Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  He groaned and sank to his knees, dragging his cheek along the rough stone, trying to bring some clarity to his mind. The voice persisted.

  Hatch drew his face away from the wall, listening now.

  The voice came again.

  "Hello?" he called back tentatively.

  "Where are you?" came the muffled cry.

  Hatch turned, felt the walls, trying to orient himself. The sound seemed to be coming from behind the stone that pressed his brother's bones into the stone floor.

  "Are you all right?" it asked.

  "No!" cried Hatch. "No! I'm trapped!"

  The voice seemed to fade in and out of hearing. Perhaps, Hatch thought, it was himself, coming in and out of consciousness.

  "How can I help?" he realized the voice was asking.

  Hatch rested, thinking how he should reply.

  "Where are you?" he asked at last. The rush of adrenaline had brought back a modicum of alertness; it would not last long.

  "In a tunnel," the voice said.

  "Which tunnel?"

  "I don't know. It leads in from the shore. My boat was wrecked, but I was saved. Saved by a miracle."

  Hatch rested for a moment, trying to suck in whatever air was left. There was only one possible tunnel the voice could mean: Johnny's tunnel.

  "Where are you stuck?" the voice continued.

  "Wait!" Hatch cried, breathing heavily, forcing himself to relive the old memories. What had he seen?

  . . . There'd been a door, a door with a seal in front of it. Johnny had broken the seal and stepped through. A puff of wind from the tunnel beyond, blowing out the light. . . Johnny had cried out in surprise and pain . . . there'd been a kind of heavy dragging sound. . . he'd fumbled for a new match, lit it, seen the implacable stone wall before him, thick streaks of blood along its base and the joint where it met the left wall. The blood had seemed to almost weep from the cracks, rushing out and down like the leading edge of a red wave to creep around his knees and his sneakers.

  Hatch wiped his face with a trembling hand, overwhelmed by the force of the memories.

  A puff of wind had come down the tunnel when Johnny opened the door. Yet when Hatch had lit another match, there had been only a stone wall in front of him, and Johnny was gone. So the tunnel must have continued beyond the stone. Stepping into the room, or opening the door, or breaking the seal—something—had triggered Macallan's trap. A massive slab of stone moved across the tunnel, dragging Johnny with it, crushing him beneath, forcing his body into this hollow space, sealing off the rest of the watertight tunnel. There was no other explanation. The well, the chamber Hatch was trapped in, the vault room above, must all be part of the support mechanism for the trap.

  And Macallan—or perhaps Red Ned Ockham—hadn't wanted anybody interfering with the trap. So the vault room itself had been booby-trapped. As Wopner had learned at the cost of his life.

  "Are you still there?" came the voice.

  "Please wait," Hatch gasped, trying to follow the train of thought to its conclusion. The tunnel he and Johnny discovered must have been Red Ockham's secret entrance, the one Macallan had constructed for him—the back door to the treasure. But if a treasure hunter were to find the shore tunnel, Macallan needed a way to stop them. The trap that killed Johnny was obviously his answer. A massive piece of dressed stone, rolling in from one side, crushing any intruder who did not know how to disarm the trap. The stone was so expertly fashioned that, once in place, it would look like the end wall of the tunnel, preventing further exploration . . .

  Hatch struggled to keep his mind focused. That meant once the Pit was drained, Ockham would have needed a way to reset the trap, to roll the stone back, and continue down the tunnel to reclaim his loot. Of course, Macallan had his own plans for Ockham once he reached the Pit itself. But the pirate had to believe he had a back door to the treasure.

  So the trap had to work on a simple fulcrum mechanism, the stone delicately poised so that the slightest pressure would cause it to move . . . the pressure of a child's weight. . .

  . . . But why, then, had nobody stumbled on the way to reset the trap, in that frantic search for Johnny, thirty-one years before—?

  "Hey!" he cried out suddenly. "Are you still there?"

  "I'm here. How can I help?"

  "Do you have a light?" Hatch called.

  "A flashlight, yes."

  "Look around. Tell me what you see."

  There was a pause. "I'm at the end of a tunnel. There's solid stone on all three sides."

  Hatch opened his mouth, coughed, breathed more shallowly. "Tell me about the stone." Another pause. "Big slabs."

  "On all three sides."

  "Yes."

  "Any chinks or depressions? Anything?" "No, nothing."

  Hatch tried to think. "How about the ceiling?" he asked. "There's a large stone lintel, some old oaken beams." "Test the beams. Are they solid?" "I think so."

  There was a silence while Hatch strained to draw in more air. "What about the floor?"

  "It's covered in mud. Can't see it all that well."

  "Clear it away."

  Hatch waited, willing his mind not to slip back into unconsciousness.

  "It's tiled in stone," came the voice.

  A faint glimmer of hope rose within Hatch. "Small pieces of stone?"

  "Yes."

  The glimmer became stronger. "Look closely. Does any piece look different from the rest?"

  "No."

  Hope slipped away. Hatch held his head in his hands, jaws agape, fighting for breath.

  "Wait. There is something. There's a stone in the center, here, that's not square. It's tapered slightly, almost like a keyhole. At least, I think it is. There's not much of a difference."

  Hatch looked up. "Can you lift it away from the others?"

  "Let me try." There was a brief silence. "No, it's wedged in tight, and the soil around it is hard as concrete."

  "Do you have a knife?"

  "No. But wait, wait a moment, let me try something else." Very faintly, Hatch thought he could hear the sound of scratching.

  "Okay!" the voice said, a thin tone of excitement carrying through the intervening rock. "I'm lifting it now." A pause. "There's some kind of mechanism in a cavity underneath, a wooden stick, almost like a lever or something."

  That must be the fulcrum handle, Hatch thought drowsily. "Can you pull it up? Reset it?"

  "No," came the voice after a moment. "It's stuck fast."

  "Try again!" Hatch called out with the last of his breath. In the silence that followed, the buzzing returned, louder and louder in his ears; he leaned on the cold stone, trying to prop himself up, until at last he slipped away into unconsciousness.

  . . . Then there was a light, and a voice, and Hatch felt himself coming back from a long distance. He reached up to the light, then slipped and fell, sending one of Johnny's bones spinning away. He breathed in the air, no longer stuffy and poisonous, faintly perfumed with the smell of the sea. He seemed to have fallen into a larger tunnel as the slab that crushed his brother had rolled back.

  Hatch tried to speak but could only croak. He gazed up into the light again, trying to focus his blurry eyes on who was behind it. Raising himself on shaky knees, he blinked and saw Reverend Clay staring back at him, dried blood caked around his nose, flashlight in hand.

  "You!" said Clay, disappointment huge in his voice. A large, thin cross of bright metal hung from his neck, one sharp edge covered in mud.

  Hatch swayed, still breathing the delicious air. Strength was returning, but he could not yet muster the energy to speak.

  Clay replaced the cross within his shirt and stepped closer, standing in the low doorway that Hatch himself had once stood in, more than twenty-five years before. "I took shelter near the mouth of the tunnel, and I heard your cries," the minister said. "On the third try I was able to shift the lever, and the end wall of the tunnel came away, opening this hole. What is this place? And what are you doing here?" He peered
closer, shining the light into the chamber. "And what are all these bones that fell out with you?"

  Hatch held up his hand in response. After a moment's hesitation, Clay reached down and Hatch staggered to his feet.

  "Thank you," he gasped. "You saved my life."

  Clay waved his hand in a gesture of irritation.

  "This was the tunnel my brother was killed in. And those are his bones."

  Clay's eyes widened. "Oh," he said, moving the light quickly away. "I'm very sorry."

  "Did you see anyone else on the island?" Hatch asked urgently. "A young woman in a slicker? Dark hair?"

  Clay shook his head.

  Hatch closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath. Then he pointed down the newly exposed tunnel. "This leads to the base of the Water Pit. Captain Neidelman's in the treasure chamber. We have to stop him."

  Clay frowned. "Stop him from what?"

  "He's about to open the casket that contains St. Michael's Sword."

  A look of suspicion darted across the minister's face.

  A series of racking coughs seized Hatch. "I've learned the sword's deadly. Radioactive."

  Clay crossed his arms.

  "It could kill us all, and maybe half the town of Stormhaven, if it ever got out."

  Clay remained silent, staring.

  "Look," said Hatch, swallowing hard. "You were right. We never should have been digging for this treasure. But it's too late for that now. I can't stop him alone."

  A new look suddenly crossed the minister's face; a look Hatch found hard to interpret. Clay's expression began to change, brighten, as if his face was suffused with inward light. "I think I'm beginning to understand," he said, almost to himself.

  "Neidelman sent a man to kill me," Hatch said. "He's become unhinged."

  "Yes," said Clay, suddenly fervent. "Yes, of course he has." "All we can hope now is that we're not too late." Hatch stepped carefully around the litter of bones. Rest easy, Johnny, he said under his breath. Then he led the way down the narrow, sloping tunnel, Woody Clay following closely behind.

  Chapter 57

  Gerard Neidelman knelt before the casket, motionless, for what seemed an infinity of time. The iron bands that surrounded it had been carefully cut away, one by one. As the precise white light of the acetylene torch freed each band, it had fallen away through the slots in the metal floor. Now only a single band remained, separated from the lock of the casket but clinging to its side by a thick coating of rust.

  The lock had been cut, the seals broken. The sword was his to claim.

  And yet Neidelman remained where he was, his fingers on the lid. Every sense seemed magnified. He felt alive, fulfilled, in a way he had never dreamed possible. It was as if his entire past life was now just a colorless landscape; as if he had lived but to prepare for this moment.

  He inhaled slowly, then again. A slight tremor—perhaps the leaping of his heart—seemed to course through him. And then, with reverential slowness, he opened the lid.

  The interior of the box lay in shadow, but within Neidelman could see a faint coruscation of gemstones. The long-hidden interior exhaled the warm, fragrant scent of myrrh.

  The sword itself lay on perfumed velvet. He reached inside and placed his hand on the hilt, his fingers sliding smoothly between the beaten gold basket and grip. The blade itself was hidden, sheathed in a magnificent gold- and gem-encrusted scabbard.

  Carefully, he drew the scabbarded sword from the box. The velvet on which the sword lay dissolved instantly to a cloud of purple dust.

  He raised the sword—noting its heaviness with astonishment—and brought it carefully into the light.

  The scabbard and hilt were of Byzantine workmanship, fashioned of heavy gold, dating to perhaps the eighth or ninth century, an exceedingly rare, rapierlike design. The repousse and filigree were astonishingly delicate; in his vast studies, Neidelman had never seen finer.

  He raised the scabbard and turned it to catch the light, feeling his heart almost stop as he did so. The face of the scabbard was thick with cabochon sapphires of a depth, color, and clarity that seemed impossible. He wondered what earthly force could bring such rich color to a gemstone.

  He turned his attention to the hilt. The knuckle bow and quillion sported four astonishing rubies, each equal to the famous De Long Star, which Neidelman knew was considered the most perfect gemstone in existence. But embedded at the bottom of the pommel was a great double-star ruby that far surpassed the De Long in size, color, and symmetry. The stone, Neidelman mused as he turned the hilt in the light, had no equal on earth— none.

  Decorating the ricasso, grip rings, and counterguard were a dazzling array of sapphires in a rainbow of colors—blacks, oranges, midnight blues, whites, greens, pinks, and yellows, every one a perfect double star. Once again, never had he seen such rich, deep colors. Not in his most febrile dreams had he imagined such gemstones. Each was utterly unique, each would command any price on the market. But to have them all set together in such a singular piece of Byzantine goldwork was inconceivable. Such an object had never existed in the world, nor could it exist again; it was without peer.

  With an absolute clarity of mind, Neidelman could see that his vision of the sword had not been misplaced. If anything, he had underestimated its power. This was an artifact that could change the world.

  Now, at last, the moment had come. The hilt and the scabbard were extraordinary: the blade itself must be beyond conception. Grasping the hilt in his right hand, and the scabbard in his left, he began to draw out the sword with exquisite slowness.

  The flood of intense pleasure changed first to perplexity, then shock, then wonderment. What emerged from the scabbard was a pitted, flattened, deformed piece of metal. It was scaly and mottled, oxidized to a strange, purplish-black color, with inclusions of some white substance. He drew it to its length and held it upright, gazing at the misshapen blade—indeed, the word "blade" hardly described it at all. He wondered, remotely, what it could mean. Over the years his mind had imagined this moment a hundred, even a thousand, times. Each time, the sword had looked different.

  But never had it looked like this.

  He reached out and stroked the rough metal, wondering at its curious warmth. Perhaps the sword had been caught in a fire and melted, then refitted with a new hilt. But what kind of fire would do this? And what kind of metal was it? Not iron—it would have rusted orange—and not silver, which turned black when oxidized. Neither platinum nor gold oxidized at all. And it was far, far too heavy to be tin or any of the baser metals.

  What metal oxidized purple?

  He turned the sword again, and passed it through the air, and as he did so he recalled the Christian legend of the archangel St. Michael.

  An idea formed within him.

  Several times, late at night, he had dreamed the sword buried at the base of the Water Pit was, quite literally, the sword of legend: the sword of St. Michael himself, conqueror of Satan. In the dream, when he gazed upon the sword, he'd suffered a blinding conversion, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. He had taken a curious kind of comfort in the fact that his rich imagination always faltered at this point. Nothing he could conceive was extraordinary enough to justify the veneration and dread that filled the ancient documents mentioning the sword.

  But if St. Michael—the Archangel of the Sword—had fought Satan, his weapon would have been scorched and melted in the course of battle. Such a sword would be unlike any other.

  As was the thing he now held in his hands.

  He gazed at it anew, wonder and fear and uncertainty mingling within him. If this was such a sword—and what other explanation could there be?—then it was evidence, it was proof, of another world; of something beyond the material. The resurrection of such a sword would be a spectacular event.

  Yes, yes, he nodded to himself. With such a sword, he could cleanse the world; he could sweep away the spiritual bankruptcy, give the fatal thrust to the world's decaying religions and their dying priesthoo
ds, establish something new for a new millennium. His holding the sword was no accident; he had won it with his sweat and his blood; he had proven himself worthy of it. The sword was the proof he had been longing for his entire life: his treasure, above any other.

  With trembling arm he rested the heavy weapon on the open lid of the casket. Once again he found himself astonished by the contrast between the supernatural loveliness of the hilt and the twisted ugliness of the blade. But now it had a kind of wonderful awfulness; a delicious, an almost holy kind of hideousness.

  It was his now. And he had all the time in the world to consider—and perhaps, in time, comprehend—its strange and terrible beauty.

  He carefully slid the blade back into its scabbard, glancing over at the casket as he did so. He would bring it to the surface, as well; the casket had its own importance, bound up inseparably with the sword's history. Looking over his shoulder, he was pleased to see that Magnusen had at last lowered the bucket into the chamber and was loading it with sacks of coins, slowly, like an automaton.

  He returned his attention to the casket, and the one iron band that remained, rusted in place around one side. It was a strange way to strap down such a casket. Surely it would have been easier to bolt the straps to the floor of the treasure chamber, instead of running them underneath. What were they attached to below?

  He backed up and kicked the last iron band, freeing the casket. The band broke away and shot down through the hole with amazing force, as if it had been attached to a great weight.

  Suddenly there was a shudder, and the treasure chamber gave a great lurch. The right end of the floor dropping sickeningly, like an airplane plunging in violent turbulence. Rotten crates, canvas bags, and kegs tumbled from their positions along the left-hand wall, bursting upon the floor, showering gemstones, gold dust, and pearls. Stacks of gold bars leaned over heavily, then toppled in a great crash. Neidelman was thrown against the casket and he reached out for the hilt of the sword, ears ringing with Magnusen's screams, his eyes wide with astonishment.