Joan Groves - The Last Island

Then he continued.

“He took it with him. When he left, he simply took it with him. He picked it up and came through the gate with it in his hand. It is as simple as that.”

Then I spoke. “You mean to tell me that you believe that? That he picked it up off the ground . It was bitten and he walked away with it. Is that what you are telling me? Is that what you really think? And, is that what caused the fate of those drowned dead men? Is that what you are saying? Is it? Is it?” I questioned him.

“What I am saying is that there are drowned men out there and some are dead because of it. It did not cause them to die but it caused some of them to drown,” the Deacon said.

He was certain, now, that I had knowledge. The population of the room was he and I.

“Men die. Some die out of the plan and design and die due to the fact that they try to force their life through their own desire. That is what happened to my buddy. He wanted it more than he wanted his own life,” the Deacon said.

“ It did not rot,” I said.

“ It came from the other side of ‘The Gate of God’ and it is incorruptible.”

I was now enslaved and paralyzed.

The Deacon continued.

“ It was spirited from Ur and hidden away for three generations. It became meaningless but because it did not rot or show corruption from year to year it became a curiosity and was eventually sold for supplies in Egypt. The Egyptians—simple native people at the time—became in days an empire. It was traded for seed. From it the seed of Egypt came that allowed for an Empire. His name in English is Lion. And, it gave him wisdom and the title of the deed to earth. And, he claimed his deed and watered his field with the blood of many people. Being wise, he kept the secret of his wisdom but he kept it in plain sight. There it was in view but the wisdom of it was unknown except to him and he died not telling his heirs.

“It was there. It became nothing more than a royal relic.

“Then the wisest of all men realized what it was. Having read an ancient scroll he set out upon a quest to reclaim it for it was his ancestor that had first claimed it by right of ownership. It was in the possession of the Queen of Sheba and was just an artifact. In reverse, as the ancient ones from the east had traded it for seed grain to gain life, she would go east and trade it for his seed to gain life. She desired to be the fertile field of his wisdom.

“Being the only person with the wisdom of it he used it, he abused it, and he always kept it hidden in the foundation of his great temple under the empty place. It was secure in the empty place of the great foundation stone of the palace.

“The bargain with the Queen of Sheba was fair because she conceived and bore a son, his seed, from this most wise man, a king. She went west with his seed and it was again in the land of the original possessors.

“That was the secret of the Sphinx. It allowed for the wisdom of man or it allowed for the behavior of a beast. It never allowed for both. It allowed for a choice—good or evil. It did not allow for one to choose good and evil. Therefore the Sphinx sits in the sands pondering its predicament. The Lamassu has chosen—look upon its face. And, the Griffin with its wings tries to avoid a choice. They are stone. They are protohumanoid minds, after all.

“In 1899, Koldeway told Schliemann of his findings from the scroll. It was most unwise. Schliemann, wanting to keep it to himself, killed his half-brother Koldeway.

“Schliemann, although a murderer, was however no fool. He was intelligent and schooled and had done research for decades but his most useful, practical, functional, and valuable trait was that he was a Nazi. And, being a Nazi, he realized a lie when he was told or read one. The lie was the Holy Grail. As the acquisition of Austria and the invasion of Poland was based upon a lie, the Holy Grail was also.

“The Knights Templar were looking for it. Not the Holy Grail—they were looking for it and a cohort of knights found it.

“Knowing the authority, supremacy, and dominance that it could be utilized to achieve, the cohort sent out one band of three knights with the cover story of the Holy Grail; another band of three knights was sent out mysteriously in silence; and the last band of three knights simply walked out as common folk with it .

“Everyone was hunting for the Holy Grail of the first Knights, or perhaps the treasure map of the second group of knights, but the last knights who had it were obvious and with them it was hidden in plain sight. If you can recall, Richard went to the east with a red cross on his shield but came back to the west with a lion—a lion—on his shield.

“Looking at Richard on horseback, does not he have the appearance of a lamassu?

“The flames of the inquisition opened closed mouths and what had been a clandestine secret in a dark room was now an open actuality and became the thing of royal desire and royal craving. It was taken to the edge of the realm and then out of the realm and placed in a dark foundation. It was a place in secret and lost from sight. Herr Schliemann uncovered the secret of it and then unearthed it.”

There was light, a beam highlighting the Deacon’s face, but he did not blink and bathed most comfortably in the rays. The Deacon’s eyes reflected the fullness of the light and the iris of his eyes became the color of root beer with pupils of true blackness.

“Herr Schliemann has dissolved into the stuff of the ocean and so has his fantasy, as the dreams and fantasies of them all. All the builders of huts, builders of cities, and the builders of empires endeavor to claim it, then clasp it, then control it, and finally it consumes the builders of huts, the builders of cities, and the builders of empires. Some are dust in the desert floors, some are dust of the fields, and some are dust on the floor of the ocean.”

I knew what it was. I looked at John Henry and then I looked at Manta and I wondered if either or both had come to the fathoming of it.

We were less than what we had been.

“Tell me—” John Henry began.

But the Deacon cut her off and began to speak.

“From the first there have been lies and greater lies about it. The smile of the Sphinx, the bastard child of a king and queen, October thirteenth, and Nazi submarines were all lies to bury truth in stone, to bury it in flesh, to bury it in a day of the week, and to bury it in steel. I buried it in what was on this island—folklore and water.

“Yes, before you ask it—it is real and it is true.”

Then Manta began to question him.“The hot spot, the slaver, and the U-Boat—”

The Deacon cut him off as he had cut off John Henry.

“The hot spot was there first. The old slaver fell on top of it and the U-Boat fell on top of the slaver. Just numbers, Manta—not magic or supernatural at all. There is great evil there on the floor of the Deep, for sure. Those poor drowned slaves are out of their misery, yeah, but those slavers are drowning each day in the fires of hell and Herr Schliemann and those Nazis are suffering because in death they now know that they were never alive. The irony of it is so elemental that it plays out the essence of first knowledge.”

“What the—” I said it, but John Henry and Manta were thinking it, too.

Ironic! The fire from Hell and the hot spot from the sea of Chaos procreated and bred the drowned ground. Yeah, Manta’s false gods and John Henry’s real fear were there alright—it was on their faces and in their souls. The Deacon was no better, no less than a Sphinx. But, we all knew and grasped the fact that the last elemental portion was missing—the air that was in the breath of our lives. We all inhaled deeply except for the Deacon.