by Aiden James
As my slime covered head and torso peered out through the tunnel’s end, I beheld a world that until that moment I believed was pure fantasy. It didn’t seem real...how could it be real?
What sat before us—what surrounded us—was a garden of sorts. A magical garden....
The Garden of Eden.
Chapter 18
I fell out of the tunnel, not caring where I landed. The ground was laden with soft grass. Grass, I should say, that gathered onto itself where I needed a cushion and then evened out again after I landed safely upon it. Amy and Alistair were lying on the grass nearby. Amy sat up with a look of complete contentment upon her face while Alistair slept soundly next to her. His breathing steady, it gave me hope that I had a little more time to find a way to care for his injuries. More importantly, there were no more slithering noises coming from inside the tunnel. We were no longer in immediate danger.
Where we landed, was at the edge of an incredibly beautiful meadow. I imagine some folks out there are ready for me to say that we stepped out of one reality and entered into a spectacular realm that stretched for miles and miles. Like ‘Harry Potter’, or something Aesop and the Brothers Grimm might concoct.
Not so. Yes it was truly amazing, and altogether unlike anything I’d ever seen. But the entire area extended no more than half a mile in any direction. We were in another room that belonged to the cave system...albeit an enormous room wider than several football fields. That’s considering the width of the room. The height was a whole other beast to consider. I couldn’t see the room’s ceiling, and where the apex should be was a swirling combination of orange, blue and purple lights beyond wispy white clouds. It was as if a beautiful sunrise, or sunset, from the world outside had been sucked into the very top of the mountain we were presently within.
And how do I know it was a mountain? Well, that was more from what I learned later on, though it made some logical sense at that moment. The inward tapering walls of this enormous cave room bore the same groove striations and slick surfaces that I’ve often seen when spelunking through the hundreds of mountain cave systems I’ve visited during my long stay on earth. The same trickling water that dripped down the walls was present, as well. Only in this strange environment the walls were covered with bright green moss and algae.
A gentle stream coursed through the meadow of unique green and purple grasses, colorful flowers, and other plant life. Everything was in some ways similar to, and yet, different from anything I’d ever seen before.
In addition to the soft lights above that reminded me of an evening and morning sky, an extremely bright ball of light emanated from near the very center of the cave. Like a miniature sun or virgin star, it swirled slowly above the cave floor a quarter of a mile ahead of us. The terrain sloped down to this light from where we were, giving us all a clear view of everything else that had elicited Amy’s amazed and reverent response earlier.
Two tall waterfalls emptied into a large pond to the right of where this light hovered, and what looked like a small forest of tall, thick green trees formed an arc on the other side of the light, to our left. It looked as if we might encounter some of this wooded area if we were to wade through the meadow toward the light. In front of the light sat an incredible garden filled with exotic-looking flowers, the likes of which I’d never seen anywhere on earth before. The flowers’ rich cinnamon and honeysuckle-like scents filled the warm air around us...air that was clean, fresh and entirely free of pollutants. Like one might find on an uninhabited tropical island.
As I mentioned, there were many things in this place that had compatible counterparts in the ‘outside’ world. Not just plants and such. I had no desire to find out what kind of fish and other creatures flourished in the stream and pond ahead of us, but flocks of colorful birds that ranged from finch cousins to those as big as condors flew all around us. Their songs were amazingly beautiful. Deer-like animals were also plentiful, with the key differences from their cousins thriving above ground being their three-toed feet instead of hooves, and their eyes. Their eyes’ iridescence was more vivid than the creatures we had just suffered through.
“Isn’t this incredibly awesome?” Amy’s intense green eyes shined brightly with excitement. Stunning. I’m now talking about her. Really, I can’t recall any woman I’ve known down through the centuries having eyes as ablaze as this female’s. Even my Beatrice—as gorgeous as her eyes were in her youth, couldn’t quite compare with Ms. Golden Eagle’s fiery emeralds. “If this really is the Garden of Eden, then I know in my heart that Jeremy has to be around here...someplace!”
Like a young kid, she seemed ready to run through the meadow of this unspoiled paradise, calling her brother’s name and perhaps even skipping through the meadow like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
“I would think if he’s actually here, he would already know that we’re here. Right?” I had a hard time warming up to the reunion she sought, since going out of the way to make it happen had proven disastrous for my kid’s health. I moved over to Alistair, to check the strength of his vital signs. “Maybe your brother needs a moment to detect our presence. Be sure to yell at the top your lungs, so he has a smidgen of a chance to hear you.”
Ahhh, it felt so delightful to be a smartass again! She took it well, responding with a playful scowl. Really, it was all in good fun. Besides, if Jeremy really was there then great, and if not, then we needed to get busy finding an exit out of there. Especially since Alistair’s breathing had worsened again.
“Jeremy!!!”
Huh? I guess she took me seriously. I didn’t expect her to respond to a dare. Her yell echoed eerily throughout the cave.
“Well, if he’s here, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that he heard you loud and clear, little sister,” I said, offering a wry smile. “In the meantime, we need to get busy finding a way outta this place before the Sirens make us forget about leaving!”
Rather than respond to my wit this time, she looked over at Alistair, lying on his stomach and struggling to breathe again. Her serene countenance faded while she studied him.
“Yes, you’re right,” she agreed. “We need to get help before Ali gets any….”
Her statement unfinished, we had just heard something, or someone, stepping toward us from behind a tall tree nearby that resembled a walnut tree. Both Amy and I moved to protect Alistair, who remained asleep despite his discomfort. I tried to convince myself that his soft snores were a good thing...that somehow he’d be all right in the end.
My heart fell when I saw the barrel of an assault rifle pointed at us. I assumed that Stanislav’s mercenaries had followed us down the chute, or found a different entrance into this magnificent place.
“Who in the hell are you?”
From behind the tree, the male’s voice mimicked Amy’s accent.
“Jeremy? Is that really you??”
Amy sounded tentative, as if she feared being disappointed.
“It is Jeremy,” replied the voice, equally tentative. “So it’s really you, too, Amy?”
“Yes!”
The rest of what she said was a mixture of squeals and saying his name over and over again as she ran to the tree. I remained poised to come to her rescue, but soon she emerged hand in hand with a strikingly handsome young man. Clearly related to her, he bore the same raven hair and chiseled facial features, along with the same eyes...piercing green lights that surely reflected similar passion to his sister’s lust for adventure. Only his build was different, as Jeremy’s six foot frame and powerful physique hinted at a previous life as a successful athlete as compared to her slender form.
“William, this is my brother, Jeremy,” she said, proudly. “And the man lying on the ground is William’s father, Alistair.”
Jeremy’s dazzling smile faded once he saw my son, and completely fell when she told him what had befallen Alistair.
“It’s a pleasure, Jeremy,” I said, studying his facial expression. Something deeply alarmed him about my son’s co
ndition. “Amy has told us so much about you.”
“Hopefully it’s all been good,” he said, forcing a weak smile despite his serious tone.
“It was,” I deftly cut to the chase about Alistair. “As Amy told you, my father was bitten by some kind of eel with jelly-fish characteristics—no doubt poisonous. Do you have a first aid kit with you by chance?”
“Yes, I have some medical supplies,” he said. “But, your dad’s color is bad, and he’ll need more attention than I can give.”
“We’ll take whatever you can afford to give us. If we could just—”
“I might be able to get you something far better than anything modern medicine has to offer!” he blurted out, suddenly, perhaps not even aware he had interrupted me. “But first I have to make sure you’re protected.”
“Protected?”
“Yes, protected,” he repeated, solemnly. “You can all easily die here if you’re not protected.”
Amy and I already knew about other critters carrying potentially nasty bites, but I could tell he spoke of some other menace. The fear in his face said it was something far worse, and obviously something that wouldn’t be easily intimidated by the late-model Izhmash assault rifle he carried.
“What do you mean we can die?” I said, frowning, I’m sure. “Are you talking about Stanislav’s men?”
“No...no, It’s not them,” he said. “I’m talking about a creature that guards this place. If we can avoid him, I might be able to get you to a place that can eradicate Alistair’s injuries. There’s a man in the village near here called Zoran...have you met him?”
“Yes, we met him twice, actually.” I was curious as to what the strange leader of the village could do for us. Especially since Zoran resided at least three hundred feet above where we were right then. “The second time was less than an hour ago, when he poured some weird oil concoction on our heads.”
“He did that?”
This news seemed to impress Amy’s brother.
“Yes, he did!” enthused Amy. “He poured that shit on our heads, and right after he did it the oil evaporated off our heads.”
“Or, it was somehow absorbed into our skin,” I corrected her, gently, wondering if I should add anything else.
“That’s exactly what happened to me last winter, when I ended up lost after escaping Stanislav’s camp!” Jeremy’s eyes were on fire like his sister’s peepers earlier. I could only imagine what a family get-together is like with these people. “He told me that it would protect me from harm—and it has. Without it, you could never get close to the Tree of Life.”
Zoran’s advisement from earlier replayed in my head. His sudden disappearance into thin air, along with all of the wonders kept secret far below his sacred little town, put a whole new light on this shit.
“How is that so?”
I was glad Amy posed the question instead of me. I wanted a little more insight into how her brother rolled.
“There’s an angel—a real angel—who guards the tree, which Dad told me to look for if I ever found the Garden of Eden. The last papyrus he was working on, before Stanislav murdered him and Mom, talks about the curse of death that awaits any unwanted visitors to the sacred garden,” Jeremy explained. “I didn’t encounter the angel until after I had been in the garden a week or so. Scared me shitless, man.... He stands about twelve feet tall and is built like the Greek gods of ancient lore. His face is more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ve heard that description before.” I knew the full truth of what an angel looks like, having encountered several of these beings face to face a number of times during my existence. Of course, that would remain private information at the present time. “What’s his name?”
“His name is Ophanim,” Jeremy said. “It wasn’t the name I expected, since the name Jophiel appears several times in the Tibetan text that my father and I both translated.”
And here I thought it would be Raphael, since that was the angel’s name in the Eden stories I grew up with. Wonders never cease.
“Very well...so it is Ophanim,” I said, and then motioned to Alistair. “I take it that whatever idea you have of aiding my father has something to do with this angel. Correct?”
“This is true, at least in a sense. But rather than tell you how this might work, I’d prefer to show you. Come with me!”
The confident glint in Jeremy’s eyes and the easy, genuine smile on his face would command respect from many a man or woman. Thinking along these lines made me wonder how Amy dealt with her big brother’s powerful charms. At the moment, she seemed to study his face as if she just recently noticed something different about the sibling she had not seen in roughly a year. Perhaps it was the slimy glowworm remnants that she’d inadvertently transferred to him when they embraced earlier. But once he aided me in carrying Alistair, she shook her head and looked away. She smiled sheepishly, as if she had thought something a moment ago that she now understood was untrue.
Ever curious about the quirks in people’s behavior, I was keen to keep an eye on this situation, hoping to learn at some point what she found so odd in her brother’s appearance or persona. If I hazarded an immediate guess, it would be that this wonderful environment had somehow changed the person he was to a new man. Perhaps, even transformed him to his very core.
Jeremy swung his rifle over his shoulder and came over to where Alistair laid on the ground. Thinking it might help things if my son were awake, I tried to rouse him from his deepening slumber. But it was no use—not even our combined efforts could awaken him. The three of us lifted him, with Jeremy and me grabbing Alistair’s shoulders and Amy carrying his legs.
We set out toward the light, wading through waist-high grass. I kept my ears tuned for anything slithering beneath our field of vision. Fortunately, we reached the edge of the wooded area that separated us from the incredible flower garden in front of the light fairly quickly. Like an immense opal, the brilliant white glow shimmered with an array of rainbow hues swirling within. It grew more intense with nearly every step we took toward it. Like something inside the light knew we were coming.
As we stepped through the woods, I noticed a huge black panther resting between two large branches of what looked like a thick birch tree. The animal was enormous but didn’t seem interested in finding out how we tasted. For the moment, it casually regarded us as we passed by, its luminous yellow eyes monitoring our progress. Both Amy and I kept our own watchful eyes on the beast, and she damned near jumped out of her skin when it emitted a low-pitched ominous growl.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Jeremy. “Neafari scared the hell out of me too, but she’s never pursued me. Ophanim keeps her fed and happy.”
‘With what?’ I wondered silently.
The feline was as big as a prehistoric saber tooth, measuring at least a dozen feet in length. I couldn’t see her fangs at the moment, but that hardly mattered since she had claws as large as my head. Despite Jeremy’s second assurance of safety, I continued to keep an eye on the panther just the same, more than a little worried about a possible attack from behind.
We hurried into the garden, and again I was hit with a powerful sense of amazement. Multitudes of flowers that were similar to roses, chrysanthemums, and hyacinths abounded all around us. There were many other floral species as well, and some of these resembled daisies, orchids, and violets. Like the panther in the woods, I caught the tallest of these flowers turning to follow our progress as we continued toward the light.
I wished we had the miniature cameras given to us by Cedric. Unfortunately, the final two that survived our collective misadventure had since been discovered and destroyed by Viktor Kaslow, according to Amy. I doubted Jeremy had a camera. But, maybe that was just my assumption based on his nonchalant reaction to everything we had seen so far.
“We’re almost there,” he announced as we neared the swirling light that had become fervently intense. I expected the light to become uncomfortable to look at, but for some
reason, it didn’t bother my eyes. Nor was it a nuisance for Amy or Jeremy. As we moved closer to the light, it seemed to revive Alistair. My heart began to fill with hope.
“He’s coming around, isn’t he?” said Jeremy, studying my face. I’m sure my countenance had brightened considerably at the prospect of Alistair’s recovery.
“I think so—God I hope so!” Amy eyed my boy lovingly.
Seeing their reactions lifted my heart further, and I eagerly followed Jeremy’s lead as we continued to carry Alistair. We stepped through misty tendrils drifting down from the light’s main source. I suddenly realized that what looked like a giant ball of light was nothing of the sort. It was more like a tall spherical canopy that hung down from some invisible point. We stepped under the mist, and I allowed my gaze to travel upward until I gasped.
I couldn’t help myself. Seriously. In fact, I can’t recall when I’ve experienced a greater sense of awe and wonder in my entire life! Definitely not since shortly after my betrayal of Jesus and my botched double-suicide attempt—which was the first time I encountered an angel.
But this was beyond all that—far beyond it. An enormous crystal formation stood before us, sculpted by nature many eons ago. Looming well over a hundred feet above the cave floor, with a thirty-foot wide base, it reminded me of the giant oaks that thrive in the southern United States. But like I said, it was a crystal structure and not an organic monument like the famous Live Oak near Charleston. Almost turquoise in color, in some ways its porous appendages resembled the colorful coral stalks near Belize and other tropical water paradises throughout the world.
Mere words can’t describe it. Especially the feeling that came over me as I stopped and stared stupidly at this thing...the Tree of Life! It wasn’t just me who reacted like this. Amy wore an incredulous expression on her face while her knees trembled to the point they actually knocked together.