Outlanders 24 Equinox Zero, page 23
"If this was a movie, I'd say we should try to wow their ruler with feats of legerdemain," Philboyd muttered.
"Something tells me the Thulians will be a tough crowd," Grant commented.
Gundrun spoke again and Brigid said, "She wants our weapons."
Eyeing all the steel pointed in their direction and the implacable expressions on the faces of the Thulian warriors, Kane muttered, "I don't think that's a sound tactic. They seem awfully moody to me."
"Yeah, me, too," put in Grant.
"I agree," Philboyd said, putting his glasses on. Wincing, the man slowly got to his feet. "But if we don't do what they say, they'll try to kill us and we'll have to kill them."
"We're the interlopers here," Brigid reminded them.
Grant growled deep in his throat. "Their people came out to the Cific. They're the invaders. I'm here to put a stop to their raids."
"We're not that sure of our facts," Brigid replied tersely. "That's why we need to talk to someone in authority."
Grant and Kane didn't move for a long moment. Then Philboyd unslung his Copperhead and handed it over to a Valkyrie. The woman examined the sub-gun briefly and smiled at him, almost in gratitude.
"They're just as nervous about us as we are about them," the man observed almost cheerfully.
"I can't imagine why," Kane commented. He leathered his Sin Eater, undid the buckles and tabs of the power holster and handed it over to Gundrun.
Glowering, Grant did the same. "Take care of that," he instructed, knowing she couldn't understand him "I'll be really pissed if it picks up any rust."
With two of the Valkyries behind them and the other two flanking them, Brigid, Philboyd, Grant and Kane were marched through the settlement, bare rock giving way to frost-slippery pavement. As they approached the body of water, the air temperature rose appreciably and they saw less and less ice.
Kane leaned down close to Brigid and said lowly, "I noticed you didn't give up your gun."
A faint smile ghosted over her lips. "As long as the Valkyries didn't."
Kane repressed his own smile and felt his confidence rise.
Feet crunching on gravel, they followed a twisting lane that brought them out almost on the shore of the lake, near a small inlet.
The cove was of some size and it was literally crammed with the wrecks and hulks of old ships, some intact but most of them dismantled, either by tools or the merciless hand of time. They saw the stern of a coracle and the bowsprit of a longboat. They were marched past warped deck planking, broken masts, portions of keels, frames and even part of a wheelhouse with the glass in the portholes still within the brass frames.
The cove was less a graveyard of old ships than a maritime junkyard, where seagoing vessels had been brought to be dismantled and cannibalized. There didn't seem to be an order of placement, either by ship type or era; they were all heaped together in a clutter. They tramped over old wooden belaying pins, blocks, tackle, hatches, oars, sails that had rotted to little more than scraps of canvas. Rearing up out of the clutter they saw the carved dragon figurehead of a Viking longship. The bow was a wreck, the hull planking caved in and splintered.
On the far side of the wreckage yard, a sleek dark vessel loomed large on the rocky shore, half submerged so it resembled a beached killer whale. Its hull was made of rust-streaked steel plates. A conning tower arose from its sleek surface amidships. It was canted over on its port side, half-crushing a much smaller vessel that reminded Kane of a small schooner.
Although the paint was peeled, a serial number was still visible on the conning tower—as was a simple swastika.
"An unterseeboot," Philboyd murmured in awe.
"A what?" demanded Grant.
"A U-boat," Brigid explained.
"A submarine. That's obviously what brought the Kriegmarine sailors here."
She turned to Philboyd. "I didn't know you spoke German, Brewster."
He shrugged. "When you work in anything to do with space travel, you're bound to run into a few German scientists. I picked up a smattering here and there."
"But why were there dead German sailors in the ventilation shaft?" Kane inquired.
"Two possibilities," said Brigid. "The crew of the sub either volunteered to help out around here as part of the community, or they were enslaved."
The Valkyries herded them toward a twelve-foot long boat made of planks, tethered to a boulder by a length of leather. With its upcurving bow, it resembled a gondola. With prods of the spears, Philboyd, Grant, Brigid and Kane climbed aboard. Gundrun and another Valkyrie climbed into it while the other two remained on the shore.
One of them snatched the tether free and pushed the boat easily into the water. To the surprise of the four outlanders, they saw an outboard motor clamped to the squared-off stern of the vessel. Gundrun started it with a single yank of the pull-cord. She gunned the throttle, turning it toward the open water. The prow cut through it on a rush of foam.
"Really an odd mixture of technology," Philboyd whispered. "Late bronze age melded with middle twentieth century."
Brigid nodded contemplatively. "They managed to adapt and borrow without changing the basic underpinnings of their culture."
Grant knuckled his chin. "Somebody taught them how to repair motors like these... perform maintenance on them."
"Not to mention provide them with fuel," Kane interjected.
"The Germans, maybe," Brigid ventured. "Maybe," Kane said doubtfully.
The farther the boat pushed out into the lake, the warmer the air became. On impulse, Grant removed a glove and put a hand into the water. It felt like tepid bathwater. He withdrew his hand, his voice registering surprise. "The water is warm!"
Brigid nodded. "I figured as much. This lake must be fed by some sort of volcanic geothermals."
Kane experimentally plunged his hand in, as well, eliciting a glare from Gundrun. He said flatly, "A lake warm enough not to freeze is one thing. This has to be at least seventy degrees. That can't be natural."
Brigid nodded again. "My thoughts exactly."
By the time they were able to see details in the island of rock thrusting up out of the middle of the lake, the air was so humid sweat formed on their bodies. They opened their jackets, then as they went on, they shed the parkas altogether. Fortunately the shadow suits adjusted to the new temperature and quickly made them comfortable again.
As dark crags rising from the lake began towering above them, Kane felt the prickling of apprehension at the base of his spine. It wasn't an island at all, but more of a rocky spire, projecting out of the water like a sheer-walled cone at least one hundred feet tall. The sides rose up to the rim, which was wreathed in fog and steam. No shoreline was visible, only a deep, V-cut cleft. Within it a great flight of stone steps climbed from the lake surface to the pinnacle.
Gundrun piloted the boat expertly over the waves, to the foot of the stone stairs. She steered the craft slowly between dark ramparts of rock. When the hull grated on stone, she cut the engine. She tossed a mooring line to her companion, who climbed out and looped it securely around a rock.
Gundrun spoke to the other Valkyrie, only a few words, but the four outlanders heard and understood one word among all the others. It was "Asgard."
"Asgard," Philboyd echoed, his eyes widening. "As in home of the Norse gods?"
Kane shook his head and murmured grimly. "No; Asgard as in a volcanic peak that's heating up the Antarctic ice sheet to the melting point."
"The conflict of ice and fire," Brigid said in a hushed tone. "Ragnarok indeed."
THE CLIMB TO THE TOP of the peak wouldn't have been so strenuous if the air hadn't seemed to become more stiflingly hot and humid with every step. Even with the shadow suits' internal thermal controls, the four outlanders perspired freely. Kane reflected that the temperature didn't feel much different than that on Thunder Isle.
When they reached the pinnacle, sidling between two bastions of rune-covered rock onto a flat plateau, they were almost too tired and hot to be impressed by the sight that met their eyes.
A broad avenue paved with white pebbles stretched away in front of them. White buildings chased with golden porticoes shouldered each other. A row of fluted, slender towers rose at the end of the avenue, giving the illusion of being tall, but in actuality they weren't more than three stories high. They stretched up in twisting spirals, colored in fantastic hues of gold and red and blue. Above them hung the umbrella of steam, which shifted and rolled.
"This doesn't even look real," Philboyd murmured in a voice hushed by an awe so deep it was almost shock. "It's like something out of an amusement park."
The Valkyries growled gutturally and gestured to the tallest of the towers at the end of the white- pebbled avenue. It was centered between a pair of smaller structures. The four people fell into step behind the two warriors. Water dripped down from above—not quite a drizzle or mist, but every surface gleamed with moisture.
They didn't march for very far. Long before Brigid, Kane, Philboyd and Grant thought to have reached the tower, they were entering an arched doorway.
"What the hell?" Grant grunted, mystified.
Kane looked around with baffled eyes and guessed the tower was situated in the exact center of the plateau.
Philboyd said, "Optical foreshortening...everything is built up here on a forced perspective to give this place the feeling of being much larger than it is."
Kane didn't say anything, but he was impressed by how quickly the man figured it out. Escorted by the Valkyries, they were marched into an open hall, the walls of which were of marble with golden scrollwork crawling across them.
A concourse of Valkyries stood stiffly along the walls, each one gripping a long spear. Tall winged helmets were on their heads, and armlets of gold and silver, all gem encrusted, gleamed on their bare arms. Each one carried a round shield with the Thulian swastika embossed on the surface. The honor guard paid no heed to the people as they entered the hall.
On the floor a series of gold-inlaid tiles stretched forth, and in the center of the chamber, they formed a collar around a disk of a translucent substance. A blaze of yellow-and-orange light shimmered from below the tile-collared disk. Kane estimated it was twenty feet in diameter if not more.
On the far side of the collar, the tiles resumed their straight line. They led up to a broad, elevated platform upon which towered an elaborate, high-backed throne. Sitting on the throne was a figure that caused Kane's throat to tighten and what little moisture remained in his mouth to dry to a dusty film.
A huge man sat slumped there, silent and brooding, one gauntleted hand idly fondling the jeweled hilt of a gleaming broadsword lying across his knees. His massive limbs were clothed in blue-tinged mail His entire torso was covered in a fantastic armor that appeared, at first glance, to be wrought of pure ice that sparkled in the light dancing from a disk in the floor.
A cloak of sky-blue hung from his wide shoulders, fastened by a huge brooch pin. The man was very old—a snow-white beard fell halfway to his waist. Hair of the same bleached-out hue tumbled around his shoulders. His right eye was covered by a blue leather patch with a swastika design worked into it with gold thread. His left eye was deeply sunk under his grizzled brow, but it blazed as if from a fire within. An ornate helmet sat on his head, which made him seem even more of a giant. It too appeared fashioned of gold, with curving horns of a burnished alloy that arched backward over the jeweled crest of the headpiece. The man exuded a palpable aura of age, mystery and power. His single eye was like a window into a forgotten past, which was full of only dark memories and glories long past. Although it was hard to tell in the wavering light, the man appeared to be at least six feet tall—sitting down.
The four outlanders gaped up in astonished silence at the enthroned giant and didn't hear Gundrun's hissed commands. Only when she struck the back of Kane's knee with the shaft of her spear and made his leg buckle did they realize she was ordering them to kneel.
Even Grant was too stunned to do more than scowl at the Valkyries when he lowered himself to one knee.
Gundrun stood before them and spoke in a loud, stentorian voice, the echoes booming and chasing each other under the arched roof.
"What's she saying?" Kane asked Brigid.
She listened for a moment, then in a strained, hoarse tone said, "Kneel in the presence of Wothenjaz, the high one. Kneel before the father of the golden realm."
"Wothenjaz?" repeated Grant under his breath. Brigid nodded. "Otherwise known as Wotan, Woden and..Odin,"
Kane squinted up at the figure on the throne. "That can't possibly be the same guy.. .can it?"
She shook her head in rueful resignation. "I'm not sure of anything at this point."
Chapter 23
Her head bowed, Gundrun spoke reverentially to Wothenjaz. The inscrutable mask of the bearded man's face did not so much as twitch, but Kane received the distinct impression their arrival had caught him off guard.
Wothenjaz stared down at them, then made an imperious gesture with his right hand, lifting it from the naked blade of the broadsword and spreading his fingers wide.
The gesture had meaning to Gundrun, because she tapped Brigid lightly on the shoulder with her spear and jerked her head suggestively toward the man on the throne.
"I guess it's time for me to convey the important news," she murmured as she rose. "And explain ourselves."
"I hope she makes the explanations quick," Grant whispered to Kane. "My knees are killing me."
Grant's hope was in vain. Brigid stepped close to the platform and spoke to Wothenjaz at great length— first haltingly and uneasily, then with greater confidence. When the one-eyed man responded, it was in a deep, husky voice that sent ghostly echoes chasing each other under the arched roof.
Kane used the opportunity to look around the hall. The lack of any male warriors struck him as distinctly odd, but he figured the honor guard of Valkyries was more than sufficient to handle any threat. He counted two dozen of them, all of them topping six feet in height.
He eyed the gold-collared disk in the center of the floor and figured it was a capped fire pit, a vent of some kind extending down to a volcanic core. Tilting his head back, he studied the ceiling. Projecting from a socket in the roof directly over the fire pit was a thick-walled, heavy-gauge pipe. It reminded him of the barrel of a huge artillery piece. By visually measuring it, he realized it was just the right diameter to fit within the fire pit.
Philboyd's whisper commanded his attention. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Kane cut his eyes over to him. The man gazed upward, too. "Probably not," Kane replied. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that big-ass pipe is a vent that can be lowered into the volcanic well. I'm thinking the heat is pumped up through it, and through the top of the tower to the roof of the cavern. And on top of the roof, on the surface, is the ice sheet. I'm thinking that if enough heat is tapped and vented up to it, the whole shebang loosens up and melts, day by day, hour by hour."
"I stand corrected," murmured Kane. "That's exactly what I was thinking."
Brigid turned toward them, her expression very troubled and grave. Although Gundrun towered over her, she appeared somewhat sad, not threatened. "You can get up now."
The three men did so, although Grant had difficulty, cursing under his breath. Without looking at him, Kane put a hand under his arm and heaved upward. The big man lurched unsteadily to his feet, grimacing in pain.
"What's going on?" Philboyd asked, casting his eyes nervously from the foreboding figure of Wothenjaz to Gundrun.
"We're guests of the golden realm," Brigid replied. "At least until Grigori Zakat and his crew return."
Both Kane and Grant jerked their shoulders in reaction to the name. "So the son of bitch is part of this place," Grant growled.
Brigid ran her gloved fingers through her tumbles of hair. "Yes and no. I'll explain later when we're alone."
A FORM OF NIGHT FELL swiftly over Ultima Thule. Grant, Brigid, Kane and Philboyd sat unguarded in an inner room not far from the audience chamber. Grant half reclined on a couch, while the others sat in wooden chairs. Nobody objected that he took the couch. Despite his efforts to conceal it, his limp had become more pronounced over the past couple of hours.
All of them sampled the ale and viands a Valkyrie served from golden platters and cups. Heavy, blue velvet hangings decorated the walls, and bits of bric- a-brac, some of it exquisitely made, were scattered carelessly all about.
Rubbing one of the hangings between thumb and forefinger, Brigid said, "Blue. The royal color of Odin."
"Does that one-eyed old guy really think he's king of the Norse gods," Philboyd asked with a smile, "or is he really the king of the Norse gods?"
Brigid chuckled. "Neither. Wothenjaz is more a title than a proper name, at least here. He inherited it from his predecessor—fifty years ago."
Kane took a sip of the bitter ale and made a face. "Did he tell you about this place?"
Brigid nodded. "He tried, but beyond a couple of hundred years ago his knowledge is very vague and mixed up with myths and legends, some of it very improbable. But one thing I'm certain of—at this point in history, Ultima Thule is the oldest extant nation in the world."
Philboyd's eyebrows drew down toward the bridge of his nose. "How do you figure that?"
"Easy," Brigid answered. "They've existed un- changed and basically unchanging for at least two thousand years, maybe even longer than that. They've survived everything since before the birth of Christ, including the nukecaust and skydark."
Philboyd frowned, and Kane couldn't help but smile at the man's discomfort. As a scientist who expected everything in the universe to be classified and pigeonholed, he was knocked on his analytic ass when confronted by something outside his field of study.
"Essentially," Brigid continued, "the Thulians are the descendants of a Nordic colony that settled in and around Antarctica. Because of the heat provided by the volcanic cone here, they made it their primary city."
