Michael Cordy - The Source

Bazin nodded again. This time more slowly. 'Yes,' he said.

Two hours later Sister Chantal entered the tunnel of blood shackled like a slave to Hackett, Zeb – and the two nymphs in front of them. Their hands were bound and a connecting rope looped round their necks. Behind them marched Petersen, Gerber and Bazin, with the rope secured round his waist. Fleischer and Torino took up the rear. Torino evidently hoped that the nymphs would pacify the creatures that had devoured Weber, Ross and the conquistadors. If they failed, she, Zeb and Hackett would act as human shields.

Sister Chantal had always suspected that Torino wouldn't let them leave the garden alive but she hadn't expected to die like this. When the Inquisition had handed Father Orlando to the secular authorities to be burnt at the stake it had been a case of ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, the Church shrinks from blood. This time, however, the Superior General would simply distance himself from her death – allow it to happen. This time there would be plenty of blood.

Her fear and anger that her long life of sacrifice should end so pointlessly was only tempered by the hope that the nymphs would perform their task and she might see what lay at the end of the tunnel.

The nymphs stopped abruptly by the waterfall.

'They're up there,' said Bazin, pushing her aside.

'Where?' said Zeb. She held Hackett's hand, squeezing it.

'Top of the waterfall,' Hackett said. 'Right side of the chamber. The holes in the wall.'

Sister Chantal peered up and thought she saw movement but couldn't be sure. She heard a click, then a jet of flame shot past her at the nymphs. As they ascended the steps by the waterfall they began to chant. The rope tautened and Sister Chantal followed. Torino and the soldiers waited until the nymphs walked past the dark chamber. As Sister Chantal followed, she glanced at the deep recesses in the rock to her right and saw countless red eyes staring balefully at her. Besides the holes the walls were riven with dark passageways that led to places she didn't even want to imagine.

'The chanting's working,' Bazin hissed behind her.

Torino and the others moved quickly, passing her and the nymphs, until they were beyond the holes – safe. Then, just as she thought she, too, would reach safety, she felt the rope slacken. Bazin had blocked the nymphs' path, leaving them standing directly in front of the hole-riddled chamber. Then he and the three soldiers approached the holes. One stood back with a flame-thrower, while the other three advanced, laden with guns, and opened fire. Immediately one weapon was spent they switched to another. The noise was deafening and the carnage devastating. For many moments the creatures remained motionless, as though their instinct to obey the barely audible chant of the nymphs was more powerful than their instinct to survive. By the time any reacted the holes were oozing with viscous, black-red blood, and the few that attacked were easily repelled. Through the gunfire she heard an inhuman scream well up from deep within the bowels of the caves, building in volume and intensity. The tunnel shook and trembled, dislodging shards of encrusted crystal. When the soldiers eventually ceased firing at the gaping, bleeding holes in the wall, she heard a loud whispering: the rustle of worms moving through the rock around her. Escaping.

Although the carnage sickened her, her legs trembled with relief. She was prepared for death but this was not how she wanted to end her life. Moreover, she wanted desperately to see the Source before she died. Torino and the others turned to continue the ascent and she moved to follow. But Bazin blocked the way, and for a chilling moment she thought he was going to leave them there. Then he took her arm and helped her up the path. As he did so, the Superior General turned to her and smiled, but she couldn't read his dark eyes. As they rounded the final corner of the tunnel Torino saw a portal ahead, leading to a chamber of breathtaking brilliance. An overwhelming sense of anticipation, privilege and responsibility descended on him. He had always known the Church had singled him out for greatness, ever since the Jesuits had plucked him from the gutters of Naples, nurtured his talent and pushed him to become the best he could be. He had repaid their faith by eschewing all worldly pleasures, becoming the Society's youngest ever Superior General and the Holy Mother Church's most dedicated and committed servant. However, even his sense of destiny hadn't prepared him for this. He sensed he was about to glimpse the face of God, and the notion humbled him. God had chosen him not only to witness whatever lay ahead but also to be its guardian.

He turned to Bazin and the others. 'Wait here.'

Not waiting for their response, he walked into the chamber.

He took only four steps inside before he gasped and clasped his hands in prayer. The chamber was nothing less than a temple to God's miracle of life. The air itself fizzed with it. He could feel its power in his hair and fingertips. A pool in the centre glowed as if lit from beneath, and the crystal rock formations that encrusted the entire chamber were host to countless phosphorescent life forms, which added to the ambient radiance. But they were as nothing compared to the twelve-foot-high mass that loomed over the pool and dominated the chamber. In this temple to life this towering object, this presence, was its altar.

Torino knelt in worship, careful not to get too close to the multifaceted, crystalline monolith before him, which radiated intense heat and light. One facet had a gold metallic crust, another was pearlescent, a third a clear prism, with veins of silver and gold that reflected all the colours of the rainbow. Protruding from one facet was a huge, hydra-like growth, whose trunk rose to the crystalline ceiling and spread out into countless tubular branches or tentacles, which burrowed into the walls and across the chamber. They appeared to possess both plant and animal features: stems and leaves, flesh and pulsing veins. Yet the section of trunk nearest the monolith appeared metallic and crystalline, as though it had taken on the properties of the object from which it grew. The combined entity formed a unique hybrid of flora, fauna and mineral, fused so seamlessly that it was impossible to discern where one ended and another began. From one angle the hydra's iridescent roots were visible deep within the monolith's crystal heart, which shimmered and pulsed with life. Though the water falling from the ceiling formed a clear channel in its crust, exposing clear, crystalline rock, there was no apparent erosion in the crystal. The monolith appeared to be constantly renewing itself, forever changing and forever the same.

No doubt Dr Ross Kelly would have explained the phenomenon as the result of some alien rock falling from the heavens, and he might have been right. Torino, however, knew that God had sent it. He couldn't help but smile when he considered the small black meteorite that formed one of the cornerstones of the Kaaba, the cubic building within the Sacred Mosque at Mecca, believed by Muslims to have been built by Abraham. Some regarded the black stone as sacred, believing it had fallen from the sky during the time of Adam and Eve and that it had the power to cleanse worshippers of their sins by absorbing them into itself. They claimed that the stone was once pure and dazzling white and had turned black because of the sins it had taken into itself.

This beautiful stone, however, really was sacred. Its demonstrable miraculous powers would become the brilliant cornerstone of the Holy Mother Church, underpinning its power, eclipsing all other religions. He felt giddy at the prospect of what the future held and had to suppress a nervous impulse to laugh. Whatever the pope and Vasari had felt about his coming here, Torino knew that after seeing this the Holy Father would forgive – and give – him anything. He got to his feet, stepped closer and studied the hydra growing out of the fertile crystal. Radix, meaning 'root' as well as 'source', took on a fresh significance. This must be what Orlando Falcon had meant by vita quod mors arbor, the Tree of Life and Death.