by D B Nielsen
But I didn’t get very far.
The forest floor, oversaturated and heavy from the relentless rainfall, suddenly opened up beneath me, pitching me forward. Frantically, I tried to regain my balance; shifting my weight to find some foothold, reaching out to grasp only the wind. I was hurled downwards into the yawning chasm that had been caused by a season of inclement weather. My poor body tumbled as if in a clothes dryer. Over and over, I fell. The exposed tree roots tangled in my clothes, tearing the beanie from my head and ripping at my long, lank hair.
Instinctively, my arms flew up to protect my face.
I felt a sudden, sickening jolt. Something hard struck my left shoulder and jarred my ribcage.
I landed with a hard thud – still alive, in one piece, but battered so dreadfully the injuries, scratches and bruises would last for ages after my ordeal – and automatically curled into the foetal position in self-defence. Pain sliced through me. I felt woozy and disoriented. I had hit my head on something sharp and solid on impact. My right temple was throbbing ferociously. Reaching up, I touched wetness. It was my own warm, sticky blood – now flowing freely into my right eye – a lobbing gash that made me want to retch. Struggling against a wave of dizziness, blackness hovering at the edges of my vision, I made a tentative attempt to sit upright and almost immediately swooned.
Reality fragmented.
Flitting in and out of consciousness, I smelled ancient dirt, wet stone, and a lingering memory stored in the bowels of the earth, hidden amongst its crevices – an echo of warm, sun-kissed sand, the sweet scent of rosewater, and the nectareous taste of golden honey, dried figs and sticky dates. Voices carried on the wind, the silvery tinkle of bells, rushing water. Stars gravitated above my head. Spinning. Spinning. Bursting. Blooming into bright white roses against the purple veil of night. White roses growing on the vine of memory.
“Gis-kin. Kiskanu”. A whisper.
‘You will find it.’ A voice worn by age breathed into the wind.
Dirt rained down upon me as a figure launched itself from the edge of the opening above.
‘SAFFRON! Don’t move! I’ve found you!’ Finn’s voice was laced with the urgency he felt as he landed gracefully, upright and on the pads of his feet like a panther by my side.
My eyes widened and I almost swooned again.
‘What...? What happened? How...?’
He closed the space between us as he dropped down on his haunches, careful not to touch me. ‘You fell. Kemwer alerted me. I came as soon as I could. I was afraid I’d be too late.’
‘Too late?’ My words were only a weak whisper.
‘You’re badly injured. You’ve been down here for hours. There’s a search party out looking for you.’
I gazed at the brightness of his eyes in the darkness. ‘Is this real?’
I felt myself tremble uncontrollably and I feared I was going to be ill – violently ill – in front of Finn. I turned my head, feeling another sharp jolt of pain and gritted my teeth, ending up dry retching instead.
The lancing pain across my temple made me suck in my breath in whistling sobs. My thoughts were confused. Time was disjointed. A shiver wracked my body where I lay on the frozen ground. I felt feverish, hot and cold, and numb all at once.
‘I don’t think I should move you,’ Finn said, his hands moving restlessly by his side, fisting, as if he wanted to touch me but didn’t quite trust himself. ‘But I need to examine your wounds.’
I opened my eyes to look up at him, blinking away a trickle of blood.
‘You’re asking my permission?’ I managed to ask with a slight laugh that turned into a cough and ended on a whimper. ‘Alright.’
I closed my eyes, holding myself still against the inevitable torment. His cool fingers were gentle and steady but I still couldn’t help but flinch in response. He ran his hands down my sides with clinical detachment, careful as he probed the area around my ribcage.
‘Forgive me for causing you further pain. Your skin feels clammy and I think you may have a fractured rib or two, but the lung hasn’t been punctured as far as I can tell,’ he said, hesitating, ‘However, I’m more concerned about your head wound. It’s a deep gash, Saffron. It needs stitching. I think I may have to get help.’
Abruptly he stood up and motioned to leave.
‘No!’ I said with all the force I could muster, ‘Don’t you dare leave me, Finn! Please!’
My words tapered off on a note of desperation, making Finn hesitate. He glanced at my wound, matted with blood.
The depth of the chasm held at bay the worst of the storm but by no means were we safe from the elements. Finn seemed to be at war within himself, fighting his internal demons. I did not say another word but my face was filled with unvoiced pleading. In my weakened state, tears seeped past hooded lids and I had to blink them away along with the blood of my head wound so that I could continue to focus on Finn.
Silently, he nodded, and crouched down again beside me.
I was trembling violently now. My stomach churned and knotted, but there was nothing more to throw up. Pain sliced my forehead with the effort it took to remain conscious.
‘You’re freezing, Saffron.’ Finn looked intently into my eyes. ‘I can keep you warm until help arrives, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust me.’
I closed my eyes tightly against the sharp, intense torture, feeling my breathing laboured.
‘I think you’re the one who keeps telling me I shouldn’t trust you,’ I said with a weak smile, acknowledging my consent.
His lips twisted as he replied, ‘You’ve never listened to me before, so why start now?’ Then on a more serious note, he added, ‘I don’t know why it is that I keep breaking the rules with you.’
I wanted to ask him what he meant, but the words didn’t have time to form as I was dazzled by the sudden heat that radiated from him. There was a lengthening of shadow and night. It was as if all the lights had gone out. Yet, strangely, like an impression left behind, something lingered from before; a pulsating manifestation of light where there was no light to be found. An atmosphere of expectation like clouds gathering before a storm shimmered along the length of the cavern. When it happened, the transition was so abrupt I had trouble registering what I was seeing.
He was exquisitely formed. His wings held the bluish-black lustre of a raven’s, the sheen of starless midnight sky. Expanding at least twice the length of his body, they reached upwards to form a point where the tips met, as perfect as any teardrop. His unblemished skin seemed to be invested with the silvery light of the moon, accentuating the hard ridges and planes of his body. He was naked to the waist; a thing of great beauty, a sculptor’s masterpiece. His eyes were piercing blue in a face of moonlit marble. Their intensity held mine, more powerful than any human touch.
‘I will not harm you,’ Finn said, spreading his arms wide. He looked like an image of Icarus. He looked ethereal, as if he didn’t belong in this mortal realm.
I was unable to look away from him.
‘I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what you’re asking,’ I said in as strong a voice as I could force between chattering teeth.
Finn’s expression was carved in stone, as tight and fixed as marble. No emotion was written there but I could tell he was warring within himself.
Minutes – or merely seconds – ticked past, I couldn’t tell. Pain toyed with reason.
‘Finn, please, I’m freezing,’ I said, almost slurring the words, seeing dark spots dance before my eyes on another wave of dizziness.
He hesitated only a moment before he moved – more like glided – towards me. As carefully as he could manage, as if I was being wrapped in tissue paper like some delicate, infinitely precious object, Finn wrapped his arms around me.
‘I will not harm you,’ he murmured again, his breath warm against my ear. But this time, I felt, it was said more to reassure himself than me.
I leant back into him on a sigh and we spooned. The warmth that emanated
from him encompassed me as his wings folded over my shivering frame, immediately blocking out the worst of the chilly winter air. Extended as if in flight, the feathers formed a scalloped skirt that swept the cavern floor, as cosy as any goose down quilt, covering my body entirely. Like velvet darkness, the lining of his underwing coverts were exceptionally soft where they brushed against my exposed flesh.
My fingers stretched out of their own accord, brushing against the finest, softest down. Feeling its fluffiness. Silken smoothness. With my fingertips, I stroked along its light, satiny texture.
Finn shuddered where he was pressed up against my back. I felt the quiver along the length of his wing and the tension in the hardness of his body.
‘Don’t do that,’ he growled menacingly.
‘Why not?’ I asked, curious. But I withdrew my fingers as he requested.
‘How would you like it if I stroked your skin – your body – without permission?’
It was a warning, not a question. I was to behave myself – which was difficult given the provocative, sensual nature of his question. In other circumstances, I may have been aroused or embarrassed. Or both. But given my injured condition, the comforting, soporific warmth of his close proximity overwhelmed me with a mind-numbing lassitude and I began to drift.
‘Saffron!’ I was rudely shaken, making me flinch with the sudden pain. ‘You need to stay awake! You must remain conscious! Open your eyes!’
His usually melodious voice was rough with urgency and, against a tidal wave of desiring nothing more than to lose myself in oblivion, I opened my eyes.
‘That’s better.’
He breathed a sigh of relief but pinwheels of stars circled in front of my eyes.
‘Distract me. Tell me the rest of your story.’ I heard myself whisper into the darkness of the cavern.
Finn made an impatient noise at the back of his throat and I thought he was going to deny my request. But he took up the thread of his narrative exactly where he had left off.
‘The tribal elders considered my birth an ill-omen, but it seemed the will of the Creator that both mother and child survived such a traumatic ordeal, and they were not foolish enough to challenge providence.’
There was that word again. It seemed that all the Nephilim believed in providence, but I still wasn’t so sure. I wanted to believe in a fate that we had an ability to choose, to create, to determine. I wanted to control my own destiny. But I was not about to argue the point now – not when Finn was finally forthcoming about his mysterious past.
‘From the very first, my mother was fiercely protective of her offspring – she would not allow any harm to befall me. What, of course, she didn’t know was that it was almost impossible to harm a Nephilim without a seraph blade. So, in her desire to see me safe, she trained me to fight as a warrior of the tribe. It was inevitable that I excelled in my training given my ancestry, my mother’s abilities and her determination. But, as I matured, it became obvious to the entire tribe that I had an advantage over the other combatants. They were merely human, after all. The only legacy my father ever gave to me was the power given to him by the grace of the Creator. But it is a curse. I am Emim. The Fearful One.’ At this, Finn paused pensively.
I did not need to see his face to know the look of utter despair that lingered there still. I now understood his deep and abiding sorrow.
Shadows fanned across the stone walls, deepening, lengthening. A creeping chill pervaded the cavern as Finn resumed speaking of his plight.
‘Have you ever read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? No? Well, if you had, you would understand what it means to be me, what it means to be Emim. We have no place among the human race, yet we do not belong to the hierarchy of angels. We are cut off from the Creator. Abandoned and alone, our fathers have condemned us to our fate by abdicating their filial responsibilities. We are abominations.’
I gave a shiver, but Finn barely seemed to notice. Sage had once told me that St. John had referred to himself in a similar way. It seemed that the race of Nephilim believed that they were inevitably cursed or doomed.
Finn drew breath. ‘The angels occupy a natural order – a hierarchy as an army – whose purpose is to fight for Heaven and to reflect the glory of the Creator. Each angel is unique – as unique as each human being. Beautiful, intelligent and fierce, they are without parallel. The Grigori were angels once – created naturally good by the Creator, they became evil by their own doing.’
‘How could this have happened if there is such a thing as providence?’ I queried softly.
‘As an expression of love by the Creator, the angels were created with free will. They were created as such so that they had the choice to love their maker in turn. Do you not understand? Love is a fundamental drive – a metaphysical necessity – for all created beings, since it is only through love that such beings can realise their full potential. Since love must be freely given, that which is coerced is not love at all. You cannot make someone love you – it is either given freely or not at all. Love not given freely cannot be said to be love – not in its pure, true sense. This meant that the angels – and humans too – needed to have the ability to choose. By creating angels as beings with free will, the Creator allowed them choice.’
This was the understanding of fate that made sense to me; a fate we had a hand in shaping.
‘Such is providence – by creating angels and humans with free will, the Creator could foresee that there would always be the possibility of sin, the possibility of evil, but for love’s sake granted them choice.’
‘And they fell from grace,’ I said numbly.
Finn’s voice seemed to come from a distant place. ‘They’re cursed, you know ... the Grigori ... the Fallen. They are cut off from the only source that can give them happiness. In this hellish state, they are forever tormented but remain obstinate in their hatred and bitterness. It deforms their very nature. But they made their choice.’
I heard the sudden, lonely cry of the winds blasting through the woods, attempting to drown out Finn’s anguished words.
‘I’m cursed too. But I did not get to choose.’
Along the periphery of my vision, the darkness continued to creep.
‘What happened to your mother, Finn? What happened to you?’ I asked.
He was silent.
I could not see his face and had no way of knowing what he was thinking. I could only hear his soft breaths and the steady rhythm of his heart in the darkness.
Finally, he responded; his voice devoid of all emotion. ‘I am the last of my tribe. The others are long gone. Empires have risen and fallen since. I wasted my time in the past. I could not find my way out of it. But my brothers found me instead.’
His tone was as colourless and as barren as tundra; his words ominously falling, each one like a death knell.
‘The human world is a bitterly cold place. Nothing lasts in it. Nothing is meant to last. All falls into ruin. As soon as things are built or made, they quickly crumble and become obsolete. Humans are afflicted by their condition; they die a little more each moment that they live.’ Finn sighed, his warm breath fanning the tendrils of hair that curled round my ear. ‘I have watched your kind for thousands of years. Like the angels, you wish to attain ultimate happiness through your own power. But this is impossible. And so, like the angels, you suffer the pain of loss.’
My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into the soft flesh of my palms. ‘What happened, Finn? What happened when they found you?’
‘I was born into a human world and I made a futile attempt to belong there. But I always knew my past would come for me. I knew they would come for me,’ Finn breathed shallowly. ‘They found me in that place and showed me there was another way. They promised that I did not have to live in the human world of mortality and mutability forever.’
I flinched at the coldness of his words.
‘Is that all?’ I asked, horrified.
‘All? Oh, it means so very little to you, doesn’t
it? It’s little to you who take these things for granted. You seem to live between the boundaries of two worlds, in the borderlands, Saffron. What did you imagine? What did you think you would find amongst my memories?’ Finn demanded. His voice remained low but was no longer melodious. Something cold and harsh and ugly snapped through the air on an electric current of emotion, spilling over from the climate surrounding us.
I swallowed and said on a mere whisper, ‘Hope ... Love.’
He stiffened automatically in response to my words, as if in denial; then relaxed against me once more.
‘Oh, Saffron, you defeat me every time,’ he murmured, resting his chin against the top of my head, ‘You are the bringer of hope. You are the Wise One. It has been ordained that you will lead us back home. We need you...’
‘And love?’ I swallowed, and tasted something bitter. My injuries were throbbing and the darkness was almost upon me now. ‘Finn? What about love?’
I felt him mentally withdraw from me, though he did not move so much as an inch. All around us, the ghosts of the past shifted restlessly, whispering, laughing. My heart hammered sickly against my injured ribs. I thought he meant to reject me and I braced myself for the inevitable shame and pain.
But it seemed he had not heard the words I had uttered as he responded to something beyond me, somewhere in the distance of the woods. His extraordinary hearing had caught the sound carried on the winds. He raised his head, cocking his ear towards the opening of the chasm. Within the ferocity of the winds’ cries, he could hear the approach of the search party out looking for me.
‘The others are on their way here to rescue you, along with your family and the Anakim.’ He meant St. John. ‘They will arrive soon. I cannot be found with you.’
I understood. He meant to leave me.
‘Finn–’ I began, but he was already moving away from me, preparing to make good his escape.