The Covenant Of The Flame

by David Morrell

  'And now?' Craig asked.

  'Something so sacred that very few have ever seen it,' Gerrard said.

  'You worry me. I'm from New York. Mountains, valleys, bonfires? To me, they're like Mars.'

  'Then we invite you to look at Mars,' Fulano said. 'I guarantee you'll be impressed. I correct myself. You'll be astonished. Open your mind. Prepare yourself for what will be the greatest memory of your life.'

  'Since you're my host,' Craig said, 'I take for granted that I can trust you. I also assume that as a host you feel an obligation to your guests.'

  'That goes without saying.'

  'All right, then, as long as we've agreed, let's see the surprise that'll be my greatest memory.'

  'Follow.'

  They stepped from the helicopter.

  ELEVEN

  Tess felt cloaked with oppressive darkness while in a square that enclosed the helicopter, brilliant bonfires blazed. Their drifting acrid smoke conflicted with the fragrance of the grass and flowers in the night-shrouded valley.

  Numerous villagers and farmers, all wearing festive garments, stood next to the flames, holding impressive crosses, woven from flowers and stalks of wheat. As the light flickered over those crosses, Tess faltered, stunned by the memory of what Priscilla Harding had told her. Before Christianity, before the tradition that the cross represented the execution of Christ, a prior tradition had associated the symbol of the cross with the glory of the sun. And now, with chilling certainty, Tess watched the flames reflect off the wheat of the crosses and knew absolutely that those crosses, composed from nature, were devoted to the sun – and to Mithras, the god of the sun.

  Fulano took a torch from one of the villagers and gestured for Tess and Craig to walk to his right across the field. Gerrard took another torch and accompanied them as did the two Secret Service agents. But unexpectedly the group became larger, other men joining them from beyond the fires. These newcomers did not wear festive garments. They didn't carry crosses woven from flowers and wheat. What they wore instead was rugged outdoor clothing, and what they carried were automatic weapons.

  Beyond the bonfires, the field became disturbingly black, illuminated in patches only by the torches that Fulano and Gerrard held before them. Tess fearfully recalled the torchbearers in the statue that she'd seen in Joseph's bedroom. Her feet and ankles felt cold, the dew on the knee-high grass soaking her sandles and the lower portion of her long skirt. Panic made her want to tug at Craig and run. They might be able to escape in the darkness, she hoped. But despair took charge, making her realize that the guards would hunt them, that the villagers would join in the search, and the odds were that she and Craig would lose their sense of direction, running in circles in this unfamiliar valley, trying to avoid the bonfires until they were captured.

  The field began to slope upward. Guided by the torches, she and the rest of the group passed beech trees, veered around boulders, and continued climbing, the dampness making Tess colder. The hill angled higher, and now she smelled the resin of pine trees.

  At once the slope leveled off. Grass became rocks. She peered ahead toward where the torches revealed a narrow gap, concealed by bushes, at the base of a cliff. Stepping closer, she saw that the gap was the entrance to a cave. But a few feet into the cave, a rusted iron door formed a barrier.

  Fulano handed his torch to a guard, removed a key from his pocket, and released a padlock on the door. With effort, leaning his shoulder against the door, he shoved it open, its hinges creaking. The night became eerily silent, the only sound the crackling torches and Fulano's footsteps as he disappeared beyond the door. Five seconds later, the silence was broken by the sound of something being cranked, then the sputter of an engine, then a roar as the engine came to life. The interior of the cave was abruptly illuminated by a dim bulb attached to the ceiling, and Tess saw that the engine was a kerosene-powered generator.

  Someone nudged her back. Turning, Tess blinked in surprise at Hugh Kelly, who must have joined them during the trek up the slope. Where had he been? What had he been doing? Like the guards, he too wore outdoor clothing.

  'Go in,' he said. 'You'll find shoes and a jacket. The cave can be slippery. It's also cold.'

  'I brought my sneakers,' Tess said. She took them from her purse and pulled them on, her feet at last secure.

  No matter, she trembled. The torches were set on the ground, twisted among the rocks, and extinguished. When she and Craig entered the cave, followed by Gerrard, Kelly and the guards, she noticed woolen coats opposite the generator and put one on, buttoning it. Despite its insulation, she continued to tremble.

  The narrow passage was barely head-tall. Proceeding, she stopped ten yards ahead just beyond a curve, frowning at another iron door.

  While Fulano unlocked it, Hugh Kelly shut and locked the first door.

  That's it, she thought. We're finished.

  'Don't look so nervous.' Despite the roar of the generator, Fulano's voice reverberated off the damp limestone walls. 'That locked door is strictly for security precautions. After all, we're here at night, and remember, you're not the only ones at risk. Alan and I are attractive targets for assassins. I trust the villagers, but the darkness could very well hide enemies who may have kept track of our movements and would like nothing better than to catch us alone in this isolated area. Three guards have stayed outside to make sure that no one attacks us when we leave. As you may have noticed, Alan's Secret Service agents don't look happy about this trip.'

  'I did notice.' Tess remained convinced that the guards cared more about Craig and herself than they did about Gerrard and Fulano. All the same, she pretended to follow his logic. 'But what if something goes wrong outside? What if your guards are overpowered?'

  'We try to contact them with walkie-talkies. If they don't respond,' Gerrard explained and gestured off-handedly, 'we use a different exit.'

  'You've thought of everything,' Craig said.

  'We try to.' Fulano nudged the farther door, forcing it open, its hinges screeching, its iron bottom scraping against rock. 'And now the surprise.'

  'One of the greatest wonders in the world,' Gerrard said. 'Few people have seen it. Only those who deserve to, who have the capacity to appreciate it, who care about the planet, about its soul, and you, Tess, have the right. Because you do care. With a passion. You've proven that in your articles.'

  'So now' – Fulano shoved the door completely open – 'you're about to see a mystery. Perhaps the greatest mystery. Something so sacred that after you see it, you'll never be the same.'

  'I can't imagine what-'

  'No,' Gerrard said. 'Don't imagine. Don't anticipate. Just witness it. Just stand back and appreciate. You're about to be changed.'

  'The way my life has been going, I'm due for a change. For the better, I hope.'

  'For the better,' Fulano said. 'No question. You have my word. Absolutely.'

  Tess followed them through the door, clutched Craig's hand, and felt the guards behind her. Fulano paused to lock the second entrance.

  It's getting worse, Tess thought.

  Crude steps carved into the limestone led down to a deep, wide, towering cavern. Dim lightbulbs next to the primitive stairway Sustened off moist rock and guided the way.

  Tess reached the bottom, overwhelmed by the vastness of the amber. In awe, she stared this way and that at intricate rock formations. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, water dripping down from them, forming pools which she avoided. Stalagmites projected upward from the pools, their contours vaguely resembling the snouts of animals.

  Her rapid breathing appeared as vapor.

  'This cave has a constant temperature of fifty-five degrees,' Fulano said. 'Winter or summer. Thousands of years ago, a rock-fall buried the original entrance, preserving the interior. In all that time, the secret of the cave was hidden. But during the eighteen hundreds, another rockslide opened a gap in the cliff. A local farmer, searching for missing lambs, wandered up the slope, discovered the gap, and decided to i
nvestigate, less out of curiosity about the cave – after all, such places can be dangerous – than out of concern that his lambs might have wandered inside. He soon reached a farther gap so narrow that his lambs could never have gotten past it. Dim sunlight from the entrance showed him that the cave was much larger beyond the narrow passageway, and he mentioned it to his family, then to other farmers after he'd found his lambs in a meadow later that day. Word gradually spread and eventually reached my valley, where my great-great-grandfather had an interest in caves. He decided to mount an expedition, came to this valley, and ordered his workmen to use picks and sledgehammers to widen the passageway. The limestone was brittle enough to allow them to accomplish his orders. He then used torches to investigate farther, and when he found what we're about to show you, he swore his workers to secrecy. As quickly as possible, he had an iron door secured into the rock walls at the entrance, and he alone carried the key to its padlock. Later a second door was added farther along. Those doors are not the ones through which we passed. Years ago, the originals rusted and disintegrated, replaced by others. In recent times, improvements were made, steps chiseled into slopes, light-bulbs strung, their wires attached to the kerosene generator.'

  'But what did he find?' Craig asked. 'And why did he want to hide it?'

  'Not so much to hide it as protect it,' Fulano said. 'In a moment, you'll understand.' He led the group across the chamber, entering a dimly illuminated corridor that twisted to the right, then the left, and took them lower.

  Tess felt smothered by the dampness and the sense that the confines of the cave created a pressure, making the air around her heavy. She stepped over pools of water, sometimes hearing water trickle from the ceiling. On occasion, cold drops pelted her head. One passage led to another, maze-like.

  She rounded a bend. Another huge chamber opened before her. Fulano and Gerrard waited ahead, smiling with joy, their eyes glinting so intensely that reflection from the dim bulbs along the floor couldn't have caused the radiance in their expressions.

  Craig stopped beside her. In back, Hugh Kelly and the guards emerged from the corridor, joining them.

  'And now?' Craig sounded apprehensive. 'Why are we stopping?'

  'Because we've reached what we came to show you. Don't you see?' Gerrard asked, laughing. 'Don't you see? Look around!' His laughter swelled, echoing throughout the cavern, his gleeful outburst magnified. 'Look!'

  Confused, Tess obeyed, slowly turning, directing her gaze in the direction of Gerrard's outspread arms.

  Abruptly she did see, and the vision that awaited her caused her to clutch her chest, then to step back in astonishment, awestruck.

  'Oh, my God.' At once she said it again, louder, overwhelmed. 'My God!'

  Her knees became weak. She struggled to keep her balance, stunned to the core by what she was witnessing.

  'They're magnificent!' she blurted. They're…! I've never seen anything like…! It's almost impossible to believe…! They're so beautiful I want to cry!'

  Craig shook his head in astonishment, so overpowered with surprise and rapture that he was speechless.

  All around and above them, on the walls and across the ceiling, animals seemed to race or graze, to swim or leap or simply pose to be admired. Paintings on the rock, so many that Tess couldn't count them or comprehend their complex flowing pattern, the animals frequently overlapping, their images static yet somehow in motion, a huge eternal rampant herd.

  'Yes,' Gerrard said, his voice sounding choked, 'so magnificent, so awesomely beautiful that they make me want to cry. I've been here innumerable times, and their effect on me is always the same. Their splendor makes me ache. You realize now that I wasn't exaggerating. They're one of the greatest wonders in the world. To me, they represent the soul of the planet.'

  Deer, elk, bison, horses, ibex, bears, lions, mammoths. More, many more, including species that Tess could not identify, Presumably because they were extinct.

  Some were engraved in the rock, the figures outlined with charcoal. Others were silhouetted in red, the lines either solid or composed of large dots. The animals were life-size. On the ceiling, an eight-foot-long deer had racks of spreading, many-pronged antlers that were almost equally long. The contours of the ceiling had been used to indicate bulging muscles in the deer's back and legs.

  The style of the paintings was eerily realistic as if the animals were alive and any moment could leap off the walls. At the same time, the style was surreal, causing the magnificent creatures to look oddly distorted, some foreshortened, others elongated, a distortion that added paradoxically to the powerful effect. The animals curved gracefully around projections in the rock. They rippled dramatically in and out of cracks and fissues. An elk appeared to be swimming. A horse appeared to be falling. Moisture in the limestone made them shimmer. Breathtaking.

  'Who painted these?' Craig managed to ask. 'When? You said this cave was discovered in the eighteen hundreds. But before then, rocks had barricaded the entrance. How old are-?'

  'Twenty thousand years.'

  'What?'

  'These paintings come from a time when human beings had only recently appeared,' Fulano said. 'Who painted them? Our immediate evolutionary ancestors. A type of human called Cro-Magnon. Obviously their sense of beauty, their admiration for nature, was immense. In that respect, compared to our own disrespect for nature, perhaps our species hasn't evolved but regressed. Sometimes you hear these people referred to as "cave men, " an absurd expression because the Cro-Magnons never lived in caves. How could they have tolerated the chill and the dampness?' Fulano shook his head. 'No, they lived outside the caves. But for reasons that anthropologists haven't been able to determine, they sometimes went into the caves, deep within, and in chambers similar to this one, they painted the glory of the animals. It's my opinion that these chambers were their churches, that they came here on special occasions, perhaps at the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, to worship the miracle of rebirth and growth, to initiate children about to become adults and show them the mysteries of the tribe. The greatest mystery – life. A place of adoration, of sublime appreciation for what this planet is all about.'

  Gerrard added to Fulano's explanation. 'This wasn't the only such sanctuary to be discovered during the eighteen hundreds.'

  Tess nodded. 'I've heard about, although I've never seen, the paintings at Lascaux in France, and many others, including those at Altamira here in Spain.'

  'But Lascaux was discovered in the nineteen forties,' Fulano said. 'As far as historians believe, Altamira – three hundred kilometers west of here – was the first to be explored. In eighteen seventy-nine. But my ancestor discovered these paintings ten years before. He knew instinctively that no expert in pre-history would believe in their authenticity. How could primitive human beings have produced such exquisite beauty? Scholars would conclude that these brilliant paintings were recent, cleverly forged. To prevent his discovery from being ridiculed, he kept it to himself, placing a door across the cave, preserving it for himself, his family, and special friends. His instincts served him well, for when Altamira was discovered, the experts scoffed. Only when other caves with paintings were discovered in France did anthropologists admit their mistake and accept the images at Altamira as authentic. Lascaux and Altamira are so impressive that they're often referred to as the Sistine Chapels of paleolithic art. But I've seen Lascaux, and I've seen Altamira, and I tell you that they can't compare to what you've been privileged to witness. This is the true Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art. My ancestor was wise in another respect as well. He understood that this cave, after tens of thousands of years of not being disturbed, was so delicate that if people flocked to see these images, the warmth from their bodies would affect its ecology. The soil on their shoes would leave contaminants. The breath from their mouths would add to the humidity on the walls. These paintings, preserved by a blessed accident of nature, would be destroyed by fungus and the soot from torches. Only a few special witnesses could ever be allow
ed inside. The twentieth century proves that he was correct. So many tourists entered Lascaux that the paintings became covered with destructive green mold. The cave had to be sealed again, only experts allowed to enter and even then only after special precautions were taken, for example a disinfecting pool through which the limited observers had to step in order to kill the contaminants on their shoes. At Altamira, only a few can enter each day, and only then by appointment. But here, in this isolated cave in this isolated valley, even fewer are allowed to enter. The double doors provide an extra buffer, a way of keeping the outside air filled with pollen and seeds from entering the inner chamber. You were told that this would be the greatest memory of your lives. I assure you that, after a hundred years and more, your memories are shared by a precious minority.'

  'And you haven't even seen the best part,' Gerrard said.

  'There are other paintings?' Craig raised his eyebrows in amazement.

  'Yes, one more chamber,' Fulano said, his dark eyes gleaming. 'The best for last. Come. Appreciate. Worship.'

  'Believe me, I already have.'

  'Worshipped? Not completely. Not yet. It's just around this bend,' Fulano said. 'Prepare yourselves. The next-to-ultimate revelation will stun your… Well, why should I tell you what to expect? See for yourselves.'

  He led. They followed, and as Tess rounded the bend, she gasped, not only in awe but fear. So did Craig.

  The chamber, like the previous one, was filled with paintings, images, life-like portrayals of animals. But here the animals were exclusively bulls. Everywhere. And unlike the paintings in the previous chamber, the bulls weren't outlined in charcoal or red. These were multi-colored, not merely silhouetted but completely detailed. Totally realistic. Their hoofs were black, their haunches brown, their humped backs red. Their tails curved as if in a photograph. Their slanted pointed horns, too, were black. And their eyes were so vivid that they seemed about to blink in rigid anger, furious that they'd been captured eternally on the walls and the ceiling, their legs thrusting, their muscles straining, their bodies arching, an example of – a celebration of – the strength of nature, the strikingly beautiful surge and power of the universe, which twenty thousand years later was on the verge of being destroyed.