'The antechamber's harmless,' she said. 'The forbidden, dangerous part lies beyond.'
The first thing he noticed was a faint smell: a musky, damp, mustard-seed aroma – like the aftermath of sex. The space was high and deep. The cave floor rose in steps as he entered, culminating in a high ledge, behind which an ascending tunnel disappeared into the heart of the surrounding rock. The stream that fed the lake flowed down the tunnel to a small waterfall, which dropped from the ledge, forming two pools, then eddied into the garden. Inside the tunnel, alongside the rushing stream, there was a path wide enough for two men. When Ross looked closely he saw that it was made up of glittering crystals. In fact, the whole tunnel was encrusted with them.
He could see all this from the entrance because the interior of the antechamber was bathed in an ethereal glow, which emanated from deep within the tunnel, amplified by the crystals and the stream. The path emitted its own glittering phosphorescence, presenting an irresistible temptation to enter the tunnel and discover the source of the strange light. A potentially deadly temptation, Ross remembered, from a passage in Lauren's translation of the Voynich: Though the conquistadors could not communicate directly with the Eves, the scholar priest understood that it was forbidden to enter their cave. For many days they rested after their gruelling journey and enjoyed the beautiful garden. But soon, like all idle men, they grew curious and greedy, wondering what could be in the cave. It must be valuable, they reasoned. Gold.
The scholar priest counselled them to obey their hosts but the captain was a proud man who obeyed only his king. That night the conquistadors ventured into the cave. They found the Eves bathing in pools, filled by water flowing from a vaulted tunnel in the raised back of the cave. As well as water, light issued from deep within the tunnel bathing everything in a golden glow. Alongside the rushing stream, a path climbed and twisted into the rock. It appeared to be encrusted with diamonds, which sparkled in the light. Convinced that its source must be a vast treasure trove, the conquistadors were drawn to it like moths to a flame.
When they approached, the Eves emitted a high-pitched wailing and blocked their path. The scholar priest begged the men not to enter. But they pushed him and the Eves aside and began their ascent. The scholar priest watched each of them disappear into the tunnel and for many minutes nothing happened.
Then the screaming started.
And the stream turned red with their blood.
Twenty-one men entered the tunnel, all the surviving members of the original troop. Not one came down. Every conquistador died. The scholar priest understood then that the Eves had not been protecting whatever was in the tunnel from their greed but the conquistadors from whatever was in the tunnel. After witnessing the horrors of that night, he concluded that only man could turn Heaven into Hell.
The tunnel of blood also featured in the last pages of Falcon's notebook: the translation of the Voynich's astrological section that Lauren had not yet unravelled. According to this section, Falcon later went up the tunnel himself and discovered 'el origen' – the source, what Torino called the 'radix'. Ross took the damaged notebook from his backpack and studied the relevant pages, but apart from a typically cryptic reference to something called El Arbol de la Vida y de la Muerte, the Tree of Life and Death, they told him little. He pulled out his compass and watched the needle rotate furiously, then point up the tunnel.
'What's up there?' he asked.
'I don't know. Only Father Orlando lived to see el origen.'
'But in his notebook he doesn't explain what it is. Only that it's the power behind the garden, is incredibly beautiful and the path leading to it is dangerous.' Ross was burning to know more but something moved in his peripheral vision. He shifted his focus and saw that the glowing tunnel was not the only remarkable thing in the cave.
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 her hand and the crystals sparkled many colours. 'These are the only things I allow myself to take out of the garden, but these crystals are too small. Any power they have will dissipate once we leave. They need to be of a certain size to retain their potency. You can grind them down when you're outside but the crystal's got to be big enough to start with.'
'Where can I get a large enough one? From the bottom of the lake?'
'No. Those are smaller than they look. Something to do with the magnifying effect of all that water.' She reached into the stream again and picked up a large shard, which had broken off from the lattice of crystal encrusting the tunnel. She handed it to him.
He looked at it, mesmerized. It was beautiful, part opaque, part clear, and glowed as he turned it in his
