Kingdom of Darkness

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Wait, not yet,’ said Nina, alarmed. ‘I’ve found something – I think it’s part of Andreas’ challenge.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Zane replied as he pushed the detonators into the soft bricks. ‘Making sure the Nazis don’t get the water is all that matters now.’

  ‘But this might not be the only source,’ she protested. ‘The text said that once you reach this place, the fish will show you the spring – the fish!’ she cried in sudden realisation.

  ‘Christ, what about it?’ Eddie demanded. ‘Only way I’d get that excited about a fish is if it came with chips.’

  Nina pulled the artefact from her rucksack. ‘Ubayy, the light!’ The excitement in her voice captured even Zane’s attention.

  ‘What is it?’ Banna asked as he redirected the beam at the basin.

  ‘Look at the bowl – the shape and size of it. It’s a hell of a lot like this!’ She held the bronze relic above the water, revealing that they were a very close match in dimensions. ‘The upper and lower fins should fit perfectly on these little notches along the long sides – and as for the mouth . . .’

  She carefully aligned the twin curves of the fish’s lips with the carved recess beneath the spout. They were a perfect fit – and the metal nub slotted neatly into its mouth. ‘The fish goes into the basin,’ Nina explained as she prepared to seat the relic upon the other indentations. ‘Do what Andreas did, put it in the water, and . . .’

  She lowered it into place – and jumped away in shock as it moved.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Eddie said. The fish’s tail had started flapping the moment it was laid fully flat in the water, kicking up little splashes. ‘How’s it doing that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nina, watching in amazement. ‘Something to do with the charge in the water, I guess. Maybe some kind of primitive motor?’

  ‘A motor?’ said Zane, incredulous. ‘I thought this thing was two thousand years old! They didn’t have motors back then.’

  ‘All you need to make the simplest kind of motor is a wire and an electrostatic charge – that’s been known for centuries. And there have been plenty of cases where relatively advanced technology and ideas were lost or forgotten for long periods before being rediscovered. Andreas was well travelled and lived for hundreds of years, thanks to this water – that was plenty of time for him to combine different pieces of knowledge.’ She looked more closely. Glimpses of a moving mechanism were visible inside the slot along the relic’s back. ‘He had a sense of humour, too. According to the Romance, he discovered the spring when he dipped a preserved fish into it and it jumped back to life. Probably galvanic response, the electrical charge making the fish’s muscles twitch, but by making this fish do the same, it brings everything full circle—’

  The flapping abruptly stopped. Simultaneously, a deep clunk came from the chamber’s rear. Zane snatched up his Uzi. ‘What was that?’

  Nina took the flashlight from Banna. ‘Something just released . . .’ She directed the beam into the shadowed corner.

  Where one of the reliefs had previously been flush with its neighbour, there was now a small gap, a line of blackness an inch wide separating them. Nina scurried to investigate. ‘There’s a passage back here!’ she announced.

  Banna lifted the fish, which gave one final jerk of its tail before falling still. ‘Nina!’ he said, feeling the protrusion under the spout with his little finger. ‘Something was turning in its mouth. This spike must have fitted into it like a key.’

  ‘The fish unlocked it when it moved . . . and showed us the Spring of Immortality. Just like Andreas said,’ said Nina, going to the crack. ‘It’s still here – inside the mountain. Give me a hand.’

  Eddie and, after a moment of reluctance, Zane helped her to pull open the secret door. The flashlight revealed a narrow passage beyond, angling steeply upwards. Banna joined them, and they stared into the darkness.

  ‘So are we going up it?’ Eddie asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ replied Nina, starting through the opening.

  ‘Wait, wait!’ snapped Zane. ‘What about the Nazis? If they come back while we’re in there, we’ll be trapped – and we’ll have led them right to the spring! We’ve got to destroy this.’

  Nina stopped and rounded on him. ‘After everything we’ve been through, we’re right on the doorstep of something amazing – and you want to blow it up?’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ said Eddie. ‘If those bastards leave here with a tanker truck full of magic water, then they’ve won. And everyone they killed will have died for nothing,’ he added, with considerable meaning.

  Nina regarded them both for a moment. ‘Then blow it up,’ she finally said. ‘But I’m still going inside. No matter what.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ her husband said firmly.

  ‘Then why am I even here? Eddie, I told you: this is more than just what I do – it’s who I am. You of all people should know that by now. I might be dying, but I’m still not going to give up a foot from the finish.’ She turned to Zane. ‘Even if you blow up this room, the Nazis’ll just dig it out again – having the Mossad destroy it will prove to them that the spring’s really here. But if you destroy the source of the spring . . .’

  ‘We brought cyanide – a contingency plan,’ the Israeli admitted. ‘If we poison the water, it might kill the Nazis and their backers . . .’

  Eddie was now faced with options he disliked from both sides. ‘You’re not going up there,’ he told Nina, ‘and you,’ he said to Zane, ‘you’re not poisoning Iran’s water supply with fucking cyanide – that kind of thing counts as an act of war! Just blow this place up and let’s get out of here.’ He looked back at Nina. ‘Please?’

  ‘Eddie, she’s right,’ Zane was forced to admit. ‘Andreas and his followers dug all this out by hand – even if we destroy this room, it won’t take long to clear it with power tools and explosives. We’ll only delay the Nazis, not stop them. And if we leave here, we’ll lose track of them.’

  ‘So now you want to go in there too? A minute ago, you couldn’t wait to blow everything up!’

  ‘I know, but Nina’s made me realise there’s a better alternative. I don’t just want to stop these Nazis,’ he said, with sudden vehemence. ‘I want to kill them. I want them to pay for everything they’ve done. Not just what they did to me,’ he brought a hand to his bruised face, ‘but for what they did to my people – and your friends. Surely you can’t disagree with that.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ Eddie replied grudgingly. ‘I owe them for Macy, at the very least.’

  ‘And Dr Assad,’ said Nina. ‘And Bill, and Dina, and everyone else they murdered to find this place. We can’t let them control the Spring of Immortality. No matter what. You remember how I said I wanted to leave a legacy? Well, stopping Kroll and the other Nazis would be better than any book.’

  Eddie rubbed his forehead, conflicted and exasperated. ‘All right. We make sure they don’t get the spring – we poison it, blow it up, whatever. But we need to be quick, okay? It won’t be long before someone wonders why those guards haven’t come down for their bratwurst.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Zane. ‘Haber, you bring the explosives and detonators,’ he told the other Mossad operative. ‘I’ll tell Behr and Arens to keep watch – the others will come with us. The more men we have, the quicker we can set the C-4 if we need to,’ he explained to Nina before hurrying back outside.

  ‘You absolutely sure about this?’ Eddie asked his wife. ‘’Cause if we go in there, we probably won’t come back out.’

  ‘I’ve been on a one-way trip from the moment I was infected by the eitr,’ Nina insisted. ‘If I’m going to die . . . then I want to die for something, not of something. And I know you’ve always thought the same way. Fight to the end, as you say.’

  ‘Fight to the end,’ he echoed, a
lmost automatically, before adding: ‘Buggeration and fuckery. I’ve made you way too much like me.’

  ‘You’re a bad influence, Eddie Chase,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I love you all the same.’ She kissed him. He pulled her close and returned it, with passion. Banna blushed, finding a new fascination with the stone basin.

  The moment was broken as Zane returned with five of his men. ‘The Nazis are still in their camp, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay there. Haber, are you ready?’

  The agent picked up the pack of explosives. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Nina? You should lead the way – this is your find.’

  ‘And Ubayy’s,’ said Nina.

  The Egyptian shook his head. ‘It is an incredible discovery, but . . . the credit is yours. I wish I had not found it.’

  She gave him a sympathetic look, then faced the darkness beyond the secret door. ‘Okay, then. Let’s end this.’

  Steeling herself, she entered the passageway, Eddie and the others following.

  34

  They made their way up the steep tunnel. The last man, Krebs, tried to pull the door shut behind them, but was forced to leave it slightly ajar as the gap closed on his fingers. The passage was only wide enough for the group to proceed in single file, Nina’s caution – and archaeological urge to examine her surroundings – soon bottling up the others behind her. ‘Come on, love, shift it,’ Eddie complained. ‘We’re on the clock.’

  ‘I know, but look at this.’ Dust covered the stone floor, undisturbed for millennia – and visible in her flashlight’s beam were faint imprints, the sandalled feet of the last person to exit before the place was sealed. ‘Who knows how old these are?’

  ‘Nobody, and I doubt anyone but you cares either.’

  ‘All right, Jeez! Can’t a dying woman make her last discovery without being hassled?’ But she increased her pace.

  Zane shone his own light past the couple. ‘How long is the tunnel?’

  ‘I think I can see the top,’ Nina reported. ‘It opens out.’

  ‘Sounds echoey,’ said Eddie as they neared the summit. ‘Must be a fairly big space.’

  Nina reached it – and stopped in surprise, the others bumping together behind her. ‘Ah . . . yeah. You could say that.’

  They had emerged on to a ledge overlooking a deep vertical shaft, a ragged rift at least a hundred feet across that dropped away into the heart of the mountain. ‘So,’ said Eddie, peering over the edge, ‘finding the spring’s going to take a bit longer than we thought.’

  Nina shone her torch downwards. The powerful beam was reduced to a dim pinprick on the bottom far below. ‘Damn, that’s deep.’ She brought the light back up, seeing pathways carved into the walls of the shaft. They had been paved with stone slabs, but many were uneven or missing entirely, exposing the raw rock beneath.

  ‘There’s a way down here,’ said Zane, moving left along the ledge to illuminate the top of a steep path that descended clockwise around the shaft.

  ‘And here,’ added Eddie, finding a second route to the right. This one spiralled anticlockwise into the darkness below.

  ‘Which do we take?’ Banna asked.

  Nina tried to track one, but sections were blocked from view by the folds of the craggy walls. ‘I don’t know. It looks like there are junctions lower down, but I can’t see how they connect.’

  ‘We should split up,’ said Zane. ‘One group takes the left path, the other the right. We’ll divide the explosives – that way, whoever gets—’

  ‘No, no!’ she interrupted, disparate pieces suddenly slotting together. ‘We take the right path. We always take the right path!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘It was written on the arch – “Heed Alexander’s words, and you will have nothing to fear.” It’s what he said in the Romance, remember? Once you go through the arch, you always take the right-hand path or else you’ll become lost. “Lost” in this case meaning falling two hundred feet on to solid rock. This whole thing is part of Andreas’ challenge; I wouldn’t be surprised if the left path’s booby-trapped somehow.’

  Banna surveyed the chasm nervously. ‘We still might fall, whichever path we take. It does not look safe.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Eddie. ‘Nina, it’ll take ages to get to the bottom – if we even can. We should just rig the tunnel with C-4 and get out of here.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll get the chance,’ Zane said, whirling at the sound of someone running up the passage. He hefted his Uzi, but lowered it as he saw the two rearguard Mossad agents. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They’re coming,’ Arens reported breathlessly.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘All of them,’ the other agent told him. ‘We could never have stopped them, so we came to warn you.’

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Zane. ‘We won’t have enough time to set the explosives.’

  ‘We could hold them off here,’ suggested Behr. ‘They can only come up that tunnel one by one.’

  ‘They’ll make it eventually,’ Eddie warned.

  Zane considered his options, then: ‘Okay, Arens and Behr, hold them for as long as you can, then follow us down.’ He looked back at Nina as he went to the anticlockwise path. ‘I hope you’re right about going right.’

  ‘So do I!’ she replied. ‘I’ll go first – just in case I’m not.’ She started down the ledge.

  ‘Going into the depths of the bloody earth after some ancient legend?’ grumbled Eddie as he followed. ‘Been doing that a lot lately . . .’

  ‘Sir! Over here!’ yelled a soldier. Kroll looked towards the source of the shout as he strained up the hill. The man was pulling a bloodied corpse out from behind a tree.

  ‘Here’s another one!’ a second soldier reported.

  ‘It can’t have been the Egyptian,’ snarled Rasche, striding ahead of the Nazi leader. ‘Someone else is here.’ He glared back at Leitz. ‘Your Iranian friends, perhaps?’

  ‘It’s not them,’ panted Kroll. ‘It’s Wilde. She survived the bridge explosion, then followed the clues on the fish, just like us. And she brought the Mossad with her.’

  ‘So where are they?’ asked Schneider, eyes darting nervously across the forest.

  Kroll reached the arch, pausing to catch his breath as he pointed at the opening. ‘In there. Secure it,’ he ordered. ‘Quickly!’ Several soldiers ran into the shrine.

  ‘But there was nothing inside,’ said Rasche.

  ‘Nothing that we saw. But there must have been more to it.’

  ‘Then Banna lied to us. I’ll kill him when I find him!’

  ‘We’ll kill them all,’ Kroll growled. One of the soldiers hurried back out and saluted him. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘There’s a tunnel, mein Führer!’ the man said excitedly. ‘It wasn’t there before.’

  ‘Obviously it wasn’t there before, idiot,’ snapped Rasche. ‘Where does it go?’

  ‘Up into the mountain, sir. We couldn’t see the end.’

  ‘That’s where they’ve gone,’ said Kroll. ‘To find the spring – before we do.’

  Schneider regarded the opening with alarm. ‘To take the water for themselves?’

  ‘No. To stop us taking it!’ He called out to his troops. ‘We are going to make an assault on the spring! Everyone ready weapons!’

  ‘How big is this tunnel?’ Rasche asked the soldier.

  ‘Only wide enough for one man at once, sir.’

  The SS officer turned back to his commander. ‘We won’t stand a chance. Two or three men could hold off an entire Zugtrupp.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Kroll replied. ‘Leitz! The equipment you supplied; did you bring a thermal sight?’

  ‘If you asked for it, it’s here,’ Leitz replied.

&nb
sp; ‘Good. Then fit it to a rifle – if anyone puts their head around the end of that tunnel, blow it off!’

  Nina made her way carefully down the ledge. It was just wide enough for her to walk normally, but she still kept her back against the wall, sidestepping as quickly as she dared. Her flashlight picked out the path ahead – but she paused as someone else’s light briefly flicked across the chasm.

  Eddie stopped behind her. ‘Hang on, everyone,’ he called. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I saw something, over there.’ She redirected her torch. ‘On the other path . . .’

  She fell silent as she saw it. As did the others.

  ‘What is that?’ Zane exclaimed, adding his own beam to Nina’s. Others followed suit to illuminate the entire object.

  ‘That,’ said Banna, astonished, ‘is a Phytoi.’

  The lights danced over a statue carved from the rock face, a humanoid male over thirty feet tall. It was naked, but appeared entwined in vines and leaves. The sculpture had been hidden from their initial vantage point on the ledge by a fold in the cavern wall. The other route downwards crossed right in front of its chest, the great figure’s arms spread wide along the ledge. Bizarrely, instead of hands it had what resembled curved saw blades extending from its forearms.

  Nina remembered the name. ‘It’s a creature from the Alexander Romance, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes; plant men or forest men, according to different translations,’ Banna confirmed. ‘Alexander fought a tribe of them after conquering the Achaemenid Empire. They killed a hundred of his soldiers.’

  ‘Something to avoid, then,’ said Eddie. ‘Those arms – they look like they might swing out.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Nina said as she directed her light along one of the jagged limbs. ‘Could be a booby-trap.’

  ‘Then you were right about taking this path,’ said Zane.