The Source - Michael Cordy [89]
In the far recesses, white shapes moved in the shadows. He stepped closer and saw a creature staring back at him, a biped, about four feet high with translucent alabaster-white skin. It had two arms, a distended belly and two mounds on its chest, with no nipples. Its face was round with large, attractive eyes, a small nose and a wide mouth. On top of its head there was a cluster of strandlike growths, entwined with flowers. The creature seemed as fascinated by Ross as he was by it.
'Father Orlando was many things,' Sister Chantal said quietly, 'but, as you can see, he was no artist.'
It was one of the Voynich's nymphs – one of Orlando Falcon's Eves – though it looked nothing like Ross had expected. He had heard of sailors mistaking manatees for mermaids, and this, perhaps, explained why Orlando Falcon had depicted the creature as a female human.
Similar creatures were emerging from the shadows now, but his eyes were drawn to writhing, serpentine growths on the ceiling and walls at the back of the cave. The tubular tentacle structures appeared to grow from the rock like thick vines. Grotesquely beautiful, with veins that throbbed like blood vessels, they seemed a strange blend of plant and animal. The tentacles ended in variously shaped pods. Ross glimpsed some nymphs reclining in them while others straddled the vines. They seemed to have a strange symbiotic relationship with each other.
'What are they?' he asked. 'Those tubular growths?'
'Like the Eves, they've been here since Father Orlando discovered the garden. They run through much of the cave.' She retrieved a torch from her bag, switched it on and led him towards the far recesses of the antechamber. The space was even deeper than it appeared from the entrance and led to a warren of other caves and tunnels deep within the rock. As they approached, the nymphs either melted into the tunnels or hissed threateningly. Sister Chantal held up her crucifix and began to hum a two-note refrain. Immediately the nymphs became less agitated and copied the sound. When she stopped they appeared calmer, accepting their presence. She left the crucifix hanging outside her blouse. 'It reassures them,' she said.
In the beam of Sister Chantal's torch the tubular tentacles seemed to be everywhere, like ducting in the basement of a large building. He followed a number of thicker ones down a passage to the right where the air felt warmer until he saw a fiery red glow ahead.
'Careful, Ross.'
Suddenly he was hit by a wall of heat, and stopped where the tunnel ended in an abrupt ledge. Magma boiled many feet below. A thin, broken rock bridge led across it to more dark caves.
'In Father Orlando's time that bridge was wider and unbroken,' said Sister Chantal. 'He claimed it was another way out of the garden, that it led to the other side of the ridge that surrounds this place.'
You'd have to be pretty desperate to take that exit, thought Ross. It made the poisonous caves through which they had come seem like a walk in the park.
Sister Chantal turned. 'Let's go back to the antechamber. I want to show you something really impressive.'
When they reached it five nymphs were bathing in the pool directly beneath the small waterfall. Wherever he looked, he saw pages of the Voynich come alive.
Sister Chantal led him on to the ledge towards the tunnel and bent down by the stream. She put her cupped hand into the rushing water, as if it was a gold prospector's pan, then brought it out and displayed it to Ross. 'This is what we've come for. This is what can cure Lauren.'
53
Her hand was full of small, luminous, crystalline rock particles, larger than the microscopic ones in the water he had drunk from the lake but smaller than the shards he had seen last night. She moved