“Remember what Lailoken said,” Tam Nok was standing over the two of them. “He said the shortest distance would not a be straight line.”
“But going all the way around in almost a circle is certainly not the shortest distance either,” Ragnarok said.
Bjarni had picked up the metal plate and was studying it.
“He also said something about a short cut,” Tam Nok said.
“How can there be a short-cut?” Ragnarok argued. “We know where we are and we know where we wish to go. We cannot go in a straight line and any other route would take too much time.”
“There is a tunnel,” Tam Nok said. She took the map from Bjarni and pointed to a spot off the northern coast of Iceland.
“A what?” Ragnarok looked where she was pointing.
“It says here, these runes, that there is a tunnel,” Tam Nok said.
“You can read the markings?” Ragnarok asked.
“It is a language from the Greeks,” the priestess replied. “I learned some in my travels. I do not understand much, but this word here, it is the word for tunnel. And this thin line goes from there to here, which is where I wish to go. I believe the line is the tunnel.”
“This place,” Ragnarok said, “off the coast of Iceland, is where Ginnungagap, the great chasm ice and fire that separates the Gods is reported to be. I have heard stories of the sea opening up, of monsters climbing out of the depths. A tunnel in the great chasm would not be strange. The legends say the gods can travel through the underworld.”
Hrolf had been hovering in the background and now he added his opinion. “I do not wish to travel through the underworld.”
“We do not even know for sure if there is a tunnel there,” Ragnarok said.
“Monsters and demonesses who fly-” Hrolf spit. “We are intruding in things beyond us.”
“It may be beyond us,” Tam Nok agreed, “but it affects us.”
“How?” Hrolf demanded. “All we have heard are your stories. You talk of a threat to the world, but I see no threat except when we stick our noses where they should not be.”
“My people were-” Tam Nok began, but Hrolf interrupted.
“Your people. Not my people.”
“All people have been affected by the Shadow,” Tam Nok said. “Where do you think you come from?”
“Not from the same place as you,” Hrolf said. He held out his arm and placed it next to her’s. “We are very different.”
Tam Nok shook her head. “That is just skin color. I live in a hot, sunny place. My people have been there for many generations just as yours have lived in a cold, dark place for many generations. We adapt to where we live. In my journey here I have seen many different types of people. The ones who built the Great Wall that I passed through. With eyes like mine but their skin was more yellow. The riders of the steppes. All different but all the same. Not here-” she rubbed her hand along her arm- “but here.” Tam Nok pressed her hand against her chest over her heart. “And here.” She pointed at her head.
“The stories, the legends, are different in detail but the same in meaning and depth. All speak of a great flood long ago. They give different reasons for it, but all knew of it. Even those who live in the very high mountains far from the ocean, who would not have even seen the flood. How do they know of it? Because their ancestors came on the flood. All our ancestors did.
“The battles between gods- all have different names for their gods, but there is much that is the same in the way the gods act, the way they fight. Even this tunnel under the Earth- every culture I have passed through speaks of an underworld.”
Tam Nok reached out and placed her hands on Hrolf’s chest. “This Shadow destroyed our ancestors and scattered them so far around the world that you stand here now and don’t believe we are kin. But we are. And it will happen again, except this time there will be no one left. Unless we stop it.”
All activity had ceased on the ship. Other than Tam Nok speaking there was only the sound of the sail snapping in the wind and the water passing by the hull. Every Viking was staring at the small, brown woman, listening to her words.
Hrolf looked down at her hands on his chest, then reached up and placed his old, worn ones over her’s. “I do not know of these things you speak. I would like to believe we are all one people. Then maybe we would stop killing each other and hating so much.” The old man’s eyes lifted to Ragnarok’s. “I will go where my captain commands.”
“We have to go northwest anyway,” Ragnarok said.
Tam Nok nodded. “We will go that way. I know it is the right way.”
Bjarni stood and relieved the man on the rudder. He pushed on the tiller and the dragon’s head swung around to the northwest.
Chapter 21
“This can’t be right,” DeAngelo said. “I’m reading normal atmospheric pressure out there.”
“Why can’t that be right?” Dane asked.
“Because the muonic circle of activity was at twenty-eight thousand feet depth,” DeAngelo said. “Which means we’re still that deep.”
Dane was still staring at the video monitors, taking in the variety of craft lying on the metal shore. “The large door must be a pressure lock. This whole thing is pressurized.”
“But-” DeAngelo was at a loss for words. “Do you know what it would take to build such a- something this big? Something that strong?”
“Technology we don’t possess,” Sin Fen said from the rear sphere. She was on her feet, reaching toward the hatch.
“What are you doing?” DeAngelo was startled.
“Going outside.”
“That’s a good idea,” Dane stood and reached up, grabbing the hatch handle. “Unlock the hatches,” he told DeAngelo.
“I-” DeAngelo gave up and turned to his controls.
The light flashed red and the automatic warning sounded as DeAngelo released the locks. Dane turned the handle and with a slight hiss, the hatch swung open. He climbed up the ladder and stood on the small metal grating on the top of the forward sphere. Sin Fen was on top of the rear sphere, fifteen feet behind him.
“There’s no one here,” Dane said.
“I know,” Sin Fen concurred.
The air was thick, almost oily, just like the air inside the Angkor gate. But Dane didn’t feel the sense of danger he had had the two times he’d gone inside that gate.
“Where do you think all the crews went?” Dane asked.
“Into the gate,” Sin Fen said. “This is a holding area for the ships and planes.”
“Some of them look like they’ve been held here for thousands of years,” Dane noted. He yelled down into the sphere to DeAngelo. “Can you take us close to the beach?”
In reply, Deepflight began moving through the water, producing the only disturbance in the mirror-like surface.
When they were ten meters from the shore, DeAngelo yelled up to them that they were as close as he could get without grounding the submersible.
“Ready to take a dip?” Dane asked.
In reply, Sin Fen climbed down off the sphere and slid into the water. She began swimming for the shore. “The water is not cold,” she yelled over her shoulder. “That’s strange.”
Given that the water on the other side of the door was 36 degrees that was indeed strange Dane though, but no stranger than the cavern itself and the craft that surrounded them.
Dane jumped into the water and swam after Sin Fen. The water was not only reasonably warm, it felt different, as the air did. Thicker and slimy. Dane was glad when his feet hit something solid beneath them. He stood and walked onto the beach, water slowly dripping off him. The first thing he noted was that the beach wasn’t of sand, but rather was a strange material- almost a metal but with a slight yield to it. It also was almost warm to the touch and seamless, extending to the smooth rock wall a half mile away. “Hell of an engineering job,” Dane said.