Space Angels: find the Gift (complete)

ЄD0Ɲ: Ŧhe Ɗ£Ş£ŔŦ ~ Chapter Fifteen

Seraphim landing zone ~Ŧhe Ɗ£Ş£ŔŦ

15 - the miracle in the caves (896)

 The old woman pulled the ragged blanket over the sleeping boy and gave a bitter sigh. The coolness of the dark cave could not chill the rage she felt at her grandson's ordeal. Ishmael had been one of the taken, like other youths from nearby villages – plucked from the streets, stolen from their families, a harvest for the camp of the holy soldiers – forced to do unspeakable things for Kaleb, the man she hated. Kaleb used the boys' families as leverage, forcing them to carry out his wishes; if they did not, their loved ones would be put to death. Ishmael was an only child. His father had died in another senseless war years earlier and his mother, her daughter, was all the control Kaleb had over him. Ishmael had gambled on Kaleb not carrying out his threat, for few knew Ishmael had a grandmother. She'd left the village years ago, only returning to visit her daughter or to heal villagers using the old ways. And so, Ishmael had escaped the camp. But, somehow, Kaleb had learned of the old woman. She had unwittingly become his new bargaining tool. He'd killed Ishmael's mother, and planned to kidnap her and force Ishmael to continue. Distraught, the boy had fled to where he knew his Nani would be taking refuge: the caves.

A goatherd had brought Nani food and told her Kaleb's soldiers had tortured men from her village, hoping they'd reveal her hiding place. Either bravery or ignorance had kept her location secret, but it would not be long before someone talked. She believed Kaleb was a devil.

 She left the boy and, feeling her way along the rocky walls in the darkness, journeyed upwards, following a secret route through the complex maze of passages until she reached the vantage point. Her eyes were milky discs but she did not need them to find her way there. She'd played in these caves as a child - lived, slept, ate and loved in them. Only Ishmael knew them as she did.

 She entered a chamber full of sunlight; flooding the room through a horizontal cleft in the rock wall, and at certain times of the day, it revealed its small rock pools and volcanic design. The cleft gave her a panoramic view of the desert outside. When they came, she would know. Her sight was poor but her hearing was good. The sound of Kaleb's chariot would carry well in the silent and empty desert. She would hear them long before they arrived; and they could not see her.

And if they were foolish enough to search this place, they would find nothing. They did not know the caves. She and Ishmael would lead them deep into the labyrinth. They would either plunge to their deaths from one of the tortuous ledges or spend the rest of their days trying to find their way out.

 She leaned against the smooth rock around the cleft, moulded by the bodies of many a lookout who'd surveyed the desert over millennia. Squinting in the fierce glare, trying to discern a swirl of dust upon the flat road to the village, she noticed two dots coming out of the sun. Vultures, perhaps... But vultures rarely flew in pairs, and these birds had an unusual flying style.

 One abruptly dropped to the ground. Before she could focus on its form there was a flash so unbearably bright she let out an anguished scream. Her eyes were on fire. Retreating from the stone window, she stumbled to a rock pool and fell to her knees, plunging her face into the coldness of the water to quench the burning. She stayed under until, her breath spent, she jerked backward, gasping and sodden. After repeating the process half a dozen times, with eyes wide open, the prickles of fire beneath her lids eased. She pushed her face into the water once more, feeling it soothe her eyeballs.

She noticed a faint glint at the pool's bottom before she came up for air, and reached in. There in her hand, was the ring her beloved had given her sixty years before. It had slipped from her finger while she had quelled the burning. She replaced it, noticing her bony fingers and the wrinkles and creases in her skin.

"Have I aged so much?" she asked herself, before realising it had been years since she'd noticed such detail. She glanced around the chamber.

"I cannot remember this place being so bright, what's happening to me? Am I in heaven?"

She peered into the still waters of another rock pool. An old woman stared back at her, hair grey and face lined with age but still retaining a trace of beauty, the mole on her chin its only blemish. "I can see! Those birds were not vultures...they were angels! For God has returned my sight!" She scrambled to her feet and crept back to the window. Fearing another flash, she shielded her eyes before slowly moving to the edge of the opening.

There were no birds in the sky, only a lone figure crossing the orange dunes of shifting sand toward the caves. It was a young woman dressed in purple robes of ancient design – out of place in this region – its gold threading glittering in the fierce glare as she strolled with the confident gait of a princess.

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