“The site is here,” I said, dragging a finger over the map, along a wedge of mountains signified by dark blue ink. “We should have no trouble crossing.”
“Yet,” one of my brothers said, his unkempt beard brushing the table as he reached across it, “how can we be certain this is the correct location?”
“There have been sightings,” I attested.
“There have been sightings in the past,” Brother Francis said. “Peasants see with different eyes. Their visions most often lead to nothing.”
“Villagers claim to have seen the creatures.”
“If we follow the fantastic stories of mountain peasants, we will be traveling to every village in Anatolia.”
“In my humble opinion, it is worth our attention,” I replied. “According to our brothers in Thrace, the mouth of the cave cuts away sharply into an abyss. Deep below, there flows an underground river, much as it is described by legend. Villagers claim to have heard emanations at the edge of the abyss.”
“Emanations?”
“Music,” I said, striving to remain cautious in my assertions. “The villagers hold feasts at the mouth of the cave so that they might hear the sound, however faint, rising from the cavern. They say the music has an unusual power over the villagers. The sick are made well. The blind see. The crippled walk.”
“This is most wondrous,” Brother Francis said.
“The music rises from the depths of the earth, and it will lead us forth.”
Despite my confidence in our cause, my hand trembles at the dangers of the abyss. Years of preparation have bolstered my will, and still I fear the prospect of failure looming over me. How past failures haunt my memory! How my lost brothers visit my thoughts! My enduring faith drives me forward, and the balm of God’s grace soothes my troubled soul. 9 Tomorrow, we descend the gorge at sunrise.
As the world turns back to the sun, so the corrupted earth returns to the light of Grace. As the stars illumine the dark sky, so the children of God will one day rise through the haze of injustice, free at last of evil masters.
In the darkness of my despair, I turn to Boethius as an eye turns to a flame-my Lord, my excellence hath been lost to the Tartarean Cave. 10
I am a man forsaken. Through burned lips I speak, my voice ringing hollow in my ears. My body lies broken; my charred flesh oozes with gaping sores. Hope, that ethereal and airy angel upon whose wings I rose to meet my wretched fate, is crushed evermore. Only my will to relate the horror I have seen drives me to open my cankered, scorched lips. For you, future seeker of freedom, future acolyte of justice, I tell of my misfortune.
The morning of our journey broke cold and clear. As is my custom, I woke many hours before sunrise and, leaving the others to their slumber, found my way to the hearth of the small house. The mistress of the house busied herself about the humble space, breaking twigs for the fire. A pot of barley bubbled above the flames. Endeavoring to make myself useful, I offered to stir the mixture, warming myself over the fire as I did so. How the memories of my childhood flooded upon me as I stood over the hearth. Fifty years ago, I was a boy with arms as thin as saplings, assisting my mother in this same domestic task, listening to her hum as she wrung clothing in basins of clean water. My mother-how long had it been since I had thought of her goodness? And my father, with his love of the Book and his devotion to our Lord-how had I lived so many years without recalling his gentleness?
These thoughts dissipated as my brothers, perhaps smelling their breakfast cooking, descended to the hearth. Together, we ate. In the light of the fire, we packed our sacks: rope, chisel, and hammer, vellum and ink, a sharp knife made of a fine alloy, and a roll of cotton cloth, for bandages. With the sun’s rising, we bade our hosts good-bye and set out to meet our guide.
At the far end of the village, where the path wound into an ever-rising stairway of stony crags, the shepherd waited, a large woven sack over his shoulder and a polished walking stick in his hand. Nodding good morning, he turned and walked up the mountain, his body compact and solid as a goat’s. His manner struck me as exceedingly terse, and his expression remained so somber that I expected him to forfeit his duties and abandon us upon the path. Yet, he walked on, slow and steady, leading our party to the gorge.
Perhaps because the morning had grown warm and our breakfast had been pleasant, we commenced our journey in good spirits. The brothers talked among themselves, cataloging the wildflowers growing along the path and commenting upon the strange variety of trees-birch and spruce and towering cypress. Their pleasant humor was a relief, lifting the clouds of doubt from our mission. The melancholy of the previous days had weighed upon us all. We began the morning with renewed spirits. My own anxieties were considerable, although I kept them hidden. The brothers’ boisterous laughter inspired my own merriment, and soon we were joyous and light of heart. We could not foresee that this would be the last time any of us would hear the sound of laughter again.
Our shepherd walked for half an hour farther up the mountain before cutting into a copse of birch trees. Through the foliage, I saw the mouth of a cave, a deep cut into a wall of solid granite. Inside the cave, the air was cool and moist. Tracks of colorful fungus grew over the walls. Brother Francis pointed to a series of painted amphorae lined against the far wall of the cave, thin-necked jars with bulbous bodies perched elegantly as swans on the dirt floor. The larger jars contained water, the smaller oil, which led me to believe that this cavern was used as a rough and makeshift shelter. The shepherd confirmed my speculation, although he could not say who would endeavor to rest so far above civilization and what necessity would drive one to do so.
Without hesitating further, the shepherd unloaded his sack. He placed two thick iron spikes, a mallet, and a rope ladder upon the cave’s floor. The ladder was impressive and caused the younger brothers to gather around to examine it. Two long strips of woven hemp formed the vertical axis of the ladder, while metal rods, fastened with bolts into the hemp, formed the horizontal crossbars. The artistry of the ladder was unmistakable. It was both strong and easily portable. My admiration of our guide’s industry grew at the sight of it.
The shepherd used the mallet to pound the iron spikes into the rock. He then fastened the rope ladder to the iron spikes with metal clasps. These small devices, no bigger than coins, ensured the ladder’s stability. When the shepherd had finished, he flung the ladder over the edge and stepped away, as if to marvel at the distance it fell. Beyond, the roar of water crashed upon the rocks.
Our guide explained that the river flowed under the surface of the mountain, its course cutting through rock, feeding upon reservoirs and streams before bursting in a rush of pressure into the gorge. From the waterfall, the river twisted through the gorge, descending once again into a maze of underground caverns before emerging upon the surface of the earth. The villagers, our guide informed us, called it the river Styx and believed that the bodies of the dead littered the stone floor of the gorge. They believed the cave shaft to be the entrance to hell and had named it the Infidels’ Prison. As he spoke, his face filled with apprehension, the first sign that he might be afraid to continue. In haste, I declared it time to descend into the pit. 12