by David Wood
Levi nodded and went back to yelling at drivers. One woman had leapt from her car in a panic and run away down the road, leaving Levi to move her car himself. Most other pedestrians had long since followed the frightened woman and only a couple of cars remained, blocking the way to follow Rose Black and her interfering friends.
Landvik returned his attention to the tiny dot that was their Land Rover Discovery, heading out to the castle atop its lonely crag. “The hammer must be hidden up there, eh, Jarn?”
Jarn’s grip on the steering wheel didn’t falter, but his shoulders shrugged. “You think so, sir?”
“They seem to be heading that way.”
Jarn shrugged again. “The castle was built long after the Viking invasion.”
Landvik grinned, wishing he’d thought of this simple fact before now, but no matter. He was reminded of it now. “Yes, but the castle was partly built from the ruins of the old priory. Besides, there must have been something up there before. A wooden fort, a lookout, some structure would surely stand on that single raised piece of rock in this otherwise flat and dull island. Look at that place, how it stands above everything else, proud over land and sea alike. What man wouldn’t build something atop a place like that, hmm? You don’t think it feels right? A gateway to Valhalla.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Jarn admitted reluctantly.
Landvik felt a warmth inside, despite his cold, soaked clothes. A sensation of completion had begun to settle over him. “I’ll wager Rose remembered something about the castle, and was doing her best to keep it from us until her boyfriend could arrive. Or perhaps it’s only just come back to her now. Either way, it’s worked out for them this far, but we will soon catch up again.”
“Or perhaps that’s simply the only way they could go, given that we cut them off,” Jarn said.
Landvik laughed. Always such a pragmatist, young Jarn. “Well, maybe so. Either way, she said Lindisfarne, and she’s led us this far. Now she leads us there. So it’s there that we go.”
The road ahead was clear and Levi slumped back into the rear seat. “Let’s go,” he said uselessly as Jarn gunned the engine and the powerful car leapt forward.
“We left Grigor’s body lying in the rain back there,” Landvik said. “And there are many people in a panic, all making calls. This island will be alive with police soon, so we have little time. Whatever happens, I think it will end one way or another up there.” He nodded toward the crag and castle, the car with Rose Black and her friends lost from sight for the time being. “Be ready for anything.”
Chapter 48
Lindisfarne Castle
Cameron raced through an open wooden five-bar gate, the tires buzzing over a short section of cobbled road. To their left was a small grassy area with a few cars parked on it. A handful of people jumped and looked around at Cameron’s speedy entrance, many frowns forming. But Rose knew they wouldn’t say anything. That British polite disapproval was as far as they would go. It seemed strange that these people had no idea of the mayhem and carnage just a kilometer or two behind them.
Cameron parked and they jumped from the car and jogged up the path leading to the castle. From this angle, the rocky outcrop with the castle atop looked like a giant ship had plowed into the island, forcing up a bow wave of grass and stone before it. The path immediately forked, the left side staying low and skirting the craggy rise. The other path went shallowly up to the right side of the castle. Crowley and Rose ran side by side up the right hand path, Cameron on their heels.
To their right lay a narrow grassy verge, then a low three-bar wooden fence. Over the fence, rocky beach extended a little way before the water lapped against the stones. The sea looked cold and uninviting, but the darkness of the clouds had lifted a little, the rain easing back to a gusty, intermittent spray. After the confines of cars and planes, Rose exalted in the cold wash of it, the salt scent of the ocean, and the aroma of fresh grass. The wind had a biting edge of cold to it that reminded her she was alive, her heart racing. She had come so close to death, Grigor’s hands around her throat, and now she was running, breathing deeply of the wide open world. She felt exhilarated.
The dirt path turned to cobblestones, a new wooden fence to their right to prevent people slipping down the steepening grass to the rocky beach. The craggy grass in front of the castle gave way to steeper, broken rock on their right, the mossy, gray stone walls of the castle itself looming high above them.
They hurried past a small group of tourists ambling ahead of them, and then the path turned sharply back on itself. Beyond, the land was flat and grassy, and then seemed to drop off a large step to more grass and the ocean beyond.
“Down there are the island’s famous lime kilns,” Rose said, remembering previous trips. “Right on the water’s edge. We’re above them up here.” She barked a short laugh as another recollection came to her. “The lime kilns at Castle Point on Holy Island are among the largest, most complex and best preserved lime kilns in Northumberland,” she quoted. “Honestly, it’s ridiculous the kind of information my museum brain retains!”
“Impressive,” Crowley said. “But I think we need to go the other way.”
To one side were four wooden sheds. One large and regular shaped, the other three designed like half boat hulls flipped upside down. The smoothly cobbled way that doubled back on itself became a series of irregular long steps, climbing steeply up against the castle wall. The largest, normal-shaped shed was the reception and ticket office. Cameron ran ahead of Crowley and Rose, pulled money from his pocket.
He returned with three tickets and they hurried up. The castle had but a single external entrance, a door in the south side of the building. As they reached the door, something flashed through Rose’s mind, momentarily blinding her. She heard screams and howls, saw flames flickering against a night sky, then the sound of rapid footsteps on stone. Voices shouted. Her vision swam into a dark corridor, vaguely lit with the flickering orange light of flaming torches. Nausea rose and her knees buckled.
She felt hands grab under her arms, haul her back upright.
“Rose!” Crowley’s voice was sharp, concerned.
“Landvik and his idiots have just pulled up next to our car,” Cameron said.
Rose’s vision swam back. She saw Cameron looking out over the small area with cars down below, Crowley’s face much closer to her, his expression one of stress and worry.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Sorry. Something happened. I saw... something.”
“You can carry on?” Crowley asked, the unspoken problem clear in his tone if she said she couldn’t.
“Yes, I can. Let’s go.”
A large wooden door, with vertical bands of black iron, stood open before them. Stone steps under an arched ceiling led up a few meters to the lower battery of the castle. They ran up onto a wide open, flag-stoned area, crenellated walls with old gun emplacements making a curve of one end. Behind them another door led to the entrance hall.
“Come on!” Crowley ran for it, Rose and Cameron on his heels.
“Won’t we be trapped in here?” Rose asked, though she knew, somehow, that they needed to be here.
“We might be,” Crowley admitted. “But what choice do we have?”
“Did Landvik and his goons see us?”
They pushed past another small group of tourists, muttering apologies as they went.
“Who knows? Regardless, they won’t have much trouble figuring out where we’ve gone. The question is, what can we do while we’re here? And how can we make a stand against them?”
Chapter 49
Lindisfarne Castle
Thick stone columns divided the entrance hall into three distinct areas, white-painted ceiling arching above. Over the large fireplace almost filling one end of the room was an ornate wind indicator. It depicted Lindisfarne Island with a compass over the top, marked into sections with ships sailing all around. One hand like a clock’s pointed currently just past North West.
&n
bsp; Off to one side of the entrance hall lay a large kitchen, and beyond it the scullery. From the doorway, Rose saw a mechanism for lowering the portcullis that she knew from previous visits could still be used to bar the entrance below. It was an appealing idea to keep Landvik and his men at bay, but the tour guides nearby would certainly not allow it.
She blinked, dizzy at flashes of strange visions, bubbling up through her mind like air bubbles from a SCUBA diver’s regulator. Strobe-like flickers of memory flashed before her eyes. Crowley and Cameron hurried through the castle, looking for places to hide, to set an ambush, ignoring the bemused looks from the handful of other tourists enjoying the sights. They talked about what they might improvise as weapons, something better than the simple knives they both carried. For Rose, every room, every passageway, sparked a new memory. A sudden string of images made her stagger, flashes of descending beneath the castle, interspersed with more recent memories of the ritual Landvik performed on her.
“I’ve been here before,” she whispered, but the others didn’t hear her.
The castle accommodation formed an L-shape and they hurried down the long arm of the L, through a passage that seemed almost carved from the rock of the crag itself. They ran to one side, into a vaulted dining room, dominated by a large fireplace at one end and a wall painted bright blue at the other. A large oval table filled most of the space. Like all the rooms so far except the entrance hall, this one was small, almost cramped. This was a castle of urban home dimensions, like a castle in miniature. But nowhere seemed to afford a good place from which to mount their assault against men with guns and murder in mind. Crowley and Cameron grew increasingly frantic.
Rose staggered again, more flickering memories obscuring her vision. She called out, falling against one wall lest she collapse to the floor. Crowley and Cameron rushed back, crouched either side of her as she slid down the stone to sit on the cool ground.
“Are you okay?” Crowley asked.
“I’ve been here before,” Rose said again.
“What?”
She grimaced, frustrated at Crowley’s bone-headed focus and her own inability to order her thoughts. “I have been here before,” she said for a third time, injecting more certainty into her tone.
“That’s good,” Crowley said. “Any idea where we might hide?”
She shook her head, and then stopped when it only made her dizzier. “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about previous lives. Yes, I’ve been here as a tourist, and as a professional researcher, but I’m having different memories now, ancient ones.”
Crowley sat back on his heels, lips pursed. “Rose, I’m not sure we have time for this.”
She shrugged. “I think it’s important. I’m generally as skeptical as you are, but I have no other explanation for this. Landvik's ritual brought the memories back, and like I said before, they were more than memories. They were lived experiences. And it’s happening again. But different. I see Ragnar Lodbrok, but I have Aella’s life memories, not Ragnar’s. Of course, I know his intent, from the things he told me during the blood eagle.” She winced, the recollection of pain flooding her again, and arched her back with a soft cry.
Crowley put a concerned hand on her shoulder.
“I’m okay. I remember the things Ragnar told Aella, I mean. What he wanted. And what I subsequently told Landvik. At least, some of it.”
“So what exactly do you know?” Crowley asked. “Can it help us now?”
Rose breathed deeply, tried to calm her mind.
A castle guide came over, face creased in worry. “Everything okay here? Do you need an ambulance?”
Cameron stood quickly, guided the concerned young man away. “No, no, it’s fine. She just came over a little dizzy. Thank you, though.”
Rose closed her eyes, tried to grab at thoughts that flitted through her mind like moths around a bright light. “My memories are Aella’s,” she said quietly. “And I’m certain, at least I think I’m certain, that this is where he sealed up the hammer.”
“It’s real?” Crowley asked. “And how can you know that?”
“It’s somewhere down below. Ragnar’s sons killed me...Aella, but that was because Aella had been the one to kill Ragnar. But before Ragnar died, Aella got the location of Mjolnir from him. And because it was, in Aella’s mind, an evil and dangerous pagan thing, though he was tempted by its power, he tried to ensure that it would never be found. I know, I remember, that the hiding place was here!”
Crowley looked nervously at Cameron, who stood near the door keeping an eye out. Cameron raised his hands, Crowley shrugged, so Cameron came back to them. “We need to get ourselves organized,” he said.
Crowley nodded. “Rose, what can we do?”
She squeezed her eyes closed in concentration. “Ragnar’s apostasy from the Norse religion cost him everything, that’s what Landvik told me. Aella was sure the hammer itself would lead him to ruin, because he was a pious Christian man. He feared what it could do. I have his memories of learning that this is where Ragnar hid it, and of Aella coming here to seal it up, but I can’t see clearly. I can’t see where, apart from it being somewhere low, somewhere dark.”
“How is that possible?” Crowley asked.
Rose flashed him an angry look. “How is any of this possible?”
“It’s all feasible,” Cameron said, looking slowly around himself. “The crag this castle stands on would have reminded someone like Ragnar of the special rocks and hills in Scandinavia where the dead were believed to dwell. He might have even thought of it as an entrance to Valhalla. It’s a good place to hide something of such importance.”
Rose frowned. “Isn’t Valhalla supposedly in the sky? Like Viking heaven or something?”
Cameron shook his head. “Valhalla, or 'hall of the fallen' derives from valhallr.” He spelled it out. “That means 'the rock of the fallen'. I think Ragnar would have found in this place a connection to his gods.”
“Okay,” Rose said. “So it makes sense that Ragnar would hide it here, and it’s just as good a place for Aella to have sealed up Mjolnir forever.”
“If that’s the case,” Crowley said. “If the hammer is actually a real thing, and it’s really here, we can save our lives if we find it first.”
Chapter 50
Lindisfarne Castle
Landvik, Jarn and Levi hurried along the cobbled path and went to enter the gate leading up to the castle entrance. A young man ran from the wooden shed they had passed.
“Excuse me! You need a ticket.”
Landvik paused, sucked a breath in through his nose, and turned to the young man.
Jarn leaned close. “Best to keep as calm as possible, sir. The trouble back there will catch up soon enough.”
Landvik allowed himself one curt nod. The young pragmatist was an asset in this instance. “You’re right. Thank you.” He turned a smile to the ticket officer. “My apologies. How much?”
A few moments later they were on their way up the long, uneven cobbled steps.
“I feel like I’ve just been robbed,” Landvik said.
Jarn laughed. “That’s these kinds of attractions for you. They gouge the populace to keep them open.”
A few small groups of tourists were braving the inclement weather and Landvik moved impatiently around them. The rain had eased again, back to a gusting drizzle more like a thick mist than anything that could really be called a downpour. But he was already soaked, his skin wet and icy. A soft shiver kept rippling through him and all he wanted was to be somewhere warm and dry. All this running around after Rose Black and her incessantly annoying boyfriend was beginning to shred his nerves. But a little more patience and they’d have them. This was a dead end, and it had the feeling of an impending conclusion.
They climbed the steps to the lower battery and paused to get their bearings. A tourist tapped Landvik on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, could you take a photo for us please?” He pointed to a woman and three children standing
against the battlements, the gusting rain and ocean behind them like a Turner seascape.
“No, I could not!” Landvik said and turned away.
He heard the man mutter, “Well, how rude!” then he was striding into the main entrance hall.
“You think Rose has been holding out on us?” Levi asked. “Like, she knew all along it was here?”
“No idea, but it must be here. Why would they run here otherwise?”
“Perhaps they were just running.”
Landvik paused, shook his head. “No. Something has drawn all of us here. Fates are at work this day. We are meant to be in this place, at this time. I’m sure the hammer is hidden here somewhere.”
“But I checked the history,” Jarn said, his voice nervous. No doubt he knew he was on thin ice contradicting Landvik’s conviction. “The first recorded structure here on this rock was built in the sixteenth century.”
Landvik turned to him, one eyebrow raised.
Jarn paused, and then continued. “This rock, it’s called Beblowe Crag. The first recorded structure here is Beblowe Fort, not built until 1548. That’s nearly a thousand years after Ragnar Lodbrok’s time.”
“You think nothing was here before?” Landvik asked. He gestured forward. “That way. Look for Miss Black and her friends.”
They moved on. “Well, history says...” Jarn began.
“History is written by the winners and by politicians. This island was raided by the Vikings in 793. They had a presence here and they would have established various places of habitation and worship. They absolutely would not have ignored a rock like this, a possible gateway to Valhalla.”
Tourists blocked one room and Landvik turned the other way, stalking along a narrow passage.
“So if the hammer was hidden here, then the castle was built on top of it, you think the hammer was moved?” Jarn asked. “Taken away? Hidden in the new construction?”
Landvik shook his head. “I’ve been researching thoroughly. This is my life’s work. I’m certain the hammer has never been discovered. It must be hidden beneath the castle, perhaps in the remnants of the old fort that stood here.” He paused, thoughtful, then shook his head. “It’s somewhere here.”
