrilling within the labyrinth of tunnels. The unbearable screeches pierced his skulls and reverberated in his mind. They clamped their hands tightly over their ears to block the noise that sounded like a swarm of tiny-metallic claws being dragged along the cave’s walls. A message was sent to every part of his mind and body: a signal to run, to scream — anything to escape.
He saw the dense mass move like a snake towards them. He could barely move his thumb over the torch’s black-rubber button to turn it off. The screeching grew louder. Rachel screamed, and Shaun quickly slapped his hand over her mouth. He saw her e
yes were wide and filled with horror. He heard his heart pounding in his ears and felt fear crawling up his spine; out of the corner of his eye, he could see a shimmer of reflective light, like a flock of birds high in a sun-filled sky. That’s when he saw the semi-transparent flying creatures, although he wished to God he hadn’t. They had gilled necks, masses of bubbling lesions on their bat-like faces, vulturine feet, the jagged tail of a scorpion with a sharp arrow-tip, and the wings of a desolate angel. Within seconds, the faces resembling a bat’s changed to a dog’s snout … the creatures were shapeshifting, constantly fluctuating and never completely forming. The air was like soup and the energy was suffocating; it had a vice-like grip around Shaun’s throat.
The tiny beasts were fighting each other: pushing and shoving each other towards the entrance; tearing each other apart. They exploded from the mouth of the cave; a swarm of evil disappeared high into the dark sky. The cave fell silent. Light dancing off the walls was moving closer to them. Somebody coughed in the distance. “Who was that?” Shaun blurted out, looking at Rachel, quickly dropping the hand he had over her mouth. She’s going to cry, he thought. I have to protect her! She looked how he felt: petrified.
They scurried to the other side of the cave and crouched behind a boulder. The silhouette of a man, with a backpack hanging off his shoulder, rushed past them and out into the night. He stood just beyond the entrance, coughing, “Shaun!” the man shouted. “Shaun, where are you?”
Shaun stood up and pulled at Rachel.
She wouldn’t budge.
“Come on!” he whispered. “Let’s go!”
Rachel didn’t move; all she did was shake her head rapidly and move further out of sight.
Shaun stared at her and frowned. She shooed him away and began to cry silently, the tears marked her dirty cheeks. Their eyes met.
Despite the despair she must have been feeling, Rachel smiled.