As if to mock the effort of years of digging, the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, the stars sparkling overhead. The fleet could have gone around the Mount, but Xerxes would not hear of it. The canal had been dug and therefore the ships would use it.
Pandora had started to say something when Xerxes issued the order to his fleet commander, but he had chopped his hand to let her know he didn’t want to hear anything she said. She stood silently to the rear of his chair, her eyes on the back of the seat.
* * *
“Is she all right?” Leonidas asked.
Cyra had her hand on the Oracle’s forehead. “She’s alive.”
“What happened?”
“You saw as much as I did,” Cyra said.
Leonidas had noted that the boat — and the oarsman — who had brought them out to the ship were gone, most likely victims of the kraken. “Did she tell you this secret path?”
“Yes.”
Leonidas stood, waiting.
Cyra finally looked up. “So now you are in a rush?”
“It does us no good to remain here.”
One of the oarsmen came over and easily picked up the Oracle. He carried her back to the reed cave and laid her down on a mat, covering her with a blanket. Leonidas pointed at his own chest, and then toward the shore, or at least where he thought the shore was in the darkness. His army was marching for war — there were no fires to delineate where the Spartan camp was.
The warrior nodded and yelled orders in his language. The surviving men bent to the task and the ship began moving. The man who had carried the Oracle went back and retrieved the skull. He placed it under a blanket next to her body.
When the ship was close to shore, the rowers pulled their oars up and the ship glided to a halt, the keel lightly hitting. Leonidas carefully climbed over the side with one hand, the other clutching the Naga staff. His feet entered the water and he paused, then he lowered himself very slowly until he touched bottom. He stepped away and held up his free hand to help Cyra, but she ignored the assistance.
By the time they had walked up on shore, the ship was already pulling away from shore. Leonidas headed for camp, Cyra hurrying after him. When he was challenged by a sentry he called out the proper password then began issuing orders for all to be awakened and the march to be resumed, even though dawn was several hours away.
CHAPTER 13
PRESENT
Every human being on the planet, except for those on board aircraft in flight, felt it. It started almost five thousand kilometers inside the Earth, along the transition zone between the solid crystalline core and the molten inner core. The core turned, adjusting to the power coming down from the Nazca fault and in doing so sent P compression waves rippling through the inner core. The solid lower mantle dampened the effect somewhat, as did the upper mantle, but every person in contact with the surface of the planet felt the ground tremble under their feet.
The readings all over the planet were exactly the same, which told shocked scientists the source and foretold of much worse to come. Those same scientists were brought before heads of states and solutions were demanded.
The replies, to say the least, were unsatisfactory, especially given recent events over the Nazca Plain and Chernobyl.
* * *
“Do you still have the portal pinpointed?” Dane asked Ahana. He was bone-tired, having flown from the carrier, across Central America and a large part of the Pacific, back to the Devil’s Sea gate. He’d not felt the planet move, but he’d received the reports while in transit. The grim looks on Ahana’s, Marsten’s and Foreman’s faces confirmed what the numbers had reported.
Ahana nodded. “Yes. The probes we sent through are still transmitting.”
“I’m going in.”
“What are you going to do?” Foreman asked.
The Naga staff was leaning against the conference table and a large metal case holding the crystal skulls was on the floor. “I’m going to find Amelia Earhart first,” Dane said. “Then I’ll figure out the next step.”
“Not much of a plan,” Foreman complained.
“When you have a better one, let me know,” Dane said. He turned to Doctor Marsten, who had yet to speak. “Is Rachel ready?”
“Yes.”
“Have you translated any more of the dolphin cries that the Connecticut picked up?”
“As near as I can tell, it’s the same message, repeated over and over again. That’s all Rachel’s given back to me.”
Dane had been thinking about that. “What kind of map are they referring to?” he asked the room.
“It must be a map that shows the connections of the various portals,” Ahana said.
“But even if we get such a map,” Dane said, “how will that help us change the path of the power?”
There was no answer to that question, nor had Dane really expected one. He stood and picked up the Naga staff. “Give me a hand with that,” he asked Foreman, indicating the case with the skulls.
They walked onto the deck of the FLIP. A Deepflight submersible was waiting.
“You sure you want to go alone?” Foreman asked.
“I’m not going alone,” Dane said. He indicated a gray dorsal fin cutting through the water next to the submersible. He climbed down, onto the deck of the craft and stored the staff and skulls inside.
Deepflight was a radical departure from previous submersibles. It was designed more like an airplane than a submarine. It was forty feet long with a wingspan of fifteen feet. The compartment Dane would ride in was a titanium sphere in the very center. Wings with controllable flaps extended out from each side giving the craft excellent maneuverability. Forward of the sphere was a specially designed ‘beak’ that reduced drag when the submersible was moving forward. In the rear were two vertical fins right behind the dual propeller system that complemented the wings for three dimensional flight.
The crew sphere was solid with just two holes in it- one the hatch that screwed out and a second, smaller one that accessed control and command cables. To ‘see’ outside, Dane would use various cameras and radar. Powerful spotlights were bolted all around the craft. Dane paused in the hatch when Ahana spoke.
“There’s something interesting one of the navy people found when they ran a maintenance check on the submersible. It appears as if it passed through both high temperature and a strong radioactive field.”
Dane nodded. “We know some of the portals are hot.” It was one of the confusing aspects of the entire gate-portal system. Some were radioactive and had high temperatures, while others had neither characteristic.
“It had to have happened on the last trip in,” Ahana said.
“And?” Dane was anxious to be going.
“Then how did she get through unscathed?” Ahana was pointing at Rachel.
That gave Dane pause, but it was just one of many things he didn’t understand and didn’t particularly have time to ponder. “I don’t know. Let’s just be grateful that she does.”
He grabbed the hatch. “I will see you when I will see you.” He ducked down into the sphere and swung the hatch close, then began screwing it shut.
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Earhart almost collapsed from exhaustion as she put down the man she had carried from the Valkyrie cave. Asper, a US Navy assistant surgeon who had been aboard the USS Cyclops when it ran into the Bermuda Triangle gate in 1918, knelt next to the man.
“How is he?” Earhart asked.
“Seems all right,” Asper said as he examined him. “Shock mostly.”
Earhart had seen it before. New arrivals to the nexus were often so stunned by their abduction that it took a day or two for them to regain their bearings. She noted the man’s clothing.
“US Navy?”
Asper nodded. “Looks like. But not from my time.” He touched the silver eagle on the man’s collar. “A captain.”
Earhart noted something on the man’s chest — an insignia shaped like a dolphin. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Curious,” Earhart remembered the dolphin that had accompanied Dane. “I think—” she
paused and turned her head toward the inner sea. “He’s here.” She smiled. “And so is she.” “What?” Asper asked. “Who’s here?” She turned to Taki. “Come.”
* * *
The touch of the inner sea’s water on his skin sickened Dane. Everything was slightly wrong with the elements inside the space-between. The air smelled funny, the water felt and tasted strange, and the black soil was unlike anything Dane had ever seen on Earth.
The case containing the skulls was waterproof and he was able to half lay on it as he kicked for shore, Rachel at his side, the Naga Staff in his hand. He’d left Deepflight anchored just outside of the portal he’d come through.
Rachel cut across in front of him, rolling on her side, rubbing against his legs and Dane stopped kicking as a vision flashed into his brain: rows of men in armor, spears leveled, advancing across a plain. Then it was gone.
Dane wasn’t surprised to look up and see Amelia Earhart standing on the shoreline, her samurai guards around her, waiting for him. His feet touched bottom and he walked up to her, carrying staff and case.
“I knew you would come back,” Earhart said. “And we need that,” she added, pointing at
the Naga staff. “For what?” Dane asked, not surprised that she needed it. “To capture some Valkyries with.” “And what do we do with them?” “Take their armor suits.” “And then?” Earhart put her hands on her hips. “I thought you would tell me that.” Dane slowly nodded. “Let’s get the Valkyries first. One step at a time.” She paused. “There’s something else — actually a couple of things.” “Yes?” “My navigator arrived here not long ago.”
“Noonan? I thought you said you saw him die?”
“I did say it and I did see it,” Earhart said. “But he arrived here alive — seriously injured and sick — but alive. His message was that we had to get some Valkyrie armor. And that someone would come with—” she pointed—“a Naga staff to help us do that.”
“Are you sure he died?”
“A kraken punched a tentacle through his chest,” Earhart said. “There’s no evidence of a wound at all on the man here.”
“You don’t think its Noonan?”
“No, it’s him.”
“How can that be?”
“I thought you might tell me.”
Dane didn’t have a clue. “You said there were a couple of things?”
“We also just rescued a couple of castaways — they appear to be from the US Navy, from around your time probably.”
Dane nodded. “We just lost one of the submarines near the Devil’s Sea gate.” As Earhart led the way back toward her camp, Dane filled her in on everything else that had happened since he’d left her and returned to his own world and time. Behind them, Rachel slowly circled, then sprinted off toward the dozen portals visible.
THE PRESENT
Some places on the planet’s surface were less stable than others. When the core shifted a second, more powerful, time, several of these gave way. The most significant was in the Rift Valley in Africa, the longest continuous land crack on the surface of the planet. Along the six thousand, seven hundred kilometer length of the Great Rift was the lowest land point in the world — the Afar Depression at 510 feet below sea level- and along its flanks were some of the highest and largest volcanoes, including Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.
From the north, the Rift starts in southern Turkey, running from there to Syria, then splitting Israel from Jordan with the Dead Sea, then along the full length of the Gulf of Aqaba and Red Sea, where it splits going both north and south. The northern branch runs along the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean, separating the Arabian plate from the Indo-Australian plate.
Southwards, it cleaved the eastern half of Africa, forming the Galla Lakes of Ethiopia, into Kenya, where it cut through a place called Kino Sogo, a vast plain of lava sheets that the Rift was tearing apart. From there it continued producing Lake Turkana, then into land so barren no one lived there, which was fortunate given what was coming.
Given fossil discoveries such as that in the Olduvai Gorge, it was widely suspected that human-kind originated in the Rift. As the crystal moved for a second time, it appeared as if it would as be the beginning of the end of mankind.
As the inner Earth shifted below, the entire right side of the Rift Valley, which represented the western edge of the Somali African tectonic plate, dropped a quarter mile in less than fifteen seconds. The drop was destructive enough for those living in those countries from the eastern half of Mozambique to Ethiopia, killing almost a million people straight out as the Earth buckled and spasmed.
Worse followed. The drop put the majority of the land below sea level. The Indian Ocean poured in, creating a thousand mile long waterfall, the likes of which the planet hadn’t seen since the Mediterranean Basin opened to the Atlantic Ocean and began to fill.
Millions more died as the wall of water over eight hundred feet high roared forward, destroying and submerging everything in its path until it smashed up against the mountains forming the left side of the Rift Valley and were now the east coast of Africa.
A tidal wave, nothing compared to the incoming one, headed back out to sea after the collision. It devastated Madagascar, swept over the Seychelles, and deaths would be recorded as far away as India and Australia.
The face of the Earth had been changed in less than a few minutes time.
CHAPTER 14
480 BC
Leonidas stared across the narrow straight that was the only opening from the open sea to the Gulf of Corinth. He was on the walls of the city of Rhion and he could clearly see the walls of Antirhon across the way. Dawn was coming from the right, the rays glinting off the small waves that danced on the surface of the water. On the near shore, the sailors of Rhion were preparing their ships to ferry their troops and the Spartans across. Antirhon was not a sea power, for which Leonidas was grateful as the crossing would not be opposed.
He felt loose. He’d been up for several hours already and Xarxon had spent a considerable amount of time working the muscles, rubbing oil into the skin, loosening scar tissue. Leonidas’s armor was shined to a mirror finish and his weapons sharpened.
He could see that the city proper was set back about a mile from the coast line. Several docks and warehouses lined the shore, then behind them a long sloping plain led up to the walls of the city. That was where he wanted the battle to take place, even though the enemy would have the high ground. It would be better than laying siege.
If he were the enemy commander — and this was something Leonidas had been taught in his agoge to do — he would choose neither the town or the plain to fight. He would mass his troops on the shore and take down the invaders as they de-shipped and before they could form ranks or mass strength. But there was no sign of the Antirhonians issuing forth and Leonidas’ advance party of Rangers — skiritai- were already on the far shore, two hundred men strong, waiting in a thin red line that was his toehold. He’d sent them over under cover of darkness and they had landed un-opposed. How to draw the Antirhonians out of their city was the next issue. Leonidas smiled. There were ways.
“What makes you happy on this grim morning?” A woman’s voice startled him out of his tactical musings.
Cyra had her cloak wrapped tight around her body, her face lined and drawn.
“What is grim about this morning?” Leonidas gestures at the sun. “It looks to be a fine day.”
“There will be much death today.”
“Not ours, priestess, not ours.” He extended his hand toward the stairs off the wall. “Shall we?”
“Are you not afraid?” Cyra asked as they headed down.
Leonidas smiled once more. “Yes. I am afraid. Any man who does not feel fear before battle is not right in the head and a danger to his companions.”
“Then how ca
n you smile?”
They passed through the city gate and walked toward the waiting boats. “From my first day in my agoge — training barracks — fear was something we worked with all the time. Worked is the wrong word — we lived with it. We Spartans have made a science of it — phobologia.”
“The key to it is not the mind but the muscles. You cannot change the mind’s reaction to the potential of death or being horribly wounded. Indeed, one would not want to, because that reaction brings forth the extra energy, the adrenaline, that gives a warrior superior strength.”
“The muscles, though, can be disciplined. And not in the way other armies train. Any fool can be taught to march in step and hack and slash. Before a boy in an agoge is allowed to touch a sword, he is first taught to control the fear muscles.”
Cyra was interested despite herself. They reached the docks and Leonidas led the way to one of the boats. She waited until they were on board and the boat cast off, before asking: “The fear muscles?”
Leonidas’s right hand was like the strike of a snake, smacking her lightly on the left side of her face before she had a chance to move back. When he did it a second time, she stepped back in shock and anger. “Why did you do that?”
“To show you the two types of muscles — fighting muscles and fear. Your fighting muscles made you step back. Your fear muscles made your face react. Tell me. What part of the body do you protect most instinctively?”
Cyra wasn’t certain whether to be angry at being struck or to be impressed that he was talking so much to her. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t the Oracle teach you anything worthwhile?” Leonidas tapped his right eye. “The eyes. Think how quickly we can blink if something comes at our eyes? The lids are shut before we are even aware there is a threat.” He drew his dagger and extended it to her, handle first. “Take it.”
Reluctantly, Cyra did so and held it in her hand.
“Strike at my eyes,” Leonidas said, “but do not actually touch me. After all, I have a battle to fight soon.”
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