20

~Ali~

Our finite days are dwindling faster than we can blink, and what have we to show for it so far?

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

The only small positive I can glean from this situation of increasing disparity, is the fact that I seem to have shaken the watchful eye of any lurking shadows I convinced myself were following me.

It is the morning of our fourth day with Thessaly and just like every other morning, I routinely slip out, undetected if I open the door slow enough, and jog into the snow-blown breeze to watch the sun crest over the endlessly bleak, but undeniably beautiful, Russian mountain range.

A silence unrivalled by any other wraps around me like gauze, as if the mountains themselves catch faraway sounds and smother them in the snow, and the winds pipe through my bones as I watch the metamorphosis from a pastel dawn to a rainbow morning. And like clockwork, as the sun's body comes to crest at the peak of a distant mountain, Thessaly prowls outside, joining me in the muted morning light. She stands beside me for a moment, acknowledging the vastness enveloping this sanctuary, then continues forwards, paws crunching the snow beneath her. Soon her grey and white coat markings camouflage into the white backdrop and her silhouette dissolves into the landscape. Soon after, I return to the warmth of the cave and use the incandescent hearth to chase away the icy breath settled into the lines of my flesh.

My face begins to sting with heat, the icicles of crisp mountain air blown across my fingers prickling my skin as they melt. For a moment the cave is silent around the wheezing fire, the wind a distant whistle swallowed by the stone.

Hours pass, then more hours join the ones passed. We busy ourselves mindlessly, while mostly trying to release our helpless frustration by pacing endlessly.

We did other things too, like play a spot of chess to pass the time, or dapple in a variety of childish 'would you rather...' or 'never have I ever' games in an attempt at light-heartedness.

When Thessaly had still not returned by late evening, I took a pencil to paper and expressed all my darkest, concerning emotions through each flick and drag and stab of the blunt graphite pencil onto the thick parchment. The end result was far from artistic.

The echoing grind of the secret door opening rattles the silent hum of conversation. The faux wall parts and Thessaly throws herself inside. Snow cascades from her shoulders as she shakes off the cold, her face a picture of turbulence and possibility. She leaps across the room faster than we can gather, shaking her sheepskin satchel in the air. In her furor, she does not realise her claws had released themselves, puncturing a hole in the tan leather as she waves it.

"I have news!" Her barbed canines slip past her lips as pants for breath, grinning. "It was a loose lead, but I travelled to a den on the northern boarder of the mountain range. The hideout belonged to another Elder, of whom I had not heard of or seen in many decades. After some tracking, I found his most recent hiding location, a little further into the mountains than he was previously. You want to know the best part?" Her eyes ignite and I bristle in expectancy. "He is the Elder of Historical Relics. The best Elder for information on The Book of Angels."

Thessaly brushes open the flap of her satchel, almost tearing straight through her carefully knotted straps underneath to retrieve its contents.

"The Elder - Hamish - gave me this." We lean forwards as she holds out yet another dilapidated book beside a chipped sphere of transparent glass.

"What's that... bubble?" I ask for lack of a better word at present moment, trying to peer over Jaz's shoulder to better get a view of the glass ball. A small red bubble floats in its centre like a bead of oily blood, fluid as it shallowly drifts around the core.

"Well... it's a compass," she states frankly.

I scoff outwardly at the thought of this glass globule operating as a compass, yet no less interested.

"It's a compass," she repeats with more conviction, her nose turning up as if offended by my disbelief. "And a very special one at that. This little bubble," she uses the word as if it were dirty, an insult to the crystalline orb, "is the key to everything." Thessaly takes our silent fascination as an opportunity to explain our unvoiced thoughts. "It's a 360 degree compass. It will point you upwards, downwards, sideways, diagonal, north, west, behind you, in front of you; every possible direction in every possible way." She angles the tennis-ball sized sphere towards us as she explains.

Jack is the first to formulate a coherent and admissible question. "But it is not pointing in any direction," he says, taking note of the red droplet bunched shyly in the epicentre. "How are we supposed to find The Book of Angels if the compass doesn't point?"

"Well, it needs to be activated." Thessaly tosses the weight of the glass compass lightly between her hands. "The only way that can happen, is if the compass passes over the threshold of a sacred site; somewhere spiritually close to The Throne. When that happens, this little red blob in the middle? It acts like the liquid mercury in a thermometer. The red bead will break and bleed in a line through the glass. Which ever direction that line grows toward is your red compass needle. You follow it."

Silence ensues as we process this bizarre yet consequential object. Hope surges beneath my skin like roots expanding, gripping, tightening within me.

"And the book?" Ethan's face is a veil of aloof contemplation as he gestures to the homespun book, the unadorned cover waxy from use. The only indication that Ethan is at all effected is the dappling of nervous sweat dotted across the back of his neck.

"Hamish assured this book," Thessaly rests her fingers across the russet cover, "is the most likely in his collection that would provide us with more information on The Book of Angels. I understand this is your journey, however, history is a passion my blood feeds off, so, I was wondering if I would be able to unpack this book on your behalf? It is questionable if something of this stature will fall into my possession again."

"We will leave it to you, Thessaly," Ethan agrees and she nods, unable to disguise her excitement. Thessaly promptly arranges a small platter of food for herself and moves towards her desk with the book tucked under her elbow. She pulls out one of the deep-set drawers and proceeds to sweep away the existing contents cluttering her desk into the chest. With an empty desktop, Thessaly splays the book open to the first page, settling herself into her chair.

Ethan's fingers brush the inside of my elbow, beckoning me to give Thessaly some space. The beads clatter together hollowly as Ethan steps through them. With a glance over my shoulder, I follow him.

Jack and Jaz are already waiting inside, a deck of an almost-complete set of cards arranged across the floorspace between the two mattresses. We dally in various cards games and my card-playing incompetency begins to reveal itself. Sometimes we follow the rules, sometimes we just make up half of the game. But when Ethan suggests we liven things up by playing a round of strip-Bullshit, we all glare at him, unimpressed, and he shrugs, pleased to have lightened the mood as he deals the ruffled deck with a professional hand.

"Anyway, I was only half joking," he yields and we all laugh, scooping up our dealt hand.

The time pressure we face presses heavily on my mind, a repetitive loop gnawing at the back of my thoughts, sharply resurfacing during quiet lulls in the game. Privy to Thessaly's progress, I steal covert glances, surveying Thessaly's unmoving form from between the gaps of the wooden strands.

Ethan, sensing my emotional turmoil, looks at me from across the circle and projects a warm current of calming energy through our connection. Instantly my unravelling nerves stitch back together.

Another restive hour passes in the candle-lit bedroom. As Ethan piles together the deck of cards strewn across the floor after a heated game of Snap, Thessaly begins calling from her desk. We don't take a moment to regard each other - this is the moment we have all been nervously anticipating - so we flood from the room, crowding Thessaly at her workplace.

"You found something?" Jack hollers. Jaz bounces to a stop beside me, our hands splayed over her desk as we lean in close. Thessaly remains quiet for a moment, eyes wide and flickering continuously over a single passage, one arm still in the air from where she called us, the other following the words inked on the page with a slender talon, a smile creeping wider and wider across her lips.

"Here, listen to this!" She announces excitedly, pulling her finger back to the start of the paragraph. She reads out loud. "'...and when The Book of Angels was published and delivered to the Earth for hiding and safe keeping, The Throne sent the Angel Gabriel to hide the text in a desolate house of The Throne - The Church of Cagsawa, Philippines - today informally referred to as simply The Ruins of Cagsawa. The Church of Cagsawa was consumed by a lava flow several  years after its erection from the neighboring volcano, Mount Mayon, with The Book of Angels still trapped inside it's walls. It has not been moved or seen since.'"

Optimism swells within my chest like a helium balloon. This was what we have been searching for and we found it! With five days left to recover The Book, our patience and hope that it could even be located was waring dangerously thin.

Until now.

"We leave at sun rise," Ethan asserts, the relief of a new direction to our journey lightening his creased features.

His gaze cuts to mine as our minds connect - the unexpected release, clamour and merging of our emotions slices through my mind - deep, thick, visceral - like a knife taken to my flesh, exposing my most vulnerable parts.

I don't know how it happened, or why for that matter, but our consciousness' weave together until I don't know where my thoughts, feelings, memories become his thoughts, feelings, memories. Euphoria floods my bloodstream - bubbling, colourful, weightless. It feels like a barrier - which I didn't even know was a restrictive barrier within me - has been crossed, obliterated, and in its wake my body soars.

And somehow I know this is a line that we cannot return from, and I know he is thinking the same thing as two sets of the same thought float around my mind. But I also know he is not troubled by this, in fact, quite the opposite, so I settle into his mind, my mind, our mind, and smile.