The Valkyries

Chris is right; solitude does strange things to people. He's behaving strangely, Paulo thought as he watched the youth down below.

But, a few seconds later, Gene had climbed the narrow path again, and they pushed on.

In forty minutes, with no great difficulty, they had reached the top. There was some sparse vegetation there, and Gene asked that they sit down facing north. His attitude, usually expansive, had changed--he seemed more distant, and looked as if he were concentrating hard.

"You've both come here in search of angels," he said, sitting down at their side.

"That's what I came for," Paulo said. "And I know that you have spoken with one."

"Forget about my angel. Many people in this desert have already seen or conversed with their angel. So have a lot of people in cities, or at sea, or in the mountains."

There was a tone of impatience in his voice.

"Think about your guardian angels," he continued. "Because my angel is here, and I can see him. This is my holy place."

Both Paulo and Chris thought back to their first night in the desert. And they imagined their angels once again, with their raiment and their wings.

"You must always have a holy place. Mine once was a small apartment, and at another time, a square in the middle of Los Angeles. Now it's here. A sacred hymn opens a gate to heaven, and heaven appears."

They both looked around at Gene's holy place: the rocks, the hard ground, the desert plants. Perhaps snakes and coyotes passed through here at night, too.

Gene appeared to be in a trance.

"It was here that I was first able to see my angel, although I knew that the angel was everywhere, and that the angel's face is the face of the desert I live in, or of the city where I lived for eighteen years.

"I was able to talk with my angel because I had faith that the angel existed. And because I loved my angel."

Neither Chris nor Paulo dared ask what they had talked about.

Gene went on, "Everyone can make contact with four different kinds of entities in the invisible world: the elementals, the disembodied spirits, the saints, and the angels.

"The elementals are the vibrations of things in nature--fire, earth, water, and air--and we make contact with them using rituals. These are pure forces--like earthquakes, lightning, or volcanoes. Because we need to understand them as 'beings,' they traditionally appear in the form of dwarfs, fairies, or salamanders. But all one can do is use the power of the elementals--we never learn anything from them."

Why is he saying all this? Paulo thought. Has he forgotten that I'm a master of magic, too?

Gene continued his explanation, "The disembodied spirits are those that wander between one life and another, and we make contact with them by means of a medium. Some are great masters--but all that they teach us we can learn on earth, because that's where they learned what they know. Better, then, to let them wander in the direction of their next step, to look out at the horizon, and to take from here the same wisdom as they did."

Paulo must know all about this, Chris thought. He's probably talking to me.

YES, GENE WAS SPEAKING TO CHRIS--IT WAS BECAUSE she was here that he was here. There was nothing he could teach Paulo, twenty years older than he and more experienced, and who, on his own, would surely find the way to talk with his angel. Paulo was one of J.'s disciples--and the things Gene had heard about J.! At their first meeting, Gene had tried in various ways to get the Brazilian to talk, but the woman had made it impossible. He was unable to learn anything about the techniques, the processes, or the rituals used by J.

That first meeting had been deeply disappointing for him. He thought that the Brazilian might be using J.'s name without the master's knowledge. Or--who knows?--perhaps J. had made a mistake for the first time in his selection of a disciple. And if that were the case, the entire Tradition would soon know about it. But that night of their meeting, he had dreamed of his guardian angel.

And his angel had asked that he initiate the woman into the path of magic. Just initiate her: Her husband would do the rest.

In the dream, he argued that he had already taught her about the second mind, and had asked that she look out at the horizon. The angel said that Gene should pay attention to the man, but that he should take care of the woman. And then the angel disappeared.

Gene was trained to be disciplined. So he was now doing what the angel had commanded--and he hoped that it was being observed up above.

"After the disembodied spirits," he continued, "the saints appear. These are the true masters. They lived among us at one time, and are now closer to the light. The great teachings of the saints are their lives here on earth. Contained in them are all we need to know, and all we have to do is imitate them."

"How do we invoke the saints?" Chris asked.

"Through prayer," Paulo answered, cutting Gene off.

He wasn't jealous--although it was clear to him that the American wanted to impress Chris. He respects the Tradition. He's going to use my wife as a means of reaching me. But why is he being so basic, talking about things that I already know so well? he thought.

"We invoke the saints through constant prayer," Paulo continued. "And when they are near, everything changes. Miracles happen."