5 Onslaught (8 page)

11

“The
rumbling is fading,” Mira notes as we near the top of the spiral stairwell. She
pauses, placing her hand on the gray stone wall. Its surface is smooth, almost
soft to the touch, no doubt as polished as it had been when it was abandoned.
“Maybe they’ve passed?”

I
lift my leg and take another step up, which at this point in the climb, feels
like a small victory. Steps are supposed to make scaling heights easier, but
they really just put all the strain on a few muscles and bones. Had we been
scaling a wall, all of my muscles would be sharing the burden. “It’s just
because we’re above them,” I say. “The shockwaves are moving down and out, away
from the impacts. So the effect isn’t as severe if you’re above the source of
the vibration.”

“Thanks
for the sciencey, Einstein,” Mira says with a touch of sarcasm.

“Thank
you
,” I retort, “for making me feel
like I’m back in school.”

“Please,”
Mira says, about to launch into some kind of witty diatribe.

“Shut-up,”
Kainda hisses.
“Both of you.
I swear you’re like a
couple of children in need of a few lashes.”

My
instinct is to look at Mira and share a knowing smile, but the fact that Kainda
is likely speaking about the parenting style modeled for her, and which she
might actually believe is appropriate, makes me frown. I’d never thought about
the possibility of having children some day. And it’s still a long way off. But
if we survive this war, and really do get married, will she want to raise our
children as hunters? Or will their childhoods look more like mine?

A conundrum for the future,
I tell myself.

I
look up to Kainda, who currently leads our upward charge. “What is it?”

She’s
just around the bend and no longer climbing. As I follow the curved stairs up,
I see the stone just beyond her change from a smooth and steady gray to a
column of blocks. One more step reveals an archway.

“We’re
there,” she says.

We
gather at the top step, looking into the space beyond, but remain unmoving,
like there’s an invisible force field preventing us from entering.

The
chamber beyond the doorway is vast, with a flat floor and a domed ceiling, all
carved right out of the solid stone. Beams of light stream through circular
holes punched into the wall every fifteen feet.

“Is
that daylight?” Mira asks.

“I
think so,” I say and finally take a tentative step inside. The floor is as
smooth as the walls in the stairwell. It’s almost soft under my feet. I scrunch
my toes expecting to feel the threads of a rug, but
it’s
all solid stone. As my eyes adjust to the brighter light inside the chamber, I
start to see details.

The
room is largely empty save for a few pedestals that rise straight out of the
floor. I walk to them and count seven. Mira kneels beside one of the
protrusions and runs her hand over the top. I look for Kainda and find her
walking around the perimeter of the chamber, looking at the walls between the
windows.

“It’s
indented,” Mira says. She moves to the next pedestal and touches the top. “They
all are.” She
stands,
steps inside the circle and sits
atop of the stone towers. “They’re seats.”

I
step inside the circle and sit down across from Mira. She’s right. The
indentations were worn by human
backsides, which means
these seat were used for a very long time.

“It’s
like this was some kind of meeting place,” she says.
“Maybe
for leaders of some kind.”

“Or
a secretive cult,” I add.

Mira
frowns at me.

I
shrug.
“Just saying.”

A
rumble rises through the
nunatak
,
the stone seat and then my spine, reminding me why we’re here. I stand and head
for one of the windows.
It’s
round and four feet in
diameter. As I get closer, I see that it has been carved through ten feet of
stone, at an upwards 45 degree angle. I put my face inside and look up. There’s
a stone ledge blocking my view of the sky, but its bottom glows with a greenish
hue—sunlight reflecting
off
the green jungle far
below.

A
breeze flows through the opening. As it washes over my face, I close my eyes
and take a deep breath, expecting the sweet scent of a thawed Antarctica.
Instead I get a perfume of decay, blood, feces and death—the scent of Nephilim.
It’s so strong, I feel like I’ve just licked a warrior’s armpit. I reel back
from the window, smacking the back of my head against the stone and falling to
the floor, stunned.

“You
okay?” Mira says, crouching behind me. She sounds more concerned than comical
this time around.
Probably a result of the disgusted look on
my face.
She must catch a whiff, too, because she suddenly groans and
puts a hand over her nose.
“Oh, God.
Is that...them?”

I
rub my head.
“Eau de Nephilim at its finest.”

When
I look up, I don’t see the window. Instead, my eyes focus on the wall between
this window and the next. What I see is enough to make me forget all about the
stink. “Whoa.”

Mira
turns to the wall and holds up her glowing crystal, illuminating the scene. The
entire wall, ten feet up to where the dome begins and all fifteen feet between
the portals, is a collage of images and strange text, similar to those found in
Egyptian tombs, but much more simplistic in style. But they’re also more
complex than what is typically thought of as “cave paintings,” which is to say,
these aren’t the paintings of a lone wandering artist, or even a collection of
artists over time—this was a communal effort to create something permanent.

“It’s
a record,” I say, looking at the vivid portrayal of a hunt. Ten warriors
dressed in brown and carrying spears are battling a large animal. I point to
it. “That’s a giant sloth, I think.”

The
next picture over depicts a celebration. The dancing figures are lit by a
bonfire’s glow and their shadows are cast on the wall. In Mira’s shifting blue
light, they almost look real. The effect is really quite spectacular.

“Can
you read the text?” Mira asks.

I
shift my attention to the lines of text below the art and note that while the
art is painted on, the text is carved right into the stone, a far more
permanent medium. Whatever the text says was clearly more important to these
people, but unfortunately, I can’t read a word of it. “I don’t recognize the
language, but I’m guessing it predates anything we know about.”

“Wright
once told me about a team of Delta operatives who discovered what they called “the
mother tongue,” while on a mission. Said it was the language people spoke
before the tower of Babel. He didn’t believe it, but...”

“Maybe
that’s what this is,” I say. “Anything is possible, I suppose. But the real
question is
,
what were they trying to tell us? What is
this a
record of?”

“The beginning.”

Mira
and I both turn to Kainda. She’s still on the far side of the room, running her
hand over the text and staring up at an image. As we head toward her, I ask,
“Can you read the language?”

“I
doubt anyone can,” Kainda replies. “Not anymore.”

“Then
how do you know?” I ask.

She
steps to the side, allowing me a full view of the image she’s been staring at.
“Because, you’ve been there.”

I
stop in my tracks.
“No way.”

“What?”
Mira asks.

I
can’t answer. Not yet. The accuracy of this painting is blowing my mind. Every
detail is exactly how I remember it. I turn to Kainda, “In all this time,
nothing has changed?”

“It
would appear so,” she says.

I
step closer and reach my hand up, placing it on the big tree at the center of
the image. I close my eyes and picture myself there again. It was so peaceful.
Without pain.
Or death.
Or any of the horrible things that plague our world.
That
is, until Nephil found his way there.

“Where
is this?” Mira asks, growing impatient.

I
pull my hand away, feeling a great sense of longing and loss.
“Edinnu.”

“Edinnu?”
she says. “That’s...that’s the place you said was Eden, right? Where you met
the angel?”

“Adoel,”
I say with a nod. I point to the grassy hill surrounding the tree. “We stood
right here.” I turn to the right and see several more of the massive murals.
“This is a record of the beginning of human kind.
Before
the Nephilim.”

I
walk slowly to the right, following the progression of time from Edinnu, to
tribal life, villages, farms and eventually war.
It’s
right around that time that the images take on a darker tone, painted in blacks
and reds. The style is also different.
Evolved.
I
realize that I’ve probably just seen the records of a thousand years of
humanity’s beginning.
Maybe more.
The artists painting
at this point in the massive storybook might not have even known the names of
those who came before them. They were just carrying on the tradition, maybe
gathering as a group of leaders and artists, sitting in those chairs and
deciding what image or collection of images best depicted their generation.
Or century.

My
stomach twists when the dark images resolve into blatant Nephilim images.
Giants can be seen alongside men. Monstrous creations of man and beast, like
the mythological creatures we discovered, and a mixture of violent and depraved
acts performed by Nephilim and men alike.

With
only two fifteen foot sections to go, the style disappears almost completely.
The illustration is almost like a Jackson Pollock—smears of red, and black, and
purple. I don’t miss the significance of the purple, a perfect match to the
blood of the Nephilim. Perhaps there was a war, a final rebellion of men
against gods. Perhaps it is the time when the Titans and the Nephilim fought
for the world. The Titans were driven to Tartarus while the Nephilim claimed
the world as their own.

Feeling
heavy, I wander toward the final section and leap back when Mira holds her
light to it. It’s a face. A black and angry face skillfully rendered.
Yellow eyes.
Double rows of glaring teeth.
The whole thing burns with hatred and loathing. While I have never seen him in
the flesh, I know this monster.

“Nephil,”
I say.

“This
is him?” Mira asks. “This is the big-wig Nephilim that wants to claim your
body, wipe out humanity and live forever as a soulless world dictator?”

“Yes,”
I say. I’m having a hard time looking at the image. I feel like he can see me
through it.

Mira
reaches into her cargo pants pocket and steps up to the image. She stands so
that I can’t see what she’s doing, but I think she’s drawing. I understand that
the image is offensive, but it’s also an archeological treasure. “What are you
doing?”

Mira
holds up her hand for a moment, revealing a small white brick about the size of
a soap bar. “Chalk,” she says, “In case we had to climb. Never did.”

She
puts the chalk back in her pants, claps of her hands and leans back to admire
her work. “There,” she says, smiling widely. She steps back revealing the
marred image.

Mira
has given Nephil, aka
Ophion,
the greatest enemy
mankind has ever known...a handlebar mustache.

Despite
my feelings about defacing this priceless record of ancient man, I smile. And
then I laugh. Even Kainda finds it funny. Our laughter grows with each passing
moment as the alteration drains our tension.

But
the momentary distraction is interrupted by a thunderous boom and a violent
quake in the Earth around us.

“They’re
close,” Kainda says. Her hand has instinctually gone to her hammer, despite no
one knowing we’re here.

I
step toward the nearest portal. “It’s time to take a look.”

The
window-tunnel is spacious by underworld standards, so it takes me only a few
seconds to reach the top. I squint in the bright daylight as I reach the top of
the angled tunnel. Although the sky above is blocked by the ledge five feet
over my head, I can now see the more distant sky, and the gleaming, wet jungle
below. When my eyes adjust, I quickly see that I’m at least eight hundred feet
above the base of a vast, east-to-west valley that’s thick with jungle.

And Nephilim.

I
look to the right, just before the nunatak rises from the jungle and follow the
sea of monsters all the way to the horizon. The ground shakes again, drawing my
eyes to the left. My heart sinks.
Tears well.
My
throat tightens.

“What
do you see?” Mira asks from below.

The beginning
, I think,
of the end.