Crusader Gold

by David Gibbins

  Whatever force was behind this thing made the berg somersault right over on the threshold. My guess is it’s still stuck on the outer edge of the sill, but has slid down deeper than its original position. My depth gauge reads one hundred and twenty-three metres, just about the limit for our trimix gas. If the berg was floating out to sea it would have flipped again and we’d be way beyond that depth, gone for good. That could happen any time.”

  “A reassuring thought.”

  “Before we rolled. Did you see what I saw?”

  “It was Halfdan. The guy whose runes are on the battle-axe. We were directly over the bier in the centre of the longship, where his body was meant to be burnt. We must be the only people alive to have seen a Viking warrior in the flesh. Fantastic.”

  “Yeah, fantastic. It spooked me. Let’s hope we’re not joining him.”

  “Got any plans?”

  “Let’s do this step by step. The first thing is to get thawed out.”

  In the lull that followed, Jack noticed the utter stillness of the berg, broken only by the noise of their breathing, in contrast to the deafening cacophony of a few minutes before as the ice sundered and cracked. Somehow the stillness accentuated the sepulchral quality of the chamber and brought home the full enormity of their situation. They were trapped deep inside an iceberg, hemmed in by a million tons of rock-hard ice, at the limit of their survivable depth and with every prospect of a fatal tumble into the abyss. Jack began to feel unnerved, and as he stared at the ice only inches from his head he began to feel the old claustrophobia nagging at the edges of his consciousness. Lurking beneath the surface was a fear that he would be gripped by panic, as had so nearly happened when Costas had kept him going in the tunnels of Atlantis six months before. He knew Costas’ banter had kept his mind focussed, that his friend knew him too well, and he forced himself to concentrate on little things, on the small steps that might eventually lead to their salvation.

  “I’ve got movement,” Jack said. “I can move my feet.”

  “Excellent. Try to swivel round in my direction.”

  The sheen of ice on Jack’s visor was beginning to drip away, and he could now see the slurry more clearly. The coil of microfilaments from the probe was doing its work, and the surface was beginning to liquefy. He arched his back and flexed his legs, causing a stab of pain and a sudden spasm of shivering. For the first time he inspected the injury in his left thigh, the embedded spear of ice just visible through the rent in his E-suit. The ice had numbed most of the pain and staunched the bleeding, but even so the blood loss had left him dangerously vulnerable to the cold. He heaved himself sideways, pulling his legs out of the water and hauling himself as far as he could go up the shelf, then wiped his visor and looked into the jagged wall of ice that had lain behind him.

  The sight that confronted him was surreal. He could see Costas, yet it was an image that defied sense. He seemed to be lying within easy reach, yet was separated by a wall of transparent ice. With each tiny movement Costas seemed to fragment into myriad shapes, refracted through numerous planes in the ice.

  Jack suddenly caught sight of Costas’ face, the yellow helmet at first appearing grotesquely elongated but then compressing to some semblance of normality.

  “I’m about a metre from you,” Costas said. “When I recovered consciousness I was floating in a fissure. I tried to reach you, but this is how far I got. I’m as near as I can get to being frozen without actually being solid. It’s all meltwater ice, from that crevasse above the longship. It should be easier to hack through than glacier ice. How are you with an axe?”

  Jack suddenly saw a ray of hope. “You know, it’s my main occupation during the off season when I disappear into the woods. When I tell everyone I’m writing. It makes me forget all this.”

  “Good enough. Let’s see what you can do. If you can break through, then the water from your side should get in and do the trick. The coil won’t melt glacial ice, but it should keep this slush liquid. There’s about a six-inch air pocket around me from my exhaust.”

  “Where does the rest go?”

  “Fissures and cracks above me. This ice may look solid, but it’s really a mass of fallen slabs.”

  Jack rolled over until he was lying face-down on the shelf. With his left hand he gripped the ledge to prevent himself from slipping into the slurry, and with his right hand he reached up and grasped the axe. He let himself go, sliding into the brash until he was kneeling on the bottom with the surface at waist level. He wrestled to remove his fins, drawing them up on their retaining straps behind his calves, then pulled the axe down with both hands and swivelled it so the bit was above him. Standing in the slurry, his tall frame bent low under the ceiling, he would have just enough room to wield the axe in short spans, though each heft would require extra effort as he struggled to maintain balance and momentum.

  “Here goes.” He placed the axe blade on the ice just above water level in front of Costas’ face and took a short swing. The blade was dull but the metal still had the strength of a thousand years ago, and it was the force of impact rather than the cutting edge that mattered. As the bit struck it broke off a shard of ice and sent tiny fracture marks in a web from the point of impact, reducing his view of Costas to a meaningless mosaic. “I can just do it,” Jack panted. “Six inches less space and I wouldn’t have the momentum.”

  Slowly, deliberately, he began to hack at the ice, each blow striking off another shard, and each swing sending a jolt of pain through his leg. With the additional strain of holding up the weight of his cylinder pack above water, the exertion soon started to tell, and he began to breathe his trimix at an alarming rate. He tried to ignore the digital readout inside his visor and focus on the task at hand.

  He was deploying a standard woodsman’s technique, cutting a wedge above and below his baseline. As each wedge deepened he struck off larger chunks from the space between, extending the hole until it was only inches from Costas and almost wide enough for him to get through.

  As he lined up for the critical blow his legs suddenly buckled under him and he slipped back into the slurry, dropping the axe. He realised that he had not simply lost balance: he had been toppled by some greater force. He righted himself and saw the surface of the water shaking violently, and heard distant groans and cracks. Suddenly the water began to rise, and Jack saw a dark fissure opening in the ceiling of the chamber.

  “The air pocket’s going,” he exclaimed. “It’s escaping upwards.” He heaved the axe out of the slurry and flung it against the cut one more time, but to no avail.

  “The hole’s already under water. I can’t get any momentum.”

  He slid back against the back wall of the chamber, the axe hanging from his hand, and watched helplessly as the water level rose above his visor and reached the ceiling. Less than a minute after the crack had appeared, all that was left was the tumult of bubbles cascading upwards from his own exhaust, and that quickly dissipated through the crack after each exhalation. The temperature readout on his visor had dropped to -2 degrees Celsius, below the freezing point of the water. He realized with sickening certainty that the coil would never cope with the quantity of water now filling the chamber; only the lower portion around the filaments would remain liquid.

  Brash began to form in front of his eyes. He felt the water stiffen around his arms and head. It was happening again, a hellish torment he was fated to endure repeatedly, a nightmare relived. He stared wide-eyed as the ice began to encapsulate him. He began hyperventilating, as if his body were willing him to suck away his last reserve of trimix and lapse into blackness, a merciful oblivion in the face of the lingering horror that lay ahead of him.

  “Your oxygen! Cut your oxygen hose!”

  The voice snapped him back into reality. He instantly realised what Costas meant. He dragged his left arm through the slurry and pulled out the knife he kept in a sheath on his chest, bringing the serrated edge up against the two hoses under his helmet. For an appalling moment he
forgot which was trimix and which was oxygen, the narcotic effect of nitrogen at this pressure playing tricks on his mind. His head was nearly immobile and he was unable to see down to the hoses. He shut his eyes and resolutely grasped the left hose, bringing the blade to bear just under the point where it fed into his helmet.

  “What’s left in your oxygen cylinder should fill the chamber long enough to clear the hole for another couple of blows,” Costas said. “But for God’s sake don’t breathe it. Eighty per cent oxygen at this depth would mean instant death.”

  Jack slashed the hose and a huge geyser of bubbles erupted into the chamber.

  The water rapidly lowered to chest level and he heaved himself up again, the severed hose dancing and hissing in front of him. He pulled the axe out of the brash and aimed it at the hole. With all his strength he swung against the ice, causing a large chunk to break free. He could see Costas pushing with all his might against the remaining barrier. Jack frantically pulled the floating chunk of ice aside and aimed another blow. Just then the hissing of his oxygen hose faltered, and the water level began to rise again, inexorably. He had one last chance. He lined up above the fracture line where the chunk had broken off, then relaxed completely, his eyes glued on the point of impact. He swung the axe back and brought it forward with all his might, causing a spray of brash as the blade skimmed over the rising water and slammed into the ice. Then he slumped back and began to pant uncontrollably, sending geysers of bubbles out of his exhaust as the water rose and submerged him again.

  The corner of a fin appeared out of the ice. Jack felt a nudge against his body. It had worked. Another chunk of ice floated past, and a large black form emerged beside him like an inquisitive seal. Costas’ eyes looked into Jack’s. “Am I glad to see you.”

  “Thank God you lost weight,” Jack said weakly. “I didn’t book a double room.”

  A spurt of red filled the water between them as Jack shifted in the confined space. “How’s the leg?” Costas asked.

  “That’s the least of my worries.” Jack peered at the water level above them.

  “Your oxygen,” he said urgently. “Cut your hose and we’ll have a few more minutes.”

  “No good,” Costas said. “My hose blew when the berg rolled. The shard of ice that cut it nearly decapitated me.” He struggled around until he was lying parallel to Jack, both of their heads now facing the ledge where the ice probe was embedded. The narrow confines of the chamber became even more apparent, barely large enough for the two of them festooned with all of their equipment. They were now completely submerged, slivers of ice from Jack’s efforts floating around them, and Jack could see the filaments from the coil tangled below. Costas leaned down to pull his fins up his calves and then hauled himself behind the probe. “It’s flashing amber,” he said. “The battery’s nearly dead. If we stick around here we’ll be on ice. Permanently.” He slid back down and struggled to remove something from the thigh pocket of his E-suit. “Here, hold on to this for me.”

  Jack took it, then stared back at Costas. “C-4 explosive?”

  “You got it. Always carry some in case of emergency.”

  “You’re going to blow us up.”

  “Beats the deep freeze.” Costas continued to delve in his pocket, then pulled out a miniature detonator transceiver. “I’m certain we’re inside the crevasse where Kangia and those Nazis saw the longship. The clear ice is meltwater that sealed up the crevasse. It’s weaker than the surrounding glacier ice, and fragmented when the berg shifted. We might be able to widen the crack. It’s the only chance we’ve got.”

  “What’s our decompression status?”

  “Not good. Our depth seems to be dropping. There must be an internal water level in the crevasse above us, below the level of the sea surrounding the berg.

  Somehow it’s filling up. At this rate we’ll be in the danger zone in less than five minutes.”

  “That’s about how much trimix I’ve got left.”

  “If we don’t freeze up first. With the coil dead the water’s already beginning to thicken. Time to get this show on the road.”

  Jack shivered violently. The water was as cold as he had ever known, colder than the deepest ocean depths. There was another ominous creak in the ice, and the crack above them closed in perceptibly. Costas rolled over and looked up, panning his headlamp along the silvery shimmer of exhaust bubbles that lined the ceiling. “That’s not what I wanted to happen,” he said quietly. A brief high-pitched alarm sounded from the probe, and the amber light went dead.

  “Nor was that.” He rolled back and picked up the axe from the floor of the chamber, feeding it towards Jack. “You’ve got a longer reach than me. The crack’s widest above the probe. I need you to push the C-4 as high up as you can. It’s already armed.”

  Jack held the brown packet in one hand and the haft of the axe in the other.

  Costas sank behind him and heaved up against his legs, forcing another pulse of blood from Jack’s thigh. Jack tried to ignore the pain and twisted his upper body so that his visor was up against the crack above the probe. With the rush of bubbles escaping through it he could only get a fleeting sense of its dimensions, but it was clearly a narrow chimney that extended high above them, a crack between the slabs of ice. He pushed the C-4 as far up as he could with his left arm, wedging it in the chimney. Then he pulled the axe up hand over hand and fed the wooden haft into the chimney, with Costas preventing him from sliding back. When he felt the haft meet resistance, he pushed up hard, dislodging the C-4 and thrusting it as high as he could into the chimney.

  “Okay. That’s as far as I can go.”

  Jack sank down beside Costas, and the two of them struggled against the freezing brash until they were as far away from the ice chimney as they could get, pressed against each other in the opposite corner of the chamber. Jack reversed the axe and fed it back under his straps, and both men reached down to slide their fins into place. Jack wrapped his arms tight around Costas, their faces pressed visor to visor. “Wherever we’re going this time, we’re going together.”

  “Semper fidelis.”

  Jack shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me. Latin too.”

  Costas held up the transceiver between them. “Good to go?”

  “Good to go.”

  A violent tremor shook them, accompanied by a shrieking and tearing sound that set Jack’s teeth on edge. All around them the ice was a blur of vibration. The cacophony was rent by a deafening explosion and Jack felt his body pummelled as if by a thousand punches. He pressed his visor tight against Costas, protecting the vulnerable glass from the shards of ice that were flying around them. Almost simultaneously their headlamps burst and they were plunged into a bizarre, tremulous darkness, broken only by the blurry green of the digital readouts inside their helmets. Something huge thumped against Jack’s side and for an instant he felt he was about to be crushed, and then by a miracle it passed. He felt a rush of dizziness and realised they were tumbling, spinning round and round in a ferment of ice and water, utterly helpless as the crevasse rent asunder.

  “We’re getting shallower!” Costas yelled. “For God’s sake don’t hold your breath.

  Your lungs would blow in seconds.”

  Jack’s breathing began to tighten. In the swirling maelstrom there were no waymarkers, no visual points of reference. He forced himself to concentrate on the digital readout inside his visor, his arms clinging tight to Costas and their legs intertwined. Jack could just make out a depth reading of ten metres, and they were rocketing upwards. The figures gave him something to grasp on to, and he was dimly aware that the danger of air embolism was compounded by the risk of the bends, of decompression sickness. They were coming up way too fast.

  Suddenly they were on the surface. It was light again, a steely, crepuscular light, and Jack could see beyond Costas to an awesome world of blue. They were floating in a vast cauldron of ice, at least the length and breath of Seaquest II, with sheer white walls rising all around
them. Jack felt dwarfed by the enormity of it. He arched his neck and looked at the source of light far above. It was a thin sliver of grey where the ice walls nearly joined, a first link to the world outside. The grey was streaked with black and light blue, and seemed to be rushing past at enormous speed.

  “It must be one of those freak storms coming off the ice cap,” Costas said.

  “That’s what pushed the berg.”

  “A piteraq.”

  They clung to each other as they bobbed in the centre of the pool. Their decompression warning lights were flashing amber, indicating that they had pushed the envelope and were now in grave danger of the bends. Jack felt for any signs, a tingle in an elbow or a sudden surge of nausea, aware that the last six months away from diving might have reduced his resistance. He checked his trimix pressure gauge and saw the dial hovering at zero. “I’m out of air,” he said. “If there’s any more diving we’ll have to buddy-breathe.”

  “Hook into me.”

  Jack pulled the umbilical hose from the top of Costas’ cylinder pack and pressed the valve into an inlet under his helmet. With a sharp hiss his helmet filled up again with breathing gas, its makeup now close to atmospheric air as the computer adjusted the ratios to take account of their depth. Jack realised he had been running on empty, and he closed his eyes to concentrate on taking a few deep breaths.

  “That should give us about ten minutes,” Costas said. “I’d prefer to spend it ten metres deep to increase the decompression margin, but we don’t have that luxury. We’ll just have to wing it.”

  The movement in the water had died down dramatically, leaving the surface preternaturally calm after the tumult that had ejected them from the icy tomb far below. “The crevasse must have opened up when the berg moved, shattering all the meltwater ice inside it,” Costas said. “Then the walls closed in again as the berg encountered resistance, probably the seaward edge of the threshold.”