King's Crusade (Seventeen)

by Starrling, AD

  A solid line of trees soon appeared in the distance, a dark smudge that lay across the entire skyline. An hour after leaving the airport, they entered the Bohemian Forest and headed deep into the Sumava National Park.

  Situated in the same named mountain range, the park was part of the largest preserved forested area in Central Europe, extending west across the border into the Bavarian Forest in Germany, and south into Austria. It was the last remaining wild heart of Europe and encompassed almost three hundred square miles of forests, glacial lakes, peat bogs, wetlands, and flower meadows. It was also home to some of the last remaining populations of lynxes, grouses, European elks, and Ural owls on the continent, which made it a fiercely contested topic for debate between the conservationists, who wanted to preserve the natural habitat of the forest, and the logging industry, who wanted to fell its trees.

  Much had changed in the three hundred and ten years since she first laid eyes on the forest. Memories of the years she had spent exploring the wilderness around Reznak’s estate flooded Alexa’s mind as she studied the hauntingly beautiful landscape outside the window.

  She recalled rustling leaves in hundred-year-old fir trees, wild otters fishing for salmon in rivers, raindrops falling silently on still water, and the shelter afforded by the abandoned gold and silver mines that dotted the mountains on the occasions when she got caught out in bad weather. She had hunted game with the lynxes, killed her first deer at the age of twelve, and run with the last wild wolves that had inhabited the forest. Though she would most likely never recall the first eight or so years of her life, Alexa was grateful to Reznak for having provided her with an unparalleled second childhood.

  The rutted forest track finally ended in front of a set of imposing, black, wrought iron gates. The driver of their four-by-four glanced at the security cameras atop the eighteen-foot stone pillars framing the impenetrable gateway. Seconds later, the doors swung open on arm-thick hinges. He guided the vehicle onto the wide, graveled, stone-lined driveway beyond. The gates closed ponderously once the second four-by-four was through.

  The trees thinned out on either side of the drive and the shadows under the canopy grew lighter. Jackson leaned eagerly forward in his seat. The outlook suddenly opened out after a thousand feet. Alexa heard him draw in a sharp breath.

  Reznak’s estate was set in twelve thousand acres of Bohemian Forest. Although an impressive three-mile wall extended along parts of its eastern and southern borders, the rest of the property was opened to the wild. Only discrete signs posted at regular intervals indicated that the land was privately owned. Strategically positioned surveillance cameras around the perimeter ensured a degree of privacy from intruders and helped the team of park rangers and guards employed by her godfather oversee the protection of the extensive natural habitat and the lab within the grounds.

  He had been in possession of the land since before the forest acquired its current name of Sumava.

  The driveway carved through a thirty-hectare park and exquisitely maintained, formal, French-style gardens to an imposing, three-winged, baroque chateau at the opposite end. The gray clouds and approaching storm dulled the normally warm colors of the cream limestone walls and red, chimney-studded, mansard roofs. Soft lights glittered behind the leaded glass windows that lined the elegant facade.

  They passed several ornamental ponds and fountains before pulling to a stop in a large courtyard framed by the secondary wings of the castle.

  ‘This is your home?’ uttered Jackson incredulously.

  ‘It used to be,’ said Alexa with a shrug. ‘I haven’t lived here for some time.’

  They exited the vehicles and climbed the split-level terrace to a wide portico. The taciturn drivers drove the four-by-fours toward the extensive garages at the side of the property, Reznak’s bodyguards in tow.

  A pair of thick oak doors embellished with a simple pattern of wrought iron guarded the entrance to the castle. One of them opened to reveal a thin, middle-aged woman with a shock of silver-blonde hair. Fawkes leaned down to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Marie,’ he said gently, affection warming his voice.

  She smiled and kissed him back before greeting Reznak and Carrington. Her blue eyes lit up when she saw Alexa. ‘It’s good to see you again, child,’ she said huskily, engulfing her in a warm embrace.

  Alexa wrapped her arms around the frail, older woman and inhaled the familiar aroma of baking spices drifting from her hair and clothes. ‘It’s good to see you too, Marie,’ she murmured, her smile hidden in the soft blonde curls.

  Marie Fawkes was the closest thing to a mother she had ever had. When Fawkes retired from the Order of Hunters and came to work for Reznak, she joined her husband and took over the role of housekeeper for the estate. Both Marie and her husband were survivors of the deadly plague that decimated the immortal races in the fourteenth century and left the majority of survivors infertile. As a result, the couple had no children. The disease had also left Marie in poor health for a long time, and she remained somewhat delicate to this day. When Reznak brought Alexa to his home after the Battle of Narva, the pair doted on her as if she were their own flesh and blood.

  Although Marie studied Yonten and Jackson with a quizzical expression, the older woman greeted them just as warmly as she would any other guests.

  The Harvard professor stopped inside the entrance of the castle and looked around the marble foyer. A majestic staircase rose in the middle of the hall and split into symmetric branches on a common landing, rising to a gallery on the floor above. ‘How long have you had this place?’ he asked.

  Reznak shrugged his coat off. Fawkes took the garment from him and headed for a closet on the left. ‘The estate and the castle are four hundred years old,’ said her godfather. ‘I’ve owned the land longer.’

  ‘Impressive,’ said Jackson. His eyes assimilated the fine art and skilled craftsmanship on display for several seconds before displaying a sudden gleam of impatience. ‘So, where’s the lab?’

  Reznak smiled faintly. ‘Let’s wait for the storm to abate. It’ll be easier to get there.’

  Alexa suppressed a grin and caught Marie’s shrewd glance.

  Her godfather was correct in one respect. On the other hand, he had just told Jackson a barefaced lie. Few people knew of the existence of the underground tunnel that connected one of the extensive cellars of the castle to Reznak’s research facility three miles away. When he had the original lab built in the early 1900s, he had ordered the construction of the secret passage as a secondary escape route. Only the site managers were aware of the location of the tunnel’s entrance inside the facility. Weather permitting, Reznak normally walked the distance to the lab above ground.

  It was a few hours before the blizzard began to ease. Reznak gave Jackson an extensive tour of the castle before returning to the vast study that looked out over the rear gardens. Alexa glanced over her shoulder when they walked in the room.

  ‘Is it stopping yet?’ said Jackson, coming to stand at her side by the windows.

  ‘No,’ she replied. She could hardly make out the shapes of the trees beyond the boundaries of the park. The skies had darkened in the last hour, the storm hastening the arrival of twilight.

  They stood quietly for a while. Jackson finally looked to where Reznak stood stoking the fire in the hearth and talking on his cellphone. ‘By the way, did Schmidt and you have a...thing going at some stage?’ asked the Harvard professor.

  Alexa stiffened slightly and gave him a hard look. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Jackson shrugged. ‘Well, the guy was acting as if he’d like to put a bullet through me this morning.’

  She recalled Schmidt’s expression at the London penthouse. ‘Yes,’ she eventually murmured. ‘It was a while ago.’ What she did not tell Jackson was that the Crovir Hunter had made it clear for some time that he wished to resum
e their old relationship.

  ‘You know, although I’m thrilled to be here, I’m kinda wishing we were still in London,’ Jackson said in a low voice.

  She turned her head and met his cobalt-blue gaze. Desire licked a treacherous path through her body, and she felt her heartbeat start to rise. A flicker of light outside drew her eyes. ‘The snowfall is lightening,’ she said in a steady voice that masked her emotions. She thought she heard a sigh leave his lips.

  The door opened behind them and Carrington strolled in. ‘I’ve brought the Jeep around,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the weather is going to get better than this.’

  Yonten met them in the foyer. He had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen shortly after being shown to his room; to Alexa’s surprise, the monk had proven to have a sweet tooth and had kept Marie company most of the afternoon while she baked. He finished the slice of honey cake in his hand and flashed a large grin. ‘The cake is good,’ he stated emphatically, patting his skinny belly and wiping the icing sugar from around his lips.

  A mud-covered Jeep stood in the courtyard beyond the portico. Carrington took the wheel while they climbed in. Moments later, he guided the vehicle into the forest north of the park.

  Jackson’s eyebrows rose slightly as he gazed at the untamed wilderness on either sides of the established dirt track. ‘Your lab’s in the woods?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Reznak with a shrug.

  Alexa glanced at her backpack on Jackson’s lap. It held the Emerald Tablet and the sun cross pendant. It had not left the Harvard professor’s sight since they left Paris.

  The track widened and they came to a large clearing. An abandoned sawmill stood in the middle of the desolate scenery, the rusting remains of old machinery dotting the forlorn space around it. A second, wider track was visible at the eastern edge of the clearing.

  Carrington steered the Jeep toward a stone barn next to the sawmill.

  ‘It’s inside the barn?’ Jackson said skeptically.

  ‘Not quite,’ murmured Reznak.

  Carrington slowed the vehicle to a crawl and took a small biometric remote control from his pocket. He pressed one of the keys.

  The derelict wooden doors slid open smoothly on invisible rollers to reveal a yawning space. The crunch of tires across fresh snow changed into the slick glide of wet rubber on concrete. The Jeep’s beams cut through the oily gloom ahead.

  The darkness intensified when the doors closed behind them.

  Floodlights came on above and illuminated the vast interior of the barn. Except for piles of old circular saws and conveyor belts, the place was deserted. Jackson stared out the window at the multiple snow and mud tracks on the floor.

  Carrington braked in the center of the barn. He grinned at the Harvard professor in the rearview mirror and pressed a second key on the remote. A rumble rose outside. A forty-by-sixty-foot rectangular section of the concrete floor on which they were parked started to sink vertically into the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jackson gazed wide-eyed at the walls rising around them. ‘What the—’

  ‘This is the primary elevator shaft to the first level of the lab,’ said Reznak. ‘The roof over the facility, including this lift, is made of steel-reinforced concrete interlaced with silica-based ceramic and clay to reduce detection by ground-penetrating satellite technology.’

  The light slowly faded above them, and they were engulfed by shadows. The beams from the Jeep’s headlights bounced off the soaring wall in front and were soon the only illumination in the vertical tunnel.

  Jackson glanced at Alexa, his eyes gleaming in the reflection from ahead. ‘How far down does this go?’

  ‘It’s a hundred and fifty feet to the first level,’ said Alexa steadily. ‘There are eight more beneath it.’

  The last time she had been to the facility was over three years ago. With the acceleration in new technologies, Reznak had had to make considerable changes to the site over time. The biggest redesign had been the installation of the extra materials to ensure the structure was invisible to human satellites. To date, her godfather had spent close to sixty million dollars on the entire venture.

  Dazzling radiance suddenly shot up from the edges of the dropping floor. The concrete elevator ground to a stop moments later.

  ‘Wow,’ Jackson murmured in a stunned voice.

  The momentousness of the occasion was spoiled by a loud crunch. Yonten had pulled a biscuit out of his robe and was biting into it enthusiastically while he looked around in earnest interest. The Harvard professor scowled at the monk.

  The lift was situated at the south end of an immense, vertical, T-shaped deck. The highest level of the complex was occupied by parking bays that could accommodate over a hundred cars, several loading areas with assigned service lifts, banks of regular-sized elevators, and a complex of offices and rooms. All looked out onto the middle of the platform, where a two-hundred-foot-long, oval-shaped opening descended into the earth. A metal railing enclosed the edges of the drop, with a promenade running around its periphery. Vivid green topiary shrubs and hedges grew in planters along it.

  Jackson looked around wordlessly when they exited the vehicle, seemingly oblivious to the silent armed guards staffing the security cubicles on either side of the concrete lift. He walked toward the center of the vast underground deck, the bag holding the artifacts slung over his shoulder, and stopped at the railing overlooking the chasm. Reznak and Alexa joined him.

  The hollow core of the complex was three hundred feet deep. Another five levels were visible below, all running circumferentially around the gigantic borehole. Large, floor-to-ceiling glass walls looked out onto the epicenter of the facility; busy figures in white coats were visible in the brightly lit labs behind them.

  A carpet of moss and ferns covered the floor at the bottom of the vertical tunnel.

  Jackson turned and examined the shrub next to him. He ran his fingers over the richly colored leaves before staring at the high ceiling above them. ‘Light wells?’ he asked inquisitively, glancing at Reznak.

  Reznak nodded, a faint smile on his lips. ‘There are periscope-like light and ventilation shafts in the forest above us. You can’t really see the full effect at the moment, but on a clear summer day, it gets fairly bright down here.’

  Carrington wandered off to talk to the security guards. Yonten strolled toward them.

  Jackson looked at Alexa. ‘You said there were nine levels. I only see six, including this one.’

  ‘The basement contains the utilities for the facility, as well as the backup generators and computer servers,’ she said.

  ‘The other two levels are for our most…private of enterprises,’ said Reznak with a carefully neutral expression.

  There was a faint crunch next to him. Yonten had magicked another biscuit out of his robe and was eating it with unrestrained relish.

  Reznak glanced at the monk distractedly. ‘The complex is essentially self-sustaining,’ he said, a hint of pride evident in his voice. ‘There’s an underground river supplying water and hydroelectric power, and the waste from the site is recycled.’ He looked around the airy promenade with its bright, living plants. ‘I wanted to make the place as pleasant as possible for the staff who work here,’ he added quietly. ‘I spend hours within these confines myself.’

  ‘Where do the scientists live?’ asked Jackson, gazing at the white-coated figures behind the glass walls on the floors below.

  ‘Most of them reside within an hour’s drive of the estate,’ said Reznak. ‘At any one time, we have several visiting professors from universities around the world. They’re normally my guests at the castle, unless they wish otherwise.’

  A wry smile dawned on Jackson’s face. ‘Let me guess—they’ve all signed one of those complicated confidentiality agreements you like s
o much?’

  Alexa felt her lips twitch.

  Reznak shrugged. ‘You can surely see the logic of it, now that you’re aware of the existence of immortals. It would look exceedingly strange if we never aged during the span of a human’s career. More than half of the scientists here are immortals anyway.’ He turned and headed toward one of the lifts in the west wall.

  Excitement replaced surprise on Jackson’s face. ‘So, what kind of labs have you got?’ he asked as they followed the Crovir noble.

  ‘Being that I’m the Head of our Immortal Culture and History Section, we pretty much have every discipline you can imagine under one roof, from geoarchaeology through to paleoanthropology and anthropological genetics,’ said Reznak when they entered the elevator. ‘The artifact analysis room is our largest lab, followed by our archival research facility.’

  They descended one level and stepped off the lift into a bright corridor decorated in pastel colors. Security doors with biometric LCD displays guarded the entrances to the vast spaces behind the glass walls that lined the east aspect of the passageway.

  ‘The complex has a canteen, rest rooms for the staff, a gym with a swimming pool, and an entertainment center,’ said Reznak. ‘This is the molecular and nano archaeology lab.’ He entered a code in one of the doors, pressed his fingers in the dual finger sensors, and stared into the face recognition camera.

  A musical tone sounded, and a soft, computerized female voice said, ‘Welcome back, Dimitri. It has been three days, seven hours, and two minutes since your last visit. I see you have new visitors. Please enter their biometric details before I grant you access.’

  Jackson’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘The facility is run by an artificial intelligence system,’ said Reznak, grinning at the Harvard professor’s expression. ‘She controls everything from security to the temperature of the swimming pool. If the two of you could please oblige.’ He looked at Jackson and Yonten, and indicated the security screen.