The Gods of Laki

by Chris Angus

  When he finally did, it was barely in time to see Wormer and the other cardinals all scramble over the wall with a newfound agility and tumble into the swirling maelstrom. Their bodies spun about and floated down, red robes billowing like falling autumn leaves, until they disappeared.

  Dagursson pushed back from the hole, his heart pounding. Even he had felt the incredible pull of this place, and he was not a religious man. What he felt most of all was failure. That he’d failed to save the others. He didn’t care for Wormer and had little feeling for the cardinals or religion in any sense for that matter. But he felt a personal failure as a police officer at being unable to save their lives.

  He stumbled back to where the chrysalis of Amma hung from the wall. This was where Ryan and Sam would look for him. He collapsed on the ground, still shaking from the enormity of what had happened. In the distance, he could hear the sound of rushing water. Would whatever he’d seen soon boil out of the underground?

  He turned his light onto Amma and stared in disbelief. Flanking the old woman on both sides were five new chrysalises. Beneath the glue-like and transparent exteriors, he could clearly see the movement of tentacles and what looked for all the world like red robes.

  ***

  As Ryan and Sam emerged from the room where Skari and the other chrysalises hung, they heard the sound of rushing water.

  “What’s that?” asked Ryan.

  Sam felt stone cold fear at the sound. “Whatever it is, it’s massive. Maybe a glacial outburst. We need to get to higher ground.”

  They hurried across the open cavern and found Dagursson sprawled on the ground. “Something’s coming,” Sam said. “We need to get out of here.” She looked around. “Where are Amma and the others?”

  Dagursson pulled himself to his feet. His eyes looked dead in the shadows cast by the flashlights. “Amma . . . reconnected with Laki.” He pointed to the ancient woman’s cocoon.

  Sam stared at Amma, then her eyes wandered to the new cocoons. Her heart nearly stopped.

  “Where . . . where are Wormer and the other cardinals?” she asked.

  “There,” Dagursson indicated the other cocoons. “You’re looking at them. They leaped into the hole. I couldn’t stop them. When I came back here, I found them next to Amma.”

  Ryan went up to one of the cocoons and stared at it. He reached out a hand and pulled back the glue-like exterior. Staring at them was the clear image of Cardinal Wormer, his eyes wide open and filled with fear. There was no smile on his face as Amma had shown.

  “Help me,” he said, in a voice that was barely recognizable as his own.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” said Dagursson. “When Amma became separated from Laki, she began to die. Once attached like that, they don’t seem able to live on their own anymore. At least that’s what I think.”

  The sound of water suddenly became much louder. They looked back into the cavern to see a rushing tumult entering the huge space.

  “I don’t know where that’s coming from,” said Sam, “but we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I know where it’s coming from,” Dagursson said, speaking louder now, to be heard over the rushing water. “We looked into the hole and the stars and galaxies were no longer there. Instead, there was water far below, but it was rising. It must be coming out into the passageways now.”

  “It’s got to be what Carlisle said was rising in the magma chamber,” said Sam. “Not lava but water.”

  “It would appear that Laki is angry again,” said Ryan.

  They shined their collective lights into the cavern. The enormous space was absorbing the water quickly. The massive infusion would soon fill not only the cavern but the lower levels of passageways as well. Then it would continue to rise. They had very little time.

  Almost as if connected at the neck, all three of them turned to stare at the cocoons. There was no way to save them. Truth be told, there was probably no way to save themselves. Maybe Laki would protect the cardinals. They’d been chosen after all—or was it punished?

  “Help me,” Cardinal Wormer pleaded again, his wide eyes staring at the water boiling into the cavern.

  Ryan put one hand on the man’s cocoon. He could feel it pulsating. Wormer’s eyes looked bloodshot and filled with tiny tentacles spreading their fingers. “Now is the time, Cardinal,” he said, “for you to trust in your maker. No one else can help you.”

  “I . . . I was going to be Pope,” the distraught figure said in a heart-wrenching plea.

  But it appeared that Wormer would rule only a very small part of the Catholic realm, that which encompassed his four fellow cardinals who hung from the cavern wall beside him.

  They turned away and the three survivors began to race along the passage. At every turn, Sam led them higher. She knew the way out now. The only question was if they could beat the surging waters.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The scientists on the buses were subdued. All of their training, all of their computers and gadgets hadn’t enabled them to determine what was happening on Laki. They were completely deflated. The fact that Carlisle, too, seemed drained only increased their sense of hopelessness.

  Most of them had abandoned their stations and were sitting outside, staring with blank faces at the boiling clouds and ever-increasing lava flows. A few wrote letters to their families, though how they might ever be delivered or even found someday was difficult to imagine.

  Two of the main streams of magma had finally connected, cutting the parking lot off from the main road. They were trapped, completely encircled by lava. Perhaps they had avoided the finality of a nuclear blast, but they now faced an even more terrifying end. The lava flows were increasing rapidly. New breaks in the landscape occurred every few minutes, as lava issued forth from a seemingly bottomless cauldron. Soon, the entire surface of Laki would be submerged in bubbling, two-thousand-degree liquid rock. There was no escape.

  Carlisle and Senator Graham sat off to one side, apart from the others. Hauptmann, Kraus, and Gudnasson were nearby. Senator Graham scanned the barren slopes of Laki constantly, searching for any sign of Samantha and the others. He knew it was hopeless. They had to be dead. No one could survive beneath a surface from which so much lava now flowed.

  One of the scientists moved away from the rest and climbed a low rise. Suddenly, he turned back and began yelling something, waving a hand for them to come over.

  Most paid no attention. They’d all seen enough weather and geologically created anomalies to last a lifetime. But Graham was still hopeful for some sign of Sam and Ryan. He and Hauptmann climbed to see what the fellow was making a fuss about. When they reached him, the man turned and pointed down the slope.

  “Look,” he said.

  “Bloody hell!” said Hauptmann, barely able to comprehend what they were seeing.

  Most of the ventholes had been issuing steady streams of lava flowing from the Earth. But now, instead of lava, water was bubbling up from below. The flow was substantial and growing by the second.

  “What in the . . .” Graham stared at the strange sight in bewilderment. Where the water had come into contact with lava, enormous clouds of steam boiled forth, causing a loud sizzling sound, like bacon frying. Dozens of pockets of steam issued from splits in the Earth. The entire landscape was alive with heat and froth.

  “I don’t understand,” said Hauptmann. “Where is the water coming from?”

  Graham waved to Carlisle and the others. Slowly, one by one, they roused themselves and started up the hill. Carlisle was the first to reach them. He stopped abruptly and stared at the incredible sight.

  As the rest of the small group of scientists gathered, all equally stunned by what they were seeing, the earth opened up less than twenty yards away and more water began to gush out.

  One of Carlisle’s men approached the gushing stream cautiously. He knelt down and reached out a hand, placing it gingerly into the water.

  “It’s hot,” he shouted, drawing his hand bac
k quickly. Then he put his finger in his mouth and exclaimed, “It’s salt water!”

  ***

  Sam led the way through a bewildering maze of tunnels. The entire subterranean complex was alive with the sounds of Laki. Lava bubbled, small quakes shook beneath their feet, ventholes collapsed even as new ones opened up. The passageways were filled with the sound of shrieking gas being vented. Over it all, they could hear rushing water coming ever closer.

  “What a madhouse,” Ryan shouted to Sam over the cacophony.

  She nodded but continued to push hard through the tunnel maze. She was no longer certain where they were or even if they were moving closer to the surface. Too many vent openings had collapsed.

  “Look!” Dagursson shouted, pointing behind them.

  They turned to see water raging into the tunnel. It gushed in huge quantities, the sight alone enough to stop their hearts. It was coming toward them with the speed of a freight train. Steam poured off the water, giving little doubt that it was hot, possibly boiling from contact with the lava below.

  “We’re dead men,” Dagursson said.

  With the exception of his gender selection, Sam had to agree with him. No way could they outrun the pulsating water. It was barely fifty yards behind them. She looked around helplessly. For all her experience beneath Laki, this was something she could never have imagined.

  The tunnel widened suddenly ahead of them, and Sam realized they’d entered into another cavern. This one was even larger than the last one but with much steeper sides. Far above, they could see daylight filtering down, lighting the enormous space.

  There was no time to gape at their new surroundings. The hot water surged into the cavern, chasing them like a mad beast.

  “Which way do we go?” Dagursson shouted.

  Indeed, there seemed no sure answer. Another tunnel opening was visible far across the vast space, the only one they could see.

  “That’s our only hope,” Sam said, sprinting ahead. “If we have time to reach it.”

  Behind them, water flowed into the cavern as though released from some mighty dam burst. It gushed into every nook and cranny. As it found each new subterranean fissure, its pace slowed until the deep venthole was engorged. Again and again, the water rushed at them only to dissipate as a new subsurface passageway had to be filled.

  Gradually, the subterranean openings were permeated and water began to rise against the walls of the cavern. As they raced toward the tunnel opening, the ground began to slope upward. Sam stumbled and fell, and as the others stopped to help her to her feet, they looked back.

  “My God,” Dagursson said. “Where is it all bloody coming from?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan replied. “But it sure doesn’t seem as though Laki has turned benevolent all of a sudden and decided to show us the way out. ‘Go away,’ Skari said. Well, if you ask me, Laki has loosed the demons of hell upon us.”

  “I don’t understand it, either,” said Sam. “If Laki wants to be rid of us and wants us to go away, why is he doing this?”

  The cavern was filling rapidly. There was no time to discuss theology. They now looked out across a virtual sea of water. Steam filled the space as well, giving everything an eerie, mist-filled look, like a nineteenth-century industrial landscape, belching forth clouds of toxic waste.

  “Keep moving,” Sam said. “The water will follow us into the tunnel. “We don’t have much time. We have to get to the surface somehow. This much water will completely fill the openings beneath Laki. If we don’t find a way up and out, we’ll drown.”

  “Or be parboiled like lobsters,” said Ryan. “That water’s hot.”

  They moved across and into the tunnel, which was wide-mouthed, unlike most of the others they’d encountered. As they started to climb the steep passageway, they heard something almost indescribable, which made them all stop and look back. Now what?

  Across the vast sea of water, something was causing the surface to break into turmoil. There was the sound of screeching metal and a terrible, hollow, clanking noise unlike anything they’d ever heard.

  “What in the Christ is that?” asked Dagursson.

  And then as they stared in utter disbelief, the waters parted and something huge rolled over and uprighted itself in the frothing cascade.

  “Oh, my god,” said Sam. “What is that?”

  No one answered, because it became immediately evident as an enormous metal behemoth rolled upright and began to float toward them, banging into rock outcrops and turning this way and that against whatever barriers presented themselves.

  “It’s a goddamned ship!” said Dagursson.

  Indeed, it looked for all the world like an enormous battleship, its hull painted gray. The superstructure reached up toward the roof of the cavern, disappearing into the clouds of steam. They could even make out a few letters on the side of the hull: USS Thurman.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Ryan. “I know that ship. It’s a destroyer that was commissioned and named after President Thurman during his third year in office.”

  “Well, what the hell is it doing here?” asked Sam.

  “Watch out!” Dagursson said. “It’s turning this way.”

  They watched as the ship rocked back and forth, according to the vagaries of the current, but it did seem to be heading toward them, along with the water itself, which had now completely filled the floor of the cavern to a depth of at least a hundred feet.

  “Up the tunnel, quick,” Sam cried.

  As they ran up the steep slope, the waters raced after them. Ryan looked back for a moment and saw something else.

  “What are those things in the water?” he asked.

  A number of white objects were lolling about in the foam at the base of the ship’s hull.

  Dagursson stared at them. “They’re bodies,” he said in a low voice. “Dead seamen.”

  But there was no time left. The water surged into their tunnel, right behind them, lapping at their feet.

  “It’s no use,” Dagursson cried. “We can’t outrun it.” But then the huge destroyer rolled heavily in toward the tunnel opening. The cave was filled with the sounds of metal crunching against rock as the ship careened after them, then turned suddenly, bow first, and was thrown by the water directly into the tunnel opening. The superstructure broke off as it struck the roof of the cavern and fell back into the maelstrom, while the main body of the ship crunched and ground its way forward until it finally stopped, stuck fast in the tunnel opening, effectively, if temporarily, sealing the tunnel entrance.

  The water at their feet abruptly stopped rising and settled calmly into a pool.

  “That bloody thing, ghost ship, whatever you want to call it, has blocked the tunnel entrance,” said Ryan. “The water can’t get in.”

  “Maybe Laki’s had a change of heart after all,” said Sam. “There’s no telling how long it will hold. We’ve got to keep going. It could break free any moment.”

  The bedraggled group moved forward into the steeply rising tunnel. The enormity of what was transpiring all around them was numbing. After several minutes of silent climbing, Dagursson was the first to speak.

  “Where do you think the ship came from?” he asked, his voice small and hollow in the tunnel.

  “No way a battleship floated down one of those small ventholes,” Ryan said. “Only possibility is that it was transported here somehow, via the black hole or portal. That’s got to be where all the water came from as well . . . that hole in the Southern Ocean the President told us about.”

  The others stared at him. It was the only rational explanation, if rational was the right word. But no one wanted to affirm what he’d said. It was just too bizarre.

  The tunnel leveled off and began to twist and turn. They followed it a long way. The sounds of grinding metal and surging water gradually fell away behind them. Then the venthole grew and quite suddenly opened into a larger space. Sam and Ryan stopped abruptly and stared at their surroundings. Dagursson literally ran i
nto them.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you stopping?” he asked.

  “It’s the Nazi laboratory,” said Ryan in an awed voice. “Somehow we’ve come full circle back to this place.”

  Far behind them they could hear the sound of water rushing again. Their temporary reprieve was evidently over. The destroyer must have worked its way free, and the tunnel was filling once more with water, like some implacable foe intent on chasing them down.

  Sam gripped Ryan’s arm tightly. “Come on,” she said. “We know there’s a way out of here.”

  He nodded and they began to push forward past the silent banks of files, vats, and ancient plumbing. Dagursson, for all his terror of the roaring water behind them, couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed at the evidence of human construction all around them.

  The rime-covered file cabinets, rows of vats and even the lavasicles and stalactites were no longer frost-covered and frozen. The heat of the volcano had begun to melt everything. They could see water pouring down from a thousand small rivulets, where the glacier itself had begun to melt.

  Sam started to climb up the side of the great crevice that had been their path to safety once before. Only this time, it had melted to the extent that they no longer needed a rope, for the cascades of meltwater had flattened out the ice channel. The path ahead was now negotiable, an almost level, gentle slope upward.

  Still, the meltwater made it slippery as an ice rink, and they often had to go down on all fours to keep from sliding backward. They quickly became soaked and frigid from the ice water. At one juncture, they paused to rest for a moment in an icy indentation. Looking below, they could see the relentless water rising behind them, climbing stolidly over file cabinets, tables, ancient Nazi plumbing, and vats now filled to overflowing with water. Slowly, Goering’s insane dream was disappearing beneath the unstoppable tide.