conjunctions discharged upon this particular plot of ground. It had been foretold by a Mayan priest he had discovered on the Belize-Honduran border that this site would be of vital concern to Hero if he desired to correct himself in this lifetime, to once and for all be free of the physical encumbrance that had persisted from a past life misspent in Babylon, some 3,500 years ago.
But today he found it difficult, perhaps because of the most recent Occurrence, to align himself properly with emanations from the unexcavated burial site, so rich in harmonics which enhanced his own earthly vibrations. He was saturated with the knowledge of another’s death.
After twenty futile minutes of effort at concordance, uneasy from the sensation that he was urgently required elsewhere, Hero rose and returned to his modest camp. There he was instantly sensitive to the fact that something or someone had been prowling about—no, not an animal. He discovered no footprints to conclude that it had been a man, and as far as he could tell, his belongings had not been disturbed; yet a spoor remained in the air ... he sniffed gently, downwind, nostrils vaguely offended by the lingering odor of smoke.
Tobacco, not wood smoke. It might have been one of the caravaners, passing through on a morning stroll, enjoying his pipe. Hero’s fellow campers were, for the most part, a congenial lot. He did not, however, like the vibrations he was receiving here, where serenity had been the rule. Perhaps they were some of his own unquiet vibrations, left over from the nocturnal Occurrence.
But as he stood there motionlessly, absorbing all that the clear, ethereal morning had to describe, he began subtly to tremble, a quaking of anguish, reaction to an intuition of threat. In the jungles he had developed an ability to sense, even at a distance, where a jaguar had dragged its leftover kill through the undergrowth to lodge it in a tree for safekeeping until mealtime came around again. He was preternaturally attuned to violent disturbances of nature, down to the most insignificant clash of warrior ants from different nests. Crossing Chickamauga in the northern part of Georgia, he had suffered excruciating mental pain on that Civil War battlefield, smelled the powder and the blood as if it had happened yesterday and not more than a century ago.
He was suffering now, but still he had no idea why. It was some beastly imprint left in the delicate harmonic fabric he had woven in his temporary sanctuary, unwelcome knowledge of a feast or ritual of blood.
Hero shuddered. What did it have to do with him? Now he must move, find an undisturbed place where he might continue his meditations until, four days from now, heavenly configurations involving the burial mounds reached a climax.
When he opened his backpack to replace toothbrush, soap, and hand towel, there was a sudden flare just outside the angle of his vision. Startled, Hero looked up and froze, his hands clenching involuntarily. Fifteen feet away, stretched between the slender trunks of two young pines, he saw a giant, radiant web that he was sure had not been there earlier. The web was roughly in the shape of a wheel and divided into twelve sections, like the twelve houses of the zodiac. And on the wheel, positioned in the Eighth House, the astrological house of death, was a stellium of spiders that glittered like jewels in the sun’s rays. He recognized the astral symbols by their colors: the great red god Mars, ruler of the Eighth House, was square to Saturn on the Ascendant. The white binary Algol, most malefic of stars, was aligned with the Dragon’s Tail and combust the sun. There were afflictions everywhere he looked: but nothing disturbed him more than the Arabic Point of Fatality, which by his calculations was exactly in opposition to the Lord of the Fourth House—the end of things.
Yesterday he had idly solicited her birth date and hour, intending to present her with a horoscope delineation in lieu
But today he found it difficult, perhaps because of the most recent Occurrence, to align himself properly with emanations from the unexcavated burial site, so rich in harmonics which enhanced his own earthly vibrations. He was saturated with the knowledge of another’s death.
After twenty futile minutes of effort at concordance, uneasy from the sensation that he was urgently required elsewhere, Hero rose and returned to his modest camp. There he was instantly sensitive to the fact that something or someone had been prowling about—no, not an animal. He discovered no footprints to conclude that it had been a man, and as far as he could tell, his belongings had not been disturbed; yet a spoor remained in the air ... he sniffed gently, downwind, nostrils vaguely offended by the lingering odor of smoke.
Tobacco, not wood smoke. It might have been one of the caravaners, passing through on a morning stroll, enjoying his pipe. Hero’s fellow campers were, for the most part, a congenial lot. He did not, however, like the vibrations he was receiving here, where serenity had been the rule. Perhaps they were some of his own unquiet vibrations, left over from the nocturnal Occurrence.
But as he stood there motionlessly, absorbing all that the clear, ethereal morning had to describe, he began subtly to tremble, a quaking of anguish, reaction to an intuition of threat. In the jungles he had developed an ability to sense, even at a distance, where a jaguar had dragged its leftover kill through the undergrowth to lodge it in a tree for safekeeping until mealtime came around again. He was preternaturally attuned to violent disturbances of nature, down to the most insignificant clash of warrior ants from different nests. Crossing Chickamauga in the northern part of Georgia, he had suffered excruciating mental pain on that Civil War battlefield, smelled the powder and the blood as if it had happened yesterday and not more than a century ago.
He was suffering now, but still he had no idea why. It was some beastly imprint left in the delicate harmonic fabric he had woven in his temporary sanctuary, unwelcome knowledge of a feast or ritual of blood.
Hero shuddered. What did it have to do with him? Now he must move, find an undisturbed place where he might continue his meditations until, four days from now, heavenly configurations involving the burial mounds reached a climax.
When he opened his backpack to replace toothbrush, soap, and hand towel, there was a sudden flare just outside the angle of his vision. Startled, Hero looked up and froze, his hands clenching involuntarily. Fifteen feet away, stretched between the slender trunks of two young pines, he saw a giant, radiant web that he was sure had not been there earlier. The web was roughly in the shape of a wheel and divided into twelve sections, like the twelve houses of the zodiac. And on the wheel, positioned in the Eighth House, the astrological house of death, was a stellium of spiders that glittered like jewels in the sun’s rays. He recognized the astral symbols by their colors: the great red god Mars, ruler of the Eighth House, was square to Saturn on the Ascendant. The white binary Algol, most malefic of stars, was aligned with the Dragon’s Tail and combust the sun. There were afflictions everywhere he looked: but nothing disturbed him more than the Arabic Point of Fatality, which by his calculations was exactly in opposition to the Lord of the Fourth House—the end of things.
Yesterday he had idly solicited her birth date and hour, intending to present her with a horoscope delineation in lieu
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