Chapter Eleven
Passion’s Grip
Tolak wouldn’t let go of me all the way up the rope ladder, but insisted on climbing up the roped net half behind and over top of me, while unhindered Sheatera scampered on up the ladder to the top like a monkey. Did he really think I was in that much danger of falling? Even if I did fall I could swim.
I really couldn’t fathom his elation at the sight of these antiquated warships. They weren’t going to repel an invasion made up of the surface’s current top notch military tech. One predator drone would carve up these rust buckets like so much fine dust swept under the carpet.
Glancing over my shoulder at him I said, “I can make it from here. Go on around if you want.”
“I like it here.” He said with a grin.
Then it occurred to me for the first time how much contact was taking place between us. I’d had no idea and now I couldn’t help but blush as I realized just how much he wanted me.
Oh why did he have to do things like this in the full sight of everyone like he was? I sped my pace up intent on leaving him behind and he let me, but not before I felt him kiss the back of one bare thigh.
Reaching the deck I was pulled over the railing by willing hands to come face-to-face with several naval officers and of all things a black man. I’m not a racist person, but the oddities of this underworld place were adding up.
World War II ships and now a black man with the appearance about him of having been an uplander at one point in time. How on Earth had he gotten here?
Tolak was beside me then and smiling he reached forward to shake the black man’s hand and then the hand of a Polynesian looking woman who stepped forward from behind yet another white man. To say it was getting diversified down here was to put it lightly.
Tolak introduced me, but then abruptly switched from smiling to saying, “We must go! The ceiling is becoming unstable. It’s happened before in the past, but never so bad as this.”
The black man named Eli nodded, but then asked, “I believe you, but have you got any idea as to where to go? We’re all washed up on the West side too. The Chinese and the Russians are crawling all over the place back there.”
Tolak glanced among the men and women before him uncertainly. It was clear that all present were at a wash as to what to do. Their world had been overrun and to their knowledge they had nowhere left to go.
Reaching my hand forward I took Tolak’s and as his worried gaze came to mine I asked, “You once told me of portals by which King Solomon invaded this world from above. Where are they?”
Slowly, as if not understanding where I was taking this Tolak responded with, “They were all destroyed, but for one. It lies by itself on a small island of nothing but sand somewhere to the south. I do not know where for sure.”
“I know where it is, but why go there?” Eli asked.
Looking around the group I asked at large, “Forgive me, but it would seem that nowhere in this inner world is safe as the worst of society above has even now come down to you, right?”
I didn’t wait for confirmation but continued with, “It would seem then that the only thing to be done is to leave this place and go back to the surface.”
The group blinked as a collective whole and the Polynesian woman who spoke with an American accent asked, “Is that even possible?”
“It was at one point in time, at least for King Solomon. How far is this remaining portal from us?”
“It’s at least a two-week journey at the rate the native boats can travel at towards the southeast. The portal, when I discovered it years ago, appears to be locked. How do you intend to unlock something created by the likes of Solomon?” Eli inquired speculatively.
Quickly doing some mental math for a two-week journey by native boats I reached the conclusion that the distance was an approximate match for something I’d always wondered about. In answer to Eli’s question I said, “I happen to be an expert in the field of Biblical Archaeology and in particular the era before and around the reign of King Solomon. As to the portal having been created by Solomon I would have to disagree. Used by him perhaps, but created, no. That’s why it’s probably still in existence today unlike the other portals.”
“Where will it come out at on the surface?” One of the ship captains asked.
“If my calculations are correct it will open out within the original parameters of the plain which the Garden of Eden was located in.”
The group stared at me in shock. The big white guy who seemed to be connected to the pretty American said, “I thought the Garden of Eden was located under the Persian Gulf?”
“That’s one theory, but I believe it to be wrong. The Garden of Eden is most likely in Africa and it is in a very remote place and if things really are falling apart on the surface right now, as to be suggested by how desperate those from above are to conquer this place, then I very much doubt that anyone will notice the sudden appearance of quite a few exotic people popping up unexpectedly in a remote corner of the world.”
There was a brief moment of silence, which Eli broke by saying, “It would seem that you are a very special provision of God for the peoples of these lands when we have need of it the most.”
I felt myself blush as Tolak said affirmatively, “She is!”
Eli turned to the captains and said, “I think it would be best if we split up. One ship going to each of the three remaining gatherings of our combined people. That way we’ll be able to cast off towing lines and speed up the progress of the native vessels. We’ll rendezvous with our collected fleets where the current waters start. Do you know the place I speak of?”
The three captains nodded.
“Then let’s get to it.” Eli said authoritatively and the group broke up.
I saw Tolak say something to a ship’s officer standing nearby, who then headed off into an interior hall of the ship and then before I was prepared for it Tolak was hustling me off after the officer. What was the rush for?
I followed along after the officer who abruptly stopped and gestured off to the side. I was pressed from behind within the confines of a tiny cabin off of the main hallway to the tune of the hatch door being shut securely behind me.
Feeling flustered and out of breath I nonetheless willingly turned around in preparation for what I knew was to be an extremely passionate encounter with my husband. Instead of the passion I’d expected to see upon Tolak’s face though all I saw was raw emotion and for the first time I saw tears coursing down my man’s cheeks.
He wasn’t even looking at me as he leaned back against the hatch door as if holding the world outside at bay. I couldn’t stand the look of almost shame that there was to his downcast features and feeling choked up myself at the sight of tears falling from off his face I rushed forward to him.
“Tolak! Honey look at me!” I pressed, as I lifted his head up.
The look of misery within his gaze had tears falling from my own eyes. I knew then what it was. He was always so strong that it was easy to forget he was just as human as I was on the inside.
“Your brother?” I whispered.
He nodded and then his hands closed over my hips tightly. His hold wasn’t gentle and with his voice raw with the emotion he felt he said, “I want to forget, but I can’t!”
Nodding, I said, just before my lips closed over his, “I have you and you have me. All the comfort I can offer is yours my love.”
*****
Kim stood alone at the prowl of the ship as it cut through the waters of this former undersea paradise. Darkness was spreading across the sky behind them, as the orange clouds above that had always given their light slowly began to dissipate from view.
She’d been here in this lower world for going on four years now and she was sorry to see it go like this. Most, of all the things that she felt herself grieving for though, was her brother, who she had to leave behind.
Kokie wasn’t dead, but the future was uncertain for him and the people that he’d become king over. Over half of the Sea People had died in the fight to keep this undersea paradise free from the influences of those from above.
Those remaining were fleeing to the most remote area of the sea that had no islands at all in close proximity. How it would go for them it was hard to say, as they were now greatly reduced in number and the sea beyond the homes they’d made for themselves near the coastlines could be a very dangerous place.
Warm arms closed about her and she rested back against Colt’s embrace. Softly she spoke, “It was a hardship to come here and now it’s one to leave. I’m scared of what we’re going to find up their Colt. I don’t think I belong within the strictures of society as it exists up there anymore.”
Colt nodded before grimly commenting, “There may not be much of a society to blend in with. Anyway it would seem we’re not going to pop out of the ground on Saks Fifth Avenue so relax a little.”
Kim smiled, but the sorrow she felt inside didn’t go away. Raising her fingers to her lips she blew a kiss towards the open waters of Undersea in a farewell kiss before then turning and taking what comfort was to be found within her husband’s loving embrace and the knowledge that their twin boys still had a chance to survive the destruction of the only place they’d ever known as home.
*****
Seventeen days later a mixed multitude of people in varying boat classes converged in on a small spit of land located seemingly in the midst of nowhere. The horizon to the rear was black as night, but here the clouds above shined brightly.
In fact of all the places I’d been in my brief time down here I had never seen this level of brightness. It was so bright it almost hurt the eyes and yet it was wondrous to gaze upon the phenomenon that was taking place before me now.
A twisted cylindrical column of both flowing water and molten flowing magma spiraled up from the sands of this tiny island to climb impressively upward until it disappeared in the bright clouds above. In fact it appeared as if the hot rock and water was by some unknown process creating the glowing clouds of this hidden world, because the clouds moved away continuously from the semi-molten column of rock and crystal-clear water to disperse off in every direction.
It was a wondrous sight to behold and in quiet awe the people of this underworld land of seas made their way from the gentle lapping surf up onto the clean sands of the beach that surrounded the spiraling column. It was warm, but not as warm as it should’ve been given the presence of the flowing magma.
It was as if everything, at least here in this place, was being held in a perfect balance of harmony as opposed to all the contrary actions of nature elsewhere. Taking Sheatera’s hand with mine, who in turn was holding the hand of a little black boy of about her own age, who was the son of Eli and his wife named Keturah, we walked towards the only sign of a structure not of nature that the tiny island of sand possessed.
Leaving Sheatera to be with her new playmate I stepped forward past yet one more bronze relief statue of King Solomon sitting on a throne to approach a doorway framed by molten stone that led inward to the clearest of waters that was wreathed in bubbles that floated upward as if in replica of a fish tank without walls of glass to hold the water in. Such design as this no man could boast of.
This was a place of God’s design and establishment and yet turning to view the sculpture of King Solomon from behind I could not but admit the foolishness of my own kind in their ever present pursuit to be as gods in replacement of serving the Father of all creation. Truly towards the end of Solomon’s reign all had become vanity and yet his actions of selfish conquest and exploitation reflected nothing new under the sun as having occurred within all the vast achievements that he had made. Man, without the intervention of God, was doomed to repeat his mistakes, until the day when time would be finally over.
“Any idea as to how to unlock the way to the surface?” Eli asked from where he stood off a short distance with his arm about the waist of his pretty wife.
Glancing to him I said, “Nothing is locked. The way to the surface lies before you.” I said in gesture to the doorway of bubbling water framed with lava.
Eli glancing to where I had gestured and said, “I know some ancient Hebrew and from my study of the inscriptions on the base of the statue the way to the surface isn’t open to everyone. One must be of Jewish heritage in order to be translated upward. If you enter the water and you’re not Jewish the warning given is that instead of passage upward one will go downward into the pit of hell itself.”
Kim’s voice broke into the conversation and she said what I had just been prepared to point out, “Who among us does not believe in the risen Savior?”
Of the several thousand people massed around the column of fire and water no one spoke and Kim said, “Once it was otherwise, but all of you have given up the false beliefs that some of you harbored and even such as a body of believers though we be not Jews by blood we are nonetheless grafted into the tree of life by our belief in Jesus Christ and thus we are spiritual Jews and heir to all the promises and provisions of God. This place can be nothing else, but such a provision for those of us who put our trust in God and His son Jesus Christ. Our God has not saved our souls and led us so far only now to trick us into falling to our deaths in hell. Come, I and my children and husband, will show you.”
Then leading by example Kim with two wide-eyed toddlers and a husband in tow moved past me and entered the stream of bubbling water that moved upward like a spiraling spring from the purest of sources. Like a high-speed elevator Kim and her family swirled upward and the water was so clear as to show all those gathered below that the family moving upward was under no distress of either drowning or being boiled alive by the interweaving bands of molten rock flowing upward.
Eli shrugged and said, “Well I guess that answers that question.”
Keturah playfully shoved him as she said, “And who is it that’s always saying, ‘walk by faith and not by sight?’”
Smiling good-naturedly Eli took her hand and then the hand of his son and led them toward the gateway to the surface. The son however had no wish to let go of his friend’s hand and neither did she in return.
Looking back Sheatera glanced to her father to see if it was okay and he obligingly nodded. With a giggle of delight then the two children jumped into the bubbling stream and swirled away upwards.
Native islanders, black people, white people, asian people, and every combination thereof filed past me to enter the spring of upward coursing waters that led to the surface to the very place where it had all begun for mankind some 6000 years ago. It took a while, but finally it was just me and Tolak left of all the people wishing to flee the destruction of this former paradise.
Rusty battleships of differing eras and crafts made of wood drifted idly about now masterless and of no more use to those who had depended on them for so many years. Tolak stepped into the stream and I made to follow, but feeling a sudden urge I looked back.
I saw nothing, but my spirit from within seemed to warm and I heard in an audible voice, “Well done Samantha.”
“Thank you for everything Abba Father! I love you!!!” Turning then I jumped into the stream of bubbling water and began my own journey back to the surface and the turbulent world of men.