“Wisdom, ultimate pursuit of wisdom,” Sam mentioned.
“That’s correct,” Nina said.
“Humor me,” he requested. “The Vril Society believed that Aryans were destined to be this super race, right?”
“Right,” Purdue and Nina replied.
“And they had this theory that super beings were, as we speak, living inside the earth, in command of the great vril energy that they used to create unfathomable technology and resources, right?” Sam added on.
“Right,” Nina said.
Sam leaned forward, minding the volume of his voice to share.
“Well, I have a theory of my own. Who, that the Nazis revered, undertook great sacrifices to obtain wisdom?” Sam almost whispered. Purdue gave it some thought but Nina was quicker.
“Odin.”
“That’s right, my esteemed little goddess,” Sam smiled, his dimples burrowing into his cheeks as he did so.
“Wait, what are you proposing?” Purdue asked, gradually birthing a smile of his own.
“That the tomb of Odin is the underground world of wisdom and god-like power!” Purdue exclaimed, slamming his palms together as he always did when his wanderlust overtook him.
“And we will know when we have reached that underworld by the noncompliance of our compasses,” Sam reiterated. “‘to the Grave of Odin will no compass yield,’ remember? And I bet you that Valknut will point us to it.”
“Okay, I’ll bite… but what about the golden chain?” Nina asked suddenly, drawing a deadline right through the enthusiasm of the men.
“Hey, come now, one thing at a time,” Purdue chuckled in amusement. “Let us go find the train tracks first and see what comes up down there.”
“I agree,” Sam said. “And the sooner we get to the bottom of it, excuse the pun, the sooner we’ll know what to do about that bloody generator.”
“Not to discourage or worry you, Sam, but that container will not hold that machine much longer, by my calculations and my knowledge of scientific storage utilities its days will soon be numbered,” Purdue warned.
“And God only knows what level of destruction it will unleash,” Nina worried. “We have to make haste, gentlemen.” She put out her cigarette and her two companions followed suit, gathering up their luggage, and heading for their new, old car.
From the top of the mighty Fürstenstein Castle, as the German tongue spoke it, the three stood looking down over the lavish green gardens, impeccably kept. As he had done before, Purdue used his pen-shaped spyglass to survey the underlying geography through the device’s x-ray setting. It detected several possible entry points to the hollow caverns beneath the medieval structure with its richly Bohemian heritage. It was almost dusk when Purdue marked the coordinates of the entry point he selected to be easiest accessible.
“Let’s go. We have to get diving gear,” he declared.
“Excuse me, what?” Nina asked, but Sam just placed his hand on the small of her back and pushed her ahead of him as they descended the steps into the closest hall.
“The best point of entry into the tunnels below is through the water table, as always. And here we have ample fountains and ponds around the perimeter that can take us safely into one of the subterranean pools,” Purdue clarified.
“Great! More underground tunnels I have to crawl around in,” Nina scoffed.
“Not to worry, Nina,” Purdue smiled cunningly, “only the first part is crawl-worthy. The rest is quite vast in height and width, fit for a locomotive.”
“If I drown I’m haunting you both… and I won’t be the velvety, hand-type spook either. I will go poltergeist on you!” she threatened in a childlike manner that Purdue and Sam found highly entertaining.
“On a serious note, we will need masks to wear when we are sub-level,” Sam noted.
“Why?” Nina asked.
“You don’t know what kind of bacterial agents there will be down there. There are rats and bats for sure. Who knows what shit we’ll be breathing in,” he explained.
“During the war thousands of laborers lost their lives from outbreaks of typhus, so I suppose pants get tucked into boots tonight,” Nina advised them.
Just before 10pm, a good time to infiltrate old dig sites according to the Book of Purdue, the three of them submerged themselves into a deep well, unused for water these days. It stood outside the perimeter of the castle and its ponds, but it fed from the same underground river, which was reputed to flow straight along the passageways of the excavations.
“This is grotesque, Sam,” Nina mumbled, as Sam lowered her by harness and rope down the narrow, mossy pipe of rock and fern.
“Just think of the gold, Nina. Just think of Odin’s tomb and the discovery of wisdom,” he smiled.
“I have enough wisdom, and I don’t need gold that gets me killed,” she answered as she descended into the black eye of the well.
A few minutes later they had come through the murky water of the subterranean pools and emerged in a small cavern that reached no higher than an outstretched arm above their heads. Nina felt nauseous with terror within the confined space.
“How do I always get myself into places like this?” she asked no one in particular. She crawled after Purdue with Sam behind her. With only Purdue’s flashlight and flares for light, their time was as limited as their illumination. The first green flare cracked and hissed as Purdue stood up in the dark. Nina tried not to think of the green light she had to use in the Himalayan hell hole when she last crawled through worm hollows.
“My God, it is magnificent!” Purdue exclaimed. He moved the flare around in a 360-degree circle to ascertain their environment. They were standing in one of the Nazi-planned complexes of Project Riese, Complex Książ. In awe of the history and magnitude of the chamber, Sam and Nina swirled slowly to survey every feature of the incomplete railroad system.
“Aye, it sure is,” Sam agreed with Purdue. “It still smells of steel and sulphur.”
“And rat shit,” Nina chimed in.
“Let’s start walking. These tunnels were never completed, so they could not take us too far before we found something,” Purdue, ever the explorer, smiled and started without the other two.
“Hey, wait. I’m still trying to get out of my wetsuit,” Nina moaned.
“Come Nina!” Purdue’s voice echoed from the green light ahead that gradually moved farther away and draped her in the thick darkness from behind.
She caught up with them in time to escape the blackness. Above them the rock was arched with wire reinforcements and wooden beams to keep it from collapsing. Concrete and stone made up the sides of the tunnel, painted white in most places, which comprised steel sheets and shafts. There were no tracks laid, only rocky floor under their boots. Far off, the silence yielded to the occasional dripping of seepage through the jagged arches overhead.
“Spooky,” Sam told Nina in jest to see her reaction.
“I’m claustrophobic, Sam, not superstitious,” she responded.
“Even so,” Purdue noted in amusement, “you can almost feel the presence of those who worked here. I mean, so many people suffered greatly down here under tyranny, disease, malnutrition, and general torment. How many must have died right here under our feet?”
“Thank you, Dave,” Nina sighed, slightly unsettled.
“I’m not a man who entertains the notion of an afterlife or ghosts,” Purdue carried on at his own pace ahead of Sam and Nina. “But I have to say, one has to give it some pause when one is in the company of such a dark space of history. I can distinctly feel others… they are all around us, wondering what we are doing in their tomb.”