Aliwana’s lithe, sun-kissed body stood in the center of the circular, white marbleized altar facing the Keeper of the Waters. Cameron’s mind trapped within her listened carefully as he became a passive observer only involved enough in this life to sense how Aliwana had perceived her own surroundings. Her Grecian style robe hung gracefully from her left shoulder held in place by two clasps of gold each with the appropriate embedded jewel representing a step in the seven fold path to Oneness. Aliwana was proud of each of the clasps she wore. The first clasp consisting of an unpolished garnet had been handed to her on acceptance into the temple and symbolized the Council of One’s recognition of her potential. The second clasp was a well cut fiery topaz that flashed glimmers along her robe.

The third test which she was preparing to take would seal her decision to remain at the temple. It was this test that the Atlantean Council of One determined as the oath of loyalty. Before the test Aliwana was free to go, to join the rest of the Atlantean community in some other form of service without shame. After the test, if successful there would be no turning back. The first mystery of life would have been unveiled leaving her with knowledge that would either spur her to further growth or drown her in torrents of anguish. Success meant acceptance for her into the higher mysteries of the temple. Failure meant expulsion and shame as an outcast that had failed the test of truth.

In the candlelit room between them was a plain ceramic bowl that contained the waters taken from a magical spring on the South side of the island. It was rumored that the waters triggered a remembrance of all the evil deeds one might want to hide from the Council of One. But no one knew for sure because those who had failed the test would not reveal their shame. For if found wanting the acolyte’s pins were removed and the clothes they had arrived to the temple were brought in. After dressing they would be expulsed from the Temple never to return. And oddly, not one acolyte that had suffered this fate had protested their treatment. Aliwana was certain that she would pass. For she had nothing evil to hide from anyone.

"Concentrate on the waters," The Keeper of the Waters instructed her as the candle’s flame bounced over his features.

Obediently her gazed moved from the Keeper’s finely chiseled bronze features to the deep blue waters between them. Cameron experienced a moment of anxiety from within Aliwana as he pondered what would come out of the waters. The waters frothed and foamed as they felt their mysteries being tested. Obligingly, they began to swirl and form a whirlpool that flattened itself against the basin with each passing torrent. Looking down further, Aliwana spied the shell of a Colis creature, a rare crustacean that made its home in the area near where the magical springs were rumored to exist.

"A Colis," Aliwana said delightedly with Cameron’s consciousness in relief within her as she realized the treasure in front of her. It’s waved edges were beginning to emit the rainbow colors purported to this legendary creature. As she watched the light emitting from the shell dancing a feverish dance with candle flickers in the wide dome of the testing chamber, she momentarily felt her spiritual essence begin to vibrate at a higher rate. She felt the door way to the temple of her body open as the spirit of the One God pulsed through her. Her awareness triggered the garnet to glow passing its light to the topaz next to it as her consciousness expanded and embraced the new experience as her own. The Colis shell sprayed its mist of diamond chips so that Aliwana’s spirit led her past the second barrier in blinding speed as she consciously focused the rising energy within her towards the seat of her creativity. Having reached the impetus to create and finding no physical release the energy sprung higher cascading like a fountain within her as it jumped her out mentally from her body leaving a portion of her mind still in control of her body. The Keeper sensing her split consciousness nodded his head in approval. She had been trained well.

Aliwana’s mind raced chronologically through her life starting from the present moment to her birth. At which point, her mind went one final jump causing Aliwana and Cameron to gasp as they understood the true remembrance of the waters. Then she began her wanderings along the many lives she saw before her.

She saw and experienced lives in which she had acted so despicably that her present consciousness felt revolted at her many sins. Envy gave way to murder, murder to guilt and guilt to atonement of a most horrific life of servitude to her victim which bred resentment and anger. This would be paid subsequently in another life until finally she had the sense to accept her karma with grace. She and Cameron cringed at the creature she had once been. And yet, she had gone on after that life of atonement to perpetuate some of the same errors of malice and disrespect to her fellow man. Whether male or female, she had been a callous entity scientifically bent on being superior to her fellow man. She rebelled at the notion that for each insult she had rendered unawares of the consequence she was most suitably chastised in another life having to bear her own insults flung at herself from others. It had been a comedy of errors which lessened significantly over the eons but did not fully disappear forcing her to return to pay off whatever karmic debt she had last impinged.

"Enough!" Aliwana gasped trying to shut her spiritual eye’s away from the revelations of her soul. She stood mentally naked before the Keeper of Waters as he looked at her not a hint of emotion underlying the stone features fixed into place. She put her hands to her face in shame.

"I have failed haven’t I?" Aliwana cried despairing for herself but understanding the justice in her inevitable expulsion from a Temple dedicated to helping people.

"So it seems, you have met yourself and you have lost."
He reached for the clasps on her robe ready to remove the last shreds of dignity she had been pretending to all this life.

"No!" Aliwana’s hand came protectively towards the cherished ornaments. "The waters do they tell the truth?" Her green flecked, amber eyes pleadingly searched the Keeper’s face.

"The truth is for each person to decide."

"Then who is to say what I have glimpsed? Am I to believe that I have lived lives of insensitivity, hatred, debauchery because a Colis manages to spray a rainbow across my face?"

The Keeper’s face betrayed nothing of his inner emotions. If Aliwana rejected the past lives completely as her own, she would be expulsed. In so doing, she was refusing to meet herself. If she believed them and pitied herself as a failure, she would be deemed lacking in spiritual maturity and would again be expulsed. She needed to accept them as truths on whatever level Aliwana met truth such that all her soul’s aspects could integrate into a whole being, radiating the spark necessary to heal another. But, if she failed she would go through another life before she would have the opportunity again to integrate her soul’s mental, emotional, spiritual and physical elements for the betterment of her peers.

"But, if you have deceived me, why should I remain to study the ways of what might be a bunch of manipulative liars?" Aliwana reasoned to herself as she tried to fathom the mystery of the test. "But if I believe the Colis to reveal the truth then I am a pitiable creature who’s only bright moment was this life in which I actually desired to help my fellow man instead of injuring him."
The Keeper’s heart raced as he heard the last comment. She was working it out. His faith had not been betrayed. For a moment he felt a flash of hope as his hands descended back to his sides.

"On the other hand, how is it that a shell, however magical, has access to information that is part of myself. And how is it that the owner of said lives, didn’t remember them before that?"
"The lives are written down in the Akashic library. The shell is merely a port for your consciousness to float to that level and view what belongs to you. Aliwana," The Keeper finally felt he had extended her enough time to review her options. "Do you accept the truth of the Colis as your own thereby proving yourself a failure, or do you reject it?"

"Neither." Came the calm and calculated reply. "If the Colis has access to my records, it has access to all others. These records don’t have to be my own. The Colis is a machine like many in our society. It has gotten the records mixed up obviously."
"Then you reject the lives you have seen as your own?"

"No, I didn’t say that. I said they don’t have to be my own. They could or they couldn’t be."

"Decide Aliwana," the Keeper said unwilling to let her talk her way out of the test’s harsh conclusion.

"It makes no difference, Keeper" Aliwana said respectfully. "If they are not my lives, they are my brother’s, mother’s, sister’s lives. Do men not injure each other? Am I no different? Should I not care? Should I not forgive and seek to heal the sin within us all? If they are mine, though truly despicable, should I not forgive myself? You ask if I accept them as my lives? The solution is not a physical puzzle where I need to decide the mechanics of the rebirth or traveling of souls thus counting myself better than those who have not obtained the mysteries. Was this not the error of my lives? I do accept them as my own as a lesson that I must forgive others as myself if I am to truly meet myself and triumph."

A smile finally creased the corners of the Keeper’s mouth. "You have earned the third clasp, Aliwana." The Keeper traced the clasps already in place

as he began to reveal the mystery of the seven fold path to Oneness. "First, the wisdom to reach beyond the physical. Second, the discipline to focus the creative energies higher. And third, " at this point the Keeper reached into his robe and pulled out a third clasp of yellow quartz, "forgiveness for all past wrongs, whether your own or others." The pin latched proudly on Aliwana’s shoulder as she felt the warm glow of her teacher’s approving love flow through her. "You will continue your study with us, Aliwana. You will learn how to perfect your patience until you will be able to forgive even the most darkest of offenses perpetrated by you to others or from others to yourself. You will cleanse yourself in the waters of forgiveness learning the mysteries of the laws of cause and effect and the subsequent law of grace. During this period, I will be your guide. We will travel many times to the Akashic library where you will be able to integrate the truth of your lives with the ideal of forgiveness. Thus you will be balanced spiritually, having already attained balance mentally and emotionally through your earlier understandings. At that point, you will be ready to learn the full ideal of love - the fourth clasp. The key to the healer."

As Cameron heard the words from the Keeper’s mouth his consciousness began to spin out of focus from Aliwana’s surroundings as he also heard his guide’s voice echo through him.

"You still haven’t changed much," Fern laughed. "You still think past lives is a good philosophical tool but refuse to accept the reality of the same. "

"Looks like I didn’t have to," Cameron admitted as his essence seeped like a vapor from Aliwana’s body to float ghostlike alongside Fern . "It makes sense to me. I mean just because we have access to other lives full of experience that teach us valuable lessons does not mean they are necessarily our own. On the other hand, if they happened to be ours what better way to understand that we are not any better than anyone else who has ever set foot on this planet?"

"It is good to question your beliefs," Fern nodded in approval. "That’s why you were assigned a guide. To help you with the many questions you are bound to have and to guide you through the reality of the Akashic library to a better understanding. However, I do want to make one side-note to this life we have just viewed. You never obtained the fourth clasp."

"Are you talking about the fourth level as well?"

Sighing, Fern ignored the question pushing her protege forward along with her. "Come now, we must review the past lives whose issues you are now facing. This night is lost already with the work we have ahead of us. "

"It’s only the second night," Cameron said lacadaisically. "We have time."

"I have time," Fern corrected him. "You have exactly six more nights, including this one to propel yourself to the seventh level."

"Who cares?" Cameron said letting his form float like a vacationer on a Bermuda vacation."I haven’t seen anything bad in the tower. I like my dreams better than earth. Earth is a planet of insensitive brutes. I don’t care if I ever wake up."

"You’d better care!" Fern informed her protege fiercely. "If you’re trapped here on the seventh day, your physical body will die. But, don’t think your worries are over! Everyone trapped in the tower eventually is forced back to the physical through reincarnation to redo the lessons they so thoroughly screwed up here. Except, of course, without the benefit of the memories of all you have just learned. Who knows when you will get another opportunity to master the Tower of Dreams?"

"What?!" Cameron’s figure rolled over itself in confusion. "I didn’t know anything about that! You’re lying!"

"They’re your lives, not mine." Fern said sternly. "Gamble with them if you want but no one escapes the physical plane without triumphing in the Tower of Dreams first."

"SHIT!!!"

"Shall we go?" Fern brought him back to the task at hand. "You’ll understand more once we go over the law of karma and the law of grace."

"Fine. Just Fine." Cameron murmured curtly under his breath as he focused his attention on his guide’s vibrations. She led him through his lives in a whirlwind of pits and valleys that made Cameron’s mind think he still had a stomach to churn. All the time, Cameron muttered to himself, "Karma, shmarma. I’d rather be planting."

Jasmine’s form inflated itself buoyantly coming back to life. In the process her old Sari disintegrated into a fluorescent blue mist of magically woven silk. Her crisp blue eyes flashed within a newly facelifted Greek statuette face as she examined the Seer’s alcove seeing Prof. Taslim magically shielded from the waters. Manu’s presence glowed strongly in Prof. Taslim’s aura, Jasmine noted.

"Your mistress Lokmi has returned," Jasmine informed Prof. Taslim as her long blonde hair swept the air around her forming a golden halo. "You have done well, Manu."

Prof. Taslim gallantly offered his arm to Jasmine who pushed it away with her gold weighted fingers. Taking the lead as she had always done with Manu she stepped through the vertical slit leading back to Yassov’s tomb.

In an instant, she examined the spell Manu had learned to weave in her absence. Just as she had feared, his powers had grown heavily due to her manipulation and opening of his third eye. Undoing his magic was impossible, as all sorceresses knew. One could only undo one’s own magic or block a spell when it was being weaved. But in this case the damage was already done. She could have a rival in Manu if she was not more careful this time.

"We may release the man now," Jasmine worded her request carefully. "You have no further use for him."

"Lokmi, I think not." Manu dropped the required ‘Mistress’ appellation deliberately enjoying the situation. He stepped carefully around the obsidian coffin as he spoke. "You see, I’m not sure I can trust you. I mean, you failed to defend me against the Prince’s executioner when you had the chance."

"I didn’t know!" Lokmi cut him off in her haste to prove her innocence. "Do you think I would allow the very thing I tried so hard to save to be killed without a fight?"

"Thing?" Manu refused to listen to her reasoning focusing instead on her obvious belittlement of him. "You never did value me much. I was just an apprentice to you, wasn’t I?"

The demented, pleading tone of Manu’s query made Lokmi realize what a dangerous situation she had come back to. "How I cried for you, Manu! I was inconsolable when I found out you were dead! Why do you think I left this accursed kingdom preferring reincarnation to living centuries without my beloved?" She gripped his wrists trying desperately to convince him of her sincerity.

"And yet you exacted no revenge on my part?" Manu stroked his neatly trimmed beard in thought as he tried to understand what had happened so many years ago.

"Revenge? Oh, Manu, I was besides myself with shame. I blamed myself for your death. If only I had known..." Lokmi muttered softly to herself wringing her hands at the memory finding a chink in Manu’s armor at last. "Is that what you want, Manu? Revenge? We can exact any revenge you want together. The Prince owes us both for the time we have missed."

"Ah! Now you are talking like my beloved sorceress." Manu chuckled as he came around Yassov enclosure again, swiftly grabbing at Lokmi’s thin waist as he encountered a spine of steel as he tried to dip her backwards to his advantage. "You don’t want to touch the lips you have so tearfully missed?" Manu asked evilly as he tested Lokmi’s story.

Allowing her back to bow under Manu’s weight, Lokmi kept her magic shield in place as she let Manu take advantage of the situation physically. "Damn the sacred waters," Lokmi thought as she endured Manu’s ministrations. "If only they had shown me only Lokmi and not Yassov as well."

Yassov hearing only the conversation and subsequent silence understood the death sentence Jasmine had just handed him. He sat down in the cramped cubicle as he dejectedly lost all hope that he would ever be rescued. And from the way he reasoned it, he had only four more days left in the Tower of Dreams before he was trapped here for an eternity.

CHAPTER 11