“Trail’s hotting up,” Dahl said, with barely a glance inside the niche before continuing along the ledge — which ended against the mountainside — a solid black mass.
Drake joined the Swede, Ben and Kennedy as they ran torches over the rock-face.
“Footholds,” Ben said. “And handholds. Looks like we’re going up.”
Drake craned his neck to look up. The rock-ladder ran up into infinite dark, and they would have nothing but air at their back.
First a test of nerve, now what? Strength? Vitality?
Again Dahl went first. Climbing fast for twenty feet or so before seeming to slow as the blackness engulfed him. Ben chose to go next, then Kennedy.
“Guess you can keep an eye on my ass now,” she said with half a smile, “Make sure it doesn’t go flying past you.”
He winked. “Won’t take my eyes off it.”
Drake went next, scrabbling for three perfect holds before moving his fourth appendage. Rising in that fashion he rose slowly up the sheer rock-face into the volcanic air.
The rumblings continued all about them: distant complaints of the mountain. Drake imagined the magma chamber sitting not too far away, bubbling, spitting hellfire and discharging it across the walls, spewing up towards the distant blue Icelandic skies.
A foot scraped above him, slipping off its little ledge. He held himself stock-still, knowing there was little he could do if someone came barrelling past him, but prepared, just in case.
Kennedy’s foot swayed in space about a metre above his head.
He reached out, swinging a bit precariously, but managed to grab the sole of her boot and guide it back to its ledge. A short whisper of thanks drifted down.
On he went, biceps on fire, fingers aching in every joint. The tips of his toes bore the weight of his body for every small ascension. Sweat slicked his every pore.
He estimated two hundred feet of safe but terrifying hand and footholds before they reached the comparative safety of another ledge.
Gruelling work. Edge of the world, apocalypse-later kind of work. Saving humankind with every punishing step forward.
“What now?” Wells was flat out on his back, groaning. “Another bloody ledge-walk?”
“No,” Dahl didn’t even have the strength to make a joke. “A tunnel.”
“Balls.”
On their knees they crawled forward. The tunnel led into an inky darkness that made Drake start to believe he was dreaming before he abruptly ran into Kennedy’s stationary behind.
Face first.
“Ow! Could’ve warned me.”
“Difficult when I was suffering the same fate,” came back a dry voice. “Only Dahl came out of that pile-up sans bruised nose, I think.”
“It’s my damn heart I worry about,” Dahl called back wearily. “Tunnel ends right up against the first step of another staircase at, um, I’d guess a forty-five degree angle. Nothing to left and right, at least nothing I can see. Prepare yourself.”
“These things must be attached somewhere,” Drake muttered as he crawled on bruised knees. “They can’t just be suspended in mid-air, for God’s sake.”
“Maybe they can,” Parnevik said. “For a God’s sake. Ha ha. I made a joke, but seriously my best guess is a series of flying buttresses.”
“Hidden beneath us,” Drake said. “Sure. Must’ve taken a hell of a workforce. Or a couple of really strong Gods.”
“Maybe they asked Hercules and Atlas for a hand.”
Drake edged out onto the first step with a curiously creepy feeling invading his brain and ascended the rough stone. They rose for a while, at length emerging onto another niche based around a suspended platform.
Dahl met him with a jaded shake of his head. “Poseidon.”
“Impressive.”
Drake sank again to his knees. Christ, he thought. I hope the Germans are having it just as hard. At the end, maybe instead of a battle they could duke it out with rock, paper, scissors.
The Greek God of the Sea carried his usual trident and a roomful of fabulous wealth. This was the seventh God they had passed. The figure nine began to gnaw at his mind.
Wasn’t the number nine the most sacred in Viking mythology?
He mentioned it to Parnevik whilst they rested.
“Yes, but this place clearly isn’t just Nordik,” the Prof jabbed a finger towards the trident-bearer behind them. “Could be a hundred of them.”
“Well, we clearly aren’t going to survive a hundred of them,” Kennedy bickered at him. “Unless someone built a Ho-Jo’s up ahead.”
“Or better still, a bacon-buttie shop,” Drake smacked his lips. “I could sure down one of those bad-boys about now.”
“Crusty,” Ben laughed and slapped his leg. “You speak about ten years out of date. But don’t worry — you still have entertainment value.”
It was five more minutes before they felt rested enough to continue. Dahl and Wells and Marsters spent a few minutes listening out for their pursuers, but no sounds split the perennial night.
“Maybe they all fell off,” Kennedy shrugged. “It could happen. If this were a Michael Bay movie someone would’a fallen by now.”
“Indeed.” Dahl led the way up another suspended staircase. As fate decided, this was the one where Wells lost his grip and slipped two slimy steps down, cracking his chin against stone each time.
Blood seeped through his lips from a bitten tongue.
Drake grabbed him by the shoulders of his big coat. The man below him — Marsters — gripped his thighs with superhuman strength.
“Not going anywhere, old man. Not yet.”
The fifty-five-year-old was manhandled back up the staircase with Kennedy supporting Drake’s back and Marsters ensuring he didn’t slip another step. By the time they reached the eighth niche Wells was back in good humour.
“Yeah, did it on purpose, boys. Just fancied the rest.”
But he clasped Marsters’ arm and whispered a heartfelt thanks to Drake when no one was looking.
“No worries, old mate. Just hang in there. You haven’t had your Mai-time yet.”
The eighth niche was a bit of a showstopper.
“Oh, Lord.” Parnevik’s wonder infected them all. “It’s Zeus. The Father of man. Even Gods address him as a deity — a paternal figure. This is… beyond Odin… way beyond, and that’s coming from a Scandinavian.”
“Wasn’t Odin identified as Zeus among the early Germanic tribes?” Ben asked, remembering his research.
“He was, lad, but I mean, come on. It’s Zeus.”
The man had a point. The King of the Gods stood high and supreme, a thunderbolt grasped in one massive hand. Inside his niche was an abundance of glittering treasure, full to overflowing with tribute beyond anything one single man could amass today.
And then Drake heard a curse, loud, in German. It echoed up from below.
“They have just breached the tunnel,” Dahl closed his eyes in exasperation. “That puts them only fifteen minutes behind us. Damn, we have no bloody luck! Follow me!”
Another staircase beckoned, this one swinging way out and above Zeus’ Tomb before becoming vertical for the last ten steps. They tackled it as best they could, courage turned to ash by the creeping dark. It was as if the absence of light quashed the stuttering spirit. Fear came to call and decided to squat.
Talk about vertigo, Drake thought. Talk about your balls shrinking to the size of peanuts. Those last ten steps, suspended above the pitch black, climbing through the crawling night, almost overwhelmed him. He had no idea how the others managed it — all he could do was relive the mistakes of his past and cling tightly to them — Alyson, the baby they never had and never would have; the SRT campaign in Iraq that screwed it all up — he planted every fault and blunder at the forefront of his mind to exclude the intense fear of falling.