Wiz raised Nathan, telling him that Stroud was fine, just a temporary thing, he called it. Stroud got on the line, using his comlink. "Commissioner, we're just penetrating the exterior of the ship now. We've run into ... obstacles."
"Understood, Stroud, and make it as fast as possible. People up here getting real antsy."
"We expected obstacles," he said, "and we've gotten them."
"The tunnels?"
"Took us away from the ship. Long arm of the beast within."
"So what does that make the ship itself? The damned bowels?"
"Something like that."
"You're sure you all want to step into its gut?"
"Not a whole lot of choice, Commissioner. This ... this event is rather complicated, and you might say I had my ticket reserved about three thousand years ago."
Nathan chuckled nervously into the radio, not understanding the implications of Stroud's remarks. Static was beginning to break up the communication. Nathan said that he was pulling for them, and if Stroud made it back alive he'd buy him a New York pizza and a beer.
"You're on, sir. Just plea..."
"What's ... at?"
"...keep ... pack off for ... time we ... greed ... pon."
"Roger ... til dawn. Do every ... in my power."
"Thanks, Commissioner."
"You're thank ... me? Stroud, e ... you're the bravest ... I ever met, or the ... idiotic ... goes for your traveling companions-sss-well ... til next ... Stroud, over'n..."
Kendra went about monitoring everyone's gauges and giving a full report. Everything was in working order, but they had only half the oxygen supply they had entered with. The physical turmoil and emotional stress had taken its toll. Leonard was looking very weak, and even Wiz sat in a depressed slump against the wall just staring at the hull of the ship that now confronted them.
Stroud was fatigued himself, and he did not find fault with the others. He wondered now if perhaps he should not have come alone, but the skull had said three good men with faith and courage were required. He had two men and a woman with him, but he wasn't at all sure of their faith, despite their obvious courage in coming so far with him.
"Once we're inside the ship, gentlemen," said Stroud calmly, "you can turn back at any time."
It was said with such simple sincerity that Kendra and the others just stared at him. Kendra glimpsed the old Stroud in him now, the man she had slept with.
"Is that what your skull tells you?" she asked.
"It is what my heart tells me."
"We just may take you up on that," said Leonard. "My own heart is flapping like a chicken trying to take flight." He tried a laugh but it became a cough.
"If that's the case, what're we sitting around here for?" said Wiz. "Not that I have any intention of leaving you here alone, Abe."
"You face no shame in turning back once we penetrate the hull. It's the reason I was so ... upset when you all ran from the first entranceway we found. So far, we've been playing the demon's game. Now we begin to play our chess pieces."
Kendra stared across at Stroud. He was once again distant, distracted. He was playing some kind of mental game with the demon of the ship. It was as if that byte of information had come straight from his mind to hers earlier when she had thought of it in exactly those terms. She wondered if she and the other two doctors weren't Esruad's pawns in this bizarre war game.
"Yes, let's get on with it, Dr. Stroud," she said.
Before them stood the smooth wall of the ship showing no planking marks, nothing to pin the eye on. It looked like the great belly of a whale. Her eyes used to the dark, her nose used to the damp and clay, she still thought that she could smell the leviathan's rotting carcass, and that she could see the nearly imperceptible, inaudible breathing as the ribs of the whale moved in and out. She eerily wondered if they were about to be swallowed up by the whale.
It was as if the thought had been spoken aloud, for Stroud stared at her, drawing near to her mask so that she could see the expression on his face when he said, "Yes, Kendra, the beast has become the ship, and the ship the beast; we are about to step inside the beast once we lance a hole in its belly."
What he was saying, and the way he said it, frightened her more than anything she had seen down here. "You must all return after you enter," he said.
"What about you? Do you expect to die here?" she asked.
"Leave me to my fate."
Deceptive appearances had made of the ship wall an impenetrable leviathan, but it was far from impenetrable. It gave at the touch. Breathing heavily on it made it move like cardboard.
Decay was the operative word here in the bowels of the ancient ship. Immediately the archeologists went to work, examining the petrified wood that had become like stone to the touch, almost like charcoal. Yet covering the exterior, was a layer of living fungus and mushroomlike growths which turned into a profusion of flying spores at the slightest touch. "What holds the damned thing together?" asked Stroud.
"The earth here is almost pure clay. It has retarded the natural decay of the wood, and the wood itself--teak would be my guess--" began Wiz.
"Yes, teak beams, imagine it," agreed Leonard, staring.
"The Estrucans were master shipbuilders."
They had stepped inside the ship, and the moment they did so the Etruscan skull, which had somehow fallen into the hands of the pharaoh of Egypt, and had been buried with him, began to glow with a singular orange-to-yellow light. It went bright with the color, dimmed and became bright again, dimmed and brightened, dimmed again, as if breathing, until it finally settled on a glow similar to the sodium-vapor light of a modern streetlamp.
"Damned thing gives me the creeps almost as much as this ship," said Kendra.
"Don't you see that the closer we get to the true cause of the evil here, the stronger Esruad's power becomes?" asked Stroud.
"All I know is that our time is running out."
"Look, look here," said Wiz, pointing. It was a stack of terra-cotta bowls, ladles, jugs, cups. "These will help to date the ship," suggested Wiz.
"Very similar to the terra cotta taken from the Kyrenia ship," said Leonard, "somewhere about 700 b.c."
"Closer, then, to the Yassi Ada ship discovered--"
"We haven't time, gentlemen," Stroud told them.
"Over here," said Leonard. He led them to a collection of double-headed axes, pickaxes, a hoe, a shovel, billhooks, pruning hooks, hammers, knives, punches, gouges, files, chisels, bits and thousands of wooden peg nails.
"Such instruments prove vividly that the Etruscans were most certainly an independent empire, Stroud."
"Count on it," said an elated Leonard, who pulled forth a camera he had smuggled in. He began snapping picture after picture with the 35mm. "We must record this."
"God, if we could only do this right," said Wiz, "with stereophotography, with care and--"
"Gentlemen, this isn't a typical archeological site," shouted Stroud. "It's possessed of the father of evil. I understand your professional concerns, but we must be realistic."
"Take as many overlapping photographs as you can here, Leonard," said Wiz. "We are not coming away from this empty-handed, Dr. Stroud."
Frowning, Stroud said, "I have to push along, for the center of the ship." The others didn't have the slightest idea that the entire staging of this event was somehow meant for Stroud and Esruad to come together at this point in time, to face the evil of the ship together, that it was all somehow predetermined when Esruad had worked his magic to imprison himself and thousands of other souls in the crystal skull.
"Get some pictures of the timbers, Leonard," Wiz was saying now.
Stroud cleared away some of the debris along the bottom and found the keel, which was a forearm's width. It ran into the next cabin and the next, down through the ship. Leonard clicked off pictures of the find. "The keel will be attached to a stern piece and presumably a similar bow piece. Then the builders added the teak planks," said Stroud, his own archeolo
gical interests peaked now.
Kendra Cline looked into the ominous maw of the next cell of the ship, wondering what lay in wait for them there.
"Yes," Wiz was agreeing with Stroud, "the builders added the teak to the ribs on each side, secured in the classical fashion by tenons set into the thickness of the adjoining planks. Such workmanship!"
"And thought to be known only by the Greeks and Romans," added Leonard.
"So that places the waterline at the approximate level of two decks above us," said Stroud.
"Right reasoning," agreed Wiz.
"All right, so we have our direction for up, but which way is stern and which is bow, and how close are we to the center?" asked Stroud.
"Almost impossible to say."
"Time is running on, Abe," said Kendra, getting antsy, "and why's it been so ... so calm?"
"Licking its wounds, perhaps," he suggested. "We've penetrated the ship for a second time. That's got to worry the bastard thing."
"I hope you're right."
"Well, we have a direct corridor that way," said Stroud, "but should we take it?"
"It could be another trap," agreed Kendra, staring at the black hole ahead of them.
Stroud checked a gyrocompass he'd brought with him. "It's pointing north, and if the bow was, as you say, pointing east, then we must go a little north to get to the center."
"Let's go," said Wiz.
Leonard nodded. Stroud led them, his light immediately picking up the markings on the wall here. They were like rock carvings, crude yet detailed, of a whale, a lizardlike creature and some strange markings. Stroud indicated the markings to the others and his light picked them up clearly, causing Wiz and Leonard to tarry more. The representations meant nothing to Kendra, and yet she, too, was drawn to them:
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"Sperm whale," said Leonard, Wiz agreeing with a grunt as both men studied the markings. Leonard snapped more photos. Then, at their feet, they saw scattered piles of human bones and skulls. Stroud held Kendra back as the two scientists climbed over the find, studying the bones with quick eyes.
"Ancient human bones."
"Frequent bony growths on the surface of the joints," said Wiz. "Our Etruscan friends, young and old, suffered badly from arthritis. Probably the cool and damp of Etruria." Among the bones, Wiz picked out a long necklace of carefully perforated whale teeth.
"Well, we begin to know a little more about these people," said Leonard, taking the beautiful necklace from Wiz and staring through his face mask before Wiz placed it into a pouch and put it away.
Then suddenly all the bones in the place began to rattle and move and rise. They were now being hurled at the party of the living that had dared to enter this death ship. The bones struck with great force, the skulls hurtling at them with such ferocity that they backed from the area, unable to go on. From the portal of the other room, they watched the dance of the bones, which was more like flight of the bones as they hurled round and round the room, creating a dense curtain, a kind of energy field that held Stroud's party in check.
"What do we do now?" asked Kendra.
"Take out a wall," said Stroud, angry. He hurled himself at a wall and it was like going through cardboard. He was on the other side, drenched in spores and fungi that had exploded into a shower of dust with his effort. "We need to move up from here," he told the others, jabbing at the overhead planks. It took only the slightest hit to bring down the roof over them. Cascading debris rained around them, the dust creating a fog that was eerily lit by the skull as Stroud lifted it and held it up, moving it in a circular fashion here. The light penetrated the dust cloud only so far and gave them no warning of the hellish creatures the other side of the dust. Flying at them from nowhere came some thirty enormous moths, the size of cub bears, with huge mandibles, trying desperately to tear away their masks, perforate their clothing and get at the flesh inside. Their wings beat like small claps of thunder, and a screech at a piercing level filled the room as the power of their wings stirred the grainy dust cloud into an even greater pitch of confusion; this cut their sight so badly that they could not see one another.
"Stroud!"
"Kendra! Kendra!"
"Leonard, are you there!"
"Use your weapons! The gas!" shouted Kendra, who fired away.
"Don't let them get your clothing!"
"Son of a bitch!"
The gas sent one and then another and another of the batlike moths crashing to the floor and into the walls, sending up an ever-thicker curtain of mold and flying bacteria and dust particles. Stroud searched the darkness blindly, feeling his way, careful not to let the skull from his grasp. He called out to Kendra, and she to him, until they found one another. Wiz and Leonard joined them.
"Is everyone all right?" asked Kendra.
"One of them tore a rent in my suit," said Leonard, shaken.
"I've patched it," said Wiz, "but I'm not so certain that will help."
"How do you feel, Dr. Leonard?" asked Kendra.
"Aside from having my brains and my bowels emptied by fear?" he replied. "All in one piece. So far, I'm all right."
Kendra examined Leonard's gear, giving a thumbs-up sign, but saying, "At the first sign of trouble with your breathing, Doctor--"
"I'll let you know, Dr. Cline."
"Be certain that you do."
"We've got to get above," said Stroud.
"How will the timbers hold us?"
"Good question. Maybe we'd best hold up here a moment, take time to gather our bearings," suggested Wiz.
"Yeah, time for a rest," said Leonard, flopping down.
Kendra watched Leonard closely, concerned about his condition. It may be more than fatigue, in which case he'd have to come out of his protective wear to take a hypodermic.
"All of you stay put. I'm going ahead with the skull."
"But, Stroud!" began Wiz.
"No arguments! It's between Esruad and that thing in there now. Remain here. It's likely to concentrate its efforts on me and the skull if you stay back."
Kendra rushed to him, holding on. "Come back to us, Abe Stroud."
Ignoring her plea, he tossed a rope overhead and caught a large wooden beam. It looked as if it would hold as he put his weight against it, pulling himself up and up until he was through the opening. He called down, "If I'm not back within the hour, you're all to vacate the ship and the tunnels, get back to the surface any way you can."
"We won't leave you, Stroud!" she cried.
"You do as I say, do you hear! Dr. Wisnewski, Leonard."
"We will do what we must," said Wiz, a sadness in his voice.
"Contact Nathan. Bring him up to date," said Stroud to them. "Plead for more time." He looked at his gauges: air was running out along with time.
"Take some extra of the gas," said Kendra.
But Stroud declined, saying, "No, you may need it to ward off any further attacks."
"You're sure you want to play it this way?"
"Absolutely, yes."
"Alone ... you'll be all alone," said Kendra.
He hefted the orange-glowing skull of crystal. "Not entirely"
Stroud had found some side timbers which were almost firm, but he slipped again and again, and the sounds coming from beneath his feet threatened to send him crashing through to the deck below, when suddenly he felt a strange weightlessness and he realized that he was hovering above the boards over which he walked, and that Esruad's crystal skull was at his feet, guiding his steps, creating the magic of walking on air.
He moved along the black wall of the ship, thinking of his ancestry
: his grandfather, a great man whose dark secret was that he stalked and killed vampires. Stroud's grandfather had descended from the man who had destroyed Dracula, Van Helsing, whom the world remembered as a fictional character. Stroud's family knew better. Stroud's thoughts of his grandfather brought a quiet calm, and then his grandfather's voice rose from within his mind, saying, "Trust Esruad ... for he is one of us."
Stroud knew that he could trust his grandfather's voice as he had in the past. All of his own inner fears and doubts about the power inherent in the crystal skull began to fade as he realized that he, Stroud, carried the genes of the Etruscan who had committed himself to the eternity of the skull.
In an excited state now, Stroud recalled the teachings of his grandfather. That which seemed impossible, even incomprehensible to most men--supernatural beings at work in the world--was in fact quite simple, strangely, even "natural." How else to explain the transmigration of the souls of men, how that very soul could be stripped from a man, or encased in crystal as had become the fate of Esruad? The battle for the soul was the oldest and most fundamental fought by mankind.
And now it was being fought again...
Christ's own soul had risen from the blood of the man he had become. In man's own veins lies his final destination.
Somehow, via some unnatural, sinister alchemy, dark forces had appeared in the world, beings taunted the soul and chipped away at it; their ultimate aim was not carrion or even the red life's blood. With the stolen flesh and blood, these things stole the souls of men and women ... That is what Ubbrroxx demanded. And with each soul conquered, its dark evil flourished greater and greater. Ubbrroxx, satanic genius, natural- and supernatural-bound and inextricably mixed, like God and Satan. This was the battle being fought here now. Good and Evil, evolution and mutation and all that lay between the two...
Then Stroud was suddenly on a hard surface which was less than solid ground. For the brittle pieces that made up his floor skittered away and rattled across one another as he stepped, threatening to send him over the side. It was a truly enormous boneyard that reached up from the bottommost depths of the evil ship at the juncture where he stood, the remains of 500,000 carcasses. Stroud's booted feet sent bones cascading down the sides of this mountain into what appeared the way to Hell. The bones formed a wobbling mass over which he now climbed on all fours. He had no idea how large this mountain of bones was, or how far it went beyond the beam of his light, and time was running out...
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