A young Gregory Magnus wiped a thick splatter of mud from his cheek, streaking it down his face. He was soaked through, dripping from what felt like his soul though it was only his half-unbuttoned shirt.

There had to be a way to reach the next rocky outcrop jutting from the forest five or so feet above his head. Constantly checking the intensity of the light filtering from the canopy, Magnus took a running leap at the lowest rock, grazing it with slippery fingers.

"Argh…" he winced, as his body fell against the wall with enough impact to bruise his ever-diminishing ego. "The things I do for that woman," continued his muttering.

He rung out his shirt, which presently entered a state of temporary, unpleasant dampness. It wouldn't be long until the next afternoon shower drenched him. The weather here was like London in that way, delighting in neglecting its populace - except here in this sprawling jungle, Magnus was the only populace. It made the continual misery too personal for his liking.

He flicked his eyes to the tiny patches of sky visible through the dense foliage, wondering if it could glance back at him with a touch of pity.

A distant rumble of thunder laughed back at him.

It was hardly a path. The occasional conspicuous stone – a gnarled tree that if he squinted only just looked like a jeering face – a shallow stream of black and white pebbles; these, in his opinion, failed to constitute a path. 'Wishful thinking' was a better approximate.

Suddenly the strap of his leather shoulder bag snapped away from the rivets holding it to its overfilled contents. Magnus's precious items scattered into the leaf litter, instantly speckling with droplets of water from the shivering leaves above.

"Excellent. Simply excellent."

He scooped his things up, folded the soggy flap over them and then tied his useless shoulder strap around it.

Sarah Magnus had spoken nothing but nonsense to him, but she had delivered it with pleading eyes. The gangly man had never refused those eyes anything, not even when they swirled out of control, following a theory planing above reason.

"Three weeks," Sarah's eyes glanced down at the tea cooling. Wafts of steam lifted off the tea, swirling. Her silver spoon rattled on the saucer. "The translation is correct. We'll find it, I promise."

Gregory Magnus shook the memory of his wife's eyes off, hoping that she was right. He couldn't bear to meet those eyes if he failed to please them.

With strength he had never been credited with, Magnus hurled his injured bag into the air. The water-stained leather climbed through the light drizzle, up and over the rocks where it landed out of sight.

"Only one way now," he said to himself, digging his foot into a moss-covered gap in the rock. Magnus curled his fingers around an exposed tree root and held on tight, lifting himself from the ground.

*~*~*

Storms threatened with the approaching evening. The world beneath his hips was buried in a heavy mist. It was like creeping through the clouds.

Gregory Magnus extended one of his hands into the intangible carpet. It was cold, coating his skin until it dripped with silvery vapour. Gregory Magnus had left Sarah in Iquitos – a water-locked city stretching out into the Peruvian rainforest. Distant relatives on her grandmother's side were rubber farmers. Their descendents had agreed to let her stay with them locked up in a multi-levelled dwelling by the port with a view of the serpent-like river boats carting produce into the city. Her Spanish was close to fluent so she'd organised a guide to take him as far as the beginning of the map she had drawn for him.

Gregory looked at the pencil marks scratched into the paper. His map seemed more concerned with clinging onto life than it did with pointing the way.

Stumbling, he realised that he had ventured into a shallow creek, concealed by the mist. Now he shoes were as wet at the rest of him and the jungle experience was complete.

Hungry, exhausted and on the verge of giving up, Gregory vanished into the mist – smashing against a damp log. Slaters zoomed past his face, frightened by his sudden arrival in their domain. From below, the mist was even more euphoric than the world without a floor. Crawling over the log, he rolled onto the ground in a heap, panting and beaten. His bag proceeded without him, pushed forward by gravity's irresistible longing.

There was a brief decline in front of him which ended in a gaping rock face. The bag, unfazed by the approaching cave entrance, tumbled into the dryness of the tunnel system.

The fate of his bag faded from his mind as Gregory stood up, crystal green eyes trailing over the ferocious cave. Severed away, the rock had been split open against the natural grain of the cliff. Along the vertical edges of this enormous incision were a serious of circles and crescents, accentuated by some kind of sticky white paint. These symbols appeared to glow free of their black canvas, wandering between forms like the phases of the moon.

He had found it.

*~*~*

Gregory located his bag marooned against a boulder a few feet inside the entrance. A shudder of coolness laid itself over his bare chest as soon as he stepped into the cave's shadow. He bent down to his bag but paused –

The cave floor was dry and covered in a shimmering dust. Minerals in the walls had become powder but not lost their sparkle to time. He pressed his dripping fingers into the dirt, withdrew and held them to a stray shard of light.

That's when he felt a breath on his shoulder, inches from his neck. In his fascination, Gregory had turned his back to the cave and faced the encroaching forest. Shuddering, he turned slowly.

Silence. Darkness. Cold.

He was alone with the cave and an imagination drowning in paranoia.

Magnus wiped his hand on the remains of his shirt and squared himself up with the cave. From his bag he extracted a cone shaped, wrought-iron object with a polished wooden handle. Into the top, Gregory stuffed a mix of dried roots and material which he quickly drowned in lamp oil. Holding a match to it, the top exploded in a ball of flame and Magnus had himself a torch.

Firelight wavered, reflected off the smooth surface of the cave walls. It was as if they had been polished. Even the ceiling, which towered above him into an endless peak, ever-narrowing out of sight, was smooth.

Lair came to mind as Gregory progressed hesitantly deeper. The forest and its dim, afternoon light had become a grey smear in the distance. Where his torch's light faltered, blackness encroached until Gregory felt as if it would consume him and he would be lost forever to its silence. It was like an ocean that never moved – a wave captured before crashing over the deck of a listing ship. He cowered before its sinister expanse.

The torch's flame bent sharply, flattening into an orange line. Darkness edged forward. The mysterious gust of wind switched course, whipping past too fast for the flame to catch its oxygen. Gregory turned away from the wind, protecting the flame with his back. It reached once again for the ceiling and the cavern brightened.

His shoulder was warm.

Gregory gasped, turning in tight circles.

In his frantic movements, his eyes caught flecks of white from the edges of the room. Strewn against the cave walls were pieces of bone – bleached by time or crushed into the shimmering powder they had been scattered over.