The Bones Of Odin (Matt Drake 1) (24 page)

“Clock’s ticking!” Dahl shouted, as soon as his boots hit snow. “Let’s move!”
Drake reached out to steady Ben, before surveying their surroundings. The tiny basin had seemed the best drop-off point, being only a mile from the small entrance they had surveyed and the only land within reasonable distance that wasn’t too rocky or a potential magma tube. An extra bonus was it might help confuse Frey as to the Tomb’s exact location.

It was a bleak landscape, not unlike what the end of the world might look like, Drake thought. Layers of grey ash, drab-coloured mountain-sides, and blackened deposits of lava did nothing to boost his confidence as he waited for Dahl to pinpoint the entrance on his GPRS device. He half expected a bedraggled Hobbit to come crawling out of the dim mists claiming he’d reached Mordor. The wind wasn’t strong, but its sporadic gusts bit at his face like a pit-bull.

“This way.” Dahl took off across a drift of ash. High above them the mushroom cloud plumed into the sky with serene calm. Dahl aimed towards a thick black crevice in the mountain ahead.

“Why would anyone put such an important and sacred site inside a volcano?” Kennedy asked as she trudged along beside Drake.

“Maybe it was never meant to last,” he shrugged. “Iceland’s been exploding for centuries. Who would’ve thought that
this
volcano would erupt so often without going full scale?”

“Unless . . . unless it isn’t erupting properly
because
of Odin’s bones. Could they be holding it in check?”

“Let’s hope not.”

The skies overhead were laden with snow and drifting ash, enforcing a premature dusk. The sun didn’t shine here; it was as if Hell had gained its first foothold in the Earthly realm and was clinging on tight.

Dahl negotiated the uneven ground, stumbling sometimes through unexpectedly deep drifts of grey powder. When Dahl reached the stark cliffs, all talk had ceased from the rag-tag group - leached away by the depressing wilderness.

“Up here,” the Swede gestured with his gun. “About twenty feet.” He squinted. “Can’t see anything obvious.”

“Now, if Cook had said that off the coast of Hawaii we’d never have had Dole pineapple,” Drake chided gently, hoping for a laugh.

“Or Kona coffee,” Kennedy licked her lips at him, then abruptly blushed when he winked back.

“After you,” he said, indicating the thirty-degree incline with a flourish.

“Not a chance, perv.,” only now she did manage a smile.

“Well, so long as you promise not to stare at
my
arse.” Drake attacked the rocky slope with gusto, testing every hold before distributing his weight, and keeping a close eye on Dahl and the lone SAS soldier above him. Kennedy came next, then Ben, and finally the Professor and Wells.

No one had wanted to be left out of this particular mission.

Dahl clattered on ahead for a time. Drake cast a glance behind them, but saw no signs of pursuit beyond a horizon blander than a Prime Minister’s speech. A moment later, Dahl’s voice penetrated the cloak of silence.

“Woah, got something here, lads. There’s a rock outcropping, then a left turn behind it . . .” his voice faded. “A vertical shaft with . . . yes, with steps carved into the rock. Very tight.
Helvite!
Those old Gods must’ve been skinny!”

Drake reached the outcropping and shimmied behind it. “Did you just swear, Dahl, and crack a joke? Or try to, anyway. So you may be human after all. Shit, that’s one narrow hole. Hope we’re not in a hurry to leave.”

With that alarming thought, he helped Dahl fix a safety line before squeezing the Swede down the black hole. Several ripostes came to mind but this wasn’t the time or the place. Without room to aim a torch below, poor Torsten Dahl was climbing down blind, a step at a time.

“If you smell brimstone,” Drake couldn’t resist. “Stop.”

Dahl took his time, carefully planting every foot. After a few minutes he disappeared, and all Drake could see was the dim glow from his fireman’s helmet growing fainter and fainter.

“You okay?”

“I hit rock bottom!” Dahl’s voice echoed up.

Kennedy glanced around. “Is that another joke?”

“Well, let’s get out of this cold,” Drake gripped the black-rock rim and gingerly lowered himself over the edge. Using his feet to scrabble for purchase first, he gently lowered himself inch by perilous inch. The hole was so tight he scraped his nose and cheeks at every move. “Damn! Just take it slow,” he called up to the others. “Try to move your upper body as little as possible.”

After a few minutes he heard Dahl say: “Six feet,” and sensed the rock at his back become empty space.

“Be careful,” Dahl warned. “We’re on a ledge now. About two foot wide. Sheer rock wall to our right, the customary bottomless pit to our left. Only one way to go.”

Drake used his own light to verify the Swede’s findings as the others made their lengthy descents. Once everyone was warned and prepared, Dahl began to inch along the ledge. Utter darkness enveloped them, speared only by their helmet torches which danced about like fireflies in the bayou. Total emptiness lulled them like a siren’s traitorous call to their left, making the hard rock to their right all the more welcoming.

“This reminds me of one of those old dinosaur films,” Professor Parnevik said. “You remember? The Land That Time Forgot, I think? They move through the caves with deadly creatures all around them. Great film.”

“The one with Raquel Welch?” Wells asked. “No? Ah well, people from my era, they think dinosaur - they think Raquel Welch. Never mind.”

Drake pressed his back to the rock and side-stepped forward, arms spread out, ensuring both Ben and Kennedy followed his example before moving off properly. The murky void faced them, and now a faint rumbling came to their ears, deep and far away.

“That would be
Eyjafjallajokul,
the mountain, erupting gently,” Professor Parnevik whispered along the line. “My best guess is that we are in a side chamber, well insulated from the magma chamber and from the conduit pipe that feeds the eruptions. There might be dozens upon dozens of ash and lava layers between us and the rising magma, shielding us and the Tomb. We may even be inside a bedrock anomaly, where it rises at a steeper angle than the sides of the mountain.”

Dahl shouted into the gloom. “
Helvite!
Hell and damnation! We have a low wall coming up, crossing our path at a ninety-degree angle. It’s not high, so don’t worry, just be careful.”

“Some kind of trap?” Parnevik ventured.

Drake saw the obstacle and thought the same. With great care, he followed the SGG Commander over the knee-high barrier. They both saw the first Tomb at the same time.

“Ohhh,”
Dahl’s grasp on words failed him.

Drake just whistled, awestruck by the sight.

A great niche had been carved into the mountainside, travelling possibly a hundred feet into the core of the volcano - towards the magma chamber. It had been formed into an arch shape, perhaps a hundred feet high. As everyone gathered around and took out their heavier- duty flashlights, the stunning spectacle of the first Tomb unfolded.

“Wow!” Kennedy said. Her light illuminated shelf upon shelf cut into the rocky surround, each shelf adorned by and filled with treasures: Necklaces and spears, breast-plates and helmets. Swords . . ..

“Who the hell
is
this guy?”

Parnevik was predictably studying the far wall, the one that faced them, effectively the God’s arched tombstone. A fantastic carving stood in sharp relief there, easily the equal in skill of any of the latter-day Renaissance men, even Michelangelo.

“It is Mars,” the Professor stated. “The Roman God of war.”

Drake saw a muscle-bound figure wearing a chest plate and skirt, holding a great spear over one massive shoulder whilst staring over the other. In the background stood a majestic horse and a round building that closely resembled the Colosseum in Rome.

“Beats me how they decided who gets to be buried here,” Kennedy murmured. “Roman Gods. Norse Gods . . ..”

“Me too,” Parnevik said. “Perhaps it was just the whim of Zeus.”

All eyes were suddenly on the enormous sarcophagus that stood beneath the carved mural. Drake’s imagination took hold. If they looked inside would they find the bones of a God?

“Damn, but we don’t have time!” Dahl sounded frustrated and worn and harassed. “Let’s go. We have no idea how many Gods may be buried down here.”

Kennedy frowned at Drake, and looked along the ledge as it disappeared into the blackness. “That’s a fragile track of rock we’re following, Matt. And I bet my 401K the God count ain’t just
one or two.”

“We can’t trust anything now,” he said. “Only each other. C’mon. The Germans will be coming.”

They filed out of Mars’ burial chamber, each person stealing a longing, backward glance at its relative safety and incalculable significance. The void beckoned once more, and now Drake began to feel a dull ache in his ankles and knees, a by-product of their slow ledge shuffle. Poor Professor Parnevik and young Ben had to be in real pain.

More rumblings shook a far-flung cave and echoed around their own. Drake looked up, and he fancied he could see a similar ledge far above him.
Bollocks.
This damn thing could wind up and around all night!

On the plus side, they had heard no signs of pursuit as yet. Drake guessed they were a good hour in front of the Germans, but knew the confrontation was almost inevitable. He just hoped they could neutralise the world-threat before that happened.

A second ledge appeared ahead, and beyond it a second magnificent niche set back into the mountain. This one was adorned by rank upon rank of gold objects, the side walls fairly glowing with golden light.

“
Ohmygod!”
Kennedy breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Who
is
that? The God of treasure?”

Parnevik squinted at the rock-carving that dominated a massive sarcophagus. He shook his head for a moment, frowning. “Wait, are those feathers? Is that God clothed in feathers?”

“Could be, Prof,” Ben was already looking past the niche and into the stretch of black night that awaited them. “Does it matter? It’s not Odin.”

Parnevik ignored him. “That’s
Quetzalcoatl! The Aztec God!
Which makes all this . . .” he gestured at the shining walls.

“Aztec Gold.”
Wells breathed, awestruck despite himself. “Woah.”

“This place . . .” Kennedy was practically hyper-ventilating, “is the greatest archaeological find of
all time.
You get that? There’s not just one civilization’s deity here, but
many.
And all the traditions and treasures that accompany them. This is . . . staggering.”

Drake glanced away from the depiction of Quetzalcoatl, adorned in feathers and brandishing an axe. Parnevik was saying that the Aztec god had been known - by accepted clerical sources - as the
God-ruler,
an expression intimating that he had indeed been real.

“Quetzalcoatl means ‘flying reptile’ or ‘feathered serpent.’ Which is-” Parnevik paused for effect, then seemed to realise that everyone else had filed back towards the ledge, “a dragon,” he said to himself, pleased.

“Does he have anything in common with Mars?” the lone SAS soldier – a man called Jim Marsters – asked.

Drake watched Parnevik step out onto the ledge with a purse to his lips. “Hmm,” his breathy speculation carried past everyone on the ledge. “Only that they can, and have at some time, both signified death.”

*****

A third niche, and this one equally as breathtaking as the last. Drake found himself staring at a carving of a stunning naked lady.

A fortune in statuettes lined the walls. Dolphins, mirrors, swans. A necklace of sculpted doves large enough to span the Statue of Liberty’s neck.

“Well,” Drake said. “Even I know who that is.”

Kennedy made a face. “Yeah, you would.”

“The original slut,” Parnevik said harshly. “Aphrodite.”

“Hey,” Wells said. “You’re calling the God, Aphrodite a slut? Down here? This close to her Tomb?”

Parnevik rushed on with typical prep-school bullishness: “Known to have slept with Gods and men, including Adonis.
Offered
Helen of Troy to Paris, then sealed the deal by inflaming Paris’ ardour the moment he laid eyes on her. Born near Paphos from Uranus’s newly castrated testicles. I have to say she’s a-”

“We get the message,” Drake said drily, still staring at the carving. He smiled when he noticed Kennedy shaking her head at him.

“Jealous, love?”

“Sexually frustrated much?” She pushed past him to be second in line after Dahl.

He stared after her. “Well, now that you mention it . . ..”

“C’mon, Matt,” Ben slipped by him too. “Wow!”

His exclamation made them all jump. They turned, to see him scrambling back on all fours, terror etched in his face. Drake wondered if he’d just seen the Devil Himself borne up on wings of demons, straight from the cookhouse of Hell.

“This niche -” he gasped. “It’s on a platform . . . floating in air . . .
there’s nothing on the other side!
”

Drake felt his heart freeze. He remembered Mimir’s Well and its false floor.

Dahl jumped a few times. “The damn rock feels sturdy enough. This can’t be the end of the line.”

“Don’t do that!”
Ben squeaked. “What if it breaks away?”

Stillness reigned. Everyone stared back at each other with wide eyes. Some ventured a glance back along the way they had come, the safe way, Wells and Marsters among them.

At that moment, at the furthest range of hearing, a faint clattering sound was heard. The sound of a stone dropped down a well.

“That’s the Germans,” Dahl said with conviction. “Testing the depth of the shaft. Now, we either find a way off this platform, or die anyway.”

Drake nudged Kennedy. “See up there,” he pointed above them. “I’ve been keeping an eye out. I think there must be another set of niches or caves above us. But see . . . see how the rock edge seems to
curve.
”