Angelology(105)

the music that emanates from the gorge. It is what made me wish for you to pursue your studies,

Celestine.”

“You have been to the cavern?” I asked, astonished that the answer to the Valkos’ search had been

so close at hand all along.

My grandmother gave a strange and mysterious smile. “It is near the ancient village of Trigrad that

I met your grandfather, and it was in Trigrad that your father was born.”

After my part in locating the cavern, I had expected to return to Paris to assist the Valkos in

preparations for the expedition. But with the danger of invasion looming, Dr. Raphael would hear

nothing of it. He spoke with my parents, arranging for my belongings to be sent to me by train, and

then the Valkos left. Watching them go, I felt that all my dreams and all my work had been for naught.

Abandoned in Alsace, I waited for news of our impending journey.

At long last we were approaching the Devil’s Throat. Vladimir stopped the van at a dull wooden

sign with a scattering of black Cyrillic letters painted upon it. At Dr. Seraphina’s instruction, he

followed the sign toward the village, driving along a narrow, snow-covered road that lifted sharply

up into the mountain. The incline was icy and steep. When the van slid backward, Vladimir

downshifted, grinding the gears against gravity. The van’s tires spun on the packed snow, gained

traction, and carried us lurching ahead into the shadows.

When we reached the top of the road, Vladimir parked the van at the ledge of the mountain, a vast

snowy wasteland opening before us. Dr. Seraphina turned to address us. “You’ve all read the

Venerable Clematis’s account of his journey. And we have all been through the logistics of entering

the cavern. You are aware that the dangers we’re facing ahead are unlike any we’ve encountered

before. The physical process of descending the gorge will take all of our strength. We must go in with

precision and speed. We have no margin for error. Our equipment will be of great use, but there are

more than the physical challenges. Once we are inside the cavern itself, we must be prepared to face

the Watchers.”

“Whose strength is formidable,” Vladimir added.

Looking carefully at us, the full gravity of the mission etched into her expression, Dr. Seraphina

said, “‘Formidable’ doesn’t adequately describe what we may find. Generations of angelologists

have dreamed that we would one day have the capability to confront the imprisoned angels. If we

succeed, we will have accomplished something no other group has before.”

“And if we fail?” I asked, hardly allowing myself to think of the possibility.

“The powers they hold,” Vladimir said, “and the destruction and suffering they could bring to

humanity are unimaginable.”

Dr. Seraphina buttoned her wool coat and pulled on a pair of leather military gloves, preparing to

face the cold mountain wind. “If I’m right, the gorge is at the top of this pass,” she said, stepping out

of the van.

I walked from the van to the mountain ledge and looked over the strange, crystalline world that had

materialized around me. Above, a wall of black rock rose to the sky, casting a shadow over our party,

while ahead a snow-covered valley fell steeply away. Without delay, Dr. Seraphina trekked toward

the mountain. Following close behind, I climbed through drifts of snow, my heavy leather boots

breaking my path. Clutching a case filled with medical equipment tightly in my hand, I tried to bring

my thoughts to focus upon what lay ahead. I knew we would need to be precise in our efforts. Not

only were we to face the rugged descent into the gorge, it might be necessary to navigate the spaces

beyond the river, the honeycomb of caverns in which Clematis had encountered the angels. There

would be no room for mistakes.

As we entered the mouth of the cave, a heavy darkness descended upon us. The interior space was

barren and chill, filled with the ominous echoing rush of the underground waterfall Clematis had

described. The flat rock at the entrance had none of the pockmarks and vertical shafts I had expected

from my studies of Balkan geology but had been mantled with a thick, even layer of glacial deposit.

The amount of snow and ice packed into the rock made it next to impossible to know what lay

beneath.

Dr. Seraphina turned on a flashlight and brought the beam over the craggy interior. Ice clung to the

rock face and, high in the dome of the cave, bats clung to the stone in tight mounds. The light fell over

the razor-shorn walls, flickering upon mineral folds, along the rough-hewn stone floor, and then, with

the slightest adjustment, the beam dissolved into blackness as it disappeared over the edge of the