The Codex (An Armour of God Thriller Book 2)

by Daniel Patterson

  The warmth was doing his shoulder good too. He didn't have to carry the full weight of it, the water doing the work for him, and it was good not to strain his muscles. The tension in his neck and shoulders relaxed. The water caressed his shoulder like a gentle massage. He tried to forget the pain. He couldn't afford to worry about that. There were bigger things to think about. Like how they were going to find a way out.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "I'm feeling much better," she answered.

  Zack looked around for the first time. The chamber they were in was big, with a round dome-like rock roof and walls. The rocks scattered around them were rough and jagged, but the ceiling and walls were smooth like they had been worn away by water. The soft purple glow gave it a magical feel.

  If it weren't for the fact that they were stranded down there, with no emergency rations and no way out, he would have wanted to stay there. It was so peaceful and so far away from everything that real life held for him. Perhaps he needed to do something about his life if that was how he felt about it.

  To one side, he spotted what looked like an archway.

  Where does it lead? He had a feeling that the hissing sound came from there. If they hadn't been attacked by Mikkel's monster yet, he suspected that it might be another answer for them.

  They soaked until feeling had returned to every inch of their bodies. Zack allowed himself to relax. He didn't want to lie in the water too long. He was starting to feel drowsy and even though the water wouldn't cool down like in a bathtub, falling asleep here and now was not a good idea.

  "We have to keep moving," he said to Sydney.

  She groaned.

  "I'm starting to get sleepy, and that's a bad thing in a place we don't know."

  "I know, I know, it's just so amazing. I don't like the idea of sacrificing this hot water for more ice."

  Zack had to agree, but he pushed himself up anyway and headed back toward where their bags were on the edge of the spring. His arm became a leaden weight again.

  Sydney followed him. "Before we go, let me fix your shoulder. You're warm and relaxed, and this is a perfect time."

  He grunted but agreed. He was going to have to do something. He couldn't keep going with it dislocated.

  "Fine," he relented.

  "I need you to lay on your back on the ground."

  Zack did as he was told and she lifted his arm, pulled it gently, and twisted. A surge of pain shot through his shoulder and across his chest, and he almost fainted.

  "Are you sure you know what you're—"

  Before he could complete his sentence, she pulled a second time, harder, with a quick twist. There was a sudden wet clunk as his shoulder maneuvered back into its socket. Just when he thought he was going to pass out, the blinding pain lessened. He blinked, and Sydney's concerned face came into focus.

  "Better?" she asked.

  He wiggled his fingers experimentally. "Where did you learn to do that?"

  "I grew up with four brothers who played just about every sport there is. They were always getting themselves hurt. I can pop every major bone into its socket if the need arises."

  "Good to know."

  She ran a gentle hand over his shoulder. "That'll be sore for a couple of days," she warned. "So no fancy midair acrobatics for a while."

  "I'll try to be careful. Come on, let's go through there," he said and pointed to the stone arch, with his right arm. It felt good to have it back in working order. "I think that our Leviathan is hiding behind that entrance."

  "You're just full of jokes, aren't you?"

  Chapter Sixteen

  ZACK COULDN'T TELL IF Sydney was scared or not, but he smiled when she stepped a little closer to him. They passed underneath the smooth round rock. It led them to another grotto, and Zack had been right. The hissing sound was so loud here he couldn't hear Sydney. He beckoned to her to follow him.

  Zack directed her to stand in one specific spot—right where a natural vent blew currents of heated air up from the floor of the cave.

  "We need to get out of these wet thermals," Zack shouted above the hissing. She coughed when he mentioned taking off their clothes. He added, "I didn't mean we had to do it in front of each other." He didn't want her to think he was that kind of guy. "We're warm now, but we need to dry off. We can't stay wet like this or we'll freeze to death. There are lots of places to hide in here."

  He walked around and found another vent hidden by one of the large columns.

  "I'll stay here, and you stick to that one."

  Sydney nodded. He could tell she was embarrassed, but they would each have a private area, and there wasn't much of a choice, not if they wanted to survive.

  "Don't look," she called out from her secluded spot, almost in a childlike way.

  Zack smiled. There was a pure and innocent side to herself that she was showing, now that they were trapped in a space that was peaceful and quiet.

  "Do you need help?" she asked.

  He could manage if he had to. The pain was intense, and he didn't have a full range of motion yet, but he could get it off with a little work.

  Before he had a chance to say anything, Sydney stepped back over to his area still wearing her pink thermals.

  Zack looked at her.

  "Relax, I'm just helping you with your shirt. That will be the worst. After that, you're on your own."

  Without another word, she stepped closer and began to work the tight thermal turtleneck up and off of his body. She took great care around his injured shoulder. He hated having to rely on her for help, especially after going on so much about working alone and not needing anyone. He'd already let her get his shoulder back into place, wasn't that enough humiliation for one day?

  She handed him the soaking wet thermal shirt. "You do the rest. I'm going back to my vent."

  He nodded, not making eye contact with her.

  When she was gone, he undressed down to his boxer briefs. He draped his clothes out as best he could and shuffled closer to the vent. The air washed up and over his skin, up his legs and his chest. The heat of it was just a little cooler than the water and caressed him in the same way, although it didn't make him weightless as the water had. It was nice, though, like a warm blanket after a hot bath, and his shoulder was already starting to feel better.

  He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. He was still drowsy, exhausted from the exertion of just getting this far, but moving on after the hot spring and then fussing with his clothes had woken him up a little. He had to make an effort to keep his mind busy. If he slept now, he was handing himself over to nature. A lot of people in traumatic situations died asleep. Escaping from the trauma, they slipped away from reality and eventually gave up entirely. He had to stay alert.

  Zack looked around. At a glance, there were fourteen ventilation holes, the hot air rising all the way to the surface where it escaped through cracks in the rocky Greenland landscape.

  "Make sure your clothes are hanging and not lying flat," he called out, the steam dampening any echo the room might have held.

  "I've got it," Sydney's disembodied voice answered. "Thank you."

  "I figure the clothes will dry faster this way."

  "I mean for saving my life," she laughed, in a very feminine way.

  Zack coughed and tried to remember that she was Father Giovanni's niece. "Seemed fair. I put your life in danger in the first place. That's why I prefer to work alone, by the way."

  "Well, if you were alone today you might have died. I dragged you out of the water, remember, and put your shoulder back into place."

  No, if I'd been alone I wouldn't have fallen through the shaft in the first place, or dislocated my shoulder trying to hold you, or had to crash down into a freezing river below.

  He didn't say any of it out loud, of course. He didn't like a lot of things about having a tag-along, but the company was welcome in this frozen underworld.

  The situation was grimmer than anything he'd ever been in befor
e. He found that having Sydney around was a reason to stay positive. She needed him. He was surprised to find he didn't resent her for that.

  Minutes passed, and then some more. Zack became alarmed by the silence. "Hey, you still awake over there?" he called out.

  "Yeah. I was praying."

  Of course, you were. "I've noticed you doing that a few times."

  "Is that a problem?"

  Zack sighed. "No. I just don't see the use."

  "Well, I'm confused then," Sydney said.

  "What are you confused about?"

  "You're a biblical archaeologist, and you can quote sections of the Bible at the drop of a hat, but don't believe in God?"

  "I never said I didn't believe in God. I do."

  "But you don't pray?"

  "Not anymore. I figure God's got a lot to do. Why would he pay attention to just one person?"

  "He's always listening, Zack. We're all equal in His eyes."

  "Well. That hasn't exactly been my experience."

  "I'm sorry. You want to talk about it?" Sydney asked.

  "Not really. It's complicated."

  "I have time."

  "I said it's complicated."

  "Sorry Zack. I was just trying to get to know you a little better." After a few moments of awkward silence, she asked, "So what's our next move?"

  "After our clothes are dry we'll get dressed and take a walk. See where this cavern leads."

  "Sounds good to me!"

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT DIDN'T TAKE TOO long for their clothes to dry enough to put them back on without worrying about contracting hypothermia.

  It was enough time for Zack to pull himself together and get his thoughts organized.

  Time during which he tried to figure out whether he disliked having Sydney around or not. One moment he wished he was alone, the next he was relieved they were there together.

  Finally, they started to get ready to move on. It was heaven in the warm air, but they couldn't stay there.

  Zack was still fully dressed when Sydney came over to help him with his shirt and jacket. He let her help with quiet resignation.

  Luckily their backpacks had kept most of their equipment dry.

  Zack opened his pack to check the contents. The FRS two-way radio was still dry but wasn't working, which was strange; it should work, even underground. He checked the GPS, but the screen was dead. He put it back in his pack, just in case.

  He repacked his bag with the spare headlamp, extra batteries, protein bars, drinking water, glow sticks, Ziploc bags, and then threw it over his good shoulder.

  Sydney went through her backpack as well. "I can't believe I didn't think to put my phone in my pack. It's completely ruined," she said with disgust.

  "Mine is toast too," Zack said. "I didn't expect to be taking a dip in a freezing river."

  "Does the portable camera still work?" Sydney asked.

  "It was in my pants pocket, but it's waterproof. It's in perfect condition."

  "Clever."

  Zack nodded to himself. It was clever. It was the best investment he'd made in a while. That camera survived everything, and it had been everywhere with him. It paid to have something sturdy like this. He held up the camera and took a photo of their surroundings.

  "Although it's not a place I want to remember," Sydney scoffed.

  "Come on. This is great. You don't get this kind of peace and quiet in the city."

  "Very funny."

  She finished loading things in her pack and stood up. She faced Zack with her head tilted.

  "So, Professor. Now, what?"

  "Why do you keep calling me professor?"

  She shrugged. "You seem to know everything."

  Zack wasn't sure if she was serious or sarcastic and didn't comment. He unzipped a jacket pocket and pulled out an old gold colored compass.

  "A pocket watch? You are old school," Sydney said.

  "It's a clinometer compass."

  "A what?"

  "Clinometer. It measures elevation, inclines, and declines. It was my grandfathers."

  "So which way?"

  Zack pointed deeper into the cavern away from the water. "This way," he said and began to walk.

  "What makes you think this leads somewhere?" She followed along at his side, as they went farther back into the towering rock columns.

  "Everything leads somewhere. The only question is, will it be a useful somewhere, or will it be a dead end?"

  She grimaced. "You couldn't use a better term? Something without the word dead in it?"

  "Uh, will it be the end of the line?" he offered.

  "That's not a lot better. You kind of suck at this, you know that?"

  Chapter Eighteen

  ZACK AND SYDNEY WALKED on for some time, and the walls of the cavern closed in again, the columns and the grotto left behind. The walls narrowed down to become a rounded, scalloped tube no more than ten feet in diameter. They stepped with caution, hands against the walls for support. And as they went, the purple and blue luminescent rock disappeared, leaving them in the dark once more.

  Zack flipped on his extra flashlight. The waterproof, shock resistant plastic had survived everything so far and didn't fail him now. It showed the way forward as the tunnel curved away to the left.

  "Do you think this was carved out by the melting ice water from the surface too?" Sydney asked him, her voice hushed in wonder.

  "Over centuries, yes. Perhaps even before humans ever came to this island."

  "The first Europeans didn't colonize Greenland until, what? Almost one thousand A.D.?"

  He nodded, wheels turning in his head. "Yes. There were several Inuit cultures living in Greenland before that. But the Norwegians came to Greenland about then. They stayed here until the fifteenth century when they lost all contact with them was lost..."

  He stopped still in his tracks.

  "What is it?" she asked him, looking ahead of them and seeing nothing but more dark tunnel.

  Zack shook himself and started walking again. "Nothing. I was thinking. Sorry, I'm used to talking these things out with myself, stopping and thinking, that sort of thing. Solitary stuff."

  She laughed. "You need to get out more."

  "You mean, more out than this?"

  "Yes. Definitely more out than this."

  "So tell me about Istanbul."

  "What?"

  "Tell me more about Istanbul," he repeated. "You started to tell me about it on the plane ride here, and I kind of, well..."

  "Ignored me?" she teased.

  "I was going to say tuned out."

  She snickered at his choice of words. "Sure, okay. Well. I was in Istanbul two years ago with a team. We were excavating a harbor site on the European side of the Bosphorus looking for Byzantine Empire artifacts."

  "Byzantine artifacts? I've heard there have been a number of finds there." His foot slipped with the next step that he took. There was still water everywhere.

  "Yeah," she answered. "But our find was unlike anything found there before. Our team found a one-thousand-year-old wooden object. It was among the thirty-seven ships unearthed in the Yenikapi area. They think it's the ancient equivalent of a tablet computer—a notebook and tool in one."

  "Wait a second. The Byzantine iPad? That's what they're calling it right? You found the Byzantine iPad?"

  She took hold of his arm to steady herself as the tunnel started to run at a downward slant. "Well, I'd like to take the credit, but I was there as part of a team."

  "Your uncle sent you there?"

  "Yeah. He's slowly letting me learn the business. I've done a few solo jobs. Nothing like this, though."

  The flashlight probed ahead into the darkness. Inching forward a little at a time, Zack said, "Be careful here. I think we're at our destination."

  "We have a destination?"

  He leaned forward, getting down on one knee to peer ahead. He was right. The tunnel opened out again, and this time, the chamber they had come to was imm
ense.

  "Look for yourself." He pulled her down with him, holding her as tight as she was to him.

  The end of the tunnel they had been walking in ended in an enormous cavern that must have been the size of four football stadiums. It was lit in the center by sunlight beaming in through hundreds of tiny holes far above. The effect was magical.

  "Wow," Sydney breathed.

  "Yeah, wow," echoed Zack.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THEY WERE LOOKING AT the remains of a settlement. Crumbling rock structures, outbuildings, longhouses, decaying wooden carts with large wheels. All of it revealed in eerie shafts of light and shadow that played over buildings that time had long forgotten.

  "Do you know what this place is?" Zack asked her.

  She nodded. "I think so."

  "In the fifteenth century," Zack said, putting words to what they were both thinking, "the Greenland Norse disappeared. Just vanished."

  She picked up the story from there. Her smile was as broad as his. "No one has ever known why. The climate changed, and everyone assumed they died or moved on to somewhere else."

  "But if this is what we think it is..." he said.

  "They didn't go anywhere," she added. "As the climate got worse and worse, they just moved underground!"

  Her last words echoed back from the far walls, softly repeating over and over until they died out.

  Zack tried to maintain his composure. "My grandfather was right. They never left."

  "Your grandfather?"

  "Yes," Zack said, his voice beginning to crack.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  "I'm fine," he lied.

  It was still a bit dim on their side of the chamber. Shining his flashlight down Zack could see the floor of the space around them, some six feet below. It was flat and smooth black rock. He hopped down first and said, "Before his death, my grandfather had come into possession of a journal. A journal rumored to have belonged to Bishop Alf, the last bishop of Greenland. It turned out to be a ledger of sorts."

  He held out a hand and helped Sydney jump down from the lip of the tunnel.