“Now I can see why they’re part of our Five a Day,” Scarlet said.
Sala ignored her. “The box you see at the base of her statue is called an eski — an ancient container carved of ash wood in which she kept her apples. These apples were consumed by the gods when infirmity crept over them like a shadow in their old age. After eating the apples, their power and youth were restored.” Sala turned to face them. “Do you know what the oldest question in the world is?”
Scarlet glanced at his long, black hair. “Are you wearing a rug?”
Sala looked at her, his eyes narrowing in confusion. “The oldest question is simple — what good is immortality without power?”
“Like you Cairo, I’m starting to wonder if megalomania is infectious,” Hawke said.
Sala dismissed the Englishman with a casual wave of his hand and glanced with unadulterated avarice over the hoard of treasure, swords and other magical weapons stretching over the vast space. “The answer is that it is no good at all. Can you imagine a life of eternal poverty, or eternal impotence?”
“No, but I bet you can,” Scarlet said, glancing at his groin.
“Silence! I will not be mocked! You think this is just some kind of joke, but this only tells me you know nothing about what you’re tangling with. You’re like stupid little children who have discovered a loaded gun in the forest and are playing with the safety catch. Eternity is a serious business, and immortality without power is worse than death.”
“So that’s what you’re here for?” Hawke asked, his voice echoing in the hall. “You killed all those people to get to a source of the elixir here in Valhalla?”
Sala laughed. “Hardly. There is no elixir here in Valhalla — at least not the sort you found in the Ethiopian mountains.”
The ECHO team shared a worried glance. “You know about that?”
Another cackle. “Of course,” he said, his face turning sour. “When you broke into the tomb you cost me more than you could ever imagine.”
“Imagine my sorrow,” Hawke said.
As he spoke, Smets and a team of men were moving the gods’ weapons from the Hall to his submarine. They seemed to be concentrating on the impressive collection of swords which had been thrust into the ground in a large circle around the Odin statue.
“I always loved the swords…” Sala said, his eyes following their progress to the sub. “And now they are all mine.”
He watched with glee as the men moved on to another part of the hall.
“You’re amassing quite the collection of doomsday weapons, Sala,” Hawke said. “Planning something we can all enjoy?”
Sala looked at Hawke with dead eyes. “That one is Ichaival, Odin’s bow, this here is the sword of Freyr… all of them mine now — all of them my weapons, with which I will defeat the real enemy of this world.”
Lea nudged Hawke in the ribs.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Look — the Tarnkappe.”
“Eh?”
“It’s the rest of Sigurd’s magical cloak,” Ryan said from his other side.
They watched the surreal sight of Leon Smets carrying the rest of the cloak of invisibility from the hall and handing it to a sailor.
“Tell me,” Hawke said, “Are all you megalomaniac nutcases part of some kind of club? Do you have a union or something?”
Sala ignored him. “Now, sadly it is time for you all to have an unfortunate accident.” He turned to Smets. “Are the charges set?”
Smets nodded confirmation.
“Charges?” Ryan said.
“Yes, when we arrived my men planted several kilos of plastic explosives in the most vulnerable areas of this hall. When they explode the ceiling will collapse and the whole cursed place will be crushed under thousands of tons of sea water.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t blow this place up!”
“Why not?” Sala asked with a scowl. “It’s been done before.”
“What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t possibly understand. You didn’t honestly think this place got here because of natural coastal erosion?”
“But it’s Valhalla!” Ryan said.
“And?”
“Shouldn’t it be National Trust or something?” Scarlet said.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Come on — you can’t destroy the greatest archaeological find in history.”
“The greatest archaeological find in history to you maybe,” Sala said sourly. “To me this place means nothing, and today I shall do what the others failed to do all those millions of years ago and erase it from the face of the earth.”
“Others?” Lea asked. “What others?”
Sala looked at her, the grin on his face turning bitter. “You have so much to learn about this world, Lea Donovan… it’s a shame you have only minutes to live.”
“All of this for these weapons?” Hawke said. “What next — you want to destroy the armies of the world?”
Sala laughed. “Destroying the armies of the world is easy, Englishman. Making war with a mortal is like wrestling with a puppy. No… these weapons are for a much more ancient and bloody conflict. Smets! Don’t forget those axes!”
“When you’re dead, Sala,” Hawke said with calm determination, “I’m going to file you under Just Another Nutcase.”
Sala gave a cold laugh and nodded his head. “More humor — I respect that so let me give you a little of what you seek.”
Scarlet lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the cold air. “That’s very magnanimous of you, Álvaro.”
Sala cut her a cold glance. “You will be dead soon enough so I see no harm in putting you out of your misery. Yes, my name is Álvaro Sala, but during the Spanish Civil War I was Francisco Rivera.” He grinned as he watched their faces in reaction to his words. “When I lived in Ancient Rome they called me Atilius. Now, you get closer to the truth after so many struggles.”
He leaned closer to the statue of Iðunn and caressed her smooth stone shoulder. He pulled an apple from the eski and Lea was shocked to see it glowing bright gold as if it were electric. He bit into it and chewed slowly, a warped grin spreading on his gaunt face. Seconds later his pallid complexion began to take on a rosy glow. “How would you find the taste of the truth if you really knew it — sordid horror or fantastic beauty?”
“You’re crazy, Sala!” Lea yelled.
“So you have said, but I think not. Now I will bring the Doom of the Gods to this place as it should have been done so long ago.”
“You mean Ragnarök?” Hawke asked.
Sala smiled with condescension. “That is a term whose meaning you could never hope to understand.”
The silence following his words was met by the sounds of Victoria returning from the Folkvang. “It’s amazing down there! I found the Brisingamen — the necklace jewellery of fire that Loki stole… Loki! And it’s right here in my…”
Her words startled Sala, who spun around to see the English archaeologist standing right behind him with the strange, shimmering necklace in her hands.
“Ah — Dr Hamilton-Talbot, the erstwhile archaeological academic turned grubby treasure hunter. I see you got here in the end.” As he spoke, one of his men collected the eski and marched away to the Migaloo with it.
“Oh my…” she said in her sparkling crystal Oxford accent.
Sala smirked and waved the barrel of the gun casually toward the others. “Get over there, and give me that necklace on the way.”
Victoria moved slowly toward Sala. She gently extended her hand and held out the glistening jewellery.
He bit into the apple, keeping it in clenched in his mouth as he brought his hand up to take it from her. He studied it for a moment and then turned to Lea. “You never found the gods, Lea Donovan… but you will surely die among them.”