by Aiden James
The clothing was another exact fit. Once ready, Rafael handed them a pair of warm ski parkas and sure-grip gloves to wear, as well as a helmet equipped with a halogen lamp. He then led them across the room to another immense wooden door. Using the pole and ring device, Rafael opened the door and the three of them stepped into a long hallway with a twenty-foot ceiling. Illuminated by a row of fiery torches, the air in the hallway was more frigid than the archives chamber the night before. Shivering, Jack and Jeremy zipped up their coats.
“Good idea to do that now, as it is much colder in the caverns this time of year,” said Rafael. “We will not return to the castle until lunch, nearly five hours from now. Much of our time will be spent climbing through the mountain to where the main caverns begin. Are you both ready?”
Both confirmed they were with a nod. Rafael led them to the hallway’s end, where yet another heavy wooden door awaited. As soon as he opened this one, the other four men appeared just outside the doorway.
“Jeremy and Jack, this is Pedro, Ricardo, Montes, and Fernando. They are the most skilled climbers we have among us, having made numerous trips to the mountain’s ‘Las Cavernas Segradas’.”
Rafael motioned for his assistants to shake the brothers’ hands, which they did a bit more enthusiastically than seemed necessary. Much smaller than Rafael in stature, all four had sleek sinewy builds. Their gestures to Jack and Jeremy, along with the excited manner in which they conversed with one another and Rafael, revealed none spoke or even understood much English.
“So, we’re off to see the ‘Sacred Caverns’, huh?” confirmed Jeremy, snickering slightly. “And, I suppose this little trip of ours is somehow tied to what you told us last night, that ya’ll are known as the ‘Servants of the Angels’?”
“Yes, this is true,” confirmed Rafael, grinning. “It would be best to go now, for you will get more satisfying answers to your questions once we reach the caverns.”
He said something in the strange Aymara dialect to the other Essenes, who were clothed in similar spelunking suits, and they secured the biner clips from every man’s harness to a pre-rigged, one-inch thick nylon rope. The seven men formed a line and moved toward a darkened passageway in the mountainside to their right, with Pedro and Ricardo leading the way while Montes and Fernando pulled up the rear.
Similar to the hallway they had just moved through, the ice-covered tunnel was roughly twenty feet high and at least that wide, ascending at a steep incline toward the heart of the mountain. It appeared the rope ran from the tunnel’s entrance all the way to their intended destination.
“Our trip should start out without much difficulty, other than a good physical workout,” said Rafael. “But as we move deeper into the mountain, it will be especially important for you to pay close attention to where you step and what you grab onto. Remember the rope is here to guide you and steady your ascent. The agility and sensibility you both possess should make this an easy, if not enjoyable, experience.”
Rafael gestured to Pedro that they were ready to begin, and the group started climbing the passageway. Very slippery for almost half a mile, the icy floor’s severe incline suddenly leveled out. By the time the group reached a rusted steel post to which the end of their guide rope was tied, both Jack and Jeremy were winded. Their calves and thighs burned painfully from the exertion.
Standing within a fifty-foot wide room, each man detached his biner from the guide rope. A huge expanse loomed above them, impenetrable by their helmets’ lamps. Tall, slender stalagmites covered with ice crystals glistened eerily around the room’s perimeter. Near the room’s far end sat a primitive pulley machine with a large hemp basket capable of holding several passengers. The top of the basket attached to a three-inch thick nylon rope, it assuredly was their ticket to the next stop.
Now that he had a better idea of how difficult this trip might be, Jack was surprised he and Jeremy neglected to ask specifically how far the Sacred Caverns were from the castle. Jeremy didn’t allow the answer to remain a mystery.
“How much farther is this fucking place, anyway?”
“Less than a mile in all,” Rafael replied, breathing heavily himself. “I am just as anxious to get there as you. My bones are getting too old for this.”
He tried to laugh, smiling weakly at Jeremy before turning his attention to his fellow Bolivians, who appeared unaffected by the journey so far.
When ready to resume the trip, Pedro led everyone over to the pulley machine and basket. Seemingly ancient, the basket was sturdier than it first appeared, and Rafael motioned for his four assistants to climb into it. He enlisted Jeremy to help him turn the crank in order to lift the basket into the darkness above them. As the basket rose higher, Jack could see the ice-encrusted sides of the chasm illuminated by the four Essenes’ helmet lamps.
“The shaft above us is more than three hundred feet in height, my friends,” said Rafael as he and Jeremy continued to turn the crank. “The basket comfortably holds up to six hundred and fifty pounds, which the four of them come nowhere close to. But, the three of us may put it to the test. Hopefully, you two did not overdo it at breakfast, eh?”
He snickered playfully before turning his attention back to the darkness above. After a slight pull on the rope, Rafael announced the others had reached the top of the shaft. The pulley system began squeaking again, announcing the basket’s imminent return.
When the basket reappeared in the soft glow provided by their lamps, Rafael reached up to hold it steady until it rested on the shaft’s frozen floor again.
“Come and get in,” he told them. “I believe it would be better for me to sit in the middle since I am smallest among us.”
He motioned for Jack to get in first on the right side of the basket, and then for Jeremy to get in next, on the left side. After studying the weight distribution, he climbed in and sat between them. Using a small hand radio, he called for Pedro to pull the basket up.
The basket rose slowly into the darkness, the rope creaking loudly this time from the additional weight. Jack glanced nervously at Jeremy, and grew uneasier once he saw the anxious look on Rafael’s face, and the return of the nervous tic beneath his left eye. At least it was slight. The elder Essene closed his eyes for a moment, whispering an urgent prayer. When he opened his eyes again, he seemed calmer despite the continuous squeaks from the pulleys and the groans from the rope as it stretched.
“Believe it or not, the chasm was not always covered in so much ice,” said Rafael. “Our ancestors once scaled these walls to get to where we are going. They dug holes for their hands and feet to grab hold of, and then set up permanent torches to light their way. Nearly twelve hundred years ago, the climate in this part of the cave changed and the ice began to spread. They invented a system similar to the one we still use today.”
Jack glanced at the wall closest to him, grayish-blue ice glistening in the soft glow from his helmet’s lamp. He tried to picture the torches and holes that might still be there, somewhere beneath the ice. Difficult to imagine the early Essenes scaling the wall in this harsh environment, surely it was a grueling task too exhaustive for some to complete. The mere thought of someone slipping and falling back down the shaft to his or her death chilled him further. It added to the mystery of why their destination was regarded as so special.
The journey to the shaft’s top took roughly ten minutes, about twice as long as the other four men. Pedro and Montes grabbed the basket and guided it over to a spot a few feet away from the shaft’s mouth, next to another identical pulley machine. Rafael stepped out of the basket first and the brothers followed. The other Essenes chuckled among themselves watching Jack and Jeremy struggle to stand on wobbly legs. Rafael noticed this as well, giving them both a warm slap on their shoulders when they finally straightened up again.
“Perhaps on the way down, we will figure out a way to put less weight in the basket. Maybe three trips instead of two, eh?” he told them, chuckling. “Now is where things begin to get tricky. Th
e path weaves through the mountain, and is surrounded by deep pits. Make sure you stick closely to where the rope guides you. If you slip, you may pull us all over the edge.”
He pointed to a large cavern ahead of them, partially illuminated by their lamps. Just as Rafael advised, the ascending path looked treacherous, surrounded by glistening stalagmites and stalactites that resembled menacing teeth from some subterranean monster. The guide rope appeared tied off at certain points along the passageway.
Pedro and Montes continued in the lead after everyone clipped their biners to the guide rope. Caution overrode all else as they traveled slowly through this area. The cavern’s ceiling was much taller than what their lamps could reveal. The sheer enormity of the stalagmites rising high into the air around them, as well as equally massive stalactites hanging down into their lamps’ range suggested it could be as high as the three-hundred foot shaft they’d recently been pulled up through.
At every point where the guide rope was tied off to another steel post, each man had to carefully detach his biner and reattach it on the other side of the post. Fortunately the ice was not near as perilous as earlier, steadily turning into slush as they moved through the cavern. Water trickled down the chasm’s walls. The shortest passage so far, it took nearly half an hour to reach its end. When they did, Rafael congratulated them for making it through the first ‘official’ cavern of Las Cavernas Segradas.
“If we had brought along more powerful lamps, you would surely be amazed by what appears along the far wall to our right,” said Rafael, motioning with his lamp. At present, the area beyond the stalagmites and stalactites was shrouded in thick darkness. “But what you shall soon see should more than make up for it. The climate in this section changes continually, where ice melts and then refreezes. From here on out, until we reach our destination, the temperature will steadily grow warmer. There is an abundance of geo-thermal heat in this side of the mountain.”
Following Pedro out of the cavern, they climbed through a tunnel similar to the first one they encountered, except this one was completely free of ice. Small streams of water flowed over the path toward the cavern behind them, which made for slippery footing due to the incline. At Rafael’s urging, they re-secured their biner clips to the guide rope along the right side of the passageway.
The tunnel was less than a hundred feet in length and opened up into another room. This one circular, it first appeared small in size. The floor roughly thirty feet in circumference, a massive stalagmite dominated much of it, leaving just enough room to walk singly around the object.
It wasn’t until Rafael pointed out how the walls steadily became wider as they rose higher that Jack and Jeremy realized they were at the bottom of another shaft. A narrow pathway resembling an inverted corkscrew spiraled high above where their lamps’ collective light could reach.
“We are almost there,” said Rafael. “The path before us is not so steep like the ones we have gone through up until now, and it will take us to the very top of this shaft, almost six hundred feet above where we are now. The stalagmite is nearly four hundred feet high, and a stalactite hangs down directly above it from the shaft’s ceiling, although much shorter in length.”
Jack and Jeremy peered into the darkness above, again unable to detect much of anything.
“Reminds you of the ridges inside a snail’s shell, no? Believe it or not, the pathway was not created by mankind, even though it looks like it,” continued Rafael. “The only thing here made by human beings is an oil trough that follows the trail’s course. Our ancestors lit it on a regular basis to illuminate their way in the darkness, right up until the mid 1950s. It is quite a thing to watch the fire spread along the trough on its way to the very end of the shaft.”
“So, there’s oil in the trough right now?” asked Jack.
“Yes, there is,” confirmed Rafael. “But, we like to save it for an emergency in case our lamps go out.”
“That’s too bad,” said Jeremy. “I suppose taking the batteries out of our lamps wouldn’t qualify as an ‘emergency’, huh?” He grinned mischievously.
“Technically, no,” replied Rafael, snickering again. All remnants of his earlier stress had disappeared from his countenance. “Perhaps on our way back to the castle, I can give Francisco a call to let him know we are having a ‘little problem’ with some of our lamps, eh?”
Smiling impishly, he turned toward Pedro and motioned for him and Montes to again lead the way. The incline of the narrow path was much more manageable, just as Rafael said it would be. As the group moved toward the top of the shaft, they encountered more and more sharp stalagmites growing along the edge of the walkway, and much of the path was wet from the increasing amount of water that cascaded down the shaft’s walls.
When they finally reached the path’s end, Jeremy motioned for Jack to follow him carefully over to the edge, where they peered down below. The light provided by their lamps illuminated only the upper portion of the enormous stalagmite jutting up from the floor of the shaft, though the eighty-foot stalactite above it remained mostly visible.
“The worst is over!” announced Rafael. “The trip back down will not be nearly as bad, I assure you. We are less than a quarter of a mile away from the site.”
He pointed toward yet another tunnel to their right.
“The rest of our journey will be on level ground, and the passageway we are about to move through will take us to the most spectacular area on this mountain. What you will soon see may not seem real, or that it even belongs here in the midst of the Andean glaciers.”
They stepped into the tunnel, moving through water up to their ankles for a few hundred feet until it fell away and the ground was dry again. Soon, a faint line of light appeared on the horizon just ahead. The temperature surrounding them rapidly grew much warmer, and by the time they reached the tunnel’s end, they were forced to unzip their parkas. Meanwhile, the light on the horizon became significantly brighter.
Following Pedro’s lead, the group left the tunnel and entered a vast room spanning several acres. At the end of this lay the outside world; the illumination that grew brighter was sunlight. The air, hot and very humid, reminded Jack of late spring in southern Alabama. He and Jeremy started removing their parkas and unzip their spelunking suits, but Rafael urged them to wait until they reached the sunlit area.
They approached the room’s edge, where the sound of rushing water greeted them, steadily becoming louder until a moderate roar. Intermingled with this sound were unearthly high-pitched voices and what sounded like heavy objects being rolled and slammed against large boulders.
***
As Rafael forewarned, they were ill-prepared for what awaited once they stepped into daylight. An immense gorge ringed by the mountain’s glacier rose a thousand feet above them. The gorge’s floor stretched for more than a mile in diameter, covered with a large number of active geysers and hot springs sending tall plumes of thick steam toward the sky.
Spectacular waterfalls flowed down the gorge’s crest, the obvious beneficiaries of the melting snow from the glacier’s lower reaches. The waterfalls emptied into a bubbling river that cut a winding course across the gorge’s floor, until it disappeared into the mountain through another large cavern on the other side. Tropical ferns, bamboo, and unique flower-bearing plants grew year-round here according to Rafael, and they were amazed at the sheer exotic and unspoiled beauty of it all.
But what made everything seem dreamlike and not of this world were the winged creatures busy at work throughout the gorge’s basin. Hundreds of angels filled the area, dressed in white tunics or simply clothed in sarongs exposing their powerful upper bodies. Ten to twelve feet tall, their wingspans’ width matched their height.
Like the one that appeared to Jack years before, the angels were physically akin to humans, with sleek muscular builds and a mixture of masculine and feminine features. Their hair was long and lustrous, with a golden-copper tint the predominant color, though a number of these being
s’ hair was either rich crimson or so dark and luminous it appeared purple.
The angels’ skin color bronze, their striking faces were consistent with one another, featuring sleek noses and powerful jaw lines. Their eyes appeared iridescent, jewel-like as sapphire, ruby, topaz, emerald, and amethyst. The wings were covered with feathers that shimmered in the sunlight, beautiful and distinct from one another as the myriad species of birds populating the earth.
“Well, fuck me running…,” Jeremy whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.
Difficult to accept the reality of the angels moving hurriedly about, he and Jack watched them roll and stack giant spheres identical to the one that once sat in their grandfather‘s backyard long ago. A soft pink light emanated from inside each fifteen-foot globe.
The angels’ fluid movements in placing the spheres in three pyramid-shaped stacks near the basin’s center completely fascinated the brothers. But Rafael and his men seemed disconcerted by the activity, speaking sharply and waving their hands worriedly to one another.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jack.
“Our Order has visited this place on a regular basis since shortly after we discovered the castle so many centuries ago,” said Rafael, his tone agitated. “We have never before witnessed more than twenty angels here at a time, and when we have, just a handful of spheres were here with them. The fact so many angels are present today, with at least two hundred spheres by our count, is cause for great concern. Francisco needs to know this, and I will call him now.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with what’s going on around the world?” asked Jeremy.
“Perhaps, it does,” he replied, reaching into his coat to pull out his radio. “That could be a good or bad thing…I do not know.”
He stepped away from the others to place a call to Francisco. When he returned, his smile and assuring tone were absent.
“We originally planned to spend an hour up here today, for there is much to show you. Particularly, in the caves behind the waterfalls,” he told them. “But, Francisco and I agree we must return to the castle right away. What we see here apparently does relate to events taking place elsewhere.”
