the tsunami in Puerto Rico, Mount Erebus erupting — will seem like child’s play. There will be
massive destruction all along the tectonic lines.” “The bottom line?” Foreman asked. “The end of the world.”
CHAPTER 2
480 BC
Whenever he was away from Sparta and in a situation where he felt there was a threat, Leonidas slept in his body armor, a habit he had acquired years ago. It wasn’t physically comfortable, but for the king there was a certain degree of mental solace to be taken from the protection provided by the metal surrounding his vital organs. It also meant he could be ready for battle in a manner of seconds, rather than minutes.
He slowly stood, his body aching from age and old wounds. He felt old and worn, wishing his squire Xarxon was here to work the muscles. Decades of scar tissue tended to harden during the night producing stiffness. Without the aid of Xarxon, he began the most base of the phonologic exercises that had been drilled into him as a youth in his agoge.
He spent fifteen minutes working his body until he felt prepared for what the day might offer. He picked up his sword from where it had lain near at hand on his right side. He noted the damage the strange creature the Oracle had called a Valkyrie had caused. He would have to have an armorer work on it as soon as he could. The same with his chest armor. And his shield, he remembered as he picked it up.
He heard steps and turned, weapon at the ready. A woman wrapped in a red cloak, similar to the scarlet cloak of the knights that Spartans wore, stood about fifteen feet away on the path. The woman was almost as tall as he, with red hair shorn tight against her skull. In an age where few lived past thirty, she was old, appearing to be about forty given the etched lines around her eyes, but in excellent shape as far as he could tell. He wondered how long she had been within view and whether she had seen him doing his exercises.
Leonidas sheathed his sword and nodded a greeting at the woman, uncertain who she was or her status here. He had spent the night outside the Corycian Cave with just a thin blanket underneath him and his cloak over him. It was what he was used to in the field.
“Hail and well met, King,” the woman said as she came closer, halting a few paces away as he picked up his helmet. There was no special ornamentation to his headgear, just the stiff brush of hair indicating his rank. The metal was not as highly polished as Leonidas would have liked, another disadvantage of not having Xarxon with him on this trip.
“You have the advantage,” Leonidas said as he set the helmet on his head, changing his appearance as his face disappeared in the shadows cast by the cheek guards — almost a skull like visage, the last thing many an enemy had seen.
She bowed ever so slightly at the waist. “I am Cyra, priestess of the Oracle. I am to accompany you on this journey and task.”
Leonidas grimaced slightly as if in pain. “I think not, priestess of the Oracle.”
“I think so,” a voice behind him interjected.
Leonidas turned and faced the Oracle. “I go to war. It is not a place for a woman.” To him it wasn’t an argument, just a fact.
The Oracle didn’t agree. “You go to do more than slay other men. You go to fulfill a higher task. Cyra will help with that. She will bring the map back to me.”
Leonidas had been wondering about that part of the Oracle’s plan, given that she’d said he would die in the coming battle. “An army on the march is no place for a woman.”
“She is not just a woman,” the Oracle said. “She is a priestess.”
“A priestess is not a warrior,” Leonidas began. “I don’t—“
“She is my daughter.”
“I don’t—“ Leonidas tried once more, but the old woman cut him off.
“We are descended from Helen, whom Agamemnon led a great fleet across the ocean to Troy to rescue. Even your ancestors fought at Troy and many died. And our line goes back further than that. To Thera and before that to Atlantis until it was destroyed. Our aid is a valuable thing. Our enmity, a terrible curse.”
Leonidas stiffened, not used to being threatened, especially by someone he could not draw his sword against. And the talk of this place Atlantis made him wonder. He had never heard of it. Thera he knew, having sailed past it. The island had obviously suffered a great disaster long ago. It seemed as if the Oracle’s people had lived with much misfortune over the years, which did not speak well of their forecasting abilities.
“What is this Atlantis?” he asked.
“A great land that once existed beyond the Pillars of Hercules.”
“There is nothing beyond the Pillars,” Leonidas said. The furthest west he had been was to Sicily, part of Magna Graecia, where both Athens and Sparta had founded colonies that constantly fought with each other. There he had heard Phoenician sailors tell of the waters to the west and how, many miles in that direction, the Great Sea was closed in on both sides, ending at the Pillars of Hercules. They had said there was a gap between the pillars, but that only death and darkness lay through there. Of course the Phoenicians were a strange people, often offering their services to the highest bidder, but he saw no reason why they would lie about that.
“There isn’t now,” the Oracle said. “Atlantis was completely destroyed by the Shadow and the few survivors scattered. All that remains is a boundless ocean, much greater than that which you have sailed upon.”
Leonidas found that hard to grasp. The journey to Magna Graecia had taken several weeks, as the galley had tacked and been rowed along the coastlines.
“This Shadow. Is it a God?” To Leonidas, gods were meddlesome creatures, who seemed to delight in tormenting men.
“It is beyond what we know, so it might well be a god,” the Oracle said. “I only know its emissaries, the Valkyries. No one has ever seen one of the Shadows.”
“Why do they seek to destroy us?” Leonidas asked.
“That is also beyond what we know, but we do know it tries. Isn’t that enough?”
Leonidas almost answered in the negative. He knew that an enemy’s motivation was critical in combat. Victory went not to the side that killed the most, but to the side that broke the other side’s will. A man defending his home was always a greater threat than a man marching in a foreign land simply because his king had ordered him forth.
Most would have found the Oracle vague, but Leonidas had experience with seers and he actually thought she made more sense than many. Most spoke so vaguely that their words could be interpreted a dozen different ways. At least she was specific in what needed to be accomplished.
“The other creature I killed — what was that?”
“It comes from the Shadow’s world,” the Oracle said.
“It must be a strange place,” Leonidas said. “How far away is this Shadow’s kingdom?”
“We do not know.”
“Perhaps that is why you need the map,” Leonidas said.
“The map is not for my use.”
“I will send one of my men back with the map,” he offered.
“Do you remember Croesus, last of the Lydian Kings?” the Oracle asked.
Leonidas nodded.
“He sent many gifts here,” the Oracle said. “To my great-great-grandmother. And she gave him a prophecy. He only listened to what he wanted to hear in the manner in which he wanted to understand. She told him that if he warred against the Persians, that he would destroy a great empire. That was what he wanted to hear, so he marched forth and entered into battle with Cyrus, King of Persia. And he was defeated. A great kingdom was indeed destroyed; his own.
“I have told you that you will have great honor on the battlefield,” the Oracle continued. “But that prophecy is contingent on Cyra traveling with you. Let me remind you, King, that the Valkyrie would have had your head last night if I had not told you its weakness. The paths of fate are very tenuous and easily swayed if one is not careful.”
“And let me remind you, Oracle, that I would not have been here to lose my head, if you had not sent a dream to
me,” Leonidas replied. “And if I had not honored that dream.”
“The Persians are coming regardless of whether you came here or not,” the Oracle said.
“Women,” Leonidas muttered. The Oracle didn’t hear him, but Cyra did. The priestess smiled slightly but said nothing. “Let us be going then.” He slid his sword in the sheath and walked toward his hobbled horse.
* * *
“Master, remember the Greeks.”
King Xerxes, son of Darius, King of Medea and Persia, ruler of Libya, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, Ethiopia, Elam, Syria, Assyria, Cyprus, Babylonia, Chaldea, Cilicia, Thrace and Cappadocia, and most blessed of God Ahurumazda, had heard the same admonishment every evening for five years, whispered into his ear by the woman who stood to his right rear. Five years, from the first day he was King in 485, succeeding his father, Darius. Who five years before his demise, in 490 BC, had his army defeated on the Plain of Marathon by the Greeks. It had been a stunning defeat given that Darius’s army had outnumbered their opponents by more than five to one. Xerxes was certain that his father’s death, even though it was years after the battle, began that day. The defeat was like a cancer that had eaten away at his father’s pride and life.
Time was indeed the enemy of all, Kings and peasant alike, Xerxes ruminated, listening to the rain and wind batter at his imperial tent as he began eating his breakfast. His campaign throne was at the head of a long wooden table. Along each side sat his generals and around the outer rim of the massive tent were fifty of his Immortals standing guard.
There were nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty more Immortals encamped directly around the Imperial tent to bring the total to ten thousand. That number, like the rising of the sun each morning, was a certainty. Even if one of the Immortals were to be struck this very second by one of the bolts of lightning that were crackling about outside, there would be a man ready to take his place. Because the number was kept always at ten thousand, the Imperial guard had gained its name of the Immortals, because it appeared as if the unit could never be depleted or destroyed.
Outside of the ring of Immortals another two hundred thousand troops were camped in varying degrees of discomfort. Most weren’t even Persian but levies raised by vassal states to answer the call of Xerxes rather than face his wrath. There were even Greeks camped there, Ionians, who had chosen to side with the powerful ruler from their side of the Aegean. Their decision was understandable given the reluctance of Athens and the other mainland Greek states to send troops or ships to their defense when the Persians came marching out of central Turkey.
There were also Babylonians, Arabs, Egyptians, Phrygians, Medes, Cissians and dozens of other states represented. The mixture of weaponry, armor and languages had not been seen in ten years, since Darius had set forth for Greece. There were soldiers from three continents, which encompassed the entire known world for the Persians.
The massive camp sprawled along the western edge of the Hellesponte, which separated Europe from Asia. Other than going around the Black Sea through southern Russia, this thin strip of water running from the Black Sea to the Aegean was the easiest place for an invading army to cross. At its narrowest, directly ahead of the army, the straight was only a mile and a quarter wide.
And on that water, even in the midst of the howling storm, engineers had been at work all night, adding boat after boat to the pontoon bridge they were constructing. It stretched almost a mile now, the far shore close enough to add impetus to the muscles laying the planks and stringing the ropes that connected the boats.
Each boat was a penteknoters, a fifty-oar galley. They were set about ten feet apart, side-to-side, and secured to each other first with rope, then heavy planks that constituted what would be the roadway. The entire affair was at a critical stage as water kicked up by the storm surged through the Hellesponte and the wind added its own fury. A cluster of penteknoters, oars manned by slaves, was tied off to the un-anchored end, desperately trying to keep it in place as another boat was brought into line.
Disaster struck slowly but irrevocably. One by one, minor lines to the anchor boats began parting, the strain too great. The main control line, over a foot and a half thick was soon the only thing holding the end of the bridge to the anchor boats. Men desperately tried throwing new lines to the boats, but the wind made the effort futile, whipping the ropes into the water with ease. A few intrepid engineers even tied lines to the bridge and the other end around their waists and attempted to swim out to the boats.
The six-foot swell and the weight of the rope took each of these men under. Then their dead weight added to that of the bridge, and their bodies, pulled by the current, added to the horizontal strain.
The main cable parted, the sound louder than that even of the thunder, the two ends whipping through the air, slicing men in half and cutting through wood like sand. The bridge gave way, curving, the road boards cracking and splitting, the remaining control ropes snapping easily.
Xerxes and his generals, alerted by the sound, ran out into the storm and watched futilely as the work of a week was destroyed in less than a minute.
What had never been bridged by man, would not give in so easily.
* * *
Thermopylae. In Greek it means ‘hot gates’. The name comes from numerous hot springs in the area. It is a pass southeast of Lamia, between Mount Oeta and the Malian Gulf. It is the primary passageway from Thessalia in northern Greece into Locris and the rest of southern Greece, where the major city-states were. Other than by sea, it was the main thoroughfare by which an invading army had to travel to conquer the southern half of Greece, where Athens and Sparta lay.
There were other passes to the west, but Thermopylae was next to the sea, where a fleet could cover an invading army’s flank and also, something most who were not military men did not understand, but was of utmost importance, resupply it. An army of a quarter million troops, along with their beasts, consumed vast quantities of supplies each day. Xerxes’ generals counted on finding little food or supplies as they marched into Greece as it was customary for retreating armies to scorch the earth, even if it were their own land, as they fell back.
Of course, an army taking the pass had to practically pass through the proverbial eye of the needle as the track narrowed to only fifty feet wide, between the mountain and a cliff overlooking the sea. Xerxes’ generals had assured him, though, that the pass would not be a place for defense as the heavy Greek infantry would not be able to deploy in their beloved phalanxes to fight in such a tight space.
There were spas with hot springs in the area just to the north of the pass that in more peaceful times were visited by people from all over Greece. But with the storm cloud of war to the east and north, the mountains were empty of people. The ruins of a defensive wall, known as the Middle Gate, and built by an unknown people against an unknown enemy sometime in the far past cut across the pass.
The pass itself was used only by travelers who hastened through, usually early in the morning after camping at the springs to the north, or just before the pass to the south. No one took extra time traversing the pass because there was a strange feel about the place and those who lived north or south told strange tales of the mountains and pass. Animals would have to be forced through, then almost break their reins galloping down after getting through. Dogs howled and snarled when they were in the narrowest part. There were rumors of demons and other strange creatures and the place was avoided if at all possible.
This morning, as lightning cut through the sky and hit the mountain high above, and the strong wind churned up the water in the sea below, the pass was empty of travelers. Thus there was no one to witness as just to the north of the ruined wall a pure black circle appeared, consuming the scant light.
As another bolt of lightning illuminated the land, a hand, skin red and blistered, could be seen extending out of the black circle about five feet above the ground. The fingers were stretched wide, grasping, as if searching for a handhold out of the darkness.
The hand disappeared back into the darkness for several moments, then re-appeared, the skin peeling back. Still it groped and reached. And once more was gone.
The third time the hand appeared the flesh was gone and there was just the bone with the tendons stretched tight and burned raw. Still the fingers moved, reaching bones clattering together as they closed on themselves empty-handed.
When the next bolt lit the scene, there was just the black circle and no hand. And with the third strike, the circle itself was gone.
CHAPTER 3
THE PRESENT
Since the dramatic events of 26 April, 1986, the Russians had monitored the remains of Reactor Four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Although encased in a thick layer of concrete and stone, the interior of Reactor Four had remained clear since the disaster, protected by a shield generated by the gate that had opened inside it and caused the tragic accident that evening.
The core of the reactor, the rods that provided the power, had been tapped by the Shadow. Above the core, a black triangle fifteen feet on each side and ten feet in height had appeared and remained through all the years, drawing energy from the decaying rods. It was a gate, not as large as the others, but a gate nonetheless. A probe, carried by a dying volunteer, had been sent through the gate just two days ago and helped provide information about the make-up of the gates and the connections among the portals that existed inside the gates. It had been discovered that the gates were like foyers established on Earth by the Shadow, and inside the gates were the actual doorways — portals — that led to other places.
The rods were down to less than two percent strength and still the black triangle drew the remaining power. There was quite a bit of speculation among Russian scientists about what would happen when the rods were completely spent, but it was all conjecture, as most everything thought about the gates was.
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