by D B Nielsen
‘It looks like I won’t be back in until May,’ St. John replied, a slight tone of exasperation in his voice. ‘There’s a hold up on the bespoke glazed windows for the new conservatory, which means that all the other building work is being delayed while we wait for the windows to arrive.’
‘Which means,’ Gabriel added, with a devilish light in his silver-grey eyes, ‘that I’m very grateful for the offer of your guest room and for the delicious home-cooked meals. It’s better than staying at The Langham. What with work and the constant travelling involved, I’m finding it tiring to live the life of a nomad.’
It was just as well I’d swallowed my last bite or I might have choked on my food – and if I’d done that, Mum would have been whisking me back to hospital, I was sure. As it was, I couldn’t contain my surprise.
‘What? You’re joking! You’re staying here?’ I exclaimed in shock.
Jasmine’s reaction was equally vocal.
Squealing in delight, she exclaimed, ‘Sweet! Dad, is Gabriel staying with us long? Can he stay the weekend? Can we all go to Legoland Windsor? Please!’
At the mention of Legoland, Alex started bouncing up and down in his seat, shrieking for joy, and Dad had difficulty getting him to sit still and quieten down. Mum tried to provide a calming influence by patiently explaining that Gabriel had business in Canterbury and was here to work, but they weren’t listening. As they continued to whine and plead, Sage began to clear the table. I stood up to assist her. Anything was better than listening to their high-pitched whining. Over the ruckus, my eyes met Gabriel’s – his alight with satisfaction.
Well, he’d certainly achieved his goal, I noted. He now was at liberty to move freely about Kent without arousing my parents’ or sister’s suspicions. And he’d provided me with an alibi if I needed one – I could always claim Gabriel wished to take a walk in the woods or see the natural beauties surrounding the Manor House. Mission accomplished.
That night I went to bed buoyed up by excited thoughts of the following day. Despite the circumstances – our quest to recover the Scroll, having a Nephilim in the house under false pretences, and Gabriel sleeping in our guest bedroom – I slept like a log and woke up refreshed.
The fact that it was now officially spring, the change in the season made no real difference to the weather. It was still cold. The only word I could use for the subtle difference between winter and early spring was “dripping”. Everything seemed to be wet or damp, covered in patches of melting snow; icicles weeping water, drip by drip; the trees, the earth, all sodden. They’d told me that, contrary to popular belief, it didn’t rain as much in Kent as it did in other parts of the country – something to do with the geography, as we were situated closer to the coast and France. I wondered if I’d been lied to – it seemed strange to come from a country where it was hot almost nine months of the year to a country that was practically the opposite. Perhaps I was getting soft – after all, I’d lived in Sweden too, but even though I could remember the cold, I couldn’t remember it being so wet.
I dressed with particular care as a result of the cool, damp weather and the fact that we would be journeying underground. Coming out from the back door, I hesitated for a minute to pull on my gloves, assessing the landscape. The very old, towering oaks in the distance, shouldering the burden of the past winter, made the foreground of silver birch trees look as weightless and impermanent, as fragile and slim as a row of toy tin soldiers left out overnight in the rain. But the weather was, as predicted, mild and the sun was shining, which I took for an auspicious beginning to our quest.
And so I ventured into the woods once more.
I had two solid leads to work on. The first was given to me by Finn, which I’d mistaken to lead to the gypsy fortune-teller in Paris. I thought I had been guided to the seven lamps to navigate my way. But I was wrong. I now knew that I was to look for the seven-spouted lamp elsewhere. The second indicated the direction of my journey. The holy man had pointed to something that had fallen in a shimmer of incandescent light to lodge itself a few feet beyond the gnarled, mossy roots of the primordial oak which had sheltered me before my fall.
My first task was to find that oak, though this would not prove too difficult – the emergency services had deliberately cordoned off the site as there was still a gaping hole in the ground, desiring to prevent further accidents from occurring. Despite putting up a temporary barrier, I seriously doubted that the local planning and land preservation councils would do anything any time soon due to England’s rigid heritage preservation and environmental land laws, as both St. John and my parents had found in trying to restore their heritage-listed properties. It was these thoughts that occupied my mind as I made my way through the woods to meet Gabriel.
He was leaning nonchalantly against the solid oak tree, his arms crossed over his chest, as I approached from the north. His fine, wheat-coloured hair caught the gentle breeze, strands dancing like stalks in the wind. I felt a brief spark of attraction looking at him, which I quickly suppressed. There were too many reasons why it would never work between Gabriel and me; the most significant being that we were too alike. I sighed softly, almost wistfully, and immediately he turned in my direction.
Silver-grey eyes lit up as he spied me.
‘Wassup, Gabe, how’s it going? Ready for a little adventure?’ I called out to him, trampling the muddy path made by hundreds of feet in their rescue effort.
The beginnings of a smile instantly turned down into a frown.
‘I do not like,’ he muttered in his thick French accent.
I paused, confused. ‘You do not like what? Adventure?’
He scowled at me. ‘I do not like that name. Gabe ... Gabe. Pff. Why must the English shorten everything?’
I shrugged my shoulders in response. It was true that he always called me by my given name and never used my nickname unlike St. John, but I’d never considered it as being important.
How was I supposed to know he’d be offended by me shortening his name? What was the big deal anyway? I thought, shrugging off our cultural differences. Whatever.
Instead of engaging in what would inevitably turn into an argument and, seeing as Gabriel had already set up the equipment in readiness for our descent, I commented, ‘You’ve been busy this morning. Are we all set then?’
‘Oui, oui, oui,’ he replied, flourishing a hand in the direction of the opening to the abyss.
Anchors, runners, racking and other equipment had been rigged together for our mission to abseil down.
‘Whenever you are ready, ma petite puce.’
I felt a rising elation, a thrill that was almost inexplicable given that I’d fallen down this deep hole only recently and sustained dreadful injuries. But the thought that I might just be right, that I’d found where the Scroll had been hidden, urged me on, making me daring.
As Gabriel assisted me with my equipment, I peered over the edge. A strange, sweet odour mingled with the smell of damp earth rising from the pit.
‘Tell me, Saffron,’ Gabriel said, strapping the gear tightly around his solid frame, ‘why do you think the Scroll is buried here? It seems such an isolated spot.’
I’d tried to explain it several nights’ ago but looking at what was, as Gabriel had claimed, an “isolated spot” made me realise he might be entertaining doubts about both the Scroll being hidden here and my sanity. I supposed I owed him some sort of explanation as he’d agreed to accompany me on my quest based on faith alone.
‘I can’t really explain it, Gabriel,’ I finally answered, ‘I only know that just before I fell, I saw something. I think I saw a group of clergymen travelling through the woods like some kind of vision of the past. Yeah, I know, that’s Sage’s thing but I’m sure I saw something landing near this oak. I know how lame that sounds but...’ I shrugged.
Gabriel simply nodded, accepting my word, never doubting me. ‘As I have said before – it is providence, non? Let us see what brought these holy men here, shall we?’
<
br /> He gestured for me to go first.
I nodded and, turning on the torch attached to my helmet to provide a little illumination, I descended into the gloom.
I had done my fair share of abseiling and potholing, so I was no novice and could hold my own, but the cavern seemed deeper than I remembered, or maybe that was just because my initial descent was so tumultuous. I groped for the crevices and contours, fingers searching the protruding shards of rock face under crumbling soil, with Gabriel descending above me. The smell intensified, along with a frisson of energy that made my stomach queasy. Grit crunched beneath Gabriel’s feet as he searched for a hold, sending down a shower of damp earth, pebble and rock. Gabriel apologised, but it was evident that the cavern wasn’t very stable and the ground above and around us could collapse at any moment. It was foolhardy to continue, but we didn’t have much of a choice. I doubted that when they had placed the Scroll here centuries ago they had thought it might require a full-scale archaeological dig to retrieve it, so we had to do the best we could under the circumstances.
Finally, I reached the bottom with Gabriel pulling up behind. I unhooked the equipment and gazed about, searching the gloom with the little brightness the torch provided. Only cold seemed to occupy this bareness, easy to become lost or crazed in the silence of centuries old stone and dirt. I smelled wet stone now, and an echo, a memory, of something similar to stewed fruits.
At first I saw nothing unusual but just rock, dirt and puddles of rainwater, and the footprints made by the rescuers who had trampled the earth beneath their heavy boots. I had memories of this place that were far too personal to share with Gabriel and I kept them to myself, ruthlessly supressing them as they had the power to make me feel hot and flustered.
The deep pit on closer inspection didn’t seem all that extraordinary; just another hole in the ground, another sink hole. Gabriel was searching the other side of the cavern wall and from his mutterings I could tell his efforts were proving equally futile. I began to feel foolish, wondering if I had led us on a wild goose chase.
Circling the cavern, I exhausted conjecture as well as sparse evidence. Earth and stone were sharp and biting with their mockery in the silent darkness. There was nothing here.
I sighed, feeling the full weight of sudden exhaustion.
The breeze rattling through the towering oak above, through its rough branches, shook remnants of snowfall onto my head as I stood in the centre of the cavern. I lifted my face for more, needing that cooling touch. Stars and kingdoms drifted overhead, following the sparkle of sunlight on droplets of water and melting ice. Silver-tinged daylight filtered down from the entry.
‘Maybe it’s like The Lord of the Rings,’ I murmured, ‘when the Fellowship attempt to enter the Mines of Moria.’
‘Bah, Saffron. Ridiculous. If you’re looking for an Elvish inscription, I’m packing my bags and going home now,’ Gabriel informed me, mockingly.
He was right. I was being fanciful.
‘But there is something unusual about this place,’ Gabriel conceded, looking around us. ‘Have you noticed the quality of the silence?’
I turned my gaze back to Gabriel in surprise. So, he had noticed it too.
I never bothered to mention to others what I heard anymore, as I wasn’t quite certain whether they could hear the things I could, and that made me embarrassed and reticent to share. Though, mainly, I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was nuts.
But Gabriel had noticed the silence too.
The sounds of the woods seemed excised from existence. No sound passed the entrance to the cavern above us, except for the rattling of the wind. Inside the earth, the silence of the cavern was absolute.
I marvelled at this strange phenomenon.
The sullen drip of the melt seeping from thawing drifts fell onto my head once more. Yet I did not feel the cold. The deep quiet touched me. The stilled stone bespoke a power and memory beyond understanding and embraced me in pervasive solitude.
I turned my face up to the heavens again, searching for the shaft of sunlight enclosed by a ring of earth. But clouds drifted over the opening, swallowing the sun.
And without the sun, the cavern took on a sinister atmosphere.
Immediately, shadows fanned the walls, deepening. I now felt a chill where I stood as a shadow moved in the corner of my eye, and experienced a sudden sharp pain in my shoulder blade where my “tattoo” of the Pleiades was fixed.
The air in the cavern changed.
‘Do you feel it?’ Gabriel asked anxiously, reaching across to take my arm, steering me in the opposite direction to the shadows.
I nodded but, knowing what was required of me, remained steadfast. ‘Gabriel, stop. We have to face it. No, I must face it.’
Gabriel raked back fallen hair. ‘How can you be sure?’
My voice rang with certainty. ‘Because I just know. It’s a test. For me. For the Wise One.’
Gathering my shaken nerves, I forced my trembling legs to move. I turned back to face the shadows. They crawled along a part of the cavern wall that now looked polished to a smooth, dark granite. The shape of the wall was what caught my attention; the reflective surface acted like a mirror within an archway that was definitely unnatural. Behind the mirrored surface was an inky blackness, and within that dead of night, beyond the mirrored pane, were a neat chain of lampstands – golden menorah – forming a rosette. Examining the glassy image, I saw rippling, shiny striations scattered onto black stone like grains of sand or quartz.
Icy fear lanced through me.
Noticing my reaction, Gabriel questioned, ‘What is it? What are you staring at?’
I realised then that the Nephilim could not see what I saw. It was a vision for my eyes alone. And such a vision.
I was staring at millions of miniscule markings, no more than the winking of tiny stars in the night sky, interlaced into thousands of silver-violet chains. Silvery starlight stirred slowly, sluggishly, deep within the stone. Like some primordial beast awakened from hibernation, the faint currents of energy shifted and swirled. To my heightened senses, the seething energy of the markings looked like an iridescent snowdrift falling through the beams of a car’s headlights, glittering waves and streams of light, like streams of computer code. I watched the rising glow; anxiety, excitement and fascination sweeping through me.
The passageway was melded into stone, the markings ancient – perhaps far, far older than when St. Augustine had delivered the Scroll to be buried here for safekeeping. The granite mirror was seamless, but for the markings upon it. It mirrored my own uncertainty back at me whilst, simultaneously, allowing me to look through.
Gates. Portals. Places providing passage. I faced one now and didn’t know exactly what to do. So I gingerly approached.
The girl in the mirror, my twin, so much like Sage, stepped forward as well. She had a wild look in her black eyes. She looked trapped behind the stone, in too terrible a place for human touch to reach.
She was trapped in the Underworld.
I had to enter, felt compelled to do so, though I knew I couldn’t break the granite with my bare hands. Instead, I laid one hand flat upon the stone, and her hand rose up to spread itself against mine; rose up through the cold to lace fingers with mine. The pain in my shoulder blade was by now excruciating and black spots danced before my eyes.
Gabriel sucked in a ragged breath and muttered something to me, his voice urgent, a warning perhaps, but I was too far gone to pay him any heed. Warned as well by the sudden blazing of golden lamplight beyond, I understood that I must move ahead.
Pulling my arm out of Gabriel’s grasp, I said to him over my shoulder, ‘If I don’t come back, tell Sage what happened. Wish me luck.’
And before Gabriel could protest or even motion with his lightning-quick reflexes, I took a decisive step forward, passing through the portal.
The icy air shifted again. For a few moments I felt consciousness start to slide away from me into a very deep hole as I moved throu
gh the solid barrier which felt like millions of shards of ice passing through flesh and bone, the searing pain of pinpoints of starlight needling their way beneath my skin. The cavern spun around me crazily. The markings blazed as bright as a supernova and, instinctively, I threw up my arm to cover my eyes. But that offered no protection. This was not my normal vision. It was mystical, psychic, and I was now facing the journey into the heart of darkness as I travelled in the footsteps of Ishtar.
The menorahs’ flames crackled and sparked, springing to life. Their unsteady light spilled across the polished stone floor and walls and ceiling of the cavern. And it was then I recognised that the cavern was a circular chute designed to disorientate the unsuspecting trespasser. It spiralled away from me, the menorahs forming a rosette, like a scene out of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life where up was down and vice versa. The end was the beginning. The patterns of markings spiralled vertically and horizontally, their reverse image unnerving, confusing, dizzying. It struck me then that I was standing within a physical manifestation of the Sator Square and that the endless repetition of the markings and mirrored images held the same magical properties as palindromes, being immune to tampering by the devil. Maybe this was why the Nephilim could not enter.
It should have been impossible for me to stand within the rock where eons of lava and fire, immense pressures and sediment, had birthed these formations. Whilst no opening appeared, no cracks marred the glassy stone either. The layers of ancient markings seemed to spiral into infinity, a widening gyre with me at its centre.
Wrenching my gaze free of the spiralling markings, I felt perspiration bead my forehead, upper lip, in between my breasts. I was quivering with fear; afraid that I’d never make it out of here, afraid that my mind would fall into madness, senseless and infinite. The silver-violet markings were too complex to read even if I might have understood them. They were rippling, seething with energy, deep and dark, both there and yet not there.