She used her spikes to drive herself upwards and sideways. Ever-larger pieces of ice fell and shattered around them. Eddie ducked as a wardrobe-sized hunk burst apart, a piece as big as himself barely missing him as it swept past.
Worse was about to come. A deep, sorrowful moan echoed from above, the Dionysius’s trapped hull straining to support the rest of the vessel’s weight. Rivets burst from the plating like bullets. Either the ice was about to give way – or the ship.
And he and Nina were right in its drop zone.
‘Nina!’ he shouted. ‘Let go – jump!’
‘What? Are you crazy?’
‘Slide down! It’s the only way we’ll get clear in time—’
The ceiling exploded as the Dionysius finally broke from its prison – and fell.
Eddie had already thrown himself down the slope, grabbing the redhead as he whisked past. He looked back – as the Dionysius smashed down like a hammer of the gods.
The blow shattered the frozen wall beneath it, a shock wave flinging Nina and Eddie into the air amongst a hailstorm of flying debris. They landed hard not far above the waterline where the slope shallowed, grinding to a standstill in the broken ice.
But they were still not safe. The Dionysius lay on its side . . . but then the crushed cliff beneath it began to slip away in a sparkling avalanche.
With an animalistic roar, the ship followed.
‘Run!’ Nina screamed. She yanked Eddie to his feet, then they charged across the bottom of the slope.
The Dionysius swept sidelong towards them, a hundred-and-twenty-foot plough scraping up everything in its path. Nina’s crampons both helped and hindered, giving her grip, but also turning each step into a Frankensteinian stagger. Eddie was no better off, skidding on the loose, slippery surface.
The ice-encrusted juggernaut drew closer, snarling and screeching as it bore down upon them—
They dived over a ridge just as the ship’s bow sliced past right behind, half burying them in a cascade of frozen rubble. The Dionysius hit the water, kicking up a massive wave. It rolled almost to the point of capsizing before swinging back upright. A crane on its aft deck collapsed and slumped over the gunwales like a broken-necked giraffe, the funnel toppling after it with a hollow crash.
Nina clawed her way out of the broken ice and stared in disbelief at the rocking ship. ‘Oh my God! We made it!’
‘We’ve still got to get out of here,’ Eddie reminded her, a hand to his temple where he had been struck by debris. ‘Christ, my head hurts. Got any ice?’
‘Ho h— Oh shit.’ She looked past the Dionysius to see the wave it had thrown up pound against the cavern’s far wall . . . and rebound back at them.
This time it was Eddie’s turn to pull her with him. They scrambled away from the water’s edge, but the smashed surface turned every step into a nightmare. The wave grew louder—
And hit them.
They were both swept up the slope by the freezing water – then dragged away by the backwash as it retreated. Nina gasped as the deathly chill penetrated her clothing. She fought desperately to keep her head above the surface, only to be slapped by choking breakers of salty froth. All she could do was try to stay upright until the wild ride eased.
She heard her name being shouted. ‘Eddie!’ she replied, spitting out seawater and searching for him. She belatedly realised she had lost the pouch containing the golden key, but that was now the least of her worries. ‘Where are you?’
‘Over here!’ His voice came from the direction of the Dionysius. He was out of the water, on the mangled crane arm. ‘Swim over here and climb up!’
Despite the draining cold and the still-turbulent water, she managed to make her way to the ship and hook an arm over the metal frame. ‘Oh God! I’m freezing!’ she gasped.
‘Get out of the water, then we’ll worry about warming up.’ He helped her over the gunwale and they huddled together, shivering on the frost-covered deck. The ship’s superstructure had been damaged by the fall, skewed sideways and every window smashed. ‘What the hell just happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nina replied as she fumbled to remove her crampons, ‘but it’s all to do with that.’ She indicated the fortress – then spotted something bobbing amongst the broken ice below. ‘And that.’
Eddie saw the floating yellow pouch. ‘Suppose you’ll want me to get that for you?’ he grumbled.
‘Normally I’d say yes, but it’s not at the top of my priorities list. Where are Cheng and Imka?’
‘In the UFO.’ Two faces peered down fearfully from the hatch. Eddie waved to them. ‘We’re okay!’ he called. ‘Use the ropes to climb down to us.’
‘I need to get back into the fortress,’ said Nina.
A moment of silence, then: ‘You what?’
‘I think I started all this when I touched the key after Cheng put it in the altar – so maybe I can stop it as well! Like in the vault in Turkey – I felt as if I could control the flow of earth energy. If I can do the same here—’
‘This whole place’ll come apart before you get the chance!’ Eddie countered. Even though the fortress was approaching equilibrium, the iceberg around it was still racked with tremors, as if D43 was fighting back against whatever unnatural forces had rolled it around. Deep, dark cracks now sliced through the translucent sapphire ceiling, and the water’s surface was alive with splashes as ice constantly fell from above. ‘Wait here – I’ll see if there’s a lifeboat we can use to get out.’
He turned – and to his dismay saw a frost-shrouded orange fibreglass hull mangled beneath the fallen crane. ‘Buggeration and fuckery! What are the bloody odds?’
Wait – the ship itself was still afloat . . .
A couple of life vests hung on hooks beside the crushed lifeboat. He looked up at the ledge. Imka had attached another length of rope to the carabiners and thrown it down the slope. ‘Grab these and get onto the ship!’ he shouted, before tossing both vests ashore.
‘Shouldn’t we swim out of the cave?’ Imka yelled back.
‘Only if you want to be stuck on a freezing iceberg with no food and no shelter! You know how ship engines work, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘If you can start this one, we’ve got a chance of staying alive!’
Imka seemed unconvinced, but nevertheless started down the slope.
Nina regarded him with equal disbelief. ‘This ship’s been frozen upside down for four months, and just got dropped from the ceiling! We’re lucky it hasn’t sunk already – I don’t think we’ll be able to just push the starter and chug out of here.’
‘It’s a big diesel engine – it takes a lot to fuck ’em up. And the fuel’ll have loads of antifreeze in it. As long as it hasn’t all leaked out, we might be able to get the ship running – if we can start it.’
‘That’s kind of a big if.’
‘I’d rather try it than swim outside and climb the iceberg. Especially when Harhund’s still out there.’ That triggered a mental warning: where was the mercenary leader, and what was he doing? ‘Keep moving, it’ll help you warm up. I’ll be right back.’
He hurried to the stern. The cave mouth was an irregular oval of glare. He squinted, trying to focus on what lay beyond.
No sign of the Torrox – but there was another ship, rust-streaked white above a grimy black hull. The sarcophagus was being brought aboard by a foredeck crane. He could just about read the ship’s name: Tahatu? It sounded Indonesian, or Maori.
He frowned. Even if they started the Dionysius’s engine, they didn’t dare leave the cave. There were at least two armed mercenaries on the other ship, maybe more—
A loud, crackling boom made him flinch. He spun, seeing broken ice fall from a huge new crack extending from the ancient ship to the hole in the ceiling where the Dionysius had been trapped.
Imka was alm
ost at the bottom of the cliff, Cheng clumsily following her down. The student cried out as a chunk struck him, and lost his hold on the rope. He skidded down the slope, yelling all the way, and was about to slither straight into the water when Imka grabbed him and brought him to a halt just short of the sloshing edge.
Nina let out a relieved breath. ‘God, I thought he was going in.’
‘He’ll have to go in anyway,’ Eddie pointed out.
Imka helped Cheng up, then retrieved the life vests. She donned hers, and offered the other to him – only for him to hold up his hands in rejection, instead taking off his backpack. ‘What’s he doing?’ Eddie asked in disbelief. He shouted across the water. ‘Leave the bloody bag and put your vest on!’
Cheng shook his head, saying something to Imka that produced a nod of understanding. She gave him her own life vest before carefully tying his bulging backpack on top of the other. Eddie stared in angry bewilderment. ‘No, just leave it! Don’t— Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Imka jumped into the water, gasping with the shock of the cold before waving for Cheng to follow. He did so, letting out a stifled shriek as the freezing sea swilled over him. Imka started to pull him towards the Dionysius, Cheng towing his pack on top of the flotation device.
More icy fragments skittered down the cliff in their wake. Another echoing crack came from above as a new fault line zigzagged upwards from the fortress. A car-sized lump of ice plunged from it, slamming down on the shimmering metal hull – with a flare of light.
Nina’s eyes snapped to it. It hadn’t been caused by sparks; rather, the strange iridescent glow seemed to have reacted to the impact. To her surprise, the metal was undented despite being hit by a ton of frozen water.
The fortress had not escaped unscathed, though. The impact was transmitted through the rest of the structure – and part of the ice wall trapping it began to crumble.
With a tearing crunch, the fortress started to grind loose of its prison.
‘Eddie, look!’ she gasped, but her husband was focused on the two people struggling through the water. As they approached, he climbed down the crane to meet them.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ he demanded as Imka guided the young man and his bobbing cargo to the ship’s side. ‘Don’t waste time faffing about with his luggage – this place might collapse any second!’
‘His laptop is in it,’ Imka said through chattering teeth.
‘So? You planning to order some towels from Amazon so we can dry off?’
‘It has a satellite link,’ Cheng explained, with a hint of patronising exasperation even through his shivering discomfort. ‘If we get out of the cave, we can use it to call for help!’
The Yorkshireman stared at him. ‘Oh. Okay. Good idea,’ he admitted after a moment.
Nina laughed. ‘Mr Hui, you just earned yourself extra credit.’
Eddie helped Imka up, then snagged the backpack and passed it to her before bringing Cheng onto the crane. They clambered towards the deck. ‘We can’t send an SOS yet, though. Those arseholes have got a ship out there – if they know we’re still alive, they’ll come back and kill us.’
‘Then we can’t leave the cave even if you start the engine,’ said Nina.
Eddie followed Imka and Cheng aboard. ‘I know. I’m hoping they bugger off soon, otherwise—’
Deafening thunder from above – and a huge section of the icy ceiling plunged downwards.
It hit the fortress. Another strange flash from the rippling hull, but this time it could not deflect the damage. Thousands of tons of compacted ice sheared the exposed half of the ancient structure from the wall – and pounded it flat, the whole thing disintegrating in an explosion of mangled metal and shattered crystal.
The watchers on the ship dived to the deck as debris spun at them. The Dionysius shuddered as if struck by cannon fire. Nina clung to a stanchion as the ship reeled beneath her.
Not just the ship. The entire cavern – the entire iceberg.
The fortress was destroyed, and now whatever force had tipped the great mass of ice over was gone.
D43 was about to roll back upright – with them still inside it.
13
‘If you can start the engine, now’d be a good time!’ Eddie told Imka. He led her at a run into the ship.
Nina picked up Cheng’s backpack and guided her student after them. ‘Get inside,’ she said. ‘It might be a bit warmer – and there’s less chance of getting beaned by falling ice!’
The redhead looked back at the remains of the fortress as they reached the hatch. A last residual glow from its heart flickered beneath the smashed ice and mangled metal . . . then faded to nothing.
‘The key!’ she suddenly cried, darting to the ship’s side and looking down. The artefact was the cause of all this – and it was bobbing somewhere below. The surface was awash with floating ice. Where was the key? If there was any chance that the murderous Harhund might reclaim his prize, she had to stop it—
Yellow amongst the white and blue. The pouch was drifting towards the cavern’s mouth, pushed by the rebounding waves.
Cheng still wore his life vest. ‘Give me that!’ she said, hurriedly pulling it from the surprised student. She put her arms through the straps – and leapt over the side.
She was already cold, but the freezing water was an even greater shock than before. The vest butting under her chin, she shook stinging brine from her eyes.
The pouch was nowhere in sight. She started to swim, hoping the exertion would counter the draining chill gnawing at her limbs. ‘Cheng! Where’s the key?’
Cheng gawped at her before looking hurriedly about, then pointing past the ship’s stern. ‘There, over there!’
Nina still couldn’t see the pouch, but she struck out regardless.
An almost impossibly deep rumble reached her, the vibration coming as much through the water as the air. The whole iceberg was straining as its weight began to roll it back over. A wave-smoothed outcrop of cyan ice near the entrance had been raised higher above the surface; now it sank again.
And the cave’s mouth was shrinking too, slowly retreating into the water.
The realisation galvanised her to swim harder, determined to find the key – while she could still escape with it.
Imka took the lead from Eddie as they descended into the Dionysius’s dark bowels; the South African knew the ship’s layout, and she still had a flashlight clipped to her harness. ‘In here.’
She pushed open a hatch and stepped into the engine room. Eddie recoiled at the stench of oil, seeing the floor slick with dark, glutinous ooze. Even at freezing temperatures, some of the engine’s lubricants had remained semi-liquid, leaking from the machinery while the ship hung inverted. ‘Will it still run without all this?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know if it will run at all!’ Imka replied. The main diesel engine, a hulking dull-green block the size of a car, filled the room’s centre. ‘I’ll use the compressed air system to move the pistons, but if there isn’t enough air in the tanks, there’s nothing I can do. There won’t be any power to start the compressors.’
‘You sure?’
‘I smelled acid when we passed the battery room. It must have drained out when the ship turned upside down.’
‘Glad we weren’t barefoot, then. Where’s this air system?’
‘Over here.’ She aimed her light at a panel beside a line of large grey cylinders, each the size of a bathtub. Steel hoses ran from valves to the engine. She tapped at a glass-fronted pressure gauge before turning a handle below it. Air thrummed through the pipes, the gauge’s needle springing up.
‘Will it work?’ Eddie asked.
She pursed her lips. ‘It might. But there isn’t much air in the tanks. And the engine’s cold; there’s no way to pre-heat it. It might have seized up.’
‘We’ve got to try,’ he insisted. ‘Other
wise we’ll freeze – or get shot. Anything I can do to help?’
She pointed at a console. ‘That’s for engine control. The ship’s pointing away from the cave entrance, so I need you to set it to reverse. Oh!’ she added as he started towards it. ‘And the turning gear interlock has to be disengaged. It’s on the other side of the engine, a red valve.’
‘Bit dark,’ he said, rounding the block to see only shadows.
‘Sorry.’ She joined him and aimed the light at a protruding cylinder. ‘There. Open it as far as you can.’
He started to turn the valve as she returned to the air tanks. ‘You really know your way around a ship.’
‘My dad was an engineer in the South African navy. I studied marine engineering at university. That was where I met Arnold, actually . . .’ The moment of brightness at the thought of her fiancé quickly vanished.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eddie said quietly.
‘Arnold . . . Arnold was inside the . . . the UFO when the ceiling fell in. There’s nothing left, he’s gone . . .’ Her voice quavered.
He kept turning the valve. ‘Imka. Imka! I know this is bad, but I need you. You’re the only one who can start the engine. Keep your mind on that – tell me what to do.’ The interlock reached its limit; he stopped, waiting for her response. When none came, he continued, more forcefully: ‘Imka. The valve’s open – now what?’
‘The . . . the engine control,’ she managed to say. ‘There are two dials with speeds marked on them. The one on the left, set it to slow astern.’
He picked his way across the oil-smeared floor to the console, just able to read the controls in the wash of her light. He turned the left-hand dial one notch anticlockwise, bringing a marker needle to the first position in a red zone: the ship’s reverse speeds. ‘Done.’
‘Okay. I’ll set the valves to put air into the first cylinder. If there’s fuel in the system, it’ll ignite when the cylinder reaches maximum compression and start the cycle.’
‘Will it work without the batteries?’
The Resurrection Key Page 15
