Beneath the Hallowed Hill by Theresa Crater Read Free Book Online Page A

fears. She followed her training, surrendering to the black void that was consuming her, and walked toward the womb of her remaking.
    After the next turn, the darkness began to grey, and Megan forced herself not to rush toward the returning light. She continued in her deliberate way, allowing the temple to do its work of opening her awareness into the full receptivity of a newborn. The angle of the floor eased and, after another turn, straightened out. A soft glow from the low passage at the end of the tunnel beckoned her, promising solace and understanding. She stepped through.
    The light came from a clear crystal ball in the hands of another priestess whose face Megan never saw, for she could not look away from the orb. Her eyes filled with tears, as much from the sudden light as from the harmony the crystal radiated. Lights swam in slow undulating spirals inside it, alive and intelligent, like celestial dolphin. The priestess handed the orb to Megan and directed her to sit on the smooth stone in the very middle of the cavern. Megan sat and nestled the ball in her lap as if it were a precious matrix holding the seed of all life. She was lost in the swirling light, bathing in the waves of energy coming from the stone as it took the measure of her soul.
    She noticed there were other lights around the circumference of the room, more orbs sitting on slender pedestals. Most of them were muted, but one brightened and beckoned to her. The priestess was suddenly beside her to take the orb and help her up. Megan walked to the welcoming crystal sphere and found it was not a sphere after all. It had a face, it was a crystal skull.
    I am in the Chamber of the Crystal Skulls , she realized. The Chamber of the Thirteen . She glanced back at the very center of the chamber where she had been. Where was the Master Skull? She was sitting where it should be, there should be twelve around the periphery. She started to count them.
    “Megan.” The bright skull on the pedestal called to her, and the sweetness in that voice made her forget all her superficial questions and remember the deep one sitting in her heart. “ What is my life’s work ?” She shed all her preconceptions and certainties.
    Now she was right in front of the skull. His face—for the voice was male—smiled at her from the center of several deep cracks inside the crystal. One divided his eyes, leaving one socket frosty and the other with gold flecks floating in its clear depths like tiny stars. His nose resembled the entrance to a temple, and on the top of his head, full of rainbows and the hints of many forms, sat a milky white circle that looked like a cap. Long, long ago, this stone was fractured by volcanic eruptions and the incredible pressures of tectonic plates shifting in the earth, and then somehow repaired itself. It was ancient beyond her imagination.
    All this she saw at a glance, and then she felt a wave of self-consciousness, as if she was staring at someone in a crowd and they had turned around and looked back. The skull chuckled. He certainly was cheerful for such a cracked up piece, she thought, and this time the skull laughed fully. “ I have seen many ages of the Earth, my dearest, as will you .” Before she could ask what he meant, he sent out a powerful beam of energy that struck her forehead.
    She stood in a circular chamber resembling the one she just left. A simple bench hugged the golden adobe walls, running the entire circumference of the large room. Wide steps led to a blue tiled floor where intricate inlaid designs curved elegantly; farther in they formed overlapping triangles and squares. In the center of the room stood the largest crystal she had ever seen. It soared high above her head, two, maybe three stories. The domed glass roof was pulled back to leave the enormous crystal pointing at the stars. The stone noticed her and hummed a welcome, a sound that vibrated the bones in her head, making her vision blur.
    With a snap, she returned to