"Enough now," Purdue urged calmly. "We are all exhausted. We need rest to press on tomorrow and now that we know about our competition and the lengths they would go to, I suggest we gather our courage and get to the shrine as soon as possible. Dr. Gould, here is the map and the book. If you please, I need an estimate of how far we still have to go. Gary will assist you with the measuring of the map coordinates," Purdue said.
The group got closer to the fire. Calisto gathered more wood while Gary and Nina checked the approximate distance they still had left before getting to where the book indicated the location of the shrine was. Sam took care of the coffee and the roti supply, making sure there were still some grains and rice for tomorrow. Purdue joined Nina and Gary to listen to their speculating. The mood was one of momentary relief but they all felt an overwhelming somber hurt and a seeping fear of what was waiting. Purdue placed his palm on the back of Nina's hair, but she did not jump defensively as he expected.
She looked at him with a dreadful worry on her pretty face and what she saw in his was something she had never seen before. Even knowing that he had desired her for so long, she realized that what his expression conveyed now was far from blunt sexual pursuits. Purdue looked genuinely sympathetic toward her recent shock and the punishment she had to endure. He ran his hands over her hair, comforting her in his own awkward manner.
"I'm so sorry, Nina. Really. I will never let anyone hurt you again, I promise. It was selfish of me, even if my intentions were not to desert my group," he whispered, and, to his surprise, she simply nodded in acceptance.
Between Calisto and Sam they took turns to sit by the fire on lookout during the night while the others got some sleep. The expedition had now reached a point where comfort gave way to completing the route. There was no more time to figure out the deeper meanings of the numbers and languages in what Eickhart called the grimoire.
The next morning was freezing. The sun had no power over the frozen earth below and from the mountaintops the threat of collapsing ice loomed. Soft whispers of snow traveled leisurely down the slopes and covered the ground in a patchy white carpet. Calisto's back was aching terribly from falling asleep in a slouching position and she woke to a burning skin of goose bumps and cold. In front of her the fire was barely going and she struggled up to wake the party before the sun made too much time and ate the day away.
Dizzy, she scratched at each of the tents with a call of alert that it was time to rise. When she heard the groaning and yawning, she sat down again to rekindle the fire. They had to have a warm drink and quick light meal before starting on the last leg of the salt trade trail. According to Dr. Gould and the pilot, the mountain that harbored the shrine was no more than four hours' walk from them.
It was just before 9am when they were ready to ascend another few hundred meters on the narrow steep trail to what the medieval manual called the "Godwomb," the cavern under the shrine. Looking back at the campsite where she almost met her end, Nina could not help but relive those last moments before Björn tried to pull the trigger. Behind her Calisto stumbled, frowning, keeping a close eye on her footing. Nina was now reluctant to speak to her, because of the altercation they had, but she felt compelled to investigate the nature of the bodyguard's behavior.
"Calisto?"
"Yes, Dr. Gould."
"What is the matter?"
"Headache. Migraine, actually."
"Do you want a painkiller?"
"No, thank you. I find that medication at this altitude is counterproductive, but thanks for the offer," Calisto replied in puffs of hard-earned breaths.
She was visibly more tired than she was two days ago and Nina wondered if the action of the past day had made more of an impact on her than she had let on. She joined Sam, who trailed Gary and Purdue.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yes, I think," Nina answered, looking at the heels of the men ahead of them.
"Want my stick?"
"What?"
"Would you like to use my walking stick to get by? The road is apparently going to get even tougher a few meters up. Look," he said, and pointed to where a small brown streak of soil meandered through the winding gain in height that occasionally disappeared in the cover of low growing trees and meager brush.
"That looks like a bitch to traverse," she assessed, and he nodded, passing her his cane.
"What will you use then?" she asked. Sam suddenly brought forth another cane.
"Jodh won't need it anymore," he shrugged.
According to Nina's calculations and the proper translation of the old German text adjacent to the hand-drawn map, the mountain called "Mañjuśrī's Seat" played host to the shrine they were looking for. After what Purdue survived with Calisto at his side he had no doubt that she was worth every penny he paid her. As they approached the mountain his heart raced faster at the prospect of what was inside, waiting.
"Calisto!" Nina's voice echoed in panic against the nearby snowcapped cliffs.
The men turned to find her kneeling a few meters back, huddled over Calisto, who had collapsed. Racing back to assist her, Sam found the bodyguard limp and panting on the ground. Gary lifted her head and checked her out.
"Altitude sickness, I think."
"She complained of a terrible migraine and she was off-balance the whole time," Nina reported, as she pulled Calisto's hair out of her face.
"That's it," Gary said, "The thinning air at this height is affecting her oxygen intake. I have something in my backpack that should help, but we cannot haul her up too quickly. It'll exacerbate everything."
"All right, all right, just give it to her. I don't mean to sound like a right prick, but we don't have time for this right now," Purdue said.
Gary gave her some Diamox and a healthy helping of water. It was strange for Sam to see the strong woman sit with her legs crossed, slumping from side to side between Nina's arms and Gary's shoulders. Her eyes rolled backward until the medicine kicked in and the water took effect. Within twenty minutes she had managed to recover enough to get to her feet with minimal help.
"Mr. Purdue, we are virtually out of water. Just thought I'd let you know we have to stop at any stream we come across just to replenish," Sam said.
"Yes, yes, we will," Purdue said abruptly.
"The map did show a river that emerges from the cliff just a few hundred meters up toward the Seat. We can fill our canteens there," Nina said, and she decided to walk next to Calisto for the remainder of the way to mind her condition as they ascended yet higher.
☼
Chapter 20
"There, Mr. Purdue! Look at the glint in the sun. It's water!" Nina cried. The river flowed like a silver thread out of the rock face and they were all relieved to be able to take some rest and get a drink of fresh cold water. Above, the sun was constantly perturbed by the gathering ice clouds, shedding shade over the landscape of the perilous trail. The party all felt the battery of the slant they had to brave, their throats burning and dry from hours of continual hiking and the ribbon of clear mountain water was irresistible. Filling their canteens, they took the opportunity to sponge off the excess sweat and smell from their skins. Here and there they sat along the bank of the stream, each using the solace of the river to correct their ailments and thirst, their bodies rejuvenated after a very trying few days.
From the covered river, through the dense covering of trees, they looked up and saw, for the first time, the mountain shaped like a throne. It towered well into the floating clouds a few hundred meters up, covered in virgin ice and foreboding ledges. Nina's heart skipped a beat at the sight of the majestic mountain and for the first time in days, she smiled.
Sam and Purdue surveyed the best route to take up past the more frequently used paths traveled by farmers, traders and their yaks, struggling to get the animals over the long distances it took to reach their trading posts or villages.
Calisto vomited into a hole between two tree trunks and her ashen face showed no sign of recovering. Her l
ips were a slight hue of purple and her eyes darker than ever. It gave her a scary expression when she looked at Nina. She chugged more Diamox and sighed as she gathered her newly filled bottles and checked the batteries in her flashlight. Nina noticed Björn's Makarov firmly wedged in Calisto's belt and she suddenly remembered what she was. The vision of her face distorted in blind fury as she sank that bone into the Norwegian's skull, revisited Nina's recollection and it frightened her, but she could not falter now. The woman did save her life.
"Look up there, everyone," Nina said. The other members of the expedition smiled and nodded.
"Well, then, we should not keep her waiting," Purdue grinned.
They trekked up the murderous steep road with its loose gravel defying their footing and even the walking sticks did little to aid them. Nina and Purdue walked ahead this time, looking down at the wider road of the better-known and more-traveled route. The temperature had dropped considerably and the sun had withered completely, even though it was still early in the afternoon. Gary and Sam elected to walk behind Calisto for two reasons. They wanted to be chivalrous in support of her growing weakness and to help if her legs buckled again. The other reason was less amicable. Now they knew what she was capable of, and, with or without reason, they preferred not to tempt fate either way.
The leviathan mountain range broke slightly to accommodate the peak called Mañjuśrī's Seat. It was a name well-founded, as anyone who neared it would attest to. They all felt it—the presence of a higher force, something unfathomable by the average and less-enlightened mind. It was an unmistakable manifestation of something intelligent and ancient beyond time's mere tally. One by one the group silenced from their observations and complaints, the odd chatter about nothing that kept them company as they suffered the incline. To them the sensation became real, the gradual ascent to the eye level of the gods and the innate yearning to pursue the wisdom that came with it. The members of the expedition found themselves contemplating their existence, their placement in the time and space they were made to be in. It was all so profound that they hardly thought of their mission as they neared the turn of the mountain.
Dreaming in their waking moments, their prayers leaving their spirits unwittingly to unite with unattainable principals from the depths of the universe, they fell silent. A hunt for historical treasure had waned in the magnificence of the order of the spirits and gods, where the word was not associated with worship, but with becoming.
The dark grey skies brought a frigid gale on the weary group, but they were too high to quit for the day and too close to return to the river until the winds ceased. The scenery was sublime when they saw the shrine. Calisto felt desperately ill and disorientated. The vision of the awe-inspiring structure that crowned the beauty of the range shook her to her core, evoking a sense of peace and forcing her to crave the dissociation from her mortal coil.
"It makes me want to die," she gasped out loud, curling the corners of her mouth in a faint smile that unsettled Sam greatly.
"That's wonderful, sergeant, but that will not be happening today, all right?" Sam said with a clear voice and grabbed her by the arm to keep her from falling into a trance or collapse entirely. He had stopped to set up his tripod and mounted his panoramic lens onto it.
Nina, Purdue and Gary also stood in awe, waiting to take a moment.
"Mr. Cleave, are you getting this?" Purdue asked without looking back at Sam.
"As we speak," he heard Sam's voice in the distance behind them.
The shrine was superb and timeless in its antiquity, its layered ledges like an oriental pagoda, and it sat right in the bowels of the mountain, part of the stone, but created by man. In the center of the lopping stories of marble and rock carvings, an enormous face of a Nepalese deity protruded. The face had a look of calm benevolence from under its intricate crown of animals and flowers. It looked alive and half unsettling in its age, lending an unmistakable intelligence to its visage.
"Can I take a few pictures on your handheld while you finish here?" Nina asked Sam.
"Sure, go ahead," he answered through his face pulling and lip licking, as he concentrated on getting the perfect shots in such poor light. Nina took a few photos, mostly of the members of the expedition, but when she flipped through the earlier pictures taken in the village, she saw what Calisto had been looking at that day. Behind Sam and the village elder she could see Björn and Eickhart in the distance and it made her stomach churn.
"Nina," Sam jolted her back to reality with a loud voice.
"Yes, I'm done. Calisto! One more with you?" she asked the bodyguard, and Sam snapped one of Nina with Calisto, Purdue and Gary with the shrine in the background.
"Good, now pack up, Mr. Cleave. The weather has no mercy for explorers, especially those digging into the womb of the gods," Purdue smiled.
"We have reached the shrine. Now to find the entrance. I thought it would be a little statue with a lid at its feet or something," Gary remarked. "This thing is fucking huge. How will we know where to go?"
"Dr. Gould said that the book mentioned numbers where the trail ends. Hopefully we can find those numbers on my GPS and find our way in that way," Purdue said, rubbing his hands together. "Good God, the wind is freezing up here, and I must admit, I am also finding it quite taxing to breathe."
"Me too," Sam agreed, as he zipped up his gear and started toward the waiting members of the group.
"That face is moving," Calisto ranted from the back of the bundle.
"That is the mountain sickness, my dear sergeant. It is distorting your perceptions, especially up here," Purdue assured her, but she was adamant that the cracked and peeling masonry of the deity's face had shifted.
"Calisto, you are freaking me out," Nina whispered to the bodyguard, as she helped her move over a pile of rocks she stumbled on.
"That goddamn face is moving, I tell you," Calisto insisted. The gale swept their jackets and the straps of their backpacks as they labored closer to the shrine. It stood as silent as a forgotten desert, fraught with the presence of long dead worshipers and obedient priests. Up on the ledge they climbed, reaching the chin of the stone god's face, where they could have sworn they heard the footfalls of a thousand pilgrims from bygone millennia pass underneath.
"Don't . . . say it," Nina warned Sam before he opened his mouth.
"That doesn't mean it's not true," he replied.
"Shut the fuck up, Cleave," she frowned and busied herself with helping Calisto's frail frame onto the first step. There was no sign of a possible entrance and it left the party standing in confounded wonder. Thunder rumbled in the distance, creeping over the stony valleys below. The group noticed that the clouds had begun to move rapidly overhead. Sam thought it resembled time-lapse footage and it gave him the creeps. They were now in the presence of something so old and powerful that even nature obeyed it.
"There is no way in," Purdue threw up his arms, "Dr. Gould, can you shed some light on this predicament?"
"I have no idea. We have come to the exact coordinates as mentioned, but it doesn't say anything more about entering under the shrine," Nina replied. She hated feeling like a failed interpreter, but she had nothing to go on.
"The god's face is moving. Why is no one listening to me? It speaks, for Christ's sake! How can you not hear it?" Calisto barked from the ledge step just below them. They all took a moment to figure it out, ignoring the unease her words brought them.
"Sergeant, I think you should stay here while we continue on. I don't want your condition to grow worse," Purdue said.
"Don't take me for a fool, Mr. Purdue. I am your bodyguard, not your wife. You do not patronize me," she growled from warning black eyes, circled with darkening skin. "I can hear a chime, a song in the stone. I don't give a fuck how sick I am!"
The men stood ready to detain the fuming woman.
"Wait," Nina shouted suddenly. "Calisto, you might be right."
"Please don't say that. I have had my fill of terrifying shit on thi
s trip," Gary moaned from behind Sam, who nodded with him.
"The book! Wait," she panted and fell to her knees to consult the texts. "It speaks, right? It needs to be spoken to for us to gain access."
"A password?" Sam asked in perplexity.
"Sort of. Look, here is a grid with letters on the page next to the map. This, gentlemen . . . and lady . . . .is a Masonic cipher!" Nina cried with a birthing smile. "It will tell us what to say."
Amazed and thoroughly surprised they looked at Nina.
"You're welcome," Calisto's low voice hummed from her angry stare, and Nina could not help but give her a rough embrace in utter glee and absolute relief.
Sam was still reeling from the talk of giant gods moving their faces.
☼
Chapter 21
On Deep Sea One, two days after Mr. Purdue and his party left for Nepal, the oil rig played host to some strange events that Liam at first ignored as superstition and such, but when it became downright uncanny he had to share his astonishment with his colleagues. Flicking his cigarette from the smoker's area into the eternal oblivion of the cold water beneath the structure, Liam was in deep contemplation. He had noticed that the weather had become increasingly erratic during the past few days, defying the readings on their weather warning system entirely. It had caused two accidents among the few men employed on the platform, on two consecutive days, until they discovered a pattern and avoided a third mishap the day after.
The water shimmered in silver across the vastness of the moonlit waves as the ocean breathed deep and occasionally whispered with a foamy hiss. Liam squinted his eyes and looked to the horizon, but it was obscured by an approaching fog that also showed up uninvited and unannounced. But by now, few things about the great blue mystery surprised him.
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