by Rob Swigart
Steve nodded. “Ted’s been following up Constantine’s warning. It’s real, Alain.”
Lisa continued, “They want the world to collapse in order to be reborn, and if they succeed our world will collapse. The Pythias of old answered questions with riddles: ‘If such and such happens, then this bad thing will follow;’ here’s mine, more direct: if Ophis Sophia takes that child, the world’s past miseries will pale in the face of the mass migrations, refugees by the tens of millions, warlords, bitter fights over water and food, and the collapse of governments. So you see, we have to stop them. And this is the right place, believe me.”
Alain nodded. “OK. See you up top.” He slammed the car door, started the engine, and turned up the heater.
She addressed the cliff. “So, this is just like bouldering, right?”
“Right, only longer.”
“Longer? Fontainebleau was under four meters; this is over four hundred.”
“Yeah, it’s longer, but not too long. I’ll call out the route I planned on the plane: three stages with sloping shelves in between. Come on, we can do it. Others have climbed this before us.” Without hesitation he started up, calling down each toe and handhold, each cranny and ridge, and so they ascended in slow, meticulous stages.
“Others? At night?” she asked.
“Perhaps not at night. But it’s not that dark.”
After half an hour’s steady climb, the spears of cloud dissipated. The moon flooded the valley floor, the limestone glowed silver, and small features on the cliff face leapt into high relief.
The Lamaštu comet was clearly visible in the northeast, closer to Arcturus than only two nights ago.
She concentrated: hand, foot, hand, foot, lunge right, lunge left, reach.
Halfway up, time stopped. At first she was surprised she had made it this far. Then the gray, distorted face and a low keening sound, guttural and raw, carried her away.
When she didn’t respond to his next command, Steve stopped also. They were two hundred meters above the valley floor. “What is it?” he asked.
“Today’s going to be long.”
“We have to keep going.” When she didn’t answer, he looked down at her watch cap and the top edges of her goggles. Her lamp illuminated a circle of rough, gray stone, and inside the circle he could make out a tiny green spear pushing out of a small vertical crack. He stared for a moment, mesmerized, recovered, and snapped, “Lisa!”
She remained motionless. She was seeing something.
He couldn’t wait it out. That green shoot was a warning. “Snap out of it. We have to move, now!”
She lifted her head like a sleepwalker. “Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” She swung a foot, found a ledge, and pulled up, lunging for a handhold. Even if she looked down, she would see nothing but the void.
He nodded with satisfaction and they moved up another few meters before he asked, “What did you see?”
“She’s waiting. There’s someone with her.” She climbed another few meters and added, “It’s getting complicated.”
“As if it wasn’t already,” Steve muttered.
Forty-five minutes later they clambered over the lip of the cliff and collapsed in a narrow meadow of yellow narcissus at the base of the monastery wall.
Snow on the rounded peaks on the other side of the monastery fed a stream nearby. The waters sang of escape and flung themselves over the edge. Across the stream, beyond the east end of the monastery a disordered cluster of gravestones marked a long abandoned cemetery.
Their breath glowed white in the predawn. Arcturus, directly overhead, cupped in the slight bend of the blue comet called Lamaštu, gradually faded away with dawn.
“She’s really here?” Steve asked. “This place isn’t exactly at Desfiladero de las Xanas.”
Still catching her breath, she managed to nod. “You’re just making small talk,” she said. “It’s close enough to connect to the Culebre, and that’s no coincidence.” She pushed her back against the rough stone of the wall and rubbed it. The pain helped her wake up.
Dawn was luring details out of the shadowed canyon below. The land at the canyon’s mouth to the west turned a rich green. The weather was good, but it was still cold. They huddled close, waiting for the sun. When it was fully up they shed their climbing gear and knapsacks and stowed it against the monastery wall.
Lisa mused, “No second guessing. The monastery entrance is on the other side, south. Ophis Sophia won’t want to arrive too soon and arouse suspicion, so they’ll come in the afternoon. That gives us time. We’ll try the door to the Paradise Garden while everyone’s at breakfast. ” She paused and chuckled. “We could write a travel book: Three Parks, Two Monasteries, and a Baby.”
“I’m glad you can laugh.” He meant it. “Let’s go find her, shall we?” He started along the wall toward the door.
When he turned to show it to her, Lisa had vanished.
Arrivals
The break in the Tormenta del Diablo persisted on Wednesday. Weather reports forecast a renewed assault early Thursday, thus assuring perfect conditions for viewing the blood moon beginning at 21:29 Wednesday night. The earth’s shadow would dye the moon red. Comet Lamaštu would be clearly visible. A number of religious groups had proclaimed this a significant event, possibly God’s judgment for man’s arrogance. Ophis Sophia, still unknown to the general public, was one of those groups.
Earlier that morning Alain had watched Lisa and Steve’s headlamps dwindle into darkness as they climbed. At sunrise he drove around to an abandoned farm at the base of the long, winding road up to the monastery. He concealed the car behind the barn and passed the morning doing crossword puzzles on his cell phone. He ate a sandwich. He took sips from his water bottle.
Toward midafternoon a black cargo truck turned onto the winding road up to San Akakio. A dark blue minibus with smoked windows followed. The sky was cloudless, the sun brilliant. After so much bad weather it was a miracle.
He waited until they had made three of the hairpin turns before following. The vehicles labored on the steep road, their passage alternately helped and hindered by the brisk northerly breeze. When he rolled down his window he could intermittently hear their engines laboring, and despite himself he closed the gap. Every time the truck and bus disappeared around a turn, he struggled to maintain his distance. The breeze had dried the earth and the two vehicles kicked up sprays of dust and gravel whenever they cut a corner too sharply and skidded over the shoulder. He lagged far enough behind for the dust to settle.
Inside her pod in the truck the Divine Mother had been growing restive. Her mood was so foul even before they left Oviedo that the old man insisted on driving so he wouldn’t have to deal with her. Her mood since then had only been growing worse. She hated the swaying and buffeting this journey forced her to endure.
When her patience ran out she banged on the inside of her pod. The others insisted the young computer technician named Zeke ask her what she wanted.
As soon as he opened the hatch, she rasped, “Bring me that cursed Gnome. Now!”
He closed the hatch and told the others, who in turn communicated her demand to the driver. They did not repeat the word gnome.
The truck stopped, which stopped the minibus.
From the straightaway below Alain couldn’t see the vehicles until he came around the bend. He stopped, determined they were not moving, and backed carefully out of sight around the corner. What this maneuver might mean to the Ophis Sophia people he couldn’t tell. Hopefully, they hadn’t noticed.
He snugged against the mountain on the right and crept around the bend on foot, crouching low. The monastery loomed two more switchbacks above, its west façade lit by the declining sun.
Through his binoculars he saw the truck driver by the open door. He was rolling a cigarette with one hand.
A man climbed out of the bus and walked up to the truck driver. Alain recognized Nizam al-Muriq from his crab-like advance. He walked as if he wanted to fool others into
thinking he was going an entirely different direction, yet his demeanor was disciplined, methodical, intent. He gave no outward sign he had been gut-shot the day before.
Alain wasn’t fooled, of course. Al-Muriq was a subtle man, and Alain was far from subtle, yet he could acknowledge certain affinities between them: shared competence, ruthlessness, a stoic indifference to pain.
While Nizam and the driver spoke, the driver kept his unlit cigarette cupped behind his back like a secret vice. Alain made a mental note: not all was harmony in the coming Ophis Sophia paradise.
After a few moments the back door of the truck opened and Nizam climbed inside. The door closed and for some time only the wind sighing over the stone mountainside disturbed the silence. The driver furtively lit his cigarette and took two long drags, releasing smoke instantly whipped away. He put the cigarette out by pinching the end and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
The back door of the truck opened. Nizam climbed out and returned to the bus. The two vehicles started again and disappeared around the far turn.
Alain returned to his rental.
Twenty minutes later he stopped before the final bend, where he could just make out the pitched roof and part of the top story of the monastery. An animated conversation lifted over the sound of the wind, though he couldn’t make out the words. He smiled. Only a week ago he was preparing Coquilles Saint Jacques, today he was holding his French army issue Beretta MAS 9 mm G1 semiautomatic on a mountain in Northern Spain and hoping very much he would not have to use it.
This was a strange sort of war. There were setbacks, but so far the Delphi Agenda had escaped serious injury, except for poor Brother Constantine. At least he was still alive.
He tucked the gun into the back of his waistband, slipped on a windbreaker to cover it, and drove to the parking area at the west end of the monastery complex. He was one of those rare tourists who like to visit isolated monasteries. The walk around the south side led to the main entrance.
The truck and minibus were parked side by side, facing the road, ready for a rapid departure.
Alain backed into a parking place, put on a pair of sunglasses, tugged his hat low over his eyes, and climbed out, ignoring the two vehicles on the north side of the parking area. Nizam and Ibrahim were deep in conversation with an elderly monk near the main doors. Outlined against the sky nearby stood a large, clean-shaven man, arms crossed over a thickly muscled chest. After a moment Alain realized this must be the one called Lex, the one who had burst Constantine’s eardrums.
Nizam was certainly dangerous. So was Ibrahim. But Lisa and Steve had watched a python crush this man. Now he was here, coiled as if ready to strike, yet completely at ease, clearly the most serious threat of them all. Reflexively, Alain touched the butt of his pistol.
The buildings marched away to the east, one, two, three.
He stretched luxuriously, and ambled to the bluff, keeping his back to the others and framing snapshots with his cell phone. The view was magnificent: snow covered ridges and jagged peaks, budding green on the lower slopes, patches of yellow narcissus, and hills dwindling all the way to a deep blue sea. A brook rushed down from a snow-covered dome on the other side of the parking lot, along the south side of the buildings, and around the east end toward the cliff.
The conversation between Nizam and the monk had grown into a more heated discussion, but was still inaudible, smothered by the hiss of the wind brushing the buildings. He wasn’t concerned when Nizam glanced his way and scowled deeply; they hadn’t met. Then Ibrahim turned toward him as well, following his Teacher’s gaze. Sunlight flashed off his glasses. Alain turned away from the cliff and trudged across the parking lot.
The two men turned back to their conversation. After a few minutes, the monk stepped aside to let Nizam, Ibrahim, and Lex take the path around the south side and enter the monastery.
Alain edged casually toward the buildings. The windows were too high to see in, but from the smell of cooking onions he figured he was near the refectory.
The bus sat in its midnight silence. No one got in or out. He couldn’t see how many men remained inside. He assumed the Divine Mother was in the truck, along with her attendants. He was mildly curious who she was. Perhaps the one called Beletili, some kind of mother goddess. He had seen pictures of her taken from the Internet, only her face, wide and fleshy with a tiny mouth. Apparently she had legions of followers all over the world. He couldn’t imagine why.
He put his phone away and sauntered, hands in pockets, after Nizam and the others. He sensed many pairs of eyes on his back and the cropped hair at the back of his neck prickled. He reached the main door out of sight of the vehicles and pulled on an ancient rope. Somewhere inside a bell pealed.
The door opened, and he suddenly remembered seeing Le Magicien d'Oz when he was young. The person who opened the door was not dressed in emerald green, however, nor did he have the doorman of Oz’s green horns of hair and ferocious moustache. In fact, she was a rather pretty young novice.
“Si?”
Although he spoke Spanish, Alain chose to answer in French. “Ah, pardon this intrusion, but I am an amateur of old monasteries. I find that this one, of the name San Akakio, is not well known, yet you have a magnificent location with vistas in all directions and a commanding position atop this ridge. I wonder if I might be permitted to see it inside? This place must be very old, yet there is so very little information about it, not even a Wikipedia page.”
It was a long speech, to which she listened with great attention. When he finished, she said, “Lo siento, pero no hablo francés.”
“Ingles?”
“Si. Yes.”
He repeated his little speech. She gave a graceful nod and stood aside to let him in. “Please, you are welcome.”
She took him on a tour. He saw the refectory, and yes, they were preparing onions. They looked into the empty buttery. Since he had seen no livestock he had to assume, if they made their own butter, the cows were somewhere at the foot of the mountain.
They walked the hallways and looked in offices and storage rooms. She showed him the Paradise Garden, a soggy plot of mud, storm debris, and a few sickly tendrils she claimed were herbs. A narrow cloister around three sides was dominated by the Church; it offered little protection from the elements. The Prior and Abbott’s offices, though luxuriously furnished, had an abandoned air. She told him the two administrators were on an extended trip abroad. When he asked where they might be she said they had journeyed to Egypt, or so she believed. Visiting the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai.
“Isn’t it closed because of the war?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know about that, sir.”
In the Chapter House he asked who broke the clerestory window. “It’s pretty high. No kids to throw rocks around here, I imagine.”
“No, sir. I heard it was the storm.”
“Really? Must’ve been quite a storm.”
After they visited the Church and had stepped outside into the garden again, he suggested that, although San Akakio was a very large monastery, except for three very old nuns praying in the Church and those working in the kitchens there seemed to be little activity.
“Where is everyone? I saw another group coming in before I did.”
“I believe they’ve gone to see the girls, sir.”
“Girls?”
“New mothers. They’re sinners, you see. We care for them, that is, the nuns do. And their babies, of course, until they’re placed, after a few days.”
“Ah, I see. Might one talk to one of these girls? I would think their experiences would be quite illuminating.”
“Oh, I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible.”
“Yet those others could go.”
“I believe they are interested in supporting the girls. Are you interested, sir?”
“Mmm, not just now. Is there a maternity ward, someplace where they lie in?”
“Well, there is an infirmary, but I think they give birth i
n their rooms.”
“I see.”
She took him up the stairs to show him the mostly abandoned hallways filled with ancient furniture, mostly chairs covered with dust, the wood crumbling from centuries of wood-boring insects, the brocaded cushions thick with the perfume of mildew. Only one corridor was in use by the monks.
He paused in a room to look across the garden at the building opposite. “Is that where the girls live?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, over a hundred girls, in the Children’s Hall. And the nuns, too, of course.”
“I see.”
“May I ask, sir, what is your interest in them?”
He gave a little laugh, thinking hard. “I had a daughter once,” he said, improvising. “She went… astray. I lost touch with her, but lately I’ve been feeling it was wrong, I should… I should not have rejected her.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s right, sir. These girls are poor, abandoned creatures, outcasts.”
This said by a girl of their age.
“I suppose girls are giving birth all the time. What if several are due at the same time?”
“That’s why they deliver in their rooms, so they don’t take up space in the infirmary. San Akakio is a drafty place and the infirmary is often full.”
“Would there be a girl due to deliver today, do you know? It would mean a great deal to me to know.”
“I’ve heard, sir, yes, a girl named Celia. You could pray for her.”
“I will pray for Celia, then.”
The Church bells suddenly pealed six deep tones that resonated deep in his abdomen.
The novice looked nervous. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “I’m so sorry, sir, but I must go to Vespers.”
“I understand, of course. I’ll find my own way out. Thank you so much for your kind service. It’s been an interesting and informative afternoon.”
