“I can try.” Ashley rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “But I feel weak, like everything’s drained out of me. I climbed over a thousand steps and faced the giant that clubbed Roxil. I guess the adrenaline rush wore me out.”
“Let’s give her a few minutes to rest,” Gabriel said. “In the meantime, I’ll see what’s going on up top. It won’t take long to figure out if we’re in Hades or not.”
“I know a faster way.” Ashley tapped her jaw. “Larry, can you hear me?”
A static-filled reply buzzed from Ashley’s mouth.
“Your signal is weak, O loquacious leviathan. I am on generator power, so my reception and transmission capabilities are diminished.”
“We must be in the real world.” Ashley’s gaze drifted from Walter to Gabriel to Sapphira. “Larry, any news reports that would indicate very strange phenomena?”
“Strange, indeed! Because of a widespread power outage, my access to the Internet is malfunctioning, but I have been scanning a variety of radio frequencies. It seems that electricity is being drained from several strategic locations, thereby disrupting the power grid. Authorities suspect terrorism, and they are working to pinpoint the drainage spots. Many cities are in a panic with widespread looting and out-of-control fires. A very recent report indicates that unruly hairy men are swarming in the streets and committing acts of unspeakable violence, especially against children. To put it in layman’s terms—all hell has broken loose. This, of course, is exactly what a terrorist would want.”
“It’s not terrorism,” Ashley replied, her shivers returning. “I think you nailed it when you said, ‘All hell has broken loose.’”
“Your words are cryptic. If you know the cause, then perhaps I should notify the authorities. I can send an anonymous shortwave message to”
“No. They can’t help us.” Ashley knelt close to Roxil and caressed her dull tawny scales. “We need a special kind of firepower.”
Thigocia sniffed a footprint in the mud at the edge of a narrow bubbling stream. “It is the same man we spoke with,” she said, lifting her eyes toward Arramos. “Zane’s odor is unmistakable.”
Sitting on his haunches in the surrounding grass, Arramos tapped the end of his tail on the ground. “He is the only wanderer we have found in all these hours. Are you satisfied?”
Thigocia let out a low growl. “For now.”
“Good.” He rose to all fours and unfurled his wings. “We must meet with Roxil as soon as possible. We have a very long journey ahead, and our delay has compromised our schedule. Great haste is now a necessity.”
“Do not worry about me.” Thigocia stretched out her wings, but her span, though wide and impressive for a female, was no match for his. “Fly quickly,” she said. “I will keep up.”
“As you wish.” With a great flap of his wings, Arramos shot into the sky and ascended at a dizzying rate.
Thigocia followed, beating her own wings furiously. After several minutes of exhausting flight, she caught up and flew to the right of and slightly behind Arramos, decelerating to keep to his new, slower pace. With every downbeat of his powerful reddish wings, his profile came into view. He didn’t look back at her, but she detected a cynical smile. Of course he had slowed down to allow her to catch up, but not out of mercy. His was a condescending leniency, not a loving act of grace.
As she continued watching his face, she heaved a sigh. Had she made a mistake going with him? What would happen when she finally had to trust him in battle? And would they ever really find Roxil?
She edged away to avoid brushing her wing with his. Again, she sighed. With Ashley, Walter, and Karen risking their lives, the stakes had risen too high to make a blunder now.
Chapter 15
After guiding Elam and Naamah across a marshy field populated by wood ducks and hefty bullfrogs, Dikaios led them up to a drier plane and stopped at the edge of a forest. “This is the Skotos Woods,” he said. “Since it is dense and quite dark, some of the wanderers in these lands hide or sleep here after they have wearied themselves trying to find the altar.”
Elam stepped over an oak’s low-hanging limb and set his hand on the trunk. “Have they ever shown any signs of violence?”
“I believe violence is possible. They are desperate, so their behavior is unpredictable. We would be wise not to alert them to our presence.”
Wearing a wreath she had fashioned with marsh reeds and white flowers, Naamah scanned the long line of trees. “Is going around an option?”
“It is an option,” Dikaios replied, “but Skotos is very wide at this point, so going around would take at least three additional hours.”
“Lead the way, Dikaios.” Elam nodded toward the woods. “We’ll just have to be as quiet as possible until we come back out into the light.”
As they navigated between massive tree trunks on a meandering path of trodden leaves, the canopy thickened, and the woods grew darker. Ducking under vines that formed sagging bridges between the trees, Elam pushed away branches that invaded their path, holding them until Naamah could pass by unhindered.
Soon, the forest began to thin out. The smell of burning wood hung in the motionless air, but no crackling logs or fireside chatter gave any audible hints to the source of the odor. Dikaios stopped at a hedge that bordered a glade. The bushes rose high enough to prevent someone from peering over the top, but there were several gaps that allowed for easy passage.
When Elam and Naamah caught up, he plodded into the clearing, glancing back and forth as he high-stepped over leaves that had blown on the path. In the center of the oval glade they found the remains of a campfire and several places where the leaves had been swept together into bedding.
Elam bent down and picked up a long stick with a charred end. He touched the black ashes. Still warm, but just barely. Quietly setting it down again, he nodded to Dikaios, and the horse continued on the path.
Just as they reached the other end of the clearing, a timid voice called out. “Excuse me?”
Turning in the direction of the voice, Elam gestured for Naamah to move behind a wide tree. A bespectacled, middle-aged man emerged from the forest and tripped over a root. He stumbled into the clearing and fell on his face.
Elam hustled to his side and helped him to his feet. As Dikaios and Naamah joined them, the man brushed off his clothes, a button-down white formal shirt and a pair of ragged black pants. With dirty smears and fingertip-sized holes covering his garments from top to bottom, he seemed well acquainted with stumbling.
His hands trembling, he bowed his head to Elam, then to Dikaios and Naamah. His voice matched the tremors in his hands. “I am lost and in need of help. Have you come to take me to Heaven’s altar?”
“Have you found the key?” Elam asked.
The man shook his head sadly. “I have searched everywhere. I was hoping that if I found the door to the altar, I might see what kind of key is needed. Then, once I knew its size, I could continue my search with a better knowledge of what I’m looking for.”
Dikaios stepped forward. “What is your name, and how did you get here?”
“I was called Zane on Earth, and my friends here call me Maestro, because I often lead them in song. My coming to this place is the result of a harsh journey. You see, when I knew death was approaching, I went to sleep expecting to awaken in Heaven, but I found myself in a strange land. After asking countless people where I was supposed to go, I wandered into a forest where I had to fend off a hairy beast, but a barely visible man rescued me. After asking me countless questions, he allowed me to enter this place. While it is lovelier than the previous land, it still seemed somewhat of a disappointment compared to the glorious splendor I expected to see in Heaven.”
“This is not Heaven,” Elam explained. “These are the Bridgelands, the approach to Heaven.”
“Yes. Yes, I learned that from the transparent fellow who brought me here from the other land. I also learned that I need to find the final gateway, Heaven’s altar, but that destination has eluded me for years.”
Elam glanced around. “You said you have friends. Where are they?”
“They are out on their daily search.” Zane pushed one of the leaf beds with his foot. “We are ten in all, and we regularly congregate here. We warm ourselves around a fire and discuss our journeys, and we find it beneficial to compare notes about what we discover.”
“Did they all get here the same way you did?” Elam asked.
“We arrived at different times, but we all followed the same course. First, I met the transparent gentleman in the forest, and, after arriving here, I came upon a deep chasm. A rickety bridge spanned the gap, and it seemed much too dangerous to cross. Thanks be to God, a lady in a red cloak guided me to a much safer passage. Ever since that time, I have been searching for the altar.”
“Did the other nine mention the lady in red?”
“Yes.” Zane slid his glasses higher on his nose. “She was a grand topic of conversation. Since the ten of us have similar backgrounds in theology, we are able to converse using the language of our discipline, so we debated her symbolic meaning in our journeys. Since she came to us at the moment we had to cross the bridge, we decided to call her Providence, the symbol of divine intervention.”
Dikaios slapped his tail against Zane’s backside. “The camaraderie of similar scholarship helps isthmian thinking flourish.”
Zane glared at the horse. “Excuse me? I don’t grasp your meaning.”
“‘
Cannot
grasp’ would be a better phrase,” Dikaios grumbled.
“Never mind him.” Elam brushed the remaining leaves from Zane’s shirt. “We are also in search of the altar. When we find it, I hope to do as you mentioned—learn more about the key and what is needed to enter. Then, if we are allowed to return and tell others how to follow, I will.”
“That would be excellent!” Zane pressed his hands together and looked at Elam hopefully. “May I come with you?”
Elam glanced at Dikaios, but the horse merely blinked at him.
“Would you leave without your friends?”
“Oh, they will return soon, I’m sure. Very soon. You will wait, won’t you?”
“Let’s do this,” Elam said. “When your friends come back, build another fire and stay together. If I don’t return by the time it becomes ashes, then you can assume that I’m not coming back.”
Zane began breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. “How tall should I make the pyre? How much wood do I use?”
“How big is your faith?” Elam smiled and walked away, stealthily glancing behind him to catch Zane’s confused expression.
Finally, Zane lifted a thin branch and waved it. “I see! The larger my fire, the more willing I am to wait!”
Elam took Naamah’s hand and patted Dikaios on the neck. “Let’s go.”
When they traveled out of earshot, Dikaios muttered, “Have you given this man false hope? How do you know you will return?”
“I only told him I hoped to return, and I assume his hope should be built upon the faith he has.” Elam pushed aside a branch as they passed through the bordering hedge. “If there’s one thing I learned from Merlin, it’s this. When we aren’t sure where we’re going, faith and hope are the most solid stepping-stones we have.”
“I see. You must have chosen to cross the bridge rather than follow the woman in red.” Dikaios said nothing more, and the three walked through the remainder of the forest in silence.
After another half hour, the woods opened up into a wide, grassy plain, dressed from one end to the other with brilliant wildflowers. In the distance, low hills gradually gave way to rocky ridges and mountains with a path leading upward through the lower elevations.
Their walk through the scented grass proved easy and pleasant, and when they arrived at the upward path, Elam felt refreshed and ready to climb. After about an hour, the path grew steeper, though it remained grassy and wide, comfortable for feet, shoes, and hooves.
Rocky banks rose sharply on the right, and a sheer drop into a river valley threatened on the left. Tropical trees lined the river far below, sporting branches alive with activity as small animals resembling monkeys swung from vine to vine.
When they reached a point where the rising shoulder to the right sloped more gradually, Dikaios stopped and bobbed his head at a sheer mountain face about a hundred feet away, a massive marble wall that jutted straight up for about a thousand feet.
“The Cliff of Promise,” Dikaios said. “It reveals truths that cannot be seen with the eye—truths from the past, present, and expected future.”
“Expected future?” Elam asked.
The horse nodded. “A wise man once told me that God’s promises of future tidings always come true, but many events about which God remains silent lie in the realm of the merely possible.”
“Okay,” Elam said, stretching out the word, “that’s a little too deep to go into right now.” He gazed at the drawing on the white cliff. In the center, a globe of the Earth displayed the western hemisphere in the foreground. To the left, seven black discs hovered, one on top of the other, with white spacers in between that matched the thickness of an individual disc. The height of the entire stack equaled the north-to-south diameter of the Earth. To the right of the Earth, a stone prayer bench sat beneath an altar of gold. Two girls knelt at the bench, while an old man stood next to the altar wearing a long robe.
As he took in all the amazing detail, the drawing moved. The Earth slowly rotated, while the discs spun almost imperceptibly. The man at the altar bent over and laid a hand on one of the girls, apparently speaking to her.
“If it’s a drawing,” Elam said, “how does it move?”
Dikaios set a foreleg on the slope. “Look closely. Every line is made up of living dots. They are insects of some kind, though I am not aware of the name of the species.”
With Naamah following close behind, Elam walked up the gradual slope until he was within reach of the cliff. “They look like big grasshoppers,” he said.
“Locusts.” Naamah bent over and eyed one closely. “They are of the same variety God used to smite Egypt.”
“So,” Elam said, backing toward Dikaios, “what’s this wall supposed to tell us?”
“Did not the angel say that a new song would change the drawing?” Dikaios asked.
Elam crossed his arms over his chest. “So I guess one of us has to sing.”
“Not I,” Dikaios said. “My voice would frighten the insects away.”
“Well, I’m no singer.” Elam looked at Naamah expectantly. “But I know someone who is.”
Her eyes darkened as she stared back at him. “I am a songstress, Elam, but I have no words to sing in such a holy place. Who am I to command a prophetic image to appear on this sacred wall?”
“The angel said you were supposed to explain it.” Elam spread out his hands. “So who else can do it?”
Naamah gave a quick curtsy, then, scooting in close to Elam, clutched his tunic and whispered. “Master Elam, you put me in a quandary. I wish to obey and sing, but I haven’t the words. The songs I know are vulgar and dark.”
“Maybe if you just close your eyes and hum one of your tunes, new words will pop into your mind.”
Naamah released his tunic and backed away. She stared at him again for a moment, then slowly bowed her head. “I will do as you say, but I cannot promise a sensible song.”
“Just do the best you can.” Elam turned and walked away from the mountain face. “Let’s move to where we can see the drawing better.”
When they arrived at the original path, Naamah lowered herself to her knees, folding her hands and closing her eyes. With the garland of reeds and tiny white flowers resting on her jet black hair, she looked like a fairy princess ready for bedtime prayers. At first, she just moved her lips silently, as if praying, then, a beautiful melody arose, like the morning psalm of a heavenly nightingale.
Dikaios and Elam moved closer to Naamah. Elam knelt next to her, listening intently while gazing at the slowly spinning Earth on the cliff. Soon, words began to blend in with the melody, and phrases seemed to take physical shape, like doves made out of pure light, flying from Naamah’s lips toward the massive drawing. The song flowed on the breeze as the feathered words made flight and blended in with the dark insects on the wall.
Created holy, man has died
And reaped the evil seed he sowed,
So now he plows in futile sand,
The ox who kicks the prodding goad.
As the song proceeded, the locusts formed images to match the words, rapidly changing each scene. They showed a man and woman with a fruit, then a man pushing a plow and shaking a fist in the air.
To God he builds a tower of stone,
His pride, an arrow to the sky,
Believing clay and flesh and blood
Can reach the holy seat on high.
The drawing shifted to a tall ziggurat that pierced the clouds, but dragons flew around the tower and toppled it with a cyclone of fire.
Alas! The tower begins anew,
A threat that now has breached the wall
That separates the men of Earth
From souls who live in Hades’ hall.
The image of the Earth and the seven stacked discs reappeared. The two worlds drifted closer and closer together until they collided. The discs transformed into locusts that flew into the Earth, and the image seemed to magnify, as if the one viewing the scene were flying in for a landing somewhere in the United States. Suddenly, hairy men with fangs appeared. They prowled a city street, chasing small humans into dark alleys.
A giant reaching to the sky,
With bolts of lightning twisting ’round,
Is seeking not to climb to God,
But strives to bring the heavens down.
The altar with the praying girls reappeared on the face of the mountain. To the left, a giant lifted his hands, and jagged streaks shot out from his fingers. The streaks wrapped up in a vortex and reached for the altar like twisted strands of spider webbing shooting at a victim. The streaks grabbed the altar and drew it closer and closer until …