Michael Cordy - The Source

'Surely they can't be from Falcon's quest,' said Zeb, as Hackett picked up the goblet, rubbed it clean and put it into his backpack.

The heat was oppressive now and Ross could see a causeway of black pumice stepping-stones ahead, leading across a chasm through which a stream of molten lava flowed: the river of fire mentioned in the Voynich. Beyond, they would encounter an unwelcoming network of dank, dark, dripping caves.

They were now at the threshold of the garden, and for the first time since he had embarked on his quest, Ross allowed himself to believe that Falcon and Sister Chantal had been telling the truth. He might indeed find something remarkable and miraculous here to help Lauren.

'These are the last obstacles,' said Sister Chantal. 'Beyond the river of fire lie caves of burning rain and poisonous gas, but if we follow the veins of gold we will reach the garden.' She paused, glanced at Ross, then focused on the others. 'Remember your vows. Tell no one of this place and take nothing from it.' She looked at each in turn, only moving on when they nodded.

Hackett didn't look happy. 'Mountains of bat shit, cockroaches, rivers of fire, burning rain, poisonous gas. I hope this garden of yours is worth it. Good God, it's like one of those old adventure stories.'

Ross put on his sunglasses. 'There's only one way to find out.' He pointed to the causeway. 'I'm going to cross that. Then I'm going to hold my breath, cover my skin and eyes, and rush through those caves, following the pyrites to the other side. When you follow me, you mustn't breathe the air or let the liquid dripping off the ceiling touch your skin or eyes. It's basically concentrated sulphuric acid.' He put on his waterproof and pulled up the hood, leaving as little skin exposed as possible, then walked to the causeway. 'You guys ready?'

Sister Chantal smiled.

'You, Zeb?'

Zeb nodded, eyes bright. 'Yep.'

Mendoza stepped forward to join them but Hackett hung back.

Ross's heart was beating fast. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so excited. He realized then that this was no longer just about saving Lauren and their child. His passion for geology, stifled for so long by Big Oil, had reawakened. He called to Hackett, 'What are you waiting for? Want to discover what drove a priest to write the most mysterious manuscript in the world? Want to see a place even more amazing and magical than your precious Eldorado?' He began to walk across the causeway, heat wafting up to him from the lava. 'If you do, follow me.'

The Garden of God

After he'd crossed the causeway, Ross checked that the others were following him, then turned on his torch, took one last breath, grasped Sister Chantal's hand and led her, with Zeb, through the dripping caves. Even with the sunglasses his eyes watered. A drop from the acidic ceiling touched his right hand and he felt it burn before he rubbed it off with the opposite sleeve. This was the burning rain described in the Voynich. That, and the toxic smell of brimstone, or sulphur – a substance associated with the Devil – had made Orlando Falcon fear he had entered the portals of Hell.

Right now, Ross sympathized with him.

Holding his breath, he glanced round the system of toxic subterranean caves and passageways. From the heat under his feet, and the river of fire behind them, he guessed there was magma beneath. He felt as he had in the caves of Cueva de Villa Luz in southern Mexico, as though he had gone back billions of years to when the young Earth was a toxic incubator for the most primitive forms of life. Even here there was life: he could see small extremophiles feeding off the sulphurous walls.

Following the gilt seams, he dragged Sister Chantal and Zeb through the labyrinth for so many seconds that he feared they would not find their way out before they had to breathe.

Then the pyrites stopped. All he could see ahead of him was solid wall. A dead end.

Sister Chantal's face was pale, her eyes bloodshot. She looked on the verge of death. Was this where they would die?

Then she smiled.

She took his torch and Zeb's, and, with her own, switched them off. In the sudden darkness, needing to breathe, he felt close to panic. Then a hand gripped his elbow, turning him. In the darkness, uncorrupted by torchbeams, he discerned a faint vertical line of light down the right-hand side of the apparently solid wall. He moved closer and saw that two separate walls ran parallel to each other, a thin gap between them forming a passageway. He moved into it and walked towards the light.

Outside, he gulped fresh air. When his eyes grew accustomed to the glare he saw he was in a place unlike any he had seen before. Where the air in the caves had been poisonous, it was now sweet, fresh and perfumed. If the toxic caves were Hell, this was Heaven on Earth. He turned to Sister Chantal, but before he could say anything, she nodded.

'Yes,' she said, with an ecstatic smile. 'This is the garden.'

Ross stood at one end of a deep elliptical basin, more than a thousand yards long and many hundreds wide, completely enclosed by a funnel of rock so deep that the sun's rays barely reached its verdant floor. He seemed to be inside a huge eye, the pupil a perfectly circular lake in the centre. At the far end, where the ground was higher, he could see another cave. A stream flowed from it to feed the limpid lake. The clear water had a green glow, as though fireflies were swimming in it.

Around the lake grasses were growing, with trees and exotic plants unlike anything in the jungle they had just walked through – unlike anything he had ever seen in nature.

'Look, Ross.' Zeb held open her photocopied pages of the Voynich with the illustrations, then waved at the trees, flowers and plants around them. 'They're just like in the book, and the descriptions of this place are spot-on.' She pointed to the far cave. 'That must lead to the forbidden caves Falcon wrote about, where the nymphs lived.'

And where the conquistadors died, thought Ross. To his left, at the base of the cliff, he saw a pile of perfectly spherical rocks, and more half-formed spheres emerging from the cliff. They reminded him of the Moeraki boulders on New Zealand's South Island. But it was the plants and the glowing water that captivated him.

And the air.

It had a subtle fragrance and taste, a delicious blend of floral, vanilla and citrus notes that was sweet yet not cloying.

The others were equally enraptured. Sister Chantal bent down beside the lake, cupped her hands in the water and drank, her face radiating joy. If she had been a cat she would have purred. Ross noticed that the water in her cupped palms contained microscopic glowing particles, similar to those he had spied in her leather pouch when they had first met.

Suddenly an eerie sound filled the air, like a choir singing. There were no discernible words or phrases, just a series of almost mechanically perfect notes. Beautiful yet soulless, it came from the cave at the end of the garden and made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. The sound stopped as abruptly as it had started.

'What was that?' he said.

Sister Chantal laid a hand on his arm. 'Wait, Ross,' she said. 'The caves at the far end of the garden, no one must go into them without me.'

Hackett rubbed his eyes. 'Why not?' he said.

'Because I'm the Keeper,' she said.

'The what?' said Mendoza.

'Just do as she says,' Ross told them.

'What is this place?' said Hackett.

Sister Chantal placed a finger over her lips. 'No more questions. It'll be dark soon.' She knelt by the lake, filled her cupped hands with the phosphorescent water and proffered it to them. 'Drink from the stream and the lake. Eat fruit from the trees. Get some sleep. You may see small creatures in the garden but they're harmless. Just don't go into the caves. Tomorrow everything will become clearer.' She smiled at Ross. 'Much clearer.'