Chapter 31

A Cave in the mountains above Kalk Bay.

Our day started early — brutally early. Around 05:00 SAST, the kind of hour when the world still belongs to shadows and half-formed dreams. We fuelled up with a solid breakfast — coffee hot enough to burn the cobwebs out of my head — and gathered as a unit. Leah and Ash moved like clockwork, performing the preflight checks on the EC. The muted thump of boots against the metal decking, the soft metallic clinks of tools, and the low murmur of their voices blended into a comforting prelude to our departure.

On the ground before the heli-pad, the cargo pallet stood waiting — Fiona’s equipment strapped down in precise, almost obsessive order. I could tell she’d triple-checked it. Stella, Olivia, Mai-Loan, and I were already settled into Fiona’s old Land Rover, its leather seats cracked from years of sun and salt air. Fiona slid behind the wheel with an air of quiet determination, though I caught the faint furrow between her brows. Everyone else buzzed with the restless eagerness of the hunt, but Fiona ... Fiona was carrying something heavier than anticipation.

The sun had not yet breached the jagged crests of the Hottentots Holland Mountains to the east. Instead, the world glowed in that strange in-between light, where the night’s stars faded reluctantly against the creeping blush of dawn. The air was crisp enough to sting the lungs, scented faintly of salt from the distant sea. The breeze from the south was still a timid thing, barely ruffling the hair at my temples. It was the kind of morning that felt like it was holding its breath.

“Well, this is it,” Fiona murmured, almost to herself. “That day is here — the day I knew would come, the day we finally find out if the Estrella de Asis is myth, truth ... or just an elaborate fake.” She let the words hang in the air for a moment, then exhaled, started the Landie, and gripped the wheel as if bracing for impact.

I leaned forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension in the muscle beneath my palm. “Let not the prospect of probable failure cloud your mind with doubt,” I told her quietly. “Let your excitement for finding the truth be your compass.”

“Affirmative,” Stella chimed in from the back seat. “As Roy told me once — don’t put the cart before the horse to town.” Then she grinned mischievously. “Let’s light this turkey and see it fly!”

I couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at my mouth, and Mai-Loan giggled softly. “There’s a Boomer inside you, girl. First time I’ve ever heard that Boomer saying ... and it actually makes sense.”

Fiona didn’t respond. She just gave the gear shift a deliberate push, released the clutch, and eased us forward. The Land Rover growled to life, rolling into the waiting dawn.

And just like that, we were off — chasing a legend into the heart of the Oread Halls Cave.

We parked the Landie at the gravel pull-off where the hiking trail to Echo Valley began its relentless climb onto the mountainside. The air here was thinner, sharper, carrying the earthy scent of fynbos crushed underfoot and the faint tang of salt drifting up from the ocean. Fiona stepped out first, the crunch of her boots on loose stone loud in the quiet, and began rifling through her pack with precise, deliberate movements. She double-checked her permits for excavation in the cave and her Archaeologist’s accreditation — documents she guarded as if they were treasure in their own right. Satisfied, she gave a short nod, slung her pack over her shoulder, and set off.

The trail wasted no time in reminding us this wasn’t going to be a casual stroll. Thirty to forty degrees of unbroken upward grind—switchbacks twisting like the spine of some coiled beast. The path was a mixture of hard-packed dirt, loose shale that skittered under each step, and rocky ledges that demanded both hands to climb. My thighs began to protest before the first bend, the rhythm of my breathing syncing with the thud of my boots.

Below us, Kalk Bay was waking from its slumber. The fishing village still glittered with scattered lights, some winking out one by one as the day nudged them into irrelevance. Down in the harbour, trawlers prepared for the outward journey toward the feeding grounds — where, as the locals say, “the fish are.” Diesel engines grumbled faintly through the still air, the sound rising in lazy waves up the slope to meet us. I caught sight of the boats pushing through the calm water, their bows splitting it into ribbons of silver-white foam that curled away into neat wakes.

Others were coming home from a night at sea, lumbering toward the docks with the slow, tired dignity of beasts of burden. Over toward Simon’s Town, the pre-dawn light painted the ocean in muted tones, with gentle swells rolling like the slow breathing of something vast beneath the surface.

Above us, the mountain loomed — an immense, dark silhouette carved against the paling sky. Its crags and ridges were older than memory, its slopes holding the secrets of centuries. Somewhere in its ribs was our destination: the Oread Halls Cave, where, if the stories held even a grain of truth, a four-hundred-and-forty-four-year-old secret lay in wait.

The climb tested more than stamina. Loose stones gave way underfoot without warning, forcing us to plant each step carefully. The narrow sections of the trail clung to the cliff side, a careless slip offering nothing but empty air and a brutal drop to the rocks below. Scrubby bushes clawed at our legs, and once or twice we had to duck beneath low overhangs of sandstone, our packs scraping the rock. The silence was deep enough that every scuff of boot leather and every shift of gravel sounded too loud.

After forty minutes — closer to an hour with the stops to catch our breath — we reached the Skylight Entrance. It wasn’t a cave mouth in a cliff face, but a ragged hole in the ground, the collapsed roof of the cavern revealing the darkness below. From the rim, the drop was stark — stone walls plunging straight down before disappearing into blackness. The air rising from it was cold, still, and ancient, carrying the scent of damp rock and a faint metallic tang.

It was time to take a break. We dropped our packs and settled onto the cold sandstone at the rim of the Skylight Entrance, the stone leeching heat from our bodies even through our clothes. Mai-Loan unslung her small pack, produced the battered thermos, and poured steaming coffee into dented metal mugs. The rich, bitter aroma curled into the crisp mountain air, a welcome contrast to the earthy scent of dust and fynbos. A packet of cheese-and-ham sandwiches was passed around—thick slices of bread wrapped in wax paper, the butter already firm from the chill.

We ate in companionable silence, eyes drifting often to the yawning hole in the rock beside us. The shadows inside seemed to breathe with the cold air spilling upward, a reminder that soon we’d be trading sunlight for the cavern’s darkness.

Somewhere far to the south, just as the sun crested the Hottentots Mountains, the faint thump-thump-thump of rotor blades began to grow, carrying over the ridges. Leah and Ash were on approach with the EC-145, the abseil gear and other equipment slung beneath the fuselage in a net. The sound deepened into a steady, chest-humming rhythm, echoing off the mountain walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

A gust of wind chased ahead of the helicopter, tugging at our jackets and sending grit skittering over the rock. Then the machine crested the ridge, sleek and purposeful, the cargo net swaying beneath it like a pendulum of steel and rope. Ash brought her in steady, hovering over a flat section of rock near the rim. The downwash whipped our hair and rattled the mugs in our hands as the gear touched down in a controlled bounce.

I scrambled to the cargo net and undid the hitch hook, signalling to Leah that the cargo is secure and unhitched. She cut the cable and it dropped in a coil on the cargo.

Moments later, the helicopter banked away, climbing back toward the morning sky, leaving us with the smell of aviation fuel and the tools we’d need to breach the mountain’s heart.