Ancient Echoes

Epilogue



Goa, India

MICHAEL REMPART WALKED alone through the narrow streets of the former Portuguese settlement of Old Goa to an imposing black granite and basalt basilica. His left arm was weak and limp while his shoulder and back still ached from the bullet that might have killed him.

For one month, his friend and assistant, Li Jianjun, stayed by his side, diligently watching over him as his body mended. Once he healed, Jianjun returned to Vancouver.

Michael spent much of his time soul-searching since he left Idaho, and contemplating all he learned about life, death, what lies beyond the grave, and about himself. He feared that a normal life, a life rich with love, marriage, and children would never be his, but for the first time he could think of the woman he had loved but lost without bitterness, and with peace for what they once had known. And as he thought of the loving, beautiful ethereal being from another age who had saved his life many times, he knew he would carry the memory of her forever in his heart.

Lady Hsieh—Lin—had been right about many things, but never more than when she said that what he sought was in this world, but not of it. He had learned that, in the endless process of transformation, nothing was destroyed. Death was not destruction, but merely dissolution. In dissolving all things, the cosmos also renewed them. There was fulfillment in life; throughout the whole recurrence of eternity nothing existed that had not lived. He read that Hermes Trismegistus had once said, ‘For there never was any dead thing in the cosmos, nor is there, nor will there be.’ He believed it.

He entered the cathedral with its beautifully gilded altars, frescoes and inlays, and turned to a small chapel that housed the relics of St. Francis Xavier, the peripatetic missionary who spent his life in India, the Malay peninsula, Japan, and died while on the way to China.

Michael stood before the silver casket of the saint whose body, many believed, remained perfectly preserved even in death.

Head bowed, Michael’s heart filled not only with peace, but also with a sense of purpose. He was alone, but not lonely. He didn't know where life would lead him, but he had every confidence in Lady Hsieh's words, that he still had much to do. She had never failed him.

His thoughts then turned to Francis Masterson, the gentle but tormented young writer whose journals guided Michael and the others to understand what they faced and ultimately to safety. He had been a good-hearted man who boldly went to uncharted lands, much like the saint whose name he bore, and now, he finally rested in eternal peace. All of them did, including Lady Hsieh, and even Abbé Gerard.

The unquiet graves were no more; and the secret of alchemy lost forever.

As it should be.

As it must.





Author’s Notes



Readers interested in learning more about alchemy can find vast amounts of material, including entire libraries, on the subject. If I had to name one scholarly work that I believe would be most helpful, understandable and interesting, it would be a relatively small book called The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy by philosopher and religious historian Mircea Eliade.

Many writings exist that present the explanation Nicolas Flamel (also spelled Nicholas Flammel) gave of finding and eventually deciphering The Book of Abraham the Jew. The material found in this book was taken from the English translation of the French work as printed in London in 1624 for Thomas Walsley, called Hieroglyphical Figures (Which he caused to be Painted upon an Arch in St. Innocents Church Yard in Paris): Concerning both the Theory and Practice of the Philosophers Stone. Whether The Book of Abraham the Jew ever truly existed, as well as which alchemist named “Abraham” wrote it, continues to be hotly debated to this day.

Edward Kelley (also spelled Kelly) is also an historical figure. He is highly controversial, and many of his biographies are filled with unsubstantiated stories. One of the most thoroughly researched works is Michael Wilding’s, “A Biography of Edward Kelly, the English Alchemist and Associate of Dr. John Dee,” found in Mystical Metal of Gold, Essays on Alchemy and Renaissance Culture, edited by Stanton J. Linden. Details of Kelley’s life in Romania, the ruin of his patron Vilém Rozmberk, and his death can be found there. The real Edward Kelley did not marry Rozmberk’s daughter or father her child.

To learn more about Lewis and Clark, the very readable The Lewis and Clark Journals, An American Epic of Discovery, an abridgment of the Definitive Nebraska Edition, edited by Gary E. Moulton is recommended. The history of Fort Lemhi, the first Mormon settlement in Idaho, including Brigham Young’s visit there and the massacre of the missionaries happened very much as presented, and details can be found in many Idaho history books. The small group that left the main settlement to found a splinter mission called New Gideon, however, is not factual.

The Tukudeka, a small Shoshoni-Bannock tribal group, roamed the area from Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains near what is now Sun Valley, and the Middle Fork and South Forks of the Salmon River. They settled down only during winter. Their name means “sheep eater.” Very little is known of them, and generally accepted is the belief that the Tukudeka band is now extinct or has been absorbed into other groups. The Sheepeater Indian War of 1879, along the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, is considered to have been the last Indian war in the Pacific Northwest. The Middle Fork & The Sheepeater War by Johnny Carrey and Cort Conley is a beautiful presentation of the area and its history.

Last of all, as far as we know, there was no Secret Expedition.