The Ice King

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘There’s a gate down here,’ called Latimer, ‘but it’s padlocked – hey, no it isn’t, it’s been forced! And put back so the break doesn’t show …’

  ‘Common enough in these out-of-the-way places,’ sighed Jackson. ‘Saves us the trouble. Come on, let’s go in, at least it’s out of the wind. Got the torch?’

  Freed from its little heap of snow, the narrow grille gate was forced creaking back. Stooping to manoeuvre himself and his ENG camera through the narrow opening, Latimer halted.

  ‘Wilf – what’s this down here?’

  Jackson crowded past him and scooped up the gleaming fragment. ‘Glass – thick glass, maybe – Tom! Yes! It could be that armour-glass stuff Hal ordered for the Museum –’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ grated Latimer. He unshipped the rig from his shoulder and thrust it at Jackson. ‘Drop that and I’ll flamin’ well kill you! Now –’ He yanked out the enormous revolver, hefted it a moment, considering. ‘Yeah, well, it could just be an ordinary bit of glass, couldn’t it? Still … what’s the layout in there?’

  ‘Layout? A – a sort of sloping tunnel, a bit low, so mind your head – a small funerary chamber off it, then the main chamber at the end, big and wide. If anyone’s in there, that’s where –’

  ‘Okay, I’ll lead – gimme the torch, dammit! And don’t bang that camera on the bloody walls!’

  Latimer’s face had drawn back into a hard mirthless grin. He ducked quickly through the low doorway and into the shadow beyond. Clutching the awkward rig, Jackson had to wrestle himself through, barking his knuckles on the projecting stones, ice-cold and nitrous. The floor was earth, over great boulders laid as flagstones, and in this sheltered place it wasn’t quite frozen; it drank in the sound of their footsteps. Their breathing was the loudest sound, Latimer’s cat-quick panting and Jackson’s nervous snuffles. He felt a sudden draught, saw a patch of darkness somehow darker than the rest, blinked at a quick flicker of Latimer’s torch. The opening to the little side chamber, and he was making sure it was empty. Nothing moved but the slow drops of moisture falling from the irregular stones. Then the light went out, and the darkness wrapped itself around them again. Jackson moved forward, then jumped as he bumped into Latimer, unexpectedly close.

  ‘Watch that fuckin’ camera!’ hissed the Australian. ‘Jeez!’

  Jackson heard him pad quickly away down the tunnel, turned to follow. It curved slightly just here … He bounced off the unseen wall, feeling his anorak scrape and snag, clutched the camera to his bosom and scuttled frantically on. Only a few steps later he cannoned into somebody again, and squeaked with fright.

  ‘Jeez, will you –’

  ‘What’d you expect, just standing –’

  ‘Where’s the bloody main –’

  ‘Go on! Go on! Just ahead–’

  Latimer snarled something incoherent and plunged on. Jackson followed, hit his head a ringing blow on a projecting roof stone and almost dropped the camera rig. But only a step or two further on he felt the air change around him, the deadened footfalls begin to echo slightly. It felt less close, less still, but something hung in the air, a taint …

  ‘Where’s the bloody main chamber?’ Latimer repeated angrily, only half whispering.

  ‘Can’t you feel? You’re in it! Use the torch! Use the wretched torch!’

  It flickered on, but revealed only Latimer’s furious face an inch or two from his own. A trickle of blood ran down from one temple, and Jackson realised why the cameraman had been standing still. He must have caught his head on the same stone, rather more severely by the look of it. Jackson reached out for the torch, caught the gun barrel instead and let go hurriedly. He swung Latimer’s hand around to sweep the beam across the chamber floor beside them – and felt the cameraman jump when he did.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said Jackson, who seldom swore.

  ‘Bloody … hell …’ breathed Latimer.

  Just next to them, so close they might have tripped over it, was a very ordinary carved wooden stool, and beside it a small table, equally rough and nondescript. In themselves, nothing. But both men recognised them at once; they had been part of the cottage reconstruction at the Museum. Latimer raised the beam slightly, and a scatter of objects glinted on the tabletop – plain domestic objects, some replicas, some real, snatched from the shattered display cases. Crude knives, wooden platters, a large cracked earthenware jug – and beside it an oddly shaped cup Jackson didn’t recognise. Almost absently he reached out for it, felt it weigh cold and heavy in his fingers. He rubbed it with his sleeve, and saw ornamentation like tangled leaves gleam up at him. Latimer peered down at it.

  ‘Looks like silver, that. Nice. Might be worth a bob, eh?’

  ‘Worth more than a bob,’ Jackson murmured. ‘And not just because it’s silver – it’s priceless, unique. Scandinavian, early Urnes style – but I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Where …’ Then it hit him. ‘Tom – this must be something that was in the chests!’

  ‘Yeah …’ whispered Latimer, awed. Then he stiffened, as both men remembered exactly what that implied – and also that they hadn’t yet looked behind them. Jackson saw the gun swing up in Latimer’s hand, and then the light dance wildly over the walls as he spun around. Jackson, encumbered by camera and cup, turned more slowly – and stopped when he saw the taut animal mask of Latimer’s face.

  ‘What is it? What’s –’

  The torch flicked out. ‘Gimme that rig, quick! Gotta get some proper light –’ The camera was snatched out of his hands and he was left to endure minutes of feverish switching, clicking, connecting sounds in the darkness, no word from Latimer but half-voiced oaths. Jackson sensed something had rattled the cameraman, and badly; the air stank of fear, and not only his own. And beneath it that putrid, bitter taint –

  A cold sun flared in the night, and he was blinded. He flung an arm across his eyes, too late to blot out the glare. For long moments he cringed in utter helplessness, blind to everything but scarlet streaks and blotches. ‘You might at least have warned me!’ he protested.

  All Latimer said was ‘Look!’

  He stared, blinked, made out a blurred outline, blinked again as the streaks faded from his retina. A shape – a bed, the tall carved bedstead from the house display – and on it … He yelled aloud at the sight.

  The bitter greenish glare of the ENG rig’s lighting filled the wide chamber, glancing off the low roof, highlighting every hollow and outcrop of the ancient stones in the walls with stark shadows. The rich carvings on the bedposts stood out in high relief, and the posts themselves threw long dragon shadows over what lay beneath.

  There were two of them in the bed, naked, slumped in a limp parody of sleep, one figure on its face, the other on its side with its back to them. Choking with shock, Jackson stumbled forward, but Latimer held him back. ‘Better not get too close, Wilf,’ he muttered, in an unusually mild voice. ‘You wouldn’t like it. Me, I’ve seen this sort of thing before – too often, bloody sight too often. They’re dead – been dead quite a time, too, I reckon.’

  ‘That smell –’ Jackson whispered.

  ‘Yair. World’s worst. Caught a whiff when I came, but I never thought – Must be the cold in here that’s kept ’em this whole, or we’d’ve smelt ’em sooner. God …’

  ‘But who …’ Suddenly Jackson dropped to one knee, staring at the long muscular arm that lay draped over the edge of the bedstead, hand palm uppermost on the floor. ‘That arm – look at the size of it – it looks like Jay’s!’

  ‘Relax!’ grunted Latimer. He stepped forward and bent over the bed. ‘Yeah, thought so, his hair’s black. Never seen this guy before – though the way his face is, his own ma might have trouble … All blown up, jeez … And the other – Christ!’

  Jackson was happy enough to stay where he was. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A girl – a woman, who can tell? Shit, these murdering bastards!’

  ‘You think –’

  ‘S’obvio
us, ain’t it? That’s a couple more deaders old Ridley can chalk up on their slate. And they don’t bloody hang ’em any more!’

  ‘Two more … but why?’

  ‘Well, I don’t bloody know, do I? They’re just lyin’ here stiff as boards – no use askin’ them! Innocent bystanders or something – maybe a pair of gippos who saw too much, or hippies sleeping rough, they look a bit like that. These bastards’ll kill anyone in their way, we know that.’

  ‘And just leave the bodies here? With their loot?’

  ‘Wouldn’t worry some people. Couldn’t bury ’em in frozen ground – not that the sods’ve ever buried anyone. Just kill and leave ’em lyin’, like the Afghans did the Russkies – bof!’

  With an effort Jackson choked down the rising acid in his throat. ‘Well … we’d better go and call Ridley …’

  ‘Hang on!’ protested Latimer. ‘I haven’t got any piccies yet!’

  ‘What? You want …’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what we were looking for all this bloody time, weren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but … this …’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t hang it on my bedroom wall, but it’s what the news is all about, eh? Isn’t it?’

  Jackson shook his head frantically. ‘You can come back with the police – come on!’

  ‘No! Bloody hell, the cops’ll never let me get any film. It’ll only take a minute – you go phone!’

  ‘But if they come back –’

  ‘Oh Christ – look, c’mon!’ The cameraman swung the rig around and prodded Jackson up the short tunnel ahead of him till they reached the gate. ‘Look! See! One bloody great bare field. Past that there’s that scrubby little copse, the marsh on all the other sides, and more open field every which flamin’ way you look – see how far back you can see our tracks in the snow? Anyone shows up headed this way, you’ll see ’em half a mile off – just give me a shout and we can eff off out of it at speed, okay? Right –’

  Jackson stared at the sinking sun, reddened and angry against the lifeless sky. ‘But it’ll be dark soon. You know what Ridley –’

  ‘Better bloody well get on with it then, hadn’t I?’ grunted Latimer obstinately. ‘Look, it’s not going to get pitchy the moment the sun drops, is it? We’ll have time to get back to the car. You hang on there an’ shut up unless you see something, you hear?’

  Jackson shut up. He was afraid to stay, but more afraid to go back on his own. Latimer had the torch and the gun, too. He’d have to wait it out. He shuddered, hugged himself for warmth and comfort, and realised he was still carrying the cup. He tucked it into his anorak pocket as far as it would go, and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He meant to keep a minute watch, but a few minutes of scanning an empty field of snow became boring; he took to glancing occasionally down the tunnel to where Latimer was disengaging the lighting units and setting them up for maximum spread, creating weird flickering shadows on the wall. It made Jackson think of the grave rites that must have once been performed among these very walls, and he shuddered again. Even the Vikings, a people much more sophisticated than the original barrow-builders, had thought of the grave as a kind of dwelling or home. The Museum had had that carved bed copied faithfully from one they’d found in the Oseberg ship burial – grave furniture, he thought uncomfortably, only too appropriate now …

  Quickly he glanced out over the fields again, but they were empty and still as ever, and no new tracks had appeared. Looking back, he could just make out the bed’s high shadow on the curving wall, and that of Latimer moving around beside it, reaching out as if to tilt one of the dead faces towards camera. Jackson’s stomach turned. He looked hurriedly away, taking a deep breath of the chilly air, and saw the sun spill its last scarlet light across the low hilltops. Then it dipped, sank and was gone, and the colour drained out of the landscape. Shivering, he turned to call Latimer, and saw a sudden rush and flicket of movement reflected on the tunnel wall. He heard Latimer’s voice raised, and scuttled down the tunnel towards his only security. But almost at once he stopped in his tracks, shaking. The patch of light was wiped out, eclipsed by an immense shadow that slid across it. Then it passed, the light blazed – and went out in a shattering of glass. He heard, unbelieving, a high hoarse yell, a scream almost in which only one word was clear, his own name, and barely recognised Latimer’s voice. Then in its echo another voice, echoing crazily from wall to wall around his head, the deep slamming report of a pistol, twice. And then, as the echoes died, a slow horrible sound like dry wood snapping and mud sucking, and the short sharp blow of the butcher’s cleaver. Something fell with a liquid slump and a soft, gargling rattle. Jackson yelped like a beast and ran – up, out, through the low entrance, never noticing as he grazed his head, and up, away into the open whiteness.

  But outside the barrow the field had vanished, sunk into swirling grey as if the clouds had come dropping down to bar his way. The icy mist closed and weaved around the barrow, mixed light and darkness, deadening sound. He gulped it in regardless, and it froze his lungs, he staggered into it and lost all sense of direction, knowing only that he had to run, bolt, anywhere but here, to be anywhere else in the world but here. He managed only a few steps in the snow before colliding with a solid form. He clung to it to keep from falling, looked up – and gasped with incredulous relief.

  ‘Oh God,’ he babbled, ‘it’s you, thank God, I thought – you’ve got the – we’ve got to – come on, let’s go!’ His voice faded and ran down like a clockwork toy. Strong arms reached down to help him up, and he tried to wheeze out a grateful word. But the newcomer was looking not at him but over his shoulder; Jackson squirmed around to follow his gaze.

  There were other forms in the mist, strangely distorted by it, peculiarly tall, lithe outlines that seemed to slip in and out of its coils, only gradually coalescing and growing clear. He saw the first one – huge, half-naked, leaden-skinned as if he had the mist for blood. And behind him a woman, face hidden, quite naked – a lean, high-breasted nakedness he somehow seemed to recognise, but as if he saw it in a distorting mirror. Metal, pale and cold, glinted among the shadows on their bodies, among the dark tangles of their hair. And still more shadows, inchoate still, slithered and writhed in and out of vision behind them, and the mist was full of faint sounds.

  Frozen, transfixed, Jackson saw the tall man reach out an arm, sinewy, massive. The motion revealed a shadow, stain or hollow in his side, deep black against the dull skin. The huge fist opened, and a finger, ridged and black-nailed, pointed straight at him. He opened his mouth to scream, but felt the hands which held him lift him up, up, bodily, and keep lifting; they grew tighter, harder, till the fingers seemed to be biting right through his clothes and tearing into his flesh. He tried to kick out, and found his feet already free of the ground and flailing at the elusive mist. He was suspended by his outstretched arms, sagging between them and twisting with the pain in his shoulders, and the more he twisted the more it hurt. He yelled and squirmed to show them it was unbearable and they had to stop; but somehow, impossibly, unbelievably, it wasn’t stopping, it was getting worse and the hands that held him tighter yet. They were clutching harder, harder, with impossible strength that bent his bones and ground them together till hands and wrists seemed to be swelling like balloons. He heard his clothes tear, and then something terrible happened in his shoulders and an agony like liquid fire erupted in his chest, a searing that bent him backwards like a bow so he stared up into the face he had recognised, relied on, and saw it staring coldly down at him. Someone was shrieking with lunatic laughter, and he never knew it was himself. The tall figure swam into his reddening sight, and the hollow in his side seemed to glimmer, as if the mist beyond shone through it. Still kicking vainly, he felt the cup leap from his pocket and strike his leg as he fell, and then a seam of icy agony ripped across his mind.

  The cup lay half sunken in the snow. There was a sound like a splitting branch, and liquid splashed and spattered across it. Something was dropped to one side of it
, and an instant later something else, much heavier, that fell and lay like a sack. The steaming fluids cut channels in the snow, and the cup filled to overflowing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AGAINST THE door of the Two Ravens saloon bar fantastic shadows materialised, shapeless shimmers in the hammered glass panels, shading from grey to black. Then it was thrust open, and out of the early evening dimness the two figures seemed to solidify and take shape. They let the door sink to on its spring behind them, but a wisp of icy air licked through and followed them like an uncomfortable memory. They stopped to kick the caked snow from their boots, saying nothing, as if the silence outside had sunk into their bones as deeply as the chill.

  ‘Evening, Harry!’ said the landlord. ‘Evening, Nev! Usual, eh?’

  Neville nodded listlessly, and Harry, hopping up on a bar stool, hastily filled the gap. ‘Not ’imself – been like it all day. Ah c’mon, you gloomy booger, cheer up!’

  The landlord leaned on the pump lever. ‘Weather getting him down, eh? Me too, an’all! Look at the place! Open half an hour, and there’s only the three of you in ’ere! I thought you diggers wouldn’t be put off by the snow, even if everyone else seems t’be.’

  ‘Ah, nobody’s got the ’eart for it, Fred,’ sighed Harry. ‘All this business – that lad Paul, and now Pru, and t’Old Bill from Leeds grillin’ us half the day – we’re all right friggin’ fed oop. I mean, look at Laughing Boy ’ere –’

  ‘Or her,’ said the landlord, tilting his head slightly towards the chimney corner. From long experience the men glanced, not around, but up into the big wall mirror behind the bar shelves. They saw a figure hunched over a table, staring vacantly into the gas-log fire and toying with a half-empty glass, and they knew her at once by the bright tartan shirt and the tangle of damp dark curls.

  ‘Ey-up, Jess!’ said Harry brightly.

  ‘Hi,’ she croaked, without turning her head.

  Harry raised his eyebrows to the others. ‘Fancy a jar wi’ us – maybe a bite t’eat, an’all? Hey?’