The Memory Painter

FORTY-ONE

Hermese drank the potion for six months, and for six months, they pretended that their prolonged union did not affect the world outside the temple fortress. But Thoth could sense the storm coming. Hermese’s father had grown more ill, and she spent more and more time away from her quarters making decisions in his stead.

Only the Guardian knew how to harmonize the pyramids’ oscillation so that they vibrated in sympathy with the Earth, channeling its energy and resonating with its magnetism. Not only did the pyramids run their civilization, but they also stabilized the Earth’s shifting crust by drawing upon its seismic energy. The Elders had understood that the pyramids played a crucial role in helping to avoid cataclysmic events. They had suffered such occurrences before with tragic consequences in the time of the Great War. It was for this reason that Heliopolis had been built—to start again and protect the ancient knowledge before it was lost. The Elders had lived in the First Time and had become Heliopolis’s first Council of Twelve—the wisest men and women chosen by Osiris and Isis to lead their civilization. It was the Elders who had created the new laws when Horus died, and the First Time had died with him. And it was they, Heliopolis’ benevolent forefathers, who had given the Guardians unconditional autonomy in their duties.