2. The Book of Knowledge. 5. 5. Dark Tower

The BOOK of KNOWLEDGE,
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

PART 2. ANOTHER REALITY

Day No. 5

CHAPTER 5.5. DARK TOWER

It was hot. I was in a white dress. I got out of my car in the sunshine. He was passing by.

“Ray, hello!” I greeted him.

“Hello, Alice.”

He stopped. We were standing opposite each other on that dirty street drenched in the sunshine.

“Where do you think is the best place to park my broom here?”

We were facing each other. He looked at me keeping silent. Suddenly, I felt something. In his gaze? I didn’t know. I felt something very familiar, close. Something around him. In him. In us. I was silent. So did he. We were just standing opposite each other on the dirty street drenched in the sunshine. I didn’t feel like saying anything to him. I just wanted us to keep standing opposite each other in silence.

I woke up from such a strange dream in the attic of the summer house. The Sun peeked through the wooden blinds, “It’s time for you to go!” I went downstairs. After breakfast I started the car and left for my Castle.

It was hot. I was in a white dress. I got out of my car in the sunshine. He was passing by.

“Ray, hello!” I greeted him.

“Hello, Alice.”

He stopped. We were standing opposite each other on that dirty street drenched in the sunshine.

We were facing each other. He looked at me keeping silent. Suddenly, I felt something. In his gaze? I didn’t know. I felt something very familiar, close. Something around him. In him. In us. I was silent. So did he. We were just standing opposite each other on the dirty street drenched in the sunshine. I didn’t feel like saying anything to him. I just wanted us to keep standing opposite each other in silence.

“I brought an album with my photos from Tibet. If you want, come to see…” I said.

He kept looking at me in silence. I forced myself to tear me away from his gaze, turned around and headed for my Castle.

***

We had known each other for a couple of years. From afar. I remembered the day I had first seen him. He was saying something, and I looked at him and thought, “What are you doing here? In my Castle? Why did you come here?” I caught myself thinking that I knew nothing about him, except that once upon a time, somewhere very far away, he had been… a magician.

From time to time someone came to look at my photos. Then Ray appeared. He was sitting on the right. I was on the left. I opened the album and tried to leaf through it myself, but Ray took it in his hands and hovered over the first spread. He looked very long and attentively, slowly turning the page and again looked at the photos reading my notes for a long, long time. It seemed to me that meanwhile it was possible to flip through and read the entire album three times already. I felt his energy field. I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted him to look at the photos forever.

Time seemed to have stopped. But someone came in. Ray silently passed the album to the guest. He flipped through it quickly and left. Ray took the album again and asked,

“How do you like Tibet now, Alice?”

“Like at home…”

Ray was looking at me silently. I was looking at him. Eye to eye. I felt something inexpressibly close, common. In him and in me. What was that? Who was he? What was he doing there? In my castle?

“What are you doing here, Alice… In this Castle…” Ray said thoughtfully under his breath and added loudly, “I have to go. People will think… They always think something, these people…”

***

Friday evening. Everyone had already left. I was sitting there late as usual. The door opened. Ray walked in silently and sat across from me. He looked at me silently.

I shifted my gaze to the Excel spreadsheet on the computer.

“I don’t want to live,” he said quietly.

I looked up from my computer at Ray. I saw myself in him.

“Why?”

He took a pen from the table. Twirling it in his hands, he asked,

“Has it never happened to you?”

“It has.”

We were silent. I remembered myself.

“Do you want to read my poems?”

He nodded, “Send me by e-mail. Okay, I’ll go. Bye.”

I found the verses written on the edge, sent them to him and left for home.

***

He called me on Monday. I knew he had read everything.

“So much pain, where is it from, Alice?” he said calmly.

“You have to live, Ray. You can go through any Void.”

“I don’t know what to do, what for… I don’t see my future.”

“I’ll look at your future. Would you like?”

“Look…”

“And you … watch a movie and tell me later what you see there.”

“What movie?”

I told him the title and added, “But I’m not that girl there. I’m like the main man character.”

***

I was driving at midnight at a speed of 150. It was pouring rain. Listening to music so loud, I dialed his number for some reason.

“Hello,” he said, not at all surprised by my call.

“Sorry, Ray… Are you awake?”

“I’m watching your movie.”

“I don’t understand what… is happening to me,” I said quietly.

“Where are you now?”

“On that big road where everyone goes round and round.”

“Come to me.”

“Do you know where I’m coming from?”

“I think, I guess it. But if you feel that way, then it’s the right thing to do.”

“I don’t know where to find you…”

“If you want to find, you will. Definitely… Desire is a great power… The first turn to the right, straight ahead, left, straight ahead, right, left, left again, then right. There is the Dark Tower in the field there. Just let yourself go, Alice.”

I turned right. I didn’t know where, to whom and why I was going. It was pouring, deaf night. It seemed to me there was neither a single star in the sky, nor even a Moon. Or rather, there was the Moon there, but it was Black. I didn’t slow down, but I wanted to sleep. I occasionally fell asleep. I saw almost nothing. It was dark all around like in the Void. Some black, ominous forests. Sometimes I turned somewhere. I didn’t know if it was right or wrong. On the inner screen I held his image, his face. It seemed to be leading me somewhere into that dark night, where there was nothing but the Black Moon.

I stopped as I felt him somewhere near there. I got out of the car. There was the Dark Tower. For some reason, there were no lights inside it. I was walking without an umbrella in the pouring rain. The Tower was very high. I didn’t know where to look for him in it. Lightning flashed, illuminating the black sky and the Black Moon hovering over the Dark Tower. I heard a long howl. I opened the large iron door abruptly towards myself and took a step into the endless Darkness. I climbed the spiral staircase, stopping at each floor. I tried to figure out where he was. The way they usually look for the Black Cat in a dark room, where it may not be at all…

The top floor. There were three doors in front of me. I stood silent trying to feel which one he was behind. I was awfully tired. I really wanted to fall down and fall asleep. Right there. I was scared to make a mistake, and those people behind the door would think something wrong, those people. I took out my phone to call Ray so as not to make a mistake scaring people. “The subscriber is temporarily unavailable.” He switched off his phone on purpose. I took a step towards the left door. I grabbed the handle and…

…I stepped into pitch darkness. I walked along the walls. I couldn’t see anything. It was completely dark in there and no light on. Somewhere in the distance, there was a window. I stood at the window looking into the black-black Sky. Lightning flashed. Ray put his hands on my shoulders and quietly said,

“Hello, Lilith…”

“You’re a sadist, Ray,” I turned to face him.

“I knew you would manage it, I believed in you.”

“Why did you call me that?”

“You have the seal of the Black Moon on you.”

“What does it mean?”

“In your past life, you were a Black Magician, just like me.”

He hugged me and kissed my hair. I fell into his arms from exhaustion.

“Sorry. Wait here. I’ll bring you some hot tea.”

He put me on a folded sofa by the window and left somewhere. I took off my shoes and fell in a horizontal position. In my wet dress. I was no longer able to be there, in the Earthly Reality. I had found him and was very tired. I fell into sleep. He came back with tea and saw me sleeping. He brought a pillow and covered me with a blanket like mom.

He would wake me up only in the morning, when it was time to leave. He would cook breakfast himself and watch me eat with a smile. Everything would happen later. Not there. Not then. But that night, we both already knew that everything had already happened.

***

We were sitting with Ray in a coffee shop. I remembered that movie and asked, “Why did she kill him?” I was ready to hear anything, but not “Because he didn’t want to live…” No one had ever answered my question like that.

Ray told me about his life. Almost everything, except for the most terrible part he would tell me later. He was stronger and smarter than me. He had gone through fire, water and copper pipes, too. I wanted to help him. And I knew, somehow I knew that I could. I had enough strength that time. I knew also that people easily believed what they passionately desired, so I said,

“I have looked through your future, Ray.”

“So what do you see?” he asked with ill-concealed excitement.

“I see images… A crown, it’s on your head… Some kind of castles. You have several of them, they are very beautiful. You seem to be some kind of… Prince…”

Ray looked at me carefully.

“Say, Alice, everything you see, say it. Don’t be afraid of making a mistake.”

“Everything will come back, Ray. I see the world turned over. I’ll lose everything. Everything that I have now. And everything comes back to you. For some reason, I see Rublevka. And the sea… Not in this country… You must live, Ray. You have a wonderful future.”

He took my hands and stroked my fingers. Ray saw everything himself. He just wanted someone to confirm what he knew. He knew even more than I did.

***

I invited Ray to visit me. I wanted to show my treasures. He examined the magical objects, here and there, caught in his eye. He took a cruciform dorje in his hand, looked at me with a smile and surprise.

“Do you know what it is, Alice?”

“Vajra, the weapon of the Masters, isn’t it?”

“Do you use it?”

“No, Ray… But it reminds me of… That City where I lived… once upon a time.”

“The scepter of Spirit casters, adepts who had power over forces, siddhis, evil Essences of the Lower Astral, the elementals… By the way, didn’t they torment you as a child? The one who controlled the siddhis in one’s past life usually experiences attacks from the Essences of the Lower Astral in adolescence. Revenge for being used. No?”

I froze in place, remembering the terrible years of my lacked childhood, “That’s how it was, simultaneously, both these Lower ones and the Voice from the Higher Spheres.”

Ray put the scepter back, walked to the prayer wheel and span it.

“Do you remember Sanskrit?” he asked thoughtfully.

“No, Ray.”

“Pali? Senzar?”

“Did they exist before Sanskrit?”

“Yes, Senzar, in addition to letters, means a cryptographic way of writing, the text written in sings and colors. There were 12 Zodiac Signs and 7 primary colors, each had 3 shades. They corresponded to the letters. Senzar is known to the Initiates. I think you should know it.”

“I want to show you my paintings, Ray.”

He picked up a painting with the Tree turned upside down, with its roots in the Sky.

“Ashwattha…” he stated.

“What is it?”

“A mythical tree in ancient India. Its branches extend down and its roots up. The branches are a symbol of the outer world of feelings, the visible Universe, the Earthly Reality. And the roots are a symbol of the invisible world of the Spirit. We all have an origin from the Heavenly Spheres, Another Reality. So, you don’t remember this at the level of Consciousness, but you painted right that. You are strong, although you haven’t recalled everything yet. Well done…”

“I knew only about the Bo tree. The Tree of Knowledge, under which the Buddha meditated for 7 years. I’m starting to recall a bit of Egypt. There, the fir tree was considered sacred, its cones were used in religious ceremonies. Then it disappeared from the country.”

“Every nation has its own sacred tree. Trees are associated with mystical forces. The tree of life in Egypt was considered Sycamore. Its juice was worth gold. They said it gives immortality.”

“Were you looking for the elixir of life then?”

“Have you seen Kunbum tree by any chance?”

“You have definitely seen it, I know, you have!”

“A sacred Tibetan tree grew in a fenced-off area in the monastery where Tsongkapa had been buried. They say it grew out of his hair. There were letters or phrases on each leaf and on the bark, philosophical ones, never repeating.”

“The tree is a symbol of Knowledge and Wisdom… Did you want to get some advice on its leaf? Just you didn’t use it, right?”

Ray sighed heavily and put my Tree painting back in its place.

The one we love always has power over us. I really wanted to help him. I wanted him to live. I tried to get him out from his state and I succeeded. I knew he would be fine. With a calm heart, I left for the sea with my son.

***

Marina called me. I didn’t know yet what had happened, but I realized something very bad. She would have never called me otherwise.

“A truckload of masked men… First at Brother’s. Then for everyone here. They look at the statutory documents only.”

I already knew, they were not interested in all those people. They came for Brother.

***

They entered without knocking, looked at me with a strange smile. I clicked on the button with the abstruse word defragmentation. It all had already happened. More than once. But that time I realized it was different, not like before…

One of them approached the rack with documents. The other walked up towards me. He held out the statutory documents opened on that very page and said,

“Is the bakery far?”

“It depending on where from. Why?” I asked thoughtfully, knowing perfectly well why he was showing me those particular pages. There was Brother.

“From the house you live.”

“No, not so far.”

He leaned down and said distinctly in my ear,

“Then dry the breadcrumbs, Alice.”

They were looking through the folders in the rack without interest. They didn’t even touch my computer. They were not interested in anything at all, even in money. Before leaving, they somehow sadly looked at me, in a human way. And one of them asked, “Are you his relative?”

“No,” I answered, taking a deep breath.

“Then, it’s even worse. In this situation, it would be better for you to be his sister… So pray… to whatever God you believe in…”

***

Brother came in and sat down opposite. We were silent for a long time. He was smoking. So did I. He didn’t realize yet that everything was different that time, not like before. I handed him the list of the papers.

“It’s unrealistic to prepare them in three days,” he said grimly.

“It’s unrealistic in any time, Bro…”

We were silent again for a long time. He was spinning the prayer wheel I had brought from Tibet.

“What were they looking for here?”

“Nothing … Only the statutory…”

He looked at me with a silent question and began to understand something.

“Alice, try to prepare what they asked for. Please.”

I nodded and he left. I put my head in my hands.

Marina came in and sat down opposite. We were silent. She didn’t realize yet that it was different that time, not like before.

“How can I help you?”

I shook my head. Ray worked in the same area, but in the farthest building. He sat down next to me keeping silent. He knew that it was different that time. We were silent for a long time. I showed him the document.

“Three at once?” he got surprised.

I nodded. We looked into each other’s eyes. And suddenly he said something I didn’t expect to hear from him, or from anyone else then,

“I went through it there, once. You have Brother. I had no one.”

“You know, I am not his sister.”

“I know. I know how it happens. If you want, I’ll tell you what they did to me.”

***

From that day on, life became like one endless nightmare. It was necessary to prepare tons of various papers. Tons… The whole floor in my office was littered with folders with documents. The office staff was working exclusively for them. From morning to night I was signing something. Those two came again and again. I sent them formal requests to postpone the deadline for the delivery of papers. Brother sent the documents in parts. Each time he got darker and darker. He realized that everything was different that time.

He was sitting across from me. We were silent for a long time. We both understood everything perfectly. He was afraid of me, that I wouldn’t be able to take it all and… I was afraid of him, that he wouldn’t be able to take it all and…

I took his hand and said in a calm voice, “I will never do anything against you…”

“Everything will be fine, Alice, I promise you.”

***

Ray looked at me strangely as soon as he crossed the threshold. He took a piece of paper from the printer, took out a pen and wrote, “You must not talk about anything here anymore. Keep silent.” I took a deep breath and pointed to the phone on the table. Ray nodded. I pointed to my mobile phone. And he nodded again. I pointed towards the door, behind which the office staff was. And he nodded his head again. I bit my lips… I waved my hand around the air, looking up at the ceiling. Ray shrugged his shoulders. I wrote on a piece of paper, “Where can I speak?” “Outside.” I clasped my head in my hands. “You’d better not live at home. If you want, you can stay at my place for now.” I nodded… I dialed Marina’s extension. She came in. I handed her the latest marketing report, “Read it aloud… Please… With expression.”

Marina looked at me as if I had already lost my mind. But we had known each other for many, many years. If I asked or did something, even, at first glance, stupid, then it was necessary. Marina sat down at the Brother’s table and began to read with expression.

I came to the window. There were bars on the windows in my office. I closed my eyes. Tears ran down my cheeks. I clenched my fingers into a fist. Ray came over and hugged me.

I was silently crying. Ray was holding me here. Marina was reading aloud.

***

I became a shadow. Now I was silent all the time. Our windows were boarded up. They sealed the front door and forbade us to answer phone calls until we completed all the papers. We turned into the ghosts of the Castle. Before leaving the office, we had to call the security officer to check if anyone was on the street, then he opened the sealed door and immediately sealed it back after us. When I arrived in the morning and left in the evening, or even went out into the street, the security followed me watching every step I took. Everyone was looking at me. I pretended that nothing was happening. For them, it was a game, for me – the reality.

On the street, Lena, an auditor, ran up to me. She said something quickly, but I was not able to hear her. She caught me by hand and shouted, “Are you made of iron?”

Lena burst into tears. I calmly replied, “Everything will be fine,” and walked away.

I started breathing only closer to the night, leaving the Castle by car for the Dark Tower. I felt safe there. Nobody would find me there. I could think about nothing and talk out loud there. Although I was always silent. Even there. Ray told me about his case.

“If it goes so far, I’ll go out the window,” I said.

“You shouldn’t think about it right now. Otherwise you’ll go crazy.”

Every night Ray used to buy us some food and cooked dinner for us. Every morning he got up before me and prepared breakfast. I was a zombie. I didn’t want to eat anything. He made me eat, feeding me from a spoon. He was the only one who understood everything happening to me then. He was holding me here.

***

Brother sent me to live in the City-on-the-Water to our mutual acquaintances, sharks of imperialism, “You’ll be safer there.”

Ray was nearby. We went to every store. I bought mountains of things I didn’t need and spend the last money on eleven jackets. Ray didn’t say a word to me. He knew everything. So did I. Moreover, I already knew what would happen when we returned home.

We were walking around my favorite City-on-the-Water. The Sun was shining. We were wandering through the narrow streets, down to the water. Ray made me smile and took pictures of me with every bridge, every street, on the square and on the shore. The one I had seen in my dream, from where the boat with a Man in Black would leave taking away my dead body into the foggy distance …

Brother constantly called me asking how I was doing there. I said everything was fine. He sighed heavily. He didn’t want to tell me anything yet. But I already knew everything. I had seen the future in dreams. The world would turn upside down. Nobody needed tons of documents anymore. I saw the fires and the ruined Castle. Brother would save my life, but the Castle would be destroyed. I would never find myself in the Dark Tower. Ray wouldn’t be around anymore like he was those days. I didn’t know why yet. And I couldn’t imagine what else I would have to go through. Hell on the Earth. However, that was another story. Everything I had predicted to Ray would come true. I would lose everything I had, and he would get back what he had once lost and even more. But we would never be together again, because Ray had been sent to me from Above to help me survive then. As soon as the nightmare was over, he would be taken from me. I would hate to believe it for a long time. Until once Ray would invite me to play Black Magic with him against Brother. He would make me to choose between him and Brother. I loved them both. They both saved my life. How could I choose between them? So then I would take a step into Another Reality, where none of them existed. It would be such a pain for a lifetime, since when they both had been nearby I felt truly happy. But all that would happen later, and that night…

I woke up crying, “Everything is on fire, Ray! On fire!”

Ray tried to calm me down. He said I saw everything wrong, but I knew that he knew I was right. He knew a lot more than me. I asked him to tell me a fairy-tale.

“What fairy-tale would you like to listen to?”

“About Atlantis…”

“Do you miss Atlantis? So do I. A long time ago, many centuries ago, people were able to do what they can’t now. In those magical times, wanderers crossed today’s ocean by land. And where the islands of French Polynesia, and New Zealand, and Borneo, and Java, and Sumatra, and Sri Lanka, and Madagascar, and even Easter Island, are located now, there was a huge continent. The second continent was in the Atlantic Ocean. But even after the land went under water, there would remain islands and the local tribes would keep the eternal memory of the Great Country and speak its language, and sacredly keep its customs. That race lived both on land and in water, where there were many plantations. The Atlanteans had access to the information field, from where they took any data they needed. Their memory was universal, transpersonal. They possessed the Forces and psychic energy, moved heavy objects with their gaze and built majestic structures. Their astral body was highly developed, the Atlanteans were true dream-hackers. In the country we lived with you then, the peaks of luxury were reached, but the Lower Self began to prevail over Spirituality. Envy, selfishness and a thirst for power at any cost led the Atlanteans to Black Magic. At first, we communicated in the language of the Soul, but gradually, as we began to use knowledge for selfish purposes, the Third Eye lost its sight. We had to invent speech and the first written language, Senzar. Our knowledge was transmitted in the temples during the Mysteries. Many people began to write it down for fear of losing it. That’s how books and libraries appeared. And there was a City of red, white and black stone. And there was a Dark Tower in the field. A Magician lived in that Tower. He was a great astronomer of Atlantis and a true wizard. He knew the Word of the mysterious Cosmic Fire or Force, which could instantly pulverize entire cities and even destroy the whole world … One of the underground passages of the Tower led to Ancient Egypt, the other to the Magic Island in the Gobi Desert, and the third to the Mayans. Throughout the country, and even under water, there was a huge network of underground labyrinths connecting all the Places of Power on the globe. Once the war between Black and White Magicians broke out. There were much fewer White Magicians, only one third. This is the way it always happens on the Earth. Black Mages decided to take over the world and used the power of hypnosis and telepathy, but almost everyone died. Someone died even before Atlantis went under water, someone – during the arrival of the great Wave. As recorded in the Mayan chronicles, the country of Mu was sacrificed. The last of the islands of Atlantis, Ruta, was described in Plato’s fairy tale. In the area of Bermuda Triangle, at the bottom, there is something distorting space and time to remind us of that Great Country and the power of its Adepts. True, some of the magicians survived, having escaped through the underground labyrinths. Some of them moved to Magic Island in the Gobi Desert. There was an inland sea there at that time. They were called Elohim, or Sons of Light. They passed on the most important knowledge to people. Some magicians moved to the Mayans. The aborigines of America had the name Atlanta, in the Toltec language it meant located among the waters. And some of the Atlanteans fled to Egypt. They built magnificent magical structures to remember them. Or about ourselves. But it’s not for me to tell you about Egypt.”

“Why?”

“It was you who lived in Egypt and not me.”

“I’ll definitely tell you someday, Ray, what I remember, but not now.”

“What do you remember about Atlantis?”

“I have seen That City in my dreams since childhood. It was completely different, not like others on the Earth. But it reminded me of the City-on-the-Water where we are now. I feel something very close and dear here. I’m drawn to come back here again and again. The Tower on San Marco, with the astrological clock…”

“Does it remind you of your Dark Tower?”

“It was very high, made of stones. One floor there was like two here, or even more. When I returned to the Tower in my dream, at first I couldn’t understand why. Then I realized I had been then two times taller than now. So everything fell into place. There was a giant Zodiac Clock in the Tower, telling the astrological time. I was mesmerized by the clock, staring at it for a long time. Then, in those dreams, a Huge Wave used to come, too big to imagine it in reality. Everything died in it. I tried to run away, to hide somewhere, but there was so much water that I was drowning. The whole city was sinking in it. Everything. There was no one left. No one at all. At all…”

“It’s all already in the Past, Alice. Each of us has our own Dark Tower, but only the one who breaks the great power of its attraction can become truly happy. You’ll be fine, surely, I promise you.”