AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Off to the west glaciers dominated, one having withdrawn its icy paw and left a black gravel plain veined with verdant moss. And somewhere out there was a pyramid-shaped peak near a brown-and-red-striped gorge. Unfortunately, from the looks of things there were a lot of pyramid-shaped peaks. All of the slopes were tall and jagged.
The chopper banked right and lost altitude to escape an approaching patch of dense clouds. They cleared a short peak and Malone saw a village ahead, its buildings of wood, dry stone, turf walls, and corrugated iron roofs. Sheep roamed its perimeter. A group of reindeer clambered up a nearby slope. The pilot angled his approach away from both flocks. Goulding had learned of this locale from the World War II journal.
“This is the closest settlement to the area you mentioned,” the pilot said through their headsets. “I’m going to land.”
He settled the chopper onto a grassy field and they climbed out into the frigid air, quickly zipping their coats. It was a five-minute walk to the village. A paved road bisected the town neatly in half. There was a variety of stores, one a rock shop that displayed semiprecious stones in its front window, another a general store full of merchandise. A wooden church stood at the end of the long street. A woman wrapped in a wool coat was strolling down the street away from the church. She approached the general store and inserted a key into the lock.
He led Goulding over and did the introductions, learning that the store was hers.
“I heard the helicopter a few minutes ago,” the woman said in clear English, brushing brown, gray-streaked hair away from her eyes. She was middle-aged with a face round and red as a beet.
“This is going to sound a little strange,” he said, “but in the mountains, are there any peaks nearby shaped like a pyramid?”
“Many.”
“Here’s another stupid question. How about brown-and-red-striped gorges?”
She smiled. “Too many to even count.”
He told her about the legend of the haunted cave.
“Are you treasure hunters?” the woman asked.
“Not at all,” Malone said.
“The others said the same thing, and I thought they were lying, too.” Her declaration carried contempt.
He wanted to know, “What others?”
“The men up in the mountains.” She pointed to the west toward snowcapped peaks. “They said they were rock hounds. Looking for jasper and obsidian.”
“How long have they been there?” he asked.
“About a month. They come down every few days for supplies.”
He was now interested. “What made you think they were lying?”
“Too anxious. The hikers and scholars take their time. These men were in a hurry.” She paused. “They stay in a hurry.”
He was beginning to appreciate the woman’s perception. “You know where they are up there?”
“One of the herders told me they were beyond the midge lake, above the Álar basin. The hills there are hollow. Lots of caves and tunnels. But there’s nothing there. People have roamed them for centuries.”
“Did you tell them that?” Malone asked.
She studied him with a rapt expression. “As I’m telling you.” She hesitated a moment. “Another reason they’re treasure hunters.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“They didn’t believe me, either.”
Half an hour of discussion was needed before she warmed to them. It helped that Goulding seemed familiar with the region and understood some of the local peculiarities. A hundred dollars U.S. secured the rental of her Range Rover for the day.
They headed off on the only highway from town.
The roadway cleaved a canyon through red rock walls that displayed a geological layer cake of history. The peaks and hills beyond were molded in rust and yellow hues, dusted with snow. Steep remnants of ancient volcanoes drew their attention.
The absence of ice caught Malone’s interest. “For somewhere so cold, there’s little moisture.”
“I’ve always thought the name strange, too,” Goulding said. “Iceland. Yet there’s almost none here. The air’s too dry.”
The shopkeeper from the village told them about abandoned sulfur mines, formed when steam bubbles lifted lava through rock and hardened before shattering, resulting in a maze of passages and chambers. And though all of the mines were now gone, their remnants remained.
They followed the directions she provided, the road progressively worsening until it was more gravel path than highway. He estimated they were a good thirty miles from the village, isolated, no sign of anyone or anything.
“According to what she told us,” Goulding said, “it’s a hike up through those hills just ahead.”
Malone stopped the vehicle, and they climbed out onto a lava flow colonized by lichens. Dwarf willows hugged the black earth in scattered patches. Tundra spread off toward the north, a snowfield to the west.
He led the way up a slope.
Hiking this ground was like walking on ball bearings and he was grateful for the boots the military had recommended earlier. They were looking for a nemeton, the Celtic word for a sacred place in a remote locale. The ancient manuscripts referred to door mountain, noting its location in reference to a pyramid-shaped peak. Mountain ranges pierced the sky in a variety of shapes, basalt, tuff, and rhyolite clearly mangled over time. He realized that what was pyramid-shaped in the 6th century might no longer exist—the forces of vulcanism, ice, and plate motion surely altering everything around him.
He glanced at his watch. 9:45 AM.
It felt and looked like 5:00 P.M., especially since he was working on only a few hours’ sleep.
Then he saw it.
On a ridge half a mile away, before a black opening in the sheer rock face, he saw a campsite of three oversized tents. He studied the peak above and noted that it was indeed triangular—a crooked pyramid, but nonetheless a pyramid. He spotted no one near or around the tents.
“Let’s approach from the far side,” he said, gesturing toward a sparse clump of ash trees.
“You concerned about something?”
He detected apprehension in the question. “Are you okay with this?”
“I’m not an agent, but I did serve four years in the infantry.”
He laid a hand on the professor’s shoulder. “Not
to worry. Just follow my lead.”
The camp was deserted.
A low methodic hum from one of the tents and two black cables snaking a path into the mountain signaled a generator. An assortment of footsteps were framed by scattered snow, all leading into the mountain. The entrance tunnel was surprisingly wide, which helped with his distaste for enclosed spaces. Lightbulbs tacked to the rock dissolved the darkness, revealing rough walls, sharp in places, the floor a mixture of sand and gravel.
“This chute is natural,” Goulding whispered. “From lava eons ago.”
They exited into a room about forty feet square with a high, vaulted ceiling. At the far end, illuminated by a stand of halogen lights, was what appeared to be an altar, a rectangular slab of blackened stone supported by two stone pillars, the structure elevated by a platform hewn from the rock. Goulding was drawn to the altar and began to focus on knotwork designs behind and above on the chamber walls.
“Celtic. The symbol of man’s eternal spiritual growth. But there. See it? Overlays of Christianity.”
Spaced behind the altar were carvings of a man, lion, calf, and eagle.
“Man symbolizes Matthew. The lion, Mark. The calf, Luke. And an eagle, John. The four evangelists. Pagan caves like this eventually became churches.”
A cross caught Malone’s attention, in a shadowy niche off to the right. A circle filled its center, the lower arm longer and wider than its two sides. The circle was quartered and ornamented, giving depth and definition to an otherwise flat face.
“It’s Celtic,” Goulding said.
His nerves were alert. Where were the men who’d staked out the camp? Then he noticed something. Across the chamber, on the rock floor. He stepped over and bent down. Dark splotches. Dried. Hard to tell.
“Is it blood?” Goulding asked.
“Could be.”
Two gauges marred the sandy floor, about a foot apart, leading in a straight line into another tunnel, as if something had been dragged, heels down.
He found his Magellan Billet–issued Beretta.
“Stay behind me,” he said to Goulding.
“Should I be worried now?”
