The small, bony woman shyly adjusts her spectacles on the bridge of the nose, tucks a lock of silvery hair behind her ear and clears her throat.
«Just now, Angel was trying to explain what was strange to him in the texts of the notes.»
«I wanted to pay attention to how natural phenomena are constantly opposed to a person,» Angel is embarrassed, «it’s just not clear which side the organizers are on.»
«Well, certainly not on the side of good,» BeBe sighs theatrically.
«We all noticed it,» Alex intervenes, «in riddles the elements prevail over man and demonstrate his insignificance and dependence on nature. It’s clear, however, that Water and Fire give life until they get out of control and destroy entire cities. Without Air, a person will die in a matter of seconds. Life is born from the Earth, which feeds a person and supplies oxygen, but he goes there after his death.»
«The same is with Sound and Light, although they fall out of the general picture a little,» Angel continues, «Light allows a person to see and yet it keeps many secrets and mysteries, for example, in the dark or under water. And this is also a kind of opposition to natural forces – after all, many animals see perfectly under such conditions…»
«And then what do you think is wrong with the Sound?» Runner asks defiantly, looking down at poor Angel.
«The guy is right,» Planck comes to his rescue, «the human ear is able to perceive only sound waves in the negligible range from 16 to 20 kilohertz. Everything below is called infrasound, everything above – ultrasound. Not audible to us, their help many animals communicate with each other.»
«For example, whales and elephants – with infrasound, and bats and some birds – with ultrasound,» Blonda looks at Runner with hostility, as if saying: «Get off Angel.» And I again catch myself thinking how unnatural to receive such explanatory comments from the mouth of such a beauty.
«And yet I still don’t understand how something that we know very well without organizers can help us. Namely, that man in the face of nature is nothing,» BeBe exclaimes emotionally.
Martha is shining all over her face, no longer able to contain her triumph:
«And here is our guess. What if all this is not about opposition or exaltation of man over nature, but, on the contrary, identification? Not the struggle is demonstrated, but that man is a part of nature itself? In other words, we are talking about chakras – a teaching widely practiced in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism…»
«And also in Tibetan Buddhism! It’s not for nothing that Antakarana symbols are found at the site of each find,» BeBe exclaims in amazement.
«According to the belief of Buddhists, a person has a physical and spiritual origin, and the etheric double is an exact duplicate of the physical body. In this double there are psychic centers – „chakras“. And those multi-colored liquids with which we are dealing, personify mantras, because each chakra has its own color and element!»
«Of course, it’s obvious! Martha, you’re a genius!» I am surprised that this simple thought did not occur to me earlier, because I also did my homework and studied everything related to Tibet. Probably, I was confused by Zhang Kiang’s phrase that the game has nothing to do with Tibetan culture. How then to explain what we are dealing with now?
«Then why these stupid little notes with no less stupid riddles?» Yu sounds surprised.
«To designate which element corresponds to each of the colors and to demonstrate the close connection of the human principle with the forces of nature in order to lead us to the idea of chakras,» Martha concludes.
Inspired by Martha’s hunch, the players vigorously discuss their next steps. We have an idea of the chakras more-less. The elements Earth, Water, Fire and Air don’t raise any questions. It’s more difficult since we are talking about such a complex concept as «ether» – a special medium that fills the world space. But what would our world be without Sound, Light and Thought?
«The last one we miss,» Angel finishes the common thought.
«Even knowing all this, we are still doomed to starve?» Runner grumbles.
There is a silence in responce. He spoke out loud what each of us fears. Even if the riddle is solved and we figure out how to put it into practice, we still miss the seventh element Thought.
Suddenly Joleo, overshadowed by a guess, jumps to his feet and chatters excitedly:
«Wait! All other items were found in specific places: „Earth“ in the earth, „Water“ in water, „Air“ in…»
«We get it, go on,» Yu interrupts impatiently.
«Even Sound and Light are relatively material concepts. Is that so, Planck?» Joleo is addressing the elderly man.
«Absolutely. The first is mechanical vibrations in any environment, and the second is electromagnetic radiation,» he confirms.
«That’s it! The stone hiding the Sound element made hissing unnatural sounds, and the glare of light on the dark tree trunk pointed to the Light. But Thought is immaterial. It cannot be hidden in a specific place, because it is born in a human’s head!»
«In simple terms,» BeBe learned to understand her new friend quite well during today’s short trip, «we ourselves will create the Thought element by mixing colors!»
Frankly, I am amazed at this unexpected solution. There is undeniable logic in the words of Joleo. But what if it’s still a mistake? Time is rapidly coming to an end, and we have no other idea.
«If we are talking about the seventh chakra, then it should be purple,» Martha notes and nervously adjusts a lock of her hair.
«Well, this is known even from school: to get a purple color, you need to mix red and blue, that is, Earth and Light,» Alex reflects.
«W-w-which makes a certain sense if we consider the Earth and Light as the first creations of God,» Joleo suggests, suddenly stuttering.
All this sounds confusing enough and makes you strain your brain to assemble the pieces of the puzzle. We have four elements that make up the basis of life, as Maestro intended: Earth, Air, Water and Fire, and three etheric elements: Sound, Light and Thought. But the final one is a mixture of Earth and Light… Anyone’s brain will boil from this.
«At least worth a try. What are we losing? Here’s what I want to show you: take a look at this table, what do you see?» Planck is full of impatient anticipation.
«Antakarana, the most powerful symbol of the healing of Tibetan monks, we all did our homework,» Runner grins.
It suddenly dawns on me what Planck wants to say.
«Grooves! Seven grooves form sevens, which meet in the center, and then diverge along the three legs of the table,» I exclaim, «we just need to pour liquids into them in the correct sequence from the first chakra to the seventh!»
Planck has already neatly opened one of the bottles and is carefully sniffing its contents.
«Judging by the specific smell, it could be some kind of chemical compounds. I assume that when they are reunited, they will react. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine what exactly these substances are, which means that a chemical reaction can be unpredictable. Therefore, it will be better to move away from the table quickly as soon as the fluids are in the grooves,» he warns.
«And merging them together, You’ll become a little clever,» Yu quotes.
«You’ll still your hunger through awareness», I like even more,» BeBe exclaims happily.
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